Kill Team, Hide Team, Wait Team — our very normal discussion about small-scale Warhammer
Kill Team, Hide Team, Wait Team — our very normal discussion about small-scale Warhammer
Some hobby chats start with deep tactical insight. Ours started with “this works exactly like I said it works”, quickly escalated into Deathwatch being maybe a bit too spicy, and then somehow turned into a broader discussion about whether Kill Team is great, weird, overhated, or just not somebody’s thing.
So basically: a normal day at Wiatry Magii.
Deathwatch: strong team, maybe too strong?
The spark this time was the Deathwatch team. The general feeling was that it might be very strong — maybe even a little too strong. But, in true hobby fashion, that immediately came with the most reasonable follow-up possible:
maybe the team is busted, but maybe we’re not good enough yet to make it busted in practice.
Honestly, fair.
We really liked the attitude here. If something turns out to be too much for our local games, then there’s no drama — we can just talk it through and use some homebrew nerfs if needed, or borrow ideas from wider community discussions about what should be toned down.
That’s one of the best things about playing in a friendly group: balance is important, but so is making sure everyone actually wants to put models on the table again next week.
The temptation of painting them as Salamanders
Very quickly, the tactical discussion ran headfirst into the real heart of the hobby: painting cool models.
There was immediate temptation to adopt the team and paint them as Salamanders, especially since at least one operative already feels like a natural fit. And honestly, that sounds like a fantastic project — a lot more immediately exciting than grinding away at an army that currently just keeps losing.
Because yes, there was also some pain on the menu.
After 7–8 games with the current force, the scoreline was still all losses. The mood was still joking rather than tragic, but only just. The official stance seemed to be:
another 20 games like that and we may start getting impatient.
Very healthy. Very balanced. Very hobby.
Maybe the issue isn’t the list — maybe it’s the aggression
One of the more useful observations in the whole exchange was that sometimes the problem isn’t the faction, the mission pack, or the dice.
Sometimes we just play too aggressively.
That came up in the context of earlier games, with the suggestion that charging forward too hard might be part of why things go sideways. Not as a grand universal truth, and not based on a full replay review of every game ever — just a practical, friendly read from what had been seen at the table.
And that’s exactly the kind of feedback we like most: not “your army is bad,” but “maybe next time we’ll play and then we can look at what’s actually happening.”
That kind of advice is way more useful than faction doomposting.
Kill Team, Wait Team, Hide Team
At this point the chat achieved enlightenment and produced three distinct game systems:
- Kill Team
- Wait Team
- Hide Team
And honestly… depending on the matchup and your level of confidence, all three may be valid descriptions.
The joke came from the feeling that some games can become extremely cagey, especially early on. If your first real experience is a slow, cautious one where nobody wants to overextend, it’s easy to look at the board and think: hang on, are we playing a skirmish game or a tactical crouching simulator?
Which leads neatly into the next point.
The classic problem: judging a game before seeing the full shape of it
A big chunk of the discussion was about people bouncing off Kill Team early.
And to be fair, that happens! Not every system is for everyone. Some people click with alternating activations, close positioning, and tight objective play immediately. Others try it, don’t enjoy the rhythm, and that’s that.
But we also hit on something important: if someone hasn’t really played through a full proper flow of the game yet, it’s very easy to come away with a distorted impression.
In this case, there was confusion around how much had actually happened in the game being discussed — whether it was really a couple of full turns, or more like just a couple of activations per operative with very little actual engagement. If very few models die, objectives don’t score yet, and everyone is mostly tucked away, then of course the first impression can be rough.
That first turning point can absolutely feel strange if you’re expecting immediate fireworks.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean the whole system is bad. It may just mean the game state hadn’t opened up yet.
Why the first turn can feel weird
One specific complaint was about the opening turn not feeling meaningful because you’re not scoring objectives yet, so it can seem like everyone is just hiding and waiting.
That feeling is understandable.
But from the other side, the counterpoint was also solid: the first turn is often where you position, set threat ranges, and prepare the actual scoring turns. In that sense, it’s not dead time — it’s setup time.
And honestly, that’s not unique to Kill Team either. A lot of Warhammer systems have that same early-game rhythm where the first round is about establishing board state before the real points race kicks off.
So if someone’s first impression is “nothing happened,” we get it. But if you enjoy tactical positioning, that same turn can be where the whole game starts.
Not every game is for every person, and that’s fine
This was probably the healthiest part of the whole conversation.
Once the jokes and bait settled down, the actual position became much clearer:
- one of us likes Kill Team a lot,
- one of us thinks it’s probably the most balanced of the systems we’re currently playing,
- one of us just doesn’t enjoy it,
- and none of that is actually a problem.
That’s a good place to land.
We don’t all need to love the same system. There are too many good games under the Warhammer umbrella for that anyway.
If somebody prefers Warhammer 40,000 because big armies are just more exciting, fair enough. If somebody had a great time in Age of Sigmar at larger points values but got their mood ruined by a particular matchup, also fair enough. If somebody respects what Kill Team is doing and still doesn’t want to play it, that’s also completely fine.
The important thing is being honest without turning that into “therefore nobody should like this.”
Where we seem to be landing right now
Our current rough mood looks something like this:
- Warhammer 40,000 may currently be delivering the biggest raw fun, especially because large armies just feel great on the table.
- Age of Sigmar can absolutely slap at bigger game sizes, even if some matchups leave emotional damage.
- Kill Team feels to some of us like the most balanced system of the bunch, largely thanks to alternating activations and the back-and-forth that creates.
- At the same time, Kill Team may also be the hardest one to win at when you’re brand new, because experience and sequencing matter so much.
That last point is especially interesting. One of us noted that in league play, Combat Patrol felt much easier to get into quickly, while Kill Team was much harsher when starting from zero experience. That sounds believable to us. Smaller game doesn’t always mean simpler game.
Sometimes it means every mistake is more visible.
Final thought
The most relatable thing in this whole exchange might be that we managed to have, all at once:
- balance concerns,
- painting temptations,
- tactical advice,
- system preference arguments,
- and stupid jokes about what game we were even playing.
Which is, really, the full Warhammer experience.
For now, we’re curious about the Deathwatch team, we’re not ruling out Salamanders-flavoured adoption, and we’re very much in favor of getting more actual games in before making grand declarations about any system.
And if next time it turns out we’re not playing Kill Team after all, but Hide Team?
Well. At least we’ll know by turn two.