Warhammer 40K: Meet 2004’s ORIGINAL Kill Team
Today let’s travel back to Warhammer 4ok 4th Edition to check out the ORIGINAL Kill Team – where the Grimdark squad-level adventures all began.
GW has kicked out five different versions of Killteam in the last few years. We’re all excited to see the new Kill-team edition get more love after it’s recent 2024 launch, so it’s time to set the time machine to 2004 and see what this skirmish thing is all about:
Setting chronometer to 2004 – engage!
Warhammer 40k 4th Editon had a big meaty 270-page rulebook just chock full of ways to play. It had standard missions, campaigns, mini-games called “Combat Patrols” and a little 15-page section called “Kill-Team” for folks wanting an even smaller, faster more narrative feel out of their games.
Kill-Team Rules Walkthrough
First up the absolute basics and a call to keep Kill Team light and fun. This was NOT a tournament game, and was designed from the get-go to be very narrative and non-competetive. Something GW has altered over the decades since.
The rules were a fairly simple affair. Your army had to use no more than 160 points of models and follow the “IMMUTABLE RULES.” So no psykers, no multi-wound models, no 2+ saves and a host of other no-nos. This was followed by an additional page of “MUTABLE” rules you could bend under limited circumstances.
General gameplay was fast and simple. The kill team player faced the “Brute Squad” player whose job was to get in the way and stop him. Speaking of objectives and missions…
There were six missions, three of which are here. They were basic stuff and there to mix things up from game to game. Nothing too fancy in these early days.
Of course, what is kill team without all the cool special rules and equipment? You could not only buy models, but special abilities and equipment to make your missions easier to accomplish. Of course, every point spent here (and there were more pages… leaves you with fewer minis. Decisions, decisions…
Sample Kill Teams
But my all-time favorite part wasn’t the game itself, but the modeling. Conversions were not only expected, but encouraged and the goal was to make your kill team something funky and unique. Oh how the times have changed. Here are three samples teams: Eldar, Kroot Mercenaries (sob), and Blood Angels from the book:
Gotta love the Kroot Mercs – come back! Next check out the SWEET terrain GW suggested playing it on. Everything was more vivid back then…
Kill Team would pass out of the game for many years, skipping several editions. But the old-timers and the converters always kept it in their hearts. There was always a kind of unofficial sibling rivalry between Kill Team or Necromunda, as which was a better way to get your Grimdark skirmish fix.
Welcome to Now – 2024
But if there is anything that Games Workshop has mastered, it is reaching back into their over three decades of archives, and mining it for grimdark nostalgia. The latest relaunch of Kill Team in 2021 – Octarius brought us all-new ruleset, and a fan dream – plastic Death Korps of Krieg. Following up in 2022, we had the Nachmund set bring long, long lost Eldar Corsairs back to the game. These had been gone since the early 1990s, perhaps the longest period of a range being reincarnated so far in 40K history. And just now we got the 2024 new edition starter set featuring Primaris Marines, Death Guard and that oh so interesting pre-printed lasercut MDF flat-pack terrain. Hmmm. I get GW has big plans for that terrain technology.
We can only dream of where Kill Team will take us next. But no matter where, it all started from a very humble beginning 20 years ago.
~Any of you ladies and gentlemen remember playing the original back in the day?
