as someone who grew up in indy, the reason downtown feels so empty is because unlike most cities, we have plenty of parking and the city is very, very spread out. Indy didn't build tall, but wide. Downtown is small compared to all of the city, and in fact most of us don't go there ever while working in Indianapolis. It's mostly a place to go for expensive stuff and tourist traps. So, if you work there, you park at your work place and don't have to walk too far, or you're a tourist.
For clarification as a kill team player you can play cadians with 10 using the veteran guard team by bringing two airstrikes but they probably told you to play compendium guard which is 14 because vet guard is advertised as Krieg and GW are opposed to taking any kind of liberty with models
i thought vet guard could also take 10-14 also u play with less and you get artillery support or w/e instead of 4 more guys, but then again they said no combat points or anything else so... thats lame, otherwise the vetguard are pretty strong
What they should have done is run them as compendium Scions. They're the easiest & simplest way to play guard in Kill Team, and only 10 models needed. It's basically Vet guard with training wheels (in a good way)
We have a really solid Kill Team community in Chicago! Our core community is generally into it NOT as small-scale 40k but as a deep competitive game system that has a much smaller number of minis. I think every member of our community has at least two active teams and several folks have four or more. Our running joke is that KT is cheaper than 40k until you just start collecting every single faction because it's "just one more small army"
"Skirmish Game", to me, is just a function of scale, not game length or rules complexity. That's why I like Kill Team - I like the small scale of it, I can play KT on my kitchen table, it's a meaty enough system, and I like that the buy-in is relatively cheap for a GW game. A single Kill Team box is around $60, and even if you're taking full-fat 40k models and making a team out of them, it's still only around $120-$150 on average.
I'm SO glad you guys enjoyed Warcry as much as you did! As an Age of Sigmar player I've played my fair share of Warcry and in my process of collecting all sorts of the new and old Warbands, it's a great time. I'm not personally sure myself if it's the best GW game out there, but let me at least give you some anecdotal evidence as to why it *could* be the best. I have taught Warcry to most of my friends and family who enjoy tabletop games, even the ones who said the would NEVER try the army game of Age of Sigmar. All of them enjoyed it and said they'd want to play it again. As anecdotal as it is, I think it speaks volumes that even the most casual of my friends were able to pick up Warcry and have fun enough to want to try again.(in spite of my terrible terrain setups and overly-detailed teach) Although. . . Was there no tutorial event for Warhammer Underworlds? Because I'd have liked to get your thoughts on Underworlds. If not as a game then *definitely* the models. If you think the Warcry models are beautiful, then look at the Underworlds Warbands. Those are some of if not the *greatest* sculpts GW has ever made. Also. . . As someone who owns over 10,000 points of Stormcast, the shade thrown at 34:00 wounds me. Finally, there's just a 2 slight corrections I'd like to point out, because I'm a pedant. First, at 29:14 you mentioned that the Chaos Legionnaires weren't "Slaves to Darkness", which is technically true. They are aligned to Be'lakor and therefore are members of "Legion of the First Prince" more than the traditional Slaves to Darkness army. However, right now at least, Legion of the First Prince is a Subfaction in Slaves to Darkness. So the Legionnaires are still backfed/funneled into the main army of Slaves to Darkness, since Legion of the First Prince isn't its own army anymore.(because it used to be for a while) Secondly, at 33:52 GW *did* make a non-chaos Bespoke Warcry Warband before the recent waves of releases. That being the Khaineite Shadowstalkers were a Bespoke Warband that launched around 2020, and they were for the Daughters of Khaine army, which is NOT Chaos.(despite how Chaos-like they act in the lore)
same, when someone did an warcry introduction event, everyone enjoyed it and peeps that had the resources to get into it (cuz broke students) did get into it and over time. same when i started introducing friends to warcry all of them enjoyed it (even my gf found it okay :3) it also reminded me of killteam 1 all the friends i played with enjoyed it and wanted to play more
@Poorhammer I am actually a GW events team employee, the terminator (arnold) and the intercessor are actually life size, its just the base throws it off because they are then even taller, the obj markers are events only. The helmets also have a backstory for each marine and how that kmarine died during the heresey. The boarding actions was actually four dungeons for a dungeon crawler game that we made for GenCon, my boss actually broght the Idea up to Stu so that I can become a game to play at home, so stay tuned for that. Also each color was a different difficulty in that room, green=easy, yellow=medium,=red was hard and dark red was the boss rooms. The actions figures were 2009 space hulk . Both of those games were generic tickets for 2 dollars a piece. We do plan on using the crawler again for the NOVA and GenCon next year.
Due to the position limits you pretty much never need more than 16 models for a full BB team. You get the max amount of each position player and then enough linemen to hit 16 for the vast majority of teams that is more than enough.
It was nice hearing you talk about some other games for once. I personally tend to play a lot of skirmish stuff, for a variety of reasons. Not bloodbowl, sadly, since I don't own any models. But plenty of Warcry vs Kill Team. I don't know if I would call Warcry the best game GW ever made, but it is a pretty good candidate for the most fun. I tend to have a blast whenever I play it. Basically never leave a match feeling annoyed or disappointed. This is despite, or perhaps because of, how non competitive the game tends to be. Both insofar that the balance is kind of wack, but also that most of the games I've had tend to be pretty luck based. It probably helps that the games tend to be pretty short on average, so there isn't much of a investment. Which brings me to Kill Team. Honestly, I would probably argue this is the best game system GW ever made. At the very least I would say It's probably the game with the best balance between competitive and casual, with the added caveat that it is probably a bit too long. I personally don't mind games taking 3 hours on average, but I can see it being a pretty big dealbreaker for many. Especially now that Combat Patrol is a thing, which has way shorter games. Still really like the actual gameplay, to the point that I kind of wish some of the mechanics would make it into normal 40K.
Further clarification on the "1 box is not 1 kill team" issue: That is how it works out for the kits made for 40k. The specific boxes made for Kill Team are 1 team 1 box. For example: 10 cadians is not enough to play guardsman (guard index), but it is enough models to play your choice of vet guard (made for killteam), Kasrkin (made for killteam), or scions (guard index). Also, intercessors don't have a made for killteam box, they released their post index update as a digital pdf since everyone likely has a couple intercessors laying around somewhere. So your GW employee was shot in the foot at least twice more.
This video single handedly (or almost single handedly, since I saw some very good proxies for sale the other day) convinced me to try Bloodbowl, and probably Warcry as well.
As someone who got into main 40k through specifically the imperium/guard kill teams, it’s been one of the best ways to play a ton of different styles, for example the way I got into 40k was by buying a knight, 2 basilisks and an, HQ, boom super fluffy list with like 3-4 factions
all of those GW exclusives were sold at LVO this year too - they were most definitely made for 9th & we were told they "weren't to be sold anywhere else" looks like they lied! what a surprise! (the whole kill team thing & the oversized game were also at LVO)
for warcry chaos legionnaires (yes GW has legionaries and legionnaires) are also slaves to darkness, belakor is kinda a subfaction in it. also the other blood bowl type game is most likely guildball
I'm a bit confused by the statement that Kill Team requires multiple boxes. That might be the case for compendium teams, but all of the standalone Kill Teams can be ran with one box. If you're playing in a tournament it can be beneficial to pick up a second box for some teams, but it's not at all necessary for most people.
i think its fair to say Bloodbowl indirectly got me into 40k, years and years ago i saw a bunch of youtubers play the video game bloodbowl league and i thought it looked really fun so i picked it up and invested so many hours into it, i loved lizardmen, pro elves, and chaos dwarfs. so had a favourite runny team, passy team and bashy team
Kill Team is not a simple game, it's not a game that you can pick up quickly. However, once you get it down it feels so much more like a realistic version of 40k than the 10th Ed combat game. Marines actually feel like SPACE MARINES instead of cannon fodder. It's too bad you had a bad experience since it's such a good game. Blood Bowl on the other hand is a great pick up game, for the 10 players that play it
Please name the ramen place. I live near Indy and the best ramen place is definitely Ramen Ray, though there are a few others I like and want to know what you thought.
Doesn't Combat Patrol fulfill the "have a bunch of armies" need? Especially if what you're saying about needing two boxes to build a Kill Team costs as much as one Combat Patrol box.
Kill Team is fine but it has way too much shit going on imo I played the previous edition and I had a lot of problems with it, but the rules were simple and quick. The new ones have so many weird exceptions and defintions its insane. Plus the old version at least allowed you to use way more 40k models.
I'm all in for Kill Team to be a thing regardless of how well it accomplishes its goal of being 40K Lite just because it's seems to be the ONLY way for GW to give us some decently interesting infantry kits at the level of AoS. I'm not sure we would've ever seen things like updated Arbites or Navy guys at all otherwise.
@@adamtoth3611 Don't get me wrong, I like it and even prefer it over 40K too (I'm spaniard after all, we are the KINGS of KT). I just said it as an answer to Brad's opinion. Can't say how it compares to Boarding Patrol since GW gave us no time to even try the gamemode.
