Kill Team is one of the finest skirmish games out on the market right now. Years of iteration, combined with Games Workshop’s unique approach to storytelling, has created a highly collectable, highly playable game that hands out little bits of 40K lore at a steady rate.
Almost slow enough for you to paint all the models before you get the next set. Almost. Their latest offering is Brutal And Cunning, a big boxed set that pits two teams against each other. Brutal Orks and Cunning Ratlings (which are basically space hobbits, rather than rat-men.) A copy arrived at Starburst Towers, thanks to the lovely folk at Games Workshop, and we had to take a look.
The set comes in a more ‘vertical’ style box, which means if you’re collecting the whole thing, it won’t stack with previous editions of Kill Team. But the box is more space efficient, so go figure. Inside, we get a book, counters, a bunch of little plastic crates, bunkers and walls. These are nicely done (it is Games Workshop, after all), but if you’ve been in the hobby for a while, nothing you don’t already have. If you’re new, however, these are great; they are the sort of scenery every miniature gamer needs.
The Ork team are called The Wrecka Krew, and they’re a team of TankBustas (so much so that if you play the larger Warhammer 40K game, these are perfect for a vehicle hunting unit.) The sculpts are excellent modern Orks. Big, sort of silly, and some kind of scary. These brutes are armed to the teeth with rockets, rocket-powered melee weapons, bombs and cutting/smashing gear. They also have two ‘squigs‘ (dinosaur pugs) strapped with explosives. In the game, they aren’t very defensive; it’s all about hitting hard and fast. They break things, and if you get in the way, you’re dead.
Luckily, they’re up against a foe that’s very good at hiding and staying out of the way, then shooting at a distance. The cunning side of this set comes from the Ratlings, diminutive snipers who serve The Imperium of Man. The set comes with models for nine operatives, one leader (called a fixer), a small dog (strapped with equipment) and three ‘booby traps’ that could have just been cardboard counters, but it’s nice to have them in plastic.
Ratlings haven’t really been updated in Warhammer 40,000 for a while, so it’s fun to see them here. The pieces are full of character and easy to assemble. The little dog (called a battle mutt) is essentially bait, designed to lure out heavier targets and run away whilst its allies shoot from a distance. Rules exist in the box to add larger allies (if you have the models), but honestly? Stick with the Ratlings; they have a tonne of options and are written with tactical play in mind.
As such, this is a very balanced set and has a fun play style. It adds nicely to the large Kill Team game, but it’s fun as it is out of the box. (You’ll need the core rules.)
Rules wise, we get a dossier book similar to the one we saw in Hivestorm. It only has a handful of missions in it, and plenty of ideas of how to use the scenery in the box, as well as solid ideas as to how to build a tight, claustrophobic game of Kill Team. This is good because it is a game about small teams fighting each other, and the Ratlings and Orks are especially suited to stealth and stalk-style tactics. The night assault rules provided add to this vibe.
Overall, this is a great set, though it’s kind of specific; Imperial Guard and Ork fans may want to wait for those sets to come out separately at some point in the future. This is a well balanced, fun set.
