Lonkelo dives into Kill Team

“VOSTROYAAA!!” A warcry pierced the air as Timohin launched himself unto the Deathwatch Warrior and brought down his mighty two-handed power axe. The shimmering blade sunk deep into the neck of the superhuman, who dropped to the floor wordlessly.

Lihachov, now covered in the blood of both his comrade and the space marine, let himself fall backwards against the wall. Timohin put his foot on the astartes’ back and with some difficulty managed to pull out the axe. He held up the bloodied weapon and said “When hunting angels, bring a big fly swatter, eh Lihachov?”

Back in the main hallway, the Deathwatch unleashed their deadly counterattack. They recognised that the reason that these navy rats were able to advance so quickly was the sharp eye and quick wit of Surveyor Lazarev. A brutal volley of bolter rounds was fired by Brother Quellus, ripping the Void Shrike to shreds.

Brother Luniel wasn’t going to sit idle after he had seen his Brother Terratis hacked down by the Navy Axejack. He aimed his missile launcher and fired a shot that only an astartes could have pulled off: the missile narrowly missed the edge of the hallway and the edge the door, roaring straight towards its target. Lihachov saw the projectile slam into the side of Timohin, who still held up his axe. He was blinded by a flash and before he knew it he was thrown backwards, sliding along the cold walls, shrapnel ripping into his uniform.

Quellus, who had witnessed the shot fired by Luniel, berated his comrade: “To wreak vengeance upon ants is unbecoming of you, brother. Make sure to speak to the Chaplain after battle.”

Lihachov coughed in the smoke-filled hallway. Of Timohin, nothing remained. The boisterous idiot should have sought cover, he thought grimly. The ringing in his hears didn’t seem to become less. In fact, it seemed to become louder. He then noticed that it was the sound of a melta gun being fired up. Karataev had entered the scene and unleashed the molten beam through the smoke tendrils at the silhouette of Brother Demetrius behind them. As unfathomable temperatures reached the tall Storm Shield, the mixing energies seemed to throw off purplish lightning, that scorched the walls. Suddenly the light was gone and the smell of ozone filled the air.

The after image of the flashes had seared itself into Lihachovs vision, but he could see enough to recognise that Karataev had managed to burn a hole through the storm shield. His aim had been off, however, and whereas some of the armour on the astartes’ torso had been eaten away, it seemed that only the marine’s shieldarm had been wounded seriously. Demetrius’ sword arm was still fine, which he proved when he stepped over Lihachov and split Karataev in twain.

As Lihachov checked his shotgun, he hoped the others in the main hall were faring better on their end and that he and his comrades had bought them enough time. As the hulking space marine turned his attention to him, Lihachov wondered whether today was a good day to die.

The Deathwatch had now also reached the engine room and secured the objective on their end. Grenadier Alpatich knew extraction time was approaching fast, so now was time to swallow his fear and do what Void Shrikes do best. As his sergeant-in-arms came up next to him he asked: “Permission to do something stupid, sir!” Lovaisky sighed. “My dedushka always said: ‘the Emperor requires both heroes and fools in his court. Some to make him proud and others to make him laugh.’ Find out which one you are, Grenadier.” Alpatich smiled and rushed forward. As soon as the Deathwatch marines noticed his approach he had already taken out the demolition pack. The astartes raised their weapons just as he threw down the small package at their feet. He pressed the detonator and dove backwards. A flash lit up the room, temporarily illuminating all present, which was followed by a shockwave that carried him backwards. His landing was all but graceful and he slammed onto the floor multiple times before he slid to a halt.

Sergeant Lovaisky had braced himself and shielded his eyes just in time. He was as mad as a hatter, but Alpatich was the kind of soldier you were thankful for in your squad. He was about to promise to buy Alpatich good bottle of wodka when they got back, when the dissipating smoke revealed the two astartes still standing. Curse them. Just how tough are these beasts? It was clear however that they had indeed suffered from the explosion and especially the one with the plasma gun seemed to be close to kicking the bucket.

You can bring someone to death’s door, but sometimes they need you to hold it open for them and shove them through. Always the gentleman, he decided he should show the poor man the way and he pulled out his heirloom autopistol and fired it into the marine as he walked towards him. The bullets pierced the shredded remains of the power armour and the space marine sank to the ground. He turned to the second astartes when he heard Alpatich shout something. Before he knew it, life was burned out of him by scorching plasma fire.

Brother Numenis dropped to his knees. He could feel life slipping away from him. He tried to aim his plasma gun at the grenadier in front of him, but could not feel his arms anymore. Darkness came over him and brother Numenis was no more.

—–

And that is where it ends. The scenario was three rounds long, but we weren’t able to finish the last one because I had to catch a train. My friend suggested it was a draw since we had technically achieved the same number of victory points. I do wonder, however, whether his Deathwatch marines might have been able to contest one of my objectives before the end of the turn. I wouldn’t have made it easy, though!

Short game review

The game was fun and full of watercooler moments for us. The alternate activation meant that we were engaged in the battle and never found ourselves being bored, waiting for the moment to finally push our own minis accross the table.

This was our first game of Kill Team and that of course means that we had to look things up every now and then. The game is also quite granular and whereas this adds a lot of flavour, it can bog a game down because you have to look up even more. This meant that in between taking turns, most time was spent with our noses in the books and rosters we’d brought. We took about four hours to play almost three turns…

I think that you definitely get more accustomed to the core rules once you play the game more often. However, for people like me who cannot play games very often, we will have to re-learn the game to a degree every time we play it.

I wasn’t too sure about the tokens on the battlefield. Using the actual GW terrain with our own painted minis looked awesome, but then you have all these little counters signifying this or that strewn over the battlefield like confetti. Meh.

Let me end with a good point of the game, to turn this review into a compliment sandwich. Even if the rules were somewhat dense, they really got the feeling of the respective killteams down to a T. The Navy Breachers really felt like soldiers who were specialised in naval combat. The space marines were clearly big, mean and brutally perfect (ugh so boring!), but luckily not impossible to take down once you threw enough C4 on top of them.

All in all, I had a great time playing Kill Team.