@@GuthanSlayer preferred it when it was 40k lite, with just specializations as upgrades to make certain models like player characters. I think it just wasn't fully implemented and left several factions with no good options. I would have preferred continuous development over the totally different game we have now.
As one of the 6 kill team fans, I'll have to hold on to my pipe bomb - we're only allowed one of each Equipment with the Indirect trait, so I've gotta be careful. But really, it's definitely not a game for everyone, and it does go much quicker once you understand the rules, but like you said, there are a lot more rules compared to other skirmish games. I'll always enjoy it, probably even more than 40k, and in a way BA definitely doesn't fulfill - if for no other reason than "I like alternative activations." Also, it lets me play eldar corsairs as their own force, which is rad as hell.
ill lend you my pipe bomb :D, also the spanish inqusition which are very into kill team in spain has begun to send a letter to their p.o box* But ya when he said it takes as long as 40k i was kinda suprised because most peopl;e say it takes about an hour per match or so
@@GuthanSlayer yeah I can get a 3 player kill team battle done in about and hour and a half at most. That's with full Strategic Ploys, Equipment, Tac Ops, ect. I was shocked when they said it takes as long as 40k I have never played a game of 40k under 2 and a half to 3hours.
Listening to this while I work on my second kill team. I don’t have time to play, but I have purchased about 7 kill teams so far and I’m working my way through them. What that guy said is pretty spot on. After one squad of space marines I’m excited to paint Necrons, and then I’ll paint some Corsairs. The variety helps a lot. I tried collecting armies in the past but the boredom of trying to build even 1000 points is too much for me. Since I don't have time to play anyway, so Kill Team is the easiest and most fun way to enjoy 40k at the moment.
I, too, found it was easier to paint through the backlog when I could bounce between multiple different armies. If I got bored of painting my Fallen, I could paint a squad of Drukhari. It's also handy to have multiple different skirmish bands on hand, in case you want to introduce someone new to the game. They don't need their own models, you can lend them one of yours. They can get hooked on playing the game, before the matter of building and painting models even comes into it. A lot harder to do that with a mass battle game.
Also, something that in my experience seems to be much more present in Kill Team than in 40K is customization. It's way easier to get invested in your squad of named guys instead of an army of swaths of nameless infantry where the only named characters are gonna be the one leading the army and maybe a couple more. With Kill Team it can be sonething like your very own Gaunt's Ghosts-esque squad.
Yeah I totally agree. I enjoy kitbashing and bringing different kits together because the scope is so much more limited... Maybe I'll move to the combat patrols one day? @@DominatorLegend
Yeah in the back of my head I'm thinking that I want to have like 7-8 different teams made, with Terrain, so if someone comes over for some games we can just grab stuff off the shelves and play. I have a toddler right now so I also hope building a collection means I'll have a chance to play with him when he gets older :D @@Bluecho4
I unfortunately couldn't find a Necromunda equivalent to the game tutorials we played for the others. I don't know if I failed to find it, or if it was filled up already, or if it wasn't being offered.
@@thepoorhammerpodcastNecromunda is pretty much the exact opposite of what you talk about wanting from a skirmish game. It is EXTREMELY heavy, moreso than 40k, and absolutely not a good game for convention tutorials. It’s not balanced in the slightest, which seems to be deliberate because it’s a narrative game, not a competitive one. It’s also written primarily for campaign play, so a pickup game with pre-made gangs wouldn’t give you a good picture of what the game is really like. For what it’s worth though, it’s a very fun game.
@@CanonessEllinor Huh, I always felt some curiosity towards Necromunda and for the longest time I thought it was the middle point between 40K and KT (and yes, I'm aware Necro predates KT by a lot). It sounds very interesting now, and I always found its minis to be gorgeous, might now try to jump into it.
As a long time Gencon goer, I totally get what you mean about it feeling like Consumer-Con....IF you're not doing a ton of events or meeting friends there to play stuff. Post-COVID especially, it's been tougher to get strangers to pull you into whatever they're doing, social skills have gotten worse. If you fill your schedule with events (you can sign up for demos, play D&D sessions, do tournaments) it usually is a lot better. If you're just wandering the dealer hall, it's not gonna be a good time for more than a day.
Kill team is definitely its own complex game that has comparable depth to 40k. I prefer KT because of the squad commitment you talked about. I've been scared to get back into painting minis for a long time, and between one squad, one team and speed / contrast paints, KT has gotten me excited to do projects again. I'm never bored of painting because my biggest commitment is 10 - 15 figures; I can experiment with techniques and materials really quickly and see what I like results wise. I've got a combat patrol box and I've been dreading assembling and painting the tank for it. A lot of people just pick up one box of bespoke KT releases for factions since they're 'stronger' mechanically than the compendium teams.
I like KT because it’s got enough crunch without demanding far more time and effort as full 40K, and with Compendium Teams you can have a very simplistic game. I like it more then Warcry and 40K, but Warcry is still just fun (even if I wish it had a bit more crunch) and I still occasionally play 40K (likely for the same reasons people play HH), but I keep going back to KT, even though I really hope it gets the same treatment as from 9th to 10th Maybe it’s because I first got into TT games with Battletech, but I completely disagree with the “skirmish should be simpler” opinion many have. Expect your pipe bomb in the next 6-8 weeks (or never with Evri)
Honestly I like battletech but it’s wayyyy too crunchy, it’s so crunchy you can’t really use all the fun extra mechanics and scenarios since the core rules take up so much space. Alpha strike is a little too simple though, the core rules are fine but the mechs, especially weaponry wise, don’t feel right. I also feel like the mechs go down a little too quick and I wish mechs had like, twice as much structure so they could last longer and spend more of their time being damaged but still moving along.
About the box of 10 Cadian's being a Kill Team. It can be. Veteran Guard Kill Team is base 10 Guys with whatever weapon loads. You then get ancillary support and you can choose to take 4 base troopers which most people say is the best option or 2 of a list of 4 extra abilities like being able to call in an Air Strike.
I'm so glad you guys enjoyed Blood bowl! In my personal experience of playing GW games, it has the friendliest community because the tone of the game is relaxed. Official GW models range from terrible to beautiful. However, they are guilty of requiring multiple boxes I would suggest 3D printing.
having your best player fail their 2+ GFI to score the winning touchdown, fail their armour roll, then roll to just fuckin die, and that's completely normal kinda takes the toxicity out of the game i feel
The decision to run the kill team games with one box is insane, man! What were they thinking? There is like 3 teams that are even fully playable that way! And it is true that not managing cp and faction secondaries is playing half the game! I guess KT is not a game to try at a con, its way too layered (which I like but I understand people that don't)
Surprised you didn’t try Underworlds, it’s light and fast with gorgeous models and I think it’d be right up your alley. Also, the current Blood Bowl Lizardmen team is gorgeous. They and the Underworlds crew had the first good-looking Saurus models ever.
Star wars legion is the 28mm scale game but that terrain was for AMG's newest gamer Shatterpoint which is a bit bigger in scale. The sculpts are amazing and both games are for sure cheaper than gw. most of that terrain comes in the core set box with some added from sets they sell at i think a bit more than $50. shatterpoint uses 2 squads per army and each is about 50 as well
Personally i havent gotten into shatterpoint yet, I would reccomend legion as they sell boxes that bring a full list at the 500 pt level but it goes up to 800 pt, inexpensive to get in and alternating activations is something i wish they would add to 40k
found them a couple weeks ago, been binging their stuff ever since. Mostly interested in the lore discussions but I've learned a bunch of stuff about the tabletop too from their content.
I kind of agree with the 2nd argument for Kill Team you brought up. There's been rumors for months about a Striking Scorpions/Space Marine Scouts box to refresh both kits. The Striking Scorpions are literally the only Craftworld Eldar unit that I actually want to own. That box would be my jump into Kill Team.
Regarding gencon being consumer-con: that was much more pronounced post covid. Pre-covid the demo game area was much bigger and I felt the number of people there to meet and play with strangers was higher.
Having been going to GenCon for 7 years now, completely agree. You *can* still find people who are just there to hang out and play games (I had a LOVELY experience doing a demo of Kill Team at the GW booth for instance) but it's harder now, people aren't as willing to just open up and invite you in.
Attempts were made. Hotel lobbies had a lot people setting up games and willing to hangout. I also saw way more small or indie events than my lgs could ever organize. I think there was a lot of pressure on the companies and organizers to make the con worth it. Selling booths for vendors to sell products funds the rest of the con. I hope they achieved the goal and we can ease back into what it was.
Absolutely agree, these are all companies that got hammered by the pandemic, they have to make it worth their while. This is the first GenCon that felt all the way back post-pandemic in terms of scale, but it's still getting there again in terms of vibe
If you do come back to check things out, stop by Good Games Indy. We're a few streets down from the convention center and we typically host different events throughout the week of Gen Con. If nothing else, I'm making sure we have smoked brisket next year.
