Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team – Termination

The latest addition to the Kill Team boxed sets is Termination, and the third one for 2024 after Salvation (Space Marines vs Aeldari) and Nightmare (Drukhari vs. Chaos Space Marines). This time it is the Genestealer Cult vs. League of Votann, the Brood Brothers against the Hernkyn Yaegir to be more precisely.

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.

They way Kill Team boxes are sold has changed over the time, we went from larger starter sets with proper terrain setups and two teams to lighter variants, usually a stand-alone terrain box (formerly known as Kill Zones) - the current is Bheta Decima and ties in all three from Salvation, Nightmare und Termination, and the two player sets with a bit of terrain. Unfortunately this year alone the price of the boxes went from 105 EURs with Salvation, to 110 for Nightmare to now 115 EUR for Kill Team Termination. The boxes are available with various translations, beside English you have access to an Italian, French and German version.

The packaging is a taller mid-sized box, filled with a lot of sprues and in this case a slipcase, which I haven't seen like this before, covering the printed materials, with all the data and playing cards, as well as the campaign book, tokens and such. This protects these items in a neat way and gives you the opportunity to store them afterwards as well. I think this is a clever innovation and prefered to just the printed artwork seperator.

You get two sets of cardboard tokens, completely individualized for the two Kill Teams of Genestealer Cults and Leagues of Votann. And you get two large sheets of decals, with lots of iconography. A "problem" to point out, the Genestealer Cult of the Brood Brothers doesn't come with Genestealer decals, but with a full sheet of the Cadian Shock Troops. Why is that? Well, there are no decals for the Genestealer Cult, all iconography you see on vehicles comes from the upgrade sprues.

While it makes sense to have the Imperial iconography, as they are taken over / infected troops, it would have been a nice addition. But beyond that, even "shabby" freehands will fit, it is a cult and not the Departmento Munitorum.

The campaign book is a supplement for the core rules of Kill Team and provides you with the information on the two Kill Teams, but not basic rules. The Kill Team product line has very distinctive artwork and uses a bright red-orange and black, for their layouts. The way the Genestealer Cult is depicted here really looks menacing and is well done. Much more to my favour than the newer Blood Bowl artwork.

Beside the campaign book you will find an instruction leaflet in here and different to some of the other kits, you don't build two sets with A/B variants of the same sprue, but actually squads of 10 with lots of different options. These are well illustrated and guide you savely through the process of assembly. The terrain is covered in the back as well.

The Brood Brothers Kill Team for the Genestealer Cult has quite the stack of sprues. And that is for various reasons. First of all, this is not a full on GSC update, but a very clever one. The Genestealer Cult dates back to the Rogue Trader, and was part of the range in the late 80s / early 90s and mostly sculpted by Bob Olley. But was more of a themed list after that and not supported until a huge revamp in 2016, with Neophites, Hybrids etc. and those miniatures are scaled to fit the proportions and sizes of that time, for example the Imperial Guardsmen who are partially around since the 3rd edition / early 2000s. There were/are Brood Brothers available, using the old Cadian Squad and an upgrade sprue.

This idea was picked up once again, as these new miniatures that are part of this Termination boxed set, are not a full set of its own but actually an upgrade sprue for the new, upscaled Cadian Shock Troops, and that is what you get. You receive a full squad of 10 Cadian Shock Troops (RRP 40 EUR).

Which can be upgraded into Brood Brothers using a new GSC upgrade sprue, with far more options than the old kit, including weapon options, smaller mutations and even a banner.

And while that alone would have been sufficient for a Kill Team, they got a very nice character upgrade as part of their team, providing you with a Patriarch, a Primus armed with needle pistol, bonesword and toxin injector, and a Magus, armed with autopistol and force stave as well as 2 Genestealer Familiars. These are not new miniatures, but actually a repack from 2016s Deathwatch Overkill boxed set (which was more or less a launch set for the new range back then), was released as the Brood Coven, for an completely unhinged 55 EUR RRP.

This adds up to a total of 15 miniatures for the Brood Brothers, and due to the high RRP quite a saving.

But let us move on to the Hernkyn Yaegir Kill Team, which come from the Leagues of Votann. The return of the "Squats" for 40k in 2022 was introduced with a launch set, which we covered here in September 2022 - Leagues of Votann Army Set.

