Warhammer 40K Tabletop Thread XXXIX: Miracle on 39th Thread

[Squark]

How does one reload when dual-wielding crossbows anyway? Does he get two shots and then have to put one down to reload the other? Does he do the Reaper-from-Overwatch thing of just chucking them on the ground and drawing a new pair?

It looks like the crossbows have a revolver feed. How they're recocked, though, is anyone's guess.

[Blackhawk748]

How does one reload when dual-wielding crossbows anyway? Does he get two shots and then have to put one down to reload the other? Does he do the Reaper-from-Overwatch thing of just chucking them on the ground and drawing a new pair?

In DnD when I did this I hade extra bolts stuck to my character's legs and then had the crossbows magically recock themselves so all he had to do was push them down and clip them on.

It looks like the crossbows have a revolver feed. How they're recocked, though, is anyone's guess.

Magic

[Lord Torath]

How does one reload when dual-wielding crossbows anyway? Does he get two shots and then have to put one down to reload the other? Does he do the Reaper-from-Overwatch thing of just chucking them on the ground and drawing a new pair?

It looks like the crossbows have a revolver feed. How they're recocked, though, is anyone's guess.

Panels 10-11. Or panels 2-3.

Maybe they're from Diablo III.

[Requizen]

While they don't fit the chaos aesthetic, I am estatic that GW is doing non-Chaos Warbands as opposed to the card packs, which stick a bunch of models into the game which frankly, do not belong there.

I don't get what the warcry team is doing with the card packs. They made an awesome melee skirmish game with borderline parkour levels of mobility(You can actually Wall jump or wall run!), created a bunch of dedicated chaos warbands who play well with that system... and then shoveled in a bunch of non-chaos dudes with ranged attacks and fliers. *headdesk*.

So while these particular Aelves may not look like they spend all their time in eightpoints, ignoring the lovely movement system or spamming bows... *checks* ... there's a guy with dual crossbows. Great. Well, hopefully they keep his range low to force him to actually skirmish, instead of just camping in a fortified position.

The cards were clearly to get people to try Warcry without having to buy into the bespoke warbands and just play with friends via minimal investment. That said, they really botched the implementation. There's a lot of balance issues once you go into the card release warbands, due to them getting abilities above and beyond the bespoke warbands, or having crap point balance, or both. That said, I don't think the balance is so bad that you can't play the game, just that it can be frustrating, which is the same with any list-building game.

I'm not worried about the Dark Aelf getting crossbows - Untamed Beasts have a good spear attack, and there's a handful of really solid ranged abilities and tricks in the basic warbands already. I doubt Khainites will be as shooty as Stormcast or others.

[Brookshw]

I recently swapped some furniture in my office around and the new shelf is lower, low enough that my two year old is now noticing models that previously had been up too high for her to see. After looking them over and noticing the Baneblade she promptly let me know "it's a garbage truck".

Well, she's not wrong....

[Corsair14]

LansXero- 30k is a fluff narrative game not a competitive game. Its all about having really cool fluffy large armies on the board rather than the most competitive units. Its why you have scenarios with random things falling from the skies onto units and so forth, random starting positions, weird and very disadvantageous deployment zones. Think Open War cards and the weird scenarios you can get out of them and make that the standard. In your hyper competitive environment I am not sure 30k would fit well. It is very easy to break because fluff was the mindset when it was designed, not competition and they expected its players to have a similar mindset.

Find a legion you like, bring what you want and have fun. We still have a small group down the road in Melbourne FL that gets together irregularly a couple times a year for big games. I would say for the most part though that 30k is a dead game until they update the rules for 8th/9th. The divide from 7 to 8th got rid of 95%+ of my opponents so I ended up selling the bulk of 2 of my three armies saving the cool stuff that could be used elsewhere and repainting them either to my iron warriors or my loyalist marines.

[Cheesegear]

Trying to do Math Hammer for Kill Team*:

A weapon that does 1 Damage, only makes one Injury roll. That is, a 3 or less, does nothing (ignoring that it does something), whilst a 4+ takes a model OoA.
For Math Hammer, a 1 Damage weapon, has its damage divided by half. That is, half the time it will remove a model, the other half, it wont.

Efficiency = Points / ((Attacks*To Hit*Wound*Failed Save) / 2)

A weapon that does 2 damage, rolls two Injuries, picking the highest. I want to say that the weapon now does normal damage.
i.e; On average, one dice will roll <3, the other will roll 4+, and you pick the Injury that takes the model OoA. OoA = 1, on average.

I think.

And obviously a weapon that does 3+ damage...Most of the time it works every time?
What's the point if on average, 2 Damage weapons are enough to get the job done? A Power Fist does D3 (avg. 2) Damage, but a Thunder Hammer does 3.
But you can't destroy a model more than once, so is 3+ Damage weapons worth it, if you aren't facing Tyranid Warriors and Custodes?
Is a Thunder Hammer worth the extra points? And how do I prove that it is or isn't?

I mean. I know that multi-damage weapons are the best in the game because of the extra chance to OoA. I just don't know whether 3 Damage - or D6 Damage, even - is more useful than 2, except in rare match-ups.

[Brookshw]

Whatever happened to GSK, I've been looking around and they don't seem to crop up much. I'm mildly surprised, just overshadowed or did they get nerfed at some point?

[LeSwordfish]

Trying to do Math Hammer for Kill Team*:

A weapon that does 1 Damage, only makes one Injury roll. That is, a 3 or less, does nothing (ignoring that it does something), whilst a 4+ takes a model OoA.
For Math Hammer, a 1 Damage weapon, has its damage divided by half. That is, half the time it will remove a model, the other half, it wont.

Efficiency = Points / ((Attacks*To Hit*Wound*Failed Save) / 2)

A weapon that does 2 damage, rolls two Injuries, picking the highest. I want to say that the weapon now does normal damage.
i.e; On average, one dice will roll <3, the other will roll 4+, and you pick the Injury that takes the model OoA. OoA = 1, on average.

Nope - there are four possibilities for two 4+ rolls: (Pass Pass), (Pass Fail), (Fail Pass), (Fail Fail). Of those, 3/4 contain at least one pass: your chance of taking a 1-wound model out of action with 2 damage is 75%.

[Wraith]

The *average* roll of a d6 is 3.5 - it's impossible to roll a 0 so you get the mid point between 1 and 6.
That doesn't help you in a practical situation because it's also impossible to roll 3.5 on a six-sided die, so instead you're looking for the probability of success rather than the specific roll.

Your failure rate for one roll is 50%, or half. Every time you introduce a new roll, you halve your failure state and keep going down until you approach - but never reach - 0.

1 dice = 50% of failure
2 dice = 25% of failure
3 dice - 12.5% (or rather, equivalent to 1/6)

Any percentage is the same. If it's 5+ to succeed, your failure rate is 66% (4/6 which is the same as 2/3). On two dice it's another 66% of that original 66% (44%), on three dice it's 66% of that 44% (~30%).

Play more Blood Bowl. Knowing this is how you learn whether or not using a reroll is worthwhile or not.

[Cheesegear]

your chance of taking a 1-wound model out of action with 2 damage is 75%.

Holy ****.
Derp.
When you say it out loud, it feels really obvious. Like, I should know that. Like, no. There's a 50% chance that the other dice fails too. And of course more Damage = more better. I got real dumb.

1 dice = 50% of failure
2 dice = 25% of failure
3 dice - 12.5% (or rather, equivalent to 1/6)

1 Damage = *.5
2 Damage = *.75
3 Damage = *.83
4 Damage = *.94...Which I kind of have to include in case a Melta weapon re-rolls the D6 for damage. I can't recall if there are any other 4+ Damage weapons in Kill Team.

Alright, cool.
Start expecting Kill Team Guides. Since that's the only game I can play right now. I could've sworn I made some. But they must've been Shadow War: Armageddon Guides.

[Requizen]

Holy ****.
Derp.
When you say it out loud, it feels really obvious. Like, I should know that. Like, no. There's a 50% chance that the other dice fails too. And of course more Damage = more better. I got real dumb.



1 Damage = *.5
2 Damage = *.75
3 Damage = *.83
4 Damage = *.94...Which I kind of have to include in case a Melta weapon re-rolls the D6 for damage. I can't recall if there are any other 4+ Damage weapons in Kill Team.

Alright, cool.
Start expecting Kill Team Guides. Since that's the only game I can play right now. I could've sworn I made some. But they must've been Shadow War: Armageddon Guides.

And then multi-damage actually gets worse against Necrons because the nat 6 triggers Reanimation Protocols, so the more dice you roll, the more likely it is to just heal them to full and remove all Flesh Wounds. Meltas and the like are actively bad against Necrons, though you rarely have to worry about it because Necrons are actively bad in general

[Blackhawk748]

And then multi-damage actually gets worse against Necrons because the nat 6 triggers Reanimation Protocols, so the more dice you roll, the more likely it is to just heal them to full and remove all Flesh Wounds. Meltas and the like are actively bad against Necrons, though you rarely have to worry about it because Necrons are actively bad in general

That's... Weird because Meltas are supposed to be one of the ways you keep Necrons dead

[Wraith]

I can't recall if there are any other 4+ Damage weapons in Kill Team.

There's a handful that do d6:

Astartes Krak Missiles
Deathwatch Heavy Thunder Hammer
Nurgle Great Plague Cleaver
Aeldari Starshot Missiles
Aeldari Fusion Gun
Drukari Blast Pistol, Blaster, Dark Lance
Harlequin Fusion Pistol
Tau Fusion Blaster

So for the sake of completion, your chart would be:

1 Damage = *.5
2 Damage = *.75
3 Damage = *.83
4 Damage = *.94
5 Damage = *.97
6 Damage = *.985

And then multi-damage actually gets worse against Necrons because the nat 6 triggers Reanimation Protocols, so the more dice you roll, the more likely it is to just heal them to full and remove all Flesh Wounds. Meltas and the like are actively bad against Necrons, though you rarely have to worry about it because Necrons are actively bad in general

That changes the maths significantly, because that means out of action is equivalent to 33.3% instead of 50%, with 16% chance of reanimation on top. If I remember statistics correctly from when I was in school 18 yeas ago, it looks a bit like (rounding to sensible decimal places):

.............OoA ........ RP
1 Dice = 33% ....... 16%
2 Dice = 55% ....... 26.5%
3 Dice = 70% ....... 35.7%
4 Dice = 80% ....... 43.8%
5 Dice = 87% ....... 50.9%
6 Dice = 91% ....... 57%

So yeah, you're dead right. Shooting Necrons with d6 Damage weapons is a terrible idea, despite what the fluff says.

[LeSwordfish]

Does Kill Team have a mechanic like Shadow War did where enough Flesh Wounds will kill someone? Or do you need to get that 4+?

[Wraith]

Does Kill Team have a mechanic like Shadow War did where enough Flesh Wounds will kill someone? Or do you need to get that 4+?

For every Flesh Wound a target has you get +1 to your Injury dice, and if I recall correctly there's no "Roll of 1 is an automatic fail" rule in KT. You can eventually take down anyone with a thousand paper-cuts.

[LeSwordfish]

Ah - but you roll all your injury dice at once, right? So a 6 damage weapon that causes 6 flesh wounds doesn't auto-kill on the 6th - it just primes that model *really* well for the next injury roll.

