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