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

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Space Marines

Why Play Space Marines

• Pros
  • Transhuman Physiology lets Space Marines ignore the to hit penalties from the first Flesh Wound taken by a model, so that single wound is more valuable than others. It also basically means that Primaris Marines are even MORE resilient than their profile would indicate.
  • Reliable morale. Ld8 Sarges means they don't break easy, and with And They Shall Know No Fear they'll pass Nerve tests readily when they do start taking losses
    • Technically broken by RAW, though RAI is so obvious nobody plays it that way. See below.
  • The sheer versatility of Space Marines coupled with easy access to 2W models and Transhuman Physiology makes Space Marines a very flexible, but also very forgiving choice, great for beginners or for when you don't know what you're playing against.
    • Even Reivers, your primary melee unit outside of Elites, are flexible enough to be competent at range.
  • You get to play the music from Nolan's The Dark Knight whenever your Reivers Grapnel Launcher about. You can also do Bale's throat-cancer voice when they reach melee.
  • The Librarian lets you pull off some interesting stuff when you when you combine Might of Heroes and Veil of Time.
  • Absolutely spoiled for unit choice, with a selection of over 19 units across the various expansions, the most in the game.
  • Death Denied stratagem is able to save your marines from assured death, no other saving stratagem is as good as this.
• Cons
  • As generalists, you'll find that other Kill Teams with a more dedicated focus towards Melee or Range might have better toys than you. Bolters are nothing out of the ordinary.
    • Even Reivers, lacking melee AP, will struggle against other dedicated melee units. They can definitely deal with the enemy, but the point here is that you have to actually think in order to do it.
  • You can field a grand total of four heavy/special weapons, which are going to be your actual workhorses, since you want to aim for actual kills instead of just flesh wounds. Your enemy will know this and aim for the actual threats first.
  • While that's a barely below average number of special/heavy guns compared to what other Kill-Teams can field, your squad members are expensive enough that it'll be hard to hide the weapon bearers behind other teammates, and you'll find yourself outnumbered more often than not.
  • Most of your available Commander units are Primaris, which will restrict the wargear you can give them.

SM Special Rules

• And They Shall Know No Fear: Reroll your Failed Nerve Checks. With base Ld7, this means 2 models have to be dead for one of your solitary models to even have a chance to get Shaken after two consecutive 6s.
  • RAW this actually does nothing. Since re-rolls happen before any modifiers are applied to the outcome and you can't roll a 7+ with a d6, its impossible to fail a Nerve test before you check if you can reroll. After this however, the modifiers will apply, meaning that if you have 2 marines already out of action your other marines will fail their Nerve test on a 6, without their ability granting them a re-roll. The only way to re-roll a failed nerve test right now, is a tactical re-roll for 1 CP. However, RAI is so obvious here that literally nobody from LGS to the big Tournaments plays it that way. Not to mention the other things it breaks. As it stands, its mostly just another example of GW's amazing writing.
• Transhuman Physiology: Ignore -1 penalty to hit from the first flesh wound suffered in a game.
• Iron Halo: Exclusive to the Primaris Captain, it gives him a 4++. Useful for when someone thinks they can beat your space marines with just some big numbers in their AP stat.
• Rosarius: Same thing as the Iron Halo, but for the Primaris Chaplain.
• Psychic Hood: Exclusive to the Primaris Librarian, gives a +1 to his Deny the Witch roll when within 12" of the psyker he's attempting to deny.

SM Wargear

• Auspex: Excellent value for a single point, this lets one member of your killteam within 3" of it ignore the penalty for shooting and injuring an obscured target. Considering how extreme the rules for cover are, this thing is probably worth the price on a Tactical Comms officer, and not too bad on an Intercessor of any type either.
• Auxiliary Grenade Launcher: Exclusive to the Intercessor Gunner, it radically changes the way to use grenades, from risky to an actual primary weapon. While only one model may use a grenade, this doesn't replace the Intercessor's weapon, and in the hands of a Demolitions specialist with Grenadier this turns grenades into budget missiles. 30", frags wounding obscured MEQs on 4+, Kraks wounding everyone on 2+. ZERO points, it's basically the Gunner's 1pt tax. Almost an auto-include. That said, keep in mind that with the errata it does have to deal with the long range penalty.
• Camo Cloaks: Adds a further -1 to hit to obscured Scouts. Makes Sniper-Scouts and Missile-Scouts surprisingly survivable for a bargain price - you don't need armour if you aren't hit at all.
• Combat Shield: For 5pts Dark Angels Company Vet or Vet Sgt get a 5++.
• Grapnel Launchers: Allows Reivers to ignore vertical distance when normal moving (moving under and up to your model's Movement characteristic: charging and advancing fall under special cases as defined in the rulebook). It's hard to overstate the advantage that freedom of movement brings to a game as terrain-heavy as Kill Team. Turning Reivers into defacto jump troops allows you to use them at their full potential.
• Grav-Chute: Allows Reivers to ignore falling damage. Considering how often your stabby boys will be leaping tall buildings and ziplining all over the place, these things can come in handy. The only downside is that it's a further points tax on an already pricey unit with an already existing points tax (Always. Take. The. Grapnel. Launchers.), but it's a nice way to avoid tempting fate with that Combat specialist you've come to love, protecting that investment from an idiotically underwhelming death. You can play without them, but just be aware that you're playing a risky game. Leave them behind if you are playing Arena matches, as they will be functionally useless.
• Haywire Mine: A single incursor can take this. Drop it within 1" of your model and without 3" from any enemies at any point during that that model's move. Any time an enemy gets within 2", take it off the board and theres a 50/50 chance that all models (friendly and enemy alike) within 2" receive a single mortal wound. One time use.
  • You read that right, its taken off the board even if it doesn't go off. You're paying 5pts for a single shot weapon that has a flat 50% chance to do nothing, on top of the 50% chance to fail the injury roll. Also keep in mind that given you can't set it up within range of an enemy and it ALWAYS gets removed when an enemy comes within 2", it can only ever hit one enemy. Not to mention that half the time your opponent can just walk around it. Spend the points on a bigger gun for one of your other models.
• Infiltrator Comms Array Add 1 to the Leadership characteristic of models within 6" of any friendly models equipped with an Infiltrator Comms Array
  • Largely a waste of 5pts in a High Ld, Low Model-Count faction with free nerve test rerolls. Especially with its piddly range. Avoid unless you really want a Infiltrator Comms spec.
• Jump Pack: For 6pts a Vanguard Vet or Sgt, or a Space Wolves Company Vet or Vet Sgt can get a 12" Move characteristic, Fly and Jump Pack
• Storm Shield:

SM Faction Attributes

• Imperial Fists - Siege Masters: Models in your kill team don't suffer the penalty to Injury rolls for the target of their attacks being obscured and within 1" of a model or terrain piece that is between the two models.
• Dark Angels - Grim Resolve: You can re-roll unmodified hit rolls of 1 for shooting attacks for models in your kill team (including when firing overwatch) that have not moved in this battle round. You can also re-roll when determining whether or not your team is broken in the Morale phase. In addition, the Dark Angels get access to different wargear options on veterans and terminators.
  • While overcharging plasma is never without risks, the Dark Angels seriously mitigate that risk, and make running more than one plasma weapon viable, if expensive. Even without plasma, the tactic can still be useful for holding a line.
• White Scars - Lightning Assault: Add 2" to all Advance rolls, and if they started their movement phase within 1" of an enemy, but the enemy is no longer present by the time they move, they can make a charge attempt
  • Excellent for when mobility is a must, or when you need to make sure an opponent stays stuck in that tarpit.
• Space Wolves - Hunters Unleashed: Add 1 to hit rolls if they charge, were charged, or piled in with heroic intervention. You can also use heroic intervention within 6" of your commander instead of 3", and they move 6". In addition, Space Wolf terminators and veterans gain access to unique warghear options, but no you don't get your special wolf scouts.
  • The +1 to hit on charges is good enough on its own, as it lets the wolves hit on a 2+ if there are no other negative modifiers. The exclusive wargear options are awesome, and one of the better arguments for running Space Wolves. The extra distance on heroic intervention is just icing on the cake.
• Blood Angels - Red Thirst: Add 1 to wound rolls if they charge, are charged, or piled in with heroic intervention. In addition, Blood Angels veterans can take the inferno pistol or hand flamer.
  • Good for dealing with high toughness models.
• Iron Hands - The Flesh Is Weak: Roll a d6 when they lose a wound. On a 6, it's ignored. If they have a similar trait, reroll 1s.
• Ultramarines - Codex Discipline: Add 1 to leadership and can fire even if they fell back or retreated, but need an unmodified 6 to hit.
  • The usefulness of this attribute is dubious. +1 leadership is never bad, but between the SM's already high leadership and the And They Shall Know No Fear special rule, it may not be very useful. And, as nice as being able to fire after falling back is, an unmodified 6 is a tall order.
• Salamanders - Master Artisans: Reroll a single failed hit roll and wound roll per phase.
  • One of the better tactics, as it hypothetically allows for up to six rerolls in a turn: two in overwatch during the movement phase, two in the shooting phase, and two in the fight phase. This can free up vital command points to spend on tactics, especially Death Denied. Also, while most Chapter Tactics are geared either towards shooting (Dark Angels, Imperial Fists) or melee (Space Wolves, Blood Angels, Black Templars), the Salamanders tactic makes them better at both.
• Raven Guard - Shadow Masters: Count as obscured if they're more than 12" away from an enemy model.
  • Sadly, in the small, often terrain-dense boards of Kill Team, this is of questionable usefulness. On the one hand, the extra protection while moving in the open is undeniably good. However, you really want to be hugging cover anyway for the bonus to injury rolls. More importantly, there are a lot of things that can ignore penalties to hit from a model being obscured, like the auspex/omnispex and the level 2 Shooting commander specialism, to name two. And demolition specialists add 1 to wound rolls against obscured models, actively using the Raven Guard's attribute against them.
• Black Templars - Righteous Zeal: Reroll charges.
  • Simple, but effective.

SM Ranged Weapons

• Boltgun: The classic 24" Rapid Fire S4 gun everything else is compared against. Nothing to write home about, good or bad. And yet, you likely won't see too many of these in a Space Marine Killteam, as there are plenty of better weapons options and not enough bodies to wield them.
• Combi-Weapon: A Bolter with an underslung flamer/grav/melta/plasmagun. You can fire either/or as per normal, or shoot both at a -1 penalty. It gives your Sergeant solid flexibility, but removes your bolt pistol as of the most recent errata. It pairs well with a nearby Comms Specialist to give it a +1 and fire both guns without penalty. It's also the only way to have a second special weapon, but, sadly, it's mutually exclusive with the Auspex.
• Shotgun: 12" Assault 2 S4 that becomes S5 at half range. Useful in the hands of a Scout Scout - not only can they close the distance by moving up to 8" and re-rolling advances, but a lvl3 one can use Move unseen to teleport into S5 range.
• Sniper Rifle: 36" Heavy 1 S4, it allows Scouts to score a mortal wound on a 6+ to wound. It also ignores the long range shooting penalty. Literally the only advantage the regular Sniper Rifle has over the Bolt Sniper Rifle is that bringing a Sniper rifle armed Scout is 7 points cheaper than an Eliminator armed with a Bolt Sniper Rifle.
• Bolt Rifle: AP-1 Bolter with excellent 30" range, so it not only threatens the entire table from a suitable vantage point but it also shoots twice 3" before most enemies are able to do the same. Plus the AP makes it always useful. Most situations the Rapid Fire and -1 AP will make this weapon superior to the auto/stalker variants for your intercessors.
• Auto Bolt Rifle: Two-shot Assault Bolter for your Intercessors. Shooting twice across its entire range, it's not in such a hurry to close in like other Rapid Fire weapons are. So, good rate of fire and mobility, a good all rounder.
  • Master-Crafted Auto Bolt Rifle: Exact same as the standard version, but with 2 damage. Exclusive to the Primaris Captain and Lieutenant.
• Stalker Bolt Rifle: 36" Heavy 1 S4 AP-2 gun for your Intercessors. It doesn't ignore range like the actual Sniper rifle does, but it's used in a similar fashion, with better results due to its armour penetration. Its pretty decent for a free weapon, but doesn't compete with special weapons for true firepower. While it performs slightly better against MEQs and at range than the Auto Bolt Rifle, it is significantly less flexible, sacrificing more against GEQs and Invulns than it gains against MEQs.
  • Master-Crafted Stalker Bolt Rifle: Exact same as the standard version, but with 2 damage. Exclusive to the Primaris Captain and Lieutenant. Has exactly the same caveat about the Master Crafted Auto Bolt Rifle that its vanilla cousin has about the Auto Bolt Rifle.
• Bolt Carbine: Literally the same as the Auto Bolt Rifle, for Reivers. If you want a more mobile Intercessor, you give this to a Reiver, otherwise you use something else. Quite simple, really.
• Marksman Bolt Carbine: A bolt carbine with the bonus of auto-passing wound rolls on a hit roll of 6. Exclusive to Infiltrators.
• Storm bolter: A boltgun with double the shots. The storm bolter is the default weapon for terminators, though company veterans and sternguard can also take one. Good for dealing with hordes, or for any situation where you need quantity over quality in terms of shots.
• Wrist-Mounted Grenade Launcher: A wargear option only available to Terminator Captains equipped with a Power fist. This nifty weapon attaches to the power fist and provides the Captain with d3 extra shots. Because it is not a pistol or grenade weapon, it can be fired in the same turn as the Captain's main gun. The 12 inch range is pretty bad, but given the Captain's base to-hit is 2+, it isn't impossible for this to hit things at the edge of its range. Only costs 2 points, but that is on top of cost of the prerequisite power fist, which costs as much as a tactical marine. It does have one point of AP, which is still one more than the default storm bolter, so it has a slightly better chance of cracking open armored targets. If you are running a power fist anyway, this is a neat little bonus, but taking the powerfist just for access to this is a questionable decision.
  • Note: With the default storm bolter, the wrist-mounted grenade launcher gives the marine 5-7 shots per turn against anything inside 12 inches. With a combi-flamer, that turns to 3-5 shots, with an additional 1-6 auto-hitting flamer shots against anything within 8 inches. Few models in kill team have the power to make that many shots in one turn. This can be particularly deadly in overwatch, where the volume of attacks make it more likely for one to go through, and anything that survives has to tangle with the power fist.
• Accelerator Autocannon: Exclusive to the suppressors these weapons are classed as heavy but have some the longest range of SM weapons and have a slightly OP ability.IF you wound a target (Not hard with St:7 and AP:-2) you prevent that model from shooting and this effect extends to all models within 2 inches. Currently the only option for suppressors.
• Las Fusil: This gun is everything the lascannon wishes it could be but isn't, for a much more reasonable cost. It will wound all but the toughest units on 2s, and everything else on 3s, and the AP is just as good. Damage 3 arguably makes it better than its heavy cousin, the lascannon, since there is no chance of rolling a 1 for damage.
• Occulus Bolt Carbine: The weapon of choice for the new incursor profile. Basically a regular bolt carbine with a scope that gives it +1 to it against obscured targets. Stacks nicely with the auspex buff.
  • Master-Crafted Occulus Bolt Carbine: Exact same as the standard version, but with 2 damage. Exclusive to the Lieutenant in Phobos Armour
• Bolt Sniper Rifle: A choose-your-own-adventure weapon exclusive to Eliminators with stats entirely dependent on what round you use but all have strength 5. Ammo can be changed every time you shoot.
  • Executioner Round: St:5, AP:-2 and D3 damage. Useful for when you need to bring down targets reliably.
  • Mortis Round: Plus 2 to hit and doesn't require line-of-sight. If you're prioritizing keeping your Eliminator alive go with this. Pairs well with "Concealed position"
  • Hyperfrag Round: Does D3 shots. Good for when you need to need to deal more shots than damage for some reason.
• Instigator Bolt Carbine: St:4, AP:-1, 2 damage with Assault 1, added by Annual and exclusive to the Eliminator Sergeant. Great on a White Scars Scout specialist.
  • Master-Crafted Instigator Bolt Carbine: Exclusive to the Captain in Phobos Armor, its rather different to its vanilla version. Changes to Heavy 1, gains an extra 6" of range, an extra point of AP and you ignore the long range penalty to hit rolls. All comes together to what should be a solid, reliable weapon, especially against GEQs, except that its on an 81pt model.
• Special Issue Boltgun: The Sternguard's signature weapon and 1-point additional tax, the special issue boltgun is, as the name suggests, an upgraded boltgun. These upgrades take the form of 6 inches extra range and -2 AP, making it actually better than Belisarius Cawl's fancy new bolt rifle.

Special Weapons: They all have their use, but their limited nature forces you to really think what its role will be.

• Flamer: All the -1s to hit in kill-team make flamers a valuable pick, especially in the hands of a Demolitions Specialist.
• Grav-gun: 18" Rapid Fire S5. D3 damage vs MEQs makes it a good counter against them (especially Rubrics), although the range and subpar strength make it somewhat less useful than the Plasma Gun.
• Meltagun: While the vehicles that a meltagun is typically used against don't exist in Kill-Team, its short range is less of an issue on the small playing field and the high amount of damage it causes will all but guarantee that anything shot by it will be out of action. Heavy specialists can advance without shooting penalties, so they have an easier time getting it into range.
• Plasma Gun: The classic sungun, you know the drill. High AP, two settings: Safe solid Str7 to wound everyone on a 3+, or Str8 to wound everyone on a 2+ and deal 2D, but risk blowing up. Not even flesh wounds, just death. That is only natural 1s, regardless of modifiers, so give it to a Sniper to re-roll them - it also means a Comms can't save you either.

Heavy Weapons: They've got good range, so long shots won't be a problem. Moving is, so it makes sense for Heavy weapons to be handled by the Heavy specialist.

• Missile Launcher: The longest ranged weapon you've got, good against both lightly armored enemies and tougher foes. Sternguard gunners and Dark Angels veterans can take them, but at double a scout or tactical marine would pay.
• Heavy Bolter: Plenty of shots, AP-1, and 36" range makes this your staple heavy weapon.
• Grav-cannon and Grav-Amp: A heavy four-shot grav-gun with longer range. Good for cracking heavily armored foes, but pricey.
• Heavy Flamer: Exclusive to Sternguard Veterans and Terminator Gunners. A flamer with one extra strength and ap. Note that a Terminator with this retains access to their Power Fist or Chainfist. Put that combo on an objective and dare your opponent to get close to it.
• Lascannon: The most expensive weapon available to Space Marines (excluding commander wargear), this costs one point more than a tactical marine. Its profile is nearly equivalent to a krak missile, but with one extra strength and AP. It will wound anything on a 3+, and all but the toughest on 2+, but so will a missile launcher. The extra AP is useful, but not necessarily useful enough to merit giving up an extra body on the field.
• Multi-Melta: Heavy meltagun with twice the range. A heavy specialist with this will be slower than if they had a meltagun, but the range increase can make up for that. That said, it does cost as much as a scout.
• Plasma Cannon: Heavy D3 plasma gun with longer range. Not bad, but arguable worse than the plasma gun in that the plasma gun gets a guaranteed two shots in within half range, where the cannon can always roll a 1. Also, rolling a high number of shots on overcharge just increases your risk of instantly losing the model carrying it. Dark Angel Terminators can carry one, and their chapter tactic mitigates the risk of overcharge melting your most expensive model. Costs the same as a tactical marine.
• Assault Cannon: This Heavy 6 gun is so heavy only a Terminator Gunner can use it. It has decent strength and ap, and with that many shots something is bound to connect and do damage. The 24 inch range means that you might want to make the Terminator carrying this a Heavy specialist so they can get within optimal range. Surprisingly affordable for what it does, especially when you consider it replaces the cost of the Terminator standard Storm Bolter.
• Cyclone Missile Launcher: Terminator-mounted missile rack that turns a marine into a walking artillery platform. Much like its smaller cousin, it has frag and krak missile profiles, with mostly the same stats save for extra shots. It does pay for this with shorter range, though. The Terminator carrying this gets to keep their Storm Bolter, though you probably shouldn't bother using it unless something closes to rapid fire range.

Pistols: Remember everyone in your Kill Team (except combi-weapons sergeants) has a Pistol, which can save your ass in combat, as not all enemies have one and shooting happens before melee. Furthermore, dealing a Flesh Wound in the shooting phase increases the chances of landing a true kill in melee.

• Bolt Pistol: The classic bolt pistol. Really entertaining to have spam meleeists like hormagaunts slam into combat with Tacticals or Intercessors, fail to kill them and suddenly have the color drain from their face when they realize that they'll get shot apart in the next shooting phase before your marines even begin curb stomping.
• Heavy Bolt Pistol: Reiver Bolt Pistol with AP-1, so it's their actual source of AP in melee. Anyone with an armour save will start sweating once your stabby boys pull out their DESERT EAGLES and begin dropping dudes before they even get into melee and steadily afterwards. Despite Kill Team being a close ranged affair, this is a pistol first and foremost - Carbine Reivers have no reason to use it over their main gun, as there are range penalties and two AP0 shots are better than a single AP-1 shot, especially with the Flesh Wound mechanic.
• Grav Pistol: Sergeant sidearm. Extra punch for close combat, or something for your Auspex Sgt. to contribute with. Best against single wound MEQs, but good vs everything.
• Plasma Pistol: Sergeant sidearm. Extra punch for close combat, or something for your Auspex Sgt. to contribute with. Best against GEQs, but good vs everything. You're sooo not supercharging this. Not on your Sergeant, at least not without re-rolls nearby you aren't.
• Absolver Bolt Pistol: Chaplain exclusive. A heavy bolt pistol with extra range. Better than not having any gun.
• Hand Flamer: Blood Angel exclusive. Weaker flamer with shorter range, and only D3 shots. However, as a pistol, it can be fired in melee. Unlikely to scare any but the squishiest of troops.
• Inferno Pistol: Blood Angel exclusive. A half range meltagun that uses pistol instead of assault rules. At 6 inches of range, you practically need to be in melee to be within half range. The good news is, as a pistol, it can be used in melee. If you somehow survive but fail to kill your target, this is a good way to finish them off the next turn. The high strength practically guarantees a 2+ to wound, and the good AP means that the target will either be rolling a 6+ save at best, or falling back on an invuln save. And in melee, the special ability (roll two d6 for damage, drop the lowest) will always trigger, giving you a fairly reliable source of damage output.

Grenades: You're not in 40K anymore, Kill Team's game mechanics make using a grenade a risky endeavour. Only 6" range, you can't use them after an Advance or failed charge, and being an I-go-You-go game, at such close range the enemy might charge before you get to shoot. And even in overwatch you're better off using another weapon, unless it's a bolt pistol. IF the enemy goes before AND they fail a charge AND they get so close to you that you'd need to have the initiative the next turn to have a chance of escape AND they're a unit you wouldn't want to be in combat with despite going first after an easy charge, THEN you might use them. See how hard to use they are? That's why the Intercessor Gunner's Auxiliary Grenade Launcher is such a game changer, especially if he's your Demolitions specialist. If playing a Campaign, a lvl2 Grenadier Demo also has an easier time using them, and a Scout can use Quick March to move farther before throwing the grenade.

• Frag Grenade: It usually translates to a couple of lasgun shots. At 6" all your other weapons surpass it.
• Krak Grenade: S6 AP-1 D3 dmg. An argument could be made for hurting tougher, multiwound boys like Tyranid Warriors, Gene-Cult Aberrants, Stealthsuits, Ork Nobs and the odd Primaris Marine.
• Shock Grenade: Reiver exclusive. 1d3 shots, no damage but hit models can't neither Overwatch nor be Readied until the end of the next whole battle round, and they have to substract 1 from all hit rolls until then. The only argument that can be made for tucking this grenade instead of just charging/shooting it is that Grapnel launchers don't work on charges AND you're not confident you can kill the enemy with your Heavy bolt pistol/Carbine. That and the melee target being too dangerous to fight without playing dirty first.
• Melta Bomb/s: A five point upgrade for the already expensive vanguard veterans. Basically acts as a 4-inch meltagun shot, without the meltagun's signature damage reroll. Even with the fact that grenades ignore range penalties, it still has a shorter range than the meltagun. There isn't much reason to take this.

SM Melee Weapons

• Chainsword/Combat Knife: Mechanically the same, this translates to an extra attack. The main weapon of melee Reivers, it turns Intercessor and Reiver sergeants into a terrifying whirlwinds of attacks without losing their primary guns. Especially against enemies with invuln saves. Your other sarges need to let go of their gun and are less impressive, so it's less of an attractive choice on them. Also available to regular Scouts, at the cost of their bolter.
• Power Sword: Exclusive to Tactical and Intercessor Sergeants, its AP pretty much guarantees your opponent won't get more than a 6+ save, if that. A reliable tool for a dedicated CQC leader or just to serve as a deterrent to make the enemy think twice before charging you. Intercessor Sergeants will find those 3 attacks really useful with this thing.
• Force Sword: Exact same as the power sword, but with d3 damage. Exclusive to the three variants of Librarian, and fairly terrifying in their hands.
• Force Axe: Take a Force Sword and trade away 1 point of AP for 1 point of strength. The middle ground between the sword and the stave. While the other two are strong against some and comparatively weak against others, the axe is almost as good as the best option for every single possible enemy model. This makes it the best weapon of the three but it pays for it by costing 2 more points than the others. Exclusive to the Librarian in Terminator Armour.
• Force Stave: Take a Force Sword and trade away 2 points of AP for 2 point of strength. Exclusive to the Librarian in Terminator Armour.
• Power Fist: Strap on the Hulk Hand™ if you absolutely want to wound everything (short of Plague Marines) in the game on a 2+, dealing valuable D3 dmg while at it. The tradeoff is that you'll be at -1 to hit, so your accuracy will suffer a bit. Interestingly, a Tactical Sergeant Veteran Specialist at Level 2 with Practiced and a Power Fist can reroll a hit roll per round, so that can go a long way toward mitigating the accuracy issue.
• Thunder Hammer: The preferred whacking tool of Terminators, Company/Vanguard Veterans, and Intercessor Sergeants, this acts similarly to the Power Fist but always deals 3 damage. More importantly, it either comes on the moderately priced but surprisingly deadly Sergeant or with the always-valuable Storm Shield on Termies. For Vets, pair with a shield for a fast moving assault Termie flavor, or a Plasma pistol for an extra chance to kill.
• Crozius Arcanum: S+1, AP-1, D2 Pimp cane exclusive to the two Chaplain variants. With WS2+ and 3 or 4 attacks, it makes Chaplains a melee combatant to be reckoned with.
• Chainfist: A more expensive variant of the Power Fist, exclusive to Terminators. It gets an extra point of AP, and trades the D3 damage value for a reliable 2 damage. Has the same accuracy issues as the Power Fist, though.
• Lightning Claw: Has one less point of AP than a power sword for the same cost (at least for Elites), but rerolls wounds, making the modest Strength less of an issue. You can take a second one at a premium for an extra attack.
  • A pair of Lightning Claws is actually the cheapest weapon option available to Terminators, costing half the price of the default wargear. Given how good these things are, that's not a bad deal.
• Power Axe: Like a power sword, but trades a point of AP for an extra point of Strength, though it does cost a point more. Mathematically inferior to a lightning claw unless the target is double your base strength. Given that this is only possible in Kill team via combining multiple expensive buffs, the power axe should be left at home. Space Wolf Terminators can take these.
• Power Maul: This is to the Power Axe what the Power Axe is to the Power Sword, trading another point of AP for another point of Strength. Also costs less than the Power Axe, but is only available to Dark Angel Veterans or Space Wolf Terminators.
• Relic Blade: Aside from being cool and ancient, this weapon has the strength of a power maul, the AP of a power sword, and d3 damage to top it off. At 3 points, it isn't cheap, but it is far from overpriced, being able to deal with high toughness and good armor at the same time. It is also the cheapest multi-damage melee weapon available to space marines, and the only one that does not suffer a -1 to hit. Being a relic, only a vanguard sergeant or terminator captain is fit to wield it.
• Paired Combat Blades: Annual 2019 takes what used to be an ability of the Phobos Lieutenant and turns it into a weapon so that both they and incursors can share them. Same as the regular close S-User AP0 D1 close combat weapon everyone is assumed to have, but every unmodified hit roll of 6 generates an additional hit. Better than nothing, but not a huge selling point for either model.

SM Psychic Powers

• [Orksbane] Stormcaller (Warp Charge 7): If manifested, the power allows all friendly models within 6" of the psyker to count as obscured.
  • Any Primaris Librarian can trade any power they know for this. Given it uses the keywords rather than just the name, this includes both the Primaris Librarian and the Librarian in Phobos Armor. Notice that the Primaris Librarian does not have Primaris Librarian as a single keyword, but rather Primaris and Librarian.

Librarius

Exclusive to the Primaris Librarian and Librarian in Terminator Armour.

• [Commanders] Might of Heroes (Warp Charge 6): Select an allied model within 12" of the user. It gets +1 to Strength, Toughness, and Attacks.
• [Commanders] Veil of Time (Warp Charge 5): Pick a friendly model within 18" of the psyker. Until the next Psychic phase, that model can re-roll Advance and charge rolls, and always fights in the Hammer of Wrath section of the Fight phase, whether they charged or not.
• [Commanders] Null Zone (Warp Charge 8): Until the start of the next Psychic phase, enemy models within 3" of the user can't use invulnerable saves and divide their Psychic tests in half, rounding up.

Obscuration

Exclusive to the Librarian in Phobos Armor.

• [Elites] Shrouding (Warp Charge 6): Pick a PHOBOS model within 8" of the psyker. Until the next psychic phase enemy models can only shoot this model if its the closes target visible to them.
  • Effectively a Psychic Cloud of Flies. Limited in its selection and not as reliable, but still powerful when you need a model to survive. Notably it can be applied to the Phobos Librarian himself.
• [Elites] Hallucination (Warp Charge 7): Pick a visible enemy model within 12". They take -1 to to Ld and to Hit Rolls until the next psychic phase.
• [Elites] Mind Raid (Warp Charge 6): Pick a visible enemy model within 18". It suffers a mortal wound. If your team is Battleforged and you picked an enemy Leader or Commander, you gain 1CP
  • Although it seems to just be a Psybolt that does less damage and is harder to manifest, it has some benefits. Obviously theres the CP gain, but also the fact that you can choose your target unlike Psybolt which can only target the closes model without using the Psyker specialism. Additionally because the Phobos Librarian can manifest twice but can't use Psybolt twice without spending 2CP, this allows you to increase damage output for nothing. A solid choice.

Eisenhorn

Exclusive to Eisenhorn

• [WD2019July] Enforce Will (Warp Charge 8): Pick a visible enemy model within 12". You can immediately shoot or fight with that model as if it were your own and it was the respective phase.
  • Its essentially CP-free Mindshackle Scarabs. A WC of 8 is effectively the same check you'd have to make against an Ld7 so its no different against a Marine but you get no bonus for targeting a weak-willed guardsman, but now its at 12" instead of 6" and the model can fight, not just shoot. Its not often that you're going to want to use this over Psybolt but in rare instances like hitting the plasma gunner and overcharging for a chance at 2 kills or turning a powerful special weapon on their own team might pay off.

