Kill team: Militarum Tempestus

Following on from the astra Militarum kill team force, I though I would go for my ideas on my Militarum Tempestus force. Now this force will not be your classic Militarum Tempestus force as the fluff behind it is that it is an inquisitorial strike force and will be lead by an inquisotor, in this case inquisitor tullas, my lead inquisitor in all of my fluff and back ground.

The kill team itself is formed of hand picked men, chosen by the iquisitor himself for one reason or another from the various battlefields, hive cities or space ports that he has visited over his travels. Some men bring specialist skills, other are just hired muscle, all are expendable and replaceable, well, all but one, the ever dependable Dharem, the inquisitors right hand man and the only man the inquisitor trusts to lead a mission in his stead.

The troops themselves consider them selves to be some of the finest Shock Troops in the galaxy, willing to Die Well for the inquisitor, his mission and of course the Emperor and, not surprisingly for a unit including a number of hive and space port\station dwellers, they are City Fighters almost without equal. Again when using the tables to put this little story together, I gave myself a re-roll, which was used to change them from Penal Troops to Shock Troops, although I guess penal troops would have worked just as well, it's not how I wanted to have things. Of course Dharem, being of a Pious nature, could have commanded either.

But who is actually in the kill team?

Tempestor with plasma pistol and power sword (inquisitor)
Tempestor with plasma pistol and power distribution (Dharem)

Scion gunner with hotshot volley gun
Scion gunner with hotshot volley gun
Scion gunner with plasma gun
Scion gunner with plasma gun
Scion gunner with flamer

Scion with vox caster

Up to 12 Scions with hotshot lasguns.

There are two leaders in the group as I wanted to have the inquisitor represented but also wanted to have the option not to take him if I didn't want to, after all the inquisitor isn't going to be leading every mission personally, hellhhave more important things to do. I've take a vox caster again, as it give a good bonus to the kill team during missions. I've put down that there will be up to 12 other scions, as this is the maximum number of will make, but I don't know if I'll bother making all of them as I will likely never need that many.

The special weapons for Militarum Tempestus are even more restricted than for the guard, being only 4 options. I have gone for two volley guns, to give a good rate of fire and a couple of plasma guns for there high ap values and anti-MEQ killing power. Lastly I went with the good old flamer, because every guard unit should have at least one. I paired a few of these up with some specialisms.

Leader specialist - as I mentioned about, I have two tempestor models, one to represent the inquisitor and one to represent his right hand man, Dharem. I will chop and change who leads the kill team, depending upon what mission it is.

Medic specialist - this is only an option to Militarum Tempestus units and so I have decided to include on in the force. There are some reasonable bonuses to having on too. The specialist will be a normal Scion carrying a hotshot lasguns but modelled up to represent the medic roll.

Heavy specialist - this didn't take very long to narrow down as there are very few option here really. Of the special weapon, only the flamer or hotshot volley gun will really benefit. As such this will be used by one of the two hotshot volley gunners, giving him some added mobility.

Demolitions specialist - again, this will be taken by a flamer armed model and will follow the pyromaniac route on the tree.

The force will be quite different to play compared to the basic guard force, giving me lots of options on play style and composition when I want to play. I will also look at the tiger kill teams I plan on building, namely the deathwatch and AdMech forces but also the Stone Dragons force but I'm hoping that there maybe some proper space wolf options in the future for that force.

Kill team: astra Militarum

So with the new kill team here and having had a few weeks to get to grips with the rules, I have decided to put pen to paper and let you know my thoughts and ideas on putting together a kill team command roster for my various armies. I'll start with the two astra Militarum armies, one comprised of guardsmen and one comprised of scions of the militarum Tempestus.

I'll start with the guardsmen of the strike force, known as the Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron or TRS. The squadron generally refer to themselves as the dospossessed, due tob the fact that the TRS strike force is formed from men drawn from numerous regiments across the campaign, men who have excelled themselves in one way or another, be it through acts of bravery or by going above and beyond there duty or even just being the last surviving members of a heroic regimental action.

I rolled on the various tables in the rule book to build the fluff of the unit, allowing myself 1 re-roll in case I came up against something I really didn't like. As it happens I did use the re-roll but I'll get to that. So the background of the force is that they are a group of Light Infantry on a Raiding mission who have been going so long they have Gone Native (it was here that the re-roll was used as originally they were going to be Parade Ground Drilled, which would not have fitted the astetics that I was going for). The groups leader, sergeant Farestein, has Nerves of Steel, probably due to his years of experience.

So, who is going to be included within the command roster of 20 men and what weapons and specialities will they have?

First up let's look at the the guardsmen and there weapons.

