PUBLISHER: GAMES WORKSHOP | RELEASE DATE: PR-ORDER NOW
It’s never been easier to get into the world of Warhammer 40,000, thanks to a host of video games, comics, books and of course, traditional board games. Games Workshop have become masters of producing useful and engaging starter sets, filling boxes with interesting models and even more interesting rules. Kill Team Pariah Nexus is a strong example of this, balancing playability with both a low model count and ease of use.
As the name suggests, Kill Team focuses on small numbers of models duking it out in a high-speed and tactical game. Kill Team: Pariah Nexus is the first set to come out following Warhammer’s new edition, and continues the story first found in the incredibly popular Indomitus release. The titular Pariah Nexus is an area of space seemingly free of the malign influence of the demonic warp beings that infest the galaxy and plague humanity. Unfortunately for the Imperium of Mankind, it’s also crawling with Necrons, mechanical monsters that evoke a heady mix of pop-culture influences including Cybermen, The Borg and The Mummy.
We get twelve models in total, all new sculpts. On the side of Space Marines and the Imperium of Mankind we get five Heavy Intercessors; essentially a squad of very large, very heavily armoured elite troops wielding massive guns. They are led by a Primaris Captain wielding his own master-crafted heavy bolt rifle. These are eye-catching pieces and the sort of thing any Space Marine player would cheerfully want in their own collection. On the side of the Necrons we have five Flayed Ones, which are every bit as horrible as they sound; basically mechanical monsters that wear the flesh of their victims. Their leader is a Chronomancer, a creature so technologically advanced that it can warp time and space in a way that looks like magic. The Necron sculpts are great, that lovely mix between ancient, alien and creepy.
Though pitting Necrons vs Primaris Space Marines makes sense thematically, from a rules perspective the Marines certainly have the edge here as each unit is a bit of a bruiser. The game is designed to give the Necrons a home advantage but the Space Marines are definitely tougher. The maps provided are great (and of the usual high standard we expect from Games Workshop) and the whole game is very tactical; in some places it feels like a more complex take on gaming classic Space Hulk, with tough choices having to be constantly made.
The terrain in this set is a little underwhelming; previous Kill Team releases have featured relatively elaborate pieces. This box has all sorts of Necron themed doors, barrels and boxes. They have special rules attached to them that make this particular variant of Kill Team quite tight and claustrophobic, but as extra terrain for table top gaming its pretty light stuff. They look amazing though; of course they do, this is a Games Workshop product.
Rules wise, this release seems to fall between two design approaches. The accessibility of Kill Team is still here, but if you already play the game there’s nothing terribly new to bring you to the box; new rules for fighting in close confines and terrain features are nice but they add more complexity to a game that doesn’t really need it. Kill Team found a good balance with the previous Arena release and this new box doesn’t really add to that. Still, it plays quickly at about under an hour and you will want to play the various scenarios again and again.
We would still recommend this as a starter box and the new rules do add a nice claustrophobic feel to an already tight game. The models are absolutely great and the game is still huge amounts of fun. This is an odd box compared to previous releases, but given that Kill Team is so easy to get in to we recommend it for those looking to play a 40K style game but don’t have the resources to collect lots of models.