SM Units

• Scouts (Leader [Sgt only], Heavy [Gunner only], Comms, Demolitions, Scout, Sniper): Your cheaper way to add bodies to your Kill Team. They come armed with a Bolter, and can exchange it for a Sniper & Camo cloak to provide long range support, the -1 to hit in a game already filled with -1 hit modifiers will drive the enemy crazy. They can also exchange it for a Shotgun to get mobility (useful with Scout), or for a combat knife if you want to send them into melee. At a save of 4+, they are just a tad less durable than regular tactical marines, and have an otherwise identical statline. If you just need to put more bolter rounds down the field, these guys are your best option.
  • Scout Gunners (2): A cheaper source of heavy weapons than the Tactical gunner. A Demolitions Missile Gunner is the bane of models in cover, and infuriatingly difficult to hit in return when equipped with a Camo cloak. Heavy Bolter gunners can't get a camo cloak, but them and Sniper Rifles both can make good of any of the available Special, except maybe, ironically, lvl1 Scout.
  • Scout Sergeant (1): Interesting if you want a cheap Leader who is hard to hit. Differentiated from his battle-brothers in that he can take a chainsword instead of a combat knife, which is a purely cosmetic difference.
• Tactical Marines (Leader [Sgt only], Heavy [Gunner only], Comms, Demolitions, Medic, Sniper, Veteran): Not versatile, that's Tactical Gunners you're thinking of. Bolter marines are basic but reliable - not everyone in your team has to have a Heavy bolter. Though Intercessors are better, Tacticals still do a good job, and the Flesh Wound mechanic paired with Transhuman Physiology means them having a single wound isn't that much of a disadvantage when compared to them.
  • Tactical Gunners (2): Real tactical flexibility here, he brings the only Special weapon in your team; the other guy is restricted to heavy weapons like the Scout Gunner. A good model to turn into a specialist: a Plasma gun re-rolls 1s in the hands of a Sniper. A Heavy has an easier time moving around with either Missile Launcher or a Meltagun, and he can also increase the Heavy Bolter's RoF with More Bullets. A Heavy Bolter can also wound most infantry on a 2+ in a Demolition specialist's hands. So does a Grav gun while ignoring almost all armour saves, and a flamer benefits as well. You'll run out of points and specialists sooner than of options with these guys, they can be the backbone of your Kill Team.
  • Tactical Sergeant (1): Versatile in the extreme. He can take a Combi-weapon in lieu of carrying a pistol, which gives him even more flexibility than what Special Gunners have, BUT he can also opt to exchange one of his weapons for the amazing Auspex, of which he's the only non-Primaris source in your Kill Team. Since he'll be next to other teammates to buff, it also makes sense to make an Auspex-bearing Sergeant your Comms specialist. He still has his Boltgun or a bolt pistol sidearm, which can be upgraded to a grav-pistol or plasma pistol if you want more close range punch. Despite being a competent fighter and able to take a melee weapon instead of the Auspex, and your only model with a power fist, he can't take any Combat Specialty, unlike the Intercessor. Make him a Veteran if you want to run him with a power fist; the rerolls from Practiced will fix its accuracy issues and with Survivor it'll be protected by a 2+ armor save.
• Reivers (Leader [Sgt only], Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Scout, Veteran): While not cheap, Reivers are almost tailor-made for Kill Team and surprisingly effective when properly employed. They've got two wounds, fantastic vertical mobility, debuffs, and can hold their own in both the shooting and combat phases. They're better Scouts than Scouts themselves, since they have a better Assault gun, Grapnel gun, and can use Quick March to have a 14" Shock grenade radius. Plus, you get to field the 40K equivalent of Batman.
  • Reiver Sergeant (1): Unlike the regular Reivers, he can have a combat knife and still keep the carbine. 4A is a not only a deterrent, but actually useful. A model like that does alright even when solo, so a Veteran can make good use of his Grapnel and use Adaptive tactics and Marbo his way around. Or swap the carbine for the pistol and fully specialize in Combat to get 5 attacks in melee and an occasional little poke with the pistol if your opponent survives your onslaught of attacks the turn before. Combine this with a Medic's Stimm Shot to briefly unleash a ludicrous 6 attacks, for when there's someone you need to assassinate with extreme prejudice. Even without AP, that will eat through the saves of just about anything in the game.
• Intercessors (Leader [Sgt only], Demolitions [Gunner only], Combat, Comms, Medic, Sniper, Veteran): More tactical than the actual Tacticals, as they have a choice of Bolt Rifle variants on top of their extra wound and attack, so they live longer, are harder to shift in melee and are thus generally better at holding objectives. Plus they have access to Masterful Marksmanship. They do cost a bit more than Tacticals, so you pay for what you get. Also, thanks to the errata, intercessors can now take an auspex for a single little point.
  • Intercessor Gunners (2): An Intercessor with the awesome Auxiliary Grenade Launcher. They keep whatever bolt rifle flavor they want, so you can combine Demolitions with an Auto Bolt rifle to be very mobile. You can take two, but you can only really use one. Because of the errata, the grenade launcher is now affected by half range penalties.
  • Intercessor Sergeant (1): What peak efficiency looks like, being able to take a melee weapon without making you lose their guns. Thus, he'll always have a free chainsword, and can also take a power sword to be truly scary with his extra attack.
• Incursor (Leader [Sgt. only], Comms, Demolitions, Scout, Veteran): Incursors are a new primaris vanguard unit, complete with standard primaris stat block. Much like their infiltrator brothers, they bring only one loadout to the table: an occulus bolt carbine and paired combat blades. This makes them serviceable at range or in melee, but worse at either than a more specialized unit. Annoyingly, they don't have the concealed position special rule to help them get into melee faster. They can also take haywire mines, but, a word of advice, don't.
  • Incursor Sergeant: Designated leader with the extra attack and point of leadership that is to be expected. His three attacks and paired combat blades might make him a decent melee fighter, if you didn't have better in the form of vanguard veterans.
• Infiltrator (Leader [Sgt. only], Medic [Helix Adept only], Comms [Comms Array Only], Demolitions, Scout, Veteran): Infiltrators have the standard Primaris stat line, same as Reivers and Intercessors. They have one wargear configuration: marksman bolt carbine, bolt pistol, and the standard issue frag and krak grenades that almost every marine has. The concealed deployment special rule lets them live up to their name, letting them start anywhere outside 9 inches from the enemy deployment zone. They also have omni-scramblers, which prevent anything from deep striking within 7 inches of them, but unless you know your opponent will be using reserves, this is not a reason to take them on its own. Good for capturing objectives further up the board, and just tough enough to make dislodging them a nuisance, but not good for much else. The marksman bolt carbines are just bolt carbines with the ability to auto-wound on a roll of 6.
  • Infiltrator Helix Adept: Gains access to the Medic specialism, and nothing else. Serves as a one point tax on infiltrator medics.
  • Infiltrator Sergeant: Standard sergeant, +1 attack and leadership for an extra point. No extra wargear options. Can be a leader specialist, but if you think putting your leader closer to the enemy is a good idea, you should probably rethink your tactics. Though the omni-scrambler does make him more difficult to pick off with a deep striker.
• Suppressor (Leader [Sgt. only], Demolitions, Scout, Sniper, Veteran): Take a reiver. Then give him FLY and a 12" move and chuck in a free Grav Chute because why not. Now give him the an autocannon that hits like a plasma gun but with a half range as long as a plasmas full range. And to top it off, give it the ability to nullify shooting of any model within 2" of a model it can damage. Which is everything. Costs 30pts but he's worth it.
• Eliminator (Leader [Sgt. only], Comms, Scout, Sniper, Veteran): For only 5 more points than a scout sniper, you get the camo cloak, 2 wounds, concealed deployment at least 9" away from the enemy, and a rifle with 3 ammo options. There's an S5 mutagenic acid round with -2 AP, D3 damage and mortals on 6s. There's an S5 AP-1 smart bolt profile that can hit targets without line-of-sight on a 6 and adds +2 to hit on targets you can see! Oh, and a S5 Heavy D3 standard sniper rifle round (that is actually a frag bolt to thin out hordes). As of the Annual update, they can now take the las fusil which turns them from a decently powerful sniper to a deadly anti-armor piece. Apart from lack of points, there's really no reason to take the standard scout sniper at this point.
• Terminator (Leader [Sgt. only], Heavy [Gunner only], Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Zealot): Ah, the Terminators. Expensive as always, but they'll be worth every point. Any of them can switch the standard Power Fist for a Chainfist, or become Assault Terminators with Lightning Claws or the TH/SS combo. Space Wolf Terminators can also replace either their storm bolter or power fist (power sword in the sergeant's case) for any other power weapon (except for the relic blade) or storm shield, and may also swap the storm bolter for a combi-weapon, allowing them to act as a melee-ranged hybrid.
  • Terminator Gunner (2): Your source for Assault Cannons, Heavy Flamers, and Cyclone Missile Launchers. Dark Angels can also bring along a Plasma Cannon! Gunners also retain their Power Fist or Chain Fist, so anything that tries to tie up the heavy weapon in melee is liable to regret it. Also note that, as expensive as the heavy weapons are, you are paying for a storm bolter anyway, so factor that into the cost.
  • Terminator Sergeant (1): Gains one more attack and Ld, as is the standard for sergeants, for an additional two points. He also comes standard equipped with a power sword instead of a power fist. The sword is three points cheaper than the fist, so a terminator sergeant with default wargear is actually a point cheaper than a terminator with default wargear. Take a terminator sarge when you want to make your leader as durable as possible. Or alternatively, give him lightning claws and use him as a combat or zealot specialist to take full advantage of the extra attack.
  • Space Wolves Terminator: The Wolf Guard get a lot more versatility than their more codex-compliant brethren. They can swap their power fist for any other power weapon (axe, sword, maul), a lightning claw, a chainfist, a thunder hammer, or a storm shield. They can also upgrade their storm bolter to a combi-plasma, combi-flamer, or combi-melta, or switch it for any of the previously listed melee weapons. Mix and match to your heart's content. Also, do note that combi-weapons are conspicuous by their absence from loyalist terminator kits, so be prepared to convert or kitbash.
  • Dark Angels Terminator: Gain access to...a plasma cannon. On the gunner only. After the Space Wolves, frankly a bit disappointing and lackluster. Especially considering that the Deathwing Terminator kits come with halberds, maces, and flails.
• Veteran (Leader [Sgt. only], Heavy (Gunner only), Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Sniper, Veteran, Zealot]: Your pick of Sternguard, Vanguard, and Company Veterans, each of which has a Sergeant option that has an extra attack and point of leadership. Sternguard also get a gunner variant. Keep in mind that sternguard and vanguard veterans are off-limits to Space Wolves and Dark Angels, but their Company Veterans get access to unique wargear options to compensate for it.
  • Sternguard Veteran: They come equipped with special issue boltguns by default, which act as an additional one point tax. However, they can also swap those out for combi-weapons, admittedly at a higher cost than a tactical sergeant would pay. Still, if you want to spam combi-weapons, these guys are a good way to do it.
    • Sternguard Gunner: Sternguard Veterans with access to the Heavy specialism. Like their regular variant, they can take a special issue boltgun or a combi-weapon, but that probably isn't why you are bringing these. They are your ticket to the new (and expensive) heavy weapon options. They can take a heavy bolter, missile launcher (at more than three times the cost a Scout or Tactical Marine would pay), heavy flamer, multi-melta, lascannon, plasma cannon, or a grav-cannon and grav-amp.
    • Sternguard Sergeant: Leader variant of a Sternguard Veteran. Can take an auspex, and has a mess of other wargear options. Fully loaded, a Sternguard Sergeant can take up to two pistols or melee weapons while keeping their special issue boltgun, or replacing it with a combi-weapon.
  • Vanguard Veteran: These guys are armed with a bolt pistol and chainsword by default, but can swap each of those for any other pistol or melee weapon. This means that they can wield crazy combinations of weapons, like dual chainswords or akimbo plasma pistols. They can also take jump packs (though, suprisingly, they don't come with them by default) and melta bombs.
    • Vanguard Sergeant: The Vanguard Sergeant has access to all the same wargear as Vanguard Veterans, which is a lot. In addition, they are one of only two models that can take a relic blade, the other being a commander. You can make him your Leader, but more likely you'll want him as a Combat or Zealot specialist to get the most mileage out of that extra attack.
  • Company Veteran: Come with a bolt pistol and chainsword, but can swap the chainsword for a boltgun, combi-weapon, special weapon, pistol, or melee weapon, and the bolt pistol for any other pistol or melee weapon. These guys provide a good way to get around the tactical marine's cap on one special weapon only, but keep in mind they will be paying increased costs for plasma and melta guns. Space Wolves have no limit to how many Company Veterans they can take and may give them Jump Packs (making them de facto Vanguard Vets), while Dark Angels Company Veterans can use heavy weapons like Sternguard Gunners and take combat shields for a 5++.
    • Veteran Sergeant: Leader variant of the Company Veteran. Has access to the same wargear options as the Sternguard Sergeant, excluding the auspex and special-issue boltgun.
      • An interesting note is that Veterans can take a power sword at one point cheaper than Tactical Sergeants and Intercessors. This means that a Veteran, Vanguard, or Sternguard Sergeant with a power sword and bolt or grav pistol costs the same as a Tactical Sergeant with the same weapons, but gets an extra attack and point of leadership. Not a bad way to outfit a Combat or Zealot specialist, or give a Leader a better chance in melee. A more interesting note is that Company Veterans can take both a Chainsword and a Flamer for the same points as a regular Gunner, giving you access to a cheap anti-horde special weapon AND Reiver-like combat ability, or a Storm Shield and Combibolter on your Veteran Sergeant because T'au.
    • Dark Angels Veteran: Gets access to a Combat Shield and Power Maul in addition to all the other weapons available to Company Veterans. The combat shield costs the same as a storm shield while only providing a 5++ instead of a 3++, but can be taken without sacrificing another weapon. In addition, one Dark Angel veteran can take a heavy weapon, giving them an equivalent to a Sternguard gunner minus the option for a heavy flamer. Because you don't have access to the uncapped Sternguard and Vanguard, you can only run four veterans and one sergeant at the most.
    • Space Wolves Veteran: To begin with, Space Wolves veterans have no availability cap, which is a step up from the Dark Angels. They can also take jump packs, meaning that they are almost Vanguard equivalent, except for the absence of melta bombs and relic blades. They are also locked out of taking the grav-pistol or combi-grav, though, inconsistently, not the grav-cannon or grav-gun.
• Assault Intercessor (?): Announced but not yet released. Has a heavy bolt pistol and Astartes chainsword (with extra AP) and the standard Reiver statline
  • Sergeant: Can swap the chainsword for a power sword, power fist or thunder hammer, and his Heavy Bolt Pistol for a Hand Flamer or Plasma pistol.

SM Commanders

• Janus Draik (BSF/Annual 2019) (Logistics): He's a rather unique card, considering he can be either used for Adeptus Astartes, Astra Militarum, and Adeptus Mechanicus kill-teams without being able to use the rules of either. What he does offer is plenty of anti-armor between His S4 AP-2 pistol, his S3 AP-4 rapier, and his S6 AP-1 Dd3 single-use grenade as well as the ability to use a one-time ability to instantly score d3 mortal wounds. Unfortunately, he's man-tier squishy with a 4+/4++ save, so he'll need some degree of protection in order to last.
• Primaris Captain (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist, Strength): The Captain hasn't changed much from vanilla 40k, although the free 4++ is nice. Being a Primaris, he's stuck with the basic power sword and bolt pistol, the only thing that's customizable being the bolt rifle. He can take either a master crafted stalker bolt rifle or a master crafted auto bolt rifle (does 2D instead of 1), the former for sitting and the back and sniping, and the latter for rapidly advancing on the enemy. Remember that the auto bolt rifle is Assault 2, meaning you can split-fire with it unlike the Stalker, and the 2D is especially punishing vs GEQs. Despite the inflexible wargear setup, he can fill a lot of roles since he can take nearly any Commander-exclusive Specialism.
• Primaris Lieutenant (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist, Strength): As a watered-down Captain, don't expect the Lieutenant to make as much of an impact as his counterpart. His re-rolling 1's to wound aura tactic can be useful, but many others have auras that are strictly better than his. Like the Captain, he's stuck with the basic power sword and bolt pistol along with one of the master-crafted bolt rifles. Since the lieutenant has WS 2+ and 4A but only BS 3+, the auto bolt rifle will often be better because his strong suit is melee and the auto rifle lets him advance and still shoot; Usually, though, if you want to get melee then the chaplain will be a better idea due to the superior buffs, stronger melee, and invuln save that he has. That said, he can be almost as flexible as the Captain without having to pay as many points to do so due to how many specialisms he can take.
  • Interesting Note: A level 3 Lieutenant with the Iron Will and Tactical Planner traits is exactly 100 points, allowing them to fit nicely into any preexisting Killteam. If you take the Logistic specialism, you can use 1 of those D3 bonus command points from Tactical Planner to purchase yourself a 5++ save, and upgrade your sword to 2 Damage with the Master Artisan trait. That gives you a well rounded front-line warrior who can also contribute to shooting with the Armed to the Teeth trait allowing him to throw a grenade every turn.
• Primaris Librarian (Fortitude, Melee, Shooting, Psyker, Strength): The Primaris Librarian is the most expensive Adeptus Astartes Commander, and for good reason. He can use 2 psychic powers per phase, and has a wide variety of powers to choose from. Sitting right at 81 points, the Librarian has a pitiful little bolt pistol for ranged weapons, but has a 4A Force Sword to cut apart multi-wound models in melee. Don't forget that you can manifest psychic powers WHILE IN MELEE, so don't be scared to get up in the enemy's face and spam Might of Heroes and Veil of Time. One very important aspect of the psykers in Kill Team are the fact that they can replace psybolt with a different power. For example, you could run 2 power from the Librarius discipline, and 1 power from the universal psychic powers everyone gets. One small disadvantage the Librarian has is that he has 3+ WS/BS, as compared to many other commanders having 2+ in some stat. Overall, the Librarian is likely the best commander because it unlocks an entirely new phase for the Space Marines, and many Commanders Missions make the commander cost no points, so most of the time the higher cost won't have much of an impact.
  • Torrvald Orksbane: Even though the named characters are supposed to be superior versions of the standard model, this guy really does the opposite. He's often WORSE than the normal Primaris Librarian because of the specialism he's stuck in. His statline is entirely unchanged, the only difference between him and a normal librarian being his "Primaris Librarian Specialism". The reason he is inferior to the normal librarian is that he has 0 tactics specific to him. Not only that, but his specialism gives him a +1 to psychic tests at level 1, which is good, but the "Psyker" specialist already does the same thing (BUT THE PSYKER SPECIALISM HAS TACTICS SPECIFIC TO IT). The normal Primaris Librarian also has the ability to be a few other specialisms, and can help to shore up its weakpoints instead of wasting its time enhancing its already strong psychic phase. The level 4 ability he gets is literally useless outside of a campaign (Like, what were you thinking when you made this guy's abilities GW?) and his level 3 ability, Icy Kiss of Fenris won't work alot of the time because you'll probably just replace psybolt with another power anyways. Buy this guy's box just for the free tokens and psychic powers, don't actually use his ruleset and just have him count as a normal Librarian.
    • Primaris Librarian Specialism: Torrvald Orksbane's unique skill tree, with the following skills.
      • Level 1: Wyrdsborn: +1 to Psychic tests. Good, but you can get this by just using the Psyker specialism.
      • Level 2: Ork Hunter: Reroll hit rolls of 1 in the fight phase. If you're fighting Orks, its failed hit rolls instead.
      • Level 3: Icy Kiss of Fenris: When Torrvald uses psybolt on someone and they don't die, automatically make them shaken. Useful for fighting bigger enemies that won't die to one bolt.
      • Level 4: Trophy Hunter: Roll a d6 for every enemy specialist you killed at the end of the game. If Torrvald didn't go out of action, you get 1 morale if any of them come up as 5+. Obviously only for campaign.
• Primaris Chaplain (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Melee, Shooting, Strength): If you have a very stabby kill team, this is gonna be the right guy for you. He's really good at melee, and really good at providing buffs for melee, but that's it. Even though his skill set is limited, he is VERY good at what he does. With his 4++, Arcanum melee, 2+ WS, AND aura tactic for melee, he's a force to be reckoned with in the fight phase. If you have alot of reivers in your team, this guy works wonders with them. You'll be ripping your enemy to shreds with the right setup. However, his only ranged capability is his pistol. With almost no range to work with, he won't work very well on your team if you're not going for melee. If you're playing a mission that has objectives, probably avoid using the chaplain, because sitting on the objective doing nothing doesn't really work for him. On the other hand, if the mission is about killing the enemy or the enemy's commander, then this guy works great. He performs especially well against enemies with high AP melee like GSC or Dark Eldar (because of his 4++).
• Primaris Captain in Phobos Armor (Elites) (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist, Strength): This model has only one wargear loadout, but what a loadout it is. Camo Cloak and Iron Halo for extra protection. Combat knife gives him an impressive 6 attacks if he ends up in melee (but since they have no AP or strength boosts, don't let him get caught in melee against tougher opponents). A Master-Crafted Instigator Bolt Carbine that trades six inches of range from its Master-Crafted Stalker Bolt Rifle cousin for the ability to ignore range penalties. Concealed deployment gives him a chance to get a good vantage point and make the most of that thirty-inch range, and the omni-scrambler ensures that your opponent will have a harder time dislodging him with a deep-strike. Otherwise, he costs five more points at every level than the regular Primaris Captain, but makes himself well worth it.
  • Note: If you make the Captain a Level 2 Shooting specialist with the Trick-Shooter ability, he will ignore both range and obscured penalties to hit (the two most common hit penalties), and reroll ones, meaning that he would have to roll a one twice to miss anything without additional sources of hit penalties. Then, when he almost invariably does hit his target, he can use the Lucky Hit tactic to auto-pass both wound rolls. A Captain with this setup can ruin the day of any model he can see within thirty inches. Have fun with that.
• Primaris Lieutenant in Phobos Armor (Elites) (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist, Strength): [ADD YOUR SM SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
• Primaris Librarian in Phobos Armor (Elites) (Fortitude, Melee, Psyker, Stealth, Strength): [ADD YOUR SM SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
• Librarian in Terminator Armor (Elites) (Fortitude, Melee, Psyker, Shooting, Strength): The Terminator variant of the Librarian acts pretty similarly to his Primaris brother, with access to the same psychic discipline and a similar statline. He does, however, only have 3 attacks and 5 inches of movement, making him moderately less well-suited to dealing damage in melee. He can choose between a force stave, force axe, and force sword, depending on whether strength or AP is a priority. Note that he does not come with a ranged weapon by default, though, as is the standard for Terminators, the storm bolter and full complement of combi-weapons are available to this model. Just know that you will be paying a premium for those. Take this over the Primaris Librarian if you want a psyker that will be harder for the enemy to get rid of.
• Chaplain in Terminator Armor (Elites) (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Melee, Shooting, Strength): Much like the Terminator Librarian, the Terminator Chaplain is a more durable but less mobile variant of the Primaris Chaplain, sacrificing an inch of movement an one attack for a 2+ save. Unlike the Terminator Librarian, however, the Chaplain does not have an invulnerable save over his Primaris variant, as both have the 4++ from the Rosarius. The Terminator Chaplain's biggest advantage, then, is the fact that he comes equipped with a storm bolter and can take any combi-weapon, which better than the Absolver Bolt Pistol for ranged combat. That said, the Chaplain is oriented towards melee, where the Absolver is actually more useful.
• Captain in Terminator Armor (Elites) (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): The Terminator Armor is definitely nice, but this Captain's main draw is the fact he can be kitted out for nearly anything. He can fight in melee with Lightning Claws (single or paired), a Thunder Hammer, or a relic blade (not available for the Space Wolves although they can take a Power Sword, Power Axe, or Power Maul instead), or just stick with a power fist or chainfist. For ranged combat, he can swap out his storm bolter for a combi-weapon. And he can replace either his storm bolter or his melee weapon with a storm shield for extra durability at range or in melee. And a Terminator Captain with a power fist can also take a wrist-mounted grenade launcher. Mix and match to fit your needs. Just be mindful that the only free weapons are the power sword and storm bolter, with the rest of the options getting expensive fast. Before kitting your Terminator Captain out with a combi-melta and thunder hammer (the two most expensive options), consider that any turn in which he uses one, he will not be using the other (barring overwatch shots), and that replacing either weapon with a cheaper option could pay for an extra body on the field.
  • Modelling Note: While all of these options sound nice on paper, the sad fact is that, at the time of release for Elites, only three Terminator Captain models are in production: a Blood Angels Terminator Captain with Storm Bolter and Thunder Hammer, a Deathwatch Terminator Captain (who can simply be assembled with the regular shoulder pad instead of the Deathwatch one) with Storm Bolter and Power Sword, and the Cataphractii Terminator Captain from the Space Marine Heroes box with a combi-melta and chainfist. While you could run a regular terminator as a Captain to gain access to all the default Terminator equipment, or use spare terminator bits to convert the wargear on the Captain models, the combi-plasma and combi-flamer remain unseen on loyalist Terminators, and the wrist-mounted grenade launcher is not available on any model. If you want these options, get to converting.
    • Conversion Note: The Cataphractii Terminator Captain's combi-melta is a two-part assembly, consisting of a bolter half which the handle is attached to, and a meltagun half which attaches to the side of the bolter. Given that the bolter half features a flat face for the melta half to be glued to, it wouldn't take much to replace it with a cut down plasma or flamer barrel. You would still be stuck with a chainfist, but it isn't the worst option.
• Inquisitor Eisenhorn (Strategist): [ADD YOUR SM SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
• Neyam Shai Murad (WDSept2019/Annual2019) (Shooting): Rogue Trader originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with 2 Negotiator pistols but weirdly not her own sword-leg. [ADD YOUR SM SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]

SM Tactics

• [Core] Death to Traitors! (1 CP): Melee hit rolls of 6+ against Heretic Astartes models generate an additional attack. These attacks can't create further attacks.
  • Its a relatively niche tactic but keep in mind its against Heretic Astartes models. Obviously this includes Chaos Space Marines from the Heretic Astartes faction as you'd expect, as well as Rubrics, Deathguard marines, SoTA Legionnaires who have it as a non-faction keyword. But it also includes Chaos Cultists, Tzaangors and Poxwalkers and this is often missed. Still niche but less so than many people think at first look.
• [Core] Armour of Contempt (1 CP): In response to a mortal wound, get a 5+ save against mortal wounds for the rest of the round, including the one you just took. Snipers, booby traps, Psykers, Chaos stratagems, GSCult Rock drills. Even tripping and falling gets around power armour. That's when you use this strat.
• [Core] Honour the Chapter (2 CP): A unit can immediately fight again at the end of the Fight phase. Turns Reivers into Khorne Berserkers, with expected results.
• [Core] Masterful Marksmanship (1 CP): This lets an Intercessor with a Stalker Boltrifle add 1 to hit and wound rolls in the Shooting Phase. Demo, Sniper, Comms, Auspex. Either of those rules can further assist an Intercessor so armed.
• [Core] Hellfire Shells (2 CP): A Heavy Bolter can fire one shot, but if it hits, do D3 Mortal Wounds instead of usual wound rolls. Look at you, who's dealing the mortal wounds now? But for the cost, better make that shot count - the same assists for Masterful Marksmanship apply here.
• [Core] Shock and Awe (2 CP): Normally, Shock grenades are used in the Shooting phase, after you decided to move instead of charge. This strat allows a Reiver to chuck a shock grenade before the charge actually happens, protecting him. As it connects, the affected model can't Overwatch that very phase, on top of -1 to hit & inability to use Overwatch or be Readied until the end of the next battle round.
  • So, remember how risky it is to use a grenade after you moved? Now try to do it before you move. Since the strat doesn't say you increase the grenade's range to match your charge's, this would mean you were already within 6" of the enemy when you begin the charge, meaning the previous battle round ended with you at that distance. Maybe you consolidated 3" towards an enemy 9" away from a previous combat, and the enemy decided to Ready instead of moving away - can't let go of that objective. Maybe it is the enemy who is moving towards you, attempting to use a grenade/half-range Shotgun or Meltagun trick on your Reiver. Or you're punishing a failed enemy charge. It can happen, and if you do, by all means use this to charge the fool who thought a readied flamer meant anything against a Reaver THAT close. Everything has its place, you can nudge it but you can't force it. That's if the enemy has the initiative - if you do, then it's a bit easier.
• [Ulfrich] Battle-Brothers (1 CP): Use this Tactic after failing a saving throw for a model that is within 3" of another friendly model that is not shaken. No damage is inflicted upon the target model, but one friendly model of your choice, that is within 3" of the target model and not shaken, suffers a number of mortal wounds equal to the Damage characteristic of the weapon used in the attack.
  • Note that while you need another friendly model within 3" to activate this tactic, you don't have to give that model the mortal wounds. You can give those to any friendly model within 3", which notably includes the targeted model. Which means you can turn a multidamage attack into a D1 attack just by using this ability, and without risking any other models. Niche, and definitely not RAI, but useful when it comes up.
• [Ulfrich] Adaptive Strategy (1 CP): Gain d3 CP after your kill-team is broken. You'll probably need them to stay in the game if you do break, and even on a roll of 1 the Tactic will be essentially free.
• [Ulfrich] Auspex Scan (2 CP): When selecting a Readied model to shoot, that model will ignore all negative hit modifiers.
  • Notably, this doesn't actually require an Auspex.
• [Ulfrich] Psychological Warfare (1 CP): In the morale phase, select a Reiver that took a model out of action this turn and is not shaken. All enemy models within 6" of it add 1 to their Nerve tests.
• [Ulfrich/Elites] Angel of Death (1 CP): In the fight phase, select a model that charged this turn. It gains an extra attack.
• [Ulfrich/Elites/Annual2019] Death Denied (2 3 CP): Use this Tactic when a model would be taken out of action. It takes a flesh wound instead. Remember that Transhuman Physiology negates the penalties of the first Flesh Wound you receive. (Seriously, this may be the single most powerful stratagem in the entire tabletop game, and is perhaps the only reason why the Deathwatch Faction is not hands-down superior to the Space Marines Faction.)
  • Increased to 3CP in Annual 2019. Because SM was doing so well and needed the nerf while Tau are perfectly balanced.
• [Elites] Grav-Chute Descent (Reserve) (1 CP): Take up any combination of 3 Grav-Chute and/or Reiver models out of reserve and set them up anywhere more than 5" from an enemy.
• [Elites] Teleport Strike (Reserve) (1 CP): Take up to 3 Terminator models out of reserve and set them up anywhere more than 5" from an enemy.
• [Elites] Jump Pack Assault (Reserve) (1 CP): Use this Tactic at the end of the Movement phase. Choose up to three Jump Pack models from your kill team that were set up in Reserve and set them up anywhere on the battlefield that is more than 5" away from any enemy models.
• [Elites] Smoke Grenade (1 CP): Chose a non-shaken Infiltrator or Suppressor Sergeant at the beginning of the Shooting Phase. They can't shoot this phase, but until the end of the phase all models within 3" of it are considered obscured against shooting attacks.
• [??/Annual 2019] Alchomite Detonation (2CP, Sector Mechanicus Killzone): Chose an Alchomite Stack within 1" of a non-shaken model of yours at the end of the Movement Phase. At the end of the next movement phase, roll a d6 for each model within 3". On a 4+ they get a mortal wound. Remove the Alchomite Stack from the battlefield and any models hat were standing on it are placed directly below where they were standing.

SM Commander Tactics

• [Orksbane/Annual 2019] Champion of Humanity (2 CP): Use at the start of the Fight phase if you have any non-shaken Adeptus Astartes commander. When you use this, it allows you to choose one - reroll all failed wound rolls or all failed hit rolls until the end of the battle round. The tactic lets you to adapt to various situation, and can be particularly useful when using a power sword/force sword, as it sometimes has a hard time wounding targets. However, many commanders have auras that can give the same effect, but at a lower cost AND affecting the models around them.
• [Commanders/Elites] Rites of Battle (Aura) (1 CP): Use at the start of the Shooting phase if you have a non-shaken Primaris Captain. As long as this model is not shaken, you can re-roll hit rolls of 1 for friendly models within 6" of this model until the end of the battle round.
  • Given it uses the Primaris Captain keywords rather than just the name, this includes both the Primaris Captain and the Captain in Phobos Armor. Notice that the Primaris Captain does not have Primaris Captain as a single keyword, but rather Primaris and Captain.
• [Commanders/Elites] Tactical Precision (Aura) (1 CP): Use at the start of the Shooting phase if you have a non-shaken Primaris Lieutenant. As long as this model is not shaken, you can re-roll wound rolls of 1 for friendly models within 6" of this model until the end of the battle round.
  • Given it uses the Primaris Lieutenant keywords rather than just the name, this includes both the Primaris Lieutenant and the Lieutenant in Phobos Armor. Notice that the Primaris Librarian does not have Primaris Lieutenant as a single keyword, but rather Primaris and Lieutenant.
• [Commanders/Elites] Litanies of Hate (Aura) (1 CP): Use at the start of the Fight phase if your Kill Team has a Primaris Chaplain that is not shaken. You can re-roll failed hit rolls in the Fight phase for any friendly model within 6" of the chaplain until the end of the battle round.
• [Commanders/Elites] Spiritual Leader (Aura) (1 CP): Use at the start of the movement phase if your Kill Team has a Primaris Chaplain that is not shaken. Friendly models within 6" can use the chaplain's leadership (9) as their own when making nerve tests until the end of the battle round.

SM Strategies

SM Strategies:

Asking how to optimize space marine teams is an interesting proposition, considering how many possibilities this team has. SM are the ultimate jack of all trades here, with high saves and decent morale that can be re-rolled, plus all of the variety of weapons (both melee and ranged) you could want. So first of, you want to choose between a CQC focused KT, a ranged KT, or a mixed one.

• Ranged teams will use a decent amount of scouts and camuflage cloaks.
• Melee teams will have a decent amount of Primris Reivers, their melee skills, plenty of attacks and W2 making them reliable choppy machines that could take a hit before falling, plus a lot of movility in high cover maps.
• Mixed teams are mixed. It's a great generalist team, though DeathWatch will outperform them by far here, even if outnumbered by one or two units.

Counterplay:

The best way to deal with SM is experience. Really, once you see the opponent's list, you may know what he can do, but SM are the ultimate jack of all trades in KT, and can adapt well enough to most situations. Generalist lists only get you so far, though, and will leave the player using them rather exposed to the strategy of his opponent. But even without looking at the list, most SM units share a 3+ save, so anything that could reliably lower that is a safe bet. Plasma spam with the IG is a good strategy, considering that even the heaviest loadout team will outnumber them, and overloading plasma will deal with the Primaris as well (more so if you play as Cadian, with those sweet 1 rerolls). Melee SM teams against plasma spam devolve in two different ways: either the plasma hits them before the astartes reach the guard lines, weakening them enough to have a chance of surviving melee (as in, killing them and/or leaving them wounded enough so that the negative modifiers make their melee attacks reliably fail), or the astartes reach the lines relatively fresh and slaughter the mortals. Beating them in melee is difficult, but teams like the harlequins, Death Guard and (obviously) the Custodes have good chances against them. However, Astartes can easily adapt to this by fielding specialist units, as they are one-man army knives. Against Custodes, Relic Blades or Power Fists with enough hits will put them in pain, and against harlequins enough chainswords + flamers will make it hurt for them to be around you. If you have to fight against a good Astartes player, consider what your strengths are and how his roster would allow to circumvent them, and try to play your faction differently.

