Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team – Salvation

With Salvation the next season of Kill Team starts, leaving Gallowdark behind and opening up something new. And with the new season, a few things have changed. The big boxes were split, so you have now a separate Killzone: Bheta-Decima box with the terrain features, and in this case the Salvation boxed set for the two Kill Teams, in this case Space Marine Scouts and Aeldari Striking Scorpions, as the new season focuses more on spec ops and infiltration.

None of the boxes are stand-alones, you will still need the Core Rulebook to play. The lite rules are free to download on Warhammer Community. Anyhow, today we're just looking at the Salvation boxed set.

At a RRP of 105 EUR / 80 GBP you get quite a lot of sprues and the mid-sized box is filled to the brim.

• 11 plastic sprues (4 medium sprues for the Space Marine Scouts, 6 small sprues for the Aeldari Striking Scorpions Aspect Warriors  and 1 large sprue for the Salvation Rig Apparatus terrain pieces)
• Underneath a card board separator you get the further gaming material, an 88-page softcover book for the background and rules for the two kill teams, transfer sheets for Aeldaeri and Space Marines (incl. Raven Guard sheets), data cards and tokens.

The Kill Team token sets are branded in icons of the Space Marines and Aeldari, and for the decals you get the large sheets for both factions, giving you icons of the Ultramarines, Imperial Fists, Salamanders and Raptors Space Marine chapters (along with generic insignia) and the craftworlds of Alaitoc, Biel-Tan, Iyanden, Saim-Hann and Ulthwé for the Eldar / Aeldari. In addition as this box is Raven Guard themed, they included two of the Primaris decal sheets, providing you with insignia of the 19th Legion.

As mentioned above, the Salvation rulebook does not cover the core rules, but "just" the background on the new season, with extensive information and rules of both Kill Teams. I really like the distinctive Kill Team artwork in bright red-orange and black, as well as the neat campaign map, that folds out in the back.

The instructions lead you through the whole process of building your Kill Teams, including the variants. As both Kill Teams are built from two identical sets but going for A/B in the variations (same body, but different arms). It seems there was a mix up due to base sizes for the Aeldari, so there was an additional note regarding the use of 28mm round bases instead of 32mm.

The Space Marine Scouts are spread on two identical sets of two sprues each (so 5 miniatures per set) and will give you the chance to build a total of 10 scouts, each armed with a boltgun, shotgun, or bolt pistol and knife. The various upgrades are either options or cosmetic and cover a chain sword for the Sergeant, Auspex for the Tracker, hevy bolter or missile launcher for the heavy gunner, as well as a sniper rifle and grappling hook.

We're not going to cover the build of the infantry models in this review, but I want to still give you some information on the background. The Space Marine scouts have been around since the Rogue Trader era, with first models of lightly armoured marines being released in the late 80s, with puffy sleeves, a bit like Landsknechte (top left in the second picture). And in 1990s that generation even received plastic monoposes with the release of Advanced Space Crusade. Around the end of the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40k and the release of the third edition beginning in autumn of 1998, new sculpts of Space Marine Scouts were released, first just close combat load-outs (left middle in the second picture), with the later addition of Snipers and further weapon options were added in 3rd edition. For the 4th edition of 40k a new plastic kit was introduced for the Space Marine scouts (bottom middle in the second picture), with a second boxed set of cloaked snipers added in 5th edition. In 3rd and 5th edition there were scout bikers, first as hybrid kit and later full plastic. Now with the 10th edition of Warhammer, the Scouts have moved Primaris scale and are a lighter options towards the Phobos armour wearing Space Marines.

The Striking Scorpions: Aeldari Aspect Warriors are spread across three small sized sprues, of which there are two identical sets. This provides you with enough models to build 10 Striking Scorpions, with the addition of two aspect shrines. The options from this kit will give you the chance to build Exarchs, beyond that armed with chainswords and shuriken pistols.