Blood bowl is great. A bunch of places make the dice as well for it. Also they don't pretend Blood bowl will ever be balanced and there are just teams that are worse/harder to play. The latest edition telling you what "tier" a team is, is honestly pretty accurate but thats more on the "how easy is it to play this team"
I absolutely love blood bowl, it’s such a great game and 100% recommend getting into it. It’s nice because they have limits on units so you can actually buy a full team with like 1 box and some 3D prints. Plus since blood bowl uses a grid the models don’t matter, so that and the fact GW abandoned the game for like a decade means the community loves 3D prints and allow them at all official events that aren’t held by GW and they don’t have a stranglehold on the tournament community
Yes, exactly! Blood Bowl is in a unique situation right now for a modern GW game. It has ongoing official support, with new models and updates coming frequently, and yet at the same time, there's a thriving 3rd party community of high quality physical and 3d printed models that you can expect to be supported at at pretty much any event.
I played KT for the first time in over a year, and I remember why I stopped. I like a lot of it in theory, but it pisses me off in actuality. One Page Rules GF: Firefight (with a bit of homebrew rules to taste) is much more fun.
Brad, im gonna go ahead and be that guy and say You really did not play kill team. Thats a really really bad way to experience kill team for the first time, not getting to pick a team you like aesthetically and in play style ruins half the fun and as if that wasn't enough you where given 2/3rds of a compendium team which in in itself is a bit bland and to top it all of you didnt get to experience most of what makes the game interesting being correct ploy usage WHILE having to struggle with some random poor dude next to you and an overly busy employee just to comprehend the basic rules. Furthermore the cadian team is just men with simple lasguns and your brother got plain space marines with chainswords its the equivalent of just taking the 40k 10 termagaunts vs 5 intercessors box with no extra rules
God hearing Brad talk about downtown kills me. Detroit is such a crazy city. Casinos stacked ontop of greek resturants, and homeless people lol. When Yomicon comes around, I always remember how absolutely SLAMMED it gets downtown.
Confused about the criticism of the Blood Bowl minis. The miniatures are very high quality. Most of the newer teams are plastic kits that are on par with the newer stuff for 40k and AoS. The Lizardmen team was actually updated in 2019. Maybe some of the confusion stems from the fact that the High Elf team still has not been updated, and was only ever released in metal? If you weren't playing with metal models, they were either a third-party High Elf team, or you were actually playing with the Elven Union team--very high-quality plastics released in 2017.
Commenting for Algorithm, but a kinda funny thing about GenCon. I was there at the GW Kitbash/painting assembly area you mentioned. I went despite not playing 40k for years and painting and assembling at that table hooked me again and got me back into the hobby. Which also means I started obsessing over the hobby, so I sort of owe GenCon to finding Poorhammer and consuming all the video content in like a week since.
It sucks you didn't try Underworlds. It’s more a board game then a skirmish game though. It’s also the only game GW has the stated intent to be competitive. Even if you wouldn’t enjoy the game, I know you'd fall in love with the azing Tzeentch models in the current Underworlds box set. Tzeentch is my favorite, and I adore what we have in AoS, but I'd be head over heels if all of Tzeentch's models looked like those.
I run a local game club when I have a variety of players from 7 years-old to over 50 year old veterans remebering the first editions of wfb and wh40k. I like to introduce new players first to the Warcry(1st edition) - it was super simple, affordable and the minis are awesome. Right now my intro game of chioce is the Argatoria, which is growing in club eating other games quite fast. Right know we support Argatoria, Kill Team - but it is hard to learn due to this crazy cover system, wh40k 4th edition and wh40k 10th edition. The last one seems to be actually a good one for the newbies - to my suprise it is easier than the Kill Team.
Honestly I get why you didn't like KT that much, I mean, you played with half the game removed, very static teams and one of them was incomplete, like wtf. Although yeah, if you wanna teach someone the basics, removing scouting, equipment and tac ops is a good way to go imo (i dont leave out ploys, I state "you wanna use them, go ahead they work like _explanation here_ I won't use them unless you activate one") Btw "one box one army" imagine being the dude that opened GSC, a GSC full roster is built by getting 1 box and like 6 different characters, whomever opened that shit didn't even get access to abilities so the only thing they did that game was move and shoot and nothing else 💀
the cool part of that carboard folding and building towers is that it's a charity event... on Sunday people throw coins to knock stuff down then those coins go to a charity!
Blood Bowl is a heck of a game, it's far better to play competitively than 40K since there's a lot less ambiguity in the rules. It's great to play over a league. As a Magic player, I find playing my team similar to learning and upgrading a deck.
dragoncon is your worst con experience? what happened? dragoncon is constantly praised as one of the best cons for cosplay, partying, gaming, etc. everyone has different experiences though, so curious on your take on it!
For the record, my wife does not share my DragonCon hot take, I replied to another commenter with my general downsides. It's an EXTREMELY well run convention. I just had zero fun and was very stressed.
Brad and Eric -- I loved loved loved your finance/budget related warhammer videos. It really amplified the 'Poorhammer' name. Any plans to do more of that kind of content?
Well shit man, Ive lived in Michigan my whole life and never been to this johnny noodle king place. I think thats one thing for sure mentioned in this video I’ll try myself.
I haven't played blood bowl, but I have played blitz bowl which is basically a smaller version of blood bowl but as a boardgame and it was pretty fun. I don't know if they're still making them cause I got a used copy from half priced books, but if you haven't played bloodbowl and want a cheaper way to learn how to play you might want to check it out
I hope the virtual blood bowl series eventually settles on a business model that isn't a massive rip-off compared to the first title and is able to pull in players again. Love blood bowl but its too niche to play irl and its much easier to organise seasons and tournament play online. Unfortunately the playerbase is split between the oldest and newest game and it's not a very big community to begin with
Blood bowl is one of those games. You have to preach to get a proper League League going. When I moved to my local area there was no blood bowl anywhere it took a few months but I convinced 12 players from 40k/AoS to give it ago. I would suggest starting with a super 7s resurrection league that way no one keeps track of SPP and injuries.
I think part of why Warcry was much more streamlined, versus Kill Team being deeply involved, probably has a lot to do with the existing audiences for their parent mass battle games. Age of Sigmar shed large portions of the Warhammer Fantasy playerbase back when it started. (Loads of people, justly and unjustly, quit the game in a rage and have avoided it ever since). Whereas 40K has retained a great deal of its old fans. Including tons of hardline, dedicated players who demand deep and complex mechanics. Something they can really sink their teeth into. Indeed, 40K players were in some ways a self-selecting control group. If you couldn't deal with how intricate 40K was during the heights of its complexity (7th and 9th, for example), you probably didn't. Instead electing to either play more casual editions, switch to AoS, or go to other non-GW games entirely (like One Page Rules). There's a good chance if you kept playing 40K during those times, it's because you enjoy complexity. And, while the skirmish titles are often touted as gateway drugs for the mass battle games, in truth the core of Kill Team's playerbase are existing 40K players. The kinds of folks who already have models they can run, or will gladly put down tons of money for Kriegsmen, Arbites, Kroot, or Imperial Navy guys. The game was designed for these folks first and foremost. By contrast, Warcry had its own weird priorities to start with. And the central AoS playerbase skews more casual in general. Or at least more in the direction of being less fixated on hyper complex rules.
I feel like adding some more to the whole Kill Team discussion is like pissing in the ocean at this point but I want you to have the engagement, and potentially I'm bringing another point or two. I don't come from a wargaming background. I fell into the rabbit hole that is 40k by playing Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade PnP RPG and I am still mainly a PnP RPG player. Kill Team is smaller and the units can more feasibly be individualized - which is how I learned that I just love converting and kitbashing. I also couldn't give a rat's ass about vehicles (and when I started, Boarding Action was not a thing yet). In my mind Kill Team speaks to a wholly different market, but neither GW nor the market knows that yet What I have to disagree strongly with is that light and heavy cover in Kill Team is just bloat. That is actually a core mechanic. There is however bloat around it and that makes it hard to understand immediately how line of sight works and you definitely have to keep a lot in mind - not exactly a flawless learning curve
I’m glad I watched this. Was honestly thinking of getting into Killteam first since it’d be cheaper and easier to explore factions, among other things. I can’t even begin to imagine buying a KT box for the faction you want and it not be playable, that’s crazy to me. Gotta ask, after reading into boarding action is it axed? Or is there actually a chance of it coming back?
There isn’t Cosplay because Gencon is ancient and the draw is gaming. I played Shatterpoint all day Friday and while is HAVE a screen accurate x-wing pilot costume, I tend not to game in it.
Brad's outlook on Skirmish games is interesting. Kill Team is XCOM in a Warhammer setting, plain and simple. It got rid of IGOUGO, point based list building, and squads. The new Kill Team is indeed not trying to be Warhammer 40.000, let alone Warhammer 40.000 Lite. It's a game which allows you to access a game with a decent amount of depth and complexity without having to pay for and move around 50 models, and there's a target audience for exactly that. Plus, if I wanted 40k in quick and simple, I'd play OPR, I think.