SM Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

• 6 models, 100 points
  • Intercessor sergeant with power sword, 18 pts
  • 2 Reivers with grapnel, 34 pts
  • Intercessor with auspex, 16 pts
  • Tactical gunner with heavy bolter, 16 pts
  • Tactical gunner with plasma gun, 16 pts

• 6 models, 100 points
  • Intercessor sergeant with power sword, 18 pts (Combat)
  • Reiver sergeant with grapnel and grav-chute, 19 pts (Leader)
  • Intercessor Gunner with auspex and Aux grenade launcher, 17 pts (Comms)
  • Intercessor Gunner with Stalker bolt rifle and Aux grenade launcher, 17 pts (Sniper)
  • Intercessor, 16 pts
  • Intercessor, 16 pts

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

• 8 models, 200 points
  • Primaris Librarian, 81 pts (Psyker)
  • Intercessor Sergeant with power sword, 18 pts (Leader)
  • Intercessor Gunner with grenade launcher, 16 pts (Demolitions)
  • Tactical Gunner with plasma gun, 16 pts (Sniper/Medic)
  • Scout Gunner with heavy bolter, 14 pts (Heavy)
  • Tactical Sergeant with combi-melta, 16 pts
  • Reiver Sergeant with grapnel and grav-chute, 19 pts
  • Scout Gunner with launcher and camo cloak, 18 pts

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

• 13 models, 197 points
  • Primaris Librarian, all commander traits, level 4 (Psyker)
  • Intercessor Sergeant with power sword, 18 pts (Leader
  • Intercessor Gunner with grenade launcher, 16 pts (Demolitions)
  • Reiver Sergeant with grapnel and grav chute, 19 pts (Combat)
  • Intercessor with auspex and stalker bolt rifle, 16 pts (Comms)
  • Reiver with grapnel and grav chute, 18 pts
  • Reiver with grapnel and grav chute, 18 pts
  • Tactical Sergeant with combi-melta, 16 pts
  • Tactical Gunner with heavy bolter, 16 pts
  • Tactical Gunner with plasma gun, 16 pts
  • Scout Sergeant with sniper and camo cloak, 13 pts
  • Scout Gunner with missile launcher and camo cloak, 18 pts
  • Scout with sniper and camo cloak, 12 pts

Deathwatch

Why Play Deathwatch

• Pros
  • Perhaps the easiest Kill Team to build and convert - one five-man Kill Team set gives you practically every combination of gear that you'd like on your Kill Team - barring multiple Frag Cannons. Huge wealth of bits in the kit.
  • The Frag Cannon is currently the most powerful gun in the game...and you can bring 4 of them in a 100 point list.
  • Small model count + high customisation = severe Your Dudes. Flexible as hell, not only everyone can do whatever you want them to, but their guns have multiple profiles.
  • Special and power weapons without hard caps unlike other factions.
• Cons
  • Even without hard caps, you'll bring only what you can afford. Compromises will be made.
  • All of the possible combinations of gear in the DW Codex haven't translated to Kill Team. No lightning claws, storm bolters or non-combi flamer/plasma/meltaguns. No power axes, no guns alongside a storm shield.
  • Small model count. Your kill team will most likely number five to seven Marines. Casualties will be felt.
  • In addition to making you That Guy, a 4-Frag Cannon loadout will leave you with no points to level up your Specialists with.
  • No Medic.

DW Special Rules

• And They Shall Know No Fear: Reroll your Failed Nerve Checks. Vets having Ld8 means you can lose 4 models (aka 4/5ths of the team) and the last one would still need a rerollable 5+ to fail.
• Transhuman Physiology: Ignore -1 penalty to hit from the first flesh wound suffered in a game.
• Special Issue Ammo: All Bolt weapons (except the Infernus Heavy Bolter) can use one of the four ammo types whenever they fire. As to when to use what, remember benefit is proportional to how much the characteristic was modified, like so:
  • Dragonfire Bolts: Add +1 to hit when targeting obscured models. Ranged hit penalties are fairly common in Kill Team, and the +1 is just enough to nullify the penalty for hitting obscured targets. A +50% benefit if you're forced to hit on 5s (enemy in cover at long range), +100% if you do so on 6s. Good against T3 models, where the issue is to hit them in the first place.
  • Hellfire Rounds: Always wounds on a 2+. Better than a mere +1 to hit, it's the best single round against T4 and up. BE ADVISED: Hellfire ROUNDS are "special ammunition" for DW Bolt Weaponry. Hellfire SHELLS are a Tactic for both SM and DW. They are NOT the same thing. You can fire multiple DW "special ammunition" Hellfire ROUNDS from your bolt weaponry, versus the single shot taken with the Hellfire SHELLS Mortal Wound(s) Tactic.
  • Kraken Bolts: +3" to the range of Pistols, +6" otherwise. Improve the AP by one, to a maximum of AP-2. Mighty useful since it both debuffs the enemy AND lets you play with range, which is even more important in Kill Team since does away with the Long Range hit penalty.
  • Vengeance Rounds: -3" to the range of Pistols, -6" otherwise. Increase the AP by two, to a maximum of AP-3. It's the best round against everything but Plague Marines...UNLESS the range reduction applies the Long Range penalty. Great otherwise.
• Fortis Kill Team: The Deathwatch can use Primaris Marines, but they need to use the Deathwatch's prices for wargear.
• Auspex:Now available to the Deathwatch by being added to the Intercessor's datasheet. One of your marines within 3" of the Intercessor ignore the penalty for shooting and injuring an obscured target. Because Frag Cannons weren't nasty enough.
• Storm Shield: A 3++ invulnerable save, the highest in the game, but it can't be combined with a gun unlike 40k.
• Atonement Through Honor: Black Shields can re-roll failed charges.
• Grapnel Launchers: Allows Reivers to ignore vertical distance when normal moving (moving under and up to your model's Movement characteristic: charging and advancing fall under special cases as defined in the rulebook). It's hard to overstate the advantage that freedom of movement brings to a game as terrain-heavy as Kill Team. Turning Reivers into defacto jump troops allows you to use them at their full potential.
• Grav Chutes: Allows Reivers to ignore falling damage. Considering how often your stabby boys will be leaping tall buildings and ziplining all over the place, these things can come in handy. The only downside is that it's a further points tax on an already expensive unit with an already existing points tax (Always. Take. The. Grapnel. Launchers.), but it's a nice way to avoid tempting fate with that Combat specialist you've come to love, protecting that investment from an idiotically underwhelming death. You can play without them, but just be aware that you're playing a risky game.
• Auxiliary Grenade Launcher: Like with vanilla SM, this is good - the Intercessor keeps his gun (and Special Ammo), gets a powerful way to use grenades, the Demolitions guy turns it into a killer machine and makes it behaves like a missile launcher (which you don't actually have) at no cost beyond a Gunner's tax. The thing is you (and especially the Demo) have better weapons to use, and grenades can't be used with other guns. Will you pay 4pts more than regular marines to bring a Deathwatch Primaris that won't use his special ammo? That's up to you to think about - the option is still good and not everything has to be super optimized.
• Iron Halo: Exclusive to the Primaris Captain, it gives him a 4++.
• Rosarius: Same thing as the Iron Halo, but for the Primaris Chaplain.

DW Faction Attributes

• Mission Tactics: Similar to their 40k version, but now directed against a specific datasheet chosen at the beginning of the first round; everyone in the kill-team rerolls 1s to wound against models from that datasheet (e.g. if Tactical Marines are chosen the bonus applies against Gunners and Sergeants as well).

DW Ranged Weapons

• Boltgun: The classic Special Ammunition dispenser, it lets your Vets dominate other MEQs. Given how spoiled for choice you are with special weapons, though, you're probably not going to have any room for standard boltguns unless you're deliberately running a bare-bones team, or are using a bare-bones sergeant to fit in four frag cannons.
• Combi-Melta/Plasma: Same as vanilla Space Marines, but since the bolter part has special issue ammo shooting both at the same time is a bit more appealing, as 6s always hit.
• Deathwatch Shotgun: It uses its own selection of special shells and slugs to deal with a variety of enemies. It's also your Veterans' only multishot assault gun, a counterpart to the Stalker boltgun.
  • Cryptclearer: 16" Assault 2 S4, re-rolls failed wound rolls. A re-rollable 3+ is stronger than a 2+ against GEQ.
  • Xenopurge: 16" Assault 2 S4 AP-1. It deals 2 dmg within 8", and multiple damage is so valuable in Kill Team. It's main purpose is to be on the hands of someone who will close into double damage range, otherwise a Kraken bolter gives similar results without that much struggle.
  • Wyrmsbreath: 7" Assault D6 S3 flamer to deal with entrenched GEQ. Good deterrent and sidearm to a close range Xenopurger.
• Stalker Pattern Boltgun: 30" Heavy 2 AP-1 Bolter to let your Veterans shoot twice as much as Intercessors at full range.

Primaris weapons

• Bolt Pistol: Comes with Intercessors, and while not amazing it can be a nice sucker punch if stuck in melee.
• Heavy Bolt Pistol: Better AP than the standard bolt pistol gives it distinctly more punch than its smaller cousin. Never forget you have them.
• Bolt Rifle: Its excellent range coupled with natural AP-1 humbles vanilla SM by using Vengeance like it was an AP-3 bolter, or Tau by rapid firing AP-2 from 18".
• Auto Bolt Rile: Assault 2 Bolter. Thus, from 12+" away it's basically a double bolter you can advance with. While it lets you fire two Vengeance shots from 18", two Kraken rounds from a Bolt rifle will do more damage, as they won't suffer the long distance penalty at that range.
• Stalker Bolt Rifle: 36" Heavy 1 AP-2 Bolt Rifle.
• Bolt Carbine: Reiver tactical-looking Auto Bolt Rifle.

Gunner weapons

• Deathwatch Frag Cannon: Hoo boy, this is quite possibly THE single strongest ranged weapon in Kill Team. 24" Assault 2 S7 AP-2 dealing 2 dmg a shot. When you ditch the long range penalty, it becomes S9 AP-3. As if that wasn't all, it can deal with swarming enemies with its 8" Assault 2D6 S6 AP-1 D1 autohit profile, making GK Incinerators jealous. You can fit 4 of them in a Kill Team, but that will make you That Guy.
• Infernus Heavy Bolter: A combi-Heavy Bolter/Heavy Flamer. The Heavy bolter wounds pretty much everyone on a 3+, and 36" range means it loses the long range penalty a turn before everyone else. And if anyone get too close, you still have the Heavy flamer. All of that costing less than half of a Frag cannon, meaning you can have a more varied Kill Team.

Grenades: Just not worth it when your army has such cool guns.

• Frag Grenade: You're not closing within 6" of the enemy to deliver a bunch of lasgun shots. A storm shield Vet could use it to overwatch enemies dumb enough to charge a 3++ power weapon model from within 6" away.
• Krak Grenade: While it does D3 damage, your main guns already wound Plague Marines on a 2+.
• Shock Grenade: 6" Grenade 1d3, can't kill but stunned enemies can't shoot Overwatch or be Readied, and suffer a -1 to all hit rolls until the end of the next battle round. Since we don't get that SM shock grenade stratagem, you'll use this when you want your Reiver to debuff the enemy's damage rather than have him debuff his head off by means of blade or a Kraken bolt - if you're scared of an enemy's flamer overwatch, you're better off killing it with the Special Ammo you're paying for rather than committing a Reiver + another model to kill it.

DW Melee Weapons

• Power Maul: S+2 AP-1 to bully the GEQ so common in Kill Team, and people who rely on invulns with a high armour save to back it up, like other stormshield Deathwatch.
• Heavy Thunder Hammer: An even more offensive oriented version of the Power Fist (which you lack), with the same hit penalty and profile but doing 1d6 damage, or automatic 6D on a 6+ To Wound. That's a 72.2% of dealing more damage than its smaller brother (and multiple damage is extremely valuable) at the cost of the model's gun/storm shield. A Combat specialist armed with it turns into an executioner who can consistently deliver true kills with it.
• Power Sword: Reliable can opener. A Zealot complements its relative lack of strength.
• Xenophase Blade: Power sword that forces re-rolls on successful invulnerable saves. Only one point more expensive than the power sword, so might as well take it if you don't know what you're going up against and want your sergeant to have a melee weapon. Fantastic against anything that relies heavily on its invuln to stay competitive (Wyches, Genestealers, Aeldari), but against tougher beasties like Plague Marines, wounding on 5s is rough.

DW Psychic Powers

Eisenhorn

Exclusive to Eisenhorn

• [WD2019July] Enforce Will (Warp Charge 8): Pick a visible enemy model within 12". You can immediately shoot or fight with that model as if it were your own and it was the respective phase.
  • Its essentially CP-free Mindshackle Scarabs. A WC of 8 is effectively the same check you'd have to make against an Ld7 so its no different against a Marine but you get no bonus for targeting a weak-willed guardsman, but now its at 12" instead of 6" and the model can fight, not just shoot. Its not often that you're going to want to use this over Psybolt but in rare instances like hitting the plasma gunner and overcharging for a chance at 2 kills or turning a powerful special weapon on their own team might pay off.

DW Units

• Deathwatch Veterans (Leader [Sgt. only], Heavy [Gunner only], Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Sniper, Veteran, Zealot): Operators operating operationally, now with Specialists & Stratagems. Where other factions need gunners and fighters, Your dudes' vast wargear options allows them to excel in either melee or ranged combat (or both, but that's expensive). Besides being your cheapest source of special weapons, they're also the only ones who can bring Deathwatch Shotguns or Heavy Thunder Hammers.
  • Deathwatch Veteran Gunners (4): Source of Frag cannons, Infernus and the Heavy. It's very easy to go overboard; bringing 4 frag cannons means you can't afford any of the DW's options, only a naked Watch Sergeant. You might want to exercise restraint here.
  • Deathwatch Black Shield (1): +1A Veteran that re-rolls failed charges, so he's a good candidate to be the team's Zealot or Combat specialist. Besides a power weapon give him either a Combi-melta to have him do something while closing in (offensive), or a Storm Shield to protect him from mean blades (defensive).
  • Watch Sergeant (1): Good leader material, with the highest Imperial Ld9 so your team never breaks. He can wield the Xenophase Blade to put even Harlequins on the run, if you didn't splurge all your points on frag cannons.
• Intercessors (Leader [Sgt only], Demolitions [Gunner only], Combat, Comms, Medic, Sniper, Veteran): Since they cost even more than already expensive SM Intercessors, bring them when you need to use Special Ammo at maximum range/speed, otherwise Vets might serve you better. Still, a Primaris specialist has a better chance of surviving a match.
  • Intercessor Gunnners (2): Still a powerful option able to deal with anything at both long, medium and short ranges, but he's paying for 3 guns and he can't use all once.
  • Intercessor Sergeant (1): Mighty leader figure with the same "can't do everything at once" issue as the Gunner, although he can swap one of his guns for a melee weapon to keep his cost down. But his melee capabilities are top echelon, so he can keep up pace and actually lead a melee-oriented Kill Team, if by dint of being the teammate who can withstand the most punches to the face and yet keep on fighting.
• Reivers (Leader [Sgt only], Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Scout, Veteran): Use them when you absolutely NEED mobility and resilience to small arms. The Carbine works very well with the Grapnel gun and contributes to their speed, but it makes them worryingly expensive. And while their melee loadout is cheaper, for that cost Deathwatch players can bring a melee Vet with actual AP and even a 3++.
  • Reiver Sergeant: Actually cheaper than regular ranged Reivers when using the Carbine + Knife loadout, and it makes him cost the same as an Intercessor but with +2A & +1Ld. If you want someone with a two shot Assault bolter this is your guy, and a Veteran can reposition himself better than an Intercessor can.
• Terminators: Same as the Space Marine version.
• Vanguard Veterans: Same as the Space Marine version, though they have to buy the jump pack.

DW Commanders

• Watch Master (Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): [ADD YOUR OPINION HERE]
  • Gaius Acastian: Standard Watch Master, but with a unique Specialism.
    • Watch Master Specialism: Gaius's unique skills, focused on being a front-line leader that retains some buffing potential.
      • Scion of Guilliman (Lvl 1, 125 pts): This model can Fall Back and shoot in the same turn, but it takes a -1 to hit for those Shooting attacks. The Smurfs may have their Chapter Tactic back, but yours is more likely to actually hit what you shoot at. Stronger than it seems at first glance, since if your opponent falls back while you were in melee, the only move you can make is a fall back move of your own. Now you don't have to choose between moving to cover or shooting in this situation. Still, try to avoid these situations by ending combats in one round or having another model in position to charge into the fight to prevent an enemy from falling back (Use decisive move if you lose initiative).
      • Instinctive Strategist (Lvl 2, 145 pts): When this model is on the battlefield and not shaken, roll a D6 each time an opponent uses a Tactic. You get a Command Point on every 5+. Ankra the Colossus has to wait until Level 4 to get this power, pathetic xenos scum. Never not useful.
      • Lead by Example (Lvl 3, 165 pts): When Gaius takes an enemy out of action, then the CP cost for Master of Battle decreases by 1, to a minimum of 0. If your Leader has Tactician as a Level 3 ability, it is possible to gain net CP if your Commander can consistently kill enough dudes each turn.
      • Artisan Weapon (Lvl 4, 190 pts): The Melee profile of your Guardian Spear goes from D3 damage to a flat 3. Can turn Gaius into a one man army, which is good, because outside of some specific missions that make Commanders free, you won't have any points left for other guys. Or too many points for other commander traits, at that matter.
• Primaris Captain (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist, Strength): Identical to Space Marine version but with special issue ammo.
• Primaris Librarian (Fortitude, Melee, Shooting, Psyker, Strength): Identical to Space Marine version but with special issue ammo.
• Primaris Chaplain (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Melee, Shooting, Strength): Identical to Space Marine version but with special issue ammo.
• Captain in Terminator Armor (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): Identical to Space Marine version but with special issue ammo, but weapons compatible with the ability cost several points extra.
• Librarian in Terminator Armor (Fortitude, Melee, Psyker, Shooting, Strength): Identical to Space Marine version but with special issue ammo, but weapons compatible with the ability cost several points extra.
• Chaplain in Terminator Armor (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Melee, Shooting, Strength): Identical to Space Marine version but with special issue ammo, but weapons compatible with the ability cost several points extra.
• Inquisitor Eisenhorn (WD2019July) (Strategist): The greatest advantage of Eisenhorn for a Deathwatch team is its ability to cost just 70 points, giving you the possibility to add more marines or fancy weapons compared to costly Commander, but at the same time gives an extra CP (a godsend for Deathwatch) and the Psychic Phase. Against xenos (and why should you fight anything else? You're the Deathwatch) is particularly good due to it's re-rolls to hit and wound (the pistol has a short range, but has good strength and damage, being an Artificier Bolt Pistol) that mitigate the numerous penalties to hit (when shooting) and its S3 (when fighting, where he can choose between two force weapons, one at S3 AP-3 Dd3 with a +1 ti hit and a S6 AP-1 Dd3). Also, it's a damn fluffy choice.
  • Something to note, while Deathwatch Veterans have ADEPTUS ASTARTES as a non-faction keyword, Reivers, Intercessors, Terminators and Vanguard Veterans only have it as a faction keyword, and technically lose it when taken by Deathwatch. This means by RAW they don't benefit from Eisenhorn's "Unquestionable Wisdom". Reivers, Intercessors had this problem fixed by Errata, but not Terminators and Veterans.

DW Tactics

• [Core] Decapitation Doctrine (1CP): If one of your units attacks the enemy leader during the Shooting or Fight phase, re-roll failed wound rolls until the end of the phase.
• [Core] Hellfire Shell (1 CP): A Heavy Bolter (or Heavy Bolter part of the Infernus Heavy Bolter) can fire one shot, but if it hits, do D3 Mortal Wounds instead of usual wound rolls. The Deathwatch Frag Cannon is better, but this is much, much less cheesy.
• [Core] Only In Death Does Duty End (2 CP): When one of your units is taken out of action, it can either shoot as if it was the shooting phase or make a single attack as if it was the fight phase.
• [Core] Rival Chapters (1CP): If one of your units attacks in the Shooting or Fight phase while a friendly unit is within 2", both units re-roll hit rolls of 1 for the rest of the phase. Use it to have up to three supercharged Combi-plasma Snipers on a given turn.
• [Mordelai/Annual 2019] Priority Execution (1CP): Use this tactic when you choose a model in your kill team to fight in the Fight Phase. Add 1 to all wound rolls for that model until the end of the phase.
• [Mordelai/Annual 2019] Death to the Alien! (1CP): Choose a model in the fight phase, each time you hit on a roll of 5+ for that model during this phase, that model can make an additional attack against that same model if the target was not Imperium, Chaos, or Unaligned.
• [Mordelai/Annual 2019] Tactical Disengagement (1CP): Use this in the movement phase when a model in your team retreats. That model may retreat up to 6" rather than up to 3" and may shoot as if it had not retreated.
• [Mordelai/Annual 2019] The Beheading (2CP): Use at beginning of fight phase, until end of phase, you can re-roll hit rolls for attacks targeting an enemy leader.
• [Mordelai/Annual 2019] Unrelenting (1CP): In the shooting phase, choose a model from your kill team to shoot. When rolling to hit for this model's shooting attacks, it is considered not to have moved in the previous movement phase.
• [Mordelai/Annual 2019] My Armour is Contempt (1CP): Use this tactic when a model suffers a mortal wound, roll a d6 for that wound and each other mortal wound inflicted for the rest of phase. Mortal wound is ignored on 5+.
• [Elites] Tactical Priority (1CP): Use this Tactic at the start of any battle round after the first. When you do, choose a datasheet. That datasheet is now your kill team’s priority target as described in Mission Tactics (above), rather than the datasheet you chose previously. All you model have re-roll of 1 to wound rolls by models with this datasheet.
• [Elites] Teleport Strike (Reserve) (1 CP): Take up to 3 model with Terminators out of reserve and set them up anywhere more than 5" from an enemy.
• [??/Annual 2019] Trust in Your Armour (1 CP, Death World Forest Killzone): Treat Barbed Venomgorse as open ground, and move through it as if it were not there. All moves must end on a proper surface though.

DW Commander Tactics

• [Commanders] Litanies of Hate (1 CP): Use in the Fight phase if your Kill-Team has a Primaris Chaplain that is not shaken. You can re-roll failed hits in the Fight phase for any model within 6" of the chaplain until the start of the next battle round.
• [Commanders] Spiritual Leader (1 CP): Use at the start of the Movement phase if your Kill-Team has a Primaris Chaplain. As long as it isn't shaken, friendly models within 6" can use the Chaplain's leadership instead of their own.
• [Commanders] Rites of Battle (1 CP): Use at the start of the Shooting phase if your kill team has a non-shaken Primaris Captain. Friendly models within 6" re-roll hit rolls of 1.
• [Commanders] Master of Battle (2 CP): Use at the start of the Shooting phase if your Kill-Team has a Watch Master who is not shaken. Re-roll failed hits for any model within 6" of the Watch Master until the start of the next battle round.
• [Acastian] Steel Your Minds (1 CP): Use at the start of the Movement Phase if your Kill-Team includes a Watch Master. As long as it is not shaken, friendly models within 6" ignore the hit penalty for all flesh wounds suffered. Transhuman Physiology already protects you from the first flesh wound, now you can ignore the rest too!
• [Acastian] Vigilance Incarnate (Aura) (1 CP): Use at the start of the battle round if your Commander is not shaken. Friendly models within 3" of the model get 6+ FnP. If they already have a similar power, choose which one to use and re-roll 1s.

DW Strategies

DW Strategies:

Stratgies for playing as this faction go here

Counterplay:

Stratgies for playing against this faction go here

DW Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

• 100 points, 5 models
  • Watch Sergeant with Xenophase Blade, Combi-Melta, and Grenades. Leader Specialist. (22pts)
  • 2x Veteran Gunner with Frag Cannon and Grenades. Demolitions or Heavy Specialist, depends on the mission. (42pts)
  • Veteran with Storm Shield, Power Maul, and Grenades. Combat or Zealot Specialist, depends on the enemy you expect to face. (19pts)
  • Veteran with Shotgun and grenades. The most 'expendable' of your dudes. (15pts)

• 99 points, 5 models (Typical all-comers list, nice shooting but also nice melee. Can be built from a single Kill Team box)
  • Watch Sergeant with Combi-Plasma and Grenades. Leader Specialist. (20pts)
  • Veteran Gunner with Frag Cannon and Grenades. Demolitions or Heavy Specialist, depends on the mission. (21pts)
  • Veteran Gunner with Infernus Heavy Bolter and Grenades. Demolitions or Heavy Specialist, depends on the mission. (18pts)
  • Veteran with Heavy Thunder Hammer. Combat specialist. (19pts)
  • Black Shield with Storm Shield, Power Sword, and Grenades. (21pts)

• Full on Cheese (5 models, 100 points)
  • Watch Sergeant with Boltgun and grenades. Leader Specialist (16pts)
  • 4x Veteran Gunner with Frag Cannon and Grenades. Demolitions or Heavy specialists. Be that guy! (84pts)

• 100 points, 5 models Fortis Team Can be assembled with both easy to build Intercessors and Reivers kits sans Power Sword, the kits are 15 usd and Primaris marines are a thing
  • Intercessor Sergeant with Bolt Rifle, Power Sword, Pistol, and Grenades. Leader Specialist. (22pts)
  • Intercesor Gunner with Bolt Rifle, Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Pistol, and Grenades. Comms Specialist (20pts)
  • Intercesor Gunner with Stalker Bolt Rifle, Auxiliary Grenade Launcher, Pistol, and Grenades. Sniper Specialist (20pts)
  • Reiver Seargent with Heavy Bolt Pistol, Combat knife, Grapnle Launcher and Grenades. Combat Specialist (20pts)
  • Reiver with Heavy Bolt Pistol, Combat knife and Grenades. (18pts)

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

Grey Knights

Why Play Grey Knights

• Pros
  • One of only four (five if you count the basic CSM Icon of Flame) factions in the game (so far) that can make use of Kill Team's psychic phase without Commanders, and you're the best at it.
  • You can use two psychic powers per turn instead of only one, an ability shared only by the Thousand Sons.
  • With every model having access to the psychic phase, guns that lets them handle teams many times their size, and blades that can reliably deliver true kills Grey Knights don't have to worry about crippling overspecialization and predictability.
  • The Storm Bolter is among the best base guns out there.
  • Small model count makes teams quick and easy to build and manage.
  • With rules for Chaos Daemons being added, your anti-daemon abilities might actually get used on the rare occasions that someone is dumb enough, or enough of a this guy, to send daemons against you.
• Cons
  • Models that both shoot and fight good are expensive, and they can't do both in the same turn.
  • Your Kill Team will be a Kill squad of 5 models at most, meaning each casualty is going to hurt hard. Also good luck in objective games.
  • No access to a Medic or Scout. Also, they're the only Imperial faction without a Sniper. Only two special guns.
  • 12" range on your psybolt compared to the Thousand Sons 21". Ameliorated by having every model a psyker but cuts off a chunk of your power when holding objectives and you don't have the bodies to move around.

GK Special Rules

• And They Shall Know No Fear: Reroll failed nerve checks. If you're taking nerve checks at all you're probably losing, this will help you in these tough situations.
• Transhuman Physiology: Ignore -1 penalty to hit on units first flesh wound suffered.
• Daemon Hunters: Reroll failed wounds against Daemons in fight phase.
  • Unfortunately only a handful of elite CSM units and two underplayed teams (GI and CD) can actually field units with the Daemon keyword.
• Rites of Banishment: Psybolt range is now 12" but always causes D3 mortal wounds on Daemons if successful.
  • As above, very unlikely to be relevant.

GK Faction Attributes

• Brotherhood of Psykers: When you pick a Psyker to manifest, you can choose up to 2 models to do so. Resolve all of the first models powers first then choose the next model to manifest. You also get +1 to Psychic and Deny the Witch tests.
  • Straight doubles your output of Mortal Wounds with no list changes. Even better, you pick the second model after the first is resolved, so you can pick the second psyker based on the result of the first.

GK Ranged Weapons

• Combi-Flamer:
• Combi-Melta:
• Combi-Plasma:
• Frag Grenade:
• Incinerator: 8" Assault 1d6 S6 AP-1 flamer to auto-hit bothersome cover campers, and wound most of them on a 2+. Demolitions can make it wound even Plague Marines on a 2+, and Veterans can get in position faster. A devastating weapon, flamers are super good since they ignore minus to hit which is so common in this game and (usually) won't get charged. That said it's only 8” range and you can't afford to be losing people so it's a high risk, high reward weapon.
• Krak Grenade:
• Psilencer: 24" Heavy 6 D1d3 Boltgun to bring True Death even to enemies in far away cover. D3 damage is really nice and means that if you score a wound most likely you will take out your target, unless you just don't give a fuck about that 6 injury roll.
• Psycannon: 24" Heavy 4 S7 AP-1 D1 gun, will generally outperform the Psilencer against any MEQ but will be worse against GEQs. Since your storm bolters will be already shredding GEQs it's a really nice option to have, although the Incinerator is better then either Psycannon or a Psilencer. Heavy specialist is recommended to stay mobile and his lv1 tactic is also great on this weapon.
• Psyk-out Grenade: 6" Grenade D3 S2 D1 grenade it deals mortal wounds on a hit roll of 6+ against Daemons and Psykers, absolutely useless since by throwing this piece of shit you can't use your storm bolter which is going to outperform it in 99% of all the situation, also it only deals mortal wounds against other Grey Knights, Thousand Sons Sorcerers, the occasional Commander, and do I really need to remind you that there are only a handful of Daemons in this game?
• Storm bolter: 24" Rapid Fire 2 Boltgun. Your basic gun allows a single brother to engage multiple enemies, you will be usually shooting twice as many bullets as your opponent with these bad boys (but you will have half the models that they have) and it's got a great stratagem all for itself.

GK Melee Weapons

• Nemesis Daemonhammer: Sx2 AP-3 which does a straight 3 damage per wound, -1 to-hit modifier as it's bigger than the unit carrying it, but it'll squish anything it actually hits. If you feel a single WS 4+ attack is a bit of a gamble, a Justicar or Combat specialist have an easier time wielding it.
• Two Nemesis Falchions: AP-2 power weapons with +1 attack when taken as a pair. By far your best melee option for a Zealot and Combat specialists since they will both get 3 attacks with these bad boys. Unlike standard 40k they cost as much as the daemonhammers, so don't give everyone a pair. As of the errata, the falchions only cost a single point meaning you can afford to give every model in a GK kill team an upgraded melee weapon. When choosing to take a hammer or falchions, the hammer is the high risk-very high reward while the falchions are consistent but not as hard-hitting.
• Nemesis Force Halberd: S+1 AP-2 D3 weapon, great against T4/5 in general better than the sword and since you get them both for free this should be your standard melee weapon for all non-specialist knights.
  • It should be noted that this is not free for Terminators/Paladins, but for a single point increase it is still the best choice, the force sword could be better only againts T3, high save units (coff coff Sisters coff coff)
• Nemesis Force Sword: D3 power sword. Probably our least impressive melee option, as a halberd in general will outperform it against almost everything except for models with a 4+ save. A Zealot improves this weapon greatly but Zealots will make a much greater use out of falchions than a sword.
• Nemesis Warding Stave: S+2 AP-1 D3 damage that gives the user a 5++ (or a +1 to inv save if the model already has one) against attacks in the fight phase. Wounding T3 on a 2+ is a huge plus for this weapon since it will wreck GEQs without any issues. Best used on your Leader since he gets two (or three) attacks and a little bit of extra protection againts other melee combatants is a nice bonus.
  • With Elites and Commander this weapon is a really good choice: there are combinations of Tactics (Heed the Prognosticar), psychic power (Sanctuary) and units (all termies) that permits to have one or more units with a very good invulnerable saves.

GK Psychic Powers

• [Commander/Elites] Hammerhand (Warp Charge 5): A friendly model within 8" of the user gets +1 to wound with their melee weapons until the next psychic phase. Also part of the Sanctic Discipline.

Sanctic Discipline

Exclusive to the Librarian, with the exception of Hammerhand, which is also available to the Brotherhood Champion

• [Elites] Gate of Infinity (Warp Charge 6): Pick a friendly model within 8". Move it somewhere more than 5" from an enemy. This model is not considered to have charged or been charged in the next Fight phase.
  • Teleport a model. Essentially its a deep strike without having to go into reserve in the meantime, and thus not limited to the 1/2 points rule. Definitely useful for all the same reason Reserve tactics are. But the Charge/Been Charged mechanic is just weird because it should rarely if ever apply. You must be more than 5" away and thus not in a fight for it to matter. It's after the Movement phase so you can't get charged or Heroic Intervention-ed after you teleport. It doesn't give you back pistol shooting if you got charged, or normal shooting if you charged, as it only affects the Fight Phase. Just odd.
• [Elites] Sanctuary (Warp Charge 6): Pick a GK model within 8". That model gains a 5++ save until the next psychic phase, unless it already had an invulnerable in which case it improves by 1 to a max of 3++.
  • Says GK model, not friendly model. So can be used on another player's models in Multiplayer or Battle Brother missions.

GK Units

• Grey Knight (Leader [Justicar only], Heavy [Gunner only], Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Veteran, Zealot): HOLY SHIT, these guys are expensive. While outnumbered, they can deal with several units at once. They're good all-rounders, but you have to decide what you want them to do. This is where you pick your Zealot and Combat specialists. Being models that work best at 12" (Rapid Fire + Psybolt), a Veteran using an Adaptive Tactics move can be a valuable asset.
  • Grey Knight Gunners (2): They give up their melee weapons to use their exclusive guns, so keep them at a safe distance. This is where you pick the Heavy, Comms or Demolitions specialists. Their strategy depends on what weapon you pick or rather, you're able to afford.
  • Justicar (1): The obligatory leader model of this Kill Team if you aren't running Elites. Give him a warding staff if you want to keep him alive, and either a falchion pair or the Daemonhammer if you want to put his extra attack to use.
• Terminator (Leader (Justicar only), Heavy (Gunner only), Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Veteran, Zealot): A tankier version of Grey Knights, in 125 points game they are a nice substitution for a melee specialist, due to the extra attack, wound and better save. Teleport strike also increase possibilities to charge on turn 2 (a 5" charge if you win the initiative, is a bit of a gamble but is worth it, it's still difficult to remove it)
  • Terminator Gunner: Remember how much is difficult to place a Grey Knights Gunner with an Incinerator where you want it? It's time for teleport strike! It is also a cheap weapon (just one point + gunner tax) compared to other heavy weapon. Recommended a Demolition specialism, obviously, but against GEQ (that you already wound on 2+) you could also give the melee weapon you prefer, use a combat specialism and invest all your point on it (maybe not competitive, but a good distraction for the rest of the army)
  • Terminator Justicar:The tankier Leader, a Justicar with a Force Stave is good against GEQ and has a 4++ (which should make him more resilient against tougher opponent, giving you time to blast it with Psybolt)
• Paladin (Leader (Paragon only), Heavy (Gunner only), Combat, Comms, Demolitions, Veteran, Zealot):Honestly they aren't a great choice, they cost too much for what they offer (a Terminator with one extra wound and attack), but if you are lucky enough to have people in your area that likes Commander games, a Librarian, a Paragon and a Paladin cost around 200 points, and with the power Gate of Infinity are even a little maneuverable. Is it a strong list? Probably not, but it sounds funny against Custodes, doesn't it?
  • Paladin Gunner: Same as above, it costs too much for 125 point, skip it unless playing at 200 points.
  • Paragon: Pay 3 extra points for the luxury of bumping Ld8 to Ld9 and nothing else? On a 50pt models that probably has only 2 or 3 teammates and has ATSKNF? Skip it unless you need a Paladin Leader.