These add another infantry option for the Votann army, they initial core unit was the Hearthkyn Warriors and these received an addition with last years Kill Team Gallowfall release of the Hearthkyn Salvagers, and now with the Hernkyn Yaegir basically the unmounted variant of the Pioneers. This is another set of 10 different miniatures and not two sets of 5, which gives you a lot of variants. And from my understanding due to the way the arms and hands are designed, they would be quite interesting for Ironhead Squat Prospectors in Necromunda as well, as a part donor.

Usually I'd go into the history of the unit or models on here, but as the Leagues of Votann are quite different to the Squats, there is not that much to talk about, but you can see the classic range from the Rogue Trader era on SoLegends.

If we take the Hearthkyn Salvagers for orientation, these will have a 50 EUR RRP. For further information you can find this sum up on Warhammer Community.

The terrain addition in Termination are the Plasma Generatorium, of which there are two. They come on a large terrain sprue and are build as they come. No variants, no options, no moveable parts.

The core of the Plasma Generatorium are boxed shapes with regular Mechanicum design, similar to the Sector Mechanicus design.

Fit of the inner cube was okay-ish, with a little play but due to the box shape you can align them pretty well. The front and the back of these terrain items comes with a door / bulkhead on each side. These are fixed, you can't have them opened unless you convert these. Would have been a nice addition in my opinion.

Add them to the front and back - make sure you check which sides are up - and you are pretty much done.

Now only the stairs are missing. These are a simple design, but sturdy. Don't worry about fitting miniatures on the stairs, as they are to narrow anyway.

As for scale, the Plasma Generatorium provides a decent coverage / disruption for line of sight and would proably work as generators in Zone Mortalis as well.

Regardings its overall measurements, I am a bit irritated. The Sector Mechanicus and other terrain pieces like Zone Mortalis usually share some common measurements and are multiples of eachother, so you have certain distances and heights, that align with each other. At first, when these were previewed, I expected them to fit the walls of the Necromunda wall pieces, but they don't. Even the sides that have a diameter to fit with the promethium relay pipes, are put in a height, that you can not combine them with the other angled pieces.

Conclusion

Similar to my comment in Salvation, I see why they changed the content of these boxes, as they don't want to force players to buy big boxes with lots of terrain, over and over again, to just have updates. But still, I think these should provide a better value and less FOMO. This kit adds another few bucks on the price, and with 115 compared to 105 in January we're at 9%, that is more than the 3-4% increase that was communicated, or any inflation arguments.

Saving, especially due to the rather high RRP of some of the content, is not that bad - at least on paper, as you pay more or less "just" for the two Kill Teams, get the book and gaming material for free, as well as the terrain (which is a bit blunt itself). Yet, the buy-in for Kill Team is a bit steep, as you would at least need the core rules for 32,50 GBP / 42,50 EUR, and if you don't already have terrain one of the Kill Zone sets for 75 GBP / 100 EUR. And I still think that the Kill Zone Bheta-Decima is not that interesting, as the terrain looks rather uncreative and more like a 2d side scroller, than a proper battle field. The other sets, like 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!

Beyond that, for the two Kill Teams - I like the idea of the Genestealer Cult with the upgrade, as the range overall is pretty well done, yet provides a scale creep issue with the 2016 and now 2024 miniaures in some cases, like the Neophites vs. new Brood Brothers. The upgrade sprue is quite clever and along with the older sprue and left-over bits from the regular range you can build quite the impressive Renegade / Cult Militia army, something that was extensive work and cost back in the day. The upgrade sprue would probably come in handy in the upcoming Genestealer infestation of Necromundas Hive Secundus, as you could combine it with for example Orlocks, to add further poses to your gang.
The Hernkyn Yaegirs provide a few options as well, and especially give you more variants for your League of Votann as well Prospector Gangs. Certainly well made, I'm just not a big fan of the design itself.

If Warhammer 40k is to big for you, Kill Team might be something that provides sci-fi wargaming on a smaller scale, with a low number of fixed models and still provides tactical depth to some degree. But it surely comes at a bigger cost and footprint than Underworlds or Warcry, still for a skirmish it has a rather high output in products and updates.

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

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.