The Cadians you got are actually a different team than the one that has 14 models (krieg) so if you used the krieg rules yeah you got screwed. Also, while I agree with you on some aspects of kill team like it not being a starting point for people getting into 40k, the terrible shape measurements, and I imagine it was largely line of sight rules that you had issues with. However, I’ve found it to be the most tactically interesting and competitively viable game that GW makes and it has been my favorite GW game since its second edition. Once you know the rules well it also doesn’t take as long as 40k and is a good way for people to be able to play a great game with really cool models without breaking the bank and being locked into 1-2 armies.
Blood Bowl is a really fun game, and the community is very very chill. It is even more unbalanced then "regular" wargames, so nobody takes it super seriously. Also, you have to start with 11 guys minimum, not 12, and most teams do better with a starting roster of 11, allowing you to buy more extra stuff like rerolls. (exception to this is teams with very cheap lineman (basic dude) which are also fragile, so your strategy involves losing some) You can get in a position, where you have less then 11 players, so you can't field a team. (as players can die, or be dismissed) In this case, you'd get free "hired lineman" for just that game, but they have the Loner negative trait (rerolls don't always work on them) and can't gain XP. A 30 model roster is pushing it, I think you can get away with much less. Most teams can be built from 1-2 boxes of 11-12 models, plus one or two big guys, and then you have literally every single option. Dwarves are famously good, you get all positionals in a single box, which is the "meta" roster to start with. You may want extra lineman models, if you care about having them actually on the bench, instead of swapping them in somehow, and a Deathroller, but both of those only happen down the line in league play. (you have to play multiple matches to get the funds to buy them as per the official rules. You could just play higher value single matches as well ofc) Also, if you play any of the teams that use Treeman, you are obligated to get a 3rd party one, cause those official models are hideous.
The thing I don't get is why they gave you regular 40k boxes to build Kill Teams out of instead of, I don't know, the dedicated Kill Team boxes the game is built and balanced around now? And the other problem is if you want a deep, involved, maximum clunky rules takes-as-long-as-a-40k-game skirmish game, Necromunda has been right there since 2018! And the weird imbalances and crazy rules just add to the experience because you're not all meant to be special operations elites, you're a bunch of crazy hobos in bum fights.
The lower mini, lower painting effort really is the kill team argument. It's not just the shelves of models, but the amount of hobbying required to get them to look good. A T'au army is a single box of pathfinders with a bonus sprue. 5 assault intercessors, and a regular intercessor? Done with marines! You can also get a different box for phobos!. paint 15 units tops, and spend $40. Compare that to, say, trying to get into combat patrol, and you have to paint your six million tzaangors. But absolutely, per-model, 40k is a much simper game. As for Rogue Trader, I wonder whether BG3 will help or hinder: In most years we don't have many traditional, decent value CRPGs... and they decide to launch a 40k game right before a competitor is so good, it breaks player count records on Steam.
As a long time Blood Bowl player, that segment amused me. Skaven are one of the strongest 'Scoring' Reams. High Elves are terrible as they don't do anything well other then be Expensive and have the highest armor for a high agility team. Haven't read the most recent version, but minimum was 11 for Team, with max of 16. That's why there was always a D16 for Kick off events that need to hit a random player, and end of game MVP point for long running leagues. Most Teams got a redo of models the last 4-5 years. Try playing for 15+ years with models from Mid/late 90s instead. I made most of mine kit-bashing Warhammer kits.
Simplistic side-games like Warcry are kind of an anomaly for Games Workshop historically. The skirmish-sized games tended more toward light roleplay-esque simulation, party building and prolonged campaign book-keeping. Kill Team is not so strange in that context, where the game experience is not to be Big-Army-Game-Lite, but a game where each individual model can be given character and have stories and history of their own. The most Warcry-like specialist game in terms of quick and simple to get into was probably Mordheim, which was only comparatively light compared to its 40k counterpart Necromunda, of which the simplified(!) modern version has enough hardback books of rules to sink a small yacht.
Kill Team does fail in its stated objective of being a skirmish game, or 40k Lite. However, if viewed as a tactical game, like Combat Commander, it is arguably quite successful. I can't justify some of the clunky rules, but once you move past that, you've got a great game that is much cheaper than 40k (the two Cadian box example is a little disingenuous, as bespoke teams generally only cost $60, and I'd say the game has more legs than strictly playing Combat Patrol.)
I like Brad's thoughts on Kill Team, but I disagree with some of his points. It's the main game in our tabletop group, so I'll sum up with some bullet points. Negatives: -Brad is correct and it is confusing that most boxes with the Kill Team label are a full team. Except when they sometimes have you choose between options, which means buying extra models or magnetizing the minis. -The Line of Sight rules are probably some of the worst ones out there. Despite it being our main game, it causes the most arguments and excess measurements. -Kill Team isn't and should not be sold as 40K lite, because it isn't. But, your Kill Teams can be used in regular 40K with different rules. Pros: +The low model count means it's easier to get into and paint than combat patrol and a cheaper entry to a faction/playstyle you end up not liking. +If you like herohammer, I think Kill Team really emphasizes the importance of individual units. +Much like 40K, the rules are deep which allow for complicated plays and chains of actions and that's great if you want a skirmish game with that kind of depth. Love your show and I'm personally trying to get into Warcry for a type of game with a less competitive edge. And those sweet, sweet models of course.
Hi folks, not sure where or how to submit a question but here we go! I am a new 40k person and I bought the leviathan box set. I would like to used the space marines in the box to start a Salamander army. Using the Leviathan Space Marines what should I buy next with the ultimate goal of making a 2k point Salamander themed Space Marine army? Also I am sorry I am asking about Space Marines but I like the Salamander lore =) This isn't Brad torture I swear. To make up for it I am assembling my Ork Combat Patrol atm. Thanks guys and I am loving the podcast!
I was kind of hoping you had a chance to try Necromunda, but it kind of loses some of the hook when it's not in a campaign that has XP, advancement, lasting injuries, acquiring new equipment at the shops, hiring on new members, and the permadeath chance. Think a good mix of 40k and a tabletop RPG, with really crunchy rules. and yeah silly bloodbowl dice who the hell needs a d16.
Haven't been to GenCon in about 5-6 years now (was last there for their 50th anniversary, so whenever that was), but I did go for 8 years in a row during my prime. Credentials established, therefore, I don't know what must have changed for there not to be cosplayers abundantly there. Every year I went, it was not hard to find them, and I frequently bumped into them just in passing on the main floor, plus the ring of hallways always had people posing and playing it up for the cameras. Was there even a Cosplay Parade on Saturday? I haven't been to a GenCon where the parade wasn't multiple city blocks long.
Also the issue with Kill Team compositions also pisses me off. Extremely so. I enjoy Kill Team. I have fun with it. But the fact that they sell you a box of minis specifically for Kill Team and then they don't ACTUALLY CONTAIN all the minis you'd need to properly fill it out infuriates me. For example, the Imperial Navy Breachers let you take 2 Gunners. You ALWAYS want to take 2. Only 1 comes in a box. So you have to kitbash one of the regular soldiers into an extra Gunner. So now you're down to a single regular soldier and have to buy an extra one if you want to take advantage of their ability to move in pairs. It's absolutely farking ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure (and don't quote me on this) that old Kill Team was that you picked out your models from the proper codex, but instead of taking a full unit, you just take an individual dude. So like, I go through the Space Marine Codex, I pick out an Intercessor, a Devastator, maybe an Assault Marine, etc. etc. Now it seems like they just have these pre-baked lists that you can kinda vaguely customize? But I thought the appeal of playing Kill Team was getting to go through a whole range and pick the exact models you wanted on your team ("Your Guys"), and now it just feels like if the codex of a 40K army came with literally the list of units that would be in your army.
as someone who grew up in indy, the reason downtown feels so empty is because unlike most cities, we have plenty of parking and the city is very, very spread out. Indy didn't build tall, but wide. Downtown is small compared to all of the city, and in fact most of us don't go there ever while working in Indianapolis. It's mostly a place to go for expensive stuff and tourist traps. So, if you work there, you park at your work place and don't have to walk too far, or you're a tourist.
For clarification as a kill team player you can play cadians with 10 using the veteran guard team by bringing two airstrikes but they probably told you to play compendium guard which is 14 because vet guard is advertised as Krieg and GW are opposed to taking any kind of liberty with models
Exactly what the GW guy told me. He was a champ, I really appreciated him being honest and real with us and not PR-y.
i thought vet guard could also take 10-14 also u play with less and you get artillery support or w/e instead of 4 more guys, but then again they said no combat points or anything else so... thats lame, otherwise the vetguard are pretty strong
What they should have done is run them as compendium Scions. They're the easiest & simplest way to play guard in Kill Team, and only 10 models needed.
It's basically Vet guard with training wheels (in a good way)
We have a really solid Kill Team community in Chicago! Our core community is generally into it NOT as small-scale 40k but as a deep competitive game system that has a much smaller number of minis. I think every member of our community has at least two active teams and several folks have four or more. Our running joke is that KT is cheaper than 40k until you just start collecting every single faction because it's "just one more small army"
"Skirmish Game", to me, is just a function of scale, not game length or rules complexity. That's why I like Kill Team - I like the small scale of it, I can play KT on my kitchen table, it's a meaty enough system, and I like that the buy-in is relatively cheap for a GW game. A single Kill Team box is around $60, and even if you're taking full-fat 40k models and making a team out of them, it's still only around $120-$150 on average.
