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Today, the honour is mine. I am here to introduce your eyeballs to a rather exciting new product graciously provided to us by Games Workshop - Kill Team: Starter Set (3rd edition). Oh my! This product is intended for complete newbies to the hobby, game system and setting so presents itself as the ideal starting pad for anyone that wants to kill a team. Note, if you found this article because you want to Kill MS Teams then please head over to the Microsoft support forums.
Terminology check
As we are dealing with a product specifically for the uninitiated it’s worth pointing out a few simple hobby terms we will touch on in this review, and that may be helpful on your hobby journey:
Skirmish/squad game - A type of wargame that focuses on a small number of individual combatants as opposed to whole units and armies.
Operative - This is Kill Team speak for a member of your squad, AKA one of your dudes. A Kill Team is made up of a number of operatives.
Line of Sigh/LOS - What a model can see from where it is on the board. Get behind a model and look over its shoulder to see its line of sight.
Sprue - Miniatures that are cast in moulds often come in pieces with each piece connected to a surrounding frame of plastic. To assemble then you snip the pieces off and attach them together.
Last thing to note, I am not new to wargaming or Kill Team so I have enlisted my ever patient partner to deliver a newcomer’s perspective. We will be hearing from that cheeky little sausage a bit later. I’m also going to keep this review focused on this specific product. Keep an eye on Zatu blogs for more rambles on the big boy version of Kill Team.
What is a Kill Team and who is a Warhammer
Kill Team is a skirmish game set in Games Workshop’s grim dark future, Warhammer 40,000. For those unfamiliar with the Warhammer 40K setting, this is a universe where humanity has had a rather substantial disagreement with itself over politics at the galactic dinner table and chose to resolve their differences by rending the galaxy in two with eternal war. Also, the bugs from Starship Troopers are a thing, green football hooligans power tanks with their own ignorance, and space elves once got so freaky they accidentally created the god of being unpleasantly kinky. Classic Warhammer.
This set focuses on the factions of the Imperium of Man (the bad guys) and the Death Guard (the somehow worse guys) as they battle over desolate empty ruins, vague macguffins, and basically any other excuse they can find to do each other a murder. These guys are way past mediation with the former being a vast religious cult where soldier’s lives are cheaper than the uniforms they fight in, and the latter being rotting husks commanded by the demon god of poor hygiene. Both sides have brought some of their finest with the Imperium letting loose the Space Marines (SMs) - really tall lads made of gene science, peerless combat training, blind devotion, and 1 of 2 hair styles. The Death Guard (DGs) however have brought their Plague Marines. These whiffy chaps were once Space Marines until they stopped washing behind their ears. Now they slurp onto the battlefield as writhing masses of bloated flesh, oozing sores, and a stink like a Hákarl milkshake.
What’s in the box
So, what tools have we been provided to take up the fight for the dystopian overlords / the forces of space hell? Here’s a run through of contents for the box and some quick thoughts before I get into the weeds a little later on.
Gaming aids
First up are the 6 sided dice. These are the standard D6 that come in all GW starter sets these days. Small, basic, perfectly acceptable to get you started. Next, we have the cardboard tokens & measuring tools which come on a single punch sheet. Punching out the tokens takes all of 60 seconds and you are ready to go. The artwork is crisp, the design is thematic but clean, and the tokens are thick enough cardboard they should endure some heavy duty handling.
Literature
Most of the information you will need to get started is contained within a single 64 page book. Inside you’ll find a brief lore primer for the setting and each faction. Useful if you are coming in completely fresh but nothing new for anyone loosely familiar with the setting. More importantly the bulk of the book outlines a short series of introductory missions designed to hold your hand through key concepts for playing a simplified version of Kill Team, gradually adding layer by layer until you can graduate class with a distinction in space murder. We’ll talk about that more later. Lastly there are assembly instructions, some bits about painting the minis, and how you might want to take some further steps with your Kill Team Killing Spree at the end.
In addition, Each faction gets a 4 page leaflet detailing everything they need to know about their operatives: Total health, weapon stats, political alignment, least favourite animal, their perfect date, etc. these are handy reference tools for when the training wheels come off.
Terrain and play board
So this is the first time (that I am aware of) the GW have produced digitally printed MDF punch out terrain. You punch it out then slide two pieces together, with ease, to form a freestanding terrain piece. Now I was initially disappointed when I heard about these as the Warcry Starter Set, GW’s fantasy equivalent to this box, comes with plastic terrain. That said, there was a lot less of it, and about half the minis too. What I also didn’t fully appreciate at first was that this new terrain is flatpack. Unlike cardboard terrain it comes apart easily time and time again without noticeable wear, and can be slung in a rucksack, drawer, or other pleasingly small space for easy storage. Though I prefer more substantial terrain, I have to admit it takes a tremendous amount of space to store, time to build, and money to buy. The designs printed on the MDF terrain might be a little eh but I think GW have made a really strong choice here for it’s storage and portability factors. I hope this is a proof of concept and we see more of this in the entry level products to keep the price down, or even sold as an individual product just hopefully with some cooler designs - infected corridors, alien passages, Slaneeshi … er no don’t think about that actually. Sorry.
