Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team – Hivestorm

Kill Team's latest edition went for pre-order today and will be shipped in two weeks from now on October 5th. While a lot of the new components are available as individual items, there is a new starter set called Kill Team - Hivestorm as well. And just this set will be covered in today's unboxing review.

With Hivestorm we will see the 4th edition of Kill Team, which introduces two new Kill Teams, new terrain (called Killzone: Volkus Terrain and an updated set of rules. The two factions battling each other in this boxed set are the Tempestus Aquilons, the elite of the Astra Militarum equipped with Grav Chutes and the Vespid Stingwings, the updated insectoids of the T'Au Empire. And on top of that, we even get a new equipment sprue, with further scatter terrain and various grenade markers (along with the updated templates).

Just a quick heads up, as covering the Hivestorm box already went up to 70 pictures just for the unboxing, we're going to split the content into multiple articles.

What is Kill Team about?

Kill Team is an action-packed tabletop game set in the universe of Warhammer 40,000. It revolves around small, specialised squads of fighters competing in various tactical missions. Players assemble their own teams from various factions, each offering unique abilities and strategies.

The game places a strong emphasis on tactics and synergies, as players direct their units in various scenarios to achieve objectives or defeat the enemy. Kill Team offers a wide range of options for customising and adapting troops, making it a dynamic and varied experience. It is ideal for players who appreciate both strategic game play on skirmish level and the possibility of narrative squad building.

While this reads quite elaborate, Kill Team is a set to be an entry level game or at least provide a lower entry barrier compared to the "full size" Warhammer 40,000, while being an independent rules set of its own. We've covered various Kill Team sets in the past, be it the most recent Termination and Salvation, or supplements and stand-alones like Rogue Trader or Ashes of Faith. Usually, the game is split into time frames like seasons, covering an overall story arch, introducing a certain Killzone, accompanied with matching terrain and further adding fitting Kill Teams that fight in that environment.

The most distinctive part about Kill Team surely is the aspect that is it produced as a compact skirmish and uses a smaller size setup, for multiple reasons. From the game mechanics, a smaller table creates are denser environment, bringing the miniatures closer together and thus earlier and more intense interaction. But beyond that the smaller size foot print was chosen to make the game more store and trader friendly.

Regular wargames have a problem of their size, for example on a Friday night gaming event, a store owner could easily host double to triple the number of players with trading cards compared to "regular" wargaming setups, thus they created a more compact game, that would enable them to host more people on the same or smaller space. On the other hand, this makes the game approachable for a broader audience, as you don't need a large gaming table or own hobby room to have a game and could easily have a match or two in your living room. Beyond that a lot of the gaming materials are designed in a way, that you have the information on a card, quickly at hand without taking up much space as well.

As we have seen it with various other releases, the included miniatures are shown on the side of the box. Further paint schemes are covered in the books.

Opening up the boxed set creates very positive haptic feedback. It is a proper heavy box, which is satisfied for itself, but beyond that, there are multiple layers of plastic sprues, beginning with the kill teams (3 sprues each), various heavy sprues for the terrain and beneath that the two medium sized equipment sprues. All of the sprues will be shown further below in close ups from both sides.

Beneath the plastics we get a lot of printed content. A thick envelope closed with a sticker, and a cardboard slipcase with more content and the bases and dice as well.

The cardboard slipcase is a nice idea, as it protects the books and card, and you can transport them afterwards from game to game.

• 112-page softcover Core book, covering the core rules for the Kill Team skirmish game, incl. head-to-head, solo, cooperative and multiplayer missions, as well as background on the different factions / kill teams
• 72-page softcover Hivestorm Dossier, covering the rules for both kill teams, incl. data cards and other rules, alongside Airborne Assault missions with 6 missions in the new Killzone: Volkus
• an instruction leaflet for the assembly options of all the plastic sprues inside this box, incl. the terrain.

The two softcover books are appealingly designed and while staying within the grimdark of Warhammer 40,000, have their own Kill Team design language incorporating the bright orange. I really like the scenic shots of the miniatures in the scenery, as well as the clear structure for the rule sections, embedded with lots of illustrations and pictures.

While you can see alternative paint schemes for both Kill Teams, Games Workshop teased these on Warhammer Community, showing four alternative paint jobs for both - Tempestus Aquilons as well as Vespids Stingwings.

The instructions are well structured, giving you an insight on how to assembly the different models in this boxed set, especially including the equipment options for the Kill Teams.

Two card board sheets full of token and the approved 2024 card deck comes with the slipcase the books are in, along with a set of regular D6 dice separately packed.

The card deck itself covers various Operation card, compact reference sheets with diagrams and overviews, for example the scenarios or map key to prior Killzones like Gallowdark and the most current Volkus.

Beyond this, there was a large grey envelope in the box as well, which included a foldable thick card board play mat, which was printed on both sides. The design is a grey-ish urban scene, which will be versatile in various scenarios and settings. These are 30 by 22 inches and much more compact than the regular Warhammer game sizes.

