Kill-team (Warhammer 40 000)

We played a rematch of the one game of Warhammer 40 000 Kill-team we played some eighteen months ago, using the same forces. There was a five-strong Chaos Marine kill-team “The Defilers”, lead by Khorne berzerker aspiring champion Typhus Grotto, versus my thirty-one Imperial Guard 64th “The Waywards” brutes, lead by junior officer Ghalain Starborn.

The last time I caught the Defilers in a cross-fire as they made their way to the tower where their target was awaiting evacuation. Failing their task, the leader Typhys Grotto made his escape, but was shot in the back.

This time my forces were divided and the Defilers took down squad after squad, eliminating my boss, Ghalain Starborn, before he could fire a shot (like the last time, damnit). I made a stand on the helipad holding the Defilers’ target, the wounded chaplain Marcus Purified and managed to stall the chaos forces. They broke through eventually (I had fallen three of them, though) and after a desparate close combat right around the chaplain, my forces fell. The remaining two squads made after the escaping chaos marines. The escaping chaos spawn rushed my squads and took them down, almost in one swipe of Typhus Grotto’s sword. I fell his last comrade in that final rush, so in the end it was one imperial guardsman versus the aspiring champion, and the outcome was inevitable.

I like the Warhammer 40 000 rules because they are so fast to play – when you’re not wondering about a specific facet of the rules, which we do quite a bit. In the small scale of Kill-team, some issues do crop up, like the inability to target three guys firing down on you, because they’re all remnants of separate units and you can only target a single unit. And how come I can’t just put a grenade over that obstacle, or down that wall? We house-ruled a bit to keep things moving, but there is an overall feeling that maybe the ruleset has been streamlined a little too far. I would like some bonus for holding higher ground, for instance. Of course this is not hard to house-rule as things come up during play, but I’d prefer my rules to function as they are written.

As always, getting to play with my miniatures lit a spark to finish more of the paintjobs, make more scenery, get more models, write fluff and so on. This is a good thing obviously, and now my biggest regret is how many sessions of gameplay I can get out of my current assets, including time.

Too bad we didn’t have a camera around this time. I think I need to focus a bit on photography, it’s easy to recall the previous match since we did photograph that pretty well.