Posted on Sunday, January 9, 2022Last update

Musings on GW's Kill Team

At the beginning of September, my mates and I purchased the latest edition of Games Workshop's Kill Team, the skirmish game set in Warhammer 40K universe. We tried it later in October, and we essentially loved it. Everyone but Frontlineminiaturist, indeed, but more on that later in this post.

The set up of our first ever game. As per the core box, Death Korps of Krieg confront Ork sneaky Kommandos.

Veteran Guardsmen are a real treat for the eyes.

One of our friends already painted his Kommandos: nice!

Grey buildings and green skins match perfectly together.

What did we like? Grimbeorn and I, who particularly talked about this new system in the past months, appreciated the general division of the game in three clear phases, the action system which allows the player to mix and match the actions of his operatives freely on the battlefield, the alternate activation of the miniatures but overall we loved the campaign system.

On our second game, Grimbeorn fielded the Orks and I tried Death Guard (my 40K army). The heretic Marines lack in all the trickiest special rules the opponent has, but they're nice to play too! Disgustingly Resilient is a real pain in the ass (for the enemy eheheh 😈).

The Kill Team Compendium allows you to deploy Kill Teams from every 40K faction, and eventually it woke in us the desire to create every single one of them. Just like the Mordheim fever, we have too much hobby in our hands.

Another Orks vs Death Guard match for Grimbeorn and me. We played a lot to understand the mechanics and complete a game in all the four turning points (aka turns).

We also tried some multiplayer games, without great adaptation from the core manual and first campaign book (the second has already been published but we didn't get it yet). They run smoothly, even if they're sensibly longer than just two players game. Obviously, a more skilled handling of the rules always comes to help!

We mainly played the scenarios from Octarius, the first campaign manual. It's a nice setting, with a cool story and some good side objectives in the scenarios. Also, it provides detailed map with pre generated terrain, making it really simple to set up and start playing.


Experimenting a four players game on two joined regular battlefield: Death Korps (with Grimbeorn's unmistakable square bases), Death Guard, Ork Kommandos and Chaos Space Marines. A very long (too long) game, it was nice but we just accomplished the first turning point in one hour and a half.

Frontlineminiaturist's new entry: Chaos Space Marine! Previously he tried Adeptus Custodes (which are a really tough opponent, as always).

Some criticism came from Michele about the fighting system, which according to him doesn't count properly model's armour. Truly, hand-to-hand combat in Kill Team focuses on the model's ability to fight rather then his defences, so he's kinda right; however, we appreciated the dynamic and think that more armoured models do not suffer from disadvantages in combat.

In 2022 we want to play some Kill Team, alongside our usual hobby commitments, and possibly to expand our collection (I already have plans on an Imperial Fists Kill Team, as you can see here). Grimbeorn built everything in the core box during last December, and we want to do a speed painting session of the various scenics soon. I mostly finished them, so... it's a matter of time.

My built Kill Team scenic elements. Only the oil pump missing! Then I'll prime them black and proceed with Grimbeorn on the speed painting.


Posted on Wednesday, January 5, 2022Last update

Hobby ho! New year's projects spotted 🔭

Happy 2022 from the Lair's crew! Davide, Michele and me look forward to the new year, ending a 2021 with lots of hobby, above all lots of gaming, which remains our main focus as wargamers.

So, fast check of our last deeds from past December.

Focus on Kill Team for Grimbeorn: here are his Death Korps of Krieg from the Octarius box. On square bases? Yeah, you know that he's an old WFB wolf...

Building was the main interest for Grimbeorn during 2021, beside gaming. The Kill Team's models and scenics are just the latest task on his workbench!

2021 was a fruitful year for Frontlineminiaturist! Recently we discovered the SAGA system (more on that later), and he purchased his Viking warband immediately. Here are his berserkers!



Nice and charming Viking standard bearer.


Just to let me and Grimbeorn begrudge him, Frontlineminiaturist painted and completed his two Mordheim warbands. The Averlander are his proud (and our purge on the battlefield. Damned may be their bows!)

Last but not least, his Frank army for DBA 15mm is almost ready and magnetized. Lots of hobby during this last month!

What about Amarok (aka me)? My last deed was this Imperial Fist I painted to join a little local painting contest. I'm very proud of him, even if I could always do better. I wanted to try a dirty look on this mini, and I'll start building and painting a Space Marine Kill Team soon!

I finally manage to prep this set of walls and fences I love from my WFB first times. Ready for speed painting!

So, I am a teacher, and on our last day in school I taught my students how to play a little DBA game fielding Caesar's legions and the Gauls, our last topic from our Classics program. It was really fun for both boys and girls!

We closed 2021 with some gratification, but what about the future?

On Christmas 2020 me and Grimbeorn listed some good resolutions for 2021. Honestly, I wasn't really good in fulfilling them, so I'll lower the shot for 2022, hoping to complete the tasks I have in mind.

Here they are, Amarok's top 5 hobby good intentions for 2022:

Edit: I'm updating this post with new links when and as I fulfill my goals.

  1. Paint at least one DBA 10mm army;
  2. Finish painting my 500 pts Skaven Warband for WFB (I started them in 2020, contesting with Grimbeorn and his Dwarves);
  3. Build and organize my Orcs & Goblin collection (I purchased some new minis I still need to clean up and stock;
  4. Play more Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay;
  5. Manage our blog, which turns 1 on January 13th for the English version and 2 in March for the Italian version and general concept.

See you in the next few days for updates!

Again, happy new hobby year from us 🎲

Grimbeorn, Frontlineminiaturist, Amarok