Kill Team list - Purging with style

So, played my first game of Kill Team this evening with what I think is quite a solid yet fun list, but could probably use a bit of work. Thought I'd post it and see what everyone thought!

Dracon, Ghostplate Armour, Power Sword (Leader)
This is my attempt to get the leader somewhat survivable (as well as having a Dracon for fluff reasons) - most basic troop weapons are AP5, so Ghostplate for a 4+ save. Power sword because I had 10 points spare and wanted to add a bit of punch. Dark Eldar WILL struggle to get a survivable leader though.

Trueborn, Splinter Cannon (Weapon Specialist - Split Fire)
Split Fire in Kill Team allows you to split your shots as you choose between 2 targets. This guy was an absolute powerhouse - deployed correctly, can cover most of the table. Add in the fact that he can move and fire 2 shots at 2 targets, or remain stationary and go 3 and 3, and you can start picking off multiple important models. I expect this one to be a priority target for most opponents.

Trueborn, Blaster (Guerilla Specialst - Infiltrate)
An attempt to sneak up on or otherwise pester a tank/multiple wound model. Didn't work well, but given that tonight's games were 4 way I think it needs more testing. Not the best, would welcome suggestions for a different specialist.

Trueborn, Splinter Pistol and Close Combat Weapon (Dirty Fighter Specialist - Fleshbane)
Last Specialist - I wanted another combat model (it's quite a shooty kill team overall) so swapped down to SP/CCW for 3 attacks base, 4 on the charge, and always wounding on 2s to mitigate the low strength.

Trueborn, Splinter Rifle


Trueborn, Splinter Rifle
The two 'grunts' of the kill team, for want of a better term. No better or worse than anyone else's standard trooper

Reaver Jetbike, Heat Lance
I wanted at least two anti-armour weapons, this is the second. I don't foresee much armour in Kill Team, but better safe than sorry. Considering swapping the heat lance for haywire grenades on all the trueborn

Reaver Jetbike

Reaver Jetbike

On the whole, Reavers are very, very good. Bladevaning does some real damage when inflicted to single models, and mobility all but guarantees you linebreaker. Great mobility and scoring.

Fairly low model count (only 9 guys) but that seems to be about right for kill team. Trueborn across the board have the bonus attack should they be caught in CC, but also that crucial extra leadership point for when the break tests start (83.33% to pass up from 72.22%).

Changes I could make:
Scrap the Dracon and downgrade everything to Kabalites - getting enough points to field a 10 man Kabalite Warrior squad with blaster and cannon with 7 points spare. Ups the model count to 13, but loses a lot of effectiveness

Lose the heat lance, gain haywire grenades on all 6 trueborn - has potential; even allows for a combat-based approach by tossing a S4 shot and then charging with 3 S3 attacks

Change the Dracon's wargear - I'm not sure she really needs everything. Making her a base model allows me to snag 2 more trueborn for a total of 11 models in the kill team, but then I have a T3, 5+ save model that doesn't do anything special as my leader, and I'm not sure that's quite right with the whole Kill Team ethos.


Basically, I'm looking for ways to tighten this up if anyone has suggestions. I'm not looking to get the absolute best kill team possible in terms of math-hammer, I'd just play regular 40k. I'm trying to keep this as fluffy and fun as I can (basically, the entire point of kill team!) but at the same time I actually want it to be capable

I've been giving this subject some thought, and I'm pretty unconvinced by a CC orientated leader for a DE list. They're just a bit too much of a liability and I think in 1/6 games they give away 2 vps if they fall over, which seems like a lot to commit to such a fragile model..

As a consequence, my advice would be to drop the Dracon back to stock, keep her in the back field with the grunts providing as much of a flesh shield as possible. I know this probably goes against what you want to do, and the general idea of a kill team, but it does allow you to do some interesting things with the points..  
For example, I'm not sure about your fleshbane specialist, so with the twenty points you've saved from the drac you can buy and arena champion with power sword to be your new fleshbane specialist. I really think fleshbane wants at least AP3, and this is a pretty nasty way to get it, it should even be able to deal with multi-wound characters in one go a good percentage of the time.

If you're dead set on keeping the Dracon as is but quite fancy the arena champ, then dropping two of the grunts get's you the points with enough spare to give the remaining trueborn plasma grenades, which is pretty huge..

Finally, your blaster specialist. I'm dubious about the value of infiltrating a single wound model with an Assault 1 weapon. There's a 55% chance it'll do anything with its first shot (less if you actually shoot at AV11 armour), and after that it's likely to be dead. I'd rather keep it in my deployment zone and give it Preferred Enemy. Re-rolling 1s to hit and to wound with a blaster is pretty fun.

_______________

After a little more thought, I think this is the list I'll be going with:

Dracon - Leader, Splinter Rifle, Ghostplate, Haywire Grenades
Trueborn - Specialist, Haywire Grenades, Splinter Cannon, Infiltrate
Trueborn - Haywire Grenades, Splinter Cannon
Trueborn - Haywire Grenades, Splinter Rifle

Arena Champion - Specialist, Power Lance, Fleshbane
Reaver - Specialist, Haywire
Reaver - Cluster Caltrops

The infiltrating splinter cannon gives me a reasonable area control option, the reavers are the main deathdealers. At first glance it seems a little AT light, but that haywire reaver gets it's full cc attacks against vehicles and haywires them, so it's almost a little haywire wych squad on it's own..

