Ish

I think that Kill Team would work quite well if they added Assault Marines, Chaos Raptors, (almost all of the) Eldar Aspect Warriors, Imperial Guard Veterans, Kroot, Ork Stormboyz, (almost all of the) Sisters of Battle, Vespids, and Zoats*. Assault Marines, Chaos Raptors, Vespids, and Swooping Hawks wouldn't be that different from Primaris Reivers, in terms of over all mobility and weaponry; Kroot and Striking Scorpions are supposed to be the behind-the-lines commando element of their respective factions; and the lack of Imperial Guard Veterans is just criminal. * Okay, maybe not Zoats.

Now, if they add rules allowing the option to bring a light-ish vehicle (i.e., Rhino, Chimera, Raider) and we’ve got ourselves a fantastic way to play smaller scope skirmish 40k.

Pipe organ, eh? That seems a little too high tech and modern. How about Gregorian Chant?

Blades of Khorne, Maggotkin of Nurgle, Stormcast Eternals, Disciples of Tzeentch, and the Legion of Nagash all have a ridiculous number of available units compared to the other factions in the game. ORDER - Collegiate Arcane: 6 Units (0 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Darkling Covens: 7 Units (0 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Daughters of Khaine: 14 Units (1 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Devoted of Sigmar: 5 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Dispossessed: 10 Units (0 Unique, 4 Battleline) - Eldritch Council: 5 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Free Peoples: 10 Units (0 Unique, 6 Battleline) - Fyreslayers: 15 Units (1 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Idoneth Deepkin: 14 Units (2 Unique, 4 Battleline) - Ironweld Arsenal: 9 Units (0 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Kharadron Overlords: 12 Units (1 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Lion Rangers: 2 Units (0 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Order Draconis: 3 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Order Serpentis: 4 Units (0 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Phoenix Temple: 4 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Scourge Privateers: 4 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Seraphon: 25 Units (1 Unique, 4 Battleline) - Stormcast Eternals: 52 Units (7 Unique, 4 Battleline) - Sylvaneth: 12 Units (2 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Shadowblades: 2 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Swifthawk Agents: 7 Units (0 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Wanderers: 11 Units (0 Unique, 4 Battleline) CHAOS - Beasts of Chaos: 26 Units (0 Unique, 6 Battleline) - Blades of Khorne: 59 Units (7 Unique, 8 Battleline) - Clan Eshin: 5 Units (0 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Clan Moulder: 7 Units (0 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Clan Pestilens: 6 Units (0 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Clan Skryre: 12 Units (0 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Clan Verminus: 7 Units (2 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Disciples of Tzeentch: 49 Units (3 Unique, 5 Battleline) - Everchosen: 4 Units (1 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Hosts of Slaanesh: 35 Units (2 Unique, 5 Battleline) - Legion of Azgorh: 15 Units (2 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Maggotkin of Nurgle: 57 Units (13 Unique, 5 Battleline) - Masterclan: 9 Units (1 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Monsters of Chaos: 17 Units (0 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Slaves to Darkness: 21 Units (2 Unique, 5 Battleline) - Tamurkhan's Horde: 6 Units (2 Unique, 2 Battleline) - Warherd: 4 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) DEATH - Deathlords: 6 Units (4 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Deathmages: 2 Units (0 Unique, 0 Battleline) - Deathrattle: 6 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline) - Fleash Eater Courts: 12 Units (0 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Legion of Nagash: 40 Units (5 Unique, 7 Battleline) - Nighthaunt: 24 Units (4 Unique, 4 Battleline) - Soulblight: 11 Units (2 Unique, 1 Battleline) DESTRUCTION - Beastclaw Raiders: 10 Units (0 Unique, 5 Battleline) - Bonesplitterz: 10 Units (0 Unique, 5 Battleline) - Gitmob Grots: 10 Units (0 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Greenskinz: 6 Units (0 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Gutbusters: 9 Units (0 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Ironjawz: 9 Units (1 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Moonclan Grots: 10 Units (0 Unique, 3 Battleline) - Spiderfang Grots: 4 Units (0 Unique, 1 Battleline)

It's been nearly five days since they added a new unit to the Stormcast Eternals. I'm starting to worry they've been squatted.

Deathwatch are a strong faction in Kill Team, no doubt about that. Highly customizable load-outs for every solider, but even just a regular boltgun becomes a Swiss Army knife thanks to special issue ammo... and, yeah, the frag cannon is a nasty piece of work (so is the Infernus Heavy Bolter). They are costly though, at the 100 Point level, you're probably only looking at a team of 4-6 marines. This can make it tricky to deal with missions that have multiple Objectives or enemy forces that have a significant numerical advantage can grind you down through weight of fire... Especially in melee. Throw enough dice at anything, eventually you start to see lots of sixes.

The change from Seventh Edition to Eighth Edition saw a dramatic change in the underlying game mechanics. Overnight, every single existing codex became unusable. The indices were intended as a temporary “stop gap” when the current edition was released, so that everyone could continue to play with their existing model collections. They couldn’t bring twenty-plus codices to market on Day One, but they could knock out the very basic indices quickly. Basically, if a codex exists for your army you should use it and not the index. If no codex for your army exists, you can still play, and you’ll need the index. Having said that, if your a “filthy casual” (like myself) and don’t plan to ever play tournaments and only play infrequently, you should be able to play a codex army using the rules from the appropriate index. Ask your opponent first, of course, but I doubt anyone would say “no” in a friendly pick-up game. The codices also have fluff, painting guides, and pretty pictures. YMMV as to how valuable you find all that.

