40k Kill Team review & thoughts
Posted: Sat Aug 01, 2020 8:05 pm
Finished a campaign at my LGS, did surprisingly well! Here's my thoughts on things that slowed the game down, too fiddly, imbalances, fun and so on. Here's a reference for KT turn order and some rules: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1otdgq5khj3nu ... e.pdf?dl=0
This Demolitions FlashGit almost always got shot off the table, buying time for the Heavy to table them
True Line of Sight Is Very Slow & Very Bad
Ate up more time than anything else. Really annoying to think I'm out of LOS but my ork's chunky thigh is peeping out to get blasted. Sucks even more when Kill Team is suppose to be the dense cityfight type game. I thought arena used the grid to replace LOS and movement measuring but it doesn't (it is handy for symmetrical terrain placement)
Also makes everything feel like it's frozen in time instead of an active battlefield.
Solutions include...
-Have a gentleman's agreement of 'intention', say you intend to have this model be out of LOS from X and have LOS to Y.
-Total Overhaul. Mantic's Deadzone divides the board into 8x8 squares, with rules on movement, charging, shooting between squares. (https://www.manticgames.com/news/deadzo ... -overview/)
-Deadzone also gives a bonus for shooting a totally unobstructed model because the default assumption is everyone is in cover.
-Really, lots to say on how LOS should be handled on a tabletop game that's not on a grid.
There's already enough steps in rolls, additional rolls are Very Bad
I love Flash Gitz with their Snazzguns, after shooting I roll a d6 to see if their special ability "Gun Crazy Showoffs" proccs on a 6 and I shoot again.
Special abilities are better off as exploding dice or removing a step. adding a step that just eats up time and also makes the ability look much stronger than things that remove steps simply because it takes more tabletop time from everyone involved.
Tracking special abilities from level up on 5-12 guys in every enemy team is Time Consuming
Played campaign so there were lv3+ specialists and commanders with branching trees, plus new stratagems. New abilities that affect different steps in resolution, I would forget about one in a step and then walk back, taking up table time. Having everyone be lvl1 is simpler and I'd rather just play a bunch of games like that instead of leveling up and tracking opponent's level ups
Solutions for the above... If it is a campaign, then Bigger Numbers are the main level ups. Increase offensive numbers, increase defensive numbers. Really just getting an extra wound or bonus to causing injuries or resisting them is already universally applicable
Mission based gameplay, grabbing objectives instead of tabling the other dude is Good Fun, but...
So you can win even if you lost more dudes than the opponent, most games revolve around grabbing objectives so your ranged guys set up firelanes, your melee guys threaten, for you to go run up to the ubjective. There's "secondary objectives" lists to choose from too like "get into melee with two enemies" "get into their deployment zone" for more ways asymmetrical lists can compete with one another. There's over 10 of them though, criticizing them seems more a matter of taste as they are meant to be specific with different timing from each other.
Turn order, damage resolution... wonder if I really 'get' it
There's usually only 4 rounds which is surprisingly enough for a fun objectives grabbing and smashing dudes game. The turn order also means that no unit can shoot AND charge into melee at the same time, so pure melee or ranged-with-melee-warding is encouraged.
I had some games where I shot half a guy's team off the table or the same happened to me, but it was deployment mistakes or just luck. The luck factor though is big. Some better defensive stratagems would mean that you have high odds of saving a unit at expense of achieving mission goals or killing the opponent's dudes in turn.
General poor wording of how movement into combat, out of combat works. There's not immediately obvious things like... you can always walk out of a melee in a turn you weren't charged so if melee guy wants to melee he doesn't charge two guys in, he charges 1 and the 2nd guy waits to lockdown for a 2nd round. In some other skirmish games they have melee as super fatal (like you keep on fighting that turn until one side breaks or wiped out). Not exactly sure how it 'should' be in KT.
I've been thinking that 'reaction abilities' can be a solution, like you can snap fire back OR choose to go prone and get a big defense bonus (but lose actions or need to test morale to recover). Maybe 'failed saves result in blast markers that give a penalty, roll to see if they're fatal at end of phase', that's how Bighammer apocalypse works.
Tracking unique conditions that go away at different timings sucks
Some units can apply temporary debuffs and buffs that last some phases but not over rounds, almost everyone forgot about them or just didn't pick them as options.
Treated as mere gateway to Bighammer, unequal Specialisms, poorly edited
Killteam was meant to be the first reduced price crack rock to become a warmonger, but a bunch of accidental typos or lack even copy/paste skills means a lot of options don't carry over from one game to the other. It also leads to all-plasma guardsmen facing off against Dark Eldar who only get two armor piercing guns because bighammer options are applied unevenly.
Fiddly Stratagems, a bunch unique to specific models in a faction
A lot of Stratagems do similar things but are slightly different between factions, annoying to remember or they get fudged.
What Are Stratagems? Every Kill Team starts with X amount of command points to spend on stratagems, get 1 new CP every round. Having certain specialists and abilities can increase that. You can only use each stratagem once per game round.
If I Did It...
- Cut down stratagem use timing to something consistent, this also cuts the number of different. Maybe it's only "beginning of the battle round, beginning of your X phase"
- "Tactical Reroll: Reroll 1 of your rolls" sure is fun though, that can be an exception. People lose track of when they used it so I figure it should be a "an individual model can only use it once per phase but others can still use it". Really almost every stratagem in Kill Team is some form of "increase odds of killing for this roll" so that streamlines a lot
- Specialist stratagems, just having only a lvl1 one and maybe a lvl3 capstone would cut down on memorizing enemy team abilities. This problem goes away if you don't play a campaign with leveling up so that's got a solution.
