Look at them all: Rank after rank of immaculately painted plastic soldiers. Giant fleets of starships. Piece after piece of homemade terrain covering an intricate battlefield. If you’ve never collected or played miniatures wargames before I’m sure you’ve thought this. You’ve also probably thought that you can’t afford to collect the massive armies it takes to play them, or that the rules are far too complicated to remember or understand. You couldn’t be farther from the truth.
Despite the intimidating looking array of plastic kits, rulebooks, paints and tools, the world of wargaming couldn’t be better for joining as a new player or coming back after a long absence. A huge variety of games in dozens of styles are available to choose from, whatever your personal tastes might be.
In these articles I’m going to walk you through taking the first steps into the rich field of war games, running you through getting started, the basics of play, and where you might want to go to expand your collection once you’ve gotten started. We’ll also do our best to keep things on a reasonable budget. And, after you’ve had a chance to take a look and see what you think you’ll get to see a short video showcasing gameplay.
To start things off we’re going to take a look at a new twist on a legendary classic with Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team.
Warhammer 40,000, also known as 40K, is published by British company Games Workshop and is one of the most popular miniature war games in the entire world. Boasting millions of players, it’s grim take on a battle-torn far future has spawned best-selling fiction, over a dozen hit video games, and brewing feature films and television series. Currently on its 8th Edition Ruleset, 40K has seen a renaissance over the last two years with its most accessible gameplay yet. However, the cost to build a large army for high point value games and the sheer volume of lore surrounding the 40k universe can be discouraging to the nascent gamer. Enter Kill Team…
Kill Team simulates the skullduggery, sabotage, and infiltration that goes on in the background of the massive wars taking place over a Warhammer 40k table. Two war-bands of specialists clash in back alleys, crumbling warehouses, and blasted cityscapes instead of the sprawling battlefields. Kill Team is a skirmish level game, meaning the number of miniatures needed by either player is very small and at manageable levels: with Kill Team, this means you can play with less than twenty models. Skirmish level gaming also means you need less than half the space a typical game of 40K requires, and your kitchen table will do just fine. The only things you MUST have are the Warhammer 40K: Kill Team rulebook, a squad of models to use for your team, a tape measure, and a handful of six-sided dice.
The Kill Team rulebook has all you need to know about putting together a squad of motley wanna-be legends, veteran “Specialists” that gain their own special rules and open up alternative tactics, and a heroic (or villainous) leader for your band. Gameplay is quick and easy without being oversimplified, using the core rules mechanics from 8th Edition 40K slightly modified to reflect the more desperate fighting of close quarters combat. Cover is key to getting your Team into and out of a fight. Gameplay takes place on a manageably small 33″x22″ battlefield, literally perfect for kitchen table spaces. So, that’s the rules out of the way. Now, let’s talk models!
The flat-out BEST thing about Kill Team is that almost ANY basic trooper model from the Warhammer 40K range can be used to assemble your team. Kill Teams are meant to be full of character and flavor, and having a mish-mash of models from different units gives it the feel of being in control of the Dirty Dozen on a distant planet. At the same time, it broadens the range of specialists that your squad can choose from. To get started you can pick up a box of almost any Warhammer 40k infantry squad from nearly a dozen different factions of humans, aliens, and eldritch monsters. The Kill Team rulebook has a list of eligible units to choose from. To make it easier for you, most factions have a Kill Team box set that comes with tokens, special rules, a unit of troopers, and some neat buildable terrain to use on your battlefield.
Games of Kill Team go very quickly, usually taking no more than an hour. The Kill Team rulebook is full of entertaining and challenging scenarios. The game can be played as a one-off match-up with a friend, easily enough, but also has rules for an extended campaign, where the characters from each team gain experience and new abilities as you tell a narrative story about the course of a major war. Experienced gamers can even come up with their own scenarios.
Lastly, Games Workshop has lots of expansions and support for Kill Team, the perfect thing to ensure longevity in a game and keeping things from getting stale after you’ve played your local friend group. Custom dice decorated with symbols from your chosen faction are available, as is a deck of cards with all the most frequently used rules and stratagems (cunning tricks your war-band pulls to surge toward victory) are available, but not necessary: any 6-sided dice will work for use and all the stratagems can be referenced from the main rulebook. Kill Team: Killzone expansions add rules for new combat environments, new terrain pieces, and a double-sided game board for your games. Kill Team: Commanders adds powerful special characters to lead your teams into action and rules to create your own. And Games Workshop has further expansions planned for 2019 to keep growing the game.
The most important part of the game, other players, don’t come out of a box. You can play with your group of friends, of course, and your local game stores will have a space and terrain for you to use to play if you’re lucky. Here at ABU Games we have an entire basketball gym dedicated to Wargaming space, so if you’re in the area you should definitely stop in! Most game stores will also have a community of other players to get to know, from the old salts who have been playing forever to the folks even newer than yourself, and they’ll be glad to provide new opponents and will probably be able to help you with any rules you’re having trouble or questions you might have.
All told, Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team is fun, easy, and quick to play. The fact that it can draw on almost the entire range of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40K range leads to great variety in available armies, and the fact that it’s a skirmish level game meant for small collections based on infantry models keeps it very affordable. And, if you find that you like it and find yourself itching to build a bigger army and further explore the Grim Darkness of the Warhammer 40k line, it makes for an excellent entry point.
Keep an eye on our website and YouTube channel for a match between ABU’s Content Production Manager, Joe, and myself, as Joe’s gang of marauding Orks clash with my elite Deathwatch Space Marines! Now get out there and give Warhammer 40,0000: Kill Team a try!