Kill Team Tournament Report

As I mentioned here, last weekend I went to a Kill Team Tournament in Berlin.

The venue was great, with plenty of space not only to play and put all the stuff next to the table but also to move around and it did not feel cramped at all. It is a big change compared to any Fantasy/40K Tournament were you are always fighting for space with the others.

In fact, packing and unpacking for each battle (there were four) was super fast as only 9 miniatures are needed. Also carrying just a small bag with these figures and a book was just another great thing of Kill Team.

Originally, I was planning to go with two colleagues playing Adeptus Mechanics and Necrons, but in the end they could not go, so I wen there on my own.

I arrived a bit earlier so I had time to chat with the guys organizing it, they have a very nice gaming club running in the area and they invited everybody to come play with them as often as we want. They usually play every Wednesday. It was very nice of them to offer this!

All in all we were 16 people and here are pictures I took for the 8 tables. I was a bit surprised to see them as usually I play with much more scenery and these ones left a lot of open space with clear lines of sight. Another interesting thing was that there was almost no elevation on the tables, they were mostly flat. I could imagine that this is because the scenery comes mainly from 40k. There was one table where I did not get to fight that was very interesting, simulating a spaceship with corridors, where the rules were that you could not fly, jump or go above the walls as you always needed to go around.

The organizers also provided food and drinks at a very cheap rate, for which I am really grateful. All in all I think they did a superb job and you can see that from the T3 ratings that everybody was very happy with the tournament.

This was the spaceship table

Very nice custom Cathedral table.

First battle

My first battle was against Ricardo with Thousand Sons.

It was my first ever battle against them so I knew basically nothing. Only that they have Phsychic powers and that they have marines.

His list was composed of an Aspiring Sorcerer, three Rubric Marines and three Tzaangors.

I chose my list #2 as I thought it best and better suited to fight against marines.

The mission was Matched Play: Sweep & Clear

The mission was a good one for the kind of team I have as they are good at taking out enemies and then in the last turn moving fast to secure objectives.

Turn one passed by quite fast as we both maneuvered into position, but on turn two we started already the hand to hand combat. At the end of turn two I had already two out of actions and several flesh wounds and things were not looking good for me.

He played quite well and managed to lure me into a trap in which most of my troops ended up out of action or dead but I managed to take with me also three of them with the awesomeness of the Aberrants.

In any case, it was a very brutal battle and at the end of turn three I needed to roll for Broken Team... which I luckily passed... then turn four came and more guys went out of action. We both needed to roll for Broken and I was lucky enough to pass while he was not, ending up as a victory for me as the Mission stated. It was a very lucky game for me as just a single dice roll decided that he would go out, as I had only three guys on the table and one of them was shaken. If he would not have been out I guess that in turn five he would have won by taking all of my team out of action.

I did not know how tough the Thousand Sons are and now I start to think that with the Tzaangors I have from Silver Tower I can easily create a Kill Team...

Turn #1

Turn #4

Second battle

My second battle was against Dominik with Drukhari.

Again another race of which I knew almost nothing, only that they have Wytches and they have some kind of drugs.

I also chose the list #2 for this one as the mission implied that bigger numbers were better.

The mission was Matched Play: Take Prisoners

In this mission you get points for taking out of action enemies while you are closer to them and they are not with a friendly unit. Basically you need to keep your team together, move out of the way and take out enemies to score points.

My opponent played skillfully and managed to lure my two Aberrants against four of his Wytches which are simply amazing in close combat. I was not expecting that! They took out my two Aberrants easily and scored four points for those, then another one for a Neophyte that was close by and that was it! I did not manage to capture anybody, I did cause three or four out of actions but he was placing his figures in such a way that I did not score points of any of them.

My tactic initially was to send the two Aberrants against the four Wytches on one flank and the Genestealer against his heavy and leader on the other side, which I believe it would have gone better if only he had managed to reach them. As these two reacted for three turns in a row with a fall back and I could not reach them at all even with an assault re-roll.

The mission was not really a good one for the kind of game my band usually has because they tend to work solo and advance on their own like crazy against the enemies. That's a very bad strategy for this mission.