[Wraith]

Ah - but you roll all your injury dice at once, right? So a 6 damage weapon that causes 6 flesh wounds doesn't auto-kill on the 6th - it just primes that model *really* well for the next injury roll.

I beg your pardon, I've told you wrong, you were right with your Shadow Wars comparison; models can only take 4 Flesh Wounds before they automatically go out of action.

I didn't remember because honestly, it doesn't come up very often in my experience. Maybe I just roll really badly for my injuries?

[Renegade Paladin]

Ah - but you roll all your injury dice at once, right? So a 6 damage weapon that causes 6 flesh wounds doesn't auto-kill on the 6th - it just primes that model *really* well for the next injury roll.

A model can carry at most three flesh wounds; a fourth takes it out of action regardless. See page 33, which refers to the number of flesh wound boxes on its datacard, which may be found on page 66. It's a bit convoluted, but it's there.

[Cheesegear]

There's a handful that do d6:

But the average on a D6 is 3.5, or 4 with a re-roll.
So whilst 'complete' dealing 5 and 6 Damage is kind of redundant in Math Hammer.

That's... Weird because Meltas are supposed to be one of the ways you keep Necrons dead

Wraith did the hard maths.
If it were me, I would've made Reanimation happen on an unmodified 4. Single damage weapons still have the same chance of rolling a 4, as they do a 6, so no change there. But multi-damage weapons are more likely to roll 5s and 6s and ignore the '4s' that come out, ignoring Reanimation.

[Cheesegear]

Guide to Kill Team
The Basics

Spoiler: Movement

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Initiative: Start of every Round, roll Initiative. This doesn't mean much, it just means who gets to Move first, and who gets to activate first in each phase - kind of. It does matter who wins Initiative each Round. But also it doesn't, most of the time.

Movement Phase
Unlike other phases, the player that wins Initiative moves all of their Team, before the other player does. There are a number of things that you can do for your Move; Normal Move (Move), Advance, Fall Back, Ready or Charge.

Ready: By not moving, a model that Readies fires first in the Shooting phase, even if the controlling player doesn't have Initiative. You can't Ready whilst within 1" of an enemy model (for Pistols). You can React whilst Readied. But Retreating means you lose Readied - because you wont be able to shoot that Round anyway.

Charging: Unlike other games, in Kill Team, you can Move or Charge in a Round, not both. This means that generally speaking, if you want to hit hard and fast, you need models that get two Movements in a Round (Veteran Specialists being the most common example). However, it should be noted that in addition to Overwatch, the defending player gets to Retreat, which can be a pretty powerful move, depending on the Round. Also, in Kill Team, if you fail your Charge, you can still move up to the distance of the roll, which means that you don't just stand around like a stunned mullet...That being said, you can still roll a '2'.

Retreat: If your model has not moved this Round, when your model is Charged, instead of firing Overwatch, your model can move up to 3" away from the Charging model. However be wary, because a model that Retreats (or Falls Back) can't do anything for the rest of the Round. It can be incredibly powerful for a horde player to 'bait out' Retreats giving them control over the Round. Because the theo option that the defending player has is to get Charged by a bunch of models. That being said, models with weapons that auto-hit can Overwatch all day long...Unless they can't see the Charging model(s).

Fall Back: If a model has not been Charged this turn, a model that Falls Back can't do anything for the rest of the Round - including React (Overwatch or Retreat). Unless they have <Fly>, in which case they can shoot. <Fly> is a very strong rule. That being said...

Q: If a model Falls Back from one of my models, can my model declare a charge against them when it is my turn to act in that phase?
A: No. Your model was within 1" of an enemy model at the beginning of the phase, so it can only remain stationary or Fall Back (but this move doesn’t have to be ‘backwards’).

...That's not the rule in the book. But it is a game-changing Answer. If you get Charged, and that model doesn't take your model Out of Action (OoA) in one Round, you can just Fall Back next turn and they can't do anything except Fall Back.
However, there is some debate on whether 'remain stationary' means that they can Ready, it doesn't say they can't, so they can?

Remember that if a player moves all of their models up the board, for Turn 1 board control, that means either:
a) You can Ready your entire Team and **** them up. Or
b) They are now easier to Charge.

Spoiler: Psychic

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Psychic Phase
You can only choose one Psyker to manifest, during a Round. Having a Team with multiple Psykers is kind of pointless (looking at you, Grey Knights). All Psykers know Psybolt. Since there are very, very, very, very few 'ground-level' Psychic troops in 40K, Kill Team's selection of Psykers is extremely small and as such this part of the game is woefully underdeveloped. A model can do anything - including Charge and be within 1" of an enemy model - and still manifest.

Psybolt: WC5. The closest visible model, takes D3 Mortal Wounds. However, Psybolt when it comes to making Injury rolls, Psybolt is treating as a shooting attack and thus is subject negative modifiers for Obscuration when rolling Injury rolls. Worse, even rolling '3' Mortal Wounds, only counts as 1 Damage, means one Injury roll. That being said, Psybolt is a weapon that doesn't roll to hit, doesn't roll to wound, and doesn't allow saves. It is a very strong way of 'chunking' down big models like Tyranid Warriors (if they're the closest model, and they wont be) and Custodes.

Very, very, very few Teams have the ability to Deny the Witch...Unless Commanders are involved. Which they wont be, 'cause they're not recommended for Matched Play, and they're banned in Organised Play.

Spoiler: Shooting

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Shooting Phase
Each player shoots one model at a time, in Initiative order. Readied models automatically shoot first.

A model with multiple attacks (e.g; Rapid Fire 1 weapon, with 2 shots, or, a model with multiple weapons), can divide their attacks if enemy models are within 2" of each other.

Your Team can only fire one 'Grenade' weapon per round.
Obviously GW learned their lesson from Shadow War: Armageddon where every Astartes Scout has a S6, AP-1, D3 Damage weapon broke the game.

Your model can fire a Pistol whilst within 1" of an enemy model, against that model. Unless your model Charged, or was Charged. Successively charging a model with a special Pistol (e.g; Plasma Pistol) each turn prevents their ability to use it. That is...Special Pistols are real bad.

Modifiers: Shooting in Kill Team is hard. But also so is getting into Melee.

Long Range: If the target is over half range from your model, -1 to hit. You want to get close enough to your opponent that you don't have negs to hit. But you don't want to get too close that you get Charged.

Obscured: The most ****ed rule in the game. If you can see a model's head or limbs, go ahead. However, if a model has its leg behind a wall, but, you can see ~80% of the rest of the model...**** you. -1 to hit. If you can't see any part of the 'base' model, -1 to hit, no matter how much of the rest you can see.
Obviously, not basing line of sight on 'percentages' very quickly speeds up the game by simplification. But the extremely poor implementation of the rule means it's...Real bad.

Generally speaking, it's fairly common that your shooting models will have -1 or even -2 to hit, as standard. Models that ignore Long Range and/or Obscured are generally more powerful than not.

Spoiler: Fight

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Fight Phase
Each player Fights with one model at a time, Charging models automatically go first.

Pile In: As with other games, you only need to get within 1" of an enemy model to successfully complete a Charge. You do not need your model to touch bases, and in fact you shouldn't. If your model is not touching bases, they get a free 3" move, as long as they end up closer to the target. That is, a lot of times you want to move your model 'behind' your target, so that if you don't kill them in one Round, and they Fall Back, they have to Fall Back towards your other models.

Obscured: In the Fight phase, too!? Yes, really. If there is intervening terrain, -1 to hit. This is why Piling In over terrain is really important.

Spoiler: Injuries

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Wounds vs. Damage vs. Injury
If you deal multiple wounds to an enemy model, and they fail multiple saves...You make a number of Injury rolls equal to the Damage, and all other wounds are not resolved. For example, a Storm Bolter with 4 shots, deals four unsaved Wounds. Holy ****. That model is definitely dead, right? ...Wrong. Because a Storm Bolter deals one Damage, you make one Injury roll, even though you dealt 4 wounds. For this reason, if you have a lot of attacks, it's better to divide your fire against multiple models within 2" of each other...Sort of.

Multi-Damage Weapons: Multi-Damage weapons roll a number of dice equal to their Damage, and pick the highest (Not that you may pick the highest. This is important for fighting Necrons). So if you think that a weapon with multiple Damage is more effective than a weapon with multiple Shots...Correct. Kind of. Remembering that a lot of times you'll have maybe -1 or -2 to hit, which means that every shot counts. So is it better to have a lot of shots, or is better to have multiple Damage so that if a shot does connect, it actually connects? ...Yes.

Injury: Unlike other games, dealing an unsaved wound wont actually kill a model - half the time. Every time you take an enemy model to 0 Wounds, roll a D6; On a 4+, the model goes OoA, you did it. Otherwise, the model only takes a Flesh Wound.

Obscured: Can you stop!? A model that's Obscured gets -1 to their Injury roll.

Flesh Wounds: Flesh Wounds deal...Damage...To the Injured model. But the problem is that that model is still on the board, and can still do things. Most notably, a model with Flesh Wounds can still hold Objectives and win games. But, what does a Flesh Wound actually do? Flesh Wounds are cumulative:
- -1 to hit,
- +1 to subsequent Injury rolls,
- Forces a Nerve test - and Shaken is real bad,
- Contributes to Breaking the enemy Team.
Flesh Wounds aren't nothing. But if that model has a weapon that auto-hits, or their profile is WS or BS 3+ and they have loads of attacks, -1 to hit isn't really going to mean anything, and those models are still strong, still contributing to the game, and still hurting you.

A model's 4th Flesh Wound, takes it OoA.

Spoiler: Morale

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Morale Phase
If half (round up) or more of your Team have [Flesh Wounds, are Shaken, or OoA], take a Break test. Roll 2d6 vs. the highest Leadership in your Team (not vs. your Leader's Leadership, oddly enough). If you fail, your Team is Broken. Eat ****.
- Some Missions, means you auto-lose when your Team Breaks. Kill Team can be a very fast game.
- If you aren't playing one of those Missions, then, if your Team is Broken, every model on your Team now has -1 to hit. GG.
Most of the time, if your Team is Broken, you've already lost the game, even if there are more Rounds to go. Always have a model with high Leadership on your Team, and also make sure it doesn't die. Your Break test doesn't care about Shaken or Flesh Wounds. So if your highest Ld model is on the board, it counts.

Remember that it's totally possible to win games with only 1 model on the board. If you're not Broken, you can win - that's how Custodes and Space Marines do it.

A Kill Team is automatically Broken if every model is OoA. Remember, not every Mission is an auto-win if you Break your opponent. If you destroy all your opponent's models on Round 4, that doesn't necessarily mean that you've won the game. Destroying your opponent's models doesn't mean **** if the Objective isn't completed. That being said, take your opponent's models out early enough, and you might get a few 'free' turns to take all the Objectives on the board.

After taking the Break test, remove Shaken from your models, if any.

Nerve Tests: After taking the Break test, every model with a Flesh Wound must take a Nerve test, and, if your Team is Broken, every model in your Team, has to take a Nerve test. Roll one D6, and apply modifiers. If the result is higher (not equal) to your model's individual Leadership, you fail the test, and your model is Shaken. A Nerve test is always passed on an unmodified 1.