And a quick note on the play mat, I’ve had about 4 or 5 different getting started products from GW thus far. Each one has come with a glossy magazine like paper mat which serves as immediate bin fodder TBH. To my surprise, this box comes with a sturdy fold out board with a digital design printed on both sides. The design is simple and safe but still on theme and the quality is something akin to a heavy duty board game. It won’t change your life but this is definitely a nice upgrade compared to what has come before.
Miniatures
This set comes with 14 hard plastic operatives with 7 for each faction. Fun fact, the miniatures in this box were previously sold in blind boxes. These were booster packs of a single miniature in a unique pose to swap into your army for a bit of fun. These have been unavailable for some time so I can imagine there are a few hardcore collectors salivating at this point.
The miniatures come in precoloured plastic and in this instance it makes perfect sense. The book is constantly reminding you this product intends to get you into the action as soon as possible (great!) and wholly excuses you from painting your miniatures before they hit the tabletop for the first time. Having the SMs as blue and the DG as green means both factions are easily identifiable from one another from several feet away with 0 effort from you. This is a good touch…. but you are going to paint them at some point, right??
Putting them together however is a bit of a mixed bag. The instructions are super clear and everything is nicely labelled on the sprue. To be honest the instructions feel more like peace of mind because it would be hard to get this wrong., but these miniatures are “push fit” which means their pieces slot together without glue and just hold… in theory. I found the SMs worked really nicely for all but one connection which just wouldn’t fit. The DG had one or two issues per miniature. In the end, I cut off most of the internal connecting points and just used glue on everything. I would actually recommend gluing everything anyway as even some of the SM connections felt loose and a bit wobbly. I also noticed the Death Guard had a fair few gaps, particularly around the cylinders like pipes and gun barrels. A novice hobbyist can hide these with some easy filling and sanding work but if you are new to the hobby and relying solely on the contents of the box then this might be a bit frustrating on day one. Still, that’s sort of the hobby so best they learn now!
As for the assembled miniatures, there are some extremely cheeky sculpts in this box and the Death Guard absolutely shines here. Each operative is full of personality and dripping in delightfully cosmic bile, but the real star on their side of the table are the additional nurglings* - tiny malicious imps in service of Grandpa Stinky. These wee lads are having the best time just hanging off or clambering over the armour of the super serious Death Guard and I am so here for it. I can 100% see why a DG player would be scrambling for this box just to get these little stank gremlins because this is their faction in its A game. The Space Marines however are Space Marines. Huge fellas in the same armour as all the other SMs. I concede there is a great action sculpt of a dude throwing a grenade but beyond that they feel much of a muchness. There is a logic to this as it presents a blank slate for you to customise them how you see fit but assembled straight out of the box and next to the DG on your dining table they do feel a bit lackluster.
Lastly, each miniature for both factions has a choice of two heads - a helmeted head and a fleshy head. I opted for helmet every time because the frustration of painting miniature faces makes my nose bleed and I deserve better. This is especially true of the DG heads which are so horrifically (and appropriately) distorted and malformed they look like thumbnails from Youtube reaction videos. Just note I appreciate having the choice. You will also notice I have yet to paint these miniatures. That’s because I wanted to show the game as it comes freshly assembled and put on the table as fast as possible, and not because I might mine the painting process for further Zatu content down the line.
*By the way, you may have clocked that my DG miniatures have holes in their bases throughout my snapshots. Each DG sprue comes with a free standing nurgling that can be added to the base and fill this hole. I have not added them because I am saving up all my nurglings to turn a DG tank into a full on Nurgle party bus like a scene from Gremlins 3. I have nothing more to say on the matter.
What’s not in the box So as a little aside, I think you would be doing yourself a favour if you picked up a few extra hobby tools not included in this box. While not essential, and perhaps not appropriate to those dipping a very tentative toe in the water of wargaming - that sounds like a forbidden nectar sought by nerds and knights alike - then these will definitely make for a smoother experience. No shade on Games Workshop for not including these but I think you should be kind to yourself.
Hobby/craft knife - basically a slightly less dangerous scalpel. There are great for cutting off excess plastic and scraping of mould lines.
Hobby cutters/nippers - small pair of sharp cutters to help remove parts from a sprue cleanly as well as snipping off connectors that don;t want to do their job.
Plastic glue - this melts hobby plastic. Smoosh this into more plastic and it will start welding together pretty quickly. This is the go to for GW plastics.
Sanding sticks - probably a step too far but they are readily available, very cheap, and really useful for smoothing out mould lines and rough edges.
How to Kill a Team
Right, terrain is built, operatives are assembled, and my partner has been appeased with snacks. Here we go.