Infiltrate also gives the blaster outflank, however, so there's a chance it can sneak behind things. That's almost certainly better for something else, though; will try Preferred Enemy instead. I actually found the fleshbane specialist to work pretty well, as it gets so many attacks that wound on 2s, and the vast majority of opponents only have 1 wound.

If I dropped the dracon -entirely- then I couldn't get the fleshbane arena champ because he'd have to be the new leader (Leader has to be the character with highest leadership, if you have no characters then you pick a normal dude). If you just meant ditch the ghostplate and power sword then yeah, that'd work. It just doesn't feel -right- though...

I don't think anti-tank is a huge issue. They take up such a huge chunk of points that they're almost more of a hindrance than a help.

Panic_Puppet wrote:

If you just meant ditch the ghostplate and power sword then yeah, that'd work. It just doesn't feel -right- though...

Yea, I did, but I understand your objection, I've never been terribly happy with my Killteam leader builds.

I'm glad to hear your fleshbane build worked, I'm not sure I'd have the bottle to try it on a foot-slogger, but it's nice to know it's viable.

Good call on the outflank, I hadn't considered that aspect of it, makes it somewhat more useful, but I'm still not sure I'd go for it.

AT is a bit of a concern, but yea, you're probably right that it shouldn't be a primary consideration.. DE must be one of the most capable of fielding dangerous vehicles in kill team missions, so as long as we're not up against another DE team it's probably not overly vital.. just so long as there's something in there to deal with it.

The other thing that's been worrying my with my own builds is an ability to deal with a serious horde. Usually our poison can spill over to wipe out multiple members of a squad, but with kill team, if we're seriously out numbered, I can see things getting tricky fast. I think this is where plasma grenades really will come in handy.

Thing with vehicles is that they can't be a specialist. So no matter how much of a 'threat' they are, they're only a threat to one thing at a time. That venom with dual cannons may be beastly in a regular game, but in Kill Team it's 2/3 of your total points (nearly) that can only pick on one model at a time. Admittedly, that model is not long for this world, but still.

If the power sword on the dracon isn't working out, I'll junk it and instead get shardcarbines on the 'grunt' trueborn. In all honesty, I might just do that anyway - shardcarbines are awesome.

Hordes I think won't be a huge issue. Most hordes have garbage leadership, so you only actually have to kill half of them and chances are the rest will run (though the concept of a 'kill team' of 50 4-point gaunts is scary...)

Dammit, now I want shardcarbines in there. Got to be some cuts I can make; really don't want to compromise on the leader since I've converted a model for her. Might drop ghostplate... no guts, no glory!

Yes to Sharcarbines. I like your style.

I take your point with vehicles, they are limited by their overkillyness. Think i'd better re-consider my corsair list from the other thread..

Hmm.. kill team provides a hell of a challenge to list building, so much more nuanced than the average 1500 point army..

tbh, if you want a CC leader, klaivex is probably the way to do it. 3+ save, S4 AP2 weapon and can also take a flamer (if you're not feeling thrifty!).
you could always take a lance on a trueborn and keep him in the back. give him tank hunter specialist skill and reap the rewards

Incubi are very tempting for their 3+.

You could go pretty minimalist with:

Klaivex - Leader - Bloodstone
Incubus
Incubus

Reaver - Specialist - Blaster, (master crafted or tank hunter)
Reaver - Specialist - Fleshbane
Reaver - Specialist - Haywire
Reaver

but probably not wise..

I'm wondering if charater upgrades are actually worth it.. because if you don't have any characters your leader can actually have a decent ranged weapon, like so:

Trueborn - Leader - Splinter cannon
Trueborn - Specialist - Blaster, Preferred Enemy
Trueborn - Specialist - Splinter Cannon, Split Fire
Trueborn - Blaster
Trueborn - Shardcarbine
Trueborn - Shardcarbine

Reaver - Specialist - Fleshbane
Reaver -
Reaver -

There's just something I don't quite feel right about with it though..

I did consider the klaivex, but he's SO costly, and you have to take 2 more incubi. And footslogging combat units aren't stellar. Until they get to combat, you've got marines with a roughly 50% price increase but one point lower toughness and no gun. Lance is the same reason - at 25 points, I'd rather take a blaster and a pair of shardcarbines. Or just 2 more dudes.

From the lists I've tried building, Kill Team is so subtle that you can't really afford to waste points on too much wargear. You ALSO can't afford to have 'wasted' models, and everything needs a purpose - its a format where things like the standard marine really shine.