Each model gains +1 to Nerve tests, for each other model on your Team that is Shaken or OoA.
Didn't I just remove all my Shaken tokens, before I took my Nerve tests? How is that possible? Well, if you have to take multiple Nerve tests, some models will become Shaken, before you roll Nerve tests for your next models. This is called 'Rolling Panic' and it will **** up your entire Team. The more Nerve tests you fail, the more Nerve tests you will fail.

Each model gains -1 to Nerve tests, for each other friendly model within 2" that isn't Shaken.
Yes, that means that even if they're about to take a Nerve test, they're not Shaken yet. Courage in numbers.
But doesn't being within 2" of models, allow my opponent to divide attacks and take out multiple models? Yes. Kill Team is a competitive game like that. Your choices matter.

Shaken: Your model can't do anything at all until the next Morale phase, when its Shaken condition is removed. But, if it has a Flesh Wound, or your Team is Broken, you'll just have to take another Nerve test again. lol. A lot of abilities also don't work if your model is Shaken. A lot of times, a Shaken model may as well not be on the board. But, a Shaken model isn't a Kill Point for your opponent, so...That's good.

Is it better to take models OoA, or to deal Flesh Wounds to as many models as possible, to force Break and Nerve tests?
...Yes.

Spoiler: Tactics

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You get 1 CP per turn. You get another CP if your Leader is on the board, and isn't Shaken. You also get a CP for every 10 Points you started the Mission with, less than your opponent. Most of the time, you're getting 2 CPs per turn.

Decisive Move: Start of Move. Move before any other models - even if you don't have Initiative. If, in response, your opponent uses this Tactic too, roll off. The player who wins, moves first.

Decisive Shot (2): Start of Shooting. Shoot before any other models - even if you don't have Initiative, even if you're not even Readied and your opponent, is. In response, if your opponent uses this Tactic, roll off. The winner shoots first, then the loser, then Readied models, then Initiative order.

Decisive Strike (2): Start of Fight. Fight before any other models - even if you don't have Initiative, even if you didn't Charge. In response, if your opponent uses this Tactic, roll off. The winner Fights first, then the loser, then Charging models, then Initiative order.

Insane Bravery: Start of Morale. Auto-pass a single Nerve test.

Tactial Re-roll: This Tactic is notable in what you can't re-roll; Break tests, and Damage rolls (e.g; D3 or D6 Damage weapons).

Gritted Teeth: Start of phase. One model in your Team ignores the penalty to hit from Flesh Wounds, regardless of how many they have.
Remember, models with Flesh Wounds are not OoA.

Outflank: [Reserves]. End of Movement. Place your model within 1" of any board edge, and more than 5" away from enemy models.

Spoiler: Specialists

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Commanders are banned in Organised Play, and not recommended in Matched Play. This Guide - and all future Guides - will ignore them.
Remember that in Matched/Organised Play, Specialists are limited to Rank 1, only.

Leader: If this model is on the board, and not Shaken, gain 1 CP at the start of every Round.

Lead By Example: When your Leader is chosen to Fight in the Fight phase, choose another friendly model within 3" (not 2", be smart) to also Fight. You can Fight with these two models one after the other before your opponent can Fight with one of their models. You choose the order. This Tactic isn't for rushing down the board and Fighting with your Leader and another model. Because why would you ever put your Leader in danger when its giving you a CP every turn? No. This Tactic is for when your opponent is in your DZ and about to dunk on your Leader. If you've been saving your CPs, you can pop Decisive Strike, pick your Leader, the pop Lead by Example, and counter-attack the **** out of your opponent's Charging models.

Combat: +1 Attacks characteristic.

Up and at 'Em: After another model in your Team fights - regardless of where on the board they are - you can immediately pick your Combat specialist to Fight.

Comms: In the Shooting phase, if this model is not Shaken, pick another model within 6". That model gets +1 to hit. Useful for bypassing Long Range or Obscured modifiers.

Rousing Transmission:

Morale phase. All models in your Kill Team have -1 to Nerve tests.

Demolitions: +1 to wound vs. targets that are Obscured. Pretty strong. Especially on weapons that auto-hit. Unfortunately, if they're Obscured, your opponent still has -1 to Injury, and that's what counts.

Custom Ammo: +1 to wound in the Shooting phase.

Heavy: Ignore the penalty to hit when Moving and Shooting with Heavy weapons. Or, ignore the penalty to hit when Advancing and Shooting with Assault weapons. Very good.

More Bullets: If your weapon shoots more than 1 shot, shoot another shot.
This Tactic is really dumb. A Rapid Fire weapon shooting at long range, has 1 shot. A Rapid Fire weapon shooting at Short range, has 3 shots.
For weapons with random shots (e.g; Flamers), use this Tactic before rolling shots. Then roll a '1', and eat **** and lose your CPs. However, if you roll a '6', you now have 7 shots...What? Who designed this Tactic!?

Medic: This model is never counts as Shaken, when taking Nerve tests for other models in your Team.

Stimm-Shot: Start of Move. If not Shaken, pick a friendly model within 2" (). That model gains +1 to Advance and Charge, and +1 Attack until the end of the Round. You can use this whilst within 1" of an enemy model. You can use this on yourself.

Mostly though, Medics get real good at higher Ranks, and especially in Campaigns. In Matched Play, you shouldn't really need one.

Scout: Re-roll Advance rolls.

Quick March: +2" to Move.
QA&C Fail: Quick March also lets the Scout re-roll Advance rolls. But doesn't a Scout already re-roll Advance rolls? It does!

Sniper: Re-roll hit rolls of 1 in the Shooting phase. This is not unmodified 1s. Not even in Errata. This means that if you have -1 or -2 to hit, you get re-rolls. Snipers are really, really good.

Careful Aim: +1 to hit in the Shooting phase. However, you can **** up the above by not being able to roll 1s.

Veteran: This model ignores negative modifiers to Leadership, and ignores positive modifiers to Nerve tests.

Adaptive Tactics: Start of First Round, but before the Initiative phase. Your Veteran can make a normal Move or Advance. You can move Charge normally in the Round proper. Potentially one of the best Tactics in the game, depending on Team and opponent. However, it also means that every game, you'll be down a CP in the first Battle Round. Who cares? First Round Charge is for winners.

Zealot: +1 to Attacks and Strength characteristics when Charging.

Killing Frenzy: Until the end of the Fight phase, each hit roll of 6+ (i.e; Modifiable hit roll), generates an additional attack.

Spoiler: Roster vs. Team

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GW did an exceptionally poor job of conveying this point during marketing, and as such, early Kill Team players thought the game was broken and unplayable because 'One box and done'. Instead of what the game actually is, which is Competitive as ****.

Your Roster can include up to 20 models. That is, your Roster will include 20 models...Unless you're Custodes.
- You can have as many Specialists of the same type on your Roster as you want, you can have as many Specialists as you want.
- You can have as many 'limited models' on your Roster as you want.
- Your Roster can total as many points as you want (Some metas constrain total Roster cost, though. For sanity's sake)
- You can have whatever models from your Faction that you want.

Your Team is selected after:
a) You've seen your opponent's Roster, and
b) You know what the Mission is.

Your Team is what has to be 100/125 Points, can only have one Leader, and can only have limited models and Specialists.
Your Team is also selected after you've seen your opponent's Roster (but not their Team) and the Mission.

In case you need it spelled out; You can tailor to your opponent. Or, rather, you can tailor to what you think your opponent will take, based on what they've seen of your Roster.
Competitive. As. ****.

Your Roster, should have roughly two or three, sometimes four Teams on it, depending on how well one particular model might work against any opponent.

"Harlequins OP, I don't know what to do."
Well, make sure your Roster has a ****-ton of Flamers in it, and Overwatch the **** out of them. Harlequins literally only have one game plan. They suck.
"No, but Scouts only have Boltguns and Heavy Bolters."
What else is on your Roster?
"My Team is 6 Scouts, 2 Gunners and a Sergeant."
I didn't ask about your Team. Your Roster should have 20 models, some of those should be probably be Flamers or Combi-Flamers...Maybe even a Veteran with a Heavy Flamer.
"My what?"

Kill Team is not 'One box and done, take the same Team every time.'
If you're watching a YouTube video that says 'This Kill Team is under $X, what a good way to start the game.' ...That's not a Kill Team. That's a box of models you can use in Kill Team, that accidentally happens to add up to 100/125 Points...And chances are that by running that Team box, you'll get rolled by Harlequins.

[Don Qui Ho Tep]

Guide to Kill Team
The Basics

Spoiler: Movement

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Initiative: Start of every Round, roll Initiative. This doesn't mean much, it just means who gets to Move first, and who gets to activate first in each phase - kind of. It does matter who wins Initiative each Round. But also it doesn't, most of the time.

Movement Phase
Unlike other phases, the player that wins Initiative moves all of their Team, before the other player does. There are a number of things that you can do for your Move; Normal Move (Move), Advance, Fall Back, Ready or Charge.

Ready: By not moving, a model that Readies fires first in the Shooting phase, even if the controlling player doesn't have Initiative. You can't Ready whilst within 1" of an enemy model (for Pistols). You can React whilst Readied. But Retreating means you lose Readied - because you wont be able to shoot that Round anyway.

Charging: Unlike other games, in Kill Team, you can Move or Charge in a Round, not both. This means that generally speaking, if you want to hit hard and fast, you need models that get two Movements in a Round (Veteran Specialists being the most common example). However, it should be noted that in addition to Overwatch, the defending player gets to Retreat, which can be a pretty powerful move, depending on the Round. Also, in Kill Team, if you fail your Charge, you can still move up to the distance of the roll, which means that you don't just stand around like a stunned mullet...That being said, you can still roll a '2'.

Retreat: If your model has not moved this Round, when your model is Charged, instead of firing Overwatch, your model can move up to 3" away from the Charging model. However be wary, because a model that Retreats (or Falls Back) can't do anything for the rest of the Round. It can be incredibly powerful for a horde player to 'bait out' Retreats giving them control over the Round. Because the theo option that the defending player has is to get Charged by a bunch of models. That being said, models with weapons that auto-hit can Overwatch all day long...Unless they can't see the Charging model(s).

Fall Back: If a model has not been Charged this turn, a model that Falls Back can't do anything for the rest of the Round - including React (Overwatch or Retreat). Unless they have <Fly>, in which case they can shoot. <Fly> is a very strong rule. That being said...

...That's not the rule in the book. But it is a game-changing Answer. If you get Charged, and that model doesn't take your model Out of Action (OoA) in one Round, you can just Fall Back next turn and they can't do anything except Fall Back.
However, there is some debate on whether 'remain stationary' means that they can Ready, it doesn't say they can't, so they can?

Remember that if a player moves all of their models up the board, for Turn 1 board control, that means either:
a) You can Ready your entire Team and **** them up. Or
b) They are now easier to Charge.

Spoiler: Psychic

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Psychic Phase
You can only choose one Psyker to manifest, during a Round. Having a Team with multiple Psykers is kind of pointless (looking at you, Grey Knights). All Psykers know Psybolt. Since there are very, very, very, very few 'ground-level' Psychic troops in 40K, Kill Team's selection of Psykers is extremely small and as such this part of the game is woefully underdeveloped. A model can do anything - including Charge and be within 1" of an enemy model - and still manifest.