GK Commanders

• Brotherhood Champion (Fortitude, Leadership, Melee, Psyker, Shooting, Strength): A souped-up Grey Knight with access to Hammerhand and the stances from his 40k counterpart. It's a shame he can't swap out his force sword for another melee weapon, but the Melee and Strength specialisms can fill in as an approximation of the falchions and the Daemonhammer, respectively. As an added bonus, he can fight an extra time in melee if he dies in the fight phase. Granted, that shouldn't be too much of a risk but it's always nice to have an extra "screw you" available just in case.
• Librarian (Fortitude, Melee, Shooting, Psyker, Strength):[ADD YOUR OPINION HERE]
• Brother-Captain:[ADD YOUR OPINION HERE]

GK Tactics

• [Core] Psybolt Ammunition (1CP): When a unit fires with a storm bolter, the weapon becomes S5 AP-1 until the end of the phase. Not only means even your melee specialists can wield the might of a 4-shot Heavy Bolter at close range, but a Demolitions specialist can wound anyone in cover on a 2+ without even buying a special gun (which might be already assigned to the Heavy and Comms Gunners).
• [Core] Psychic Channeling (2CP): When a unit takes a Psychic test, roll 3 dice instead of 2 and use the 2 highest rolls.
• [Core] Honour The Chapter (2CP): At end of Fight phase, a unit can immediately fight again. Very potent if you need somebody really dead and got shit rolls, also for 4CP you can combo this with the Decisive Strike Stratagem for some... interesting results.
• [Core] Heed The Prognosticars (2CP): At start of battle round, add +1 to saving throws for a unit until the end of the battle round. Super situational since you have to use it at the begining of the battle round, you opponent can just target somebody else and ignore the buffed knight A 4++ in meele when used in conjunction with the stave.
• [Elites] Teleport Strike (Reserve) (1CP): Use at the end of the movement phase, bring in up to 3 TERMINATOR models from reserves anywhere more than 5" from an enemy.
• [Annual 2019] Psychic Onslaught (2CP): When you shoot with a Psilencer or Psycannon, use this tactic to improve its S and AP by 1 until the end of the phase.
• [Annual 2019] Psychic Communion (2CP): +1 to your Psychic test for each friendly non-shaken model with 3".
  • With Brotherhood of Psykers you're already passing the test for a psybolt on a 4, this drops it down to at least a 3 (it doesn't say other friendly models, which means its counts the psyker as well). By pairing your dudes up, you're guaranteed to get the Psybolt off so long as you don't die from a peril. For the 4 people that play Commander, its even better. You have more models to cram in, and powers with higher warp charges to manifest.
  • Nota bene; if they're within range to help you manifest, they're also within range to get hit by the Peril. Thats the trade off.
• [Annual 2019] Rite of Exorcism (2CP): Used before rolling a Deny the Witch test. If you successfully negate their power, the enemy psyker suffers a mortal wound.
• [Annual 2019] Leave No Witnesses (1CP): If theres only 1 enemy model within 6" of when fighting with one of your models, your model can reroll failed wounds until the end of the phase.
• [Annual 2019] Mental Fortitude (3CP): Once per battle, you can increase your psybolt range for one model by 6" (bringing it up to its regular 18") for until the end of the phase.
  • 3CP. For one model. For one round. You should never use this, let alone want to use it more than once for the restriction to come into play. What a joke.
• [Annual 2019] Ceaseless Vigil (2CP): Use at the star of the shooting phase. +1 to hit when targeting any models that came out of reserves this round.
• [Annual 2019] Canticles of Warding (1CP): Use this when you suffer a mortal wound. You get to roll a 5+FNP for that mortal wound and any future mortal wounds that phase.

GK Commander Tactics

• [Elites] Psychic Locus (Aura) (1CP): As long as your Kill Team includes a BROTHER-CAPTAIN and this model is not shaken, the Psybolt psychic power affects the closest enemy model within 36" (rather than 12" or 18") of and visible to the psyker when manifested by friendly models within 6" of this model.
• [Annual 2019] The Six Chants of Denial (3CP): Your Librarian automatically Denies a psychic power. Can only be used once per battle. Wording implies compatibility with Rite of Exorcism ...if you for some reason have 5CP lying around.
• [Annual 2019] Stillness of Spirit (2CP): +1 to Invulns your Commander makes for this round.
• [Annual 2019] Clarity of Vision (1CP): +1 to hit for shooting attacks made by your Brother-Captain for this phase.
• [Annual 2019] Vengeful Strike (2CP): When your Brotherhood Champion is taken out of action in the fight phase, you can immediately fight before he's taken off the battlefield. Even if he has already fought. Which is weird because he already has this ability by default soo does he get to fight potentially 3 times if you use this? Once normally, once when he dies and uses Heroic Sacrifice (his ability) and then again with this?

GK Strategies

GK Strategies:

Grey Knights are a high risk, high reward team of elites. Every model counts, and you will need every scrap of cover you can find to keep your dudes alive. Save at least 1 CP at the start of your turn for a Psi reroll. Perils can end a game before a shot is fired if it happens to a gunner with special weapon. While the d3 damage in melee is nice, you are hindered by 1 attack on most models so watch out. Your flamer is a Str 6 and ap -1, and your enemies fear its overwatch.

Counterplay:

Grey knight are still 1 wound space marines. Ignore cover and AP -4 will remove them in short order. With only 5 guys, a loss removes 1/5 of the damage they can do, and they are broken after the loss of only three wounds. Playing on a low line of sight blocking board, or with objectives in the open, gives a Grey Knights player few options for hiding their few units.

GK Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

• 5 models, 100 points
  • Justicar with Nemesis force halberd - Leader - 19 pts
  • Grey Knight with 2x Nemesis falchions, 19 pts
  • Grey Knight with Nemesis force halberd - Coms - 18 pts
  • Grey Knight gunner with incinerator - Demolitions - 22 pts
  • Grey Knight gunner with psilencer - Heavy - 22 pts

• Elites 4 models, 125 points
  • Justicar with Nemesis Force Halberd - Leader -19 pts
  • Grey Knight with 2x Nemesis Falchions - Zealot - 19 pts
  • Grey Knight Terminator with Nemesis Force Halberd - Combat - 37 pts
  • Grey Knight Paladin Gunner with Incinerator and Nemesis Force Halberd - Demolitions - 50 pts

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

Adeptus Custodes (Elites)

Why Play Adeptus Custodes

• Pros
  • You'll be fielding some of the most game-breakingly overpowered motherfuckers in all Kill Team, with the most durable baseline troops in the game - you'll have WS, BS, Sv 2+, S & T5, W3, M6 on all your troops even before you equip them with their OP-as-fuck weapons, all of which are multi-damage (except the Misericordia, but that'll still be hitting at S5 AP-2 D1, which as your backup weapon, is far better than most factions get for their main combat weapon so don't complain about it!). In a Commanders game, you'll be able to take a shield-captain as well, to give your guys rerolls to hit!
  • Almost all of the things that might give your golden boys trouble in 40k, hordes, heavy weapons, tanks, most mortal wounds sources, flyers, etc, are out of the equation in Kill Team. This is the game that really plays to the Custodes' strengths.
  • You enjoy making people yell "What the hell am I supposed to do about that?" when they see your team.
  • You'll be much less vulnerable to getting swarmed in Kill Team than you are in 40k as the most models your enemy can field is 20 and all you have to do is kill half of them with your insane shooting and melee prowess. This will force their Kill Team to Break, and then it's just a case of wandering around slaying shaken models indiscriminately.
  • Morale phase? Ha ha ha. We don’t do that around here.
  • You get to play the Juggernaut's theme song as your Custodes are carving their way through the enemy team.
• Cons
  • You'll be an even bigger that guy than the Deathwatch player who brings four frag cannons.
    • No seriously, a guy that fields a Warlord Titan in 40k will have more people willing to go up against him than you will with your golden boys.
  • You'll be able to tally off your entire list with one hand, with a normal sized Kill Team of only 2 to 3 models (even with the point increase for Elites missions, you will never field more than three models). Any losses an enemy does manage to inflict will hurt immensely.
    • The cost of each individual unit is so high that in a 100 point game there is no space for any specialisms or even a fire team, you have to choose either 3 guards or one guard and one terminator, and a rank 4 commander with a sword and shield will set you back by 200 points.
  • Swarms can still a problem. If you can't break a large team for one reason or another, you may have trouble killing them fast enough. Which leads to the next problem...
  • Your low model count and relatively slow movement will likely see your 2-3 man squad being outmaneuvered. Controlling objectives could be will be a problem.
  • Mortal wounds will hurt, a lot, beware of snipers and psykers (and make no mistake, you will see a lot of snipers and psykers), even with your universal 6+ FNP against mortal wounds in the Psychic Phase and the Spark of Divinity tactic.
    • Spark of Divinity in particular can't be relied upon to protect you against the psykers that that will threaten you the most, since it can only be used once per round, any non-GK psybolt will out-range it, and the two psychic marine factions can manifest twice.
  • Everyone is scared of you. Everyone will be brainstorming a way to counter you. Odds are every team you go up against will be optimized to give you as hard, and annoying, of a fight as possible. Don't expect victories to be quick or fun.

AC Special Rules

• Adeptus Custodes Kill Team:Custodes only require 2 models for a battle-forged Kill Team, unlike other teams. Good thing too, otherwise 3 Custodian Guard would be the only possible list.
• Superior Transhuman Physiology: Ignore all hit roll penalties from Flesh Wounds. No chipping away at their effectiveness here, they'll be deadly regardless of how many Flesh Wounds they get.
• Aegis of the Emperor: Every model in the faction has a 5+ invulnerable save by default. In addition they get a 6+FNP against Mortal Wounds in the Psychic phase.
• The Emperor's Chosen: The AC subfaction, but given its literally impossible for a battleforged list to not qualify for it and it's your only option, it is pretty much just a straight buff. Improve all invulnerable saves by 1, up to a maximum of 3++. Coupled with Aegis, your opponent had better bring to bear a lot of mortal wounds if they want to stand a chance.

AC Ranged Only Weapons

• Ballistus Grenade Launcher: 12” S4 ap-3 D1 and exclusive to Allarus who all get one. Best AP you're going to get from ranged fire, needed for Concussion Grenades, and multiple weapons are good in number starved teams. Superior infantry muncher when compared to your axe/spear due to only causing 1 damage but possessing high ap.

AC Melee Only Weapons

• Misercordia: Everyone can take it, its free, and gives you a free extra attack using it every time you fight without sacrificing attacks from your other melee weapons (unless you also take a storm shield). There's no reason not to take it and chances are you’re going to be swamped with enemy chaff, every little helps.

AC Ranged/Melee Hybrid Weapons

• Castellan Axe: Trade a point of AP for two points of strength over the Spear in Melee, same shooting. Your MEQ murderer, but as there are no vehicles in kill team the axe is only useful against toughness four foes with high invulnerability saves.
• Guardian Spear: Trade two point of strength for a point of AP over the Axe in Melee, same shooting. Your go to choice as it performs the best against the most targets, butt fucking GEQ’s on a 2+ with no saves, MEQ’s and nurgle followers on a 3+, the only thing tough enough to really fight against this are the eldar constructs, but even then wounding on 4’s is respectable. Most of the time though the sword will still do the exact/almost same job but with better defence.
• Sentinel Blade: Sacrifice offense for defense by taking this and a Storm Shield instead of a Spear/Axe. 12" Pistol 2 instead of 24" rapid fire 1, only AP0 D1 ranged, and S User melee, otherwise identical to the Guardian Spear.
  • Most of the time the extra defence of the shield and sword is more useful than strength 6 and increased shooting range.

AC Other Wargear

• Storm Shield: Get a 3++ save. Can only be taken with the Sentinel Blade, but against most enemies it functions the same anyway. Take for those situations where there is a lot of ap-2 or better weapons being fired at you (plasma, meltas, frag cannons etc) and a 4++ doesn’t cut it.

AC Units

• Custodian Guard (Leader, Combat, Scout, Sniper, Veteran, Zealot): at 33pts with free wargear, obviously costed so you can take three and just as powerful as you’d expect. Can either take a spear (for better shooting and weapon strength) or a sword and shield (for when a 4++ save isn’t enough). They can all take an Uber power knife for free but it cannot be used with the sword and shield. In a one on one fight they will kill everything easily, except death guard terminators, but even then the odds are in your favour.
• Allarus Custodian (Leader, Combat, Demolitions, Sniper, Veteran, Zealot): Your Shiny Golden Terminator at 67 points with free wargear, obviously priced so you can take 1 and a Guard with the Custards special 2-model-kill team rule. Because he's armed with 2 shooting weapons, namely a Balistus and either a Castellan Axe or Guardian Spear, he can make 2 shots per round to help make up for costing you a 3rd team member. The ability to outright disable shooting enemies with the Balistus also helps provide some balance the low numbers, but a D3 only averages 2 attacks and if your enemies are smart they'll quickly learn not to clump up.
  • Most of the time there’s no point taking a terminator, as although they provide an extra attack, wound and better ap on their gun, you're sacrificing 2 wounds, 2 attacks and an extra body amongst which your opponent must divide attacks or that you can divide to attack them. What separates/makes the terminator worth taking is access to the From Golden Light Reserve Tactic for specific threat removal, however this is only available in Commander games as you can only put 1/2 your total Force in reserves and the Allarus is 67.

AC Commanders

• Shield Captain (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist, Strength): The most powerful model in all of kill team, even before you start giving him specialisations. He’s also one of the few commanders with an actually worth mentioning command ability, that being re-rolling 1’s to hit (taking you from hitting 5/6 of the time to 35/36) for the mere cost of 1cp a turn. Consider a Storm Shield to keep him alive as long as possible. But like the rest of your team he’s a little slow and doesn’t have many wounds for his overall cost. Oh, and there's no way you'll be fitting him into a Kill-Team in games where Commanders cost points - he IS the kill team.

AC Tactics

• [Elites] Spark of Divinity (1 CP): When an enemy psyker manifests a psychic power within 12" of a model from your kill team that is not shaken, you can take a Deny the Witch test for that model as if it were a psyker.
• [Elites] Ever Vigilant (2 CP): If a model is set up with 12", make a shooting attack but with -1 to hit
• [Elites] Inspire Fear (1 CP): Pick a nonshaken friendly model during the Morale phase, enemies within 3" add 1 to nerve tests
• [Elites] From Golden Light (Reserve) (1 CP): Take up to 3 terminators out of reserve. Place anywhere more than 5" away from enemies
  • Literally unusable outside of Commander, as a Terminator will always cost more than 1/2 your total Force. And even in Commander, you're still never getting those 3 Terminators it offers.
• [Elites] Unflinching (1 CP): Shoot a single overwatch on a 5+ instead of 6+
• [Elites] Concussion Grenades (1CP): Use in the shooting phase, for the rest of the round the Balistus Grenade Launcher on an Allarus now has AP0 but any successful hits (not attacks or wounds, hits as in 5/6ths of models with their 2+ WS) mean the target CANNOT SHOOT in the shooting phase and take -1 to hit in the fight phase. Given the Balistus gets D3 attacks, you can potentially disable large chunks of enemy kill teams. And with only 2 models when taking the Allarus, you're going to need to use this. Use with the sniper specialism for even more reliable hits.
• [Annual 2019] Piercing Strike (1CP): When you chose a model to fight in the Fight Phase, +1 to Wound with the Guardian Spear for the entire phase.
• [Annual 2019] Avenge the Fallen (1CP): If at least one of your models is out of action, give +1d3 attacks to a model when chosen to fight in the fight phase.
• [Annual 2019] Sentinel Storm (2CP): At the start of the Shooting Phase, pick a model within 1" of an enemy. Until the end of the phase, the Sentinel Blade is considered Pistol 4.
• [Annual 2019] Tanglefoot Grenade (1CP): Pick a non FLYing enemy model within 12" of your model at the start of the Movement phase. That model suffers -1d6" to their move characteristic and charge rolls for the phase.
• [Annual 2019] Emperor's Justice (1CP): When you pick a model to Fight in the Fight Phase, reroll wounds against Heretic Astartes models.

AC Commander Tactics

• [Elites] Inspirational Fighter (Aura) (1CP): Shield Captain only, obviously, Friendly models within 6" reroll hit rolls of 1.
• [Annual 2019] Inescapable Vengeance (1CP): When an Allarus shoots in the shooting phase it can reroll wound rolls that target an enemy Commander.
• [Annual 2019] Swift in Thought and Action (1CP): After your Commander makes a Normal Move, Ready him.
• [Annual 2019] Aquila Commander (3CP): If your Commander is on the Battlefield and not Shaken, you can add or subtract 1 from rolls to determine if the battle ends.
• [Annual 2019] Even in Death (2CP): When your Commander is taken out of action, resolve any further attacks by the opponent then your Commander either Shoots as if it were the Shooting Phase, or Fights as if it were the Fight Phase before he's taken of the Battlefield.

AC Strategies

Counterplay

Let's all just be honest here, AC players don't actually need to be given strategies to win with Adeptus Custodes. This is why you're really looking at this section - figuring out how to try and fight Custodes with everyone else. As a general rule, be prepared to pull out every last bit of underhanded Powergamer That Guy Cheese you can if you want any chance of victory. This isn't about about "fun" or "fair." Those ideals were thrown out the window by the guy that’s sending Custodes against you. You cannot afford to fight fair.

• A good general bit of advice for fighting against Custodians is to play using the Narrative Play missions from the Kill Team: Elites codex, which all have a 125 point limit. Because the cheapest Custodian model is 33 points, they'll be unable to spend any of the additional points, essentially giving you a 25 point advantage (which still won't guarantee a win for you, just raise the odds in your favor a bit). If they complain, just point out that the elites codex also includes the rules for their kill team, so if they want to use some parts of the book they should be prepared to use all of it. Plus they'll start with two extra CPs.
• Space Marines: The jack of all trades faction invariably suffers against the custodes. The basic model isn’t strong enough to ever stand a chance against a custodian, while their “relatively” high cost and lack of invulnerability saves outside of commanders means that each loss you take will hurt. Your only real option is to play like the imperial guard, take as many special weapons as you can and stay in cover/on the run. This tactic works exceptionally well with the primaris psykers, who are not only accurate with great guns, but are also exceptionally tough and hard to hit in cover. If you prefer a melee set up then your best bet is to grab a captain in gravis armour to ignore their strength 5 and 8 weapons. Either loadout you’ll want to bring psykers to both fire mortal wounds and the boost your guys to the point that they’re not horribly outclassed.
• Deathwatch: This is where you bring your four frag cannons. And nobody will begrudge you for it, but be careful, as chances are you’ll only have one more model than your opponent and if the custodies catch you in melee you're doomed.
• Grey Knights: Considering that you're budget custodes (admittedly not by much) your fighting strategy doesn’t change too much. Mortal wound spam them from afar along with as much psi bolt ammunition as you can possibly throw. Melee will be a close call (most likely being down to who charges first) as the custodes and grey knights have very similar weapons, with the custodes having better weapons and more attacks, but the grey knights have more bodies. Overall, probably the “fairest” matchup in kill team.
• Astra Militarum: Even in swarms you're too weak to fight custodes, so your only choice is to spam special and heavy weapons. Meltas, plasma, or call in storm troopers for their special weapons, hide in cover, obscure yourself, plant explosives, just do everything you can to avoid a straight up fight against all the custodes strength 6 weapons.
• Adeptus Mechanicus: This is where you want all that minus one toughness goodness. The ad mech punch above their weight category in melee with strength 5 melee weapons, an invulnerability save and numerous buffs, so you're the best GEQ for fighting custodians. Just don’t expect a lot of your guys to live.
• Chaos Space Marines:
• Death Guard: Death Guard have two options (more than most factions). Firstly, pour everything you have into a Plague Marine (or termie) fighter with the Flail. Give him Grandfather's Blessing, bring a pair of PMs with big guns and a Champion with a Fist along for the ride and curse the errata that dropped its damage down to 1. Also, bring poxwalkers and use Cloud of Flies to stop him being sniped. If you feel like properly picking on custodes like they’re small children with milk money then there’s option two, which is to take two death shroud terminators (although only in an elite game) and something to make up the cost for a three man minimum team. Deathshrouds are the toughest thing in the game after custodes, with toughness 5, 2+/4++/5+++ and weapons which deal a straight 3 damage. They are the only thing in the game which can fight a custodes and win without cheating, making this tactic a simple matter of playing a game of tag (embarrassing for the custodes, exhausting for you with your 4” move and cataphracti armour).
• Thousand Sons: Your Brotherhood of Psykers special rule can allow you to simply overwhelm the Custodes with psychic casts. However, you're slow and you won’t get get all is dust against the custodes multi damage weapons so you’ll need to get lucky with the dice rolls.
• Eldar: For games with commanders, Farseers have multiple casts per turn, letting you reliably get at least one power off without a hitch. Use it to either spam Psybolt and/or buff one of your dudes with a Fusion Gun or a Bright Lance platform. Your Warlock's/Spiritseer's Jinx power can be incredibly useful, as it's one of the precious few ways to reduce their invuln saves. Alternatively, Wraithguard with Wraithcannons or D-Scythes can potentially kill a Custodes model with a few lucky shots. Defensively, use your slightly superior speed to attempt to kite them or at the very least duck behind cover.
• Dark Eldar: All your poison weaponry with some reasonable ap gives you a better chance of wounding a custodian than most factions, but you're extremely squishy and not as good in melee as you need to be to 1.kill a custodian or 2. Actually survive the encounter. Stay at range, stay mobile and stay hidden.
• Harlequins: 4+ invulnerability saves and large numbers of high quality attacks will serve you well, but unfortunately that’s your only option as your ranged weapons are not up to the task of fighting a custodian. Make your pistols as cheap as possible, take your best melee weapons and get the charge, which, admittedly, is precisely what the space clowns are good at.
• Necrons: Take full advantage of how resilient necrons are, the multiple damage custodes deal combined with buffs to reanimating protocols means that it will be disproportionately difficult for a custodian to kill a necron warrior. With this you either have the choice of buffed hordes, swamping your foe with all that beautiful ap-1 fire you have, or close in with necrons with pseudo storm shields and melee weapons.
• Orks: Tell the Custodian player that a Meganob costs one point more than a custodian guard despite having a worse movement, weapon skill, ballistic skill, toughness, and leadership, no invulnerable save, a worse shooting attack, worse special rules, and a comparable melee weapon that actually costs points. That way, when you inevitably lose, you might make the other guy feel a bit guilty. Seriously, there's not much you can do. You don't have any of the tools necessary to beat the bananas. Maybe just take 16 boyz and 1 grot to drown them in dice rolls before your team gets broken by morale, but even then it's a long shot.
  • Counterargument: Orks are some of the best armies to play against Custodes, simply because the amount of bodies they can throw at the Emperor's caretakers. A Kommando Boss, Two Kommandoes, a Burna Boy, a Boy Gunner with the Rokkit Launcher and 15 gretchins are more than six times the amount of bodies the Custodes can kill. If you send the gretchins to block the custodes' movements by keeping them in melee, the kommandoes to get the "Kunnin’ Infiltrators" stratagem to move behind enemy lines and take difficult objectives, and the boy with the rockit just in case you get lucky and manage to get one down in one shot, you can have uncontested control of the battlefield. They can kill three of your units at most each turn (and you can improve those odds with "Just a Flesh Wound" stratagem, so your team will hardly be broken by morale before getting all of the objective points and winning the game. Throw garbage at them, one gretchin at a time, keep them from moving, and keep your leader hidden. That's the way the cheapest unit in the game can win against the most elite of teams.
    • This assumes that you're dedicating your entire roster to just fight AC and only works in missions that don't have killing victory conditions.
• T'au Empire: Mobility is your only option. The tau have excellent guns, but if a custodian gets into melee with any of your units (anything from warrior to battle suit) you're dead. Period. Instead, fill up on battle suits or stealth suits and keep the custodes at a distance, make maximum use of cover, line of sight and any additional buffs and hope that the boys in gold don’t catch up.
• Tyranids: Did someone say lictors? We did, and they’re right behind you. Take four lictors and dog pile the two or three custodians you’ll be fighting. The lictors high attacks count, strength 6 and good ap means that one or two lictors on the charge (which you will have) have a “good” chance of killing a banana. Downside, lictors are very squishy, if you're caught in the open, wait too long to charge or get stuck in melee you’ll be dead, 4 wounds is not enough against 4 strength 6 ap-3 DD3 attacks. As they want to get into melee range as well, if the terrain allows save your CP you normally might use for Veteran or Metabolic Overdrive and use it instead on Adrenaline Surge to try and get whoever you gang up on first dead before the other 2 join the fray. Caustic Blood and Implant Attack are less useful but given your entire battle is likely to be decided entirely in 2 or 3 fight phases, it can be worth spending the CP.
  • Pretty much uniquely, the nids have access to the only commander capable of going toe-to-toe with custodes and coming out on top: the broodlord. Make him a level 3 melee specialist, and you get 7 WS2+ attacks rerolling ones, wounding on 4s, also rerolling ones, and with AP-3 Dd3. The clincher here, however, is that on a wound roll of 6 your damage is upped to 3 (courtesy of the claws) and turned into MORTAL wounds (courtesy of the level 3 melee ability). This means if you roll one 6 out of 7 hits (and the maths is firmly in your favour here) you INSTAKILL CUSTODES. Two 6s and you're instakilling shield captains. Plus you're faster than them so they can't run away, and you can cast catalyst on yourself for a 5+++. However, your defence is far weaker than theirs, so if they charge first you can take some serious damage, and they can whittle you down in the shooting phase as well. Stick to cover and let them come close to you before charging (charging happens in the movement phase in kill team, after all, so if they want to get closer they won't be able to swing first).

• Genestealer Cults: Rock Cutters. You have 4 of them and they're your best hope, but pray to the great devoured in the sky that the dice gods are merciful. Alternatively go as cheap as possible on your models to take one patriarch as your commander and go to town with your 6 multi damage attacks at strength 6 rerolling failed wounds. In both scenarios however you’ll need to dodge from cover to cover to avoid being blown to pieces by the custodes shooting.

AC Strategies:

OK fine, we'll talk about how best to use your Golden Boys. First, its key to keep in mind that with 2-3 unit kill teams you can fit every possible kill team combination possible in 100pt games on your Roster. There's no real reason not to take the perfect list. Second, you're godlike in melee. That is where you live. But outside of it, your D2 AP-1 might look attractive but it's low strength and there's only 3 of you putting out fire. If all three of you fired at a lowly guardsman theres a 10% he walks away. Sounds good until you realize theres 8 of them, averaging 5+W of damage against you a around, because don't doubt they'll resort to plasma spam if they're facing you. And guardsmen aren't even particularly good shots compared to some of the other things out there. But in melee, you're safe. They can't run any more, their buddies can't shoot you and you're dishing out between 3 up to 5 attacks with a WS2+ and a strength and damage equivalent to a Supercharged Plasma Gun plus an extra attack with the Misercordia. Terrain use is key, as is using the Balistus's Concussion Grenades if you're taking an Allarus. When losing one model is 1/2 of your team, you don't want to be at the whims of the RNGod. Coupling Take Forward Positions and the Veterans Adaptive Tactics and a first round Charge can lock down several models early and end the game before it begins. A scout can also help but keep in mind that with 2 or 3 models, Take Forward Positions 20% only applies to 1 model.

Astra Militarum

Why Play Astra Militarum

• Pros
  • Kill Team is where the variety of the Imperial Guard can really shine, allowing you play obscure or custom regiments (those fancy conversions shown off in the codex for example) that would be too troublesome to convert or too expensive to buy for a full 40k army.
  • Orders let your guardsmen shoot better, stand firmer, move faster, and fight harder than the cultists they otherwise share stats with.
  • You have the most options for accuracy buffing of most teams, dirt cheap units and special weapons.
  • With the ability to take an outrageous eight special weapons the Guard are your one stop shop for flamer, plasma, or melta spam. The sheer output of this many special weapons can annihilate some smaller elite teams but remain aware that you are extremely vulnerable to melee teams. Tyranids, Harlequins, and Death Guard can quickly overwhelm you if you don't keep your distance.
  • Sly Marbo
• Cons
  • No Ratlings (besides the character duo from Blackstone Fortress), despite them being perfect for Kill Team operations.
  • Most of your units will drop like flies.
  • No access to heavy weapons.
  • Losing your leader, and thus CP and orders, is much like Tyranids losing synapse. The rest of the match after that is probably going to be very brief and very painful.
  • Sergeants don't have access to boltguns in Kill Team. If you regularly model yours with a real man's gun in 40k you'll have to make a new one with something else for Kill Team.
  • The Commanders and Elites expansions effectively unlocked the psychic phase for just about every faction that has psykers, except you. The Guard has only 2 options for have psykers in Kill Team. Both are commanders and only one is worth taking. And worse they're both from non-book sources, meaning they're often banned or not in play. This makes it difficult to mount a proper defense against psychic powers, and that's a fairly serious problem when use of the psychic phase has been expanded as much as it has.
  • Despite the Elites expansion promising a range of elite options, Veterans are still not one. So, if you had your heart set on a Die-hard team of elite veteran troops from any of your favourite guard novels you are out of luck. You will have to look elsewhere or settle for regular mooks/storm troopers with no options in between.

AM Special Rules

• Voice of Command: Once per battle round and if the Leader or an OFFICER is not shaken or out of action, they can issue an order to another (not themselves) friendly non-shaken, non-Commander model within 12" at the start of the shooting phase. These orders are:
  • Take Aim: Reroll hits of 1 until the end of the phase.
  • Bring it Down!: Re-roll wound rolls of 1 for until the end of the phase.
  • Forwards, for the Emperor!: The ordered model can shoot even if it advanced.
  • Get Back in the Fight!: The ordered model can shoot even if it fell back.
  • Move! Move! Move!: The model can advance as if it was in the movement phase.
  • Fix Bayonets!: An ordered model within 1" of an enemy can fight immediately as if it was in the fight phase.
• Vox-caster: As long as a friendly model with a vox-caster is on the field and not shaken, failed nerve tests for ASTRA MILITARUM models can be re-rolled.

AM Regimental Doctrines

When you add a model to your command roster, you can assign it a regiment. If all the non-scion, non-Ogryn models on your Kill-Team (yes kill team, not roster so you can have multiple regiments represented across different lists) are in the same regiment, those models get access to their Regimental Doctrine. This means Ogryns and Scions don't get access to regimental doctrines, but they also don't prevent them either. However, if your list consists of only Scions, you do get the Militarum Tempestus doctrine.

• Armageddon Steel Legion - Industrial Efficiency: Rapid Fire fires its double shots at 18" rather than at half range. Does not eliminate the Hit penalty from being at long range though. Only applies to Lasguns and Plasma Guns, as scions aren't affected.
• Cadian - Born Soldiers: Re-roll unmodified hit rolls of 1 in the shooting phase for models that haven't moved in this battle round. If a model is issued the "Take Aim!" order and it has not moved in this battle round, re-roll all failed hit rolls for that model until the end of the phase.
  • This gives Cadians some of the most lethal plasma shooting in the Imperial Guard, and maybe the whole game, effectively freeing you to supercharge up to 4 plasma guns, and a pistol, to your heart's content.
• Catachan - Brutal Strength: Add 1 to the Strength of your kill team's models. Add 1 to the Ld of models in your kill team if they are within 6" of a friendly Catachan Officer.
  • Of questionable usefulness. Sure, this lets your guardsmen punch like space marines, but they still take a punch like plain old guardsmen, and your sergeant is the only effected unit that actually has melee wargear. Might give you an edge if you decide to pull a wild card and charge some cultists or Tau, but that's pretty much it.
  • The Ld boost could come in handy, but it only applies to Commander games as only the Platoon/Company Commander can have the required keywords. All other Commanders either lack the OFFICER keyword (e.g. Commissars) or cannot be drawn from a Regiment to get the CATACHAN keyword (e.g. Tempestor Prime). If you want better morale, just take Valhallan, its strictly better.
• Valhallan - Grimm Demeanour: Roll nerve tests on a D3 instead of a D6, so you need 4 models out of action to even have a chance of failing. Also, as a 1 is always a pass, you always have a 33% chance to pass nerve tests. For any non-horde lists, after 4 models OOA you've probably already lost anyway.
• Vostroyan - Heirloom Weapons: Ignore long range penalties, like the sniper rifle.
• Tallarn Desert Raiders - Swift as the Wind: All non-Heavy weapons can be fired after advancing like they were assault weapons, and assault weapons no longer take the penalty to hit.
  • Basically turns your guardsmen into budget Eldar, and can make a meltagun-armed scout specialist downright scary.
• Militarum Tempestus - Storm Troopers: If inside half range, you get an additional shot when you roll 6's on the hit roll. There is nothing stopping this new attack from generating yet another new attack.
  • Perhaps this was intended to be unique to Scion models but by RAW this Doctrine can be applied to your regular guardsman. You can choose any Regimental Doctrine to apply to your guardsman and its one of them, the only restrictions actually in place are that already have the MILITARUM TEMPESTUS keyword never be drawn from other regiments. So if you want your mixed team to all benefit from a doctrine, consider this.
    • Not working because for the Tempestus to gain this doctrine, every member of the team MUST have the MILITARUM TEMPESTUS keyword. This way you would have regular guardmen generating more hits, not actual tempestus. A keyword that the guardsmen get by taking the Miltarum Tempestus as their subfaction. Which is the point. This is not 40k, where units have their regiment as keyword, so this strategy is illegal. Yes they do. Elites Pg 16 "Its Sub-faction is treated as an additional keyword that the model has, so a model drawn from the Ultramarines has the ULTRAMARINES keyword". Section is a mess with discussion, will format into a proper explanation soon.
• Mordian - Parade Drill: Grants a +1 bonus to leadership and the ability to hit on 5's in overwatch to any troops in contact with 2 other Mordian troops.
  • Putting your guys together mean that charges that do make it (which even at 5's will be many) are more likely to lock down multiple models as well as giving your opponent the ability to split shots for a better kill rate. If you need overwatch, flamers autohit. If you need Ld, take Valhallans.

