Kill Team Starter Set Preview

The latest edition of Kill Team, the skirmish wargame from Games Workshop that sees elite operatives battle it out, was recently released with the Kill Team Octarius boxed set. The system now gets a dedicated Starter Set. In this article, we'll have a look at what's in the box, with a detailed look at the two kill teams, and discuss what's different from the Octarius box.

If you want to know more about Kill Team, you can check out our full guide here.

What's In The Kill Team Starter Set?

The Kill Team Starter Set contains:

• Kill Team Recruit Edition Book
• Kill Team Digest Core Rulebook
• Dice, tokens, and combat gauges
• Kill Team Octarius paper gaming mat, barricades, and Ork Scrap Piles
• Veteran Guardsman Kill Team
• Ork Kommando Kill Team

The Kill Team Starter Set contains everything two players need to play Kill Team straight out of the box, including the full rules, accessories, two kill teams, and a kill zone to fight in.

What's In The Kill Team Recruit Edition Book?

The Recruit Edition book is a step-by-step tutorial to get you playing Kill Team. It includes an introduction to the system, and the two forces in the Starter Set, along with four missions that gradually build up the forces and complexity of the rules before you progress onto the full core rules. It also includes all the datacards for all the possible build options in the set. The four tutorial missions use set miniatures, so take a look at our guide below to both factions before building to make sure that's the way you want to go with your unit construction.

Who Are The Veteran Guardsmen Guard - Death Korps of Krieg?

The Death Korps of Krieg are an elite fighting force in the Imperial Guard. Half of their number turned against the Emperor, and even though the loyalist defeated their rebellious brethren, they seek to atone by throwing themselves into combat in the Emperor's name. While they're a determined bunch, they're not heavily armed or particularly hardy, relying on numbers and overlapping support abilities to win the day.

• Sergeant Veteran - The leader of the Kill Team. Has a few armament options and can issue orders to nearby friendly units to increase movement, or reroll melee, ranged, or defense rolls of one.
• Trooper Veteran - The basic troopers armed with lasguns and bayonets. Useful for mission objectives, swarming, and shielding other units. With thirteen other choices in your ten-operative Kill Team, you're unlikely to take these unless you go with the extra four troopers in the Ancillary Support option.
• Sniper Veteran - An accurate specialist armed with a long-las that can deal mortal wounds with crits. They also have an ability that lets them shoot while maintaining concealment, so position them well early.
• Gunner Veteran - Gunner's come in four different flavors, and you can take one of each. The flamer for dealing with hordes, a grenade launcher with frag and krak options, and a meltagun and plasma gun for taking out high wounds targets with armor.
• Confidant Veteran - The confidant can take the place of your leader if they're taken out, which is great for keeping your orders to maintain some level of effectiveness with your force. If they're not acting as the leader, they can activate a nearby veteran after they activate which can be useful for getting another attack in before your opponent activates, or moving to scupper their offensive plans.
• Demolition Veteran - Has the ability to plant a mine during their turn, and detonate it when your opponent draws near. They can plant and detonate all within a conceal order but will either need an AP boost, which can come from the Comms Veteran in order to take all three actions in one turn, move, plant, detonate, or you will have to place it somewhere where your opponent has to go, or you want them to avoid.
• Zealot Veteran - The zealot is a standard trooper, with extra survivability thanks to their Emperor Protects ability, which lets them reroll their defense dice. They can also inspire nearby veterans, which lets them retain a roll of a five as a crit (normally a roll of six).
• Medic Veteran - The medic can stop a nearby veteran from being incapacitated each turn, and can also heal veterans using their medikit.
• Comms Veteran - The comms veteran, if close to your sergeant, can relay their order across the whole battlefield. They can also give a nearby veteran an extra action point, which works very well on the demolition veteran as mentioned above or getting an extra shot with a gunner or sniper.
• Bruiser Veteran - A melee-focused veteran that can ignore the first successful damage during combat, and also has a trench club with a slightly higher damage output than a bayonet and the stun special rule.
• Hardened Veteran - Another melee-focused veteran. They can ignore damage on a 5+ and are armed with a bionic arm that is less accurate than then bruiser's trench club but has a higher damage.
• Spotter Veteran - The spotter can pick out hidden models for a nearby veteran to target, or can call down their own mortar barrage onto enemies from concealment.

Who Are The Ork Kommandos?

