Kill Team: battle zone

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had an idea for a battle zone and terrain but I needed to do a bit more research before I took the plunge and brought stuff. Well after a few hours surfing the internet I did indeed take the plunge and brought one of Corvus Belli'' Infinity Scenery Packs, more specifically the Navajo Outpost Scenery Pack.

The pack contains a poster type paper mat, 4 card buildings and 6 card containers.

The mat is a single sided poster type paper mat with a full colour poster on the other side, presumably so you can stick it on your wall when you've finished using it as a gaming mat. The mat is also slightly to big, measuring 34x24, as opposed to the Kill Teams 30x22. The extra inches can easily be dealt with by adjusting deployment zones if needs be. I am unsure how long lasting the mat will be, as I'm sure repeated folding will wear the fold quite quickly and it doesn't seem as robust as the GW types.

The builds are reasonably thin but decent card, think cereal packet card board. They are pretty nicely detailed and the roof section is slightly sunken, giving cover when on the roof, which is nice for kill team. While they may not match 100 percent with the GW aesthetics they are a close match, close enough that they won't look out of place.

The containers that come in the set are made of the same material as the buildings and are again nicely detailed. They are just plain square boxes and some of the graphics are out of place but again, nothing that would stop you using the set for Kill Team. The containers are slightly smaller than the GW munitorum armoured containers but they are still big enough to block line of sight and such. There is no doubt that the GW containers are better, both in detail and robustness, but then they are significantly more expensive as well.

As we're mentioning price, let's just put it out there, if you haven't looked at this stuff, I would suggest you check it out, as this set cost me the princely sum of £8, including postage. Yes, that's it, £8. It might not be perfect and may not last forever, but for 8 quid I can get around 6 for every Kill Team Battle Zone. Not bad really.

The mat can also be used for other layouts, such as with the pipe lines from GW and Mantic. Plus I could probably put some of my MDF building on here for something different but I've yet to try that. 

With the price of these things, I've been looking at the other options, there seems to be 4 other scenery packs available. The Hephaestus pack look like it could work for Tau, the Moto.tronica pack could possibly do Tau as well. The Neon Lotus I'm less sure about, maybe Eldar or Harlequins? Lastly the Kurage station pack, which would do Imperium or maybe Eldar at a stretch. None are going to be a straight fit, the best seems to be the Hephaestus for Tau but even then it's quite angular for Tau construction. Having said that, I'm looking at the Kurage Station pack as a possibility, mostly as it's different to the Navajo Outpost and it has walkways, which look cool. I think I could get away with the aesthetics by calling it a high tech Imperial world or even rough planet, hence the Imperial military presence and beside who doesn't like walk ways?

Kill Team Designers commentary

Now I was going to have all the kill team stuff in one post but after reviewing the length of the post, I decided to split it down in to two posts, otherwise it would have been a very long post.

The designers comments are basically an FAQ and the designers statement of intent all rolled in to one and as usual there are some really important questions answered and some really stupid ones too. Ok, I know that just because I think there obvious doesn't necessarily mean that others do but asking if you can use your tactical re-roll to re-roll an opponents dice really should be obvious.

Anyway, let's take a look at what has been said in the notes. Again, I'm not going to go over everything in detail, just the highlights and things that I think are important.

There were several points in the movement phase that stood out, chief amongst them was the point that confirms that if you start the movement phase in combat but your opponent falls back, your still limited to staying still or falling "back". There doesn't seem to be any restriction on shooting though, other than the usual, so staying still seems to be the better choice. This has been a bit of a debate at my club and this ruling lands where I though it should, as at the beginning of the phase your still in combat. Also, if you react with a readied model, it's no longer readied, which makes sense, along with the fact that you can't react and overwatch to the same charge. For charges we also got clarification that if you fail a charge and still want to move, you have to move the full distance on the dice, getting as close as possible to your opponent or you stay still. No half moves in to cover anymore. Also in the movement phase it now says that you can't climb up something if there is no climbable surface, ie you can't climb up to an overhang.  The last thing to mention which is quite funny, if you get knocked off a ledge and land near another ledge, you can fall again. It brings to mind some of the classic cartoon, of the bad guy falling over a cliff and hitting every ledge on the way to the bottom. I'm not sure it will come in to play very often but when it does, it will be amusing.

