Heralds of Ruin Kill Team Review

[sketchymon]

I could get a game this evening or tomorrow during the day.

[sketchymon]

Gardian games

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Hey, I am free tomorrow. What time?

[sketchymon]

Earlier is better noon to 4 or 5 could work.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Alright. Let's try to meet at noon.

[sketchymon]

OK see ya at noon.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Once again got a game in and had a great time. The rules feel balanced with movement being more key than weapons. Even then my foot slogging DA still fared well against the Eldar.

 

I feel Jump Infantry and Jet Bikes are the way to go. Scouts are nice for the infiltrate but their shooting is not great by any means so far. So objective grabbing and number fluffing is their thing.

 

And a thought just occured to me. I could have been making 'Look out,Sir' rolls. Duh!

[Chaos Lord Chris]

I got 2 games in today, against Orks and Grey Knights.

 

My list: Iron Hands Space Marines

Leader: Veteran Sergeant with Jump Pack, Bolter with Special issue ammo, Powerfist, Armor of Alacrity

Special: Sternguard with Combi-Plasma

Core1: 5x Tactical marines, 1 with Plasma Gun

Core2: 3x Assault Marines

 

 

Game 1 vs Orks:

He had a Mega-armored Nob leader with a combi-skorcha, 5 Lootas, and 20 Slugga Boyz. Gametype was Breakthrough, with me as the defender.

 

I managed to hold him off long enough to whittle down his team below half strength, after which he failed a Run Away check and the remaining Orks fled the field. It was pretty close considering I only had 4 Tacticals and 1 Assault left alive when he fled, if he had passed the check the next turn would have been painful.

 

MVP was my Sergeant, who used his Jump Pack and special issue ammo to take the high ground in a midfield ruin and managed to kill 3 Lootas in 3 turns while tanking their return fire, after which he jumped down and heroically sacrificed himself to get a mutual kill on the Nob Leader.

 

The Darwin Award goes to my Sternguard, who died to a plasma overheat while attempting to gun down the Nob. His abject failure was what made my Sergeant's murder-suicide attack necessary.

 

 

Game 2 vs GK:

He had a Knight of the Flame and 7 Purifiers, all with Psybolt ammo, with some miscellaneous upgrades on the leader that never came into play. Gametype was Sabotage.

 

This game was significantly less exciting. I utilized the AP2/3 on my Plasmagun and Vengeance Rounds to inflict casualties and capitalize on his low model count, the mobility of my Jump Packs and smart use of line-of-sight to limit his return fire, and the threat of my Powerfist Sergeant sneaking around the side to force him to split his forces between defending his objective and attempting to attack mine. Things got slightly tense at the end when he finally closed to within 12", but a final flurry of bolter fire put the last two GK down before they could reach close combat. I ended up wiping him out before either of our objectives were destroyed, with only 3 casualties on my side.

 

 

A few things I concluded after these matches:

-Mobility is key. The speed and ability to navigate terrain made my Jump Packs worth their weight in gold. In my opinion, if your team doesn't include at least a few highly mobile models you're probably making a mistake.

-Don't be afraid to take generic troops rather than going crazy on expensive Special units. Run Away checks are murder, so you need enough models on the field to both have some resistance to them, and to be able to kill enough enemy troops to force them. Low model count armies will likely struggle in both regards.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Nice Batrep and solid advice.

 

From reading the batrep over I would say the Ork player was smart with his numbers, Mob Rule, but the Mega Nob and Lootas probably slowed him down too much. With the heavy amount of terrain sitting Lootas back and just unloading is harder when you can just block los or use Hide rule. Gretchen Herds for meat sheilds, Stormboyz, Deffkoptas and Warbikes will be seen more.

 

The GKs just did not have enough models. Much like a Deathwing army it would be nasty if it wasn't for the fact every death is felt dearly.

[splinx]

Am I the only one who prefers the GW kill team rules to the HoR rules?

[Justjokin]

The GW Kill Teams still are squad based with coherency rules right?  These types of skirmish games give a different flavor, but still scratch the 40K itch.  To me, the big draw is the independence that each model gets and the different interactions with terrain. 
 

