Kill team battle

The Bob and I got together for another game, and while I do have the Bolt Action 2nd Ed rulebook, I have not had time to read it yet. We decided to give Kill Team a whirl since neither of us has ever played Warhammer 40,000 at this points level before.

After a quick review of the rules Bob threw together a Dark Angel Squad while I spent that time setting up the battlefield. I love the 4' X 4' battlefield as it really keeps the game centered on a focused area and since it's Kill Team, and neither of us had tanks, I tried to fill up the board with as many ruins and brush as a could. After Bob finished his list we took the time to select our Specialist abilities. I pulled my own Kill Team from it's containers, and set about distinguishing who exactly my Specialists were.

Chaos assembled. 

I chose my Khorne Berserker Aspiring Champion as my Leader. The other Aspiring Champ was my Combat Specialist who got the special rule Killer Instinct which gave him the ability to wound his foes on 2+. The Chaos Marine with the Melta Gun got the Eagle Eye special rule which gave his melta gun an 18" range. And the Berserker in mostly black armor was granted the Murderous Blow special rule, allowing him to re-roll wound rolls in close combat.

The Dark Angels arrive, ready to unleash some atonement. 

Bob's leader is the guy in the front of the pic above. I think he's a Vet Sgt. He rolled for the ability to have his LD extended up to 12" for break tests. The three Specialists are behind him: a marine in the old armor who got Soulblaze,  the missile launcher got Shrouded and the Plasma gunner got the ability to ignore cover (ouch!).

The field is set.

I set up first, and my strategy was to set up on my deployment zone line so I could close with him and the objectives as fast as possible. His set up was a tad bit more defensive.

Deployment!

After Bob missed stealing the initiative (by one -ulp!), I started the first turn. Mostly I just ran everyone up, but I did get an awesome shoot with my extended range melta-gun killing a guy. A guy who turned out to be the Dark Angel Team Leader!

Oh, a guy in range! I'll see if I can shoot him...

BANG!

First Blood and Slay the Warlord achieved in one glorious shot!

That was your leader? Oops!
But a good start to the game giving me 2 immediate Victory Points (First Blood and Slay the Leader).

The Dark Angels turn was an exercise in patience for Bob as his dice seemed to make a mockery of his shooting attempts. He did set a World Eater on fire with his Soulblaze marine but the flames extinguished by the end of the turn.

"Have some Soulblaze!"

Round 2 and I was feeling bold. I got my leader to close and get a charge on a Dark Angel that was crouching behind a crater. Despite the amount of dice I was allowed to roll I failed to kill the guy, however he got a hit on my leader in return and I failed the armor save. Bob racks up a Slay the Leader VP.

"Blood for the Bloo---urk!"

Note that we decided it would be fun to leave our dead behind on the table. With a game this size it sort of adds to the drama. I was using the flat blood-red marbles to represent pools of blood for a bit more of a dramatic effect.

Bullets rained back and forth, both of our men near the biggest crater were down, with my guy being baked in his armor by the Dark Angel plasma gunner.

End of turn 2.

Turn three, with more back-and-forth, I got one of my beserkers to close with the Dark Angel with the Soulblaze power and they were locked in a melee for a few close combat rounds.

Contested objective.

Bob's shrouded missile launcher on the roof of one of ruins had been trading shots with the Aspiring Champion and/or the accompanying Black Legion marine since the game started. Finally the Black Legion was able to get a killing shot on him and he went down.

Dark Angel missile launcher falls.

Eventually the Soulblaze DA dies to the Berserker and Chaos takes an objective. At this stage I was sitting on three of the objectives and now had Line Breaker so at this stage I had 6vps to Bob's 1vp.

Objective claimed.

Pressing on, the Chaos Champion slaughters another Dark Angel in Close Combat and sets his sights on a fresh target...

"You are next!"

With a sudden surge in fire-arms proficiency, both of Bob's Dark Angels on my right flank gunned down the two chaos guys in the opposite ruins. One is killed off of the objective and other, my extended range melta-gun user, is vaporized by the DA plasma gunner.

Taste the vengeance! 

Feeling cocky, the Berserker that had killed the soulblaze marine attacked the marine on the 2nd level of the ruins. It was a quick duel, ending with both men killing his opponent!

"I kill you!" "No, I kill you first!"

My last objective, one in the middle of the board which a Khorne Berserker had been holding for much of the game, was abandoned. The Berserker decided to charge the marine that had killed the chaos Kill Team Leader and who had been taking shots at him for most of the game. Just like the squad leader, it was suicide, as this Dark Angel gutted him like a fish! He then took the objective!

Objective secure!

This was the end of Turn 5, and we rolled for it and the game was over. I had 4 VPs (Slay the Leader, First Blood, Linebreaker and Break the Enemy) wheras Bob had 3 (1 Objective, Break the Enemy and Slay the Leader). I was winning, However Bob was in a position to get the upper hand and was outnumbering me with living models. Eff it, we were having too much fun to stop now!

Knowing he could easily take the insufferable Dark Angel that had just claimed the objective, the Aspiring Champion charged. But he was cut down by the Dark Angel marine's overwatch response!

Seriously, objective secure!

The Dark Angels on my right flank moved into the ruins and claimed the other objective. There were three Dark Angels left alive to my lone Black Legion marine. The game ended with a tie, 4VPs to 4VPs.

Game over

That was a close one, and it was very intense!

Being our first Kill Team game, we had many thoughts on how well it went. We really enjoyed it and both agreed that it was a lot fun! We liked that even with so few miniatures it was still a very intense game. The fact that every individual model was now behaving as a unit of one, put a lot of importance and emphasis on each one of them. In normal sized 40K games a single model is often little more than fodder, while here, that single model has the potential to truly shine. Take for example the regular, non-specialist, tactical marine of Bob's that had the dice gods blessing in this fight: he killed 2 Aspiring Champions (one in hand to hand, one with an overwatch shot) and Khorne Berserker in hand to hand as well. That guy absolutely got the MVP for this match!

We're already talking about playing another game soon, and I am already thinking about what my next kill team might be...