In the shooting phase there are some further silly questions and some that I would never have thought of, like a readied model being able to pass in the ready, fire section and fire in the fire at will section. That's quite a useful thing. Also, combi weapons are one weapon not two, so you have to follow the rules for shooting a single weapon if you want to shoot multiple targets. I've always thought of them as one weapon but I can see why there would be confusion. Also, no shooting pistols at all if you get charged or charge. This is one I though was obvious but apparently not. We also got definitive proof that in multiplayer games, you can shoot other models in combat, as long as one of them isn't yours. It also good to see the issues around random damage weapons and also mortal wounds has been dealt with. It's not something I've seen but there has been a bit of discussion online about it and finally, if you've a model on 3 flesh wounds, there doesn't seem to be anything (ie tactics) you can do to stop it dieing when it takes another. There is quite a bit more in there but again, most of it should behave been fairly obvious anyway but not it's down in black and white, people can't try and game the system.


The fight phase is fairly simple with just 3 questions. The only one that seems worth noting is that if if a charging model has all it's targets eliminated before it gets to fight, it can only pile in and not consolidate.

The moral phase is even shorter, with just two questions. Does the order of nerve tests matter and what can a shaken model do. Of course nerve test order matters, afterall when you go through each step in the process, it has the possibility of changing every time, depending upon the previous test and shaken models can basically do nothing voluntary.

I haven't actually read the missions, bad I know, so I don't really know if these are sensible question. The one about objective markers makes sense and the one about terror tactics sounds like someone is trying to game the system for there advantage by counting models that are off the table as dead.

The tactics section again sounds like some people are trying their luck but any chance of that has been shut down.

In the choosing a kill team secretion, I think some people havent been reading the rule book properly, as all the points lists I've used all say (does not include wargear).  Also why ask why they give you options that aren't optimal? Choice people, choice and because they sell models equipped in that manor and don't want to make it illegal for kill team. As for making things specialists technically you don't have to make any models specialists apart from a leader.

Talking of specialists, the next section is all about the specialists and there various tactics and abilities.

Up next are all the faction specific FAQs. Some have a lot, some have only 1. Well run through them all quickly, some quicker than others. The Astartes are first, and there's nothing of note really, just a clarification for the auspex. Also, it clears up the wording for Deathwatch when choosing primaris marines, which was a little confusing. The guard only had one point, which stops you issuing an order to yourself. For AdMech, you can chip and chance between choosing and rolling for canticles. Oh, and read the options for wargear.

For death guard, DR doesn't affect the number of injury dice rolled for multi damage weapons and you cannot re-roll it, it's not on the list afterall. On the plus side the flail of corruption explodes on a 6+ to hit! The 1k sons get a minor boost (I think) for the all is dust rule and there's is nothing listed for chaos proper.

For the space elves, the craft world boys and girls seem to have a few problems with their weapons platforms, the key ones seem to be that of you ready the platform, the firing guardian doesn't need to be readied but it must be able to legally fire itself to fire the platform. For the dark kin, drugs are chosen after you've picked your team and the quin's don't have fly, despite what people think, so no shooting after falling back and even players are are clumsy sometimes, so can set of traps.

The necrons question is a bit random and I'm guessing comes from a non-necron player, after all if you play necrons why would you not want to trigger Reanimation protocols? Oh, and even mind shackle scarabs can't break the shooting rules. For the Orks, the question is fairly simple. You shoot at the original target but the wound goes on the grot. For the tau, you now need to just declare everything is firing overwatch using the greater good before shooting anything, not as each one fails. Pulse blasters are pretty risky weapons, always have been and saviour protocol's are still over powered.