Infantry squad sergeant (sgt Farestein) with power sword and bolt pistol

Guardsman gunner with flamer
Guardsmen gunner with flamer
Special weapons gunner with plasma gun
Special weapons gunner with plasma gun
Special weapons gunner with grenade launcher
Special weapons gunner with sniper rifle

Guardsmen with vox caster

12 Guardsmen with lasgun

Total 20 guardsmen.

Now you'll notice that there are 6 gunners when you can only take 4 in a kill team, this is because it's a command roster from which you pick a kill team from, something that took me a while to get my head around.

Anyway, let's have a quick look through the list. The sergeant should be fairly self explanatory, he will be the leader and as the only one able to take a power sword, I though it a good idea. Having a vox caster is similarly a good idea as the bonus you get for fielding one will be beneficial. The 12 other guardsmen are really there just to make up the bulk of the army. Being a cheap army to start with means loots of bodies on the field. The special weapons are a little more complexed.

The options for special weapons is not really limited, as all options available in the main codex are still available here. I decided that flamers would be a good idea, there automatic hits are always useful and with the small scale of kill team, the short range is less of an issue. I also added in a grenade launcher, for some longer ranged fire power. I decided to take a couple of plasma guns, because everyone knows plasma guns are one of the best weapons in 40k at the moment and it gives some good high power shooting. Finally I decided to take a sniper rifle, mostly for the option for mortal wounds, although they are far less important in kill team. One weapon that I did not take was the melta gun, as I really didn't see the point. Yes it kicks out a lot of damage with high ap but it has a very short range and as there are no vehicles and most models have only a handful of wounds. So for the moment I haven't bothered with melta guns but I may change my mind after a few games.

The next up are the specialists and this is where things get very complicated. My initial ideas, after closer inspection were not the best but after reviewing them, these are the specialists that I chose

Leader specialist - every kill team needs a leader, so this will go on to the sergeant. This is really the only good choice, although I could have put it on a special weapons guardsmen and then used the sgt as another specialist but that makes no sense fluff wise, so the sgt is the leader specialist.

Heavy specialist - I had to think about this but in the end I gave this to the grenade launcher guardsmen. Why? Simply because it's an assault weapon and can generate multiple hits, both of which mean it can make use of several of the specialist levels.

Sniper specialist - well, I've a sniper rifle, so I've gone for a sniper specialist, plus it will be useful in making the sniper more effective.

Demolitions specialist - this specialism will be used by one of the two guards men with flamers and will follow the pyromaniac route of the specialism. This give the flamer some useful additions and makes it more effective.

Scout specialist - this is the forth specialist in the list (not including the leader) and is again taken by a flamer guardsman. While this is not the strongest of specialism, it has a number of useful traits, namely the base re-rolling for advance moves, meaning that getting the flamer into range should be a lot easier.

All the rest of the guardsmen with lasguns are formed in to one fire team of 13 guardsmen (including the vox caster) and the two plasma gun armed guardsmen are formed into another fire team. I had quite a hard time deciding on specialism for the team, going back and forth between the various options several times. So much so, that I have decided to dedicate whole post to the subject, which I will post up shortly. Next up

Blood Angels codex review - abilities and psychic powers

This time we will be looking at the Sanguinary psychic discipline and also the various abilities that are available to the various units of the Blood Angels.

The Psychic Powers of the Sanguinary Disipline

Quickening
One of the two powers that targets the psyker themselves, and is aimed at improving there combat abilities. Really this is aimed at a psyker that is going to charge this turn but could be used defensively. A good power but not the best. Having said that, combine it with Wings of Sanguinis and you have a very powerful combo.

Unleash rage
This is one of the powers that I use a lot, mostly one either my death company before it charges or on my vanguard's before they charge. The power itself grants one extra attack and when combined with other abilities it can be very useful but you need to be quite selective on who you cast it on.

Shield of Sanguinius
This is another power that I use a lot. Granting a unit a 5+ invulnerable save to a unit can be quite powerful, especially with all the plasma guns going around. There is not really a bad unit to use this power on, apart from units that have an invulnerable save already. 

Blood Boil
This is a power that I don't use much but it is a useful power. It works best against characters but can be used against any number of units. Personally, I think that it would be most useful against the units that are the hardest for it to wound. Low toughness models are easy to wound in general and don't need a psychic power that can deal lots of mortal wounds to help, high toughness models, which are hard to wound in general and will be with this psychic power, are the models that would be most effected by the power. 

Blood Lance
Potentially a very powerful power, which with good positioning and a bit of luck could cause a lot of mortal wounds. However, it does require you getting close and is very dependent on getting good dice roll. Not only have you got to roll to get the power off but you have to roll to actually cause any damage. This power, while it has the potential to be very powerful, is just to random for my liking.