New team (based on input from both this and the other thread):

Dracon, Ghostplate Armour, Venom Blade (Leader)
Reckon the V-blade will have roughly equivalent damage output, and its cheaper. Also a second fleshbane dude

Trueborn, Splinter Cannon, Weapons Specialist (Split Fire)
Just too good not to take

Trueborn, Splinter Pistol, Close Combat Weapon, Dirty Tricks Specialist (Fleshbane)
Possibly a weak link, I need to get more games in

Trueborn, Blaster, Guerilla Specialist (Preferred Enemy)
Anti-Tank/Anti-Leader. Preferred enemy to avoid 'anything but a one' syndrome

Trueborn, Shardcarbine
Affordable by paring the power weapon down to a venom blade, for greater damage output

Trueborn, Splinter Rifle
The team's equivalent of a 'redshirt' - standard trooper

Reaver Jetbike
Objective taker/general nuisance

Reaver Jetbike
Objective taker/general nuisance

Reaver Jetbike, Heat Lance
Secondary anti-tank, objective taker

Play style:
Primarily shooty. Splinter Cannon and Reaver Bladevanes to target enemy specialists/leader early on. Cannon uses its unparalleled range and flexibility to pick off the most pressing pair of targets at a time. Blaster will target vehicles, or multi-wound targets. Leader and C-C specialist use their high initiative and fleshbane to try and drop targets that get close, ideally using fleet to move from cover to cover. Shardcarbine and splinter rifle operate in close support; ideally as the least valuable the splinter rifle will guard a 'home' objective if such a thing is available, distracting the enemy from more valuable models. Reavers stay generally out of the way bladevaning things unless their presence is more urgently required, and are the main scorers. Prioritise high-range weaponry first, as this keeps the 4 most important models to victory around (reavers and the cannon). Thoughts?

Sounds like a coherent plan to me. I *might* drop the redshirt to regain the power sword and give the trueborn plasma grenades for charging into cover, but it'd be a toss up to decide. If you want to keep the wargear down then yours is probably the right choice.

I think I'll try the character-less list I posted and see how it fares. Basically the same tactics minus the close combat shenanigans with the trueborn.

Also looks good. I'm coming down marginally in favour of the additional model since, let's face it, DE aren't exactly durable. If I cut the heat lance, however, I could get Haywires on all the trueborn (which I -think- count as offensive grenades, I'd have to check that one). Or Plasmas on the whole team, and upgrade the redshirt to also have a shardcarbine; which does leave me with just the blaster and plasma/bladevane glance against armour, but I don't foresee many vehicles making appearances. Choices, choices...

how about scourges for kill team? they're fast, have ghostplate and shardcarbines, plus have access to splintercannons/blasters

I really want to like scourges for kill team, but they cost as much as reavers, and don't get 3+ jink or T4, or I6, or combat drugs, and they're slower, can't jumpshootjump, and don't have two cc weapons as standard.. I just can't see how it would work. Yea, ok they've got some big guns and a 6++, but how much of that can you actually field? Realistically you've got to field at least five so you can take some special weapons. At which point you've spent 130-140 points, so you're not really getting any other units worth fielding, so that sticks you with filling the rest of the points with scourges.

The builds basically going to be something like:

Solarite, Power Sword
Scourge, Specialist - Master Crafted, Blaster,
Scourge, Specialist - Split Fire, Splinter Cannon
Scourge, Specialist - some skill that doesn't quite fit
Scourge
Scourge
Scourge

Yea, it's not terrible, but I could field

Arena Champion - Leader - Power Lance
Reaver - Specialist - Heat Lance, Preferred Enemy
Reaver - Specialist - Haywire
Reaver - Specialist - Fleshbane
Reaver - Heat Lance
Reaver
Reaver

It does the same thing more or less, but faster and better..

I suppose they could pair with trueborn fairly well, but I still think reavers do it better as you only need to take three to unlock AT weapons.

But look, don't let me put you off. Like i said, I REALLY wanted scourges to work for Kill team, so go ahead and play them and if you win come back and tell me how wrong I am. I'd thank you for it.

I think for kill team it's VERY necessary to play with something that you personally find fluffy and fun, and to play with like-minded people rather than players that go for the absolute optional kill team that any given codex can field. Scourges could be fun to play, and that would be the entire point of it.

Were I to do a Scourge-based kill team, I'd take 5 with appropriate special weapons, probably a pair of blasters (140 points for the lot), and 3 trueborn with a pair of cannons (56). If the second blaster is unnecessary, get a character upgrade and customise your leader.

Now, to re-examine my suicidal grotesque kill team...

Panic_Puppet wrote:

Now, to re-examine my suicidal grotesque kill team...

It would be pure comedy. Five grots just running off in different directions like bulldozer timebombs..

No, that would be stupid. The leader gets shot and the rest run away. It's 4 grotesques and some trueborn to make sure that doesn't happen and the grotesques have half a chance of exploding

Fair point! You know I'm almost tempted. I converted my Grots from Warspears followingg some of the excellent examples on here, they'd be very fun to get out in these circumstances. I Still like beasts for kill team as well. It's a shame that you have to include at least four other models to fill up your leader and specialist slots, but you can get seven or so Khymerae on the field with two beastmasters. I just like the idea of a pack of ravening wolfmonsters stalking across the board.