This Demolitions FlashGit almost always got shot off the table, buying time for the Heavy to table them
True Line of Sight Is Very Slow & Very Bad
Ate up more time than anything else. Really annoying to think I'm out of LOS but my ork's chunky thigh is peeping out to get blasted. Sucks even more when Kill Team is suppose to be the dense cityfight type game. I thought arena used the grid to replace LOS and movement measuring but it doesn't (it is handy for symmetrical terrain placement)
Also makes everything feel like it's frozen in time instead of an active battlefield.
Solutions include...
-Have a gentleman's agreement of 'intention', say you intend to have this model be out of LOS from X and have LOS to Y.
-Total Overhaul. Mantic's Deadzone divides the board into 8x8 squares, with rules on movement, charging, shooting between squares. (https://www.manticgames.com/news/deadzo ... -overview/)
-Deadzone also gives a bonus for shooting a totally unobstructed model because the default assumption is everyone is in cover.
-Really, lots to say on how LOS should be handled on a tabletop game that's not on a grid.
There's already enough steps in rolls, additional rolls are Very Bad
I love Flash Gitz with their Snazzguns, after shooting I roll a d6 to see if their special ability "Gun Crazy Showoffs" proccs on a 6 and I shoot again.
Special abilities are better off as exploding dice or removing a step. adding a step that just eats up time and also makes the ability look much stronger than things that remove steps simply because it takes more tabletop time from everyone involved.
Tracking special abilities from level up on 5-12 guys in every enemy team is Time Consuming
Played campaign so there were lv3+ specialists and commanders with branching trees, plus new stratagems. New abilities that affect different steps in resolution, I would forget about one in a step and then walk back, taking up table time. Having everyone be lvl1 is simpler and I'd rather just play a bunch of games like that instead of leveling up and tracking opponent's level ups
Solutions for the above... If it is a campaign, then Bigger Numbers are the main level ups. Increase offensive numbers, increase defensive numbers. Really just getting an extra wound or bonus to causing injuries or resisting them is already universally applicable
Mission based gameplay, grabbing objectives instead of tabling the other dude is Good Fun, but...
So you can win even if you lost more dudes than the opponent, most games revolve around grabbing objectives so your ranged guys set up firelanes, your melee guys threaten, for you to go run up to the ubjective. There's "secondary objectives" lists to choose from too like "get into melee with two enemies" "get into their deployment zone" for more ways asymmetrical lists can compete with one another. There's over 10 of them though, criticizing them seems more a matter of taste as they are meant to be specific with different timing from each other.
Turn order, damage resolution... wonder if I really 'get' it
There's usually only 4 rounds which is surprisingly enough for a fun objectives grabbing and smashing dudes game. The turn order also means that no unit can shoot AND charge into melee at the same time, so pure melee or ranged-with-melee-warding is encouraged.
I had some games where I shot half a guy's team off the table or the same happened to me, but it was deployment mistakes or just luck. The luck factor though is big. Some better defensive stratagems would mean that you have high odds of saving a unit at expense of achieving mission goals or killing the opponent's dudes in turn.
General poor wording of how movement into combat, out of combat works. There's not immediately obvious things like... you can always walk out of a melee in a turn you weren't charged so if melee guy wants to melee he doesn't charge two guys in, he charges 1 and the 2nd guy waits to lockdown for a 2nd round. In some other skirmish games they have melee as super fatal (like you keep on fighting that turn until one side breaks or wiped out). Not exactly sure how it 'should' be in KT.
I've been thinking that 'reaction abilities' can be a solution, like you can snap fire back OR choose to go prone and get a big defense bonus (but lose actions or need to test morale to recover). Maybe 'failed saves result in blast markers that give a penalty, roll to see if they're fatal at end of phase', that's how Bighammer apocalypse works.
Tracking unique conditions that go away at different timings sucks
Some units can apply temporary debuffs and buffs that last some phases but not over rounds, almost everyone forgot about them or just didn't pick them as options.
Treated as mere gateway to Bighammer, unequal Specialisms, poorly edited
Killteam was meant to be the first reduced price crack rock to become a warmonger, but a bunch of accidental typos or lack even copy/paste skills means a lot of options don't carry over from one game to the other. It also leads to all-plasma guardsmen facing off against Dark Eldar who only get two armor piercing guns because bighammer options are applied unevenly.
Fiddly Stratagems, a bunch unique to specific models in a faction
A lot of Stratagems do similar things but are slightly different between factions, annoying to remember or they get fudged.
What Are Stratagems? Every Kill Team starts with X amount of command points to spend on stratagems, get 1 new CP every round. Having certain specialists and abilities can increase that. You can only use each stratagem once per game round.
If I Did It...
- Cut down stratagem use timing to something consistent, this also cuts the number of different. Maybe it's only "beginning of the battle round, beginning of your X phase"
- "Tactical Reroll: Reroll 1 of your rolls" sure is fun though, that can be an exception. People lose track of when they used it so I figure it should be a "an individual model can only use it once per phase but others can still use it". Really almost every stratagem in Kill Team is some form of "increase odds of killing for this roll" so that streamlines a lot
- Specialist stratagems, just having only a lvl1 one and maybe a lvl3 capstone would cut down on memorizing enemy team abilities. This problem goes away if you don't play a campaign with leveling up so that's got a solution.