The rulebook contains detailed instructions on how to set up and play a series of mini games of Killteam. The first mission focuses on shooting and little else, the next brings in movement, while the third brings in melee combat, etc. Scenario one is almost scripted but the hand holding slowly eases off with each scenario and you gradually find yourself enabled to make your own tactical choices on the battlefield. In theory, this is excellent for new players BUT there are a small number of very unfortunate sticking points where poor rules delivery or unclear examples just ground us to a halt. Part of this problem is where each scenario hyper focuses on one element of the game it forsakes many others which might organically occur earlier than anticipated. I am not the all seeing eye of wargaming rules but I’ve referenced and interpreted my fair share of rulebooks and given I was head scratching at multiple points I am somewhat worried for the complete novices. In the end we got by just fine with a bit of fudging, hand waving, and just moved on. Other times we turned to the internet for better explanations of certain rules and found them with ease as it turns out we were far from the only ones asking. Looking at you melee combat.
Here’s what my partner had to say: “I really like the approach of breaking the individual mechanics down into their own mini game, and hand holding you through like a video game tutorial. Think press X now to headshot that guy over there. This approach is exactly how I would like to learn wargames. That said, we should not be struggling with the rules explanations in an introductory game. The rules are not complicated, but in some, not all, instances they are poorly presented and that feels like an unnecessary, easily avoided barrier to what is an otherwise fun experience.”
I’ll be clear, we had a lot of fun and these friction points were occasional rather than frequent. We spent most of the afternoon having a lovely time pointing at a dude in the bad colour, rolling some dice, and hoping we get to knock the mini over in triumph, eating a victory/comisiration snack, then repeat. The heart and soul of wargaming - aka, a bloody good time - is very much alive inside this box. At the end of the tutorial missions we had a reasonable idea of how to play a simple version of Kill Team, and were ready for more.
So after the tutorial missions wrap up the book sprawls out into a land of murderous opportunity. The later pages contain all the rules and abilities you had been dismissively told “to not worry about for now”, as well as some alternative terrain set ups and game options to dive into like an excited gene enhanced child at the ball grenade pit. Beyond that you are encouraged to take the next steps into Kill Team which TLDR; buy more minis and books. The book also points towards the full rules for Kill Team which handily, are entirely free.
We fooled around with these new elements for a couple more games and generally had a blast. We certainly discovered a few more little nit picks along the way. For example, it struck me as odd that there is no measuring tool specifically for 5 inches given that is the full movement for every DG model in the set so they have to use the 2 then 3 inch sides whereas the space marine can use the 6 with ease. Just put a 5 inch marker on the 6 inch tool my guy. Eh, if you get into wargaming you’ll be getting a measuring tape pretty quickly so it’s hardly a drama. There were certainly 1 or 2 small moments where I raised an eyebrow at the game design, or went “wut?” at the rulebook, but listing them out feels pedantic and malicious because the fun far outweighed the frustration when you get past the somewhat wonky tutorial missions.
Is this a Team worth Killing?
There are two main reasons to buy Kill team: Starter Set.
Miniatures - Worryingly, the Death Guard minis in this box remain some of the prettiest front line grunts GW have produced. For collectors of the stink lads, yeah I can see why you would want to fill your boots here. For Space Marines, unless you are looking to complete your collection of every single bald shouty man with mega shoulders then I can’t say this is worth the purchase for them alone. I just wish their sculpt had a bit more sass - a waggy finger here, and a hand on hip there… anything to give these fellas a bit more distinction amongst the wider product range for their faction. Again, shout out to smokey grenade boy as the exception who I ended up naming Bruno. Think about it….
New to Kill Team or Wargaming in general - This set clearly has its laser sights on those circling the periphery of the wargaming hobby looking for a safe point for diving in. The approach of breaking the game down with mini missions focused on 1 or 2 mechanics each is absolutely spot on. That said, there are a few moments in these missions that are likely to confuse the heck out of inexperienced players because of ambiguous wording or the odd omission of important details. Does it unbalance the amazing miniatures, solid and durable terrain, and general experience when it gets going? Absolutely not. If you get stuck just remember Google is your friend - just make sure to add “3rd edition” to the end of your search term as there is still a lot of discussion and content for the old editions lingering about the warp. The odd struggle over some of the scenarios just makes for a bit of a shame considering how close the rest of the box and the game it contains soars to perfection. So nearly a chef’s kiss! All that said, If you are fresh meat for the grinder looking to pick up a bolt gun and join the fight this is very much an excellent way to get into homicide. Buy it.
Experienced players - A quick note for those who were confident in the last edition, or wargaming in general, and want to jump straight in to Kill Team proper then I would just grab a box of whichever Kill Team sounds coolest and download their rules from the GW website for free. That's very nice of them. There is even a free app to help with rules and play if that’s your thing. Also, If you are looking to join the fray with a friend then I would definitely recommend one of their quarterly (or thereabouts) faction vs faction boxes which have been routinely nailing it with interesting forces, mind blowing sculpts, and funky terrain and settings.
Value
Last point, this box retails at £67.50 - hold the voxcaster, what?? Forget all my winging above because that is excellent value. That’s basically the price of the miniatures and everything else comes free. I appreciate that for the hobby Games Workshop prices are at the “oof” end of the spectrum but you can’t say this product isn’t a great price for all the heroic charges, exploding heads, and cheeky little plague goblin shenanigans in this box.
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