Warhammer 40K: Kill Team – Even The Terrain Rules Are Getting Reworked
Games Workshop said they completely reworked the Kill Team Rules and even the Terrain Rules are getting a makeover!
We’ve been seeing a ton of Kill Team rules previews and all of the changes really do make Kill Team it’s own stand-alone game set in the 40k universe. This isn’t a modified version of 9th edition or a rehash of a previous edition, this is a complete overhaul of the game from the ground up. We thought GW was about done with all the previews for the rules changes but there was yet more to consider…like the 3rd player on the board. You may know it as Terrain.
“The Kill Team rules have been completely rewritten for the new edition, and terrain has been given the same attention as everything else. Each piece in the box has a defined set of rules that affects how your operatives interact with it.”
Each bespoke piece of terrain has been given a once-over for rules. Today, we’ve got a look at how some things are going to work in the new version of Kill Team.
This diagram breaks down one of the ramshackle walls and how those are labeled. I’m not quite sure if this is going to be a bookkeeping hurdle or not for new players (which…everyone will be at first because it’s a new system to learn). I think once you get the hang of how terrain works it’s going to be a pretty intuitive system – as long as you go over everything with your opponent before hand.
So we have a few different sections and keywords to look at here. Thankfully, GW has already defined what those mean.
GW may have also explained that “Light” terrain does provide some sort of cover when you’re behind them as well – but it’s not fully defined like Traverse is. The keywords like “Traverse” are nice because once you do learn the system, it makes everything clear cut. There’s really not a lot of room for interpretation when the rules state exactly what you can do.
According to GW:
“The upper deck is called a Vantage Point, which is a strategically important spot on a Kill Team battlefield. Operatives brave enough to climb up onto the rickety platform of crudely welded scrap will find it much easier to take shots at anyone hiding behind ground-level cover, but exercise caution – being up so high makes your combatants a juicy target in turn. “
This sounds like it might deny cover to other targets but it may also leave your operatives out in the open as well (unless they happen to be behind some other part of the terrain that does provide cover). It’s going to be interesting to see how that works practically.
“Heavy” is basically a combo keyword that provides Cover and is also Obscuring. Now, we know from other systems what those keywords do but we’re still not 100% sure what benefits they provide in Kill Team. If we had to guess, Cover probably adds to your Armor Save (which is only against ranged attacks, remember) and Obscuring probably means you can’t shoot through it. But again, those are just guesses.
This is a new keyword and it sounds interesting. It move across this terrain feature, the operative must use either a Scramble Over or Charge Over action. We can infer what those mean but this new classification is something new to play around with regardless. It’s going to be interesting to see if GW transplants this concept over to other things down the road.
“The Kill Team: Octarius box contains a 22″ x 30″ gameboard, and there are enough terrain pieces to pack it densely – lots of cover makes for nail-biting, tactical games of Kill Team, after all. If you want to use this terrain in your games of Warhammer 40,000, just put two 22″ x 30″ boards together, add your Orky scenery, and get ready to take the fight to your enemies.”
This terrain collection is a great orky addition to anyone’s terrain stash. This may also be the first time GW has really gone all out on a Xenos terrain set. We’ve had orky terrain options before but this entire set allows you to build and play on a completely orky battlefield and that’s just cool! I really want to play on a table that in entirely Orky Terrain. Maybe one day we’ll get other Xenos terrain sets, too…
What do you think of the new Terrain rules for Kill Team?
