Kill Team Octarius (Warhammer40K)

[Pictors Studio]

I got the set a couple of weeks ago and I like the figures very much.  These new Ork Kommandos are much better than the existing figures, which I actually just got in December and just finished painting a few weeks before this came out.

I've played or run 5 games now and am coming to terms with the basic rules.  I've not done the campaign stuff at all yet, just basic games with a fresh Kill Team on each side using the models in the box.



The game is a HUGE improvement over the last edition, which I thought was total crap.  This is actually a skirmish game and allows you a lot of options for the use of cover with models.  The rules for overwatch are a bit simplistic and don't really seem to cover what I would want for that but do fit in pretty well with how a game in the 40K universe should play, i.e. you want guys to be able to get into close combat vs. a more realistic setting where guys moving across open ground in view of other guys with guns should basically just be dead. 

The scenarios that I've looked at so far are pretty interesting and well thought out for the intention of the game.  I've read the campaign rules and they look interesting, much more like WarCry than Necromunda.  Like if WarCry was 1 on a scale and Necromunda was 10 these would be about a 3.



Likely these will never be my go-to GW game, but the models are nice and the activation system is a lot better than previous versions.  I like that Marines get more actions than other models and that Custodes get more actions than them.  It will make the marines really stand out as the superior soldiers they are meant to be.

I'm hoping that the inevitable power creep that will be coming with new supplements doesn't over ride that. 

It would be neat if they did a "fluff" version where a Kill Team was one marine as a special thing.

The first game we played we used all the models as the basic troops of each side.  So they were all guardsmen with rifles or Ork Kommandos with sluggas. 

The Orks crushed them.  When we played with specialists in the next game though the opposite happened and the guard specialists really were a match for the Orks and then some.

By the third game it seemed to balance out a bit and was just a matter of getting used to things.




Everything is painted now and if the Orks are released as a separate box I'll probably get more of those for my Ork army.  I'll probably get another box of the guard too just to be able to build all of the options and get the four more guys you are allowed to include as a tactical option.

While I think it is a fun system and a huge improvement over the last Kill Team it is still not as good a game as Infinity in terms of being a skirmish sci-fi game. 

I'd like to get a few more games in and then try the campaign system.  We start our Necromunda League tomorrow but I'm going to see if one of my mates is up for playing a game this weekend.

Here are the Kriegers:

[Muzfish4]

Very nice write-up thanks.

Encouraging to hear there is a decent game in there.

Your DKK guys look terrific, nice and battleworn.

Current mood: Hopeful

[black hat miniatures]

Nothing to do with the games but every time I see this topic I think "Kill Team Octopus"... :-)

[Pictors Studio]

The only bad thing about the game is the shapes for measurements.  I have no idea why anyone thought that was a good idea.  It makes everything about the game so much harder from reading the rules to doing the measurements. 

You're sitting there in the game trying to subtract a circle from a square and then add a triangle. 

What is wrong with numbers?  I've used numbers my whole life, like 40 some years now numbers have been how I've done stuff. 

I helped my dad re-roof his pool house last Thursday.  At no point did either one of us say "This piece of plywood needs to be 3 squares across and 4 pentagons long."

And another thing, they didn't even make the shapes line up with the distances at all.

So you would think that a circle might be an inch, a triangle three inches and a square four inches or something like that.

Nope. 

Even the pentagon isn't five inches. It is six inches.  As if hexagons don't exist. You have something that measures six inches and you make its symbol a five sided shape?  Did it cost too much in the printing to put the extra line in?  Like, am I thinking too small here?  For me printing a hexagon and a pentagon are pretty much the same but I'm only printing them once or twice, not 200,000 or 500,000 books with them mentioned 20-30 times each.  Maybe that extra line adds up there.

I'm probably going to go through my rule books at some point and replace all the symbols with the numbers they represent so it is easier to read.  Then turn that little "combat gauge" into terrain or something.

[SpaceCudet]

The only bad thing about the game is the shapes for measurements.  I have no idea why anyone thought that was a good idea.  It makes everything about the game so much harder from reading the rules to doing the measurements. 

Perhaps someone at GW has been playing Saga. It seems to be the way that games are moving, each one having its own special dice and measuring system, e.g. X-Wing and Armada.

