A 20:1 Kill Team Win, Fresh Paint on the Table, and the Eternal Orc Problem
We had one of those very Wiatry Magii evenings where two completely different hobby energies collided in the same chat.
On one side: Stas, deep in the classic Orcs & Goblins spiral of “this army is actually four armies in a trench coat”. On the other: End3r, fresh off what he described as probably his most enjoyable Kill Team game so far.
So this is technically a battle report — but also a little snapshot of how our hobby brains work in practice: list paralysis, bad advice, good advice, accidental advice, shiny dice, and finally a very convincing 20:1 result.
The eternal Orcs & Goblins crisis
It started with Stas suffering from a problem that will be immediately familiar to anyone who has looked at an Orcs & Goblins roster for more than five minutes:
“I can’t with these orcs and goblins. It’s basically 4 armies in one.”
And honestly… fair.
Do you go for chariots? Trolls? Wolf riders? Night Goblins with fanatics? Goblins with nasty skulker tricks? A solid brick of orcs? Black Orcs? Every option sounds fun, and every option sounds like the real plan until the next one appears.
Michał, naturally, tried to help in the most Michał way possible: first by suggesting Tomb Kings starter box therapy, and then by making a genuinely tempting pitch for a Troll Horde.
According to him, it is gloriously thematic, wildly random because of Stupidity, and absolutely terrifying when it works. Which, to be fair, is a very strong sales pitch.
It did not work at all.
Or rather: it worked in the exact opposite direction.
After a short exchange that can be summarized as:
- “Maybe chariots?”
- “Maybe trolls?”
- “You’re right, I’ll play orcs!”
…Stas arrived exactly where he was always going to arrive anyway: building the list around an orc battalion, with two chariots, blocks of orcs and goblins, and maybe a few Black Orcs thrown in for good measure.
Which led to the very accurate diagnosis of the evening: the dialogue in his head had already been written.
Some decisions are not made — they merely reveal themselves.
Meanwhile: an actually played game
While that was going on, End3r dropped in with the kind of message we always love seeing: not just a win, but a win where the whole game felt right.
This was a league Kill Team match, and by his own account the opponent was not the toughest challenge he’s faced. He also wasn’t completely satisfied with his own play. And yet the final score was a brutal 20:1.
But the result wasn’t even the main point.
What made the game special was everything around it:
- he fielded a nearly fully painted team for the first time,
- the Deathwatch painted as Salamanders looked great on the table,
- he brought new dice intended mainly for Necromunda,
- those dice behaved suspiciously well,
- the game had a great pace,
- and there was enough time to actually enjoy the whole thing instead of rushing through turns.
That combination is hard to beat. Sometimes the best hobby evenings are not the ones with the most dramatic comeback or the most tactical depth, but the ones where the game, the models, the table presence and the general flow all click together.
The joy of (almost) painted models
End3r mentioned something that we suspect a lot of people will recognize immediately: the models were not technically fully finished, because the bases still needed work — but from a distance they absolutely looked done.
And honestly, that counts for a lot.
There is a huge difference between playing with grey plastic, playing with half-painted models, and putting down a force that already reads as coherent and intentional from across the table. Even if there is still hobby work left, that first game with a visually unified team always feels different.
Here are the Salamander-flavoured Deathwatch in action:
And yes — we fully support being extra pleased with your own models when your opponent also doesn’t object.
New dice technology
The second important factor in this victory was clearly science.
More specifically: new dice.
These were bought with Necromunda in mind, at least in part, but some regular dice made it to the Kill Team table first. Their performance was immediately excellent: very few ones, plenty of useful results, and none of the emotional betrayal we usually expect from cubes.
We are not saying the dice won the game.
We are saying that if you bring freshly painted models and fresh dice, you are at least giving destiny a very clear hint.
A few more shots from the match:
The final shape of the game was as one-sided as the score suggests: End3r tabled the opponent, losing only a single model in the last turning point. Clean, decisive, and apparently played in exactly the kind of relaxed tempo we all want more often.
He summed it up as probably his most pleasant Kill Team match so far, and that says more than the 20:1 ever could.
Also in the background: the dangerous subject of ordering more stuff
Because no hobby conversation is complete without escalating into shopping, the evening also drifted toward a possible Battlestock order.
Michał admitted that, ideally, he would order everything, though giant rats may become the immediate priority. Stas, meanwhile, was clearly still thinking about a certain boss model and maybe a few other things as well.
At some point, the discussion produced this deeply relatable image:
With the dry follow-up:
“Only 802 more to go.”
A sentence that captures the premium Warhammer shopping experience with painful precision.
Final thoughts
So what did we learn from this little evening recap?
- Orcs & Goblins remain an army of infinite internal arguments.
- Advice from friends may not change your decision, but it can help you arrive at the decision you had already made.
- A 20:1 scoreline is nice, but a smooth, fun game with painted models is even better.
- New dice are absolutely real and definitely magical until proven otherwise.
- We all want to place one more order than we probably should.
A very good hobby day, in other words.
And if Stas somehow still ends up with trolls later, we will of course pretend this was all part of the plan from the beginning.