Wing of Sanguinius

This is the second power that targets the psyker and has a number of uses but will most likely be used to get in to close combat quicker. It's one of the easiest powers to cast and gives you a large threat radius and when combined with the Quickening, can quickly turn your psyker in to a combat monster. Oh and this is always fun to use on a librarian dreadnought for the look on your opponents face, flying psychic brick anyone?

So, most of the powers in the new Disipline have a use, some more so that others. I still don't think that librarians are combat orientated, especially without an invulnerable save, and are more suited to buffing units nearby but they can be used as offensive weapons just as easily, they are just not as reliable at this though.

As with all armies these days, the blood angels come with a number Abilities built in to them. Some are standard across the marine family, some are more akin to chapter tactics.

And They Shall Know No Fear (aka ATSKNF)
This is the same as with all marine varients and grants you a re-toll for failed moral  tests, which is always useful. Not as important for marines as for some armies but can be useful for keeping models where they should be, on the table.

Defenders of Humanity
This grants troops the old objective secured rules, meaning that they trump any other units, except other troops, when claiming objectives. It's a standard rule across the board for most armies, under one name or another.

These are the general abilities, the next two are more akin to chapter tactics.

Black Rage
This is applicable to certain units, most notable the death company units. This gives them some added resilience, although I very rarely actually make the 6+ roll needed to ignore wounds. The other bonus of an addition attack on the charge is also very useful and can really up the level of damage a unit can do, especially a full 15 man unit of death company. All in all its a good addition to many already good units.

Red Thirst
This is a classic blood Angles rules that has been around in one form or another for many years and in this edition it grants a +1 to wound on any unit that is in its first round of combat, whether it was charged or did the charging. It can make a huge difference against many different units, I just have to remember to use it!

All in all, the blood angels get some good abilities that really add to the individual flavour of the chapter. They have always been a chapter that favoured the up close and personal touch more so than many other chapters and it is reflected in the "chapter tactics". I just hope that we get some death company primaris marines at some point in the dim and distant future.

The NEW Kill team

So, I haven't really said much about this so far and there are several reason for this. The main reason is that I just haven't had the time to keep up to date with all of the releases that were occurring, both in the build up to the actual games release and also since then. The second reason is that I have been waiting to get my hands on one of the rule books and give it a good read through and the third reason is that there are going to be a lot of changes to my hobby life in the next couple of months, which I will detail in there own post shortly but lets just say that I think 40k as a 2000 pint game system is, for the foreseeable future not going to be a viable option for me and kill team hopefully will become the main stay of my hobby and gaming.

That being said, lets take a look at Kill Team and as always it will be slanted heavily towards the various imperial factions that I collect.

I have always loved the idea of kill team and when I first heard about it I was very excited, the idea of taking a small group of models on a mission and really getting in to the squad level tactics sounded great, although I never got a game at that time. When I did play a few games it was after they had re-released it for 6th, now if memory serves me right, they changed the rules at this point and instead of just taking individual models to form a kill team, you now had to take squads out of the codex and arm them as per the codex too. While this wasn't that bad in the overall scheme of things, it did take some of the flavour away and could be quite restrictive. However, it was still a fun and quick game to play and I never got more than a handful of games in, despite always wanting to play more. Now however, they have re-re-released the game and they have gone back to individual models again! Ok, so its still restricted to the list in the book but I think its fairly obvious that this will change in the future as more units will be made available (just look at the Grey Knights Daemon rule and the Deathwatch weapons list)

For the moment though were restricted to the unit in the book, which for me is not a bad list, yes there seems some obvious omissions, such as Veterans for Guard and Primaris units for deathwatch (again, check out the weapons list) and not to mention anything specific factions rules for Blood Angels and Dark Angles and then there are the Space Wolves. Space Wolf Tactical Squad anyone? Despite these glitches I am really looking forward to playing games of Kill Team and as such I already have lots of lists floating around my head, all with back stories and plans. What are they I hear you ask? Well, seeing as you asked nicely, here they are;

