[After Action Report] Rootin' Tootin' Kroot 'n' Shootin' | Kill Team 2024 | Into the Dark | Hierotek Circle vs. Farstalker Kinband

+++ SPACE HULK "KAISARION" +++
+++ 9024211.M42 +++
+++ FIRESTORM NEBULA +++
+++ MERTH'YROD GAP +++

In which the wreck of the Kaisarion is boarded by Necron explorers: a hierotek cabal under Azhad the Ascended. Kroot inhabitants rush to defend.

Every so often, I try a new thing in good time. Winter has seen the reopening of Saturday sessions with A.R.G.G. (that's Abergavenny Roleplay & Gaming Group to you), and also a major revamp for Kill Team. Kraken (not that Kraken) has been playing a fair bit of this, because he's accidentally become everyone's friendly local answer to "how is Kill Team formed?" and this is a question I frequently ask, so here we were again. 

 

Will I ever get my head around how melee combat's "roll or discard" order of operations works? Is the inclusion of a killcount score enough to reward my less than objective focused playstyle? How the hell does Reanimation Protocol even WORK? 

 

This time, we were going in with proper rules for our operatives rather than the "all basics" approach we went with before. I decided to roll with Hierotek 'crons because they were painted, and none of my Chaos Space Marines were: the Technomancer and his loyal Apprentek, two Immortal Guardians with gauss blasters, same for the Immortal Despotek, and the two Plasmacytes who are always there.

The Technomancer's plethora of support abilities and ability to fire his super-strong ranged attacks through the Apprentek were very, very reminiscent of my old Cryx army from Warmachine, as was the out-of-phase movement and fighting, and a quarter of my force being there purely to supercharge the rest.

 

Once we had the walls and barricades down (continuing to reject the tyranny of "maps that have been playtested") I won the initiative and started castling up in the centre. My plan was to have my Deathmark sniper cover the corridor on the right, send my Immortals out wide to establish crossfire, and throw the Apprentek upfield to project force. The Reanimator would be hanging in the centre to keep the bodies upright, the Accelerator would follow the farthest-flung Immortal around to help him hustle into place.

 

 Most of the Kroot lurked in the two rooms at the top of the map, but the Bow-Hunter, Heavy Gunner, Long-sight and a single Hound were lurking more pro-actively, behind barricades in the middle.

Turning Point One

In this Turning Point, I learned that hustling Necrons forward with Command Underlings and throwing out up to three Interstitial Commands makes these slow robutts surprisingly nippy! I also picked up an early kill with my Apprentek, clobbering a Kroot Warrior who'd poked his beak out to explore. This was about all I could do, though, as my Despotek had to take cover after Kraken whacked him with Call The Kill and most of the Kroot were either shooting while Concealed or shooting-and-scooting back out of sight. They put a serious dent in the Apprentek, which would come back to haunt me.

Turning Point Two

In this Turning Point, I learned that moving your Technomancer up to restore wounds to his Apprentek isn't always tactically viable, not when there's a Kroot Hound within charge range and a Call The Kill token to place on him and your Defence saving throws are about to do this to you...

 

I also learned that immediately forcing the as-yet-not-activated Technomancer to reanimate isn't the world's best plan, because a forced reanimation with the Reanimator robs him of his activation and leaves him hanging around in position to get shot and die again without achieving anything. 

 

I won't lie, I felt like packing it in and re-racking right there and then. Kraken talked me into at least seeing out the round, and learning if I could come back from a boob move, and not putting too much firepower into the Kroot Hound. Interstitial Command on the Reanimator wasn't enough to kill the Kroot Hound, and I had to waste my Despotek's shot on it anyway. I won't lie, I felt like packing it in and re-racking again, but I was committed now and I do get to roll to bring my bodies back. 

 

Good thing too, since a combination of charges and migratory Call the Kill tokens took out one of my Immortals and my Deathmark too...

Turning Point Three

In this Turning Point, I learned that Necron Immortals with Undying Androids in play are actually quite good at not dying, and that the new Counteract rule lets you squeeze additional shots out of an otherwise quite slow team. This fellow here has just survived five Kroot shooting at him, and he and his Deathmark pal would go on to account for three of them thanks to Relentless Onslaught making them much more accurate at short range. In the middle of the field, I was essentially holding on, forcibly reanimating the downed Immortal and waiting for my Living Metal to kick in. Kraken did pick off my Accelerator, who'd zipped around to try and nibble the second Kroot Hound, but that didn't feel like a terrible loss - I wasn't exactly hurting for activations on that flank any more.

Turning Point Four

 

In this Turning Point, I learned just how oppressive the Necron self-healing can be when one's Apprentek stands up perfectly on cue and you roll a bunch of fives and sixes to see how many wounds come back. I was in better shape now than I'd been two rounds ago, and it was all over bar the shouting. 

 

Another drop of Relentless Onslaught and Undying Androids just in case, but it wasn't really called for; my Despotek and Deathmark cleaned up the last couple of Kroot in the middle, and with only a Heavy Gunner and the Kill Broker left skulking out of sight, that was... a rather unexpected Necron win?

I... finally won one? Not sure what Kraken's up to with the objectives on this one - I've looked at reviews and I don't think anything so pedestrian as "what's in the book" was involved - but we both scored three points on divot counting, and I had ten kills to three, a six to one score by the Kill Grade rule. 

 

Turns out kill counting is a bit busted when one side won't stay killed. Whomst'd've thunk?

Thoughts and Prayers

New Kill Team feels very like old Kill Team, with most of the jank smoothed out. Large teams no longer have such an overpowering presence with group activations denying counteractivations, and the counteractivations fitting into the sequence rather than interrupting it is cleaner to carry through. 

 

The only bits we really got stuck on were melee (Strike and Block being totally independent choices and not an "in response" call keeps throwing me, for some reason) and the constant up and down tweaking of the score for the Hierotek models reanimating - it would be a lot simpler if the kill count was either checked once, at the end, or only ticked over on the second (permanent) removal. 

 

Cover felt different - more of an "it's probably in cover unless it blatantly isn't" energy, although that might be because we've learned a bit more about setting up spaceship terrain, and it might be very different if we stopped going Into The Dark and went back to conventional warfare.

Some of those Kroot really punch above their weight - the Pistolier, Stalker and Cut-Skin were all quite capable of one-rounding a much beefier Immortal with a clear charge lane or line of sight. It was a different story for the Warriors and assorted snipers who only got to attack once, though; they'd take a chunk out of an Immortal and the Immortal would probably grow most of it back in the next round.

As for the Hierotek Circle, I really enjoyed them. It's certainly possible to stuff yourself in the order of operations, as the late Azhad the Ascendant has demonstrated, but they have the right set of gimmicks for me: they're tough, they step outside the order of operations, and they hit like a sack of bricks at range. Still looking forward to putting my Nemesis Claw on the table next time, but I wouldn't be at all disappointed if I ended up playing these for the next couple of years.