Literally why I got started with kill team
I'm SO glad you guys enjoyed Warcry as much as you did! As an Age of Sigmar player I've played my fair share of Warcry and in my process of collecting all sorts of the new and old Warbands, it's a great time. I'm not personally sure myself if it's the best GW game out there, but let me at least give you some anecdotal evidence as to why it *could* be the best. I have taught Warcry to most of my friends and family who enjoy tabletop games, even the ones who said the would NEVER try the army game of Age of Sigmar. All of them enjoyed it and said they'd want to play it again. As anecdotal as it is, I think it speaks volumes that even the most casual of my friends were able to pick up Warcry and have fun enough to want to try again.(in spite of my terrible terrain setups and overly-detailed teach)
Although. . . Was there no tutorial event for Warhammer Underworlds? Because I'd have liked to get your thoughts on Underworlds. If not as a game then *definitely* the models. If you think the Warcry models are beautiful, then look at the Underworlds Warbands. Those are some of if not the *greatest* sculpts GW has ever made.
Also. . . As someone who owns over 10,000 points of Stormcast, the shade thrown at 34:00 wounds me.
Finally, there's just a 2 slight corrections I'd like to point out, because I'm a pedant. First, at 29:14 you mentioned that the Chaos Legionnaires weren't "Slaves to Darkness", which is technically true. They are aligned to Be'lakor and therefore are members of "Legion of the First Prince" more than the traditional Slaves to Darkness army. However, right now at least, Legion of the First Prince is a Subfaction in Slaves to Darkness. So the Legionnaires are still backfed/funneled into the main army of Slaves to Darkness, since Legion of the First Prince isn't its own army anymore.(because it used to be for a while)
Secondly, at 33:52 GW *did* make a non-chaos Bespoke Warcry Warband before the recent waves of releases. That being the Khaineite Shadowstalkers were a Bespoke Warband that launched around 2020, and they were for the Daughters of Khaine army, which is NOT Chaos.(despite how Chaos-like they act in the lore)
Yeah the underworld stuff is top notch but the game is great too more “tabletop game” then a war game which is great for some peeps (me included)
same, when someone did an warcry introduction event, everyone enjoyed it and peeps that had the resources to get into it (cuz broke students) did get into it and over time. same when i started introducing friends to warcry all of them enjoyed it (even my gf found it okay :3) it also reminded me of killteam 1 all the friends i played with enjoyed it and wanted to play more
@Poorhammer I am actually a GW events team employee, the terminator (arnold) and the intercessor are actually life size, its just the base throws it off because they are then even taller, the obj markers are events only. The helmets also have a backstory for each marine and how that kmarine died during the heresey. The boarding actions was actually four dungeons for a dungeon crawler game that we made for GenCon, my boss actually broght the Idea up to Stu so that I can become a game to play at home, so stay tuned for that. Also each color was a different difficulty in that room, green=easy, yellow=medium,=red was hard and dark red was the boss rooms. The actions figures were 2009 space hulk . Both of those games were generic tickets for 2 dollars a piece. We do plan on using the crawler again for the NOVA and GenCon next year.
Due to the position limits you pretty much never need more than 16 models for a full BB team. You get the max amount of each position player and then enough linemen to hit 16 for the vast majority of teams that is more than enough.
It was nice hearing you talk about some other games for once. I personally tend to play a lot of skirmish stuff, for a variety of reasons. Not bloodbowl, sadly, since I don't own any models. But plenty of Warcry vs Kill Team.
I don't know if I would call Warcry the best game GW ever made, but it is a pretty good candidate for the most fun. I tend to have a blast whenever I play it. Basically never leave a match feeling annoyed or disappointed. This is despite, or perhaps because of, how non competitive the game tends to be. Both insofar that the balance is kind of wack, but also that most of the games I've had tend to be pretty luck based. It probably helps that the games tend to be pretty short on average, so there isn't much of a investment.
Which brings me to Kill Team. Honestly, I would probably argue this is the best game system GW ever made. At the very least I would say It's probably the game with the best balance between competitive and casual, with the added caveat that it is probably a bit too long. I personally don't mind games taking 3 hours on average, but I can see it being a pretty big dealbreaker for many. Especially now that Combat Patrol is a thing, which has way shorter games. Still really like the actual gameplay, to the point that I kind of wish some of the mechanics would make it into normal 40K.
Further clarification on the "1 box is not 1 kill team" issue: That is how it works out for the kits made for 40k. The specific boxes made for Kill Team are 1 team 1 box. For example: 10 cadians is not enough to play guardsman (guard index), but it is enough models to play your choice of vet guard (made for killteam), Kasrkin (made for killteam), or scions (guard index). Also, intercessors don't have a made for killteam box, they released their post index update as a digital pdf since everyone likely has a couple intercessors laying around somewhere. So your GW employee was shot in the foot at least twice more.
This video single handedly (or almost single handedly, since I saw some very good proxies for sale the other day) convinced me to try Bloodbowl, and probably Warcry as well.
As someone who got into main 40k through specifically the imperium/guard kill teams, it’s been one of the best ways to play a ton of different styles, for example the way I got into 40k was by buying a knight, 2 basilisks and an, HQ, boom super fluffy list with like 3-4 factions
Huh? Could you please elaborate?
Did they not have Warhammer Underworlds? It is a fun system.
"Detroit is full of crackheads" just casually dropping that in like its just another Tuesday lol
all of those GW exclusives were sold at LVO this year too - they were most definitely made for 9th & we were told they "weren't to be sold anywhere else"
looks like they lied! what a surprise!
(the whole kill team thing & the oversized game were also at LVO)
for warcry chaos legionnaires (yes GW has legionaries and legionnaires) are also slaves to darkness, belakor is kinda a subfaction in it. also the other blood bowl type game is most likely guildball
20:24
Those are the best! I highly recommend literally any NON candy themed flavor though.
I like that my biggest take away is that Johnny Noodle King is fire. My favorite place to go when im in town
GWs objective markers were $55 a pack.
As someone who lives in indianapolis, its useually busy during the weekdays, since downtown is usually used for business.😊 hope you enjoyed the city.
I'm a bit confused by the statement that Kill Team requires multiple boxes. That might be the case for compendium teams, but all of the standalone Kill Teams can be ran with one box. If you're playing in a tournament it can be beneficial to pick up a second box for some teams, but it's not at all necessary for most people.
i think its fair to say Bloodbowl indirectly got me into 40k, years and years ago i saw a bunch of youtubers play the video game bloodbowl league and i thought it looked really fun so i picked it up and invested so many hours into it, i loved lizardmen, pro elves, and chaos dwarfs. so had a favourite runny team, passy team and bashy team
The opening is a perfect description of Indianapolis.
Poor Nicky not getting a shoutout 😂 53:13
So as someone who lives in Indianapolis. The reason downtown was empty is because there's basically no residential buildings down there.
Thank you for another great episode of your podcast!
I love how the intro is just "foreign music" in Closed caption
Yay 1hr 8min of happiness for me!
"Was Vallejo there? The John Vallejo?"
The sour watermelon warheads Ghost is really good.
Ha, I’m in south east Michigan too! What’s your local store?
53:13 poor Nicky 😭😭😭
Kill Team is not a simple game, it's not a game that you can pick up quickly. However, once you get it down it feels so much more like a realistic version of 40k than the 10th Ed combat game. Marines actually feel like SPACE MARINES instead of cannon fodder. It's too bad you had a bad experience since it's such a good game. Blood Bowl on the other hand is a great pick up game, for the 10 players that play it
Please name the ramen place. I live near Indy and the best ramen place is definitely Ramen Ray, though there are a few others I like and want to know what you thought.
Doesn't Combat Patrol fulfill the "have a bunch of armies" need? Especially if what you're saying about needing two boxes to build a Kill Team costs as much as one Combat Patrol box.
The fact you can't appreciate the old models in addition to the new models is sad. Some of those old lizards have a ton of charm.
I heard Dragoncon slander. And I wonder why you hate it. I always have a blast!
What happened to boarding action. It seemed like fun.
I saw this and was like, HOW DO THEY DO IT, then I realised they need to probably get help
Kill Team is fine but it has way too much shit going on imo
I played the previous edition and I had a lot of problems with it, but the rules were simple and quick. The new ones have so many weird exceptions and defintions its insane.
Plus the old version at least allowed you to use way more 40k models.
So make Killteam use Warcry rules.
Ah yes the 1 hours “speed run”
I'm all in for Kill Team to be a thing regardless of how well it accomplishes its goal of being 40K Lite just because it's seems to be the ONLY way for GW to give us some decently interesting infantry kits at the level of AoS.
I'm not sure we would've ever seen things like updated Arbites or Navy guys at all otherwise.
Killteam is fun, I like it. Combat patrols is also fun. I don't have time for a 6 hour 40k game
@@adamtoth3611 Don't get me wrong, I like it and even prefer it over 40K too (I'm spaniard after all, we are the KINGS of KT). I just said it as an answer to Brad's opinion.