AM Ranged Weapons

• Frag Grenades: Included with every Guardsman and Storm Trooper. Since grenades are exempt from the long range penalty, throw one when things get too uncomfortable. Normally only one model may throw a grenade per turn, but the Grenadiers Tactic can allow you to use as many grenades as you have CP to spend on the Tactic.
• Krak Grenades: Storm Trooper exclusive.
• Laspistol: The default pistol for the Sergeant. However, for the same cost of free, a bolt pistol can be taken in its place. Leave the laspistol for better uses, like baking potatoes during KP.
• Hot-shot Laspistol: The default pistol for the Tempestor. It is the shortest range weapon in the Guard's arsenal at 6", on par with grenades. Compared to the bolt pistol, it has less Strength but better AP.
• Bolt Pistol: The Sergeant or the Tempestor can take this for free. It is a flat upgrade for the Sergeant, should he not choose the Plasma Pistol.
• Plasma Pistol: For the cost of a measly point, the Sergeant or Tempestor may replace their laspistol with a plasma pistol. Use this if you expect to deal with MEQs, but remember to use 'Take Aim' first. While take aim makes you more likely to hit an unmodified one will still kill you. Don't overcharge unless you're sure. Modifiers are plus and minus to hit. You still get to reroll that first roll of 1 and only die if you roll another 1.
• Lasgun: The Lasgun is the default weapon of both the 'Infantry Squad' Guardsman and the 'Special Weapons Squad' Guardsman. Obviously Free. The weapon of choice for a Guard blob.
• Hot-shot Lasgun: The default zero cost pick for the glory boys. The 18" range in Kill Team will be punishing, as most enemies will drop their -1 to hit within 12" before the 9" required to reach with the hot-shot. However, the AP-2 makes this baby a lot nicer than your standard lasgun all-round, especially against GEQs and MEQs.
• Hot-shot Volley Gun: With 4 shots, S4 and AP-2, this is one of the best weapons the Guard can take for Kill Team. Scion Gunner exclusive in addition to 3 points. Obviously best used with a Heavy Specialist to re-enact scenes from Predator.
• Plasma Gun: For 3 points, a 'Infantry Squad', a 'Special Weapons Squad' Guardsman, or a Stormtrooper can have the potential to down an Astartes without any assistance, or a Primaris on an overcharge, in a single turn. Be sure to order 'Take Aim'.
• Sniper Rifle: A weapon capable of mortal wounds in addition to the standard single wound on 6+ wound rolls and doesn't suffer the long range hit penalty. That's, pretty much all it's got going for it. In the hands of a Guardsmen it can only hit on a 4+, and unlike Scout Marines, your guardsmen have no shortage of more powerful and reliable special weapons to choose from.
  • Because the mortal wound ability doesn't specify an unmodified roll of 6+, it can seem tempting to give it to a Demolitions specialist to increase the chance to proc a mortal wound. Against an obscured enemy and with the tactic, you'd only need a 4+ to get a mortal wound. Indeed this increase the chance to kill a MEQ by 40% ... from 5% to 7%, for an absolute gain of 2%. In comparison, the lowly grenade launcher using the same buffs improves by a similar absolute value AND comes out in total kill chance against basically all targets. Or you could put it on a flamer for a 23% chance to kill that MEQ AND a 7% absolute gain from those buffs. The specialism and the CP are best spent elsewhere. Keep the sniper rifle only for times you literally can't spend more than 1 point on a weapon, it is after all still better than a lasgun, right? Even then, only against 3+ Svs and better, or when you can't risk getting closer enough for Rapid Fire range.
• Grenade Launcher: Send Krak and Flak Grenades at the range of a lasgun. Perfect for a demolitions specialist to remove the Tau plants infesting the structures. Note that this weapon is 'assault', so keep it firing. Available to both Scions and Guardsmen as of the latest FAQ. Be sure to order take aim when shooting the krak profile. 2 points.
• Flamer: For 3 Points, your guardsmen or scions can trade their worry of ballistic skill for worrying about their armor save. When use properly, however, this weapon can lock down corridors, and oust infantry dependent on cover saves. Obviously more cost effective on Guardsmen than Storm Troopers.
• Melta Gun: A true threat on the table. Expect the enemy to give priority to this model, so put it on a Storm Trooper for extra survivability (3+ save). Make him level 1 sniper for rerolling 1s to hit, and keep your comms specialist nearby to have a BS of 2+, rerolling 1s, with an almost guaranteed 2+ wound roll, and the -4 AP making sure this will drop nearly anything in shooting. Not only will the weapon drop its long range penalty at 6", but will allow the choice from two dice to select from when applying wounds instead of just 1. Great for making sure Death Guard take multiple save and injury rolls. 3 point cost.
• Frag Bomb: A frag grenade with a bigger boom given for free to Ogryns and Bullgryns. A whopping +1S upgrade, but otherwise identical
• Grenadier Gauntlets: Take the Frag Bomb, make it Assault instead of Grenade, up the range to 12" and you have this, the default Bullgryn weapon. Spend the extra 2 points and swap it for the Maul.
• Ripper Gun: Ogryns aren't very good shots but thats OK because their default gun isn't very good either. 12" range Assault 3 and S5. No AP, No multidamage. Chances are a stock standard Scion will be more deadly, and even he has better range. And you can take 3 scions for 1pt more than an ogryn.
• Negotiator Pistol: A bolt pistol with AP-2 and an extra shot. Rogue Trader Neyam Shai Murad takes a pair of them.
• Demolition Charge: The same as the one taken by GSC. The same power (seriously, its like a super charged plasma gun with d6 attacks), and the same once-per-battle limitation. Taken only by Raus.

AM Melee Weapons

• Chainsword: Default free choice for Sergeant and Tempestor. +1 Attack.
• Power Sword: A Sergeant or Tempestor may upgrade to a power sword for 1 point. Gotfret gets it for free.
• Power Fist: A Tempestor may upgrade to a power fist for 2 points.
• Bullgryn Maul: Bullgryn can take this in place of a grenadier gauntlet for 2 points. A D2 power maul for squishing enemies
• Ripper Gun: The Ogryn default weapon gives them this profile for melee as well. Only better than the Close Combat weapon everyone is assumed to have by virtue of being AP-1.
• Force Stave: Staff and whomping stick of Aradia Madellan, Primaris Psyker. S+2 AP-1 and Dd3 might not on par with a Power Fist, it still does pretty well in scrap.

AM Psychic Powers

Eisenhorn

Exclusive to Eisenhorn

• [WD2019July] Enforce Will (Warp Charge 8): Pick a visible enemy model within 12". You can immediately shoot or fight with that model as if it were your own and it was the respective phase.
  • Its essentially CP-free Mindshackle Scarabs. A WC of 8 is effectively the same check you'd have to make against an Ld7 so its no different against a Marine but you get no bonus for targeting a weak-willed guardsman, but now its at 12" instead of 6" and the model can fight, not just shoot. Its not often that you're going to want to use this over Psybolt but in rare instances like hitting the plasma gunner and overcharging for a chance at 2 kills or turning a powerful special weapon on their own team might pay off.

AM Units

• Infantry Squad Guardsmen (Leader [Sergeant Only], Heavy [Gunner Only], Comms [Vox-Caster Only], Medic, Demolitions, Scout, Sniper, Veteran): A regular old guardsmen with a lasgun isn't worth much more in Kill Team than they are in 40k, but like 40k, you can bring a lot of them for their cost, and they can shoot better than Boyz or Termagants
  • Cheap, with a base price of 5 points.
  • Infantry Squad Sergeant (1): Lacks a lasgun, but gets a choice of pistols and melee weapons. Your cheapest leader option when you want the most boys on the field, but even if you have something else as your leader, it might be a good idea to bring a sergeant anyway as a cheap melee scout or veteran specialist.
  • Infantry Squad Guardsman Gunner (1): The difference between the gunner and the average guardsman? This one gets a different weapon. He's pretty much here if you've run out of spaces for special weapons guardsmen.
  • Infantry Squad Guardsman with Vox-Caster (1): Only 5 points more than the run of the mill armydude and he becomes your most likely comms specialist.
• Special Weapons Squad Guardsmen (Heavy [Gunner Only], Leader, Medic, Demolitions, Scout, Sniper, Veteran): Identical to regular guardsmen, except these are the guys that can bring the special weapons you'll need to bring down the bigger nastier stuff that would otherwise mulch right through your dudes.
  • There is basically no difference between the "Infantry Squad" Guardsman and this one, save a change in keyword, and that leader specialization isn't limited to specific models from this unit. The latter is likely a typo, but it was never FAQed, so if you want to keep your leader out of close combat, or even give him a special weapon, these are your dudes. You'll just be sacrificing the Ld of a Sergeant or Tempestor to do it.
  • Special Weapons Squad Gunner (3): Here's your means of grabbing the nice guns, which you'll probably need to fight anything tougher than a gaunt or a heretic.
• Tempestus Scion (Leader [Tempestor Only], Demolitions [Gunner Only], Heavy (Gunner Only], Comms, Medic, Scout, Sniper, Veteran]: Bigger, tougher, better guardsmen (think MEQ shooting and armour save) that have have hot-shot las weapons instead of regular las, krak grenades, and can take hot-shot volley guns instead of sniper rifles for more dakka. Take if you want a team focused on quality over quantity. Or, even if you have a team of regular dolts, it might be a good idea to bring a Tempestor as your leader to have a more survivable source of orders.
  • A regular scion can take a vox-caster for 5 additional points. The model also gains a hot-shot laspistol for free with its vox-caster and has the option of keeping or ditching its hot-shot lasgun. A scion with a vox-caster is the only model that can be a comms specialist from this unit.
  • Near double the base price of a regular guardsman at 9, and 10 for the Tempestor or Scion Gunner, so you'll be running 10 dudes at best.
  • Tempestus Scion Gunner (4): An extra point permits the gunner to grab the nice guns, including the hot-shot volley.
  • Tempestor (1): Also a point more than the average scion, but this nets him a melee weapon (chainsword, power sword, or powerfist) to throw down.
• Pious Vorne (BSF/Annual2019) (Zealot [Specialist Retainer]): If you wanted a zealot without dipping into the specialist pool (or at all as AM), Vorne's got you covered. Don't be fooled by that plate armor her model is wearing, though. With a 7+ save, apparently it's literally made of wet rotten cardboard. However, Vorne does get a Feel No Pain that works on 5+ and re-rolls attacks when charging or gets charged. Her lone weapon works in both melee with S+1 AP-1 or as a heavy flamer that re-rolls the number of hits when shooting CHAOS models.
  • Unlike the Ratling twins, she does qualify for Regimental Doctrines.
  • Unfortunately they took away her ability to take orders in Annual 2019, meaning no more Fix Bayonets! shenanigans.
• Rein & Raus (BSF/Annual2019) (Sniper [Specialist Retainer][Rein Only]):The twin ratlings are always taken as a pair and Rein must take your sniper slot, but does not otherwise contribute to the 3 specialist limit. Armed with a BS2+, stub pistol and sniper rifle, Rein gets to re-roll hits and wounds with his rifle if his brother can see his target. Unfortunately it's still a sniper rifle, and so still underperforms compared to other weapons in your arsenal. He also prevents you from taking Sniper on a plasma gun for safe(ish) super charging. Raus gets his own stub pistol, a grappling hook to climb any distance as well as a single-use demo charge that's likely to insta-kill most things with his BS2+. Both of them can immediately move after shooting, and add -1 to any attacks against them if they're in cover. Combined with their two wounds and diminutive model size, the twins can actually be surprisingly durable, despite their T2 and 6+ save. Watch out for flamers or models that ignore cover though.
  • They are Auxilla, so do not qualify for Regimental Doctrines.
• Gotfret de Montbard (WDSept2019/Annual2019) (Combat [Specialist Retainer]): Crusader originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with Power Sword and Storm Shield. While he unfortunately didn't keep his Deny the Witch ability from 40k, he is beast in melee with Hacking Advance generating 2 hits on every unmodified hit roll of 6. And thoughtfully, they made him a Combat specialist meaning you can take him with Pious Vorne and populate your entire kill team with the faithful.
  • Because his Specialist Retainer text doesn't include any text about the stat boost being included in his statline like every other Character does, this means he actually has 5 attacks. Add in Hacking Advance and thats a lot of attacks every turn.
  • Unfortunately they took away his ability to take orders in Annual 2019, meaning no more Fix Bayonets! shenanigans.
• Ogryn (Leader [Bone 'ead only], Combat, Demolitions, Heavy, Veteran) : Ogryn can't shoot worth a damn, but that's okay. What Ogryn are for, and what an otherwise very shooty and very squishy team really needs them to do, is smash faces. And Ogryn do that rather well. Three S5 AP-1 attacks will certainly make a dent in just about anything. Post errata, can no longer take orders.
  • Ogryn Bone 'ead (1): Despite not being able to take orders post errata, a bone 'ead can be a leader and issue orders, so if you want the toughest source of orders you can get, a Bone 'ead is the way to do it.
• Bullgryn (Leader [Bone 'ead only], Combat, Demolitions, Heavy, Veteran): Post errata, can no longer take orders.
  • Bullgryn Bone 'ead (1): Despite not being able to take orders post errata, a bone 'ead can be a leader and issue orders, so if you want the toughest source of orders you can get, a Bone 'ead is the way to do it. Plus the Bullgryn Bone 'ead is even tougher than the normal Ogryn, plus he can mix in melee with the best of them.

AM Commanders

• Janus Draik (BSF/Annual 2019) (Logistics): [ADD YOUR AM SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
  • Unclear if qualifies for Regimental Doctrines, as the ability comes from having a regular Keyword, but the Keyword is added to models with the Faction Keyword.
• Inquisitor Eisenhorn (WD2019July) (Strategist): At 70pts at level 1 and cool 105pts at 4, Eisenhorn is the single most expensive Commander available to the AM. Unfortunately he's the victim of another statline screw up, losing FOUR wounds, THREE attacks and dropping down from a Ld 10 and a 4+ to Ld7 and a 6+. In other words they copy pasted the Bloodletter statbox from the same issue and forgot to change the statline. And a damn shame too. Giving Ld10 to all your Guardsmen in 6", psyking and 4 attacks with a D-D3 weapon would have made him a solid contender despite the cost. As it is? Well lets just hope they release some errata. - The White Dwarf that was released fixed this, making his LD 10 and with 5 wounds.
  • Qualifies for Regimental Doctrines.
• Espern Locarno (Blackstone Fortress) (Psyker): This navigator isn't much to write home about, with only a 4+ Invul and a melee weapon that deals Dd3 at S3 AP0 separating him from the common leader, but he has his psybolt that can deal mortal wounds to a designated model even if they're not the closest. Like the Grey Knights, his psybolt is limited to a 12" range.
  • Qualifies for Regimental Doctrines.
• Platoon/Company Commander (Leadership, Logistic, Shooting, Stealth, Strategist): The cheapest commander choice in the game, only the Commissar is as cheap as the platoon commander. You can almost always afford the extra five points for +1W, Ld, and order. In no way a beatstick, the commanders give extra orders, one for the platoon, two for the company commander. Their aura tactic makes an order affect all units within 6" of the ordered model, which can be a fantastic boost for a plasma blob. Has a refractor field for a 5+ invulnerable save, which can keep them a little more durable than your opponent may expect. It may be worth it to give them the plasma pistol and power fist for emergency combat, since they are cheap.
  • Qualifies for Regimental Doctrines.
• Tempestor Prime (Leadership, Logistic, Shooting Stealth, Strategist): More expensive and generally less useful than the Platoon and company commanders. Pays 10 extra points for the same statline as the Company Commander, except a 4+ save, but no invulnerable, a hot-shot laspistol, Krak grenades, and needing to pay an extra 2 points for the second order. Unless you think you can get a lot of extra mileage out of the 5+ overwatch from his aura, you should probably give him a pass in favor of the Company Commander.
  • Like other Militarum Tempestus models, only qualifies for their Regimental Doctrine but does not prevent other doctrines.
• Commissar/Lord Commissar (Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Strategist): The Lord Commissar costs extra, but gets better Ld, Wounds, a BS/WS of 2+, and a 4+/5++ instead of just a 5+. While the base Commissar is a good choice if you just want the morale boosts, the LC can do fairly well in melee if equipped with a Power Fist. That said, the abilities are more geared towards holding together after everything's gone wrong, while the Platoon/Company Commander tend to be more proactive. No variant qualifies for Regimental Doctrines.
  • Feodor Lasko: A named Commissar with his own specialism. Really, really wishes he had a power fist. Without one, it's not worth going beyond level 1 for the durability boost. The 5 points he costs over a regular Commissar of the same level goes to paying for his Power Sword and Plasma Pistol. Can use normal Commissar exclusive tactics. Might have a 5++ Refractor Field depending on how you interpret the datacard.
    • Commissar specialism: Feodor Lasko's unique skill tree, with the following skills.
      • Level 1: True Grit: +1 to Toughness, built into the statline.
      • Level 2: Skilled Swordsman: Re-roll unmodified 1s to hit and wound in the Fight phase.
      • Level 3: Grav-Chute Acts like an always-on version of the Level 1 Logistics Tactic.
      • Level 4: I've Had Worse!: FnP on a 5+. If he already has FnP from another source, choose which source applies and re-roll FnP results of 1.
  • Severina Raine (White Dwarf) (Leadership): Essentially a Commissar statline with a 4+ save and a slightly improved Chainsword and Bolt Pistol. Like Lasko, she can use regular Commissar exclusive tactics. She only costs 20pts but has no options for better weapons. She does have a special rule letting units within 6" automatically pass Nerve tests while she is in combat, but she doesn't have the gear, statline or specialism to survive there and neither do your guardsmen. While Annual2019 face her point values for higher levels if you're (rightfully) ignoring the Commander's FAQ, she's still basically terrible. If you like the model, take her as regular Commissar.
• Taddeus the Purifier (Blackstone Fortress) (Ferocity): You got yourself a beefy preacher with only a rosarius and 4W for protection. As a melee combatant he's not much, but re-rolls hits on a charge or when he's charged and he's got a power maul and two pistols (neither are very effective, but he gets to fire both and one of them shoots three times). He's also handy to get the troops in on the fight with his free, always-on aura granting an additional attack to the troops within 6" and to himself. Ridiculously overpriced for what he offers, as a Power Fist Lord Commissar is 19 points cheaper, infinitely more capable in combat and more than makes up for the extra attacks from your useless guardsmen.
  • Qualifies for Regimental Doctrines, and was updated in Annual 2019 to not be affected by Orders.
• Sly Marbo (Elites) (Legendary Hunter Level 4 Only): You’re joking, right? You actually NEED a reason to take Sly Marbo? Well, he always wounds on a 2+, he can perform one of three different out-of-sequence attacks after being set up from reserves, and with Like Fighting A Shadow he can return to reserves to do it again. His lack of AP is annoying, but his unique Tactic makes that a non-issue in melee. Oh, and remember that Orders don't work on him, but now no orders work on any commanders, so this is a pointless distinction. Regimental Doctrines still do, so you can have a Mordian Sly Marbo if you like.
  • With the new Dev Commentary he's now not an option in Matched Play at all, as they've made it mandatory that all commanders be taken at Level 1 going against their own rules in the Commanders book, that's right he's so powerful kill team can't contain him.
• Aradia Madellan (WDSept2019) (Psyker): Sanctioned Primaris Psyker originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with a Laspistol, Force Stave and her own mind. She can also give a single model within 6" Superior Transhuman Physiology for the round.
  • Costing the exact same as Eisenhorn at every level basically puts her totally out of contention. Compared to the Inquisitor she has worse weapons, worse statline, no FNP, and her ability is likely going to be less useful than Unquestionable Wisdom which gives your weakwilled guardsman an Ld that makes Custodes look like cowards. She also doesn't qualify for Regimental Doctrines like Eisenhorn does (but doesn't prevent them either)
• Neyam Shai Murad (WDSept2019/Annual2019) (Shooting): Rogue Trader originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with a pair of Negotiator pistols but weirdly not her own sword-leg. Is always considered readied and ignores obscurity. Not bad in combat, but too expensive
  • Unclear if qualifies for Regimental Doctrines, as the ability comes from having a regular Keyword, but the Keyword is added to models with the Faction Keyword.
  • Also unclear is if her Quick Draw ability lets her shoot when she advances. It needs to be FAQ'd but until then ask your opponent/TO before you try it in game. If you're the one being asked, consider allowing it - Neyam is not a particularly great Commander for her cost otherwise.

AM Tactics

• [Elites] Aerial Drop (Reserve) (1CP): Used at the end of the movement phase, bring in any combination of 3 Militarum Tempestus Scions and/or Tempestor Prime models from reserves and put them anywhere more than 5" away. Weird they didn't just say 3 models with the "Militarum Tempestus" keyword.
• [Core] Get Down (1 CP): When an enemy unit shoots at one of your units, so long as your unit is obscured, this adds an additional -1 penalty to their hit rolls.
• [Core] Cunning Strategy (2 CP): Your leader or Officer Commander can issue an additional order.
• [Core] Reserves of Courage (1 CP): In the morale phase, if a model needs to take a Nerve test it rolls a d3 instead of a d6 for the test.
• [Imperator] Sir, Yes Sir! (2 CP): After picking a model to be affected by an Order, everyone other than the Leader within 3" of that model also benefits from that Order. Mutually exclusive with Cunning Strategy. Not a bad idea if you wanted to stack Take Aim on a group of, say, 8 plasma gunners.
• [Imperator] Reconnaissance Protocols (1 CP): At the start of the first round, choose a Tempestus Scion present on the battlefield. He can move as if it was the Movement Phase, replacing their Movement characteristic with 2d6".
• [Imperator] Mission Critical Supplies (1 CP, Sector Imperialis Killzone): At the start of the first round, select a Munitorum Armored Container. For the rest of the battle, that container grants models from your Kill-Team that are within 1" of it -1 to their Nerve tests.
• [Imperator] Defensive Stand (2 CP): When one of your models is charged, its Overwatch shots hit on a 5+.
• [Imperator] Vengeance For Cadia! (1 CP): When choosing to shoot or fire Overwatch at a Heretic Astartes model, re-roll all failed hit and wound rolls.
  • Keep in mind that the Heretic Astartes doesn't just cover Marine models or the faction of the same name. Every model in all 3 of the major CSM factions (CSM, DG, TS) has that keyword from the lowly Poxwalker and Chaos Cultist all the way up to Elites and Commanders. This makes this tactics a lot more attractive then it might appear at first.
• [Imperator] Fight to the Death! (1 CP): Before an injury roll is made for a model from your Kill-Team, apply a -1 modifier to the roll.
• [Imperator] Adrenal Shot (1 CP): When a model suffers a mortal wound, roll a d6 for it and all future mortal wounds received. They are ignored on a 5+.
• [Imperator] Grenadiers (1 CP): When selecting a model to shoot with, that model may use a grenade even if another model has already done so. This Tactic can be used more than once per phase.

AM Commander Tactics

• [Commanders] Inspirational Command (2 CP): Its Sir, Yes Sir! except with a 6" radius and only for an order issued by your Platoon Commander or Company Commander. A model can still only be affected by a single order per round. There is no language to prevent using it and Sir, Yes Sir! (or it and Cunning Strategy) in the same round.
• [Commanders] Covering Fire (Aura) (1 CP): Defensive Stand in a 6" aura while the Tempestor Prime is not shaken.
• [Commanders] Aura of Discipline (Aura) (1 CP): Automatically pass nerve tests in a 6" aura while the Commissar or Lord Commissar is not Shaken. It also replaces their Leadership with the Commissar's for things like the Thousand Sons' Treason of Tzeentch.
• [Lasko] Bellowing Voice (1 CP): Gives any auras your commander has an additional 3" to radius. Lasts the entire battle round.
  • Only applicable to the Tempestor Prime and the Commissars as only they have Auras.
• [Lasko]I Am Your Worst Fear! (Aura) (1 CP): While your Commissar or Lord Commissar is not Shaken, gives everyone Transhuman Physiology in a 6" aura.
• [Elites] Knife in The Dark (2CP): Use when Sly Marbo makes an attack in the fight phase but before making the hit roll. If the attack hits, target takes D3 mortal wounds and the attack ends.

The Last Chancers and Gaunt's Ghosts

At the September 22nd, 2018 Warhammer World Kill Team Weekender Event a rerun of these old, OOP metal models was sold with datacards for their use in AM Kill Teams. But given how few of these models would actually enter circulation, GW decided to restrict them all from Matched Play. Every card had "For Open and Narrative Play Only" emblazoned across the top. Because they're banned from Matched Play, i.e. most play, they're not included in the above sections to avoid confusion.

Last Chancers and Gaunts Ghosts

LC Models

• Animal: Special Weapons gunner with Meltagun and Chainsword. Pays 1pt for his otherwise illegal chainsword for a total of 9pts. No Frag grenades though.
• Brains (Comms Level 2 Only): Regular Guardsman with a Voxcaster and a Comms specialist at Level 2. Pays the normal cost for a guardsman + Vox + being level 2 for 14pts. Unfortunately has to take Static Screech for his level 2 ability. Lasgun ofc but no Frag grenades.
• Demolition Man: A lasgun guardsman but with a 3+ WS and BS and trading his frag grenades in for a Demolition Charge. He only pays 3pts for both the Charge and his improved statline, a steal at 8pts.
• Fingers: A stock standard guardsman, only with a name and no Frag Grenades. 5pts as you'd expect.
• Grease Monkey: A guardsman statline, but only armed with a Bolt Pistol. Despite being singificantly handicapped by his weapon choice, still costs the same 5pts of a regular guardsman.
• Hero (Leader Level 2 Only): A Sergeant in every way, except he was smart enough to grab a Lasgun in addition to his Laspistol and Combat Blade (a chainsword by another name). Must be taken as a Leader and at level 2, and has to take Bold to autopass nerve tests. Pays 4pts for his level, but nothing for the Lasgun for a total of 9pts. No frag grenades though.
• Ox (Heavy Level 3 Only): A guardsman gunner with an Heavy Bolter. Must be taken as a Level 3 Heavy with Extra Armour and Heavily Muscled. Pays 8pts as usual for his level and 3 pts for his otherwise illegal gun choice for a total of 16pts. Guess what... no frag grenades either.
• Rocket Girl: A Special Weapons Gunner that somehow knicked a Missile Launcher from the SM weapons list. She pays the usual 5pts for it for a total of 10pts. No frag grenades but does she need them?
• Scope: A Special Weapons Gunner with a sniper rifle just with a name and no frags. Unfortunately this means he's slightly more useless than the already useless special weapons gunner with a sniper rifle. 6pts as you'd expect.
• Shiv (Combat Level 2 Only): A guardsman but with the classic Sergeant loadout of a plasma pistol and power sword. His mandatory two levels of Combat means he's a match for a sergeant in combat, with an extra attack and Deadly Counter. Guardsman at 5pts + Level 2 for 4pts + Power Sword for 1pt and Plasma Pistol for 1pt should give you 11pts, but he costs 13 for some reason.
• Warrior Woman: Guardsman with a Lasgun and swaping frags for a Combat Blade. Apparently thats an even swap because she's only 5pts.

LC Commanders

• Colonel Schaeffer (Fortitude Level 3 Only): A Company Commander with Plasma Pistol and Power Sword. His statline is as normal except he has a 2+ WS and BS, a 4+ save in addition to the 5++ and Ld of 9 instead of 8. His specialism is the otherwise illegal-for-Company-Commanders Fortitude at Level 3, taking Hard to Kill and Iron Constitution as well as Stoic Hero Trait. He pays full price for all of his gear and abilities but nothing for this improved statline, for a total of 50pts
  • Living up to his lore, Schaeffer will survive anything with a 4+/5++/6+++, 5W, ignoring Fleshwounds and halving the Damage of incoming attacks. Only let down by the his low T and a power sword instead of a power fist, Schaeffer would be one the best Commanders available to AM with both a durable source of 2 extra Orders and as deadly as a Lord Commissar. Presumably thats why he's not allowed in Matched Play.
  • Its also worth noting that his card lists him as a Company Commander, which entitles him to use Inspirational Command, one of the best tactics available to Guard.

GG Units

• Tanith Ghost Trooper: Your Generic Tanith Badboy. A guardsman that swaps his frag grenades for chainsword-equivalent Straight Silver Blade to be a little less useless in melee. Costs the standard 5pts.
• Brin Milo (Comms Level 4 Only): Guardsman with a vox caster and swapping his frags for a Straight Silver Blade. Can only be taken at Level 4 and must be taken with Expert, Vox Ghost and Command Relay. He pays full price for his level and vox, but swapping frags for the blade was apparently free, as he costs 22pts.
• Colm Corbec (Leader Level 4 Only): A sergeant that swaps his laspistol and grenades for a Lasgun. Instead of a chainsword he takes the equivalent Straight Silver Blade. Must be taken at level 4 and must take Inspiring, Mentor and Bold. He pays fullprice for his level but upgrades to the lasgun for free, at 17pts.
• Doc Dorden (Medic Level 4 Only): A guardsman but only armed with a laspistol. Must be taken at level 4 and must take Field Medic, Trauma Specialist and Triage Expert. He pays fullprice for his level but saves no points with his crappy wargear, costing you 17pts.
• Hlaine 'Mad' Larkin (Sniper Level 4 Only): A special weapons gunner with a Sniper Rifle and Straight Silver Blade. Must be taken at level 4 and must take Sharpshooter, Mobile and Eagle Eye. Unfortunately its still not enough to make the Sniper Rifle feasible and Eagle-Eye is completely pointless on a Sniper Rifle. You literally can't be out range of the Sniper Rifle on a standard KT board and it ignores long range penalties making level 4 a completely dead level for him. He pays fullprice for his level, even his dead one, and rifle, costing you 18pts.
• Trooper Mktane: Guardsman gunner with a name, plasma gun and straight silver blade. Pays the regular price of 8pts.

GG Commanders

• Ibram Gaunt (Leadership Level 3 Only): A Lord Commissar statline with a Bolt Pistol and his custom Power Sword, the Sword of Heironymo Sondar, Gaunt must be taken at Level 3 and must take Aura of Command and Heroic. He costs 50pts. At 45pts base for his model and level, the bolt pistol being free, and the regular powersword being 2pts, apparently the extra point of strength on the power sword costs 3 points for a total of 5. I.e. 1pt short of a Power Fist. Unfortunately with nothing else special going for him, this makes him essentially inferior to the regular Lord Commissar with the same build. Pay the extra point, get a powerfist for +2S and D3 damage.
  • Adding to his misfortune, unlike Colonel Schaeffer who is a Company Commander and is thus entitled to Company Commander Tactics, Ibram Gaunt is just Ibram Gaunt. He has the statline and abilities of a Lord Commissar but not the required keyword or name to use Commissar specific tactics.

Weapons

• Combat Blade: A renamed chainsword available to a few of the Last Chancers
• Straight Silver Blade: A renamed chainsword that comes with every Ghost barring Doc and Gaunt himself.
• Heavy Bolter: Just the standard Heavy Bolter carried by Ox.
• Missile Launcher: Stock standard Missile Launcher wielded by Rocket Girl.
• Sword of Heironymo Sondar: A S+1 power sword taken by Gaunt.

AM Strategies

Meltaspam and Volleyspam:

At 8pts, an ordinary guardsman with a meltagun has a fair chance of deleting any model in the game should it hit. As counter intuitive as it might sound, making a scion with a meltagun your sniper is actually a quite viable choice, since you're capable of reliably hitting on 2's even when advancing to close range. However you'll be giving them to regular guard in most cases and handing Volley guns to your Scions.

The core of this strategy is based around two elements. Good use of full cover to break LOS and strategic use of orders and the universal strategy Decisive Shot. The latter is tied closely to whether you've won or lost the initiative and your enemies CP reserves. As a rule of thumb, if the enemy ends their movement phase with 1CP or less, and they have an isolated unit within 12 inches of you, that unit is dead.

Decisive shot provides priority shooting, so even if the enemy has readied that unit to shoot, you can shoot first and therefore, if you send in a scion with a +2 to hit melta, there is literally nothing the enemy can do to save their unit but hope you roll 1's.

The game has few invulnerable saves and due to how flesh wounds work, a multi wound model that loses all it's wounds in one shot is just as screwed as a single wound model. Once your enemy is aware that you can walk forward and delete units, they'll likely start treating your melta's with more respect. Fortunately for you, you're capable of forcing unfair trades.

Again, should the enemy win the initiative and decides to instead ready all their guns against your onslaught, you can move two units forward into optimal melta range. As before, using decisive shot to win initiative on one unit, and using move move move to relocate the other before the enemies readied shot goes off, hopefully leaving them without a valid target.

In this, do not be afraid to trade units with your enemies. Meltagun toting guardsmen are cheaper than any of your enemies special snowflakes- although the same doesn't necessarily apply to scions. If you win initiative, don't move closer than 9 inches to an enemy without good reason.