What is it about the GW rules that you prefer?  

 

Truth in Advertising:

I have yet to play either of these specific rule sets, but I have played individual model squad skirmish games before and really enjoyed them, Special Operations:Killzone most notably.  

[Chaos Lord Chris]

No, the GW rules are not squad based. You have to buy guys in squads according to their normal limitations, but in-game there are no squad or coherency based rules.

 

The GW rules are decent for quick 20-minute pick up games because they're simple, but they clearly aren't fully thought out, and for the most part they didn't make any army/unit specific tweaks which results in some rules (or whole units in the case of Pink Horrors) becoming basically nonfunctional in KT. They also lack any sort of Campaign rules, which as far as I'm concerned is the biggest sin a skirmish game can commit.

[ROGRE]

I played GW Kill Team last night and the rules do specify that each model acts independently during the game. I played IG against Savion47's CSM and it was a good time. My horrible dice rolling had me losing more models to cultists pistols than anything else, it was pretty hilarious. So yeah, my boys got whipped.

We're going to give it another go next week using the HoR Kill Team rules, I will definitely be playing a different army.

I am intrigued by the HoR rules and am looking forward to our game. One thing I do like about GW's version is if I am using Orks I can have a nob squad make up my kill team but it does not look like that is an option with HoR rules.

[Justjokin]

Thanks Chris and Raze.  I'll need to give both a try.  One of the other things in my head as I think about Kill Teams are movies like Predator, where there is an mixed collection of members each representing a specialization that the team needs to do the job.  It captures that "cinematic" thing that people go on about.  Sometimes I think that the HoR rules don't go far enough in allowing you to flavorize individual models with even more skills and gear.

 

That being said, I don't always make the members of my KT's unique.   But maybe a few of them...  I think the "Name" column is important for any KT list I build.  Certainly when you get into campaign mode which, as CLC noted, is lacking from the GW set. 

[splinx]

After reading through the HoR last night there are differences in movement, certain weapon differences, buildings, assaulting from buildings, squad make up (or lack of) and a few other bits that I'm not keen on. The major thing I do like form the HoR rules is the true line of sight needed which I hope is inbuilt into the next edition of 40k.

 

I like the story line approach to skirmish gaming rather than full campaign capacity. So with being able to buy a couple of guys from here then a couple guys from here doesn't seem to me like any type of squad focus at all. What I do like about the GW kill team rules is you still have a squad approach and get the independence of individual models as a unit. I also like the fact that the rule set is 40k with a couple of additional kill team rules. The HoR is too much to remember entirely and I will being sticking to the GW rule set as for me it's easier and more enjoyable. But hey that's my view and I know a lot of people like the KoH rule set.

[Murphy'sLawyer]

Everyone is allowed their own opinions. I myself have looked at both and played HoR's rules and love them. The rules are really easy to learn if you are able to navigate GW's rules, no one can say they are easy to learn, so I don't see and issue to this.

 

Also I played skirmish games for awhile and GW's is still as inbalanced as before, lack of play testing is my guess, while if you read through HoR's rules you will see they spent many hours tweeking things to balance out the armies. (Read through the army lists and it becomes very evident.)

 

Also I love the individual hiring over the Squad hiring. GW's units are not equally balanced and hiring straight units leaves the point balancing act a really challenge to spend the max points without buying loadouts you don't want or need.

 

The one thing GW's has over HoR is that it is way dumb down so if you are not into skirmish games and list designing it would be easier to sit down and play without having to read or learn anything new.

 

The truth is GW's Kill Team is 40k lite while HoR's is an actual skimish game.

[Chaos Lord Chris]

Just a heads up for anyone interested, we're going to be starting a HoR Campaign up at Mythic Realm Games in Vancouver starting this Tuesday the 14th at 6pm. As of now I'm estimating we'll have enough space for 2-3 more players to comfortably cram into the table space. It's mostly HoR newbies so far.

 

Anyone interested feel free to show up, even if you're not totally familiar with the rules I fully expect everyone else to slack off and not read them either, so we'll probably end up doing some demo games for people who need them.

 

I'll be there by 5:30 to set up tables and stuff if anyone feels like showing early.