Psybolt: WC5. The closest visible model, takes D3 Mortal Wounds. However, Psybolt when it comes to making Injury rolls, Psybolt is treating as a shooting attack and thus is subject negative modifiers for Obscuration when rolling Injury rolls. Worse, even rolling '3' Mortal Wounds, only counts as 1 Damage, means one Injury roll. That being said, Psybolt is a weapon that doesn't roll to hit, doesn't roll to wound, and doesn't allow saves. It is a very strong way of 'chunking' down big models like Tyranid Warriors (if they're the closest model, and they wont be) and Custodes.

Very, very, very few Teams have the ability to Deny the Witch...Unless Commanders are involved. Which they wont be, 'cause they're not recommended for Matched Play, and they're banned in Organised Play.

Spoiler: Shooting

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Shooting Phase
Each player shoots one model at a time, in Initiative order. Readied models automatically shoot first.

A model with multiple attacks (e.g; Rapid Fire 1 weapon, with 2 shots, or, a model with multiple weapons), can divide their attacks if enemy models are within 2" of each other.

Your Team can only fire one 'Grenade' weapon per round.
Obviously GW learned their lesson from Shadow War: Armageddon where every Astartes Scout has a S6, AP-1, D3 Damage weapon broke the game.

Your model can fire a Pistol whilst within 1" of an enemy model, against that model. Unless your model Charged, or was Charged. Successively charging a model with a special Pistol (e.g; Plasma Pistol) each turn prevents their ability to use it. That is...Special Pistols are real bad.

Modifiers: Shooting in Kill Team is hard. But also so is getting into Melee.

Long Range: If the target is over half range from your model, -1 to hit. You want to get close enough to your opponent that you don't have negs to hit. But you don't want to get too close that you get Charged.

Obscured: The most ****ed rule in the game. If you can see a model's head or limbs, go ahead. However, if a model has its leg behind a wall, but, you can see ~80% of the rest of the model...**** you. -1 to hit. If you can't see any part of the 'base' model, -1 to hit, no matter how much of the rest you can see.
Obviously, not basing line of sight on 'percentages' very quickly speeds up the game by simplification. But the extremely poor implementation of the rule means it's...Real bad.

Generally speaking, it's fairly common that your shooting models will have -1 or even -2 to hit, as standard. Models that ignore Long Range and/or Obscured are generally more powerful than not.

Spoiler: Fight

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Fight Phase
Each player Fights with one model at a time, Charging models automatically go first.

Pile In: As with other games, you only need to get within 1" of an enemy model to successfully complete a Charge. You do not need your model to touch bases, and in fact you shouldn't. If your model is not touching bases, they get a free 3" move, as long as they end up closer to the target. That is, a lot of times you want to move your model 'behind' your target, so that if you don't kill them in one Round, and they Fall Back, they have to Fall Back towards your other models.

Obscured: In the Fight phase, too!? Yes, really. If there is intervening terrain, -1 to hit. This is why Piling In over terrain is really important.

Spoiler: Injuries

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Wounds vs. Damage vs. Injury
If you deal multiple wounds to an enemy model, and they fail multiple saves...You make a number of Injury rolls equal to the Damage, and all other wounds are not resolved. For example, a Storm Bolter with 4 shots, deals four unsaved Wounds. Holy ****. That model is definitely dead, right? ...Wrong. Because a Storm Bolter deals one Damage, you make one Injury roll, even though you dealt 4 wounds. For this reason, if you have a lot of attacks, it's better to divide your fire against multiple models within 2" of each other...Sort of.

Multi-Damage Weapons: Multi-Damage weapons roll a number of dice equal to their Damage, and pick the highest (Not that you may pick the highest. This is important for fighting Necrons). So if you think that a weapon with multiple Damage is more effective than a weapon with multiple Shots...Correct. Kind of. Remembering that a lot of times you'll have maybe -1 or -2 to hit, which means that every shot counts. So is it better to have a lot of shots, or is better to have multiple Damage so that if a shot does connect, it actually connects? ...Yes.

Injury: Unlike other games, dealing an unsaved wound wont actually kill a model - half the time. Every time you take an enemy model to 0 Wounds, roll a D6; On a 4+, the model goes OoA, you did it. Otherwise, the model only takes a Flesh Wound.

Obscured: Can you stop!? A model that's Obscured gets -1 to their Injury roll.

Flesh Wounds: Flesh Wounds deal...Damage...To the Injured model. But the problem is that that model is still on the board, and can still do things. Most notably, a model with Flesh Wounds can still hold Objectives and win games. But, what does a Flesh Wound actually do? Flesh Wounds are cumulative:
- -1 to hit,
- +1 to subsequent Injury rolls,
- Forces a Nerve test - and Shaken is real bad,
- Contributes to Breaking the enemy Team.
Flesh Wounds aren't nothing. But if that model has a weapon that auto-hits, or their profile is WS or BS 3+ and they have loads of attacks, -1 to hit isn't really going to mean anything, and those models are still strong, still contributing to the game, and still hurting you.

A model's 4th Flesh Wound, takes it OoA.

Spoiler: Morale

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Morale Phase
If half (round up) or more of your Team have [Flesh Wounds, are Shaken, or OoA], take a Break test. Roll 2d6 vs. the highest Leadership in your Team (not vs. your Leader's Leadership, oddly enough). If you fail, your Team is Broken. Eat ****.
- Some Missions, means you auto-lose when your Team Breaks. Kill Team can be a very fast game.
- If you aren't playing one of those Missions, then, if your Team is Broken, every model on your Team now has -1 to hit. GG.
Most of the time, if your Team is Broken, you've already lost the game, even if there are more Rounds to go. Always have a model with high Leadership on your Team, and also make sure it doesn't die. Your Break test doesn't care about Shaken or Flesh Wounds. So if your highest Ld model is on the board, it counts.

Remember that it's totally possible to win games with only 1 model on the board. If you're not Broken, you can win - that's how Custodes and Space Marines do it.

A Kill Team is automatically Broken if every model is OoA. Remember, not every Mission is an auto-win if you Break your opponent. If you destroy all your opponent's models on Round 4, that doesn't necessarily mean that you've won the game. Destroying your opponent's models doesn't mean **** if the Objective isn't completed. That being said, take your opponent's models out early enough, and you might get a few 'free' turns to take all the Objectives on the board.

After taking the Break test, remove Shaken from your models, if any.

Nerve Tests: After taking the Break test, every model with a Flesh Wound must take a Nerve test, and, if your Team is Broken, every model in your Team, has to take a Nerve test. Roll one D6, and apply modifiers. If the result is higher (not equal) to your model's individual Leadership, you fail the test, and your model is Shaken. A Nerve test is always passed on an unmodified 1.

Each model gains +1 to Nerve tests, for each other model on your Team that is Shaken or OoA.
Didn't I just remove all my Shaken tokens, before I took my Nerve tests? How is that possible? Well, if you have to take multiple Nerve tests, some models will become Shaken, before you roll Nerve tests for your next models. This is called 'Rolling Panic' and it will **** up your entire Team. The more Nerve tests you fail, the more Nerve tests you will fail.

Each model gains -1 to Nerve tests, for each other friendly model within 2" that isn't Shaken.
Yes, that means that even if they're about to take a Nerve test, they're not Shaken yet. Courage in numbers.
But doesn't being within 2" of models, allow my opponent to divide attacks and take out multiple models? Yes. Kill Team is a competitive game like that. Your choices matter.

Shaken: Your model can't do anything at all until the next Morale phase, when its Shaken condition is removed. But, if it has a Flesh Wound, or your Team is Broken, you'll just have to take another Nerve test again. lol. A lot of abilities also don't work if your model is Shaken. A lot of times, a Shaken model may as well not be on the board. But, a Shaken model isn't a Kill Point for your opponent, so...That's good.

Is it better to take models OoA, or to deal Flesh Wounds to as many models as possible, to force Break and Nerve tests?
...Yes.

Spoiler: Tactics

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You get 1 CP per turn. You get another CP if your Leader is on the board, and isn't Shaken. You also get a CP for every 10 Points you started the Mission with, less than your opponent. Most of the time, you're getting 2 CPs per turn.

Decisive Move: Start of Move. Move before any other models - even if you don't have Initiative. If, in response, your opponent uses this Tactic too, roll off. The player who wins, moves first.

Decisive Shot (2): Start of Shooting. Shoot before any other models - even if you don't have Initiative, even if you're not even Readied and your opponent, is. In response, if your opponent uses this Tactic, roll off. The winner shoots first, then the loser, then Readied models, then Initiative order.

Decisive Strike (2): Start of Fight. Fight before any other models - even if you don't have Initiative, even if you didn't Charge. In response, if your opponent uses this Tactic, roll off. The winner Fights first, then the loser, then Charging models, then Initiative order.

Insane Bravery: Start of Morale. Auto-pass a single Nerve test.

Tactial Re-roll: This Tactic is notable in what you can't re-roll; Break tests, and Damage rolls (e.g; D3 or D6 Damage weapons).

Gritted Teeth: Start of phase. One model in your Team ignores the penalty to hit from Flesh Wounds, regardless of how many they have.
Remember, models with Flesh Wounds are not OoA.

Outflank: [Reserves]. End of Movement. Place your model within 1" of any board edge, and more than 5" away from enemy models.

Spoiler: Specialists

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Commanders are banned in Organised Play, and not recommended in Matched Play. This Guide - and all future Guides - will ignore them.
Remember that in Matched/Organised Play, Specialists are limited to Rank 1, only.

Leader: If this model is on the board, and not Shaken, gain 1 CP at the start of every Round.

Lead By Example: When your Leader is chosen to Fight in the Fight phase, choose another friendly model within 3" (not 2", be smart) to also Fight. You can Fight with these two models one after the other before your opponent can Fight with one of their models. You choose the order. This Tactic isn't for rushing down the board and Fighting with your Leader and another model. Because why would you ever put your Leader in danger when its giving you a CP every turn? No. This Tactic is for when your opponent is in your DZ and about to dunk on your Leader. If you've been saving your CPs, you can pop Decisive Strike, pick your Leader, the pop Lead by Example, and counter-attack the **** out of your opponent's Charging models.

Combat: +1 Attacks characteristic.

Up and at 'Em: After another model in your Team fights - regardless of where on the board they are - you can immediately pick your Combat specialist to Fight.

Comms: In the Shooting phase, if this model is not Shaken, pick another model within 6". That model gets +1 to hit. Useful for bypassing Long Range or Obscured modifiers.

Rousing Transmission:

Morale phase. All models in your Kill Team have -1 to Nerve tests.

Demolitions: +1 to wound vs. targets that are Obscured. Pretty strong. Especially on weapons that auto-hit. Unfortunately, if they're Obscured, your opponent still has -1 to Injury, and that's what counts.

Custom Ammo: +1 to wound in the Shooting phase.

Heavy: Ignore the penalty to hit when Moving and Shooting with Heavy weapons. Or, ignore the penalty to hit when Advancing and Shooting with Assault weapons. Very good.

More Bullets: If your weapon shoots more than 1 shot, shoot another shot.
This Tactic is really dumb. A Rapid Fire weapon shooting at long range, has 1 shot. A Rapid Fire weapon shooting at Short range, has 3 shots.
For weapons with random shots (e.g; Flamers), use this Tactic before rolling shots. Then roll a '1', and eat **** and lose your CPs. However, if you roll a '6', you now have 7 shots...What? Who designed this Tactic!?

Medic: This model is never counts as Shaken, when taking Nerve tests for other models in your Team.