The Striking Scorpions are the Aspect Warriors with probably the most updates, while others like the Warp Spiders use the same sculpts since their very beginning in 1993. Still speaks for the magnificent talent of Jes Goodwin. The initial sculpts were released around 1993/1994 (second picture #1), for late Rogue Trader / early 2nd edition of 40k, based upon great artwork initially by Jes, but with further illustrations by Mark Gibbons for the Codex Eldar. In the third edition the Striking Scorpions got an upgrade. But the helmets seem to polarise and with the 4th edition the models got another update, and are now moved towards plastics in 10th edition.

Games Workshop covered the 30 year journey of these models in a Warhammer Community article on its own. If you fancy the art by Jes Goowdin, especially his work on the Eldar / Aeldari, I recommend this artbook.

And the part that was for me the most interesting about this box - the Salvation Rig Apparatus terrain pieces. We saw these kind of terrain features for the first time in the last Kill Team season as upgrades for the Gallowdark terrain range. The sprue is properly filled with various sized scatter terrain.

The biggest piece from that sprue is the Rotary Converter. Large halves with a belt. Quickly build and to a certain degree a smaller variant of the Haemotrope Reactor.

Next belt driven item is the Microgeneratorum, made from three pieces.

Another larger piece is the Reciprocating Engine.

This round gadget is the Barospheric Inducer, and looks like a small industrial oven.

And with all the heat these engines produce, you need Thermovents.

I really like these gadgets. They provide proper points of interests for skirmishes, and not just the regular "pick up that crate" scenario, but go there and active, stop, interact in some kind with this item. Especially for skirmishers like Necromunda these provide you with so much interesting detail on the table. For that reason I added a comparison shot with a regular Primaris Marine, a Jackal and old-Necromunda Van Saar. As you can see, these work with mid 90s models as well.

Before having them on the table, I thought these were the same design as the Gallowdark Apparati, as Gallowdark, Shadowvault, Gallowfall and Soulshackle. They are pretty close, but what is missing, are these connecting slots for them to be added to the walls, as most of the other sets have. Of course, this does not stop you from placing them in your Gallowdark corridors.

Conclusion

As we're now multiple seasons into the game, it does make sense to offer modular products to not force the players to buy big boxes and core sets over and over again, and "just" have updates. While the savings on this kit aren't bad, as you basically pay only for the two Kill Teams and get the book, material and terrain for free, the buy-in for Kill Team is a bit steep with a Kill Zone (75 GBP / 100 EUR) and Core rules (32,50 GBP / 42,50 EUR), adding to roughly 250 EUR / 190 GBP. Especially with the Kill Zone Bheta-Decima being not that interesting, as the terrain looks rather blunt and more like a 2d side scroller, than a proper battle field. The Gallowdark set provides better value in comparison. And if you want a cheaper entry, I'd suggest looking at the "classic" Kill Team starter with the Orks and Krieg and a bit of terrain, as you even get the core rules in there, which is a proper deal at 85 EUR / 65 GBP!

I really like the Aparati, great addition of scatter terrain and the two kill teams are proper looking as well. I am a bit surprised, as I wasn't sure where the Scouts would end up with the release of the Phobos armour Primaris Marines. Saw them at risk of being replaced along with the First Born, so seeing this upgrade is a welcoming surprise, especially with the option the sprues offer. Only missing a few more cloaks and maybe a kneeling pose, like we had before. As for the Striking Scorpions, well done miniatures as well, but as the last metal sculpts were already stunning, and this set doesn't really provide options (the Exarch can dual-wield, two-hand or have a scorpion claw as a weapon option, everyone else just has pistol and chainswords), with only cosmetic variants for the helmets. A bit linear for Spec Ops. And with these being the 4th iteration of the Scorpions, we're still missing Swooping Hawks, Fire Dragons and Warp Spiders. Swooping Hawks and Fire Dragons "already" had updated miniatures in 4th edition / early 2000s, the Warp Spiders are still from 1993.

Beyond that, Kill Team still is something that provides sci-fi wargaming on a smaller scale, with a low number of fixed models and still provides tactical depth. It surely has a bigger footprint that Underworlds and is more compareable to Warcry, but beyond that, it certainly scratches that itch for Warhammer if space is an issue for you.

Warhammer 40,000 and Kill Team are brands by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.