Can't say how it compares to Boarding Patrol since GW gave us no time to even try the gamemode.
kill team was 40k lite, now its honestly its their own game with different rules
@@GuthanSlayer yeah, my thought too. They tried it as lite but it didn't work out so they had a full makeover for a standalone skirmisher
@@GuthanSlayer preferred it when it was 40k lite, with just specializations as upgrades to make certain models like player characters. I think it just wasn't fully implemented and left several factions with no good options. I would have preferred continuous development over the totally different game we have now.
As one of the 6 kill team fans, I'll have to hold on to my pipe bomb - we're only allowed one of each Equipment with the Indirect trait, so I've gotta be careful.
But really, it's definitely not a game for everyone, and it does go much quicker once you understand the rules, but like you said, there are a lot more rules compared to other skirmish games. I'll always enjoy it, probably even more than 40k, and in a way BA definitely doesn't fulfill - if for no other reason than "I like alternative activations."
Also, it lets me play eldar corsairs as their own force, which is rad as hell.
ill lend you my pipe bomb :D, also the spanish inqusition which are very into kill team in spain has begun to send a letter to their p.o box* But ya when he said it takes as long as 40k i was kinda suprised because most peopl;e say it takes about an hour per match or so
@@GuthanSlayer yeah I can get a 3 player kill team battle done in about and hour and a half at most. That's with full Strategic Ploys, Equipment, Tac Ops, ect. I was shocked when they said it takes as long as 40k I have never played a game of 40k under 2 and a half to 3hours.
Underrated comment lol
Listening to this while I work on my second kill team.
I don’t have time to play, but I have purchased about 7 kill teams so far and I’m working my way through them. What that guy said is pretty spot on. After one squad of space marines I’m excited to paint Necrons, and then I’ll paint some Corsairs. The variety helps a lot.
I tried collecting armies in the past but the boredom of trying to build even 1000 points is too much for me. Since I don't have time to play anyway, so Kill Team is the easiest and most fun way to enjoy 40k at the moment.
I, too, found it was easier to paint through the backlog when I could bounce between multiple different armies. If I got bored of painting my Fallen, I could paint a squad of Drukhari.
It's also handy to have multiple different skirmish bands on hand, in case you want to introduce someone new to the game. They don't need their own models, you can lend them one of yours. They can get hooked on playing the game, before the matter of building and painting models even comes into it. A lot harder to do that with a mass battle game.
Also, something that in my experience seems to be much more present in Kill Team than in 40K is customization. It's way easier to get invested in your squad of named guys instead of an army of swaths of nameless infantry where the only named characters are gonna be the one leading the army and maybe a couple more.
With Kill Team it can be sonething like your very own Gaunt's Ghosts-esque squad.
Yeah I totally agree. I enjoy kitbashing and bringing different kits together because the scope is so much more limited... Maybe I'll move to the combat patrols one day?
@@DominatorLegend
Yeah in the back of my head I'm thinking that I want to have like 7-8 different teams made, with Terrain, so if someone comes over for some games we can just grab stuff off the shelves and play. I have a toddler right now so I also hope building a collection means I'll have a chance to play with him when he gets older :D @@Bluecho4
I was hoping Necromunda might make its way in here, as I'm tempted to give it a go. Definitely going to look into warcry now after your review.
I unfortunately couldn't find a Necromunda equivalent to the game tutorials we played for the others. I don't know if I failed to find it, or if it was filled up already, or if it wasn't being offered.
Necromundo is extremely heavy and probably can't be taught in only 2 hours
@@thepoorhammerpodcastNecromunda is pretty much the exact opposite of what you talk about wanting from a skirmish game. It is EXTREMELY heavy, moreso than 40k, and absolutely not a good game for convention tutorials. It’s not balanced in the slightest, which seems to be deliberate because it’s a narrative game, not a competitive one. It’s also written primarily for campaign play, so a pickup game with pre-made gangs wouldn’t give you a good picture of what the game is really like.
For what it’s worth though, it’s a very fun game.
@@CanonessEllinor Huh, I always felt some curiosity towards Necromunda and for the longest time I thought it was the middle point between 40K and KT (and yes, I'm aware Necro predates KT by a lot).
It sounds very interesting now, and I always found its minis to be gorgeous, might now try to jump into it.
As a long time Gencon goer, I totally get what you mean about it feeling like Consumer-Con....IF you're not doing a ton of events or meeting friends there to play stuff. Post-COVID especially, it's been tougher to get strangers to pull you into whatever they're doing, social skills have gotten worse.
If you fill your schedule with events (you can sign up for demos, play D&D sessions, do tournaments) it usually is a lot better. If you're just wandering the dealer hall, it's not gonna be a good time for more than a day.
The boys coming in just as Im painting my 'nids, gonna be a good hobby sesh
Speed, I am Speed
Kill team is definitely its own complex game that has comparable depth to 40k. I prefer KT because of the squad commitment you talked about. I've been scared to get back into painting minis for a long time, and between one squad, one team and speed / contrast paints, KT has gotten me excited to do projects again. I'm never bored of painting because my biggest commitment is 10 - 15 figures; I can experiment with techniques and materials really quickly and see what I like results wise. I've got a combat patrol box and I've been dreading assembling and painting the tank for it.
A lot of people just pick up one box of bespoke KT releases for factions since they're 'stronger' mechanically than the compendium teams.
I like KT because it’s got enough crunch without demanding far more time and effort as full 40K, and with Compendium Teams you can have a very simplistic game. I like it more then Warcry and 40K, but Warcry is still just fun (even if I wish it had a bit more crunch) and I still occasionally play 40K (likely for the same reasons people play HH), but I keep going back to KT, even though I really hope it gets the same treatment as from 9th to 10th
Maybe it’s because I first got into TT games with Battletech, but I completely disagree with the “skirmish should be simpler” opinion many have.
Expect your pipe bomb in the next 6-8 weeks (or never with Evri)
Honestly I like battletech but it’s wayyyy too crunchy, it’s so crunchy you can’t really use all the fun extra mechanics and scenarios since the core rules take up so much space.
Alpha strike is a little too simple though, the core rules are fine but the mechs, especially weaponry wise, don’t feel right. I also feel like the mechs go down a little too quick and I wish mechs had like, twice as much structure so they could last longer and spend more of their time being damaged but still moving along.
About the box of 10 Cadian's being a Kill Team. It can be. Veteran Guard Kill Team is base 10 Guys with whatever weapon loads. You then get ancillary support and you can choose to take 4 base troopers which most people say is the best option or 2 of a list of 4 extra abilities like being able to call in an Air Strike.
I'm so glad you guys enjoyed Blood bowl! In my personal experience of playing GW games, it has the friendliest community because the tone of the game is relaxed. Official GW models range from terrible to beautiful. However, they are guilty of requiring multiple boxes I would suggest 3D printing.
having your best player fail their 2+ GFI to score the winning touchdown, fail their armour roll, then roll to just fuckin die, and that's completely normal kinda takes the toxicity out of the game i feel
The decision to run the kill team games with one box is insane, man! What were they thinking? There is like 3 teams that are even fully playable that way! And it is true that not managing cp and faction secondaries is playing half the game! I guess KT is not a game to try at a con, its way too layered (which I like but I understand people that don't)
Surprised you didn’t try Underworlds, it’s light and fast with gorgeous models and I think it’d be right up your alley.
Also, the current Blood Bowl Lizardmen team is gorgeous. They and the Underworlds crew had the first good-looking Saurus models ever.
Star wars legion is the 28mm scale game but that terrain was for AMG's newest gamer Shatterpoint which is a bit bigger in scale. The sculpts are amazing and both games are for sure cheaper than gw. most of that terrain comes in the core set box with some added from sets they sell at i think a bit more than $50. shatterpoint uses 2 squads per army and each is about 50 as well
Personally i havent gotten into shatterpoint yet, I would reccomend legion as they sell boxes that bring a full list at the 500 pt level but it goes up to 800 pt, inexpensive to get in and alternating activations is something i wish they would add to 40k
just found this pod this week, it's amazing
Speedrun Poorhammer
Highly recommend going back to older episodes
found them a couple weeks ago, been binging their stuff ever since. Mostly interested in the lore discussions but I've learned a bunch of stuff about the tabletop too from their content.
I kind of agree with the 2nd argument for Kill Team you brought up. There's been rumors for months about a Striking Scorpions/Space Marine Scouts box to refresh both kits. The Striking Scorpions are literally the only Craftworld Eldar unit that I actually want to own. That box would be my jump into Kill Team.
Regarding gencon being consumer-con: that was much more pronounced post covid. Pre-covid the demo game area was much bigger and I felt the number of people there to meet and play with strangers was higher.
Having been going to GenCon for 7 years now, completely agree. You *can* still find people who are just there to hang out and play games (I had a LOVELY experience doing a demo of Kill Team at the GW booth for instance) but it's harder now, people aren't as willing to just open up and invite you in.
Attempts were made. Hotel lobbies had a lot people setting up games and willing to hangout. I also saw way more small or indie events than my lgs could ever organize.
