Editing Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Kill Team(8E) Imperium (section)

===ESS Strategies===
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'''ESS Strategies:'''
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The Elucidian Starstriders are one of the four "special" teams on Kill Team, alongside the Gellerpox Infected, the Servants of the Abyss and the Kroot. In particular, they're are designed to work on the Arena expansion, alongside their chaotic counterpart in the Gellerpox Infected. As such, they won't likely ever deal wil 200p lists, considering their unit limitations. At best they will play 100p lists with free commanders, but that's about it. The key to understand the Rogue Trader list is their inmense list of specialisms. This is a team mostly composed of retainers, so they will pretty much always have at least six specialists. Whether that's good or bad will depend on how you use them, considering the shocking lack of flexibility in the team.

You'd think a big shot like Elucia Vhane would have the cash to get every possible mercenary combination possible. Guess the 42nd Millenium is a hard time even for them...

First, let's start for the basic units. The voidsmen and voidmasters are your basic grunts, and the only ones capable of being leaders. With stats straight from regular guardsmen, their advantage is their access to concussion grenades and their extra leadership. Concussion grenades are fantastic pieces of work, with a D3 attacks and extra 1 to the strength and damage if the target is within 1" of a terrain feature. This means that they will be extra effective against units obscured by terrain, or in cover. Even more so if you manage to get behind them. Sadly no AP on them, making them rather weak against armoured units like marines, especially if you get only one attack. The extra leadership comes from their L7 and the chance of boosting it for an extra +1LD if close 6" of Elucia Vhane. Useless in games with no commanders, but pretty useful if you get her. 

Regular voidsmen are your typical cannon fodder with lasgun, so if you want something heavier, you go for the voidsmaster and the voidsman gunner. The Voidsmaster is the only one that can be the leader, so leader will he be. Pretty much identical to the regular voidsmen, but with W2, extra leadership, 2A and a Artificer Shotgun. Perfect for short range combat, but with no invuilnerable save, it's very easy to take down. The gunner has only one option, the Rotor Cannon, a Heavy 4 weapon S4 AP-1 D2. The best long range weapon in the team, and even better with the heavy/demolition specialization. Sadly, stats-wise is just a voidsmen, so it will crumble like wet paper if targeted. Also, they have a really short unit cap: one maximum voidsmaster, one maximum gunner and three maximum regular voidsmen. This is a really bad limitation, guaranteeing the Rogue Trader lists will always be the same. 

Outside of the grunts, we have the doggo. Little Aximillion is a melee only unit, but not a very good one. Seriously, WS3+, A2, S3 AP0 means that it won't ever do any real damage to anything remotely armoured, and with T3 6+/0++, it will die very quickly. The only advantages this unit has is that its profile is really small, so it's easy to get it completely hidden behind cover to protect objective, and because the enemy might not want to shoot the cute little doggo. Play it with the most adorable and small dog model you can find for maximum effect. Also, give it the scout specialization to get it to move fast through the map. Either that or the veteran stratagem, your call.

The Specialist Retainers are the backbone of your army. Keep them protected, because the enemy knows it as well. At least the three of them have W2, so they will be able to deal with more damage than the rest.

Knosso Prond is your Death Cult Assassin, and as such, the best melee fighter you have. S4 A5 (4+1), with a blade that does AP-2 1D, it can do a lot of damage fast. It's so good in melee that she can re-roll failed hit rolls in a battle round in which it charged or was charged by an enemy model. With WS3+, it will do a decent damage pretty much always, especially tougher units with just W1. And in the defensive, a 5++ makes it tougher than most of your units. It also has a pistol that always wounds on 2+ and does AP-1, but with BS4+ and just 9", you'll pretty much only use it in melee. Killing Strikes can make her extra lethal, especially if she gets many wounds in. Seriously, if everything hits and wounds, the damage can vary between 5-15. This character has a chance of killing every single unit in the game.

Larsen van der Grauss is pretty much your key model. Two reasons. One, his signature ability is giving all allied units a 5++ if they are at 6" or less than him. That increases the toughness and survivability of all your models a lot. Suddenly, regular voidsmen can save at 5+, making them some of the toughest GEQ out there. Second, it has the communications speciality, giving +1 BS to a close unit. So combining him with a demolition/heavy gunner, and you have a duo that can deal quite a lot of damage and take enough to survive. It also has a decent pistol, but if it's close enough to an enemy model to use it effectively, you're doing something wrong. With that said, once the enemy knows the purpose of Grauss, they will focus on him. HARD. So keep the medic close to deal with the wounds. 
*It's also possible to use as a rapid assault unit thanks to its teleporting stratagem. Take an objective early or throw a quick charge against an enemy unit, then come the fuck back to friendly lines. It's possible, but it will leave your other units unprotected (something the enemy will ALWAYS capitalize on, plus you have no real guarantee of killing a valuable enough unit to make it worh the risk).

Sanistasia Minst is your medic. She's there to keep the gunner and Grauss in top shape. At the end of the Movement phase, if you roll a 4+, she can heal one flesh wound per turn. Otherwise, she's not to engage the enemy. EVER. The 5++ Grauss gives her is nice, but she's just not there to fight. Combat Medicine allows her to heal two flesh wounds per turn, so she can really be a pain in the ass to deal with if they just don't die. 

