Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team is back, bigger and better than ever

Warhammer 40,000 spin-off Kill Team is returning, and it seems that Games Workshop is going all in on the intense skirmish game with some seriously impressive plans.

Kill Team was originally created as an expansion for Warhammer 40,000 five years ago, presenting a way for players to focus on tighter-knit missions featuring smaller groups of models. The variant proved to be so popular that it was later released as a standalone title.

The new Kill Team retains all of the things that made the skirmish experience stand apart in the first place, concentrating on squads of between five to ten miniatures that can be carefully selected and customised with specialisms and enhancements to perfectly fit a particular play style.

Players can use their elite team in standalone missions or take them through a connected campaign of scenarios, levelling them up and gaining new abilities to really make them feel unique – helped along by generation tables in the game’s rulebook. The missions themselves are objective-driven secret ops, ranging from assassination attempts to bomb planting and sabotage – nothing like the sweeping contest for territory seen in most Warhammer 40,000 matches.

The gameplay has been fine-tuned by the team behind the excellent skirmish board game Warhammer Underworlds: Shadespire, tightening up Kill Team’s alternating activation format and expanding the role that terrain plays on each tight 22-by-30-inch battlefield. It’s also described as a ‘successor’ to fellow skirmish spin-off Shadow War: Armageddon.

New to the game are ‘tactics’, a mechanic similar to the stratagems introduced in Warhammer 40,000’s fantastic eighth edition that allow players to re-roll dice, shoot first and gain other benefits and advantages at the cost of limited command points. You can also now play with up to four people in a single arena, rather than just the two-player showdown of past Kill Teams. The game has additionally borrowed Warhammer 40,000: Eight Edition’s three-pronged approach to game modes, with open, narrative and matched play options.

The game itself sounds incredibly exciting, but one of the biggest and best surprises is how Games Workshop plans to release the new Kill Team.

A box set will be available including two full squads, the rulebook and a playing field – which includes a board and some of the impressive new Sector Imperialis terrain. Separate starter sets for Orks and Space Wolves include a handful of models, tactics cards and some scenery, meaning you can expand your collection once you’ve got the rules.

If you already own Warhammer 40,000 models and terrain, though, the Kill Team Core Manual will be available by itself, including the main rules and faction-specific tactics and gameplay variations for all 16 armies supported at launch.

Alongside the Kill Team box and rulebook, Games Workshop is putting out a new range of expansions called Killzones, which pack in a double-sided board and some pieces of scenery, some of which involve unique gameplay rules and tactics detailed in the set. The modular terrain is fully compatible with Warhammer 40,000 and past Sector Mechanicus sets, and looks utterly breathtaking – don’t expect the price to be cheap, though.

Warhammer 40,000: Kill Team is due to land some time later this year, and Games Workshop is yet to confirm the price of any of the new sets – but what it’s revealed so far has us seriously excited for the game’s return. If you're looking to find out everything you can ahead of Kill Team's launch, check out the FAQ on Games Workshop's website.