Nids and GSC are last on the list. The nids questions a=e mostly about flesh hooks, which have got quite a boost as they are now the only weapon that can fire if the model armed with them is charged. Not a bad bonus. The other issue seems to have been the tactic metabolic overdrive, which has a mini essay on how to use it! Plus there is no point arming your warriors with more than one pair of bone swords. For the GSC there were just a couple of points, including the fact that genestealers don't gain the cult ambush rule for GSC.

One of the largest section in the commentary is about campaigns and the largest section is about managing your command roster. Most of it is pretty straight forward and ready only clarifies the way the system works, although on the whole it's a pretty easy system to understand, apart from 2 bits, both of which are cleared up here. Firstly, new models in your fire teams still cost the same as the rest of the team, so adding in a new recruit To a level 2 fire team means that you pay the level 2 cost for it, not the base level 1 cost until after the first battle, even though it doesn't gain any of the bonuses from the fire team. The other point of not is that you cannot change the wargear of a model once it's on your roster. Not a massive problem for most armies as you can just take several different variations in one roster.

All in all there are not many big changes to the game and nothing that jumped out at me as being unexpected. The errata and commentary both lean towards clarifying and tweaking the rules slightly to make play more streamlined and give us players a greater understanding of the game.

The Kill Team Errata

So, with the release of the Big FAQ 2 2018 we also got a Errata and designers commentary for Kill Team. Now I will admit I was quite surprised when I scrolled down to this on the list of updates, I didn't expect to see an update for kill team in this lot. I was expecting to see one at some point but thought that it would be done separately. This make me wonder if we will get anything for kill team in Chapter Approved 2018.

Anyway, what is in the errata and designers commentary? We'll start with the errata and the move on to the commentary. The errata is mostly clearing up some of the wording and options.

The first couple of changes are to clarify the injury roll system and also how invulnerable saves work. The next couple are clearing up issues around the terror tactics mission. I haven't looked in to the changes, so don't know how much of an impact they will have.

We then move on to a couple of updates for specialist. Again most of these are clearing up the wording and intent of the rules. The leaders ability has been reworded to.make it clearer and the  Comms ability has been changed so that it can no longer affect itself. The scouts ability has been simplified, 5o just give a 2" movement boost.

The rest of the errata is concerned with updating the various data sheets in the book. I'll not go through each change, as there's quite a few minor changes.

The first few are updates to the space marines and update tactical sergeant and intercessors data sheets along with adding the Medic Specialism to tacticals and intercessors, meaning you can add in a jazzed up apothecary model now.

Deathwatch and grey knights also got updates to there sheets to clarify weapon options. A big change comes to the chaos Flail of Corruption, as it is reduced to a damage 1 weapon now, making it less of an auto include. Chaos marines also got the option for the combat specialism. tzaangor's also got a wargrear clarification, although I have no idea what it clarifies as I've never even looked at the rules for Thousand sons.

The Xeno's also got a few updates. Eldar heavy weapons platforms automatically pass nerve tests, which makes sense, it's a mobile weapons platform afterall. The Harlequins got hit hard by this FAQ though, with two changes. The first, removing the special rule for fusion pistols, which is sensible and I believe brings them.in to line with 40k, like everything else. The second and probably biggest need in the whole FAQ, is the change to flip belts, clearing up the fact that you can't just 'flip' through terrain. Previously it said to ignore it, which 2qs silly, as it's still there. Now you just don't count vertical movement, which makes far more sense, both fluff and rules wise. Oh, and the neuro disruptor got bumped from S3 to S4. Nercons got a change to Tesla carbines, changing a hit of 6 to 3 hits. Again, don't know what this was before but seems very normal for Tesla weaponry. The GSC also got some updates, mostly changes to the Acolyte wargear options but also a rewording of the heavy rock drills ability.

