The Upswing Begins
The Upswing Begins
I was feeling pretty bad after my game Saturday, and what better way to get over a bad game of Kill Team, but a few slightly better games of Kill Team. Luckily, Dice Dojo on the north side hosts Kill Team mondays, so I packed up my team and brought them with me to work so I could head straight there after. Let me tell you, this was an amazing decision.
Game 1
I arrive at Dice Dojo having scheduled a game with a name familiar to readers of this blog, Craig. This time around Craig was playing Death Watch, a team that historically has done very well against me. In all honesty, this is the best thing that could have happened, giving me a clear bar to compare against to where I was a while ago, on top of Craig being a super nice, knowledgable, and helpful guy.
Setup
Volkus 6
To start our game we roll to rnadomly select Volus layout 6, and intentionally select the Orb Crit Op, which happens to be my favorite. Orb is cool because it forces you to want to have the last model to move to score maximum Crit Op points. After rolling for initiative, Craig wins it and selects the grey deployment zone. (For ease of description, the photos are upside down from the map, so all descriptions will be from the perspective of the orange deployment zone)
For this game, I really didn't want to repeat my previous games mistakes, so I placed my operatives with far more thought to turn two, as opposed to trying to maybe get a lucky shot off on turn 1, which is a habit I gained playing against other similarly less experienced players. I spread out and mixed my melee and ranged operatives across all 3 objective lanes, with a focus on my ranged operatives being closer to the center to dissuade the use of the lanes up the middle of the kill zone for movement. My squigs have always been a problem for me, so I placed them last with the intention of using them less to maximize their move distance, but more to out activate my opponent.
As for equipment, I selected ladders, Glyphs, Engine Oil, and Krak grenades. My thinking was the ladders would let my less than ideally mobile operatives get good sight lines if needed. Glyphs and Engine Oil feel like safe choices in most situations, giving my team options for free upgrades to weapons as well as ignoring injuries in clutch situations. Lastly I selected Krak grenades to give my melee only operatives some hope of ranged attack.
I went with Plant Banner again as my Tac Op, as I really would like more options ouside of Dominate, and as normal selected Kill Op as my Primary Op, it is Kill Team afterall.
Turn 1
Start of Turn 1
Honestly turn 1 this game was rather quiet, as intended. I focused on getting my operatives not into the most forward position possible, but the most useful position possible. To start off, I launched my Pulsa Rokkit to get my Wrecka Points rolling. Roll I did, but not well. I pinged Craigs tanky-est operative for 3 damage, but more importantly, I nerfed movement through a very central portion of his half of the board.
The rest of this turn didn't really contain any moves that felt like a crux, or could have been handled differently in a meaningful way until the end. On the right side of the board though, I did punch a hole in the wall, with the thought of sending a squig through it later, leaving my Fighter potentially more exposed than I realized. Another move I was really happy with was not moving my 'eavy Gunner laterally and not forward, which gave him far more options for firing lines while also making it a low probability he will end up in melee.
On the final activation, Craig took a counteract to move an operative up and fire upon my Krusha who I thought had moved forward into a very covered location. Luck was on my side and he took 0 damage, all while leaving Craig's marine very exposed.
Turn 2
Start of Turn 2
For this turn I took advantage of my Glyphs and took a free destruction to give my ranged weapons saturate and spend a point to get Tuff Gitz, giving my engaged operatives an extra save roll. Before I took the photo, I got too excited and used my 'eavy Gunner to wipe that attaching marine off the map, on top of that, my Gunner even ended up in cover after said attack. It was at this point I knew I had shaken off the Saturday game, and was actually learning what to do, and more importantly, why.
In retaliation, Craig moved his tank ontop of the center structure to fire upon my Fighter, successfully doing significant damage. I use my Engine Oil for the turn to allow the wounded fighter to fall back to cover. Craig asks why I wasted that use on an almost dead operative, I explain my thinking is that now atleast he has to waste another operatives turn to get him off the map. To my surprised Craig sighed and realized I had made a minor, but good call.