Considering the options available to your opponents, you can expect people trying to counterpick with long range firepower. Bear in mind, that a standard kill team board is only 30" by 20" and should have plenty of terrain offering full cover, so this isn't a dealbreaker. Anything with a range of more than about 24" inches has the same threatened area, if lower accuracy as long range weapons. Hence let's first cover your matchup against the best ranged weapon in the book, Frag Cannons.

Frag cannons', which fire high explosive cheese, come to 21 points with the marine attached to them. Outside of 12 inches, they will kill you and medium infantry. Inside of twelve inches, they will kill any heavy infantry and inside of 8 inches they will kill you, your family and your dog. Probably will be FAQ'd, but until then they aren't completely unbeatable.

Their primary weakness is they come attached to 1 wound MEQ's. The optimal configuration for a frag cannon team is a normal, Heavy, a Comms and a Sniper backed up by a Leader with a normal bolter. From your box of boys, should you expect to face seal team Chedder, you have two basic options. Pick your specialists to work outside of 24 inches and try and plink the enemy down (which in guard doesn't work due to the weapon options on offer), or go danger close with melta and plasma. Your enemy will be on a common turn of shooting, be hitting on 2-3+ often with re-rolls of 1's. Due to ignoring the penalties of the first flesh wound, anything less than a confirmed kill is meaningless, as by the time a second flesh wound is inflicted, it's fairly likely that the enemy will be closing to use their 2d6 autohitting mode.

The issue with trying to outrange fragspam as any faction is the aforementioned size of the table and terrain density. A marine with a frag cannon can move and be in range to hit anything on the board, with the accuracy to hit it outside of 12". They can be in flamer range within two turns, and then you're at the mercy of an average of 7 S6 hits splitfired at everything you love and care about. If they win the initiative, expect to be facing high accuracy readied shots and aggressive placements.

If you're trying to fight at range your choice is to either duke it out with them or move to break LOS. Bear in mind that should you instakill a deathwatch and the player has CP remaining, the player will take another round of shooting with them. Moreover as AM, you only have one weapon which outranges your enemy. Sniper rifles. You can also only take them on regular guardsmen, but taking them eats into the number of actually useful weapons you can field.

Having considered what we can't do, lets consider what we can do. 4 scion gunners with hot shot volleyguns are 13 pts a piece and under most circumstances won't go any worse than a 4-5 to hit. In a 100 pt game you can take 4 scion gunners with hot shot volley guns, at 13 points a pop. On average considering the buffs on offer, terrain, range and cover and heavy weapon movement penalties, you can expect your scions to be regularly around BS4. A single scion who shoots at this strength is capable of putting one wound on a marine. Should the enemy be in cover, you have about a 60% chance of inflicting a flesh wound, which means basically nothing for Astarte shooting.

The obvious answer to this is to buff accuracy further and focus fire. The obvious problem with this is if you and your opponent are taking turns shooting, the odds are on his side- you need two rounds of shooting to take him out, he only needs one to take two of your models out. Even if you increase one models accuracy so that it hit's on 2's, you're still likely to only inflict a flesh wound. If you try to take a decisive shot, even if you've got a volley gun hitting on 2's, you're still left with a coinflip as to whether your target will actually die if they're in cover.

Basically, exchanging fire like this will cause you to lose models faster than your enemy- but fret not, for that's where the melta tactics we discussed earlier come into play. This also works with plasma, but if you plan to use specialists, Melta will get more Milage. If you plan for them to die the moment they leave cover, then rapid fire that overcharged plasma by all means. If you start forcing one for one trades, where win or lose the enemy is left with only one target to shoot at, then you can grind them off the board. Using comms and orders a normal 8pt guardsman who's walked into range can decisive shot at an impressive +2 to hit the target he's flanked.

Against other factions, your tactics will vary significantly, depending on whether or not you want your specialists to be part of team Melta or team Volley Gun. Meltas are overkill for orks, but on normal troops either melta or plasma is still worth taking since it will prevent anything surviving with flesh wounds. Your enemy may either spam deffguns or bring a heavy deffgun loota and buff him with comms. In the latter case, focus him down first, and unless the comms is armed with a big shoota, ignore it. The only other unit you really need to worry about is a nob with a combi-skorcha. If said nob gets into range and you've blobbed up behind cover, Dakka Dakka will occur, and tears will flow. Don't give him the opportunity.

Your safety distance in a given movement phase is 9 inches. Even though orks re-roll charges, they aren't exactly flush with ways of getting extra moves. Play smart, the major threats are the same durability as basic boyz, so prioritise between specialists and anything which will start next turn within 9 of one of your units. Be careful of any sneaky grot objective capping that might occur if they've backed you into one side of the board.

Nids are a tougher nut to crack. They're better equipped to get into CC with you. Volley guns are still the name of the game, but you'll want to back them up with flamers, since even if they should double move, if they charge from 9 inches, you can simply fall back and they'll need 11 to get to CC. Melta should still be brought, since they make Lictor's cry.

Against any CC army, if you win the initiative, unless your leader is capable of ordering 'get back in the fight' or you have other specialist/activated abilities handy, do not bother falling back from any combats you might be in. Your enemy will simply re-charge you, you don't get overwatch and will just end back in the fight with the enemy hitting first. If you lose the initiative,. You can't charge again if you started the movement phase within 1" of an opposing model (even if they leave your model by falling back). Relevant rule: "When you pick a model to move, if that model started the movement phase within 1 inch of an enemy model, it cannot make a normal move" Core rules p.22. You should always fall back from any given combat and let the rest of your army shoot the now gormless CC sitting in the open.

Deathguard are stupidly tough, to the point where consider strongly taking more high damage weapons and aiming for high accuracy close range exchanges can be advisable- though be wary of poxwalker spam, either as soft cover or objective capping. If the enemy has an entire team of poxwalkers for some bizarre reason, you can kite them around the board as you whittle them down; no charge phase and similar base movement scores, along with orders means they'll struggle to actually catch you. If they do catch you, expect a quick and painful death at the hands of a Flail of Corruption-toting Plague Marine Combat Specialist with +1 to all hit and wound rolls, especially as you're T3 Sv 5+ W1 facing a possible 9 S6 AP -2 D2 attacks, and DttFE can result in them getting another d3 attacks on you on a hit roll of 6 (shoot those guys first).

Eldar, should you actually hit them, will find it difficult to endure volley guns. If they're trying to slink around and exchange shots from cover, show them whose boss, use comms and the sniper CP buff and split the resultant +2 to hit shots against all the units that they thought were safe simply because they happened to be 22 inches away and obscured. Due to flesh wounds they have a fair chance of living making this less than 'optimal', but seeing you perform such a feat may cause your opponent to make a misplay, and also if that's the first shot in the shooting phase, any survivors will find it harder to return fire.

An interesting combo is to use a demolitions volleygunner with orders and Comms, for and impressive result 3's to hit against units at long range and in cover, and with +2 to wound against units in cover. Said gunner will wound basically anything on a 2, making it a force to be reckoned with, particularly against enemies in cover inside 12" (which is anyone who was planning of charging into CC next turn) since they're both hitting and wounding on 2's and shredding armour.

With Harly's, avoid taking refuge inside structures, otherwise you may find yourself in the unpleasant situation of your enemy walking over the roof to drop straight onto you. Should the harly player win initiative and successfully enter CC, consider moving all your other units away from the doomed one to avoid being immediately charged next turn. Terrain is basically meaningless against them, so although their pistols are deadly, you're in a strange situation where open space is safer than cover that might ultimately lead to your units getting boxed in- even considering factors such as intervening terrain in melee. Expect the Clowns to take full advantage of their mobility and the existence of difficult/dangerous terrain in kill team.

These are one of the units that Melta's don't shine against due to the whole invulnerable save thing and only having one wound anyway. These are also one of the few units you might want spend CP on to hit your overwatch on 5-6's. Don't expect flamers to see much use on overwatch thanks to the Harly's 3d6 charge, and because they ignore units as well as terrain. Grenade launchers aren't bad against them, nor are flamers, however, don't expect to get the opportunity to use the latter.

Remember, if you win the initiative, but can't avoid being charged for whatever reason, you can use a more expendable unit to counter-charge the enemy, and thereby prevent them getting into CC with multiple units at once. The difficulty of facing Clowns is heavily tied to the objective and board setup. If for whatever reason there's 500 bucks worth of assorted terrain in your killzone, good luck. What you can hope for is that the table/objectives force a situation where a Harly cannot end their movement phase outside of LOS in an unflankable position or in CC, at which point your guns will slice through them like butter.

If you want to actually go on the offensive against Harliquens with a ranged setup, you must lose the initiative in order to be able to advance for shooting without the danger of being charged before you get a shot off. If you manage to catch one off guard by advancing up to where one is hiding, then you may end up rolling against your opponent on the decisive shot- with a fusion pistol blast being the price of failure.

One thing to bear in mind is that since harlequins are so fragile, pistol fire in CC can kill them before the fight phase, and the Harly player will be unwilling to kill you before the end of the shooting phase, if doing so would leave him outside of combat and therefore vulnerable to being shot. Secondly, with 'Fix Bayonets' if you do have a CC guardsman, then he has the opportunity to fight before the xeno's can even think about shooting.

While the odds aren't great, it's nonetheless one of the best uses for that strategy, should you have nothing better to do with your order. If you're playing with the 'exclusive' IG tactics provided in the IG kill team box, Sir Yes Sir has interesting potential for winning the fight phase outside of the fight phase. However, Harly's have one advantage that we haven't covered yet, which is that keeping your leader out of harms way behind solid walls doesn't do anything. On a standard game-board, this can mean that he'll be getting charged by a space elf through two buildings and a promethium pipe as early as turn 2. Expect them to do this every time and at the earliest opportunity. There's no good general way to deal with this, as if you want to support troops with orders, you must remain within 12" and objectives will often require you to do things that don't involve camping the far corner of your deployment zone. In summary this is potentially one of your most difficult matchups.

Dark eldar are interesting. You don't really care about poisoned, since you're not known for your toughness anyway. Going for volume of fire over damage here is the temptation, but, it's not a terrible idea to continue with plasma/melta simply because of their merit as weapons which will almost certainly kill their targets and deny the privilege of a flesh wound. This is more important than against, say Clowns, not only because they lack an invulnerable save, but because compared to you, they can't take nearly as many special weapons. You'll want to use a heavy scion with an accuracy buff to attempt a decisive shot snipe on their gunners before they can make their points back with their splinter cannons. These guys are like Nid's for CC, in that flamers can deter a charge, simply because the odds are against anyone charging in from outside flamer range due to the reaction rules. Be wary of their troops trying to position to make charges that avoid overwatch. Also, and this applies to any eldar player, if they start bundling their troops out of LOS with 3 CP in their bank, then they're planning to attempt a decisive shot followed by fire and fade.

It's worth being wary of players who aim for morale damage as a priority- but don't obsess over it. Consider your options if you start being denied your special abilities due to units becoming shaken, but don't let it stop you from making the best plays you can. Hot shot volley guns will cut through these guy's like a knife through butter. If you're looking to catch an enemy off-guard, there's a special, but, not necessarily advisable tactic that bears mention here. Since CC is the safest place to be, players may seek to take refuge in it to wait out the shooting phase, leading to multiple models charging into combat with a single enemy model, eschewing cover if they can make such a charge reliably and it will put them closer to the main enemy force. No enemy with any smarts will use pistols if it will take them out of CC while there are models who can shoot at them still alive.

However, bizarrely enough, should a model with a plasma pistol decide to overcharge and die for it, they can leave an entire wad of units just sitting out in the open as a big fat juicy target. It's a long shot strategy, but one your opponent is unlikely to see coming- unless they've read this page of course.

Necrons get to cry since for now as a faction, they have to take sniper specialisations on snipers and not more useful weapons. Reanimation protocols is annoying, as it is, it's actually More Likely to trigger should they get hit by high damage weapons wat. On top of that, 'Prime Reanimation protocols' needs clearer wording, since as it is, it could potentially block the activation of the reanimation protocol special rule.

Your priority target is their comms. They don't get to take heavies, but expect their comms to be buffing an immortal with a Tesla Carbine, since it lacks the 'unmodified' keyword from it's special rule (Not that it's a good thing, see below). Because of the wording on the comm's ability, it might even be an immortal buffing itself. Thankfully in matched play, their level 1 specialist choices aren't nearly as effective as yours. Flayed one's are scary in CC, but don't really have the tools that other races do to close the distance. Their weapons are the same range as yours, but as we've discussed because of orders and specialisations, as well as the fact that their weapons are all rapid fire, you will win a long distance shooting battle with relative ease. Let the hotshots do their job, use cover and occasionally the guard strat to maximise their hit penalties.

Your arrangement will be, 1 Volley heavy, 1 Volley sniper, a normal volley and a Volley Comms backed up by a leader. Comms buffs itself and the leader uses 2 CP (assuming you didn't need it for a decisive shot) to buff both the heavy and the normal volley, so all four reach BS+2. If both sides are at range and in cover, your enemy will have BS+5 with one shot per unit, with the exception of tesla guns. Tesla guns against units at range and in cover become rather pitiful, since even with comms, their special rule cannot proc, due to requiring a modified hit roll of 6. Since it is impossible for the enemy to roll above an effective 5 no matter what configuration they're in under these circumstances, they're not particularly threatening. Meanwhile, you have 16 shots at BS+4 which will wound 2-4 Necrons, and likely put two to rest for good. While your scions provide this barrage of firepower, you can move the rest of your group to play the objective, or simply provide great volumes of uncharged plasma. If the enemy doesn't advance, they'll spend 2-3 turns in the present state of affairs before they can close to "12 since their weapons are almost exclusively rapid fire not assault and therefore they'll be less inclined to advance. Since you have the advantage in a straight fight, keep your mind on what the objective is, since that's the more likely way for your opponent to snatch victory here.

Tau possess, for now uniquely, flying units in the form of drones and stealth suits. You don't really care though since you aren't planning on engaging them in CC, right? Same goes for their 'for the greater good special rule. The rail rifle is the sniper rifle that everyone would actually want their snipers to take. Too bad it's on a unit with a base BS of 4. Markerlights are scary, but, that's only until you realise that the markerlight itself still has to hit. It may have a range of 36, but it's a heavy weapon. So, if they've moved and you're in cover, that's 6's to hit and they've just wasted their entire shooting phase, to possibly give a bonus to hit against a single one of your models. If they proc the tactic, again it can get scary, but, they still have to roll 1d3, and it's still a bonus to hit against a single model. This is great and all, but, since in order to proc it in the first place, if involves designating a model to fire a weapon, if they do this they've likely just yielded you several consecutive turns in the shooting order, during which time you can actually frigging do some damage.

Finally, after all that, even if they get a maximum markerlight count on you, if a pathfinder sniper with a railgun fires at you from across the board, point out to your enemy that Rail rifles take penalties for long range. This means that only if they bank 3 CP and manage to roll max on markerlights (assuming they managed to hit with them) will their snipers hit on 2's (you're in cover, right? If not, get in cover(Well, recon drones mean that you'd be better outside of cover actually so pay attention to that)). And if you still have CP banked you can always have your model use 'get down', reducing their accuracy back to 3. Should the enemy hit, they'll almost certainly kill you, but they'll have paid dearly for it in actions and CP.

Rail rifles and ion rifles are rapid fire 30" so look to punish them while they try to close to 15" using your superior BS. While your scions handle their more fragile units, have your special weapons guard initiate decisive shot tactics against any stealthsuits with melta/plasma once more. Pay more attention to cover than usual during close range firefights against them since a round of shooting from one is entirely survivable if you happen to be obscured. If the stealth-suits are still alive once your scions have cut down their other kill team members, volleys will help clean up. If the enemy has gone pathfinder heavy, strongly consider taking out recon/pulse accelerator drones that they might be hoping to use as soft accuracy buffs. Force them to fight on your terms.

Counterplay:

Strategies for playing against this faction go here

AM Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

• The Default Guard List, 10 Models, 100pts.
  • 1 Sergeant with Bolt Pistol and Power Sword, 6pts (Leader) [Cadian]
  • 1 Guardsman with Vox, 10pts (Comms) [Cadian]
  • 1 Special Weapons Guardsman Gunner with Plasma/Flamer, 8pts [Cadian]
  • 1 Special Weapons Guardsman Gunner with Plasma/Flamer, 8pts [Cadian]
  • 1 Special Weapons Guardsman Gunner with Plasma/Flamer, 8pts [Cadian]
  • 1 Guardsman Gunner with Plasma/Flamer, 8pts [Cadian]
  • 1 Tempestus Scion Gunner with HSVG/Plasma/Meltagun, 13pts (Sniper) [Cadian]
  • 1 Tempestus Scion Gunner with HSVG/Plasma/Meltagun, 13pts [Cadian]
  • 1 Tempestus Scion Gunner with HSVG/Plasma/Meltagun, 13pts [Cadian]
  • 1 Tempestus Scion Gunner with HSVG/Plasma, 13pts [Cadian]

Swap out Special Weapons as appropriate to the mission & opponent. Scion Meltas are for ambushing with Reserves. Third specialist depends on the weapon selection. Take Cadians as they're always useful, they're the best to use with plasma spam, and trying to give different subfactions to non-plasma gunners would require duplicating the Comms and Sergeant on the roster and you don't have room. Its also the generic choice, perfect for the generic roster.

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points For When Commanders Cost Nothing Accept that you're probably going to lose.

Adeptus Mechanicus

Why Play Adeptus Mechanicus

• Pros
  • A versatile middle spot between IG and SM, with units that can hit hard at long range, move fast into melee, and cause all kinds of pain everywhere in between.
  • Shroudpsalm with cover gives your opponent total of -2 to hit.
  • A kill-team that can be very versatile by combining good Dakka (six Gunners) with fast yet tanky melee specialists.
  • You're as hardy as mortals come. 4+/6++ means anyone with AP-3 is paying for extras they won't use.
• Cons
  • The randomness of the canticles can be frustrating at times.
  • No Medic, but worst of all, no Demolition Specialist. Funnily, the heavy weapon is too heavy for even Heavies to benefit (but that Heavy specialism looks good on a plasma caliverist).
  • While the individual models are very good, they're very expensive with no cheap bodies to be found. That means a Mechanicus Kill-Team is going to be a very tight-knit, elite, tactical affair. You can't afford to sacrifice models or get bogged down by fast melee units. Your Kill Team will be 11 naked Skitarii at most.
  • Tyranids, in general, can shut you down HARD with multiple super fast and cheap Hormagaunts tying you up, and a couple Lictors murdering your expensive models turn by turn. You do have counters against the spammable or the big fast ones (Sicarians, Plasma), but the thing is you have to prepare for it. It's not like you aren't putting out the firepower of a kill-team twice your size, though.

AdMech Special Rules

Canticles of the Omnissiah Either roll or select one at the start of the battle round. The same Canticle may not be picked twice in the same battle, but you can always roll even if you picked them before. Therefore, you could pick the one that helps you the most for when you want to supercharge/melee, and keep on rolling afterwards. Half of them are active in the Fight phase so, despite being mostly random, they're a thing to think about while creating your Kill Team. It's important to consider the order in which you will want to use them against certain factions. The ones you'll use almost every battle are Benediction of the Omnissiah and Shroudpsalm.

1. Incantation of the Iron Soul: Re-roll failed Nerve tests for models in your kill team. Not bad, but you don't know whether you'll need it or not. The Enhanced Data-tether does the same, but that depends on a model.
2. Litany of the Electromancer: Roll a D6 for each enemy model within 1" of any of yours at the start of the Fight phase, and they'll suffer a mortal wound on a 6.
3. Chant of the Remorseless Fist: Re-roll hits of 1 for your models in the Fight phase.
4. Shroudpsalm: Enemies shooting at your obscured models suffer an additional -1 to hit. Even BS3+ marines are forced to hit you on a 6+ from beyond 12".
5. Invocation of Machine Might: +1 Str to your models. Vanguards will wound rad-weakened GEQ on a 2+, and makes Sicarians' jobs easier...for that turn.
6. Benediction of the Omnissiah: Re-roll hits of 1 for your models in the Shooting phase. Everyone is a Sniper this turn! It's plasma time.

• Bionics: All your models have a 6++.
• Rad-saturation: -1T for enemies within 1" of a Vanguard. They're still ranged units, but it helps them fight back, especially with a Canticle. Nearby Sicarians can also pounce on rad-weakened models that are in combat with Vanguards.
• Omnispex: At the start of the shooting phase, pick another of your units within 3" of the bearer. That model doesn't suffer penalties to their hit or injury rolls due to the target being obscured. It'll be your Gunners' best friend.
• Enhanced Data-tether: All your units re-roll failed Nerve tests as long as the bearer is on the battlefield and not shaken. So, that's cool. But the REAL reason you buy this is because it doubles the effect of Doctrina Imperatives within 6" of the bearer, making Taser goads generate extra hits on a 4+. Useful in the extreme with all the hit penalties to shooting in KT.

AdMech Faction Attributes

All models must be from the same Forge World in your kill team in order to use a Forge World Dogma.

• Mars - Glory to the Omnissiah: Each time you determine which Canticle of the Omnissiah is being used, roll two dice instead of one. Your team receives the benefits of both results.
• Graia - Refusal to Yield: When model's wounds are reduced to 0, roll a dice. If you roll a 6, wounds are restored to 1. In addition, models pass Nerve tests with an unmodified result of 6. However, models cannot Fall back or Retreat unless there is an allied commander on the battlefield.
  • N.B. that the model is actually reduced to 0 Wounds during this sequence. Rolling a 6 doesn't prevent being reduced, but instead restores the model to 1W after hitting 0. This means that it does end the attack sequence, unlike FNPs.
• Metalica - Relentless March: Models can treat Rapid Fire weapons as Assault weapons when they advance. In addition they don't suffer the penalty for shooting assault weapons after advancing.
• Lucius - The Solar Blessing: When making saving throws for models in your kill team, treat enemy attacks with AP -1 as being AP 0 instead.
  • Wholly dependant who your playing against - of no use against those GECs swarms with AP 0 and MEC elites with AP -2.
• Agripinaa - Staunch Defenders: Successful overwatch on 5s or 6s.
• Stygies VIII - Shroud Protocols: Models are considered obscured to enemies that are more than 12" away.
  • Sadly, in the small, often terrain-dense boards of Kill Team, this is of questionable usefulness. The extra protection is nice, but at 12" on any board with a decent amount of terrain, chances are you're already obscured. It also doesn't provide the bonus to injury rolls that terrain does. Add in all the things that can ignore obscurity (e.g. auspex, omnispex, Shooting 2A) or benefit from obscurity (Demo 1) and you begin to see why you should pick something else.
• Ryza - Red in Cog and Claw: You can reroll rolls of 1 to wound in the fight phase.

AdMech Ranged Weapons

Skitarii weapons

• Galvanic Rifle: Rapid Fire S4 with excellent 30" range. Gets AP-1 on a wound roll of 6.
• Radium Carbine: 18" Assault 3 S3 cancer gun. It does Damage 3 on a wound roll of 6+, and its excellent rate of fire means you're going to see it proc.

Gunner weapons

• Arc Rifle: 24" Rapid Fire S6 AP-1. If you are short on points this can be a dandy little gun to put on your extra Ranger Gunners, and fries GEQ pretty consistently. 10 points is a pretty good deal for what you get. Same price as an Omnispex, so easy to swap between the two when trying out lists.
• Plasma Caliver: 18" Assault 2 plasma gun. Less range, but slightly better fire rate. The supercharge can make short work of even the biggest stuff.
• Transuranic Arquebus: Grimdark .50 cal sniper, ignoring range penalties and dealing a mortal wound on a wound roll of 6+ on top of S7 AP-2 D3. It can't shoot the same turn you move, so you'll basically fire it when readied. At least 60" range means you can reach whatever you see. Pretty awful if you play Arena however, as the more limited sight-lines makes it much harder to get valuable shots off with it.

Infiltrator pistols

• Flechette Blaster: 12" Pistol 5. Even with S3 it's going to drop someone.
• Stubcarbine: 18" Bolt Pistol 3. A damn good gun for a melee model tbh.

Alpha Pistols

• Arc Pistol: There's no vehicles in KT, yet this is still a powerful S6 AP-1 weapon in 12" Pistol 1 form, wounding everyone in the game on a 3+. GEQs and rad-weakened marines like it even less.
• Phosphor Pistol: The iconic Alpha revolver, it ignores the penalty to hit obscured targets. Good, because being a 12" Pistol you almost always shoot with a penalty. S5 AP-1 to wound anything short of a Plague marine on a 3+. Or a 2+ if your Vanguard closes in.
• Radium Pistol: 12" Pistol 1 cancer gun. Occasional 2 damage on a wound roll of 6+ makes it capable of dropping a 2W model, like Exarchs, which the other pistols can't.

Tech-Priest Weapons

• Macrostubber: The angry lovechild of a flechette blaster and a stubcarbine 12" Pistol 5 S4 Ap-. A prime candidate for stratagems for improving S/AP/D or for a shooting specialist to shoot twice per turn. May be hindered by it's short range but your Dominus is no stranger to melee if charged.
• Phosphor Serpenta: 18" Assault 1 S5 Ap-1. Looks mediocre for a 4pt upgrade from the macrostubber but is unaffected by models being obscured and allows the dominus to also fire their volkite blaster or eradication ray.
• Volkite Blaster: 24" Heavy 3 S6 AP0 D1, deals a mortal wound in addition to normal damage on a 6+ to wound. Free default weapon for your Dominus.
• Eradication Ray: 24" Heavy D6 S6 AP-2 D1, upgrades to AP-4 and DD3 when shooting within 8". Hits like a truck but costs an additional 14pts on top of the already expensive Dominus. Note that due to points limits you cannot take this on an L4 Dominus.
• Laspistol: Your enginseer goes into battle bearing the MIGHTY LASPISTOL. S3 lovetap at 12".
• Magnarail Lance: 18" Heavy 1 S7 AP-3 DD3, increases to D3 if you didn't move this turn. Default weapon for the Manipulus.
• Transonic Cannon: 8" Assault D6 S4 AP-1 D2 auto-hitting like a flamer. Weapon upgrade for the Manipulus, 10pts, only way for AdMech to get a flamer at present.

AdMech Melee Weapons

Alpha exclusive

• Arc Maul: The iconic night stick. S+2(5) AP-1 gives you a glimmer of hope against MEQ and those things you may not want to be in melee with.

Alpha & Infiltrator

• Power sword: Ol' reliable S(U) AP-3. Infiltrator S4 and Vanguard Rad-saturation means this blade behaves the same on either unit.
• Taser goad: S+2, hits thrice on a 6+ to hit, so Conqueror Imperative means exploding dice on 5+ or even 4+ near the Data-tether. Very good for crunching GEQ.

Ruststalker exclusive

• Chordclaw: S(U) D3 damage. Becomes D3 mortal wound on a wound roll of 6 instead. Only one of the model's attacks can be a chordclaw.
• Transonic Razor: S(U) that becomes a mortal wound on a 6.
• Transonic Blades: S+1 Razor.

Tech-Priest Exclusive

• Omnissian Axe: Melee whooping stick for both the Enginseer and Dominus, let's them hit at S5 with AP-2 and D2. The extra damage helps to make sure whatever you wound stays down.
• Servo-Arm: Power fist for enginseers, unfortunately can only be used for a single attack hitting at WS5+.
• Omnissian Staff: S+2 AP-1 D2 hitty-stick for the Manipulus.
• Mechadendrites: D6 additional S(U) AP0 D1 attacks for the Manipulus.

AdMech Units

Skitarii: Your basic troopers. Good dakka, decent armour, akin to Scions with better basic guns, more range, and more rules, for the same price.

• Skitarii Vanguard (Leader [Alpha only], Heavy [Gunner only], Comms, Scout, Sniper, Zealot): Despite being ranged models, their rad-saturation weakens enemies, allowing a counter attack or at the very least serving as a deterrent. You can (read should) have one with either an Omnispex or a Data-tether, so that can be your Comms guy, and their rate of fire is so high that it's not unthinkable to have one be a Scout. While they do a good job as Snipers (3 shots to re-roll) or Zealots (2 S4 punches on a T3 marine), other units can benefit more.
  • Vanguard Gunner (3): The Heavy can dash around with a Carbine or Caliver without penalty, and even increase their already good rates of fire with More Bullets, and the Sniper can re-roll those plasma 1s so you don't depend entirely on the Canticle. The Transuranic Arquebus is outright nasty, but it does require careful positioning. Keep them around your Omnispex/Data-tether bearer for best results.
  • Vanguard Alpha (1): Radioactive Sergeant figure. He's got an actual use for pistols, since he can use them on rad-weakened enemies. If you really want another melee guy and can't afford another Sicarian or Electro-Priest, then this guy will do, just don't expect him to last long.
• Skitarii Rangers (Leader [Alpha only], Heavy [Gunner only], Comms, Scout, Sniper, Zealot): More than non-radioactive Vanguards, but you do pay the same points as for them, without acquiring the sweet, sweet radiation. Your only source of Galvanic rifles, they get to rapid fire (and ditch the long range penalty) before tactical marines do, so there's that for starters. They're also a good source of a second Omnispex or Data-tether, and their range allows them to act like a spotter for even your Transuranic gunner, so an Omnispex Galvanic Comms specialist isn't such a crazy idea. Tau Fire warriors wound GEQ on 3+ from 30" away? So do these guys, without having to spend markerlights to hit on 3+.
  • Ranger Gunners (3): Extra muscle to supplement your Vanguard gunners - they could wield plasma from 18" while Arc Vanguards close into RF range, things like that.
  • Ranger Alpha (1): Sergeant figure. If you want your Leader to keep the most distance possible instead of risking him in melee, this is your guy. Or keep him near a Vanguard model for the same effect.

Sicarians: Basically Mechanicum Primaris. Their 8" move and lots of base Str4 attacks make these guys your dedicated brawlers, akin to lighter, faster Primaris but with dedicated melee weapons. They are expensive, but their 2W makes them a good candidate for Specialisms, better able to survive a battle. If taking two (or more) give the non-Princeps Combat so they both have 3 attacks, to stop the Princeps being the obvious target.

• Sicarian Ruststalkers (Leader [Princeps only], Combat, Comms, Scout, Veteran, Zealot): Ruststalkers are there to bully the small guys, making confetti out of those Hormagaunts while your Gunners blast appart the bigger models. Their 3 attacks at S5 (Blades) make them a menace for even Harlequins and marines.
  • Ruststalker Princeps (1): Besides the usual +1Ld +1A sergeant upgrades, the Princeps also comes with a Chordclaw. While he can't swap it out, that also means he can combine it with the +1Str Transonic Blades, unlike the baseline Ruststalkers who must choose either paired Blades or a Razor + Chordclaw loadout.
• Sicarian Infiltrators (Leader [Princeps], Combat, Comms, Scout, Veteran, Zealot): Mechanicum Reivers, with a -1Ld aura. Despite being oriented to melee, their Stubcarbines gives them plenty of ranged attack. Stubcarbines are paired to power swords, which all but deny armour saves and can be further boosted by Invocation of the Machine Might or Rad-saturation. Or they can switch to a Flechette blaster and taser goad to throw an insane amount of hits and deal with invuln saves, like Harlequins'. Besides being a Combat specialist, an Infiltrator Veteran can make good use of Adaptive tactics with its 8" movement and Stubcarbine. If you don't have enough CP for Conqueror Doctrine but you do have 1pt for the Taser Goad, a Zealot using Killing Frenzy will proc an extra attack on top of the extra goad hits on a 6+.
  • Infiltrator Princeps (1): +1Ld and +1A to better stab people or proc extra Taser hits with. Durable, fast and competent in both melee and ranged combat, he's a nice choice to be a Leader.

UR-025 (Annual2019) (Heavy [Specialist Retainer]): Abominable Intelligence? In MY Mechanicus?! REEEEEEE - But seriously, while UR-025 is underwhelming in 40k, this motherfucker is the toughest of toughs in Kill Team. He's got T5 and a 3+ save to make him astartes-tier tanky, he heals a wound each round, and he's a Heavy without dipping into your specialist cap. He's also got a power fist and an assault cannon to guarantee he's gonna be in a fight. The one big drawback (aside from his 30 point cost and 5" movement) is that he'll never benefit from your canticles. Note that, even though Robot will never benefit from canticles, he is affected by the Forgeworld dogma, rules as written. This can boost his save up to 2+ vs. Bolt Rifles for example.

• • Unfortunately Annual 2019 took him from W4 to W3, making his 30pt cost a bit less acceptable.

• X-101 (WDSept2019) (None): Servitor originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with a Grav Gun and Hydraulic Claw, with T4 W2, at first blush seems like a must take at 10pts. But hes let down by 5+ WS/BS and being banned from being a specialist. Still a solid unit, and likely a must take in Commander where he goes to WS/BS 4+ and Ld 9 when within 6" of a TECH-PRIEST model.
• Fulgurite Electro-Priest: The full melee electropriest. With a generic WS of 3+ and two attacks, the key for this unit is its toughness. And on that note, it depends too much on its abilities. 6+ save is awful, but with 5++ thanks to voltaheist field and the extra insurance of ignoring received wounds at 5+ thanks to Fanatical Devotion, there is a decent chance of keeping it alive while it gets close, though you really shouldn't take excessive risks with it. With that said, it's a rather striking force in melee. The stave offers +2S, AP -2 and D3 damage, so if it hits, it can wreck heavy units, more so if you give it the zealot or combat speciality for the extra attack. The fact that it gets a 3++ after killing a unit is a really sweet spot. The problem with this unit is that it has to arrive to combat in one piece to be effective, and without transports to improve its mediocre 6" movement, it will be targeted a lot by the enemy. Once it makes a kill, it's rather brutal, so keep that in mind. Combine it with sicarians to keep front line enemies busy, then give them the coup de grace with the electric smurf, rinse and repeat. Plus the voltageist ability of a mortal wound after completing a charge is always nice. Rather unreliable, but nice.
• Corpuscarii Electro-Priest: The mixed one of the two electro-priests. It's not particularly good at either shooting or melee, considering the gauntlets, while S5, have no AP and only 1 wound per damage. It ignores obscured units, which is a plus, but othe than that, the fulgurite is better. The voltageist ability of a mortal wound after completing a charge is always nice, I guess.