I miss the Good Old Days when you could easily buy blister packs of accessories. Things like heavy weapons, special weapons, jump packs, and so forth used to be sold separately from the troops. Buy a box of ten plastic riflemen. Want to turn them into a heavy weapon squad? Buy four blister packs of missile launchers. Need to make them close combat specialists? Buy this blister pack of axes and pistols. Easy. There’s a ton of third-party conversion bitz manufacturers out there doing just this, not to mention 3D printable options (the price of the printers is dropping rapidly too). So it is a little weird GW doesn’t get in on this themselves... Maybe they’ve crunched the numbers and determined it’s not profitable. I dunno.

Level 20 Monk versus Level 3/3 Monk/Ranger.

Given the Legion’s background as the Poor Bloody Infantry trench warfare grunts, man-portable heavy weapons seem like an obvious tool for them to make extensive use of... and why they had Havoc Squads in prior editions. Part of GW’s recent “if we don’t have a box for it, it doesn’t have rules” game design philosophy, I suspect.

Fair point... Still wish they had a Devastator Squad equivalent though.

Not really, but it is a factor I try to plan for in my list building. Not as high a priority as anti-heavy infantry and anti-vehicle options, but still something to consider.

Yes, but I’m specifically referring to units native to Codex: Death Guard. Once you start bringing in allies and other options, things change.

100 Minerals, 0 Vespene Gas.

No units from Citadel Miniatures in the Codex have the “+1 to hit models with the FLY keyword” that you see one proper ack-ack units, like the ubiquitous Hydra Flak Tank. Death Guard have really good long range shooting (18” Rapid Fire Boltguns are hilariously evil) but it’s mostly geared towards anti-infantry, this makes the really heavily armoured flying transports (e.g. Storm Raven) hard to deal with. “Flyer Spam” isn’t as bad as it used to be, but an enemy flyer left unchallenged can really play havoc with your Pox Walker tide and/or your backfield artillery slug-tanks.

Last I checked, Death Guard had access to almost everything Chaos that FW offers, excepting a few of the Legion or God specific things. HQ: Necrosius, Mamon, Corbax; Elite: Decimator, Hellforged Contemptor, Hellforged Predator, Hellforged Sicaran; Troops: Assault Drill Fast: Blight Drone, Dreadclaw, Charybdis Heavy: Vindicator Laser Destroyer, Deredeo Dreadnought, Leviathan Dreadnought, Scorpius, Various Land Raiders Flyers: Hell Blade, Hell Talon, Fire Raptor, Xiphon, Storm Eagle Plus a couple Lords of War and Super-Heavy tanks forget the names of. Necrosius is a must buy if you like the idea of fielding Pox Walkers en masse. FW is also the only source of Death Guard Flyers, since Citadel doesn’t give them any (and they have lousy Anti-Aircraft options otherwise).

Filthy Casual 4 Lyfe

Ogres have layers.

I’ve always been fond of both WH40k’s Space Orks and WHFB’s Orcs, but never collected them simply because painting so damn many models was not something I wanted to attempt. Which was why I was really taken with AoS’s Ironjawz army, which takes the standard orc aesthic and playstyle, but matches it to an “elite army” list. (The three rank and file troops work out to be approximately 16 Points, 28 Points, or 36 Points per man.) I’ve often wondered if an Ironjawz-like design philosophy could work for a Space Orks subfaction.

Movement Trays.

I used to play horde Imperial Guard, roughly 200-300 infantry depending on the edition. The big difference between Tau and Guard hordes versus Ork and Tyranid hordes is that Tau and Guard don’t move much. Ork and Tyranid hordes have to advance and fast.

It’s a mix of “I like playing all armies” and “depends on the player,” for me. I mean, obviously any style army can be played by someone who’s an obnoxious unsportsmanlike jerk and that’s always going to sour the experience. But assuming for conversation’s sake that you are not a massive jerk ^-~, then as the player of a massive horde army you still need to go a little above and beyond. You’re going to want to practice moving your models swiftly and efficiently (I’d highly recommend movement trays). You’re also going to want to be sure you have enough dice to be able to make all your rolls with minimal re-rolling (96 shots? Better have at least 48 dice. Six come from a special gun? Better include six of a different color. Etc.) You also should make an effort to memorize as much of the rules for your units as possible and/or have a really good cheat sheet. (No one likes waiting for their opponent to read their codex.)

The stairs connect the Ground Floor to the Upper Floor; that’s clear enough. I just don’t see a method to get from the Lower Floor to the Ground Floor (other than jumping through the portal in the floor).

The door in the basement looks like some kind of vault door. So I figure that’s the enterance into the dungeon where the hedge wizard that lives in the tower has put the MacGuffin behind a series of suitable-for-average-party-level challenges. There’s an area marked Open to Above that seems to match the hole in the ground floor... But there’s not so much as a ladder or a trap door to get from one to the other. Which would be okay, if the Lower Floor wasn’t obviously meant to be part of the living quarters of the tower.

There’s no way to get from the Lower Floor to the Ground Floor...