The Tau got the most changes by a long way, however a good few of them are basically the same change. The original bonding knife ritual rule ment that any Tau unit could support any other tau unit, now it has to be aosrl from the same data sheet, ie breachers can only support other breachers. There were also some changes to the keywords for both versions of fire warriors. Drones, already good units , got some upgrades as well, with a 4+ save now and gaining extra abilities for shield drones and marker drones. While it may look like tau have taken a hit, in reality I think the changes mean just the opposite and overall tau just got stronger. There have been some changes to the specialists options,

Lastly for the Errata, we have the changes to the guard. I left these until last as I will spend a bit more time on them, as they are my main faction. With guard squads gaining the medic specialism, special weapon squads loosing Comms but gaining medics and scions getting clarification that Comms specialists need to have a vox caster. To start with the addition of medics makes sense, your not (fluff wise) going to send a squad off without some form of medic around, even if in reality the medic is useless. The changes to Comms also makes sense, afterall, why would your Comms specialist not be the one with the vox caster? It also brings all the squads inline with each other, with all the specialities being the same across the board, as they should have been from the start. The final change to the guard is a minor change to the Scion wargear options. Now, this is a two part change and the first part is quite funny, as I'm pretty sure we went through this exact same change for 40k proper when scions were first released. The change relates to what weapons the vox caster can have as the kit tells you to build it with a hotshot laspistol but the rules only give you the option for a hotshot lasgun. The changes means that you can have a pistol or both a pistol and rifle. I'll be going for the latter, as the pistols only got a six inch range! The second change is one that, in hindsight, was an obvious change and is the addition of grenade launchers to the scions list of special weapons. This was the only weapon on the scions sprue that wasnt an option for them to take. I'm glad they've included this now, as I'm quite a fan of grenade launchers, as they have quite a lot of versatility.

So that's the changes from the errata, most of which are just clarifications and minor tweaks to rules to make there intent clearer. All in all it won't change the game much and is a nice little update. It will be interesting to see if there are more adjustments in Chapter Approved 2018.

The big FAQ 2018 no.2

So, last time I looked at the Codex FAQ and Erratas, this time I thought I would look through the big FAQ itself and pick out bits I thought were relevant or interesting.

As usual there are some new Beta rules and some of the old beta rules have been made permanent. This time is slightly different, as one of the beta rules has been re-written and put back in to beta. We'll start with the beta rules that have become finalised. Battle Brothers is confirmed and the two other rules, Psychic Focus and the Targeting Characters rule continue as pretty much everyone thought it would.

The big change is to the Tactical Reserves Beta rule, which has been re-written and there have been some key changes. This wasn't what I was expecting but it does it make sense. I know that alpha strike units were a powerful force in 8th and were dominating the game some what. The previous beta rule meant that units could only drop in there own deployment zone first turn, now you cant drop at all. The other big change is the change form power levels to matched points. The first change seems to have come about as several armies, such as Genestealer Cults and Ravenguard had ways and means around the restrictions. There were also some changes to these abilities but I'll get to that below. As a result of all this, the new beta rule has been proposed and I think its not quite right. I understand that alpha strikes are not great for the game but I think banning all reinforcements turn 1 is not a good idea. I don't really have an idea of how to fix it apart from maybe restrict the points limit further but I don't think that's really the solution. We'll see how this rule plays out and if they change it again. I really like that they didn't just make some changes and go with it, putting it back through beta is a really good step in my eyes. On a final point, changing over to match play points is good, I know power levels are GW's new thing but very few people seem to use them and no tournaments I know of do, so it seemed to just be there to complicate things plus there was a lot of room for abuse.

