Wh40K: Kill Team Starter Set (English)

Why did not Games Workshop do something similar to this years ago? I must admit I have been very impressed with this purchase. Its full to the brim with miniatures, rule books, dice, cards, a counter, playing board and scenery. The contents are all very polished GW products and well made. This box set includes an Adeptus Mechanicus and Genestealer Cult Kill Teams. The plastic miniatures require assembly, gluing and painting. They are good quality and typical of the new high quality miniatures. Whilst you may think the box set is expensive but if you add up the contents cost you would be really pushed to get it all cheaper separately. The rulebook contains details for multiple types of Killteams such as Orks, Harlequinss, Guard and Tau to name but a few. The rules are clearly described and easy to understand. This box represents hours and hours of fun for any Warhammer enthusiast and an ideal starter kit. The scenery is fantastic. All the models will require painting but that is at least half the fun of it all.

Detail of figures and scenery superb.Manuals also excellent.

I was very much looking forward to Kill Team, but have been left disappointed. Even when comparing it to Shadow War, 40k’s previous skirmish incarnation, it comes off poorly. The rules are overly complicated, the rulebook is poorly written with many ambiguous interpretations, and the game play nothing more than a dice-grind with most of the important tactical decisions made before models are even placed on the board. The game isn’t even that quick to play: Sure, I’ve had a few games that were over in half an hour, but normally games last 1.5-2hrs, with a few going on for 3hrs. Want to know which tactics you can activate this turn? Best look through 6 different pages of the rule book then! The promised support for narrative play is entirely absent and the league rules are a complete joke – I WON my local league and I still think they are a joke. At the end of the league, most of the players asked the gaming club to go back to Shadow War.The nub of it is this: When I played Shadow War, I felt like I was simulating a battle in dice-form. It was fun and there were stories of heroism and bravery to tell afterwards. When I play Kill Team I feel like I am just finding exploits in rules. None of my models move or act like people, just nodes of rule-manipulation. After 9 games I have no epic tales to tell.The whole thing feels like a skirmish game rushed-out to bring the rule set into line with 8th edition 40k. The ideas behind it were good, but not enough play testing was done.On the plus side, the scenery and models are superb.