AdMech Commanders

• Janus Draik (BSF/Annual 2019) (Logistics): [ADD YOUR AdMech SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
• Inquisitor Eisenhorn (Strategist): At 70p you get a Lv1 strategist (that is, +1CP/turn) with Sv4+, FNP6+, 4 wounds and R3 Eisenhorn is as tough as mortals can be and performs fairly for the points it cost, the main advantages being the Ld10, decent HtH combat that AdMech can lack and gives the team access to psychic powers and denial (just regular bolt and inquisitorial mind scarabs, but if you are lucky, take your shot at disrupting melee guys that charged together, or make that overcharged plasma kill two enemies for the price or one). Remember that his bolt pistol is quite decent at F4 FP-1 D2 and that he repeats everything vs Xenos. If only there were more inquisitors like him in kill team (sniff, sniff)
• Tech-Priest Enginseer (Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): Same stats as his 40k incarnation, definitely more of a leader than a straight fighter with only a laspistol and 2 attacks to split between his axe and servo-arm at a 4+ to hit (5+ with the servo-arm).
• Tech-Priest Dominus (Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): Straight copy/paste of his/her/its/xe's stat line from normal 40k along with the same weapon options. Possibly the tankiest model in killteam with a 2+/5++ and automatically restoring D3 (of 5) wounds per turn. Capable in both melee with a D2 power axe and at range with a variety of heavy weapons.
  • Possibly best as a Lv.2 Shooting specialist for 10 S4 shots at BS2+ rerolling 1's with a macrostubber. Or strategist for that juicy command point.
  • Don't discard Fortitude either; the Dominus is already tough and the higher traits can make him borderline unkillable. Want to shrug off an entire KTs' worth of supercharged plasma? If you can afford it, grab 1/2 damage and an extra T - the first gives him more room to regen and the second does a lot to stop him from needing to. If you can only make Level 1 though, pick something else. There's better L1 options.
  • The only thing to watch out for is victory points - this guy is one of the costliest models in the game, beaten only by the Tyranid Broodlord and GSC Patriarch (and those only by 1 point!). If your opponent decides to play the objective instead of killing him, you may not have the model count to stop them.
  • Magos Dalathrust: Unique version of the Tech-Priest Dominus. Kinda meh, but has a good survivability (such as Fortitude Specialism) and some damage potential (not as Fortitude Specialism). Their skills are mainly copy-pasted tactics for free.
    • Tech-Priest Dominus specialism: Magos Dalathrust's unique skill tree, with the following skills.
      • Level 1:Unblinking (130): When this model fires Overwatch, they sucesfully hit with a roll of 5 or 6. Free Auto-Tracking Software, always useful against melee teams.
      • Level 2:Loyal Adherents (150): When you fail a saving throw for this model, if there is another model from your kill team within 2" of it (excluding shaken models) roll a D6, on a 2+ the attack is inflicted on that model instead of this model. Free Look Out, Sir!, could make this tank even tankier.
      • Level 3:Forbidden Technology (170): +1 Damage for this model ranged weapon. PURE GOLD, now you have a Macrostubber with 2D, 5 shots nearly guarantees a kill.
      • Level 4:All Part of the Plan (195): You can add or subtract 1 from any roll (yours or of the other players) to determine wether or not the mission ends. Circumstantial, but useful if you have a slightly advantage at the first roll of this type.
• Tech-Priest Manipulus (Theta-7 Acquisitus)(Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): SOMONE ADD AN OPINION HERE
  • Balphamus Vaulk:
    • Tech-Priest Manipulus(?) specialism: Balphamus Vaulk's unique skill tree, with the following skills.
      • Level 1: Sentient Scopes: Reroll 1's on hits in the Shooting phase.
      • Level 2: System Cleanse: Roll a 5+ at the start of the battle round to remove shaken
      • Level 3: Binharic Wrath: +1 Attack in the fight phase in rounds that you charged
      • Level 4: Data Surge: Pick a canticle thats not currently in affect and this model gets the benefits of that IN ADDITION to the general one.
• Daedalosus (Logistics): Tech Priest originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with an Eradication Pistol and Servo Arc Claw. [ADD YOUR OPINION HERE]
• Neyam Shai Murad (WDSept2019/Annual2019) (Shooting): Rogue Trader originally from Blackstone Fortress Escalation. Armed with 2 Negotiator pistols but weirdly not her own sword-leg. [ADD YOUR AdMech SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]

AdMech Tactics

• [Core] Protector Doctrina Imperative (2CP): Adds 1 to hit rolls for a shooting unit until the end of the phase. Add 2 if they're within 6" of a unit with a data tether.
• [Core] Conqueror Doctrina Imperative (2CP): Adds 1 to hit rolls for a fighting unit until the end of the phase. Add 2 if they're within 6" of a unit with a data tether.
• [Core] Dunestrider (1CP): During an advance, roll two dice and pick one.
• [Core] Gloria Mechanicus (1CP): After determining the canticle, use this tactic to reroll it.
• [Kill Team Starter Set] Scryer Skull (1CP): If your opponent picks the Plant Traps strategy in the Scouting phase, in the Movement phase you can pick a piece of terrain within 6" of your leader and make your opponent reveal whether or not they've booby-trapped it.
• [Kill Team Starter Set] Optimal Conditions (1CP): Use this Tactic at the start of the Movement phase. Add 1 to charge rolls made for models in your kill team until the end of the phase.
• [Kill Team Starter Set] Transonic Attunement (2CP): Use this Tactic in the Fight phase when a model from your kill team armed with transonic blades, a transonic razor or a chordclaw is chosen to attack. Until the end of the phase, add 1 to wound rolls for attacks made by that model with any of these weapons. (changed CP value on Theta 7 acquisitus set)
• [Kill Team Starter Set] Stabilization Actuators (1CP): Use this Tactic before you take a Falling test for a model from your kill team. You can re-roll the dice when taking this test, and the taking any further Falling tests for that model in this battle round.
• [Kill Team Starter Set] Auto-Tracking Software (1CP): Use this Tactic in the Movement Phase when an opponent declares a charge against a model from your kill team. When that model fires overwatch this phase they successfully hit on 5 or 6.
• [Kill Team Starter Set] Hyper-Penetrative Shot (2CP): Use this Tactic when you pick a model form your kill team armed with a transuranic arquebus to shoot. Until the end of the phase attack made with this weapon do not suffer the penalties to hit rolls or Injury rolls for the target being obscured.
• [Theta-7/Annual 2019] Reknit Circuitry (2CP): Pick a model at the start of the morale phase to heal D3 flesh wounds.
  • Unfortunately it's 2 CP now, making it less usable. For 1CP this was awesome as this faction does not have a medic. Remember, it heals 'Flesh Wounds', not 'Wounds'. Note that this takes place at the start of the morale phase so it helps with those checks as well.
• [Theta-7/Annual 2019] Defensive Interfacing (1CP): Sector Fronteris specific. Use at the start of a round. For that round re-roll 1s to hit in overwatch if a firing model is within 3" of a Ryza-Ruin. Kind of meh - unless you're drowning in CP you've got better things to spend it on.
• [Theta-7] The Machine God's Will (1CP): Use this tactic at the start of the Morale phase. Ignore all modifiers to the first Nerve test you make this phase. Nice if a model is on their own, but you ignore both positive & negative modifiers.
• [Theta-7/Annual 2019] Alpha Target Proximate (1CP) Use this tactic at the start of the Fight phase. Pick a model from your kill team. Until the end of the phase, re-roll wound rolls of 1 for that model.
• [Theta-7/Annual 2019] Neurostatic Shock (1CP): Use this tactic at the start of the Morale phase. Pick a Sicarian Infiltrator from your kill team that is not shaken. Until the end of the phase, subtract 1 from the Leadership characteristic of enemy models that are within 3" of that model. This is cumulative with the Neurostatic Aura ability. EZ Break & Nerve tests.
• [Theta-7/Annual 2019] Trauma Override Protocol (1CP) Use this tactic at the start of the Movement phase. Pick a model from your kill team which has an invulnerable save. Until the start of the next Movement phase, that model's invulnerable save is improved by 1 (to a maximum of 3+).
• [Theta-7/Annual 2019] Zealous Disciples (2CP): Use this tactic at the start of the battle round, before picking a Canticle of the Omnissiah. You may pick a Canticle to be in effect that has already been chosen in a previous battle round. This tactic may only be used once per battle.
• [Elites] Infiltrators (Reserve) (1CP): At the end of movement phase, take up to Three Sicarian Infiltator (inc. Princeps) models out of Reserve and set them up anywhere more than 5" away from enemies.
• [Annual 2019] Divine Current (1CP): At the start of the shooting phase, choose a model with electrostatic gauntlets (i.e. a Corpuscarii) and increase the gauntlets range to 18"
• [Annual 2019] Omnissiah's Tears (2CP): Use this when an electro-priest suffers a flesh wound. Get Superior Transhuman Physiology for the rest of the game.

AdMech Commander Tactics

• [Commanders] Repair Artisan (1 CP): Use at the start of the movement phase if you have a non-shaken Enginseer in your Kill-Team. Models within 3" of the Enginseer get FnP on a 6+. If an affected model already had FnP, it can choose which source of FnP they want to use and will be able to re-roll 1s on the FnP roll.
• [Commanders] Lord of the Machine Cult (1 CP): Tech Priest Dominus tactic that allows friendly models to reroll hit rolls of 1 in the shooting phase.
• [Dalathrust] Xenotech Divination (2CP): Use this tactic at the end of a mission in which any of your opponents used any models that did not have the IMPERIUM or CHAOS keyword, if your kill team includes a Tech-Priest Dominus that is not out of action or shaken. If you do, roll a D6; on a 5+ you gain 1 Materiel. You can only use this tactic once per mission.
• [Dalathrust] Auto Repair Protocol (1 CP): Use at the start of the battle round if your kill team contains a commander. If that model isn't shaken, it regains one lost wound.
• [Theta 7 / Elites] Galvanic Pulse (1CP): Aura tactic for the Manipulus. Boosts movement of nearby models by 1". Situational and doesn't apply to charge/advance but could be useful to get your team into a good position on turns 1/2. You won't always use it but remember you can.

AdMech Strategies

AdMech Strategies:

Admech are a very versatile team. You need to have a list in your rooster to appropriately deal with every type of opponent you might encounter. To start with, a Vs GEC/horde list (highest number of attacks per model) and Vs MEC list (most powerful weapons), is probably enough, then you can expand later. You also have the choice of whether to go full on shooty, full on melee or a mixture of the two depending on your playstyle, which needs deciding before building your rooster - you won't have enough models to effectively vary this. Although be aware, for example, you're not going to win against Tau in a straight out shooting match.

As a shooty one, you better make sure you pick an Arquebus as a sniper. Hell, even melee teams would want one of this as fire support. Choose Ranger as you don't want this thing to ever, EVER, go to melee. Well placed and protected, the sniper will become your best friend, and the best bet you could have at killing heavy units in one hit. Rerolling ones and with the hyper penetrative shot stratagem that makes it ignore injury and cover, and it will pretty much hit all the time. After that, S7 AP-2 will make sure the shot actually wounds, and with D3 and a mortal wound after 6+, it has a chance of taking a unit each turn. With that, you should take three things into consideration:

• The transuranic arquebus is expensive, so you'll probably have just one. Two or more is just inviting trouble.
• It's a heavy weapon that can't fire after moving, even with the Heavy speciality. As such, you better put it on a location where it can do the most from the very beginning.
• Anyone who's played against AdMech before will immediately try to kill it, shooting it or going melee against it fast. Keep it protected.

The Arquebus is also useful against Custodes, due to having the potential of killing them in one hit while also being so far away from them they'l need a turn or two to actually reach it. BS3+ or more with comn/stratagems, S7 vs T5 and 3/4++, it has a decent chance of hitting, and once it hits, a roll of 3 (or a 2 + mortal wound) could do it. Considering the range of the gun, it could be interesting to bring at least two of them to a fight against Custodes, but assume that once they start reaching shooting range, your snipers won't be save. Plasmas are also interesting, but they are withing shooting range of the custodes' weapons, so do it at your own risk. Against MEQs you might want to drop that Arquebus. Why? Plasma. They are 2 points cheaper, can shoot after moving (and running), have more shots and the better AP is vital against 2+ saves. It's not unreasonable for one Plasma to take out a 38point Terminator in a single round. Take 6 of them, or as many as you can squeeze in point and $$$ wise (maybe you might want to try proxying your Arc Rifles as Plasma). For more relaxed beer and pretzel games don't go above four. Make one a sniper and always overcharge it, overcharge the others if you have spare CPs. Consider taking one as heavy too.

One or two Omnispex's, with one as scanner, are good at helping get the Arquebus/Plasmas off. Take a shooty Ranger Alpha as your leader and then put him as far away from the enemy as possible, either out of enemy range or totally hidden - those extra CPs are too valuable to risk. Data Tether? Meh, too expensive.

After that, a shooty kt has to choose between vanilla Rangers or Vanguards. Rangers have 4S compared to Vanguard's 3S, but vanguards are Assault 3 in comparison to Rapid Fire 1. Vanilla vanguards are better spamming attacks, while the rangers are better with the specialisms. Rangers are better for shooting GEQ from long distances, while vanguards are more versatile and flexible overall. Against the bigger MEQs Rangers and Vanguards are mostly irrelevant - even taking account your superior numbers and number of shots, you might as well be firing paper darts against those high saves, don't even bother.

For melee, Skitarii melee Alphas and Corpuscarii should be ignored. Rustalkers and Fulgurites should only be considered if you can work with melee only units effectively.

Infiltrators are our standard melee units, with decent pistols to back them up. Taser against GECs and squishier for the exploding number of attacks to wipe them out, Powersword against MECs for that sweet AP. Give you standard Infiltrators Combat speciality, so both him and your Princeps have 3 attacks each (making the Princeps a combat specialist just makes him too much a target). The -1 to enemy leadership in melee is also a decent plus.

A melee AdMech list will run into the problem of having low unit count, considering the price of the Sicarians, W2 is not a safe number when having only S3. With that said, a good use of cover will make this team into a rather striking force, considering how fast they are, plus the 6++ can always come in handy. Just don't push your luck and don't send them alone. Mixing them with shooters with help your numbers.

Counterplay:

You want to defeat the followers of the Omnissiah? Well read on...

Admech are good on the attacking, pumping out lots of attacks and/or high damage in both shooting and melee. But they can't take the damage and will fall apart quickly when attacked back. In general against Admech you want to get to them before they get to you.

Admech is also vulnerable to bringing the wrong trousers list. If you've got MECs and they bring standard Vanguard/Rangers then just wade in, soaking up the bullets and laughing. If you've got GECs/hordes and they bring plasma/sniper spam or Sicarians, then take the numbers and spread out and spray with as many attacks as you can. Expect the Admech player have fixed this the next time they play you. The following assumes the Admech player hasn't fallen to that trap.

A 4+/6++ save means you don't need anything better than AP -2, and in most cases AP -1 is plenty, especially if it allows you to bring something with more attacks. 2 damage is useful to give the double injury roll dice, but 1 is fine, and you certainly don't need anything higher. Universal 3T means you can mostly not care about your own strength. Flamers are an interesting proposition, but a smart Admech player won't charge against a flamer that can hit the charging unit, so there's that.

Admech are good at hiding via abilities and model sizes. Bring as many +1s to hit as you can.

They also have no psykers or psychic defense, not in vanilla KT, not in Elites, so they will be victim to smite and other mortal wounds caused by them.

A single Plasma or Arquebus can take down the biggest guy. Protect your expensive guys - a hit at the beginning of the match can cripple a good team. Low model count MECs teams can be especially vulnerable here.

Where possible, shoot the Sicarians and Electro Priests, but get into Melee against the Skitarii. Remember the Admech player will be trying the opposite. And also anything below a super MEC should still be wary of any guns on a Sicarian or Electro Priest.

The Arquebus can be especially difficult to take out. Plasma spam is more likely to be moving forward giving chance to take them out. But the Arquebus will be most likely sat on the back lines, and its range means nowhere is safe from the risk. Its value and killing potential means that it will be defended tooth and nail before something can use CQC against it.

• Trying to counter this sniper with another sniper is difficult, considering the arquebus practically doubles the range of every other sniper weapon. SM Scout sniper with missile launcher could do it if it rolls enough attacks, but has no AP whatsoever, and the krack missile has to hit first (considering it could have -2 hit modifiers from cover and range, the krack is somewhat unreliable, though rather deadly if it actually hits). Tau could use markerlights to deal with it, though for once the blueberries will be outranged in this endeavour. Units like the AM's ratling sniper can give the transuranic arquebus a run for its money, especially in sniper duels. Assuming they both have the sniper speciality:
  • Reim can move after shooting, has Raus as backup for repeating failed rolls, has two wounds, gets extra protection in cover and has has a BS2+. On the other hand, it crumbles like paper in melee, T2 and 6+ is ridiculously low (and considering how annoying it is to shoot down, they will go to kick him out from his sniper's nest hand to hand) and needs Raus to be deployed as well, which makes the Reim & Raus combo 18p compared to the 15p a ranger sniper costs. Plus, it can only make 2 damages for shot at the very best (regular attack plus the 6+ mortal wound), meaning some tankier units can brush its attacks off if they so wish.
  • The transuranic sniper has a BS3+ with a decent amount of stratagem options to boost him, and the weapon in question has the longest range in the whole game (seriously, 60" means it will never be out of reach), has S7, AP-2 and D3 damage, meaning it only needs one hit to cripple units with multiple wounds. Any character with 3 wounds or less will be at risk of dying to this guy early on, and even 4 wound characters are at risk of that extra mortal wound. Not that many units can really be safe of that kind of firepower. Plus, the 4+/6++ of the unit means it can actually resist some attacks decently enough. If it's a vanguard sniper, it gets the sweet radiation effect against enemy toughness in melee, but this is pretty much something of a last resort, only really useful when locked in melee alongside a support unit of the sniper. Alone, it's not going to do much with one S3 attack. And there's the chance of actually having more than one arquebus on the team, even without the Sniper speciality. The problem comes with the inability of shooting after moving, meaning if you want to use it, it will be a sitting duck.
  • TLDR: Reim is the more precise sniper, and can actually move around the map, but the arquebus is better at everything else.
• Other ways to deal with the sniper are fast units with a decent invulnerable save, though you'll have to consider the chance of the mortal wound getting in. Cheap melee units like genestealers are also a good option: even if one falls on the way, other is bound to reach it, though it will have to actually go through the rest of the team if the AdMech player is smart. Tau players could use the battlesuits protected by drones to tank the sniper hits as well, but considering how expensive those are, that's a considerable risk if the dron fails to take the hit. The lictor is also a decent bet, but mostly as a Distraction Carnifex, as its high point cost and W4 means that the AdMech are going to fire everything at it. Again, one lucky shot of the arquebus will put the sneaky lictor down, but those are risks you have to deal with.

AdMech Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

• Ranger Alpha (Leader) w/ Galvanic rifle; 10 pts.
• Infiltrator (Combat) w/ Taser goad and Flechette blaster; 15 pts.
• Ranger Gunner (Sniper) w/ Transuranic arquebus; 15 pts.
• Ranger (Comms) w/ Galvanic rifle and Omnispex; 10 pts.
• Infiltrator w/ Power Sword and Stub carbine; 14 pts.
• Vanguard gunner w/ Plasma caliver; 13 pts.
• Vanguard gunner w/ Plasma caliver; 13 pts.
• Vanguard gunner w/ Arc rifle; 10 pts.

100 pts.

6 Plasma Spam MEC Killer

• Ranger Alpha (Leader) w/ Galvanic rifle; 10 pts.
• Ranger (Comms) w/ Galvanic rifle and Omnispex; 10 pts.
• Vanguard Gunner (Sniper) w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Vanguard Gunner (Heavy) w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Vanguard Gunner w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Ranger Gunner w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Ranger Gunner w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Ranger Gunner w/ Plasma; 15 pts.

98 pts. Or switch a Plasma to a Transuranic arquebus for exactly 100 pts.

4 Plasma, 2 Omnispex and 3 Sicarian MEC Killer

• Ranger Alpha (Leader) w/ Galvanic rifle; 10 pts.
• Infiltrator (Combat) w/ Stubcarbine and Powersword; 14 pts.
• Ranger (Comms) w/ Galvanic rifle and Omnispex; 10 pts.
• Vanguard Gunner (Sniper) w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Infiltrator princeps w/ Stubcarbine and Powersword; 15 pts.
• Infiltrator w/ Stubcarbine and Powersword; 14 pts.
• Vanguard w/ Galvanic rifle and Omnispex; 10 pts.
• Vanguard Gunner w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Vanguard Gunner w/ Plasma; 13 pts.
• Ranger Gunner w/ Plasma; 13 pts.

Deploy into two groups of Two Plasma + Omnispex. Place the Leader totally hidden from view. Put the Sicarian's in reserve and deploy together with 1 CP. 125pts

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

Adepta Sororitas (Annual 2019)

Why play Adepta Sororitas

• Pros
  • Bolter Bitches (Now in plastic!)
  • A reason from someone who actually plays Kill Team
  • Arco-Flagellants can become quite a threatening spam unit.
• Cons'
  • Aren’t actually female space marines (Not really a con tho)
  • Not a lot of customization options. No subfactions, no weapon choices for most units, and a limit of 1 on Repentia means that most of the time your only real choice is which weapons to bring on your gunners.
  • No miracle dice mechanic means the SoB in KT are left without their best tool. Seriously, what the fuck...

SoB Special Rules

• Shield of Faith: Get a 6++ and you can attempt to deny one psychic power per round. You only get to roll 1D6 rather than 2d6 when doing so though
  • To deny, you have to roll higher than your opponent, which makes this rule near to useless. Take the common psybolt: With 2d6 the enemy has to roll a 5 and you have to roll a 6 for Shield of Faith to work, which is absurdly unlikely. Its not much better in Commanders either - psykers and psychic powers are far more common, but only 2 powers have a lower Warp Charge than psybolt (CSM's Sacrifice and Nid's Dominion) and plenty have values higher than 6 that you can never affect.

SoB Wargear

• Simulacrum Imperialis: The invuln from SoF is improved to 5++ while within 6" of a Simulacrum Imperialis
• Rosarius: Free 4++ invuln on the Canoness.
• Brazier of Holy Fire: -1Ld for any Daemons within 6", and once per battle you can shoot holy fire at a visible target within 12" instead of shooting or firing overwatch (in which case your initial target must be the charging model). That model, and up to 2 enemy models within 2" of it, take 1 Mortal Wound. Daemons take 2 Mortal Wounds instead.
  • Interestingly nothing prevents you from targetting those 2 additional models when using it against a charging opponent, making it one of the rare methods to sequence break attacks.
• Null Rod: -1 to any PSYKER's Psychic or Deny the Witch tests (N.B. does not affect your own Deny tests through SoF, as no Sister has the PSYKER' Keyword). Additionally the model carrying it cannot be affected by any psychic powers.
• Rod of Office: +3" to any aura abilities of the holder.

SoB Subfaction Attributes

Nope. No Subfactions for you. Despite there being obvious ways to implement them.

SoB Ranged Weapons

General

• Boltgun: Puts the Bolter in Bolter Bitches. Unfortunately its not any better in their hands than it is in the hands of Marines, limited by its lack of AP and multidamage. Its your last choice for ranged weaponry but one you'll have to take, if only to get that sweet 5++ from a Simulacrum Bearer.
• Bolt Pistol: A freebie pistol carried by every Battle Sister for when they get stuck in melee. Not going to make the difference often, but don't forget it when it comes up. You might get lucky. Also the only ranged weapon for the Canoness, assuming you don't swap it out for something better.
• Krak Grenades: Not amazing but better than your bolter for individual targets under 6", don't forget about these in combat. They might make the difference.
• Frag Grenades: Almost always inferior to Krak grenades, even against GEQs. You get both, so don't bother with these unless you can split shots across multiple targets.

Battle Sister Gunner

• Flamer: Good old flamer, it's not as good as its heavy brother, but it's assault, so you can at least advance and burn without being limited by the heavy attribute.
• Meltagun: Best gun the SoB have against heavy armoured targets, though it's sadly a rather CQC weapon. If it hits, it will obliterate anything though.
• Storm Bolter: A surprisingly decent choice thanks to the "Blessed Bolts" stratagem, turning a Rapid Fire 2 S4 AP0 1D into Rapid Fire 2 S4 AP-2 D2. At close range, it will be very effective. Without the stratagem, it's only ok.
• Heavy Bolter: Best option for a long range attack, Heavy 3 S5 AP-1 D1, it's there to clean enemy units from a distance.
• Heavy Flamer: The bigger version of the flamer. An extra point of AP and S help it perform against tougher targets but switching from Assault to Heavy loses you the ability to fire after Advancing. Otherwise identical to its smaller cousin,

Sister Superior

• Plasma Pistol: Just in case you get up close against a bulky unit. Beware of overcharges, though.
• Combi-Flamer: Good old Combi-Flamer, shooting this in combi mode will never be discouraged, though it needs to be within range. Combi-Flamer overwatch is quite a threatening prospect, considering the amount of shots it can throw at you.
• Combi-Melta: Best anti-armour weapon in the SoB list, it's great at short range.
• Combi-Plasma: Most balanced combi weapon in the Sister Superior's arsenal, it's still 4p, so it might be rather expensive for some teams. Overcharge only if you can re-roll 1s. This is also the only way you're going to see plasma in your list
• Condemnor Boltgun: A 2pt upgrade to the regular boltgun, it has the same stats but increases to d3 Damage when firing at a Psyker. Given the relative lack of Psyker enemies, its most likely use is against Grey Knights wanting to turn you into Blood Wards for the Ward God but even then an extra 2pts for a Combi-Plasma is much more efficient use of points.

Canoness

• Plasma Pistol: Just in case you need to shoot up close. Overcharge only if you can re-roll 1s. Conveniently that is exactly the benefit provided by the Canoness' aura tactic, which also affects the Canoness herself.
• Hand Flamer: For 2pts you can fend off overwatch and ignore cover, but a free boltgun is probably going to serve you better because of the Hand Flamers tiny range, let alone the other weapons you could field. With A4 and WS2+ you're not exactly panicking about being in Melee either.
• Inferno Pistol: The littlest melta, this is a monster if it hits, considering Canoness goes for BS2+.
• Condemnor Boltgun: Costs 3 points and has the same problem as it does with the Sister Superior, but unlike the Sister, this is the only way to get a 24" range if you're not taking a Rod of Office.

SoB Melee Weapons

• Chainsword: It's your standard chainsword. Not as good on an S3 sister as it would be on a Space Marine, but it's still the go-to melee weapon because of the extra attack.
• Power Sword: Again, standard. Bring this instead of the chainsword when you want to cut through armor saves.
• Arco-Flails: Unique to Arco-Flagellants and the Endurant. AP-1 and bumps their attacks to S5. Also effectively doubles their number of attacks - make d3 hit rolls for each attack instead of 1.
• Penitent Eviscerator: Repentia only. -1 to hit, but at AP-3 and 2 damage it hits hard when it does.
• Neural Whips: Repentia Superior only. +1 to wound on enemies with 7 or less Leadership, so basically anyone who's not in charge.
• Blessed Blade: Melee option for the Canoness. For 5 extra points you get an extra 2 strength and d3 damage on your power sword.

SoB Psychic Powers

We don't cavort with Witches around here. Short of getting a Living Saint in Kill Team, this is not likely to change.

SoB Units

• Battle Sister (Leader [Superior Only], Heavy [Gunner Only], Comms, Demolitions, Medic, Sniper, Veteran, Zealot):
  • Battle Sister Gunner (2): Take your pick of a flamer, melta, storm bolter, heavy bolter, or heavy flamer. No multi-melta, strangely, even though it's an option in their Codex.
  • Sister Superior (1): +1 Attack and +1 Leadership compared to the regular sisters. Where she really shines is in her weapon choice: she can replace her boltgun with a combi-weapon or chain/power sword, or her bolt pistol with a plasma pistol.
  • Simulacrum Bearer (1): Not a real variant, but only 1 regular, bolter-carrying Battle Sister can take the Simularcrum to improve your teams Invulns. Unlike Voxcasters and Brayhorns, there is no specialism that requires the wargear choice however.
• Sister Repentia (Leader, Combat, Veteran, Zealot) (1): Shield of Faith, hit rerolls on the charge or when charged, a 5+FNP and a big honking chainsword that hits like a powerfist. You're a little starved for multidamage, so she's a must take for SoB at 13pts. Give her a combat specialism so she doesn't conflict with Pious Vorne or the Endurant and she'll wreck face for you.
  • Weirdly limited to 1 per team, which makes the Repentia Superior's buff aura almost useless and severely limits the power of the team with only 3 special weapons. This also conflicts with the Community articles which have photos of multiple sisters on the board and mention taking sisters repentia plural so hopefully its just a mistake that will be errata'd out not just bad game design. Either way we'll have to wait to see.
• Arco-flagellant (Zealot): 4 attacks per turn at WS4+ S5 AP-1 will bring the pain to most models on the field. On turns you got the charge or were charged (i.e. most turns you are in melee combat), you get free hit rerolls meaning you electroslap a marine to death 1/3rd of the time and guardsmen almost half the time. However due to the Special Weapons proliferation facing Kill Team, his W2, no Save and a 5+FNP mean he's likely going to be effectively less durable than your sisters with a 3+/5++.
  • Endurant (1): A 1pt upgrade that nets you an extra attack. A no-brainer if you're already taking any Flagellants.
• Pious Vorne (Blackstone Fortress/Annual 2019) (Zealot [Specialist Retainer]): For Sisters she's essentially a less-slappy, slightly more expensive Endurant with better WS, lower Strength and an Anti-Chaos Heavy Flamer.
• Gotfret De Montbard (Blackstone Fortress/Annual 2019) (Combat [Specialist Retainer]): The tankiest non-commander beatstick available for Sisters with his 4+/3++ and 3 wounds. With 5 attacks, unmodified 6s hitting twice and AP-3, he'll wound pretty much anything MEQ, the only negative being that his weapon is D1 in a list starved for multi-damage weapons.

SoB Elites

• Nope. Maybe when the full Sisters release comes out in 2020.

SoB Commanders

• Canoness (Ferocity, Fortitude, Leadership, Logistics, Melee, Shooting, Strategist, Strength): Your standard pick. Offers a good handful of weapon options, as well as some special wargear for if you're facing psykers or daemons (not gonna be common, but still worth keeping in mind).
• Repentia Superior (Ferocity, Fortitude, Melee, Strength): Gives your Repentia rerolls for advances and charges, as well as 1's to wound. Considering you can only take 1 Repentia in your list, not worth it. She's 10 points cheaper than the Canoness, but unless GW lets us start bringing more Repentia that's the only thing going for her.
• Janus Draik (BSF/Annual 2019) (Logistics): [ADD YOUR SoB SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
• Neyam Shai Murad (WDSept2019/Annual2019) (Shooting): [ADD YOUR SoB SPECIFIC OPINION HERE]
• Thaddeus (BSF/Annual 2019) (Ferocity): His statline is worse than the Canoness in every way, and his War Hymns ability, which could potentially make up for it (+1 to number of attacks within 6") only affects Astra Militarum. Don't bother.

SoB Tactics

• [ANNUAL2019] Blessed Bolts (2CP): Used when you pick a storm bolter equipped model to shoot. Increase the damage to 2 and AP to -2 for the rest of the battle round.
• [ANNUAL2019] Eviscerating Blow (1CP): When you pick a Repentia to fight in the fight phase, the damage stat of their penitent eviscerator increases to 3 until the end of the phase.
• [ANNUAL2019] Frenzied Thrashing (1CP): When you pick a Flagellant to fight in the fight phase, +1 attack for every enemy within 1" of it when selected to Fight, until the end of the phase.
  • N.B. When selected to fight, so if you select him to fight when near 3 models, but your pile in move takes you away from 2 of them, you still get to make your extra 3 attacks.
• [ANNUAL2019] Burn the Heretic (1CP): When shooting a flamer, you can reroll the dice to determine the number of attacks made by that flamer until the end of the round.
  • Just says "flamer" with no bold or italics or further elaboration, so RAW this likely means only the base model flamer, not heavy or hand flamers. While this would make this tactic almost pointless, its not like GW hasn't made similar mistakes in the past. Pray for Errata or just ignore the limitation.

SoB Commander Tactics

• [ANNUAL2019] Lead the Righteous (Aura)(1CP): Used in the shooting phase. Models within 6" of your Canoness can reroll hit rolls of 1 until the end of the round.
• [ANNUAL2019] Fervent Whipping (Aura)(1CP): Weirdly used at the start of the shooting phase, Sisters Repentia within 6" of your Repentia Superior can reroll wound rolls of 1 for melee weapons.
  • Basically useless. Not only does it require the worse commander, not only is it an aura that targets a model you can only take 1 of, its also usually inferior to Eviscerating Blow if your goal is killing your target. Unless you want to use both and drop 2CP buffing a single model for one round, just use that instead. Now if Repentia ever have their maximum increased by errata, then this tactic might be worth revisiting...

SoB Strategies

SoB Strategies:

The Sisters of Battle finally get their chance of being playable in Kill Team after their renewal in holy plastic. And after all of the wait for this army, the results are... dissapointing. Similar to the way GW released the Daemon rules, the Adepta Sororitas get very little in terms of in-depth rules, and even less in mechanics similar to their own in 40k. It feels like it was a rushed afterthought, and while it's understandable they are focusing on the main 40k game first, it's rather infuriating to see the poor sisters limited in such a way.

