One of our favourite things about Warhammer 40,000 is the choice of game modes on offer, going from fighting intense competitive showdowns one day to writing a new chapter in our army’s ongoing story the next. Kill Team, too, gives you multiple ways to play, and following on from our look at matched play games on Wednesday we’re diving deep into the world of narrative play Spec Ops campaigns today.
A Spec Ops campaign is the story of your own personal kill team’s rise from fresh faces to hardened veterans, picking up unique skills along the way as they tackle cinematic missions and face ongoing consequences of their actions. The faction you pick and the operatives you recruit aren’t just faceless drones* completing nameless missions, but rather heroes like Sergeant Venner and his Faithful sabotaging critical air defences behind traitor lines.
As they complete more missions and gain experience in the field, your kill team takes on a character all of their own by earning rare pieces of equipment, suffering battle scars from their injuries, and being awarded honours for their bravery. Every game becomes a new chapter in the tale of your heroes, and every trial and tribulation all the more dramatic for it.
You won’t just be choosing your operatives, either. As they often need to operate far from friendly forces for an extended period of time, kill teams set up bases of operations to rest and resupply in between missions. What begins as, say, a simple hidey-hole beneath an abandoned hab-block will blossom into a treasure trove of specialist equipment and strategic assets as your kill team completes missions and earns rewards.
All of these details will be noted down in your narrative dataslate and datacards, helping you to keep track of the ongoing story of your operatives as well as all of the things they’ll pick up along the way.
The core objective of your kill team during a narrative play campaign is to complete Spec Ops – multi-stage missions that require you to fulfil special conditions across multiple games. By completing each step, or operation, of your chosen Spec Op you’ll earn a commendation, granting even greater rewards than usual and marking a key achievement in your kill team’s career.
Best of all, each player tracks their chosen Spec Op completely independently of each other, so you can progress your objectives at the speed that suits you best. In fact, your opponent doesn’t even need to be playing in a campaign at all, as your operations can be completed regardless of the game mode you’re using. Even if your friends prefer to focus on matched play games, you’ll be able to progress the narrative play story of your own kill team while playing with them.**
No story of daring military escapades would be complete without a few scars earned along the way, and your operatives are no exception. Taking a few bullets or whacks on the head here and there is all a part of the Kill Team life, and even when an unfortunate soldier loses all of their Wounds in combat, death is a long way off. Each incapacitated operative rolls a Casualty Test at the end of the game, fully recovering on a result of 2+ and suffering a more serious injury on a roll of 1.
Whether it’s a rough concussion or severed limb, injuries will continue to affect your operatives until they manage to recover in the downtime after a battle, but beware – accumulating further damage inches your warriors ever closer to an untimely (and very permanent) death. Luckily, a bit of rest and relaxation can work wonders, so you’ll need to carefully consider if you want to leave a star operative at home or risk further malady on the battlefield.
We still have more Kill Team secrets to share with you in the run-up to pre-orders opening in August, so stay tuned to Warhammer Community for more details. While you’re at it, let us know on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter which faction you’ll be bringing to the skirmish battlefields of the 41st Millennium, and be sure to head over to the Kill Team website for more information on who’s sending operatives of their own to the fray.
* Unless you're literally using faceless T'au drones, or you play as Tyranids. Although, we’re pretty sure even the Hive Mind would give names to some of its favourite little face-tearers.
** Although, to preserve balance, you won’t be able to use your narrative play rewards in matched play games.