The Ork Kommandos and Death Korps of Krieg models included in the Kill Team: Octarius set are incredible, but you might be wondering how your existing Warhammer 40,000 collection works with the all-new Kill Team rules.
Rest assured, nearly every faction* can build a team of specialist operatives with the Kill Team: Compendium supplement, which is available at the same time as the launch box.
We’ve looked at how you can quickly and easily put together a finely balanced kill team in the new system, and the Compendium is packed with everything you need to do just that. It’s overflowing with rosters and datacards, including stats for all the available operatives. Simply assemble them into fire teams, and you’re ready to rumble.
We’re sure you’re keen to find out what you can bring to the battle, but you’ll have to wait a little longer for the full list. In the meantime, here are a few examples to tide you over until the Compendium comes out.
On the lighter end of the spectrum, there are lots of front line troops, like Poxwalkers in a Death Guard kill team.
They don’t have the stat line** to match some of their more monstrous brethren, and their Mindless trait means they find it harder to seize mission objectives, but a fire team does contain eight of these shambling creatures. That makes them useful as a relatively disposable screen for your more powerful Death Guard operatives.
Compare that to the four Dire Avengers you can run in a Craftworld Aeldari fire team. Though there are only four, they have a solid ranged attack and excel when they’re able to take a vantage point and lock down the battlefield with their Defense Tactics rule. As you can see, fireteams vary a lot between factions, and they have been carefully balanced to ensure that every mission is a tense, tactical battle between evenly matched kill teams.
At the other extreme, you’ve got elite warriors like the Adeptus Custodes. You may only get two Custodian Guards in a fire team, but each warrior is extremely potent and more than a match for most opponents.
If you’ve been following our Kill Team rules articles recently, you’ll know just how deadly that Custodian Guard truly is thanks to those four action points.
Of course, every faction has a variety of worthy operatives to choose from with their own skills, equipment, and specialisations.
Kill Team is shaping up to be truly amazing. We can’t wait to see your operatives battling for supremacy on war zones stacked with terrain – we’ll be taking a closer look at Kill Team battlefields on Monday, so be sure to join us then.
You’ll find loads of beautiful Orky terrain pieces and two iconic kill teams (Ork Kommandos versus Death Korps of Krieg) in the Kill Team: Octarius launch box, which is available to pre-order from next month.
If you can’t wait to learn more, spend some time on the updated Kill Team website to catch up with the latest news. 
* Imperial Knights and their Chaos-tainted counterparts are, sadly, too big for this ride.
** If you’re not sure what all those stats mean, check out our article explaining how the datacards work in the new edition of Kill Team.