Just consider yourself lucky that each shape maps to an integer inch, it seems to me that it would have been more logical for a unit measure to be, say 37mm, thus forcing players to use the custom tools or at least making it difficult not too e.g. Saga dice.

[Chief Lackey Rich]

Perhaps someone at GW has been playing Saga. It seems to be the way that games are moving, each one having its own special dice and measuring system, e.g. X-Wing and Armada.

Just consider yourself lucky that each shape maps to an integer inch, it seems to me that it would have been more logical for a unit measure to be, say 37mm, thus forcing players to use the custom tools or at least making it difficult not too e.g. Saga dice.

I find Saga dice tolerable since they're just six-siders, easily replaced with a chart and regular dice or made out of blank dice, which are readily available.  Same goes for minor stuff like Necromunda's firepower dice.

The rest of it though - I don't buy FFG products any more because of their fondness for deliberately designing games full of proprietary crap, and I'm not pleased with GW for heading down that road so much of late.  Adeptus Titanicus, Aeronautica Imperials, and now Kill Team with plastic widgets that drive the cost up for little obvious benefit.  Warhammer Underworlds and Warcry with the damn cards, and even the Bloodbowl line is getting stuffed with (thankfully optional) custom pitches and dice galore.  It may seem harmless, but that garbage is taking time in their overloaded production schedule while we have things like 30 year old minis in the 40K Eldar range.  Their priorities are wonky.

Then again, there are a lot of things I'm not pleased with GW about.  Idiotic measuring devices in a game I probably won't ever buy might be the least of them.   

[The Rock]

Thank you for sharing your gaming experience with us.
I'm reading the rules but I haven't tried the game yet and the impression is the same as you describe.
I look forward to playing a few games and then I will decide together with my playmates whether to continue with killteam or switch to Stargrave (we loved Frostgrave).

[fred]

I’m quite interested in giving these a play. I’m not a 40k player, but when KT v1 came out I built a small Tau force and enjoyed playing KT with them. But we didn’t play a lot of games.

One of my gaming group has KT2, and has enjoyed painting up the Orcs and terrain, so I’m sure we will be playing soon. I started painting up some metal Harlequins yesterday.

[kerpob]

I've played it 3 times now and agree it is a big improvement from the previous kill team. This is a different game entirely.

It is enjoyable in the 40K universe but I can see things that would put off wargamers who like their realism. Example 1: there is no opportunity fire (the alternative activation does help a bit here though). Example 2: Overwatch does not exist as it used to: It used to be a way to shoot someone charging you while now it is an equalising mechanism allowing someone with fewer models to have another shoot instead of having to pass.

The "movement tool" doesn't bother me - if it is there and painted up, you just use it instead of a tape measure - I can see it would be handy for non-imperial audiences (everyone except USA/UK). Apparently the movement shapes were added late - it was originally just colours - which might account for why they don't match their inches equivalent (e.g. square is 3" and not 4" as expected and the 5-sided pentagon is 6 inches).

[Spinal Tap]

I'm still in 2 minds about this as I've never really gone for 40K stuff, however the small group I've joined are big on 40K and have started to look at Octarius.

My misgivings are twofold:

1. I'm currently starting to put together a 1000 point army for 40K and have some VSF terrain and scatter to finish too; I don't like having too much on as I tend to procrastinate and get nowt done.

2. The Starter Set with free limited edition metal measuring device ('get one while you can' when the pre-order went up) have still not sold out - it concerns me that this game is going to get buried if it doesn't sell well and this suggests that sales are nowhere near what they were expecting.

I do like the look of it though!!!!!

[Chief Lackey Rich]

2. The Starter Set with free limited edition metal measuring device ('get one while you can' when the pre-order went up) have still not sold out - it concerns me that this game is going to get buried if it doesn't sell well and this suggests that sales are nowhere near what they were expecting.

Much as I dislike boosting for this game (or GW in general) I suspect the "failure" to instantly sell out is a direct result of the level of criticism they've been getting since, oh, about the time the Cursed City debacle happened.  Between that and other LE releases that barely last ten minutes before selling out online they've taken a lot of heat, and going by the AoS Dominion release and now KT it's pretty clear they've upped their production runs to compensate. 

