Games Workshop - Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Starter Set

Product Information

With the lights still on and the Necrons going first, the futuristic murderbots were faced with what may be their last chance to get ahead… Necron Turn 4 Still, in spite of all my naysaying, it’s a nice addition and will help new players create a more immersive wargaming experience on their table top, but this likely won’t cut the mustard for more experienced and serious players. Tokens

The Necrons began their turn aggressively, particularly in the centre of the battlefield, where one Flayed One attempted to charge a lone Intercessor and was gunned down. His companion failed his charge, and ended the turn stranded in the middle of the room. Why not build a kill team out of your Warhammer 40,000 collection and give these free rules a try? If you like it, a starter set containing two full teams, terrain, and the complete rules is available. Or if you prefer the depths of a space hulk to the barrens of Octarius, you can wait a few short weeks until we release the next big box set – Kill Team: Into the Dark .We’re also not counting the dice as part of the price point, either. That said, provided that the pricing stays the same, the overall deal for the new starter set vs buying the components individually still works out in your favor. I mean, all of this rubbish looks as if it could’ve ben made in an ice cube tray. It’s boring. It’s uninspiring. There’s way too much of it. No one wants to paint all this junk.

Next up was the chance to choose some Narrative Effects for the mission: an Environment Effect, Walls Effects, Pitfalls Effects, Objective Effects and Terrain Effects. Rolls on each table gnetted us the following effects: Objective Effect: Temporal Accelerator, which makes any model within 2″ of an objective shoots in the Ready, Fire! phase and fights in the Hammer of Wrath phase. They’re another really great kit. Each miniature is bursting with personality and is utterly unique. As with all of the recent 40K Ork releases, the Kommandos kit does a great job of treading the fine line between “pant-wettingly hilarious” and “flat-out terrifying” that Orks in the 41st Millennium love to use as a skipping rope (or as something to strangle a particularly beefy foe with). Scenery Closing on the objective at the bottom of the map, the Heavy Intercessor Gunner and his comrade moved to intercept two Flayed Ones. First steps.With Kill Team getting so much attention at the moment following the release of its new edition last year, the provision of a starter set to get the uninitiated into the game was, perhaps, something of an inevitability. Pitfall Effect: Enervating Shroud, which makes any model within 1″ of a pitfall suffer a -1 penalty to strength. And, since no faction’s Kill Team canconsist of more than two Fireteams, this means quite a few of the currently available Kill Team configurations can simply only have one or two types of miniatures in them. Space Marines, who can only have one Fireteam, are especially hit by this homogenising effect. There are two books in the Kill Team Starter Set. One is the all-important (and oddly named) “Recruit Edition” book, which is essentially a beginners guide designed to teach brand-new players of Kill Team all the stuff they need to get playing. Thankfully, though, GW has generously provided Wargamer with free review copies of both Octarius and the Compendium – so I canshare my thoughts on how the thing turned out, who I think it’s for, and – ultimately – whether it’s any good. Since I’m a bluff old traditionalist, we’ll start at the beginning, with the big, brash,tangerine-coloured box of toys GW is using to fanfare its newest game.

The Kill Team Starter Set tokens come on a perforated board that you’ll need to push them out of, just like the one below. As far as I can tell, the double-sided game mat has the same (and if not the same, a very familiar) print on it to the gaming board that came with Kill Team: Octarius.You read that right – the kill team’s Gretchin has dug up some well-buried courage and can be found zipping all over the killzone with his trusty grappling hook.

At least, in Kill Team they do. Firefights take place in such close quarters that very few weapons need to worry about range, and most can shoot from one side of the killzone to the other. Death Korps of Krieg Veteran Guardsmen (there are only ten in the photo above, as I didn’t build the variant of the Veteran Guardsman medic who has a bag on its own base this time around)

At the end of the turn, the score was shaping up very much in favour of the Space Marines. Space Marines – 6, Necrons – 2. Turn 4 – Now or Never Would it really have been so difficult to include the transfer sheet from Indomitus or the Command Edition set? Operatives can now go On Guard, preparing for the chance of an operative entering their line of sight to unleash an Overwatch shot, or taking the initiative with a Fight action. Still, after a couple of games, minor assembly niggles fade into insignificance – and the book-passingfaff ceases to be a real concern, as you’ll have memorised most of the key bits and bobs for both Kill Teams by then. Octarius is, for the most part, a well put together, well presented starter set – and, once you settle into this game’s rhythm, you won’t mind so much about the stumbles along the way, because (spoiler) Kill Team 2.0 is a really good game.