I think there was a lot of pressure on the companies and organizers to make the con worth it. Selling booths for vendors to sell products funds the rest of the con. I hope they achieved the goal and we can ease back into what it was.
Absolutely agree, these are all companies that got hammered by the pandemic, they have to make it worth their while. This is the first GenCon that felt all the way back post-pandemic in terms of scale, but it's still getting there again in terms of vibe
If you do come back to check things out, stop by Good Games Indy. We're a few streets down from the convention center and we typically host different events throughout the week of Gen Con. If nothing else, I'm making sure we have smoked brisket next year.
The Lorcana bit is some excellent dread, great storytelling.
Blood bowl is great. A bunch of places make the dice as well for it.
Also they don't pretend Blood bowl will ever be balanced and there are just teams that are worse/harder to play. The latest edition telling you what "tier" a team is, is honestly pretty accurate but thats more on the "how easy is it to play this team"
I absolutely love blood bowl, it’s such a great game and 100% recommend getting into it.
It’s nice because they have limits on units so you can actually buy a full team with like 1 box and some 3D prints. Plus since blood bowl uses a grid the models don’t matter, so that and the fact GW abandoned the game for like a decade means the community loves 3D prints and allow them at all official events that aren’t held by GW and they don’t have a stranglehold on the tournament community
Yes, exactly! Blood Bowl is in a unique situation right now for a modern GW game. It has ongoing official support, with new models and updates coming frequently, and yet at the same time, there's a thriving 3rd party community of high quality physical and 3d printed models that you can expect to be supported at at pretty much any event.
I played KT for the first time in over a year, and I remember why I stopped. I like a lot of it in theory, but it pisses me off in actuality. One Page Rules GF: Firefight (with a bit of homebrew rules to taste) is much more fun.
Brad, im gonna go ahead and be that guy and say You really did not play kill team. Thats a really really bad way to experience kill team for the first time, not getting to pick a team you like aesthetically and in play style ruins half the fun and as if that wasn't enough you where given 2/3rds of a compendium team which in in itself is a bit bland and to top it all of you didnt get to experience most of what makes the game interesting being correct ploy usage WHILE having to struggle with some random poor dude next to you and an overly busy employee just to comprehend the basic rules. Furthermore the cadian team is just men with simple lasguns and your brother got plain space marines with chainswords its the equivalent of just taking the 40k 10 termagaunts vs 5 intercessors box with no extra rules
Yeah, I have to agree. Drafting a kill team by choosing specific operatives and loadout options is half the fun of the game.
God hearing Brad talk about downtown kills me. Detroit is such a crazy city. Casinos stacked ontop of greek resturants, and homeless people lol. When Yomicon comes around, I always remember how absolutely SLAMMED it gets downtown.
Confused about the criticism of the Blood Bowl minis. The miniatures are very high quality. Most of the newer teams are plastic kits that are on par with the newer stuff for 40k and AoS. The Lizardmen team was actually updated in 2019. Maybe some of the confusion stems from the fact that the High Elf team still has not been updated, and was only ever released in metal? If you weren't playing with metal models, they were either a third-party High Elf team, or you were actually playing with the Elven Union team--very high-quality plastics released in 2017.
Shout out to Mountainside Tabletop, aw yeah. Best Kill Team content on UA-cam.
Commenting for Algorithm, but a kinda funny thing about GenCon. I was there at the GW Kitbash/painting assembly area you mentioned. I went despite not playing 40k for years and painting and assembling at that table hooked me again and got me back into the hobby. Which also means I started obsessing over the hobby, so I sort of owe GenCon to finding Poorhammer and consuming all the video content in like a week since.
It sucks you didn't try Underworlds. It’s more a board game then a skirmish game though. It’s also the only game GW has the stated intent to be competitive.
Even if you wouldn’t enjoy the game, I know you'd fall in love with the azing Tzeentch models in the current Underworlds box set. Tzeentch is my favorite, and I adore what we have in AoS, but I'd be head over heels if all of Tzeentch's models looked like those.
I run a local game club when I have a variety of players from 7 years-old to over 50 year old veterans remebering the first editions of wfb and wh40k.
I like to introduce new players first to the Warcry(1st edition) - it was super simple, affordable and the minis are awesome. Right now my intro game of chioce is the Argatoria, which is growing in club eating other games quite fast. Right know we support Argatoria, Kill Team - but it is hard to learn due to this crazy cover system, wh40k 4th edition and wh40k 10th edition. The last one seems to be actually a good one for the newbies - to my suprise it is easier than the Kill Team.
Honestly I get why you didn't like KT that much, I mean, you played with half the game removed, very static teams and one of them was incomplete, like wtf.
Although yeah, if you wanna teach someone the basics, removing scouting, equipment and tac ops is a good way to go imo (i dont leave out ploys, I state "you wanna use them, go ahead they work like _explanation here_ I won't use them unless you activate one")
Btw "one box one army" imagine being the dude that opened GSC, a GSC full roster is built by getting 1 box and like 6 different characters, whomever opened that shit didn't even get access to abilities so the only thing they did that game was move and shoot and nothing else 💀
the cool part of that carboard folding and building towers is that it's a charity event... on Sunday people throw coins to knock stuff down then those coins go to a charity!
Blood Bowl is a heck of a game, it's far better to play competitively than 40K since there's a lot less ambiguity in the rules. It's great to play over a league. As a Magic player, I find playing my team similar to learning and upgrading a deck.
Quick shout out and a RIP to Nicky for getting skipped. You deserve a double shoutout next time.
blood bowl is their best game. i would argue it's the only game they still produce that is a game first.
dragoncon is your worst con experience? what happened? dragoncon is constantly praised as one of the best cons for cosplay, partying, gaming, etc. everyone has different experiences though, so curious on your take on it!
For the record, my wife does not share my DragonCon hot take, I replied to another commenter with my general downsides. It's an EXTREMELY well run convention. I just had zero fun and was very stressed.
Brad and Eric -- I loved loved loved your finance/budget related warhammer videos. It really amplified the 'Poorhammer' name. Any plans to do more of that kind of content?
Next week's episode should be in that style, stay tuned.
Well shit man, Ive lived in Michigan my whole life and never been to this johnny noodle king place. I think thats one thing for sure mentioned in this video I’ll try myself.
Vallejo doesn't need to market their product. It's just that good.
I haven't played blood bowl, but I have played blitz bowl which is basically a smaller version of blood bowl but as a boardgame and it was pretty fun. I don't know if they're still making them cause I got a used copy from half priced books, but if you haven't played bloodbowl and want a cheaper way to learn how to play you might want to check it out
Your baseless slander of Dragon Con will not be forgotten
Give me every factions Land Speeder video or give me death
I hope the virtual blood bowl series eventually settles on a business model that isn't a massive rip-off compared to the first title and is able to pull in players again. Love blood bowl but its too niche to play irl and its much easier to organise seasons and tournament play online. Unfortunately the playerbase is split between the oldest and newest game and it's not a very big community to begin with
Blood bowl is one of those games. You have to preach to get a proper League League going. When I moved to my local area there was no blood bowl anywhere it took a few months but I convinced 12 players from 40k/AoS to give it ago. I would suggest starting with a super 7s resurrection league that way no one keeps track of SPP and injuries.
I think part of why Warcry was much more streamlined, versus Kill Team being deeply involved, probably has a lot to do with the existing audiences for their parent mass battle games. Age of Sigmar shed large portions of the Warhammer Fantasy playerbase back when it started. (Loads of people, justly and unjustly, quit the game in a rage and have avoided it ever since).
Whereas 40K has retained a great deal of its old fans. Including tons of hardline, dedicated players who demand deep and complex mechanics. Something they can really sink their teeth into. Indeed, 40K players were in some ways a self-selecting control group. If you couldn't deal with how intricate 40K was during the heights of its complexity (7th and 9th, for example), you probably didn't. Instead electing to either play more casual editions, switch to AoS, or go to other non-GW games entirely (like One Page Rules). There's a good chance if you kept playing 40K during those times, it's because you enjoy complexity.
And, while the skirmish titles are often touted as gateway drugs for the mass battle games, in truth the core of Kill Team's playerbase are existing 40K players. The kinds of folks who already have models they can run, or will gladly put down tons of money for Kriegsmen, Arbites, Kroot, or Imperial Navy guys. The game was designed for these folks first and foremost.
By contrast, Warcry had its own weird priorities to start with. And the central AoS playerbase skews more casual in general. Or at least more in the direction of being less fixated on hyper complex rules.
I feel like adding some more to the whole Kill Team discussion is like pissing in the ocean at this point but I want you to have the engagement, and potentially I'm bringing another point or two.
I don't come from a wargaming background. I fell into the rabbit hole that is 40k by playing Fantasy Flight's Black Crusade PnP RPG and I am still mainly a PnP RPG player. Kill Team is smaller and the units can more feasibly be individualized - which is how I learned that I just love converting and kitbashing. I also couldn't give a rat's ass about vehicles (and when I started, Boarding Action was not a thing yet).
