Time flies when you’re conducting thrilling covert actions in the shadow of what’s probably the biggest gun in the galaxy. Yes, the latest edition of Kill Team is in full swing, and it’s time for another quarterly balance update, which is free to download below. But first, here’s Leila from the Kill Team team to tell us more…
Leila: The focus of this balance update is on teams that remain underperforming after the last update, when the most oppressive teams had their power reduced. In general, there’s been an extremely healthy trend in the meta as more and more teams have settled into an acceptable win rate. However, there are still outliers, mainly on the low end, so this update gives most of its benefits to teams with a 45% win rate or less. Here are some of the main changes:
Sanctifiers
The Confessor operative’s Lead the Procession rule can no longer be used in the first turning point. While we would normally wait to receive more quantifiable data, the Sanctifiers have clearly been able to apply too much pressure too early on, which makes learning how to play against them too difficult.
While the general toolkit of the team will remain intact, allowing anyone who purchased them in Blood and Zeal to continue to enjoy their new product, this should give opponents breathing room to respond to the Sanctifiers’ aggressive playstyle.
Hivestorm
The Vespid Stingwings and Tempestus Aquilons both receive an additional operative. Both teams’ movement tools are quite strong, but they have been struggling under sustained pressure, or to complete missions while effectively engaging in shooting or combat. The Aquilons’ reinforcement will come in the form of a required operative selection of the Servo-Sentry, while Vespid can bring another Warrior.
T’au Empire Pathfinders
The Pathfinders have had a rework to their Markerlights faction ability. In the dense cityfight of Volkus, they have struggled to bring down tougher targets while relying on a 4+ Hit stat, so their Markerlight table has been given a significant buff. Now they’ll also receive the Balanced weapon rule when a target has one Markerlight, significantly increasing their accuracy, while they get a 3+ Hit stat once the target has 2 Markerlights.
Kasrkin
The elite of the Astra Militarum have struggled with damage output and consistency, so a number of abilities have been reworked to increase lethality and decrease difficulty. Some of their key ploys, such as Clearance Sweep, have had their effects increased to be more reliable. Additionally, the Sergeant can now add an additional Skill at Arms, allowing for bigger, more impactful plays.
Other teams
Several teams intended to be able to flex into melee combat – including Hernkyn Yaegirs, Death Korps, Vespid Stingwings, Scout Squad and Kasrkin – have found their melee strategies to be underwhelming, so they have have all seen an increase to melee equipment or ploy reliability to help them engage in the confines of Volkus and Gallowdark.
Thanks Leila! The quarterly balance update can be downloaded below.