The Guard squad will as always be my primary squad and will probably see the most battles (hopefully) and will be based around a group of veterans pulled from all over the battle group and thrown together to perform long range infiltration raids and such, deep behind enemy lines. To this end, they will all be modelled up with back packs and as many pouches and bits of kit as I can get on them without them looking to sill. They will also mostly be Cadian style bodies, with a few Catachan thrown in for good measure, this is mostly due to the fact that I have several Cadian bodies floating around that I'm not really using. They will also all be painted differently, I say all, what I mean is there will only ever be a two or three models painted in the same uniform, there will be a lot of variety in the colours, all in an aim to make it look more like they are a collection of guards men from lots of regiments rather than a specific squad from one regiment. I plan on maxing out on the Gunners, with at least one of each special weapon modelled up, although I might skip the melta for the moment as I don't really see the need for it, seeing as there are no vehicles in this edition. that might mean 2 plasma gunners, as one is very likely to kill himself at some point. This would give me 5 guardsmen plus my Sgt, with power sword and plasma pistol and would actually only come in at about 44 points! in a 100 point list this leaves me space for 11 other guardsmen, bringing the squad to a total of 17 men. But as I can only field a max of 4 gunners per game, I will actually need at least 18 men on my roster but I will jack it up to the max of 20. Somewhere in there will also be a Vox-caster and a model done out to be a scout type unit.  So this will form my biggest force for kill team, mostly due to the fact that in order to fill a 100 point list I have to have lots of bodies. It may not be the most efficient and people will probably advise that I mix it up with scions but I am planning on keeping them separate for the moment.

Talking of scions, what about my Scion list, as you know I will have one. Well, these boys are not going to be actual scions and I won't be using the models for them. What I will be using are some old RT plastic and early 2nd  metal models alongside a few later plastic models, armed with 7th edition hotshot lasguns and the like, to form a units of Inquisition stormtroopers, sent in to follow the guard squad above, in secret, to hunt down high priority targets. They will as such be armed to the teeth with special weapons, the Sgt having a power fist and plasma pistol and the gunners being armed with at least 2 hotshot volley guns, 2 plasma guns, a grenade launcher and a flamer. I will also have a medic and a vox-caster in there. As I can only take 4 gunners at a time, I will also need a number of regular scions, so I will fill out the list with half a dozen or so regular guys. In a 100 point list though I am looking at only being ably to take a maximum of 10 with no upgrades or about 8 with upgrades, so I will only need about 15 scions on the list. Unlike the guard team, all of these guys will be pained the same and have a very unformal look to them, as they are all servants of the same inquisitor and as such wear his colours and uniform.

Now, me being me, cant just stop at two teams, oh no, so I have a couple more that I'm planning on. The first should be fairly obvious, this is Kill Team after all and if there is one unit in the game that really shots Kill Team more than any other its the Deathwatch. Now, I don't own any Deathwatch models, oh, wait, yes, yes I do. A friend was recently looking to down size his collection and so I picked up half of the Deathwatch Death Masque box and with it the Deathwatch Kill Team Sprue. So now the plan is to build all the options out of the box using the team included as well as models from my Betrayal at Calth boxset that is still sitting around. This will, in my calculations give me 15 to 17 models plus Captain Artimus, so 18 for the kill team. Seeing as I could never field more than 7 models, all in basic format and very few of mine will be in there basic format, I will have plenty of options to take. Yes I don't need to build them all and having things like two heavy thunder hammers will probably be completely useless but I've the models to spare, so why the hell not. Each individual model will have a chapter badge, thanks to the boxset, and most will have the deathwatch should pad, as I have 15 of them and as such each member will have an individual back story and personality.

In addition to the Deathwatch kill team, I will able be putting together a force from my Stone Dragons, which will form the only build for these guys as it means I can have a force of them without building the full force like I was planning and still have a very usable force. Its a shame that they don't have specific Space Wolf rules but I think we may see that during the Space Wolf codex release alongside a specific Kill Team Force box, even though, technically the current marine one is also a SW force. Although it's a shame that you can't take grey hunters or blood claws in the game at the moment, I will still be forming a team out of tactical marines that will be decorated in all sorts of wolf like accessories. At the moment I plan on having a force with just marines, as I don't own any scouts or primaris marines. The force will be plasma heavy with sgt and gunner having plasma and the heavy having a heavy bolter, I will also model up a flamer amd a missile launcher so i have the options and the rest will just be basic marines with bolters, although as I said, they will be fully decked out with all sorts of bits and pieces of wargrear and stuff. The fluff for these guys is pretty much written but will need some minor amendments to bring it it to line with killl team and the new set up.

I will probably put together a killteam list for.my blood angles, although I would prefer to wait until i can use some other units, maybe death company, to form a different type of kill team as at the moment, having multiple marine kill teams wouldn't make much sense as they are all the same.

I really like the new kill team and I think that it will be a really good and fun game to play. There are some minor quibbles already, the main one I stated above, in that there are not rules for space wolves. Ok I can understand why blood angles and dark angles don't have there own rule set, as they are pretty much codex compliant with these units at this level. It's only the specialist units and higher up the command structure that things change. Space wolves though are very different and as they have done rules for death guard and thousand sons, rather then lump them in with chaos, I find it hard to understand why they did it for the wolves. It would not have been hard to just switch out scouts and tactiacals for blood claws and grey hunters.

Hopefully, I will get a game or two in fairly soon and be able to try out a couple of the lists and see how they perform.