Stimm-Shot: Start of Move. If not Shaken, pick a friendly model within 2" (). That model gains +1 to Advance and Charge, and +1 Attack until the end of the Round. You can use this whilst within 1" of an enemy model. You can use this on yourself.

Mostly though, Medics get real good at higher Ranks, and especially in Campaigns. In Matched Play, you shouldn't really need one.

Scout: Re-roll Advance rolls.

Quick March: +2" to Move.
QA&C Fail: Quick March also lets the Scout re-roll Advance rolls. But doesn't a Scout already re-roll Advance rolls? It does!

Sniper: Re-roll hit rolls of 1 in the Shooting phase. This is not unmodified 1s. Not even in Errata. This means that if you have -1 or -2 to hit, you get re-rolls. Snipers are really, really good.

Careful Aim: +1 to hit in the Shooting phase. However, you can **** up the above by not being able to roll 1s.

Veteran: This model ignores negative modifiers to Leadership, and ignores positive modifiers to Nerve tests.

Adaptive Tactics: Start of First Round, but before the Initiative phase. Your Veteran can make a normal Move or Advance. You can move Charge normally in the Round proper. Potentially one of the best Tactics in the game, depending on Team and opponent. However, it also means that every game, you'll be down a CP in the first Battle Round. Who cares? First Round Charge is for winners.

Zealot: +1 to Attacks and Strength characteristics when Charging.

Killing Frenzy: Until the end of the Fight phase, each hit roll of 6+ (i.e; Modifiable hit roll), generates an additional attack.

Spoiler: Roster vs. Team

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GW did an exceptionally poor job of conveying this point during marketing, and as such, early Kill Team players thought the game was broken and unplayable because 'One box and done'. Instead of what the game actually is, which is Competitive as ****.

Your Roster can include up to 20 models. That is, your Roster will include 20 models...Unless you're Custodes.
- You can have as many Specialists of the same type on your Roster as you want, you can have as many Specialists as you want.
- You can have as many 'limited models' on your Roster as you want.
- Your Roster can total as many points as you want (Some metas constrain total Roster cost, though. For sanity's sake)
- You can have whatever models from your Faction that you want.

Your Team is selected after:
a) You've seen your opponent's Roster, and
b) You know what the Mission is.

Your Team is what has to be 100/125 Points, can only have one Leader, and can only have limited models and Specialists.
Your Team is also selected after you've seen your opponent's Roster (but not their Team) and the Mission.

In case you need it spelled out; You can tailor to your opponent. Or, rather, you can tailor to what you think your opponent will take, based on what they've seen of your Roster.
Competitive. As. ****.

Your Roster, should have roughly two or three, sometimes four Teams on it, depending on how well one particular model might work against any opponent.

"Harlequins OP, I don't know what to do."
Well, make sure your Roster has a ****-ton of Flamers in it, and Overwatch the **** out of them. Harlequins literally only have one game plan. They suck.
"No, but Scouts only have Boltguns and Heavy Bolters."
What else is on your Roster?
"My Team is 6 Scouts, 2 Gunners and a Sergeant."
I didn't ask about your Team. Your Roster should have 20 models, some of those should be probably be Flamers or Combi-Flamers...Maybe even a Veteran with a Heavy Flamer.
"My what?"

Kill Team is not 'One box and done, take the same Team every time.'
If you're watching a YouTube video that says 'This Kill Team is under $X, what a good way to start the game.' ...That's not a Kill Team. That's a box of models you can use in Kill Team, that accidentally happens to add up to 100/125 Points...And chances are that by running that Team box, you'll get rolled by Harlequins.

Thanks for writing this up, Cheesegear (also thanks to all for the ebay advice a few pages earlier - I've got a move coming up and I'll try to use that as an opportunity to unload some stuff!). Reading through this made Kill Team sound very attractive. It seems much simpler than Infinity, which I really enjoyed. What Infinity did great was make everything feel very cinematic. It seems that Kill Team is meant to make everything tactical. I don't mind losing Infinity, because the story is always fun. I get the sense I would mind losing at Kill Team!

What would be the suggested entry level? A friend has the .pdf of the main rulebook, so that need is met, and after 10+ years I have more than enough models to create a roster of various combinations. Between my friend and I we also have plenty of terrain as well. Given that you don't recommend Commanders, do we have anything else we would need to invest in before we started a league of sorts? It seems that Elites makes the game a lot more interesting. What about Arena?

[Cheesegear]

What would be the suggested entry level?

If you have the Core Rulebook, you're good to go.
I strongly suggest getting the Annual, before Elites. The Annual gives your Faction all of the Tactics you can find in Elites, and it also gives you all the Tactics from the Out of Print Starter boxes. The Annual also gives you access to all the White Dwarf Factions:
Kroot, Sororitas, Daemons, Vanguard Marines and all the Blackstone Fortress models.

If money is tight, or lockdown restrictions mean you can't access everything:
Core Book > Annual > Elites. In that order.

The main reason to pick up Elites is for Sub-Faction Traits.

Given that you don't recommend Commanders

I don't recommend Commanders because GW doesn't. I have to make it clear. Commanders was a colossal mistake, and even GW knows it. They should strictly be used for Open Play and Narrative games. A Troops (and Elites)-centric game was not designed to have powerful HQ-level models running around the board. GW said so.

I have a Commander, you have a Commander.
Our meat-shields fight each other until our Commanders duel.
Whoever's Commander emerges the victor, basically wins the same, just like Breaking the enemy Team.

Kind of like when bad Chess players go for each others' Queens. But, like, Commanders actually encourages and incentivises that play-style.

Commanders makes sense from a business perspective. Someone buys a Start Collecting! box and has that HQ model. What do they do with it? Someone buys two or three boxes of Troops/Elites, and now GW wants to push them into buying an HQ so they can get started playing the 'Big Boys' game with larger armies (and larger armies means more money for GW).
From a game-design perspective...Commanders is real bad, and GW even said so.

Elites has Custodes in it. A very difficult Roster to make work. But, when it does...Holy [poop].
Elites also has all the Commanders in it. Just one of the reasons I suggest getting it last.

It seems that Elites makes the game a lot more interesting.

Elites makes the game more competitive. It slightly raises the Team cap (to 125 Points), and of course gives every Faction more options. More options = More choices. More choices means that the dominant Rosters (e.g; Asuryani) can't just roll over people because the less-dominant Rosters can tailor harder.

That's why it's hard to get a gauge on the Kill Team meta. "How did Necrons win the the Warhammer World tournament?" ...They tailored hard as **** against their opponents. If you know what the dominant Factions are, plan your Roster accordingly, and you can win, even if you don't come up against those Factions in the early game. This is why a good Kill Team player can win with (almost) any Faction. Whilst a bad player can't win with (almost) any Faction. Because what defines victory is a lot less army choice (like in 40K), but much more in player choices.

Do I go for Objectives, and try to win even if my opponent wipes me out?
Do I pop Flesh Wounds on all their models and try to Break my opponent?
Do I try and OoA my opponent's strongest models and hopefully I have enough stuff to last through the end game?
Do I Obscure/Hide my Team for two Rounds, and come out swinging on Round 3?

What about Arena?

Arena isn't necessary. Arena is the very competitive way to play Kill Team. However it also has a main downside. Because it means that your models are funneled into corridors, which removes choices, and makes the game more predictable. Predictability makes the game more or less competitive, depending on who you ask. Arena is like...Pure Math Hammer. You know where you can move your models. You know where your opponent can move their models. Arena very much falls down who picks the best Team before the Mission even starts. Personally, I hate it. I understand its value, especially to GW themselves. They can get hard data on how firefights in corridors play out, and that's very important for game-design. But...It's not the game I want to play.

However, the key point to take away from Area, is that vertical terrain significantly favours Shooty armies, and Rosters with access to <Fly>.

Arena teaches us that you want terrain that:
a) Obscures models, but doesn't necessarily block LoS. LoS-blockers still matter. But they shouldn't be the focus of what makes a good board.
b) Models can't stand on top of.
But, if you know that, you don't need Arena. Just make Open Boards - as opposed to Closed Boards.

[Wraith]

But the average on a D6 is 3.5, or 4 with a re-roll.
So whilst 'complete' dealing 5 and 6 Damage is kind of redundant in Math Hammer.

It's an outlier that will hardly ever come up, but I finished it anyway because I knew I was going on to complete the Necron Reanimation list too, just to prove a point that d6 was virtually beneficial to them compared to d3.

If it were me, I would've made Reanimation happen on an unmodified 4. Single damage weapons still have the same chance of rolling a 4, as they do a 6, so no change there. But multi-damage weapons are more likely to roll 5s and 6s and ignore the '4s' that come out, ignoring Reanimation.

RA should happen on an injury roll of Natural 1. When rolling injuries you have to take the highest roll, so that would mean that high-damage weapons like Meltas are preferable for killing them, as in the lore. If it happens on a 1, it also means that Necrons are better against small weapons fire as they no more likely to roll a 6 and go out of the game, but they will take less Flesh Wounds and thus be "tougher". They won't have a better chance of repairing if you hit them with a bigger gun, which is just silly.

One thing I do want to go back and mathhammer is close combat weapons.
I worked it out a long time ago when I last played Mordheim (Nottingham City Champion 2004, with a record of 13-0-1 and a competitive winning streak of 11 games in a row, by the way ) but have forgotten the details - there's a clear preference for which is a better choice in a skirmish game, several low-strength attacks or one high-strength attack instead.
I'm pretty sure the latter is better, but if anyone has already worked it out and remembers it, please let me know

[Cheesegear]

I'm pretty sure the latter is better, but if anyone has already worked it out and remembers it, please let me know

What are you facing - i.e; Tailor Hard - and how many Points is it?

One of the main problems in the game are Tyranid Warriors and Death Guard Terminators.
You've gotta hit 'em with multi-Damage weapons to get their Wounds down to 0 in the first place, and you've gotta follow up with multiple Injury rolls, or they just stick around. Especially with Death Guard, 'cause they've also got the ability to Ignore Wounds.
Tyranid Warriors were a massive problem in 'Core Only' because they have three Wounds, and Thunder Hammers weren't invented yet. Krak Grenades and Power Fists were the business. Roll a D3...Get a 3. Yeaaaah...Take 3 Wounds, and I roll 3d6b1 for Injury.

This is why Supercharging Plasma weapons are top-tier weapons.
2-Wound models like Death Guard Terminators and Terminators with Storm Shields take it to the face, and take multiple-Damage Injuries.

A 1-Damage weapon dealing 1 wound to a Multi-Wound model, doesn't do ****.

This is where tailoring comes in, and why Rosters, rather than Teams, matters.

Guard don't have 2-wound models. So if you've got a Storm Bolter, you can potentially put Flesh Wounds on 3-4 models and have the Guardsmen bottle immediately.
Custodes have T5, 3 Wounds and Invulnerable save. Go on, hit 'em with a Storm Bolter. It only makes them mad.

[Wraith]

What are you facing - i.e; Tailor Hard - and how many Points is it?

This is where tailoring comes in, and why Rosters, rather than Teams, matters.

Tailoring a team is as much about bodies, scenario and tactics as it is equipment. You can take tooled-up Custodians if you like, it won't help you if your opponent has 19 grots who tarpit you for 5 turns while his Boss sits at the back of the board unable to be Assassinated. What I'm getting at is the fine details - all things being equal and assuming that you're not playing like a moron, how do you give yourself an edge and pick what weapon for which job?