Orks are generally known for their brutish aggression, aiming to get into combat quickly, whatever the cost. The Kommandos work at odds to the usual Ork tactics, surprising their enemies with stealth and kunnin, and falling back on raw aggression and strength to get the job done when that fails.

• Kommando Nob - The Nob is the leader of the Kommandos and motivates the rest of the team. Every time they activate, a nearby Kommado gets an extra action point, so it's a good idea to pair them up with other boyz you want shooting or attacking multiple times in their activation. They also have a choice of melee weapons, the accurate big choppa, or the slightly less accurate but harder to parry power klaw.
• Kommando Boy - The standard Kommando, good for filling out the kill team's ranks and handy in melee combat with their decent damage choppa.
• Kommando Slasher Boy - A melee specialist with throwing knives that can be fired from concealment. They can also reroll their melee attack dice and if they're injured in combat but not taken out, has a chance to deal mortal wounds to their attacker.
• Kommando Breacha Boy - The Breacha boy is a hard-hitting melee combatant. They can smash through small pieces of scenery, and pummel their opponents with their hard to parry ram.
• Kommando Snipa Boy - The Snipa boy has a few choices for raining fire on their target. They can take two shots, each with six attack dice, or they can use one of two special actions, either firing from concealment or making additional attacks against all targets within two inches of their original target.
• Kommando Dakka Boy - The Dakka boy can reroll their attack dice when they're within six inches of their target, and their Dakka Dash special rule helps them close the distance with a combined dash and shoot action for one action point.
• Kommando Comms Boy - Once per turn, the Comms boy can complete mission objectives for one less action point, and they can also give a nearby Kommado an action point at the cost of their own, which is handy if you pair them up with another Kommando that you want multiple actions with.
• Kommando Burna Boy - The Burna boy has a short-ranged Burna that can hit every target within two inches of the original target.
• Kommando Rokkit Boy - The Rokkit boy's launcher can reroll their attack dice if they don't move, and with AP1, and a critical hit rule that deals mortal wounds to enemies nearby to the original target, positioning them well and firing twice a turn is going to be your aim.
• Kommando Grot - The Grot is absolutely useless in a fight, but that's not their purpose. The grot is always concealed, and for one action point, can move to any location on the map that they can see, which makes scoring mission objectives with them extremely simple.
• Bomb Squig - The bomb squig is designed to close the distance with the enemy, and explode. If it's incapacitated before you get a chance to detonate it, it has a chance to still explode. Run it in and watch it pop.

What's The Difference Between The Kill Team Starter Set And Kill Team Octarius?

There isn't much difference between the two sets. Octarius contains a full-size rulebook, which has the same core rules as the digest rulebook, but contains some background and images of all the forces available for Kill Team. It also contains more scenery and a card mat rather than paper, along with the Octarius book, which has the full rules for both the Veteran Guardsmen and Ork Kommandos, along with their narrative rules for use in Kill Team, and the rules for Killzone: Octarius and also Shadow Operations: Octarius War Mission Pack. The Octarius book is available separately, and we discuss it in the next steps after the starter set below. 

The Starter Set has the Recruit Edition book, which Octarius doesn't, and that's really useful for new players using the step-by-step introduction to Kill Team. Not included in the Starter Set are Tac Ops cards -- selectable secondary objectives used in many mission types -- which are included in Kill Team Octarius (and printed in the Core rulebook, though not presented as cards).

Where Do I Go With Kill Team After The Starter Set?

The starter set gives you all the core components to play, but there are several options depending on which faction you want.

If you're looking to play either the Ork Kommandos or Veteran Guardsmen in Kill Team, then an essential purchase will be the Octarius book, which has the special rules and narrative rules for using both kill teams in full Kill Team Games. The Recruit Edition book only has the datacards for both forces. You can also purchase an additional set of Kommados or Veteran Guardsmen, which you will need if you want to build one of each specialist options.

If you want to play a different faction in Kill Team, then you will need to pick up the supplement with their rules, either in a Kill Team expansion like Chalnath or in the Kill Team Compendium, or a copy of White Dwarf which also contains new kill teams. You can find details of all the available factions at the bottom of our Kill Teram Guide. Using those rules, you can plan which miniatures to pick up from the larger Warhammer 40K range.

The copy of the Kill Team Starter Set used to produce this preview was provided by Games Workshop.