The Medic, the Gunner and Grauss will make the backbone of any Rogue Trader team. The '''Triumvirate''' here can be surprisingly tough to deal with, especially against low model count teams that don't have enough attacks to get pass the 5++ and the medic's heals.

Elucia Vhane, the commander of the team and the Rogue Trader that leads the expedition, is a very good unit. Very melee focused, give her the zealot specialism and charge alongside the assassin the bigger enemies. Once per battle, at the start of the Fight phase, she can pick an enemy model within 1" of her for 4+, and if it hits, the enemy model suffers D3 mortal wounds. That's great against tougher enemies that cannot hope to kill in one go, but it's just once per battle, so think before using it. It will usually be reserved for the enemy commander anyway, but that means getting close to the enemy commander in melee, which can be dangerous. Fortunately she has 4++ and a really impressive melee attack, with A5 (4+1) S4 (3+1) AP-4 D1. This thing will penetrate most armours, and it's perfect to deal damage against units with high toughness and saves but no invuilnerable saves. The Pistol is also nice, so it will be a decent extra in melee or in short ranged combat, but the unit thrives in CQC. Get her there ASAP. 

In conclusion, the Elucidian Starstriders are incredibly limited in their capabilities. The general 5++ Grauss can give them all is great, but it's predictable and easily countered. The basic strategy of the Rogue Trader team is keeping a center with Grauss, the gunner and the Medic together in one central place (preferibly in cover) and sit there. The gunner attacks, the medic heals and Grauss protects. The other voidsmen are there to cover them up, preferibly close to the 5++ effect. The death cult assassin is there to move around the map getting up close and personal against the specialisms of the enemy, taking them down one by one in melee while they are distracted against the Team Fortress knockoff in the center of the map. The same with Elucia Vhane, although she's there to mess with the enemy commander. Charge first, try to get the mortal wound bonus, and watch the enemy suddenly lose their commander in one go.
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'''Counterplay:'''
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It's not very difficult to counter the Starstriders. Considering they can only play in Vanilla KT or 100p Commanders lists (or Arena, but I haven't played that expansion yet, you fill that part), the key there is to deal with the guy giving invuilnerable saves like candies. 5++ is not much, but a lucky player will be able to redirect a ton of damage by blocking it with the invuilnerable or healing it with the medic. As such, you have two options:

'''1. Deal with the Triumvirate first.'''
A strong focus against them with spam should be enough to hurt them, and something will be bound to enter eventually. Spam units will be able to shoot them enough to wound them, and eventually they will fail the rolls. Try to get them from outside cover to improve your odds. Because the Triumvirate is better standing still (BS2+ (3+1) Demo Gunner will do a lot of damage), you can take your time and flank them if necessary. Once there, charge them from their blind spots. A full melee charge against them is great if you have units that do plenty of attacks and/or have the chance to make mortal wounds. Keep in mind all of the retainers have W2, so only a wound per battle round won't be enough, and they all can defend themselves well enough in melee. Target the gunner first. Once that one is done, the rest of the protected units can't really make much damage, so you have all the time in the world to try and kill them through the invuilnerable and the wound heals. Hell, considering the heavy is the only one really offensive in the shooting department, an all-out attack will mean that he will only be able to focus on one at a time, whereas you can just focus your fire on him. Also, keep in mind that while you're shooting at them, the assassin and Elucia Vhane are probably going around killing mooks and pwning noobs, so don't get distracted too much against the triumvirate.

'''2. Make the Triumvirate pointless.''' 
If the Triumvirate decides to stay still, you can just ignore them. Really. Take care of the two melee monsters running arount the map with your melee team, and get enough long range firepower to deal with the Triumvirate. Outrange them, the 24" of the gunner is very limited once we start looking at other units. The AdMech's Archebus, SM' Rocket Launcher, AM's Sniper Rifle... You could also try to kill all the units outside of Grauss' forcefield. Outside of the assassin and Vhane, the rest of the units are very weak and will crumble against anything with some AP. Out of nine units in the enemy's list, you could just focus on the voidsmen, the dog and the assassin (whom has to be dealt with eventually anyway) and make them panic. Keep yourself hidden from the heavy and you'll be good. Hell, considering the heavy is the only one really offensive in the shooting department, an all-out attack will mean that he will only be able to focus on one at a time, whereas you can just focus your fire on him. 

And that's it. Teams with higher unit count will be able to do this right, especially AdMech, Tau, IG... A full ork burna list will get the Triumvirate sooner or later, and be rather effective against the charging assassin. Units like Necrons, SM, DW and SotA will be able to take the shots fired and continue to advance, either for a melee charge or for a massive shooting volley. No psykers means they will be very vuilnerable to them, so use them wisely. Low unit teams might find themselves picked up one by one while the Triumvirate heal themselves, so be careful and play smart. If you're going melee, get the initiative to try and take them down first. Focus on the gunner, as he has no specific melee guns. 2-3 units on him should be enough to deal with him in one go, and after that you could just consolidate on the rest. Harlequins might find themselves struggling against the Rogue Traders, though. Their low count and their melee disposition means that the enemy might get lucky enough with the invuilerable saves and hit back in kind, something rather dangerous considering the clowns can deal a lot of damage but can`t really take it. 
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