Take GSC for example. Right next to each other in their stats list are Autoguns (Rapidfire 1, s=3) and the Bolt Pistol (Pistol 1, s4). Assuming base strength of 3 against a toughness 4 enemy, which one is statistically the best choice, because making 2 shots doesn't give you the same outcome as rolling 3+ to wound instead of 4+?

The answer is approximately 25% versus 25% of causing a wound, incidentally. Both cost 0 points, Ap- and Damage 1, but one has a range of 24" against 12" for the other - you now know that they ONLY difference between them is whether or not you want the model to be at long range or short range. You can make an optimum choice, based upon your tactics.

When it's two s3 shots against one s5 shot it becomes 25% versus 33.3% - now we know that given the choice between two weapons, you either want +2 shots or +2 strength as only +1 of either doesn't make enough difference. Are you paying over 33% for the mode l with the s5 weapon than the s3 weapon? If so, all other things being equal, that might not be optimally efficient.

As I said above, this was hugely important in Mordheim because very few models had T4 or better, but everyone in your warband could take either two hand weapons or one Great weapon - gambler's fallacy told you it was better to take 2 weapons because you'd land more hits, but in reality hitting doesn't do anything if you don't wound them. You're better off whiffing with a Great Axe rather than To Wound with a pair of handaxes, because eventually the +2 strength would pay greater dividends.

It's all pretty academic because in such small games, statistics and average rolls don't really apply - you're not rolling enough dice to establish a realistic curve and outliers have a bigger impact on individual incidents (ie, one lucky roll wins you the game), but over a lifetime of playing the game and throwing hundreds of dice, it starts to add up and become a bit more consistent overall.

[Cheesegear]

Kill Team Guide to Adeptus Astartes

Spoiler: Special Rules

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And They Shall No Know Fear: Astartes can re-roll Nerve tests. They still take Break tests, normally though.

Transhuman Physiology: Astartes ignore the To Hit penalty from the first Flesh Wound that they take. They still have to take Nerve tests though, and each Flesh Wound still makes them easier to Injure. But, with their high Leadership, and ATSKNF, they shouldn't really be failing Nerve tests anyway. Still. Space Marines are very hard to kill. That means that if you going to hit 'em, hit 'em with multi-Damage weapons to hit those OoAs.

Grenades: Not a special rule per se. But it is important to remember that almost every model in your Faction list has Frag and Krak Grenades for 'free'. Remember that shooting a Grenade in Overwatch, counts as shooting your Grenade for the Round.

Bolter Drill: It is important to remember that Bolter Drill is NOT a Thing, in Kill Team. If you want Rapid Fire, you have to get close to your opponent. That being said, with Kill Team's small board and close deployment zones, that shouldn't be a problem.

Chapter Tactics
Dark Angels: If your model remains stationary, it re-rolls unmodified hit rolls of '1' in the Shooting phase. Standard Dark Angel Tactics is that on Round 1, you Ready your entire Team by not moving. And then you attempt to Break the enemy Team. Sometimes it works. Sometimes, all's you're doing is giving your opponent free board control. In addition, Dark Angels can re-roll Break Tests. Basically, if you're Dark Angels, take as many Plasma weapons as you can.
Having the ability to re-roll Break Tests and therefore not insta-lose, makes Dark Angels one of the strongest Chapters you can pick, even if you ignore their ability to get free re-roll 1s in the Shooting phase.

White Scars: +2" to Advance rolls. In addition, White Scars can Charge if an enemy model Falls Back from them in the Movement phase, and the model has not moved yet.
Pretty good.

Space Wolves: If one of your models Charges, or is Charged, they gain +1 to hit in the ensuing Fight phase. Very specific, and only works properly against a few Teams. Remember that that +1 to hit is canceled out by shin-high walls. In addition, Space Wolf Terminators get access to better wargear.

Imperial Fists: Imperial Fists ignore the penalty to Injury rolls if their target is Obscured. Pretty strong. Now, if only you could figure out how to cancel out long range and the to hit penalty.

Blood Angels: If one of your models Charges, or is Charged, they gain +1 to wound in the ensuing Fight phase. Not very strong in Kill Team, because there isn't any Toughness values in the game over 5. That said, wounding T3s on a 2+ is pretty good. But also kind of redundant 'cause dealing multiple wounds to single models doesn't really mean anything, if you're only dealing one Damage. If you're dealing multiple Damage in Melee, that means you've got a Power Fist or Thunder Hammer, and in that case, the +1 to hit from Space Wolves, is better.

Iron Hands: Ignore Wounds (6+). Space Marines are already pretty survivable, and this Chapter Tactic makes Space Marines even tougher.

Ultramarines: +1 Leadership. In addition, Ultramarines can shoot after they Fall Back or Retreat, but, they only hit on a 6. Fairly terrible. Not great. But inability to fail Nerve or Break tests is pretty good, too.

Salamanders: Your Team gains one re-roll to hit, and one re-roll to wound, per phase. Very strong ability 'cause two Tactical Re-rolls per phase can't be ignored. Remember that because Overwatch happens in the Movement phase, you get it there, too. Probably the strongest Space Marine Chapter since there will never not be a time when you aren't burning through those re-rolls...You're basically looking at 4+ free re-rolls per Round.

Raven Guard: If your models are more than 12" away from your opponent's firing model, they're Obscured. This can be good if you're using models like Intercessors, whose 'short range' is 15", and thus don't take the -1 to hit, but are also 12"+ away from the opponent, so that they do take the penalty to hit.

Black Templars: Re-roll Charges. Once again, going all-in on Melee, as a Space Marine Roster, is pretty hard mode. You can do it if you want...But also why? There's also the big problem that if you don't kill your opponents' model in one Round, they just fall back. Unfortunately, there just aren't that many models in the Faction that can annihilate models like that.

Spoiler: Tactics

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Death to the Traitors!: When you fight a <Heretic Astartes> model, your model gains an extra attacks on a modified 6+ to hit.

Adaptive Strategy: When your Kill Team is Broken, generate D3 CPs. Y'know...For all those games you play where Breaking the enemy Team isn't an auto-win. This also requires that you save a CP on the off-chance that you get the **** kicked out of you. This can be a very important Stratagem to have around.

Hellfire Shells (2): When a model with a [Heavy Bolter] makes an attack; Roll one to hit, and do D3 Mortal Wounds. Very strong Tactic, especially on a Sniper. 2CPs is a pretty big ask, though, especially if you miss. That said, you should always have multiple Heavy Bolters on your Roster, so this Tactic will come in handy several times. Just remember that if a weapon does Mortal Wounds, it only counts as having 1 Damage.

Psychological Warfare: If a <Reiver> takes an enemy model OoA in the Fight phase, and isn't Shaken. Enemy models within 6" of the Reiver have -1 to Nerve tests...If they take Nerve tests at all. This is great when it works. But also...Why would it work? Reivers are S4, AP- in Melee and real bad. And because they only deal 1 Damage, how are they even taking models OoA?

Jump Pack Assault: [Reserves]. Choose up to three <Jump Pack> models from your Team and place them 5" away from enemy models. Not really that useful unless you're dropping in Blood Angel Vanguard with Hand Flamers...No seriously. That's it's only use, for only 1 CP it's pretty strong.

Auspex Scan (2): A Readied model ignores all negative to hit modifiers in the Shooting phase. Very strong. That's why it's 2 CPs and forces you to be Readied.

Angel of Death: After a model successfully Charges, give it +1 Attack for the Fight phase. Y'know both Combat and Zealot Specialists exist, right? Spend your CPs on anything else.

Death Denied (3!) Very, very, very strong Tactic that held Astartes in the top tier until its hard nerf to 3 CPs. The anti-OoA Tactic that is so brutally strong because there is no roll to see if it works, which combines great with Astartes, who also ignore their first Flesh Wound. If you manage to save your CPs and have 3, start using this whenever you can. It's almost not worth using any Tactics at all, ever, in order to keep them for this one, and only this one.
Also remember that Plasma weapons take you OoA, and you can use this to ignore it.
(No seriously, that's how strong it is, and why it had to be made 3 CPs.)

Honour the Chapter (2): At the end of the Fight phase, one of your models can Fight again.

Smoke Grenades: Choose an <Infiltrator> or <Suppressor Sergeant>. That model can't shoot this phase. Instead, all models - friendly and foe - within 3" count as Obscured. Can potentially be useful if the Suppressor Sergeant is your Leader and you don't want him to die.

Grav-Chute Descent: [Reserves]. Choose up to three <Reiver> or <Grav-Chute> models in any combination and set them up 5" away from enemy models. Can be strong, depending on the Mission.

Armour of Contempt: Ignore Mortal Wounds (5+) for the phase.

Masterful Marksmanship: An <Intercessor> with [Stalker Bolt Rifle] gains +1 to hit and wound for the Shooting phase. Very strong. For 1 CP this Tactic is almost a joke. Your Roster should include a Stalker Intercessor.

Shock and Awe (2): When a <Reiver> Charges, they can throw a Shock Grenade at the same time. What? For 2 CPs? ...Are you kidding?

Battle-Brothers: When you fail a saving throw, you can choose a model within 3" to take the Damage instead. "Hey Scout, stand in front of these bullets for me real quick." Battle Brothers is a very strong Tactic, especially if you have negs to the Injury roll, because Space Marines don't really care about the first Flesh Wound. Just remember that spreading your Flesh Wounds to multiple models is a bad idea, 'cause that's how you Break, and force Nerve tests.

Teleport Strike: [Reserves]. Choose up to three <Terminator> models and set them up 5" away. Holy ****. Yo ****head, I heard you like Heavy Flamers and Storm Bolters. Of course, there is the issue that 3 Terminators will cost you close to 90 Points. Maybe just take one?

Tactics not covered:
(Terrain) Alchomite Detonation
(Commander) Champion of Humanity
(Commander) Tactical Precision
(Commander) Rites of Battle
(Commander) Litanies of Hate
(Commander) Spiritual Leader

Spoiler: Specialists

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Leader: Obviously, you want to keep your Leader out of danger as much as possible. Unfortunately, Space Marines - and especially Sergeants - are too expensive to spend most of the game doing nothing. That's why they need strong ranged weapons, and survivability:

Scout Sergeant w/ Sniper Rifle and Camo Cloak; Suppressor Sergeant (can stay at the back and still shoot massive gun, plus Smoke Grenades); Eliminator Sergeant (with Camo Cloak); Terminator Sergeant +/- Storm Shield.

Combat: Terminators or Vanguard Veterans fit the bill.

Comms: Any model works. Not really necessary since Auspecies are readily available to Astartes Teams. And obviously the negs to Nerve tests is almost meaningless to Astartes Teams. So yeah. You don't really need one.

Demolitions: Combined with Comms makes for a pretty strong combo. Anything carrying a Special or Heavy weapon that deal multi-damage is a fine choice.

Heavy; Moving and Shooting isn't really what Space Marines want to do. But if you have to:
Scout Gunner with Heavy Bolter; Tactical Gunner with Heavy Bolter; Terminator Gunner with Assault Cannon; Veteran with Grav-Cannon

Medic: Medics are unnecessary in Matched Play.

