Kill Team: Hivestorm contains two high-flying kill teams with astonishingly good miniatures, and as you’d expect from these airborne operatives, they add a whole new dimension to the game with exciting rules. This new approach to verticality is exemplified by the Vespid, who are arriving fresh from the Fire caste barracks with devastating new weapons and a complete disdain for gravity.
The Vespid Stingwings are one of the most manoeuvrable kill teams to date, and their natural ability to Fly above the killzone is the core of a diverse suite of rules. This ability is a great indicator of the clearer, more concise rules found in the new edition, as rather than acting like a normal move with line after line of exceptions to terrain height, control zones, and the like, flying now requires you to simply pick up the operative and put them back down somewhere within their movement range – nothing more.*
This gives Vespid operatives unparalleled agility in and around terrain, as they don’t need to worry about intervening walls and whether or not they can find a climbing surface, and they can also neatly avoid traps set up to snare less nimble teams. Flying does adhere to most other game rules, however, so you still need to Charge to get into control range.
Vespids don’t just use their wings for traversal either, as the harmonics projected by their fluttering induce a strange resonance within their weapons’ neutron crystals – giving them the armour-piercing punch they’re rightly feared for. In Kill Team, this manifests as the powerful Piercing 1 rule** so long as the operative has moved or used Fly in the same turning point – providing commanders with a tough choice between spending their action points on movement and thus powering up their guns or taking other mission actions.
Alas, despite their self-sufficiency and can-do attitude in battle, Stingwing teams struggle to communicate naturally with their T’au handlers and rely on the Strain Leader’s high tech communion helm to bridge the strategic gap. Without direction from a level-headed liaison, Vespid can revert to their aggressive and warlike ways, and the fast-paced nature of their missions means even the best commanders struggle to rein them all in at once.
To represent this constant effort to keep the Vespid focused and on-task, Communion points must be allocated to direct the operatives’ attention towards mission objectives and less immediate targets.
This combination of flexible movement and command limitations make the Vespid a satisfyingly tactical kill team that rewards strategic decision-making and positioning with the chance to unleash deadly firepower. Even their most basic Warriors carry a gun with the Devastating 2 rule, which inflicts extra guaranteed damage whenever a critical hit is retained, and some specialist weapons like the neutron rail rifle and neutron grenade launcher can debilitate their targets with constant damage turn after turn.
With their damage output already well catered for, the Stingwings’ faction equipment is geared more towards improving their other abilities. On that subject – in the new edition of Kill Team, equipment is no longer purchased with a stock of Equipment Points that players need to keep track of, and instead, you’ll simply select four different items from those available to your faction. Quick and easy.
Vespid make use of several stimulants dispensed from their armour to sharpen their senses, supercharge their wingbeats, and induce a terrifying battle rage. With Communion points in such short supply, the Convergence Stimulant’s ability to Pick Up a mission marker without spending one can mean the difference between victory and failure, and to make sure you get as many points as possible, a quick pump of the Neurostimulant won’t go amiss.
With their speed and flight, the Vespid Stingwings can dominate a chaotic killzone like those represented by Kill Team: Hivestorm’s missions, which we’ll be taking a look at soon. Until then, take a break with some short fiction tomorrow as the Tempestus Aquilons finally meet their xenos foes in battle, and join us again next week to find out what Humanity’s own drop troops can do.
* Unless you’re fighting aboard Killzone: Gallowdark – even Vespid find it difficult to burrow through the enclosed ceilings.
** The new name for the old AP weapon ability.
