Thanks and great questions.
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I played the version of kill team that was included in the back of the 4th edition rulebook (published 2004?) with my brother a few times, though that game could probably be played solo as well. It was very much an asymetrical-style of game, where one player is the "kill team" and the other player has a bunch of essentially mindless bots/grunts/gribblys that moved with a scatter dice or when they were alerted to the kill teams prescence would close in to attack. It was fun but not especially fleshed out, and I don't think it had support past the rules in the main book.
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I am putting together several of my Deathwatch weapons-combos for a 40K army, but with '1st' Edition Kill Team in mind. I have the 2016 book (above) and have played a few games with my uncle running Imperial Guard, Orks, and Admech lists and would like to add in some Marines as well. He has played Eldar and Tau against me so far.
I like the game as it is pretty self-contained and much shorter than a regular 40K game. To my knowledge all the main factions are represented, and you extend the number of models you can take with the Elites, Commanders, or expansion rules like Pariah Nexus.
You can play 2-3 games in a single evening, though rules are clunky at times. Specifically what comes to mind is wound resolution, which with the addition of the "flesh wounds" mechanic often means models are sticking around a lot longer than you would expect, or they might just die way sooner than you would want them too. It has still been fun to play though!
For the weapons my plan is to run them counts-as. All the weapons options I have tacked onto the heavy intercessor squad aren't technically in the rulebook, but since I don't own any firstborn-sized Deathwatch marines my plan is to use some of the primaris-sized marines to replace them in a Deathwatch kill team. For instance the recent Sons of Medusa heavy intercessor with a flamer underslung from his heavy bolt-rifle would actually counts-as a Deathwatch Veteran gunner with Infernus Bolt Rifle (which is just a Heavy Bolter with a flamer attached). Same would be true for examples like my primaris hellblasters, which in kill team I would just run as Deathwatch Veterans with plasmaguns instead. I do wish there was an option to truly kit-bash your own weapons, but that would be hard to implement in a game without being OP.
Would not stop house rules though! It would be fun to make that a thing for kill team at home.
I don't own 2nd edition (below) and probably won't buy it anytime soon as I barely have gotten enough mileage out of 1st edition yet.
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Main detractions I understand in the new book is a measuring distance with shapes instead of numbers, and the fact you need to buy a two $50 dollar books instead of one to get both the Core Rules and the Faction rules which are separate. These were all included in the same book for the first edition...
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I have little experience with the olden-times rules of Necromunda sadly, other then extensive fawning over terrain setups of games long past. I do have the new ~2018 version rules for the main book and the gangs (here we go again with separate rulebooks
) and I have enjoyed it! I think parts of this game is more streamlined than Kill Team, but still a bit clunky in other parts. I think the biggest difference between Kill Team and Necromunda is that Kill Team mirrors 40ks "I move/shoot/fight with all my models, then you move/shoot/fight with all your models," while Necromunda is based on an activation system: "I move a model, you move a model, I shoot, you shoot, etc."
I do like that the game seems better tailored for movement in a 3D environment, though I have yet to play a game that way and confirm this. I also look forward to getting deep in the weeds of a full campaign someday!
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...as an aside, while I have not played the old Necromunda rules, I have played several games of
Mordheim and really enjoyed its smaller-scale-than-WHF nature and how fast you can play the games. While totally not balanced in terms of fairness between different factions, the games were always really fun! I hope original Necromunda was like this too!