Scout; The re-roll Advance roll isn't very special. But the only Assault weapons in your arsenal for models that can be this Specialist, is a Scout with a Shotgun.

Sniper; Obviously re-rolling 1s means you're taking a Plasma weapon, right? Of course it does. Tactical Gunner with Plasma Gun.

Veteran; Holy [poop]. With so many strong Melee individuals, you've got so many choices. But, perhaps the best choices are:
Vanguard Veteran with Lightning Claws (Pair) or Vanguard Sergeant with Power Fist. An Intercessor Sergeant with a Thunder Hammer is also a good choice, because Primaris Marines have extra attacks.
If you're <Space Wolves>, a Power Fist is extremely strong.

Spoiler: Core Units

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Scout: Scouts...Are not worth a lot. Actually ending up being worse than Scions, who are in the exact same role. Unsurprisingly, an Astartes Scout's best weapon, is their Greandes, which is actually quite sad. Even with Sniper Rifles ignoring Long Range modifiers, they just...Aren't good. With the Designer's Commentary ruling, that a Sniper Rifle deals Mortal Wounds and then can stop.

Q: When my model shoots a weapon that deals a mortal wound on a wound roll of 6+ (for example, the sniper rifle), and I roll a 6+, when is the mortal wound allocated?
A: It is allocated immediately after the wound roll. If the target only has one wound remaining, you will make an Injury roll for the target then and there (the attack ends at that point). If the target has more than one wound remaining, they will lose one wound from the mortal wound and then you will continue to resolve the attack.

That is; Roll to wound, get a 6+ (yes, you can modify it, go, go Demolitions). The Mortal Wound triggers, if the model is down to 0 Wounds, roll Injury, and the attack ends. However you can deal extra Wounds to multi-wound models.

• Scout Gunner (2): Scout Gunners pay an extra point for access to Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers, and access to the Heavy Specialism. That being said, Scouts are the cheapest way to get Heavy Bolters into your Team, if you think Hellfire Shells is worth having, or you can take Missile Launchers for D6 Damage goodness against some of those problematic models that Boltguns just don't really do anything to.
• Scout Sergeant (1): Your cheapest Leader. You may want to give him a Sniper Rifle. Not because Rifles are good. But because that's the only way to get a Camo Cloak so that your cheap Leader doesn't die.

If Scouts could take Camo Cloaks without being forced into Sniper Rifles, they'd be incredibly useful. Unfortunately, that's not a thing.

Tactical Marine: Halfway between a Scout and a Primaris Marine...And as good as neither...And Scouts aren't even that good.

• Tactical Marine Gunner (2): Tactical Gunners can pick up Heavy Bolters and Missile Launchers...Which is kind of dumb because Scouts do it for cheaper. Unless you're going for a Team that spams Heavy weapons. Whilst Gunners are 2 per Team, they have an extra stipulation that only one of them can have a Heavy weapon (as written, Scouts have the exact same Heavy weapons, for cheaper), and only one of them can have a Special weapon. Obviously, a Gunner with a Plasma Gun, and Sniper is an auto-include on every Roster. That being said, if your Sniper is being used elsewhere, a Grav-Gun is a strong inclusion on your Roster. There's also an opportunity for a Gunner with a Flamer who may or may not have Demolitions.
• Tactical Marine Sergeant (1): In a 'core only' meta, your Roster is probably stacked with Tactical Sergeants, and you choose the best one based on your opponent. A Tactical Sergeant can choose any Combi-Weapon you want - they're all relevant - but in taking a Combi-Weapon, you lose your Pistol (pfft). Otherwise, Tactical Sergeants can pick up Boltgun & Power Fist, or Boltgun and Auspex. And no Space Marine Roster is complete without an Auspex.

Auspex: During the Shooting phase, if the model with the Auspex isn't Shaken, choose another model within 3" (not 2", always good), that model ignores the to Hit and Injury penalties for their target(s) being Obscured. Always good. Always useful. There are other ways to get an Auspex in your Team, but the Tactical Sergeant is the first, so that's where we'll mention it. As per the FAQ, if you're ignoring Obscured, you also get the ignore the benefits of other abilities and wargear that rely on Obscured to work (e.g; Camo Cloaks).

Reiver: Reivers are...Not good. Fact is, whilst they might ostensibly look like a Melee unit, fact is that they're still S4, AP-, and that extra Attack from being a Primaris just isn't enough to justify the extra Points over Scouts. Grapnel Launchers aren't very good, because they don't work unless you make a Normal Move, so they don't even work when you Advance. Fairly terrible. In a terrible design failure, Reivers don't need Grav-Chutes, in order to use Grav-Chute Insertion...And GCI is really, the only reason to use Reivers, and that'll cost you CPs.

• Reiver Sergeant (1): A pretty good Combat Specialist, for loads of Attacks, since despite having 4 Attacks base, they're all S4, AP-. So try having more, so that they actually bust through your opponent's armour. One issue with Reiver Sergeants is that a Tactical Sergeant with Power Fist is the exact some cost. Maybe you can double-team with a Combat and Veteran Specialist?
• Reiver Annual '19 Update: Add the <Phobos> Keyword. This would matter if you were using Commanders. But you aren't.

Intercessor: 2 Wounds, 3+ Save. With 30" range guns. Quite survivable models if you don't plan on grabbing Objectives. Any Intercessor - including Gunners and Sergeants - may be given an Auspex, and here is where you should probably get one. The other reason to pick up another Intercessor in your Roster is for a Stalker Bolt Rifle, in order to use Masterful Marksmanship. Which, for some reason isn't a Tactic you can use on Sternguard.

• Intercessor Gunner (2): As with other limited models, you're paying an extra Point for mere access to extra wargear and Specialisms. That said, unlike Scouts and Tacticals, an Intercessor's special skill is Demolitions. You're hard-pressed to find a better use for Demolitions than a Scout with a Sniper Rifle. Whatever. An Int.Gunner's new wargear, is access to an Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, which changes the range of your Grenade weapons from 6", to 30". Yes really. Additionally, the AGL doesn't change the weapon type. Which means that the weapon is still a Grenade-type weapon (Which means of course, you can only fire one per Round, but for some reason your Team can take two Int.Gunners?). But, being a Grenade-type weapon, means that an AGL is unaffected by long-range modifiers. Super solid. Krak Grenades with 30" range with no negs to hit from range is very strong. Always worth having on the Roster.
• Intercessor Sergeant: Take the Chainsword. If this is your Leader, you may want to consider a Stalker Bolt Rifle to stay out of harm's way and still being able to deal damage.
• Intercessor Annual '19 Update: Sergeants can replace their Bolt Rifle with a Hand Flamer or Chainsword - absolutely not! If the Sergeant is not equipped with a Chainsword; they can be equipped with a Power Fist, Power Sword, Thunder Hammer or...Chainsword. An Intercessor Sergeant Veteran with a Thunder Hammer gets it done. If you don't want to shell out 8 Points for the Thunder Hammer, take the Power Fist...Remembering that Tactical Re-roll can't be used to re-roll Damage.

Spoiler: Elites

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Infiltrators: For some reason, GW didn't give Scouts Concealed Positions - and still haven't! That being said, Infiltrators are just really expensive Scouts. Still only having S4, AP- weapons. Yeah, sure, the Marksman Bolt Carbine does auto-wounds - not extra wounds - on an unmodified 6 to wound (Demolitions doesn't work). But, it doesn't do extra Damage, which is what most abilities in this vein do. No, the main reason to take an Infiltrator is for serious board control. As written, they've got Concealed Positions allowing them to set up 9" outside your opponent's Deployment Zone, but, additionally, your opponents' Reserves can never be set up closer than 7" to the Infiltrator. Very strong ability that prevents your opponent from dropping 3 models on an Objective in Round 1...Or from dropping models 5" away from your Leader.

• Helix Adept (1): Pay an extra point for access to Medic Specialism. lol no.
• Infiltrator Sergeant (1): An extra Attack...Don't Infiltrators only have ranged weapons? Why even have him as your Leader? He's no different to regular Infiltrators, and you only ever need one on your Roster, don't pay the extra point.
• Infiltrator Annual '19 Update: One Infiltrator in your Team can have a Comms Array; Friendly models within 6" have +1 Ld. In addition, the model gains access to the Comms Specialism...P.S. This costs 5 Points. There are way cheaper ways to pick up a Comms Specialist (23 Points!?), and Space Marines should not be having Leadership difficulties.

Suppressor: Coming in at a whopping 29 Points, this guy brings an Autocannon that will ruin enemy models; 2 shots, S7, AP-2, 2D. But, that's not all. If this model 'deals damage' to an enemy, and doesn't OoA them, that model, and all enemy models within 2" can't make Shooting attacks that phase. Ready your Suppressor. Always. With the 48" range, why even bother moving? If it's not Shooting first, it's getting killed. In a weird rule, though. If you blow a model away, that model is no longer on the board, and as such, no models are within 2" of it.
"So, Bob just got fragged by a .50 cal. and turned into a fine mist. You worried?" Nope.
*Bob gets his arm torn off and starts screaming* Now his friends get down.

• Suppresor Sergeant (1): Pay the extra Point for Leader, as well as access to the Smoke Grenades Tactic. With a 48" range weapon, this guy never needs to move, and with Smoke Grenades available, he can always Obscure himself, even whilst on a Flight stand, however, dropping Smoke loses his very powerful Shooting attack. If he ever looks like he's almost in trouble, he does have a 12" Move to get him away from your opponent. Remember, your opponents can Move or Charge. So if you're 10+" away, you're always safe.

Eliminator: Eliminators are...Not strong. Single-shot weapons that don't connect, just aren't good. Sure, they're better than Intercessors with Stalker Bolt Rifles. But like...So are a lot of things. The main reason for using Eliminators is that they have D3 Damage weapons that deal Mortal Wounds. Unfortunately, GW spotted the mistake they made with the Scouts, and didn't give Eliminators access to Demolitions (and, in fact, they're the only unit in your Faction that doesn't have access to it). So whilst it's still a modifiable wound roll...How would you do that? While they don't technically pay for their Camo Cloaks, it's still rolled into their points cost. 18 Points each is a lot. Remember, it's not Mortal Wound and D3 Damage, if the Mortal Wound takes it to 0 Wounds. Still, if the Mortal Wound doesn't kill the model (e.g; Tyranid Warrior) and the shot, does. That's D3 for Damage/Injury. Nice.

• Eliminator Sergeant (1): Pay the point for Leader. Like a Sergeant with a Camo Cloak. With his 36" range weapon, and 'free' Camo Cloak, your opponent should almost always be at -3 to hit with ranged attacks...Unless they ignore Obscured and Long-range and then your Leader is dead.
• Eliminator Annual '19 Update: Eliminators can take Las-Fusils...Ranged Thunder Hammers! Desperately chasing that Sniper Specialist so that -2 to hit results in more re-rolls, and unlike a Plasma Gunner, the re-roll into an unmodified 1 wont OoA you. Still, 23 Points is a big ask. Still. Camo Cloaks makes -3 to hit. So it's not like your expensive model will die quickly.

Terminators and Veterans are also Leadership 8/9, rather than 7/8. Stop failing Break tests.