Further jokeying for position sees my Boss move forward toward the back left stronghold along with my Squig. This leaves my Rokkiteer to fire upon Craigs Tank, doing significant damage, but again, not leaving my opponent any options to fire on. This does set my 'eavy Gunner up with a very good shot at a very wounded Tank. This leads me to my first mistake of the night.
My mistake
When I repositioned my 'eavy Gunner I had 2 options. If I had moved to the right,. I could have fired onto the enemy operative while also not giving my opponent any open shot on my Gunner in retaliation. What I did instead was kick out to the left, because I didnt look at the bigger picture, a bigger picture with a sniper roosted on the other side of the Kill Zone. This did result in my 'eavy Gunner taking significant damage.
I then charge my Demolisha in to do the thing he does best, and sure enough, he does more damage to himself than the opponent. But unlike previous attempts, he really gets me some Wrecka Points, game on.
I rush my squig in to ambush the operative on the right objective and do decent damage, again, keeping my Wrecka Point economy running well. This all left me with my somehow barely touched Krusha as the last operative in the kill zone to move, allowing my to get a toe on the left objective and bouncing the Orb back to the center.
In the chaos Craig was able to plant his banner hidden in the middle. This leaves me 2 points behind overall despite doing good damage, as we scored even on the Crit op, but he maximized his Plant Banner Tac Op. That being said, this is one of my most competitive openings to a game, made more impressive by how aggressive Craig is known to play.
Turn 3
Start of Turn 3
Turn 3 saw me starting to feel more confident, which resulted in further aggressive play. To start out the turn, I used my 'eavy Gunner to attack the sniper, who tried to run. I then used my Rokkiteer to climb up onto the terrain closest to him and fire another rokkit, which the sniper survived and kept running. Lucky for me, I had a ladder which allowed my Boss to intercept. This interception saw my boss wiping the sniper off the map and dropping down into the back left stronghold and run out of AP.
To round out my turn, I ran my squig next to my Krusha, in what I knew to be a risky move. It was exacerbated by a window in the terrain I didnt know existed, which allowed Craig to counteract and fire on my squig. To set myself up for the final turn, I used my Engine Oil to again move my Fighter, this time to an aggressive position to rush one Craigs marine hiding on the right objective. To finish off the turn, I used my Krusha to bounce the orb back to the center and get away from the squig, again allowing my to keep up on Crit Op points.
Turn 4
Start of Turn 4
Having Craig down to 2 models meant the final turn was going to move rather fast. To start off, I made my third and final mistake of the game; I charged my fighter directly into a fight, as opposed to using my otherwise unused krak grenades first to do more damage. As the fighter was already extremely wounded, he fell but did great damage. To finish off the game, my Boss planted a banner and stayed on it, while my rokkiteer dropped onto the leftmost objective to again bounce it back to center.
End of Game reflections
Final score of game 1
Overall it was a very good game for me. I really did well on the Kill Op and kept up on the Crit Op, but due to not having any strategy for Plant Banner, I left 4 points on the table. That all being said, I did well and had a lot of what I was thinking about positioning positively reenforced.
Game 2
After my first game, I was feeling really good and secretly hoping to get a second game in. To my luck, Rob and Joe (another Joe!) finished their game and we rolled to see who would play who. I ended up facing off against Rob. Rob is known as the person who really got the current Kill Team scene going in the Chicagoland area, so one can assume he really knows how to play. Rob is also super kind and an amazing teacher, so overall this has all the signs to be a great game.
Setup
Volkus 3
The table was set up for the previous game for Volkus layout 3. Rob won initiative and chose the orange deployment zone for his Battleclayde. (For ease of description, the photos are upside down from the map, so all descriptions will be from the perspective of the grey deployment zone) For this game I swapped out Krak grenades for Drill Rokkits, allowing me to exchange blast radius for Piercing 1. I took what I had confirmed in my previous game and spread out my ranged operatives to shut down long shooting lanes, while using my melee and squigs to get into close combat situations and take points. For this game I agian took Plant Banner as my Tac Op for further practice, but I did go back to a Kill Op Primary Op, as it seems if I play confidently, I can get kills.
