Games Workshop - Kill Team: Octarius (2021 Starter Set)

Product Information

Each team also comes with a full transfer sheet with over 400 markings and emblems for customising your models. GW grabbed attention quickly when its July 9 trailer for Kill Team: Octarius showed Death Korps of Krieg troopers battling Ork Kommandos – two quite famed units, for recently less-loved factions, which had never before received their own kit in plastic – and the final models most certainly do not disappoint.

The roadmap GW released extends well into the future, with releases similar to Octarius being teased at least once every three months. As with your operatives you are encouraged to create some background for your base – is it a strike cruiser in orbit for example, or maybe it’s a mighty Ork Fortress crafted from the destroyed tanks of your enemies? While previous editions of Kill Team were based heavily on 40k and existed almost as a “40k-lite”, the new edition of the game contained within the Kill Team Octarius box is an entirely new system and a refreshing new way of allowing you to fight skirmish combat in the 41st Millenium. Each player secretly makes a deck of 6 cards for their secondaries, then draw cards two at a time keeping one and discarding the other until they have a final 3 semi-randomised secondaries – again I love this as you will know what is in the deck, but you cannot guarantee what 3 you end up with.Next up in the box we have something that people have been wanting for a very long time – plastic Death Korps of Krieg! Though still very much defined by their oppressive, grimdark visual concept, locked as they are inside WW1-style trench coats and gas masks, these models have a surprisingly wide selection of pose and equipment options to add individuality, and tie each trooper to the role you’ll give them within your Kill Team.

There’s an enormous amount of stuff in here, including all the dice, rulers, and what have you that you need to start playing the game. As a few other reviewers (including everyone’s favourite soothing-voiced nerdy YouTube uncle, Tabletop Minions’ Atom Smasher), have remarked, the list-building rules in the Compendium not only appear pretty light on Abilities and Unique Actions (which help give distinct, meaningful in-game roles to the various different operators), but also leave many factions very limited in the variety of models they can field at once. Credit where credit’s due, the Octarius box is heaped with extra bits and pieces to help you get your first few games of Kill Team up and running.As with most other GW games, Kill Team keeps the “3 ways to play” mantra allowing different play styles. Now, the Octarius box has a Core Rules in it, as well as the Octarius War Manual which has all the information you need to play with your Death Korps of Krieg and your Orks. Alongside the rules, you'll find pages packed with lore introducing the dark and gritty world of Kill Team and insight into both the Collecting and Gaming sides of the hobby. But, for my part, as a Kill Team newbie, I found it refreshing to have everything required for a proper, furnished battle board right there in the starter box – as opposed to getting a boatload of brand new minis, only to have to do battle across bare, arid dining-room table, with only teapots and pepper grinders for cover.

In the previous edition, each individual model had a points cost, and Kill Teams could mix and match models fairly freely, within a given points budget. You’ll get a list of several Fire Teams: Intercessors, Assault Intercessors, Incursors, Infiltrators, Reivers, and so-on. If you find something, however, please let us know in the comments – you might help someone else out! I can wholly recommend it as a complete game-in-a-box, and a highly enjoyable introduction to the new game.

The 40k concept of overwatch on a charging unit doesn’t exist, this is more so your operatives managing to get off an inaccurate reactive shot in response to an enemy action.

In particular, I fell in a sympathetic kind of love with Octarius’ Bomb Squig – gazing, as it does, determinedly across the battlefield, hand grenades clutched in its fangs, dynamite hanging off every side, ready to give its all for the Waaagh! If you like what we’re doing here you could really help encourage more content with a share on any social media platform. How best to introduce and assess this new – and, honestly, quite bright – star in the Warhammer firmament?Open Play as you would imagine is more open, with the rules presenting more of a frame work with the players themselves deciding on any special rules, objectives and storyline along with a basic example mission. I guess there’s nothing to stop you from converting the pants off your chosen Fire Teams, but it’s not quite the same as having unique figures and units making up your team.