In my mind Kill Team speaks to a wholly different market, but neither GW nor the market knows that yet
What I have to disagree strongly with is that light and heavy cover in Kill Team is just bloat. That is actually a core mechanic. There is however bloat around it and that makes it hard to understand immediately how line of sight works and you definitely have to keep a lot in mind - not exactly a flawless learning curve
I’m glad I watched this. Was honestly thinking of getting into Killteam first since it’d be cheaper and easier to explore factions, among other things. I can’t even begin to imagine buying a KT box for the faction you want and it not be playable, that’s crazy to me.
Gotta ask, after reading into boarding action is it axed? Or is there actually a chance of it coming back?
There isn’t Cosplay because Gencon is ancient and the draw is gaming. I played Shatterpoint all day Friday and while is HAVE a screen accurate x-wing pilot costume, I tend not to game in it.
Brad's outlook on Skirmish games is interesting. Kill Team is XCOM in a Warhammer setting, plain and simple. It got rid of IGOUGO, point based list building, and squads. The new Kill Team is indeed not trying to be Warhammer 40.000, let alone Warhammer 40.000 Lite. It's a game which allows you to access a game with a decent amount of depth and complexity without having to pay for and move around 50 models, and there's a target audience for exactly that. Plus, if I wanted 40k in quick and simple, I'd play OPR, I think.
The Cadians you got are actually a different team than the one that has 14 models (krieg) so if you used the krieg rules yeah you got screwed. Also, while I agree with you on some aspects of kill team like it not being a starting point for people getting into 40k, the terrible shape measurements, and I imagine it was largely line of sight rules that you had issues with. However, I’ve found it to be the most tactically interesting and competitively viable game that GW makes and it has been my favorite GW game since its second edition. Once you know the rules well it also doesn’t take as long as 40k and is a good way for people to be able to play a great game with really cool models without breaking the bank and being locked into 1-2 armies.
Blood Bowl is a really fun game, and the community is very very chill. It is even more unbalanced then "regular" wargames, so nobody takes it super seriously.
Also, you have to start with 11 guys minimum, not 12, and most teams do better with a starting roster of 11, allowing you to buy more extra stuff like rerolls. (exception to this is teams with very cheap lineman (basic dude) which are also fragile, so your strategy involves losing some)
You can get in a position, where you have less then 11 players, so you can't field a team. (as players can die, or be dismissed) In this case, you'd get free "hired lineman" for just that game, but they have the Loner negative trait (rerolls don't always work on them) and can't gain XP.
A 30 model roster is pushing it, I think you can get away with much less. Most teams can be built from 1-2 boxes of 11-12 models, plus one or two big guys, and then you have literally every single option. Dwarves are famously good, you get all positionals in a single box, which is the "meta" roster to start with. You may want extra lineman models, if you care about having them actually on the bench, instead of swapping them in somehow, and a Deathroller, but both of those only happen down the line in league play. (you have to play multiple matches to get the funds to buy them as per the official rules. You could just play higher value single matches as well ofc)
Also, if you play any of the teams that use Treeman, you are obligated to get a 3rd party one, cause those official models are hideous.
The thing I don't get is why they gave you regular 40k boxes to build Kill Teams out of instead of, I don't know, the dedicated Kill Team boxes the game is built and balanced around now?
And the other problem is if you want a deep, involved, maximum clunky rules takes-as-long-as-a-40k-game skirmish game, Necromunda has been right there since 2018! And the weird imbalances and crazy rules just add to the experience because you're not all meant to be special operations elites, you're a bunch of crazy hobos in bum fights.
The lower mini, lower painting effort really is the kill team argument. It's not just the shelves of models, but the amount of hobbying required to get them to look good. A T'au army is a single box of pathfinders with a bonus sprue. 5 assault intercessors, and a regular intercessor? Done with marines! You can also get a different box for phobos!. paint 15 units tops, and spend $40. Compare that to, say, trying to get into combat patrol, and you have to paint your six million tzaangors. But absolutely, per-model, 40k is a much simper game.
As for Rogue Trader, I wonder whether BG3 will help or hinder: In most years we don't have many traditional, decent value CRPGs... and they decide to launch a 40k game right before a competitor is so good, it breaks player count records on Steam.
As a long time Blood Bowl player, that segment amused me.
Skaven are one of the strongest 'Scoring' Reams. High Elves are terrible as they don't do anything well other then be Expensive and have the highest armor for a high agility team.
Haven't read the most recent version, but minimum was 11 for Team, with max of 16. That's why there was always a D16 for Kick off events that need to hit a random player, and end of game MVP point for long running leagues.
Most Teams got a redo of models the last 4-5 years. Try playing for 15+ years with models from Mid/late 90s instead. I made most of mine kit-bashing Warhammer kits.
Simplistic side-games like Warcry are kind of an anomaly for Games Workshop historically. The skirmish-sized games tended more toward light roleplay-esque simulation, party building and prolonged campaign book-keeping. Kill Team is not so strange in that context, where the game experience is not to be Big-Army-Game-Lite, but a game where each individual model can be given character and have stories and history of their own. The most Warcry-like specialist game in terms of quick and simple to get into was probably Mordheim, which was only comparatively light compared to its 40k counterpart Necromunda, of which the simplified(!) modern version has enough hardback books of rules to sink a small yacht.
Kill Team does fail in its stated objective of being a skirmish game, or 40k Lite. However, if viewed as a tactical game, like Combat Commander, it is arguably quite successful.
I can't justify some of the clunky rules, but once you move past that, you've got a great game that is much cheaper than 40k (the two Cadian box example is a little disingenuous, as bespoke teams generally only cost $60, and I'd say the game has more legs than strictly playing Combat Patrol.)
I like Brad's thoughts on Kill Team, but I disagree with some of his points. It's the main game in our tabletop group, so I'll sum up with some bullet points.
Negatives:
-Brad is correct and it is confusing that most boxes with the Kill Team label are a full team. Except when they sometimes have you choose between options, which means buying extra models or magnetizing the minis.
-The Line of Sight rules are probably some of the worst ones out there. Despite it being our main game, it causes the most arguments and excess measurements.
-Kill Team isn't and should not be sold as 40K lite, because it isn't. But, your Kill Teams can be used in regular 40K with different rules.
Pros:
+The low model count means it's easier to get into and paint than combat patrol and a cheaper entry to a faction/playstyle you end up not liking.
+If you like herohammer, I think Kill Team really emphasizes the importance of individual units.
+Much like 40K, the rules are deep which allow for complicated plays and chains of actions and that's great if you want a skirmish game with that kind of depth.
Love your show and I'm personally trying to get into Warcry for a type of game with a less competitive edge. And those sweet, sweet models of course.
Hi folks, not sure where or how to submit a question but here we go!
I am a new 40k person and I bought the leviathan box set. I would like to used the space marines in the box to start a Salamander army. Using the Leviathan Space Marines what should I buy next with the ultimate goal of making a 2k point Salamander themed Space Marine army?
Also I am sorry I am asking about Space Marines but I like the Salamander lore =) This isn't Brad torture I swear. To make up for it I am assembling my Ork Combat Patrol atm.
Thanks guys and I am loving the podcast!
I was kind of hoping you had a chance to try Necromunda, but it kind of loses some of the hook when it's not in a campaign that has XP, advancement, lasting injuries, acquiring new equipment at the shops, hiring on new members, and the permadeath chance. Think a good mix of 40k and a tabletop RPG, with really crunchy rules.
and yeah silly bloodbowl dice who the hell needs a d16.
Haven't been to GenCon in about 5-6 years now (was last there for their 50th anniversary, so whenever that was), but I did go for 8 years in a row during my prime. Credentials established, therefore, I don't know what must have changed for there not to be cosplayers abundantly there. Every year I went, it was not hard to find them, and I frequently bumped into them just in passing on the main floor, plus the ring of hallways always had people posing and playing it up for the cameras.
Was there even a Cosplay Parade on Saturday? I haven't been to a GenCon where the parade wasn't multiple city blocks long.
Also the issue with Kill Team compositions also pisses me off. Extremely so. I enjoy Kill Team. I have fun with it. But the fact that they sell you a box of minis specifically for Kill Team and then they don't ACTUALLY CONTAIN all the minis you'd need to properly fill it out infuriates me. For example, the Imperial Navy Breachers let you take 2 Gunners. You ALWAYS want to take 2. Only 1 comes in a box. So you have to kitbash one of the regular soldiers into an extra Gunner. So now you're down to a single regular soldier and have to buy an extra one if you want to take advantage of their ability to move in pairs. It's absolutely farking ridiculous.
I'm pretty sure (and don't quote me on this) that old Kill Team was that you picked out your models from the proper codex, but instead of taking a full unit, you just take an individual dude. So like, I go through the Space Marine Codex, I pick out an Intercessor, a Devastator, maybe an Assault Marine, etc. etc. Now it seems like they just have these pre-baked lists that you can kinda vaguely customize? But I thought the appeal of playing Kill Team was getting to go through a whole range and pick the exact models you wanted on your team ("Your Guys"), and now it just feels like if the codex of a 40K army came with literally the list of units that would be in your army.