It has been a year since Kill Team 2021 ended my long hiatus from miniature related hobbies and got me painting and playing again. I’d love to introduce some more people to it.

Small but perfectly formed

Kill Team is an excellently sized game, and “size” is doing a lot of work in this sentence.

One box is all two players need

Everything you need to play can be found in a starter box for £65 RRP (although it would benefit from more terrain) or a bigger season starter box (Into The Dark goes up for preorder on Saturday when we’ll find out pricing). Games don’t grow any bigger. You can swap out terrain, Kill Teams, and scenarios but there’s no pressure (or possibility without house rules) to have bigger armies.

It doesn’t take up much space

The game plays on a 30″ by 22.4″ board. I can have some friends round and have two games running on my dining table while a third goes ahead on my coffee table. It’s great for the space constrained and people wanting to run mini-tournaments at home.

It is fast

Once you know what you are doing, a game takes about an hour. It’s easy to arrange an evening with time for dinner, a chat, a game of Kill Team, and still be in bed at a reasonable time to get up to go to work the next day.

It’s engaging

Each player activates a small number (usually just one) of models at a time. It gives a fast, fun back and forth where the decision about which figure should take their turn next really matters.

Terrain is essential

KT2021 emphasises terrain. Cover can grant bonuses to saves or make a model impossible to target. Height advantages can eliminate that bonus or grant an automatic hit. Terrain features can be given narrative elements such as smoke stacks that provide a cloud of obscuring darkness… until they are turned off. The battlefield feels alive.

The terrain in the big box releases is great too. Some of it is brand new sprues, others are re-releases, but it is varied, looks great, and is fun to paint.

It has real tactical depth

As with the current edition of Warhammer 40,000, to win the game you need to focus on objectives. The interaction with alternating activations means that careful prioritisation of targets is vital. Do you activate your injured Sergeant to claim Objective 3 and run into cover, or lead with your Sniper to try to eliminate the enemy Comms Boy before he can claim Objective 5?

An injection of fun

Kill Team has been the most fun I can remember having wargaming, it’s got me back in the hobby and painting more than I ever have before. Maybe you’ll enjoy it just as much.