But let's start with the beginning. As a leader, you have two options, the Sister Superior, and the Sister Repentia. Right of the bat, you'll see neither option is particularly tanky, though considering the leader is usually best on the back of your army, it should not be a problem at first. The problems come when you look at the options a bit more carefully and realize you can only have one of each. That is crippling from the get go. Only one Sister Superior means you can't put the only sister with access to combi-weapons as specialist of any kind, either Sniper or Demolitions, which would help a lot with their firepower. And a limit of only one Repentia means that you can say goodbye to any Repentia spam strategy you might have concocted. Oddly enough, you are probably going to want the Repentia as leader, as the Sister Superior is too good as the aforementioned specialisms. 7+/6++/5+++ is not the best defensive power, but you could always buff it through other means. Counterpoint - the Repentia is very fragile, and is so good in melee that you really want to keep her there. This means you're constantly risking your source of CP. Meanwhile you can keep your Superior to the rear, limiting exposure and use tactical rerolls to save her from her own combi-plas

Now, for the regular gals. The regular Battle Sister is similar to the vanilla tactical marine, but with less toughness. S3 A1 won't get them anywhere in melee, thus you want them shooting. On the defensive, T3 3+/6++ is quite decent, being slightly better than similar priced units such as regular Skitarii. The bolter is its basic weapon, and it's the only weapon she can have, and with S4 AP0 D1, it's not a very intimidating gun. Plus the obligatory frag/krack grenades, but those are always very situational. Keep in mind that while the Battle Sisters innate ability to deny Psykers cost you nothing, it is also basically useless. Not only are Psykers relativity rare, the chances of successfully resisting a power with 1d6 is vanishingly small. The value has to be GREATER than their Psychic test. This means to successfully deny a psybolt, the most common power in the game and the only one outside of Commanders, you have to roll a 6 AND your opponent has to roll a 5 exactly. In all other cases, they either pass anyway, or would have failed anyway. Only in 1.85% of psybolts does it actually affect the outcome. Against GK, that drops to 1.38%. The real reason you want a regular SoB going around is the Simulacrum Imperialis, a relic that gives all units all SISTERS at 6" from it 5++. This greatly increases the survivability of all of your gals, but by that same reason, it's going to be targeted by the enemy. FAST. So keep her protected.

The Sister Superior has access to a lot of weapons, both melee and ranged, though it should always focus on ranged since her options on that front are way better, plus S3 is not going to impress anyone on the tabletop anyway. Now, there are many options for it, the best ones being the combis: combi-flamer, combi-melta and combi-plasma.

• Combi-flamer will disuade charges and work well as a demolitions, though it still takes the risk of being too close to the enemy.
• Combi-melta is the best choice of this team against heavy armour (assuming you are unwilling to supercharge and willing to get up close to use it) and multiple wound characters, and having the bolter as well is always a plus.
• Combi-plasma is the most well rounded choice, considering you can always give her the Sniper specialism and just have her always overcharge for extra damage. Though if you want plasma, you could always take the combi-flamer and the plasma pistol, thus having the option for extra AP and the dissuasive power of the flamer.

The other interesting choice is the condemnor boltgun, with is just a regular bolter that does D3 damage to psykers. And it's... rather bad, when you think about it. The most frequent psykers in KT are Thousand Sons' Rubrics, and they are not going to reliably fall for a S4 AP0 gun. Grey Knights? The same. It's pretty much only effective against T4 or lower and low saves, like the Tzeench's daemons, imperial navegator, eldar spiritseer, the SotA's Rogue Psyker... And, with S4 and AP0, it's going to struggle against those. Considering you can pretty much get the same effect with any of the combi weapons, and against a much wider arrange of units, I feel this is useless.

The Battle Sister Gunner is interesting. Limited to two gunners. Access to basic guns like flamers and meltaguns is self-explanatory, you know what they do and how to use them if you've played any other team before. Heavy Bolter is your best ranged option, though as a Heavy 3 gun, it tends to limit the mobility of the user. Heavy Flamer is stronger and with better AP, but you can't run and shoot, so only better if you pick the heavy (A regular flamer with demolitions will pretty much accomplish the same thing offensively, and cheaper). The Storm Bolter can be buffed immensely by the "Blessed Bolts" stratagem, adding AP-2 D2 to the shots, which increases quite a lot its killing potential, though its 2CP, so make it count. Overall it's good, but it's shocking the lack of general access to plasma, multimeltas or other hard hitting options.

Sister Repentia are a missed opportunity. Only one Repentia per squad is not very effective, considering it needs all of the support of the Simulacrum Imperialis to arrive safely to melee. At a regular WS3+ S3 A2, it needed to be faster than 6" to be really effective alone. The eviscerator, while a beast, only really hits at 4+ without extra need. If you want melee, you want Arco-Flagellants: 7" S4 T3 A2 W2... it outclasses the Repentia in all stats but save throws, and you can just pile in a bunch of arco-flagellants with the Simulacrum Imperialis giving them 5++/5+++, which is quite good, no you can't. Simulacrum only buffs models with the Shield of Faith ability, which Flagellants don't have. and the flail can do D3 hits for each attack. And even more so with the special Flagellant, the Endurant, with an extra attack. The "Frenzied Thrashing" is quite a power multiplier, giving it an extra attack for each unit, though this means you'll be attack by multiple enemies.

Counterpoint - Even hitting on 4+ and with no exploding hits, the Repentia is incredibly deadly. After a charge, she's likely the deadliest model you have on the field. Against any single model without an invuln, she's significantly deadlier than an Endurant worth 1 pt more. Against invulns she's at worst on par with a base model flagellant that she costs the same as, and is usually better. The extra 1" of movement on the flagellants is nice, but niche and has no affect on charge range where it'd be most useful. The Repentia also benefits more from both her specialism and her unique tactic as many weak attacks offer diminishing returns. She can be squishy with only 1W and an iffy save, but at least has a save unlike the flagellants. If you have CP to spare for rerolls, this makes her much more durable. In short, you want her when you absolutely must delete a given unit, and to sucker punch other factions heavy melee hitters by striking first. Keep the flagellants as well for general melee support and for crowd control when you can lock down multiple units and split attacks. Keep both out of view from flamers

The SoB list has two commanders: the Canoness and the Repentia Superior. The Repentia Superior is pretty much useless due to the one Repentia limit, unless you have a good strategy, avoid her. The Canoness is a buffed Sister Superior, with better invul 4++, and access to the relics.

Overall, this team needs buffing fast. It has little to no AP firepower, and it can't compensate for this through numbers. Lack of weapon variety, limited numbers and very small save options makes this team a challenge to have for those interested in making it competitive. If only we had the miracle dice mechanic here, things would be really different.

Counterplay:

Countering the SoB is relatively easy for any army with access to decent AP weapons. They are easily outranged by armies such as Tau, IG, AdMech, Astartes teams... If you have access to multiple plasmas, you can deal with them easily. On the other hand, if you have a melee focused team, you still have a decent shot at dealing with them: Orks will win through sheer numbers, CSM will have Khornate Berserkers, Nids will just spam genestealers... The problem will come with teams with little to no AP. A natural save of 3+ is quite good, and as such teams like Rogue Traders, SotA and Kroot (of course the poor kroot can't catch a break) will struggle. It's not a lost fight, though, since all of those teams still have an ace in the hole, like the use of the Specialist Retainers and the Assassin Cultist, Negavolt Spam and Hit and Run Krootox.

But really. The Best strategy to counter SoB is killing the gal with the Simulacrum first. That general 5++ will be used as much as possible to move whole squads to the frontlines, you take that away and the general invulnerable becomes 6++ or lost entirely. Arco-Flagelants are tough, though. T3 and W2 with a 5+++ is quite tough, so you'll need to focus on them to avoid letting them close to your dudes. If you add the 5++ of the Simulacrum, you actually face a quite threatening unit, more so if you face a whole spam of them. So, once again, kill the Battle Sister with the Simulacrum, then deal with the Arco-Flagellants and the Repentia, then the rest.

Here are a couple of recommendations for other teams to put into practise this:

• SM teams have all the tools in the toolbox to deal with the SoB, both in melee and in range. Plasma, Grav-gun, Power Swords... Anything with S4+ and decent AP will do the job. Plus, they can resist the ocasional wound with their auto-save stratagem, Death Denied, so even numbers won't be an issue.
• DeathWatch will work in a similar way, but with access to extra weapons and with less bodies around. The Deathwatch Frag Cannon is still the best option against SoB, it will wreck havoc in their lines.
• Grey Knights are too tough for SoB, though they might be able to stop the ocasional psychic attack due to their Shield of Faith. The Daemonhunters can just go through Sororitas to recreate the Matt Ward days for a bit of a refreshment.
• Imperial Guards have both the bodies and the tools for the job. Plasmaspam will be enough to hit them where it hurts, though they have to be careful as most IG units are not tough enough to survive in melee against the Flagellants. Bullgrins with shield will do the job for that, but it's still recommended to charge first, to avoid possible risks.
• AdMech is pretty similar to SoB, but with much better tools. Skitarii have an almost identical statline than Battle Sisters, but with slightly lower save, only 4+ against SoB 3+. In exchange, the Vanguard has the radiation effect of T-1 when close, and the Ranger/Vanguard unit compensate this with much better weapon choices: Plasma Calibers are great Assault 2 weapons, and the Transuranic Arquebus can just stay in the background sniping any enemy that might need a mortal wound or D3 damage. Compare this with the melta and the flamer, which need to be quite close to the enemy, and the Heavy Bolter as the best sniper weapon, with not nearly enough AP to hurt heavier units and 36" range, practically half of the Transuranic Arquebus. To be fair, Skitarii and Infiltrators are all T3, so the regular Bolter still poses a threat, and no unit is really safe from a Flagellant's charge, so be aware. The sollution? Play like Tau. A Plasmaspam team can have a similar number of units than a full Arco-Flagellants team, deal with the gal with the Simulacrum from afar using the Sniper Arquebus, and just shower the Flagellants with plasma until they fall. Maybe have one or two Ruststalker/Infiltrator to deal with strugglers in melee, or to contest objectives. Once you have their whole team within range, just choose the Canticle of repeating 1s during Shooting, and OVERCHARGE EVERYTHING. Just be aware that, once the Battle Sister with the Simulacrum falls, the Flagellants are going to start desperately running towards you, so keep your distances.
• Adeptus Custodes are a match the Sororitas can't win. Seriously, they can only do anything to the golden bananas is with the melta, and even having three of those means you have to be pretty fucking close to them, and the same with the Repentia. If the enemy decides to go with 3++ shields, it's over. They can try to overwhelm them with Arco-Flagellants, though. 3 Flagellants and a Repentia are bound to get something in eventually.
• Euclidian Starstriders just don't have enough AP to deal with them. Once the Death Cultist is gone, the rest of the team will have to desesperately resist until the Sisters get in close, and by then, it's game over.
• Harlequins will do what harlequins do best: move and charge in melee. Though considering the amount of flamers the Sororitas can handle, it will be best to charge from afar: flamers are 8" after all, and you can use 3D6 dice to charge, so you still have a great chance of reaching them from 9" or further. In melee, try taking down the Simulacrum first, and after that the invulnerable of the Flagellants will be gone, and you will only have to deal with the 5+++. Though be aware, harlequin teams will probably be outnumbered, and if you are close to them, they can just charge back and demolish you. You are too frail to survive to an eviscerator or the flails, so you better hope the 4++ of the player works. Seriously, D3 attacks for each attack plus the "Frenzied Thrashing" (which means another D3 attacks for every unit close) will wipe out any clown anyday.
• Necrons are an interesting match, as neither of them are ready to deal with the other, due to the lack of general AP in both armies. However, the necrons do have the advantage due to slightly better weapon variety and reanimation protocols. Just avoid being dragged into melee with non-melee units, the flagellants are no joke.
• Orks have more than enough bodies to drown the SoB, though be aware of flamers, they pack quite a punch. Plus, regular Bolters are quite effective against the orks, with only T4 6+ they can actually hurt them and put them down fast. Also, be aware of the Flagellants and the "Frenzied Thrashing", D3 extra attacks for each unit close means 3-4 orks near it can translate into a monstruous slaughter of greenskins.
• Tyranids' reliable Full Genestealer strategy can struggle against the SoB due to flamers and Flagellant's counterattacks. A ranged strategy might not be the best either due to poor AP on the part of the Nids. Lictors with genestealers might be a better combo to deal with the enemies from the start.
• Tau can just snipe everyone from their deployment zone and stop any attempt of counter with drones. The Simulacrum can only do so much if they still can't arrive in one piece through sheer firepower.
• Kroot can try and snipe the Simulacrum and the Flagellants from afar, while the rest of the chickens pile in and focus fire of an enemy unit ibe by one to try and hurt them. Otherwise, the SoB will go full KFC on them.
• CSM have both Plasma and Khornate Berserkers, both of them can deal horrible damage to the SoB.
• Death Guard is prepared to deal with them, considering they have many disgusting tools to destroy the SoB, and they in turn can't really compensate the general T5 of the Plague Marines plus their 5+++. Be aware that poxwalker spam is not recommended here, the SoB will go through them like butter.
• SotA can have their Psyker attack them quite reliably, Smite is activated at 5+, so SoB will only be able to stop the barely successful ones. After that, the lack of AP will hurt them once again, though the sheer number of attacks the negavolt cultists can do means something is bound to get in (nd don't forget the chance of mortal wound when charging), plus being quite resilient themselves with their 5++(4++ when using a stratagem)/5+++. Protect your psyker, hunt down the Simulacrum, and the rest will fall, but not without casualties.

SoB Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

Example teams for regular points values - 100pt&125pt in Core/Elites and Arena here.

8 Models, 99 Points

• [Leader] Sister Superior (Boltgun & Chainsword, or spend the last point on a Powersword vs. Power Armor) - 10 Points
• [Heavy] Battle Sister Gunner (Heavy Bolter) - 13 Points
• Battle Sister Gunner (Flamer or Melta) - 13 Points
• Battle Sister (Simulacrum) - 14 Points
• Battle Sister (Boltgun) - 9 Points
• [Combat] Sister Repentia - 13 Points
• [Zealot]Arco-flagellant Endurant - 14 Points
• Arco-flagellant - 13 Points

Melee Spam 100p

8 Models, 100 Points

• [Leader] Sister Superior (Combi-Melta/Flamer) - 13 Points
• [Veteran/Comms] Battle Sister (Simulacrum Imperialis) - 14 Points
• [Combat] Sister Repentia - 13 Points
• [Zealot]Arco-flagellant - 13 Points
• Battle Sister - 9 Points
• Battle Sister (Storm Bolter) - 12 Points
• Arco-Flagellant x2 - 26 Points

The idea is simple: Get as close to the enemy, and shoot/charge. You have everyone move in unison, like a procession, around the Simulacrum. That will give everyone a decent 5++, allowing you to move relatively safe. The vanilla Battle Sister can stay back and take objectives, the rest will move forward. The Superior with melta will be needd for those cases that need extra AP, and combined with the Comms, it will actually wound most of the time. Then, the Repentia and the Flagellants will move in and charge everyone.

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

Sisters of Silence (White Dwarf 454 - May 2020)

Why play Sisters of Silence

• Pros
  • A leadership score comparable to the Big Bananas themselves.
  • A complete f#@% you to psychic teams and allows you to completely skip a phase that can sometimes be dull.
  • Badass spammable melee units
  • other pros go here
• Cons
  • You will never get any other models, and probably won't get any other kind of additional support either.
  • Only 4 factions of 20+ in the game actually take psykers.
  • No ranged threats to anything other than guard chaff. All ranged options are AP -0.
  • No Talons of the Emperor, despite it being a perfect way to fix the issues with both factions.
  • No Commander despite the their abilities being far more applicable there than in the base game.
  • other cons go here

SoS Special Rules

• Psychic Abomination: This model cannot be targeted or affected by psychic powers. When a Psychic test or a Deny the Witch test is taken for an enemy mode, subtract 1 from the total for each model from your kill team with this ability that is within 18" of that model (to a maximum of -4).
  • Note that this doesn't provide any exception to "must target the closest visible enemy" rule for Psybolt, meaning that if the closest enemy is a Sister of Silence, that model can't do psybolt that round. This only matters in Battle Brothers or other missions with more than 2 players however, as no Sister of Silence model cannot be targeted anyway.
• Witch Hunters: When resolving an attack made by this model against a Psyker model, you can re-roll the wound roll.

SoS Ranged Weapons

• Boltgun: Carried by every Prosecutor. Bolters generally aren't great in Kill Team, and theres no exceptions here. Mostly this just gives your objective-holders something to do at a distance. Punishment Fire for 1CP helps a bit, giving a semi-decent anti-GEQ weapon and making it a decent choice in places where hit penalties would severely nerf any other weapon. Bolters are also free, and sometimes quantity has a quality of its own.
• Flamer: Carried by every Witchseeker. The classic short ranged, autohitting, assault profile. Mobile despite its short range and performing well against GEQs, the flamer is actually your hardest hitting ranged weapon. At least you can take as many as you have points for unlike other teams who are limited by gunners. Despite usually being relegated to anti-GEQ and anti-Melee roles exclusively in other factions, it still has a decent chance to kill a MEQ (1 in 4) and can be given a solid buff with Purgation Sweep for 1CP.
• Psyk-out grenade: Carried by every Silent Sister, against normal models these are worse frag grenades in every way. Only S2 and with D3 attacks, they're unlikely to kill much and either ranged weapon is going to be a better option. Still, its nice to have at least something ranged on your Vigilators. Against Daemons and Psykers, they score a mortal wound on a HIT roll of 6+. This means its significantly better than your prosecutors' bolters against those targets when the user has no penalties or a net positive to hit, but significantly worse when they do have net penalties as it can no longer generate mortal wounds. Keep in mind that being obscured with no bonuses would result in a net penalty, meaning you're almost always going to use the bolter instead.

SoS Melee Weapons

• Executioner Greatblade: The only SoS unique weapon, and carried by every Vigilator. With an effective S5, AP-3 and Dd3 and costing 4pts, it is both the most powerful and the most expensive weapon available. Competes with the Flail of Corruption in the hands of a basic Vigilator, but give it to the Superior, Combat Spec or better yet, a Zealot and you outperform a supercharged plasma gun.

SoS Units

• Witchseeker (Leader [Witchseeker Superior Only], Demolitions, Heavy, Scout, Veteran): Flamers
  • Witchseeker Superior: An extra point for an extra attack and point of leadership. Obviously you might take her if you need a leader, but there's also no reason not to take her over a regular Witchseeker if you have a point free. The extra Ld is unlikely to come up and the additional punch is still only S3 but its still nice on a model that wants to be within 8" and you'll be taking against melee models.
• Vigilator (Leader [Vigilator Superior Only], Combat, Scout, Veteran, Zealot): Swords
  • Vigilator Superior: A must take any time you're taking Vigilators. Like the other Superiors, the extra point of Ld is unlikely to matter but that extra attack with the Greatsword is not something you want to pass up for only one point. Also the only option for a vigilator leader.
• Prosecutor (Leader [Prosecutor Superior Only], Comms, Scout, Sniper, Veteran): Bolters
  • Prosecutor Superior: An extra point for an extra attack and point of leadership. Obviously there's no reason not to take her over a regular Prosecutor if you have a point free though the extra Ld is unlikely to come up and the extra attack is only S3 on the Superior least likely to be in close combat. However that she is least likely is also why the Prosecutor Superior is one of best options for your Leader, able to stay relatively far away, safe to generate CP for you team.

SoS Commanders

Lol no.

SoS Tactics

• [WD2020May] Unsettling Presence (1CP): Use this Tactic at the start of the Morale phase. Add 1 to the result of Nerve tests taken by enemy models within 3" of any Sisters of Silence models from your kill team.
• [WD2020May] Purgation Sweep (1CP): Use this Tactic when you choose a Witchseeker model from your kill team to attack in the Shooting phase. Until the end of the phase, change the Type characteristic of the flamer that model is equipped with to Assault 6.
• [WD2020May] Decapitating Strikes (1CP): Use this Tactic when you choose a Vigilator model from your kill team to attack in the Fight phase. Until the end of the phase, when resolving an attack made with an executioner greatblade that model is equipped with, add 1 to the wound roll.
• [WD2020May] Punishment Fire (1CP): Use this Tactic when you choose a Prosecutor model from your kill team to attack in the Shooting phase. Until the end of the phase, change the Type and Range characteristic of the boltgun that model is equipped with to Assault 3 and 18" respectively, and when making an attack with that model, it does not suffer any penalties to its hit rolls.

SoS Commander Tactics

See above.

SoS Strategies

SoS Strategies:

Your bolters are just to allow the models you leave on objectives to still participate. A 10% chance to kill a marine might not be much but its better than a 0% chance. And if you're paying 4pts for a sword, you want to put it to use. Speaking of swords, the Greatblades are very good. Split your Superior and Melee Specialist/s so as to not keep all your eggs in one basket. Be sure to use LoS blocking to avoid overwatch, and feel free to double team enemies. You have more models than Elite teams, so use them. Being within 1" also keeps you safe from plasma guns, autocannon and the like. Don't forget about your grenades either. They're terrible, but if you get caught out, any attack is better than nothing. Use your flamers to put pressure on objectives and to stay mobile, and keep your greatblades moving up.

Counterplay:

Sisters of Silence are somewhat strong and have a decent number of models on the board, but their key issue is their lack of ranged ability. Bolters are trash, and its the only weapon they have that reaches beyond 8". And you generally want to stay away from swords that will happily bisect a Marine. But their flamers aren't to be ignored either - Assault weapons on M7" chassis make for very mobile models that can quickly close the gap. Flamers might not be plasma guns, but multiple shots and autohitting go further than people think towards making up for the otherwise mediocre stats, and SoS can take more of them than any faction but Guard. SoS are strong in melee and against melee, but don't get complacent because you're half a board away, T3 isn't amazing but with the weapons common in kill team, they're generally closer in durability to the tougher MEQs than the less armored GEQs. Like any melee strong team, autohitting is valuable, but against SoS so is AP. A guard player might take a mix of plasma and flamers, while GK and TS combine AP and Autohitting and AP with Incinerators and Warpflamers.

SoS Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

Example teams for regular points values - 100pt&125pt in Core/Elites and Arena here.

8 Models, 98/100 Points

• [Leader] Prosecutor Superior - 11 Points
• [Combat] Vigilator - 14 Points
• [Zealot] Vigilator - 14 Points
• [Demolitions] Witchseeker Superior - 14 Points
• Vigilator Superior - 15 points
• Prosecutor - 10 points
• Prosecutor - 10 points
• Prosecutor - 10 points

Balanced 125p

10 Models, 125 Points

• [Leader] Prosecutor Superior - 11 Points
• [Combat] Vigilator - 14 Points
• [Zealot] Vigilator - 14 Points
• [Demolitions] Witchseeker Superior - 14 Points
• Vigilator Superior - 15 points
• Prosecutor - 10 points
• Prosecutor - 10 points
• Prosecutor - 10 points
• Witchseeker - 13 Points
• Vigilator - 14 Points

Melee Spam 125p

9 Models, 124 Points

• [Leader] Prosecutor Superior - 11 Points
• [Combat] Vigilator - 14 Points
• [Zealot] Vigilator - 14 Points
• [Demolitions] Witchseeker Superior - 14 Points
• Vigilator Superior - 15 points
• Vigilator - 14 Points
• Vigilator - 14 Points
• Vigilator - 14 Points
• Vigilator - 14 Points

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

Now obviously without a Commander option yourself, you can only participate in Commander missions where commanders are optional or where only one side. Fortunately you have no limits on your weapons so scaling to 200pts is simple.

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

There are no versions of these missions that SoS can participate in. It's a good thing too - with no Commander of your own, the enemy team could have more than a 100pts worth of extra force available to them than you have.

Elucidian Starstriders (Rogue Trader)

Why play Elucidian Starstriders

• Pros
  • You get to play as a Rogue Trader!
  • You can have up to 7 Specialists, due to some models in the Kill-Team being Specialists by default.
  • Your Commander has access to "normal" Specialisms plus Strategist, instead of the common Commander Specialisms.
  • Several 2W units for an otherwise too much squishy team.
  • You get doggo.

• Cons
  • Not much room to choose which units you can bring with you. If you aren't playing a mission that lets you use Commanders, you literally only have one possible team formation. And given that Knosso, Larsen and Sanistasia all have pre-defined Specialisms and Nitsch is your only Leader, you don't have many options to experiment with different Specialists.
  • Voidsman Gunner and Knosso Prond are your main source of damage (quickly followed by Nitsch), without them in your team you could also surrender.
  • Your units are all on the squishy side.
  • This team requires some severe training to be used, all specialist members need to be protecetd (without the Comms you have no 5++, without Nitsch no easy mortal wounds, without Knosso no fighting ability...).
  • Underwhelming in no Commander matches (CPs are too useful here).
  • One of the "fun" factions, mostly for fluffy and friendly games. Being particularly limited in your choice of units, options, and abilities generally means you're outclassed as soon as any of the main factions get serious and start optimizing, particularly once commanders and elites get involved.

ESS Special Rules

• Specialist Retainer: Units with this rule have only one Specialist type available to them, but do not count against the normal maximum number of specialists you can have.

ESS Ranged Weapons

• Lasgun: You know'em, you love'em. 24" Rapid Fire 1 S3 AP0 D1 that we've all seen before.
• Concussion grenade: All your voidsmen are equipped with these. 6" Grenade 1d3 s3 0 d1, goes up to S4 D2 if they are within one inch of terrain.
• Rotor Cannon: 24" Heavy 4 S4 AP-1 D2 cannon is the main ap for the kill team. Somehow more useful in the 42nd millennium than it ever was in the Horus Heresy.
• Dartmask: 9" Pistol 1 S1 AP-1 D1 that always wounds on a 2+.
• Artificer shotgun: 12" S4 AP0 D1, S5 D2 within half range.
• Heirloom pistol: Our rogue trader's saucy firearm. 12" Pistol 1 S4 AP-2 D2.
• Laspistol: Same as the IG's and just as crappy.
• Voltaic Pistol: 12" Pistol 1 S5 AP0 D1 that scores 3 hits on a natural 6 (which behaves like +2 to hit, without running into a ceiling at BS2+).

ESS Melee Weapons

• Monomolecular cane-rapier: Elucia Vhane's pimp cane of pain. Basically a power sword with AP-4.
• Death cult power blade: S user AP-2.
• Scalpel Claw: S User AP-1.
• Vicious Bite: Your doggo's teeth. Only included because GW thought people would forget that by default every model has a "Close Combat Weapon" and has the same stats.

ESS Units

• Nitsch's Squad: Everyone in the squad gets +1 Ld when they're within 6" of Elucia Vhane.
  • Voidsman (Veteran, Demolitions): Similar to a normal guardsman, but costs 1 point more for BS 3+ and concussion grenades.
  • Voidsman Gunner (Heavy): Your primary source of ranged AP, and the rotor cannon is actually pretty good at it too.
  • Aximillion (Scout, Demolitions, Veteran): Your doggo is not as well armored as the rest of the squad with only a 6+, but he's fast and gets an extra attack. You will be sad if he dies, so don't let that happen. Aximillion is the only model in the "Voidsman" category that can be a Scout specialist, but Scout is not the only specialism you can take for your dog. Demolitions is not of much use, but the Veteran pre-game move stratagem "Adaptive Tactics" can get this good boy into melee range earlier.
  • Voidmaster Nitsch (Leader): The compulsory leader for the Elucidian Starstriders. Nitsch's artificer shotgun requires him to get a bit closer to the enemy than his other squad members to make the most of his firepower, but S5 and d2 help to compensate and the extra wound will keep him alive.
• Death Cult Executioner Knosso Prond (Combat [Specialist Retainer]): The main melee fighter. Zealous complements the advancements in the Combat tree nicely and the Dartmask's always wounding on a 2+ is a godsend against the Death Guard. The 5++ invulnerable save is also nice to have. Keep in mind that there is no text about the stat boost from the Specialism being included in her statline like other Characters, meaning she actually has 5 attacks by default.
• Lectro-Maester Larsen van der Grauss (Comms [Specialist Retainer]): The cogboy's main role is to be a buff generator, given his Comms specialty and his giving everyone near him a 5++ invulnerable save. The voltaic pistol isn't half bad either, and with Priority Objective Identified he's good at holding objectives, especially with his teleportation ability from Voltagheist Transference. You can use Voltagheist Transference to teleport him to your opponent's backfield, and take out a pesky leader (reducing the CP they gain every turn) or a sniper that's giving you trouble down range...but then you won't be spreading that invulnerable save around or doing much with his Comms specialist skills.
• Rejuvenat Adept Sanistasia Minst (Medic [Specialist Retainer]): As the Starstriders are not the biggest kill-team, Minst's ability to remove flesh wounds from other models will be a must-have when it comes to keeping them in the fight.

ESS Commander

• Elucia Vhane (Combat, Scout, Strategist, Veteran, Zealot): Despite only having S3 and T3, Elucia Vhane can still hold her own in combat thanks to her 4+/4++ and one-use sucker punch that deals d3 mortal wounds on a 4+, and with the Level 1 Zealot ability and Trader Militant Commander traits she can give herself a total of 5 attacks and S4 on the charge. That said, she's best off keeping herself alive as a Strategist to crank out more CP and relying on her melee skills to fend off anyone who gets past her men.

ESS Tactics

• [Rogue] Killing Strikes (2 CP): In the fight phase, Knosso Prond's power blade deals d3 damage instead of 1 damage.
• [Rogue] Combat Medicine (1 CP): Sanistasia Minst can attempt to use her Healing Serum ability twice per movement phase.
• [Rogue] Executioner Shell (2 CP): When Nitsch is chosen to shoot, he only makes one hit roll but adds +3 to hit. If it hits, the targeted enemy takes a mortal wound and the shooting phase automatically ends.
• [Rogue] Priority Objective Identified (1 CP): If Larsen is within 3" of an objective and not shaken, he adds 1 to his saving rolls and his attack stat.
• [Rogue] Voltagheist Transference (2 CP): Instead of moving normally, Larsen can deep strike within 4" of any enemy models.
• [Rogue] Voltagheist Field (2 CP): When Larsen is chosen to shoot, he can do one of the following: open or close a door as if he were within 1" of it, reveal if a terrain feature is trapped or not, or ignore penalties when shooting at an obscured target. The first two are situational, but the last one is always helpful.

ESS Commander Tactics

• [Rogue] Multi-spectral Auspicator (Aura) (1 CP): At the start of the movement phase, Elucia Vhane allows all friendly Starstriders within 6" of her to re-roll hit rolls of 1. This ability lasts until the end of the round.
• [Rogue] Digital Laser Regalia (2 CP): After Vhane fights, make another hit roll against a model in melee range. If the attack hits, it scores a mortal wound and the fight phase automatically ends.

ESS Commander Traits

• Explorator Fleetmaster (10 pts): If the kill team is battle forged, you start the battle with one bonus CP that can only be used on Elucidian Starstriders tactics.
• Trader Militant (15 pts): Gain 1 extra attack.

ESS Strategies

ESS Strategies:

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.

Counterplay:

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.

ESS Example Teams

Standard Kill Teams

Basic Rogue Trader Cohort. 9 Units. 100 pts.

• Leader: Voidsmaster Nitsch
• Scout: Aximillion
• Veteran: Voidsman
• Demo/Heavy: Voidsman Gunner
• Combat: Knosso Prond
• Comns: Larsen van der Grauss
• Medic: Sanistasia Minst
• Regulars: 2x Voidsman

Pretty much the only viable possible team.

Commanders Kill Teams

For When Commanders Cost Points

For When Commanders Cost Nothing

ESS Modelling/Kitbashing

Don't they come in a box?

Yes. The Elucidian Startstriders come in the Rogue Trader Kill Team box. They also come with the Gellerpox Infected team, so you get two lists in one box. But, let's just say you want to make a ESS team without getting the box. Maybe you like the idea of kitbashing your own rogue trader cohort, or you just don't want to spend more money when you have tons of bits lying around. Anyway, here are a couple of tips that could be of use.

First, the voidsmen. You need five of them. Thre grunts with a lasgun, one with shotgun, one with a gatling gun, all with laspistol. As long as they have that, you can make them however you want. You want them fancy and aristocratic-looking? Get something akin to Ventrillian Nobles, Scintillan Fusiliers or Praetorian Guard. More militaristic and professional? Get something like Harakoni Warhawks or Indigan Praefects. Something more grunt and mercenary like? Pick Chavlar Chem-Dogs, Mordant Acid-Dogs or those new Enforcers from Necromunda. Really, you can do what you want here, the possibilities are endless. Even more endless if youe pieces beyong GW. But if you have GEQ bits lying around, make something original with them.

The dog is more annoying. You can always look for the actual model from the Rogue Trader box, but GW has released a decent amount of dog models over the years. They released a dog model in Necromunda, there was a dog model for Mordheim... If you want to use non-GW models, there are hundreds of dogs minis out there. Any breed you may want. Just make sure the size of the model is the current scale. Also, you may want to decorate the dog with some military gear. Maybe an anti-bullet vest, maybe a robotic paw, maybe some auxiliary packs San Bernardo-style... The world is your oyster. Remember that the pose could be used to hide its profile enough to maximize covers as much as possible.

The specialists are more complicated. The Assassin is easy, just take Death Cult Assassin model and add enough detail to make it look the style of your army. The medic could come from a Hospitallier or a pimped out Imperial Guard Medic. Grauss... is the most difficult of all. The head could come from a cybernetica datasmith, the arm could be given an auspex, the pistol could be a fancy gun from WHFB and given some sci-fi detail (like attaching the gun to the backpack through a cable). The backpack generator is complicated, but with a skitarii power backpack and some other bits simulating generators, it could be done. Bonus points if it has the Adeptus Mechanicus insignia.

As per the Rogue Trader herself... Do whatever you want, the kitbashing posibilities with that model are immense. You could use inquisition models or fancy AoS human models for that. Add jewels, feathers and other extravagant decorations. With that said, remember that the model must have a pistol and a sword, preferably a rapier of sorts. Also, make it look like a space pirate, a servoskull is always a good touch.