Related to this beta rules are changes to a number of Stratagems, namely all the ones that allowed you to place units in reserve that normally wouldn't be able to, such as "strike from the shadows" and "forward operations". These have all had huge changes, meaning units now actually have to deploy and then can move, usually 9 inches. There are two things I don't like about these changes. Firstly, the standard move distance. Each unit should just get a move, what ever it's normal, data sheet move is. Thus still means each unit acts as it should, instead of giving some units a movement noisy and others a nerf. Secondly, I think having to revel the stratagem when you deploy a units is wrong, as it gives the opposition a chance to counter something that in theory you shouldn't know about. I think it would be better to play this stratagem after deployment but before the first battle round, meaning it retains its element of surprise and the intention\fluff of the stratagem.

There are also changes to two eldar Stratagems that are related to the tactical reserves rule but I don't know what the original said, so don't know what the changes are.

We then move into the new beta rules and this is going to have a pretty big impact on the game. The first, the "prepared positions" stratagem is a nice bonus and is going to see a lot of use. It gives the second player a chance to weather the storm. We'll see if its too powerful and means that everyone wants to go second but I doubt it. I will no doubt be using this for my guard as there is little chance of getting every unit in to cover! I can see this going straight into the main book without any changes.

The next rule, Tactical Restraint, is one that I hope they don't implement as it is now. I see the need for this, as with some combinations, such as the guard warlord trait and relic alongside the Blood Angels relic, were very powerful and I have in the one game I have used that combination, ended with about the same command points as I started with despite using lots of them. I do however, think that this has gone a little to far the other way. Only being able to get one point back per battle round I think is very restrictive. I think that it should be limited but at most I think it should be limited to being able to get one point per option or at most never being able to gain more than you started with. I think the intent is right but the execution is wrong and besides, all that will happen is that people will start including small Battalions, such as Guard ones costing as little as 180 points, to gain the 5 command points. two battalions will net you an extra 10 command points for just 360 points and in a 2000 point games that still leaves 1640 points for a main detachment and the possibility of at least 14 command points or potentially over 20.

The next section is just an adjustment of stratagems to balance the game out. Mostly its about command point increases. The Imperial Knights got quite a few price hikes, as they were some very potent stratagems, while the Chaos stratagem  got a cavate that means that you can no longer get a save better than 4++. The two of note are the increase to the Blood Angels stratagem, "upon wings of fire" upping the cost from 1cp to 2cp's. Not a great problem, even at two command points its still a good stratagem and has multiple uses.

The last change on the page is actually in two parts, firstly the price hike, up to 4cp, making it one of the most expensive stratagems in the game but its also one of the best. The second part is a long awaited clarification on its use. The stratagem in question is the Drukhari "Agents of Vect", seen by many as the best stratagem in the whole game, able to shut down an opponents play and alter the course of a whole game in a moment. To be honest I have no view on the price increase, as I've never played against a DE player and have never seen the stratagem used. However I have seen numerous discussions around who can use the stratagem. There was a lot of debate about the wording, as it didn't specifically say that it could only be use by the Kabal of the Black Heart, even though it was titled as one of there Stratagems. I think it was one of those cases where RAI and RAW really came in to force. It was clear it was intended to only be used by the Kabal of the Black Heart detachments but as it didn't specifically say that in the text, it could be used by anyone. Now however it has been cleared up and it now states that at least 1 unit of Black Heart must be in the board to use it. This brings the RAI in line with the RAW and makes it as it should have been in the first place and stops all the people who were clearly bending the rules to there advantage. It has also now been stated that it is only an in game stratagem and can't be use before the first turn starts. I wonder if the changes will see a reduction in the use of the stratagem or not. With the clarification that you need a Black Heart unit for the stratagem to be used, your now enforcing a tax on it for a lot of people, either through the auxiliary detachment and it's -1cp or through the use of a patrol detachment and the associated unit costs. Also, remove the Black Heart units and the stratagem is stopped. Maybe this along with the price hike is too much?

Which ever way you look at it, the big FAQ is another step in the right direction, although I'm still unconvinced by the Tactical Restraint rule. We will see what the Chapter Approved 2018 brings in a couple of months as well.