Kill Team Launch Party

Kill Team Party!

Hello! This past Saturday my local gaming store, Hobbytown USA hosted a Kill Team launch party. It was a big launch for Hobbytown, probably the biggest I have seen at this location. They had plenty of Kill Team products in stock (which they sold a lot of!) And they had multiple tables set up for purposes of conducting demo games. And according to Matt, the man cordinating the event, they had quite a turn out for their first session. That session ran from late in the morning until 5pm, and the evening session ran from 6pm until 10pm.

The Kill Team event poster.

The event had some nifty give-aways: buttons (aka badges for my UK readers), a poster (for those who arrived early enough to snag one) and some really cool CP tracker dials. And pizza.

The Reaper's Mirth assembled before a dial.

I arrived at the 6pm session with 2 teams in tow, but I decided to run with the Harlequins since I never got to use them in the previous version of Kill Team. Matt gave me a super quick crash course on the rules, I threw together a team of 7 Troupers for 98 points, rolled up some quirks and background (fun but not game affecting), and I was ready to hit the table.

Racing towards the Skitarii.

Bob and Matt were already pretty familar with the rules at this point, so we decided to try the 4-way team battle. Bob had Dark Angels, Matt had Tyranid Genestealers, Jim and Chyanne had Skitarii and I had my Harlies.  One of the new (and refreshing!) changes to the game is the Iniative phase. All parties roll off each round to determine the turn order for that round. This added some variety to this game for sure and was especially refreshing in a 4 way match like this.

Genestealers pour into the Dark Angel wall of bullets.

I had a difficult time adjusting to how charging works now, but it was more an adjustment from decades of learned behavior than it was comprehension. This early mistakes caused some tactical blunders that surely cost some Harlequin lives, but my biggest foes were the dice were using. If I hit, I rarely wounded, but my armor save attempts were especially frustrating as I pretty much failed most of the ones I was asked to make. All well! LOL!

Look who  is charging who.

Multiple charges in the fight phase was an interesting thing to experience. In the pic above a Genestealer charged a Skitarii, the my Harlequin charged that Skitarii, then another Genestealer charged my Harlie. It was definitely a  crazy and swirling melee!

Slaughtered by Genestealers.

Once I got my Leader engaged with a foe, I finally got to expeience the joy of the Harlequins Kiss shredding a target to death. By the time this had occurred I was down to less than half of my force being alive. Most of the Harlequin had been shot to death by Bob's uncanny ability to roll 6s on Overwatch!

Harlequin Leader showing the clockwork guys how to dance! 

Ultimately this game shrank down to an area of a single building, the structure the Dark Angels were holding onto tightly! With a few marines left to defend the building from the invading xenos, the Dark Angels stood firmly in piles of dead clowns and shattered chitton.

This Harelquin and Dark Angel fought each other for 5 rounds! 

I had one Harelquin that charged one of the Dark Angels on the 2nd storey of the ruins way back on turn 2. That fight carried on until it finished on the ground level on turn 6. The Harelquin trouper finally surrendered to the beating it had been taking.

Finally it ended, with Bob hanging on steadfastly against my sole surviving Harelquin and Matt's remaining Genestealer.

The grand finale.

It was good, fast-paced fun and once we master the rules it should go even quicker for us. We hope to run a campaign at some point to as to experience the leveling system as well. I haven't gotten the book yet but I had really good look through it. I'm definitely looking forward to making some more Kill Teams as the diversity looks very appealing to me. Also, those numbered counters that come with the boxed game will be really handy in future 4 way games for keeping up with whose turn it is.

Alpha Legion vs. Dark Angels.

While we played our game there were other KT games taking place as well as a massive Chaos vs. Dark Angel 8th ed battle.  I think the Dark Angels won, but it appeared to have been an bloody good game!

This looks like a fun party, yes?