Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius is an extraordinary restart for the miniature combat game. Once the sick man of the Games Workshop catalog, this luscious new box set could catapult the niche title into the mainstream. Octarius, and the Core book with which it comes, it is possible to completely rebuild the notoriously bizarre set of rules of the game. It also offers a lot more narrative storytelling opportunities than almost any other title in the company’s catalog.
If you’re looking for a reason to wade into the somber darkness of the distant future, Octarius is the perfect place to get started.
Kill team is a spin-off of full fat Warhammer 40,000 Miniatures war game. Instead of setting up armies with dozens of miniatures on each side of the table, Kill team only requires a handful of characters and landscapes to get started. Players sit with a relatively small battlefield between them – only 22 “by 30” on each side – and games can only last 45 minutes.
The Kill Team franchise was first launched in 2004 and then restarted for the first time in 2018. The latest version of the game went to great lengths to use the same type of unit stats and play structure as the main version of the tabletop war game. This ultimately proved unwieldy, especially as each player moved and shot before their opponent could react. Compared to more nimble systems like Corvus Belli’s infinity
Octarius New Core book throws those old trappings straight out the window and offers players a whole new way of fighting. Now it’s every single model – not every player – in turn before moving on to the next. This results in much smoother skirmishes with back and forth battles that are much more cinematic in their execution.
Another important change concerns the action economy. Each unit on the map has a fixed action point limit, which is abbreviated to APL on its statistics card. An action can move, fire a weapon or help another unit on the board to perform some kind of combo – all the way up to distributing more action points. Units also have unique actions that can only be performed by certain people, such as medics, explosives experts, and hand-to-hand combat specialists. The result is something similar to the elaborate tactical combat required for the 4th
That Core book contains rules for three different game modes, including traditional open (casual) and matched (competitive) formats. But the real treat here is a reinvigorated campaign mode called Spec Ops Narrative Play. This advanced mode encourages players to name their kill team and its individual members, develop a bond, and improve their skills over time.
Units gain experience every time they step onto the field – even in open and matched games. This experience can be used to add talents to a unit’s capabilities that make them even more capable and valuable. Players also have a base of operations outside the map (read: invisible) and can it is Skills over time. It’s a catnip for the dedicated hobbyist eager to create custom miniatures and terrains based on their battlefield exploits.
The box set itself is much better value for money than the previous one (Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Pariah Nexus). While the final price has yet to be announced, we expect it to be around $ 150. Consumers receive two model ranges: the Death Korps of Krieg (roughly German-looking troops with futuristic spiked hoods and long rifles) and the massive Ork-Kommando (which look like green powerlifters who have just fought their way out of a junkyard). There’s also a ton of chunky, fully plastic terrain, as well as dice, rulers, and cardboard markers. This time, Games Workshop even packed the supplied card decks in push-fit boxes, which significantly improves their survivability during shipping. The gutter of the printed brochures is also much wider so you don’t have to tear the books in half to read them.
As for the miniatures themselves, they are all excellent sculptures, but I have some reservations about how they were designed. While modders will have a big day with the war, whose arms, hands, and heads can be easily removed and replaced with the correct parts, the commands are a little less fiddly. They’re easy to put together, but their poses and embellishments make them harder to transform into unique silhouettes. In addition, the new rules allow up to 20 models in each kill team unit list. That means Octarius comes with only half the number of models you need for matched play or an advanced narrative campaign.
The real innovation here is the stand alone Octarius Book that comes with the box set. Although my copy was defective with wrinkled and creased pages, it is still a new and novel copy. Much like a campaign module in D&D, it contains all the rules these two factions need to fight in a specific theater of war, as well as a number of unique missions.
It also includes detailed rules for each individual unit in the box set and also for each piece of terrain. It’s the kind of clarity and precision that has simply been lacking in the past Death zone Releases terrain.
The only thing missing in the box in my opinion – aside from helpful pack-ins to keep all components sorted and accessible – are empty unit lists. It’s frustrating that in addition to spending hours painting and assembling the miniatures, I also have to create my own game aids on an inkjet printer.
Overall, though, this is one of the best rule sets Games Workshop has ever produced. It feels bold and confident and could lead to a very bright future for the franchise as a whole. Pre-orders will be available shortly through your friendly local game store and Games Workshop website, and sets are expected to start shipping in August.
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