Additionally they've shown us the roadmap for new releases for the game going well into 2022 and there are regular releases scheduled every couple of months for the entire time.  The teased Sisters of Battle/Tau boxed set is probably a good look at what those will look like - big, expensive boxed sets like the starter, probably each in a new "battle zone" and likely with their own terrain.  GW certainly isn't above flat-out lying about providing support for their games, but it looks to me like they at least plan (and hope) for significant sales and growth for the game.  It could still flop if sales are really, really bad, but this doesn't look like a deliberate bait-and-switch from where I'm sitting.

OTOH, many customers are still angry enough with GW to be looking for other games to play (with BTech getting the most out of that ATM) and we're about three weeks from 3rd edition Deadzone hitting from Mantic, which could very well drag significant interest away from KT while it's still young.  Add the slew of popular pre-existing skirmish scifi games that sit in a similar niche and KT's facing real competition.

[Spinal Tap]

Thanks for the explanation, I'm not too up on GW stuff but am, as I say, being steered towards it by the desire to play others at the club.

I'll keep it on the radar for the time being and am now going off to look at Deadzone too 

[fred]

I got a game of KTv2 in a couple of weeks ago - which happened to be my first face to face game in 18mths or so!!

We played Harlequins vs Ork Kommandos. It was a good game, flows pretty well, lots of options, pretty brutal, I think I called all the Orks and was down to 3 figures myself.

My Harlequins with 3 activations and some really deadly melee and close range shooting seem pretty powerful. But the Orks had quite a lot of options going for them - and I suspect need more playing to understand all the options. The Harlequin list is simpler in comparison.

The symbol thing for distances is just irritating - movement distances are typically 3 white circles. There is no point to this, a circle is 2”, and there is a red pentagon which it 6”. Why not say movement is a red pentagon. The movement rules aren’t like SoBH, where the figures move along each measuring stick. In KT they can break up their movement into 1” increments. So there is no point to describing movement as 3 circles, it could either by 6 triangles or 1 hexagon. Or just 6”…

Lots of rules for cover and area affects are a triangle or a circle (1” or 2”) and its just harder work each time you read it to translate these into inches. All of this doesn’t have that much impact when playing, but it doesn’t make reading the rules and understanding them very easy at all.  And as it says above there is no link between sides of shapes and distances.

I found watching videos a good way to learn the game - my mate who started cold with the rule book found it really heavy going - and he normally picks up rules from books no problem. So watch some of the videos online to learn the core mechanics which are pretty straight forward, then use the rule book to check some of the details. Some of the language in the rules seems needlessly wordy and also uses far too many negatives - which makes it hard to parse.

But overall it is a good fun game - there seem to be lots of tactical choices to make - a force is pretty small, typically 10 models or so, so quick to build. If you already have 40k figures then the Compendium is great as it covers a huge number of factions with army lists. The two armies in the Octariaus book have more options and things available - but its not clear if this makes them competitively better, or just gives you different things to play with.

I’m keen to play again

[si2]

I'm loving the game. I really dug the concept of KT small team skirmish and invested in the older edition. However the game itself was pretty duff, roll a 4, roll another 4. One side moves, the other side moves. I played half a dozen games but enjoyed painting up teams.
The new version is so much better, it feels like a tactical skirmish with decisions to be made every activation. There are some quite clever targeting and coer rules that a few are having trouble getting to grips with but I think, in combination with the different order statuses, the new mechanisms deal with the abstract concept that your little figure is crouching in cover or actively trying to shoot/attack.
I was so excited to see a rule book and an army book. All aspects wrapped up in two volumes. But in typical GW fashion the special rules and extras have started. This does appear to be something the GW Fanbois love though. I wonder if us less expansive gamers might start a compendium specific competitive scene... it would make power gaming with the latest lists a thing of the past.
I've played loads of games and even went to Warhammer World for a tourney. It was fun.
One of the things that really indicates this edition is a much better game is the initiative roll. In KT18 no one wanted to win initiative, it was a reactive game. In KT21 every player wants the initiative.
Loving it!

[fred]

Some great looking forces there Si!