Terminator: At 2 Wounds each, these guys make a decent comparison to Primaris Marines...OH WAIT. They're 25 Points each, base. However, that's 'cause they have a 2+ Save and 5+ Invulnerable, making them extremely tanky. Annoyingly, they come stock with a Power Fist and Storm Bolter, which makes them cost 31 Points...Each. Best thing you can do is switch them to Lightning Claws and running them up the board. Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield is just too expensive for any model that isn't going to be your Leader. Slow movement makes them kind of a bad choice for Veteran.

• Terminator Gunner (2): Pay the Extra point for Heavy. Which you will, 'cause that's where Assault Cannons and Cyclone Missile Launchers are. Two Assault Cannons on your Team will shut down a lot of things...Even if only one of them can move. Assault Cannons are one of the best weapons in the Faction, by virtue of having 6 shots each.
• Terminator Sergeant (1): A Terminator Sergeant has two wounds, access to a 3+ Invulnerable save, and access to a Thunder Hammer also means that he wants to be in combat to kick the **** out of things and actually wants to use the Leader Tactic which lets him double-team an opponent. Very strong.

<Space Wolf Terminators> Space Wolf Terminators can switch their weapons for anything they want. Immediately having their Gunners swapping the Power Fist that they'll never use, for cheap Power Swords. Immediately you might be drawn to Storm Bolters and Storm Shields. But also because Space Wolves have +1 to hit when they Charge, their Power Fists and Thunder Hammers are exceptionally strong, and their Lightning Claws will tear face. Unlike other Terminators, Space Wolf Terminators can replace their Storm Bolters with Combi-Weapons (not -Gravs), however Terminators pay extra for Combi-Weapons. Effectively meaning that Space Wolf Terminators can be tailored to any opponent. If you play Space Wolves, and half your Kill Team Roster is just Terminators...That makes sense.

<Dark Angel Terminator> Dark Angel Terminator Gunners can take Plasma Cannons. They're not as good as Cyclones or Assault Cannons, and you have the chance to OoA yourself. Good one idiot.

Veterans
This is the most confusing Datasheet I've ever seen, across every game system. Whoever wrote this should get significant demerits.

<Space Wolves> and <Dark Angels> cannot take Sternguard Veterans or Vanguard Veterans.
<Space Wolves> have the model limit on Company Veterans changed from '4' to '-'.
<Space Wolves> Company Veterans may take Jump Packs.

Veterans have access to every Specialism except Medic and Scout. Neither of which they need.

Space Wolves: Can't take Grav-weapons (QA&C Fail: A Space Wolves Tactical Gunner could take a Grav-Gun, and a Tac.Sergeant could take a Grav-Pistol.).
Blood Angels: Can take Hand Flamers and Inferno Pistols
Dark Angels: Can take Power Mauls (Really, that's where we draw the line? Power Mauls?)

Sternguard Veteran: Coming stock with Special Issue Boltguns (which are quite good), they can trade them for any Combi-Weapon they want, or Storm Bolters. Unfortunately, GW saw your plan, and made Sternguard pay extra for Combi-Weapons. And spamming your entire Team with Combi-Plasmas sounds good, until you realise that you're 20 Points each and really good at killing yourself because there's not enough re-rolls to go 'round. Go with Combi-Gravs to be much safer, and be almost the same effectiveness. Don't forget that you can stack your Roster with Combi-Flamers.

• Sternguard Gunner (2): Gunners pick up access to Heavy, and all the Heavy weapons. True to form, the old adage from the real game (Plasma Guns are better than Grav-Guns, but Grav-Cannons are better than Plasma Cannons), holds massively true, here. Grav-Cannons are the best model in your Faction, if you can manage to keep them alive. Close second is Heavy Flamers. If your intent is to just give your Gunners Combi-Weapons, save your Point, and just take normal dudes.
• Sternguard Sergeant (1): A Sternguard Sergeant is the weirdest written model in the entire Faction, and someone needs their head checked. They can take three weapons, including an SI.Boltgun or Combi-Weapon/Storm Bolter. Obviously, it would be funny if you loaded them out with some ****. But obviously you want to keep them cheap, in order to prevent them from doing too many things badly. A pair of Chainswords or Lightning Claws, and a SI.Boltgun/Storm Bolter/Combi-Weapon and that's enough.

Spoiler: Okay, Follow me

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May replace SI.Boltgun and Bolt Pistol, for two Melee Weapons and/or Pistols. If they do, they may take a SI.Boltgun or Combi-Weapon. Why is it written this way? Why isn't it...May replace SI.Boltgun and Bolt Pistol with Combi-Weapon and up to one other Pistol or Melee Weapon. Instead, the way it's written, gives them three weapons. Has the Errata fixed this? ...NO.
Annoyingly, the next line is that the Sternguard Sergeant can replace their Bolt Pistol only, with one Melee Weapon or Pistol. But the line above completely cancels that out?

Vanguard Veteran: Vanguard Veterans can take Jump Packs at no cost. So do that. There's no reason not to, and 12" Move plus <Fly> makes them perfect Veterans, if only they could take decent Melee weapons...Oh wait they can! As usual, Power Fists are really good, Lightning Claws are also really good by being cheaper, but have a tough time punching through T5 models and multi-wound models, and dual Chainswords are just cheap. However, Vanguard being Vanguard, they can take Storm Shields, if you only want to take a single Claw or Power Fist. <Blood Angels> Vanguard can take Hand Flamers, and this is literally the only time that Special Pistols are worth anything...Because they're not worth anything. Hand Flamers are free.

• Vanguard Sergeant: The extra/third attack, means that a Vanguard Sergeant is just as good as an Intercessor Sergeant. But has the 12" Move plus <Fly> to actually be effective, not to mention the ability to take a Storm Shield. However it also has to be noted, that since T6 isn't a Thing in Kill Team, you never need more than S6 - not really - and as such, Relic Blades are really strong, even if they don't do 3 Damage every time. Because they hit more often which means more wounds get through, which means you can chunk down a 3 Wound model easily anyway, and you can take Relic Blade and Storm Shield for the price of the Thunder Hammer alone. Super strong model. Just remember that it is not a Terminator, and can be killed.

Company Veterans (4): Like Sternguard and Vanguard. But...Not. They can take anything they want, except for Special Issue Boltguns, and obviously they can't take Jump Packs (Space Wolves can), and they don't get Gunners. Additionally, they can take Special Weapons like a Tactical Marine, which is really good if you want to take 4 Veterans and a Tac.Gunner with 5 Special weapons. But also...Why aren't you playing Deathwatch? Overall, the way to use Company Veterans is to give them Special Weapons and Storm Shields. But that gets really expensive if you want run the full 4 in a Team. Company Veterans can not take Heavy weapons. They're not Sternguard.

• Veteran Sergeant (1): Has the same ****ed wording as a Sternguard Sergeant. All the same things apply, except add the ability to take a Thunder Hammer and/or Storm Shield. Can't take a Relic Blade. You still want to keep 'em cheap.
• Dark Angels: One Company Veteran per Team can take a Heavy weapon. Any CV take take a Combat Shield (5+ Invulnerable).

Dark Angels really get the shaft when it comes to Veterans. They don't get Sternguard or Vanguard, and their stipulations for Company Veterans are terrible. That said...Everything else they run is pretty good. Re-roll 1s to hit while Readied and re-rolling Break tests is really, really good. Not having proper Veterans is fine.

Spoiler: Annual (Incursors)

Show

Most of the Annual is spent updating the ETB Vanguard to the real-box Vanguard units (already described). With one addition because Infiltrators got a different box:

Incursors: Same Concealed Positions as Infiltrators and Eliminators. But come with Melee weapons. How interested are you in making 9+" Charges because the rules for Kill Team are Move or Charge, not both. Still, they're cheaper than Infiltrators because they don't pay the 2 Points for extra board control. Yeah, you could use your Veteran. But you're really no better than a Reiver with all those S4, AP- attacks. Remember the rules for Falling Back. Whatever you Charge, you want to kill it in one Round. Anything that doesn't do that, isn't up to scratch when it comes to the Fight phase KT. Yeah, you can use Honour the Chapter to do even more S4, AP- attacks. But any other model can do that too, after they've killed the model they Charged, Consolidated into the next model, and is now killing that model, too.
That said, one Incursor in your Team can have a Haywire Mine, which is pretty fun to drop on an Objective. Something wants to Charge the Objective? ...Do it. On a 4+ they take a Mortal Wound. It's still 5 Points to fail half the time.

[Squark]

Nitpick: SW Terminator Gunners should probably take a Lightning claw, not a power sword. That re-roll to wound is a lot more important than the third point of AP, qnd they're the same price for some reason.

[Don Qui Ho Tep]

I recently swapped some furniture in my office around and the new shelf is lower, low enough that my two year old is now noticing models that previously had been up too high for her to see. After looking them over and noticing the Baneblade she promptly let me know "it's a garbage truck".

Well, she's not wrong....

That's pretty cute! Has she expressed any interest in painting with you? Granted she's very young, but I remember when I was four or five my father was building little model planes with us and it definitely played a role in getting us into the hobby.

It's all pretty academic because in such small games, statistics and average rolls don't really apply - you're not rolling enough dice to establish a realistic curve and outliers have a bigger impact on individual incidents (ie, one lucky roll wins you the game), but over a lifetime of playing the game and throwing hundreds of dice, it starts to add up and become a bit more consistent overall.

That's a really fresh perspective on mathhammer. I haven't seen people discuss that on other forums, and I think it's important because it leaves room for player skill in terms of positioning and maneuverability, especially when the scenario is not about racking up kills. That was also necessary for me to start playing AoS (well, I've yet to play an actual game because of all this that's going on), which is a lot easier to math hammer out, and so the choices you make during the game are less about optimizing equipment, because often the best choice is obvious, and more about achieving the objectives of the given scenario.

If you have the Core Rulebook, you're good to go.
I strongly suggest getting the Annual, before Elites. The Annual gives your Faction all of the Tactics you can find in Elites, and it also gives you all the Tactics from the Out of Print Starter boxes. The Annual also gives you access to all the White Dwarf Factions:
Kroot, Sororitas, Daemons, Vanguard Marines and all the Blackstone Fortress models.

If money is tight, or lockdown restrictions mean you can't access everything:
Core Book > Annual > Elites. In that order.

The main reason to pick up Elites is for Sub-Faction Traits.

Thanks for the feedback - yeah, a combination of currency concerns as well as general lockdown hobby difficulties. Tau!Friend and I are going to try the Tabletop Simulator sometime in the next week or so. It seems like there's a lot of game that we can get out of it without having to spend any money at all, and if we like it then we can get epubs of the Annuals and Elites.

Has anyone been using Tabletop to field a bunch of ridiculous lists, or try out things that they were thinking about buying? If so, are people doing it more than when they would just proxy things in real life?

[Forum Explorer]

Thanks for the feedback - yeah, a combination of currency concerns as well as general lockdown hobby difficulties. Tau!Friend and I are going to try the Tabletop Simulator sometime in the next week or so. It seems like there's a lot of game that we can get out of it without having to spend any money at all, and if we like it then we can get epubs of the Annuals and Elites.

Has anyone been using Tabletop to field a bunch of ridiculous lists, or try out things that they were thinking about buying? If so, are people doing it more than when they would just proxy things in real life?

I have I guess. On both accounts. Though I wouldn't proxy anything in real life. Well, not anything I consider proxying anyways.

But I don't think Tabletop Simulator will work all that well for Kill Team. It doesn't handle vertical distance all that well or very precise movements.