But let us move on towards the Killteams. One of them, the Vespid Stingwings, are an overhauled design of a set of older miniatures. Among the T'Au auxiliary troops, are not only the Kroot, but the Vespids as well, and the design team made use of these winged creatures for one of the airborne assault themed Kill Teams. You can see by direct comparison the design got leaner and they updated the T'Au equipment they carry to the newer design.

The vespides were introduced in the 4th edition T'Au codex back in 2006.

Your Vespid Stingwing is spread across three medium sized sprues, all packed densely and providing you with enough parts to build a Kill Team of 10 Vespids and one oversight drone. While you can build all of them as regular warriors, half of the poses can be upgraded into certain roles like Strain Leader or various special weapon carriers, like a sniper or heavier weapon carrier.

All of the Vespids are placed upon 28mm round bases, with the exception of the drone on a 25mm base.

Their Imperial counterpart are the Tempestus Aquilons. These came a bit as a surprise, because when the first teasers were released, people expected an updated design of the Elysian Drop Troops. An Imperial Regiment released back in the day by Forge World in the 4th and 5th Imperial Armour volume (back in 2006 as well). And this would have made sense, because they made extensive use of the Grav Chutes and we saw updated regiments in the past with Kill Team already, with the Death Korps of Krieg.

Well in this case they went for the Tempestus Scions, upgraded them with the Grav Chutes and made them into the Aquilons. I really like that the troops with the closed helmets look a bit like the Vulture in Spiderman Home Coming.

Just like the Vespids, you can build a Kill Team of 10 regular soldiers with a supporting unit, an Aquilon Servo-sentry, armed with a choice of different heavy weapons (among other options like a flamer or grenade launcher). The miniatures are placed upon 28mm round bases, with the exception of a 40mm round base for the servo-sentry. And as we're used from Kill Teams, we get the option to build regular troops, with some poses having access to upgrades / alternate bits, to include marksmen, gunners or a leader.

Once again, three very packed sprues, with lots of details and proper casting.

A really interesting addition to this set, is the Hivestorm Equipment Sprue. This does not only cover various scatter terrain pieces but elements, that you will interact with like the ladders, mines or grenades, but an update template for measuring in Kill Team. They dropped the iconography for the ranges and went back to digits, 1, 2, 3 and 6 instead of circles, triangles, squares and pentagons.

Proper casting here as well. Be aware with the barbed wire, this might be prone to breaking, if you are not patient while removing them from the sprue.

And last but not least, the massive amount of Hivestorm Terrain sprues, to recreate the Killzone: Volkus. We get a total of 6 sprues for terrain, which is quite a lot considering the size of the game. Four of which are new, two are repurposed from older releases. And the sprues cover smaller and medium sized scatter terrain as well.

We will cover the Killzone Volkus in a separate article, but as you can see, you can build two newly designed large buildings, with a proper footprint and at least one level above ground floor. These sprues come with various smaller ruins as well, but more on that in the detailed terrain build.

The last two sprues are from the Battlezone Vertigus range, a set of terrain Games Workshop released in 2020 and was added to on the of Warhammer 40,000 magazines in the meantime. These sprues will provide you with two mid-sized ruins, both having a partial first floor. You don't have to wait for the next article to get a closer look upon them, just read our review on the Battlezone Vertigus.

And that's it for the first hands on unboxing.

Conclusion

The Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Hivestorm boxed set has a RRP of 180 EUR. This is certainly higher than the latest boxed sets, with two kill teams and a bit of terrain, at 115 EUR, but it's yet another price raise compared to Octarius which covered a similar amount of content (rulebook, two kill teams, quite a lot of terrain) at 155 EUR RRP. Never the less, this surely provides a lot of value, as it feels quite complete, even if it does not provide that much of a saving (two Kill Teams around 50 EUR each, a Killzone at around 100 EURs and counting around 40 EUR for the rules is roughly 240 EUR of content for 180 EUR, not bad but not the banger that some of the other releases were).

Yet, without any doubt the overall design and composition of this set, especially as a starter for the new edition, is very appealing. I do not play Kill Team myself, as I am not a fan of the DLC way some of the side games are published, bloating them over a certain amount of time and eliminating the compact feel of a side game or skirmish, if I end up carrying more books than miniatures to a game (something that is a huge issue with Necromunda for myself), Hivestorm still created an urge to really look at the rules and made me thinking, if I should build a Kill Team myself. May that be something from my classic miniatures of the 90s, or using the newer plastics to build a cool Space Marine Kill Team from the Raptors chapter (like it is shown in the rule book). And if they are able, to trigger this idea in my head, as someone who is certainly critic towards the releases, I am quite sure a lot of people will enjoy what this game has to offer.

The terrain is great, we will cover that in an article of its own. Very satisfied with that part alone of the release. But the two Kill Team are very narrative, and a proper choice. The Vespid Stingwings are cleverly designed, and the position of the wings shows that the Citadel miniature designer know what they are doing, as they are still playable without the excessive danger of breaking them. As for the Tempestus Aquilons, I would have certainly preferred a comeback of the Elysians, especially as a narrative little squad for Kill Team, but they did a good job with these miniatures as well and the more armoured and closed helmet design, certainly works, as we now have a Grimdark Paratroopers in plastic.

Warhammer 40,000 and Kill Team are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.