Kill Team Blood and Zeal Review - All The Zealots

Kill Team 2024 continues with the release of its second expansion set, Blood and Zeal. Following the same format as previous expansions, we're treated to 2 brand new kill teams, both sharing religious zealotry but to very different gods. In this article, we'll take a look at both kill teams and what else Blood and Zeal adds to your games.

Kill Team is a skirmish wargame set in Games Workshop's larger Warhammer 40,000 setting. As a skirmish game, Kill Team features a small number of elite troops, fighting special operations battles, rather than huge battles fought with entire armies. We've covered Kill Team in depth since the first edition, and you can read our review of the current Starter Set here.

All The Fanatics All The Time

Kill Team Blood and Zeal, as with previous expansions, adds 2 brand new kill teams and some scenery that builds on that from the Hivestorm box, but rather than new missions, it has the Blood and Zeal mission pack to expand your games. The full box contents are:

• Kill Team Blood and Zeal Dossier
• 8x Goremongers
• 11x Sanctifiers
• Datacards for both kill teams
• Tokens for both kill teams
• Blood and Zeal Mission Pack Card Set
• A large Shrine Statue scenery piece

Different Flavours Of Zeal

Instead of the usual mission pack with linked scenarios, Kill Team Blood and Zeal adds a mission pack card deck to existing scenarios, putting the Shrine Statue in the centre of the board. The mission pack card deck has cards of 2 different types, and players can choose which deck to draw from. Cards are drawn at the start of each strategy phase, when your opponent scores a VP, or if you interact (praying or defiling) with the Shrine Statue.

Cards can then be played during the turn, with blood cards offering an offensive bonus like the Double Fight/Shoot card, which lets you immediately repeat a fight or shoot acction, and zeal cards offer a defensive bonus, like the Obscured card, which makes an operative targeted by a ranged attack more than 6 inches away obscured, reducing the hits by 1 and protecting them from critical hits.

At the end of the game, both players total up their used blood and zeal cards, and the player with the most of either, scores 1VP. The Blood and Zeal mission pack can put real pressure on during the game, as your opponent gains a card every time you score VP, giving them an edge as you never know what ability they've drawn, along with securing them a possible extra 2VP at the end if you've given them a lot of cards to use. It also draws combat to the Shrine Statue as both players try to control it to stop the other from drawing more cards.

Sanctifiers Are Us

The Sanctifiers are ad-hoc units of zealots of the Imperial Creed, brought together by their faith, they join crusades with other forces of the Imperium or begin their own. The Sanctifiers have the Sermon special rule, that if played as a Strategic Gambit, one of their fighters gains the Orator keyword, which allows nearby units to benefit from the Sermon. Anyone benefiting from the Sermon takes 1 less damage from damage of 3 or more.

Each band is led by a Confessor, who, if is the Orator, can use the Lead the Procession special rule, which gives all nearby friendly units a free charge, fallback, or reposition action if the Confessor takes one of those actions, which can result in a particular devastating charge if you have a load of powerful units bunched up together.

The Confessors are backed up by Perscutors who wield oversized chainweapons, and Conflagrators, who dual-wield hand flamers. They can also deploy Miraculists, who have a single-use but very powerful Holy Light attack and can lay down psychic fire on nearby foes. To back them all up, you can take 2 Missionaries, who carry the heavy weapons like standard flamers, plasma and melta guns, but also have access to the Brazier of Holy Fire, which can be used as a short ranged, or melee weapon, and benefits from the Blaze special rule that sets targets on fire, dealing D3 damage whenever they activate until they put it out.

You can feel the fanatical zeal when using them. They're very close combat orientated, with short ranged weapons and melee armaments all round. They also mostly like to hang around in packs to benefit from the Sermon, except the Missionaries who's thematic 'Spread the word of the God-Emperor' ability gives their weapons severe if they're 6 inches away from other friendly operatives, and the Micaculists, who's Holy Light doesn't care who it burns.

Goremongers Blood Drive

The Goremongers are a different breed of fanatic. Like all followers of the Blood God, Khorne, they want to spill blood in his name. But these mortal followers are a further step into madness, having fought beside or seen the demonic followers of their god, and an obsession born of that experience pushes them further. Their cult starts with replacing their legs with bionic replacements and then installing tanks on their backs that carry a mix of blood and stimms that drive them and their augmetics.

These tanks give the Goremongers access to the Sanguavitae special rule, which lets them deplete their gore tank for special abilities. They have access to healing, increased action points, double fight actions, D3 extra damage on a charge, increased movement, and extra attacks. Tanks can carry a maximum of 2 uses and need to be topped up by taking out enemy fighters. This means that the Goremongers will do well against kill teams with lots of low wound fighters, but not so well against elites or durable fighters, and even worse against elite, durable kill teams like the Plague Marines.

As might be expected from a kill team that refills the blood tanks on their backs with their slain enemies, they like to get in close, which means most operatives are limited to wilding an autopistol (the Inciter wields 2!), but this is just to give you options, if you're shooting you're doing it wrong. The kill team is led by the Blood Herald, who can refill their gore tank for free if it's empty, thanks to their Khorne's Favour ability. They can also ignore the entirety of an attack once per battle.

The rest of the kill team is made up of an expected mix of bloodthirsty, melee-focused fighters. The Bloodtaker can fill their gore tank just by damaging enemies and can also transfer that blood to nearby friendly fighters' gore tanks. The Impaler is armed with a Fleshskewer that can drag enemies and choose not to inflict damage so that you can finish them off in combat, and the Inciter, who wields 2 autopistols, can also use them in close combat to make sure they're still taking the blood tithe.

Kill Team Blood and Zeal Final Thoughts?

Kill Team Blood and Zeal is another great thematic box for Kill Team. The focus on getting up close and taking names works really well. The Blood and Zeal mission pack adds a new dynamic to the game, and while not balanced enough for competitive play, it gives a great narrative experience. The combination of Blood cards and the Goremongers Sanguavitae abilities can lead to some absolutely insane attacks. The Shrine Statue is an awesome scenery piece, and while it's nice to get functional scenery, having great-looking centerpieces is awesome too.

The copy of Kill Team Blood and Zeal used to produce this review was provided by Games Workshop.