All in all, nothing bad I can say about it, my opponent played really well (ended up 3rd in the tournament) and I learned a lot during this game. The Drukhari drugs are something crazy! Probably a bit overpowered but certainly fun.

Turn #2 (already no Aberrants!)

Turn #4

Third battle

My third battle was against Niklas with Drukhari.

Oh no Drukhari again! That is what I thought, but at least now I was better prepared. I chose again my list #2.

The mission was Matched Play: Recover Intelligence

This mission is similar to the first one but we score points at the end of each turn. There are five objective markers and we score 1 for the ones in our zone, 3 for the one in the middle and 2 for the ones on the opposite side.

I decided to play it much safer this time knowing how tough the Wytches are. I went in small packs and tried to focus on securing the objectives.

The first turn we both scored our own and on the second turn when I was expecting to start the fight for the middle my opponent made a mistake, probably the only big one he did in the game, which was to ignore the one in the middle so I went there and manage to put a Neophyte in such a way that nobody could shoot at him. I managed to score that one and contest one on his side that put me at a +4. On the third turn my pack of Aberrants and Genestealer started to eat up his flank so that put me on a successful +3 again and that was it, the difference of scoring points were too big at the end of turn 4.

I think I played well in this scenario as I kept the focus on the objectives, but I must say as well that this mission fits my team quite well. Thanks to the lessons learnt in the second battle I was able to avoid contact with the Wytches for as much as I could manage.

End of the third battle and I was on a 2-1 which is much better than I expected. Only one person in the whole tournament had managed a 3-0 so far, and that one was Dominik (my previous opponent).

Turn #4

Fourth battle

My last battle was against Andreas with Death Guard.

Another new army for me. I knew they are pretty tough to kill and are good both at firing and close combat.

The mission was Matched Play: Terror Tactics

This one is usually a very good one for my team as it basically consist in running across the board to exit the opposite side and killing as much as you can on your way. My team is generally good at running and killing on the go. I chose again the list #2 as I had a good feeling with it already.

After looking at the board we were going to fight on I had some doubts about it because of the amount of open space in it. I have mentioned this already but in this one I could see many pretty clear and open fire paths that would turn out to be critical.

My opponent was very nice and asked me multiple times to double check his list and see what kind of weapons he had and what kind of abilities, as he had some pretty interesting combos in there. He really wanted me to look it up in detail, which I have to say I did not really do because simply I never do it. I'd rather learnt it on the go, usually losing, and then becoming better for the next game.

He placed his team mostly on higher ground prepared to shoot save for his combat specialist and awaited me. In the first turn he shot me twice with two marines and took four of my team members out of action (four!) because he split the shots between them as they were less than 2" away. Somehow he was able to shoot at 2+ and wound at 2+ with no saving for me due to the high AP value. And he managed to roll always an out of action and no flesh wound at all :(

Second turn another two went out with the same method even though I managed to take out in close combat one of them. At that point I took a Broke test and failed and that was the battle. Highly disappointing for me because I should have kept my guys more than 2" from each other but I am not sure I could have survived more than one turn as I still needed to go out of the board and there was simply not enough cover for me to do it. My opponent was very helpful again in explaining how the weapons he was using worked and what things could I have done but we agreed there was not much chance for me.

Turn #1

Turn #4

Final thoughts

Even though I could have done more both on the second and fourth games, I ended up with an overall 2-2 which is more than what I was expecting.

Here are the final results of the tournament. I ended up 8th out of 16. I won against the 4th and 11th and lost against the 3rd and 5th which is not bad.

I learnt a lot about some tough races that I will for sure see again in future tournaments, so that's a good thing.

The overall experience of the tournament is really good: excellent venue, nice people, friendly atmosphere and easy to follow pace. Nothing of the stress of a full 40k tournament, it was much more friendly and relaxed. The fact that almost all games ended up way ahead of schedule shows that. I am reallly happy with how Kill Team works, even with all the grey areas the rules have.

I will come back, but perhaps with a new team!