Turn 1
Turn 1
I won the initiative for turn 1 and immediately fired off my Pulsa Rokkit straight up the middle at a group of Ad Mech models. I rolled amazingly, really kickstarting my Wrecka Point economy and doing decent damage to 4 enemy operatives. Rob ate the damage with ease while getting really strong positioning on the rightmost objective and using his team's ability to farm Command Points. I spent the rest of turn one getting my ranged operatives into nice shooting roosts, moving melee toward objectives or staging for objectives, and moving squigs in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to attack.
Turn 2
Turn 2
Turn 2 consisted of more jockying for position while both players took relatively few shots. My leftmost squig got exploded, which was fine as it provided me points, and a target for my Boss to take a shot at an enemy operative. This also allowed me to strike the operative next to him as well due to blast, scoring me an early kill alongside wounding an enemy greatly.
On the right side of the map, Rob moved up to my Krusha to take a shot. I don't know what rituals my Krusha performed before the night, but they paid off. My Krusha shrugged off the attack and retaliated with a devastating melle attack, leaving him injured heavily. Inside the same stronghold my fighter ran across the center shooting lane to get in position to get the center object in turn 3, while my squig got in position to ambush any poor operative who wanders near the center of the kill zone. All of this alongside my 'eavy Gunner moving into a more central location indicates its all going to go down on Turn 3.
This turn ends with each of us scoring equal on the Crit Op, while Rob maximizes on his Tac Op (Retrieval) by a last activation move on the left side of the map.
Turn 3
2 activations after the start of Turn 3
I apologize that this turn and the next are taken a few moves after the start of each turn, as we were just really getting into the flow of the game and having fun. To start out, Rob moved his Tac Op scoring operative out of the way ASAP after stowing his banner. In the center is where the fighting really began. My Fighter and one of Rob's operatives got into a back and forth, leaving my operative injured, but with a kill and unfortunately off the objective.
I then used my Demolisha to fight with the operative who succeeded in Retrieval. As is tradition, he did more damage to himself than the opponent and promptly died, maximizing my wrecka points on his way out. I used this surplus to position my Boss to kill the previously attacked operative and then fall into cover. Meanwhile my 'eavy Gunner jumped between rooftops to get a better angle of the action.
Somewhere in there my Rokkiteer got a nice angle shot off on an enemy for a free kill and repositioned to the center objective, but without an Action Point to activate the objective. Overall it was a productive turn for killing, but not much else.
Turn 4
1 activation after the start of Turn 4
The final turn was a rokkit fest from my end. It felt like for all 3 of my remaining operatives, I was able to successfully get a shot off, leading to a few kills. Unfortunately I was unable to really plant my banner anywhere. And was left without an operative to do anything in the center objective. This last turn felt like it moved by really quick, I suspect we were both tired from work and the previous game.
Game 2 Wrap up
Game 2 Scoreboard
The scoreboard tells the tale of the game. I did really well on Kill Op but really failed on Tac Op and Crit Ops. On reflection, going with Plant Banner on a lonmg and skinny layout means there is very little space to actually plant the banner, let alone keep control of it. I think this meant I was focusing on a lost cause and giving up potential points on the Crit Op. All that being said, it felt like a confident game from my end of the table against a far more experienced opponent.
Wrapping up
Both of these games instilled confidence that I am infact growing as a player and not just playing the dumb move every single time. I felt like I was doing more with my available action points, and positioning my operatives in a way that they could use their strongest weapons. This allows me to wipe most enemy operatives off the map before they can retaliate. This alongside taking Engine Oil to ignore injury debuffs really allowed my team to feel like at all times any given operative can be a danger to the enemy.
This really showed in the scoreboard. My next goal is to keep that feeling while also getting points on my Tac Op and/or Crit Op. My thinking is if I can maximize 2 out of 3 Ops, I can then get a strong footing to expend any extra action points toward the Crit Op to seal in a win.
Either way, these 2 games were a lot of fun and I am looking forward to the coming weeks. I have a full day of training games lined up for Saturday alongside the coming Tuesdays scheduled to play more, all leading up to the Dice Dojo Winter Open on March 14th.
I hope to stay ontop of these game deep dives, but I suspect I might fall behind if I want to go this in depth for all. We will see in the future.
-j