Welcome my review of the new box and kill teams for Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team!
Before we get into this review, thanks goes to Games Workshop for providing this to review for free! As always, I still aim to be honest, impartial and constructively critical. If you’re interested, I’ve also done this article as a more in-depth YouTube video which you can check out here:
The Narrative
Nachmund is the sector that lies as the only space between the great rift, a giant warp storm that splits the Warhammer 40,000 galaxy in half. This is the only calm part of the warp storm which allows safe travels for large fleets. Now Chaos and Imperials fight for control with the Aeldari around to disrupt and stop the plans of Chaos.
Box Contents
Inside the Nachmund box you get a ton of stuff: Corsair Voidscarred kill team, Legionary kill team and Nachmund plastic terrain. It may not sound like a lot here but that’s 10 Aeldari pirate, 10 Chaos Space Marines, and lots of terrain pieces. On top of those you also get a foldable card 30″x22″ gaming board, transfers, building instructions and the Nachmund book itself.
The instructions cover all your building needs but the Nachmund book is just like those found in Octarius and Chalnath. It covers the narrative of the setting, kill team name generators, kill team rules, narrative rules and missions too on top of the new terrain rules as well.
Kill Teams
Now I’ll briefly cover each kill team featured in the Nachmund box seperately. If you want a more in-depth review I’ll post my YouTube videos as appropriate as I’m allowed to go more in-depth there.
Corsair Voidscarred Kill Team
The Corsair Voidscarred kill team are the Aeldari pirates you’ve heard all about from their amazing lore to amazing models!
As you can see from the rosters, you’re locked into either Recon or Seek and Destroy. It’s not a bad mix but Aeldari Raiders is what will help you make scoring Recon really consistent. Having free dashes during activations lets your APL2 operatives acts as pseudo APL3. Sadly the kill team is hit a bit by only being a leader and 8 operatives while also not being allowed to take both a gunner and heavy gunner at the same time. Sorry people wanting to take a Blaster and a Wraithcannon, it’s not going to happen!
Tac Ops are pretty balanced but not…great. Totally thematic but have flaws. Flawless Raid can only be revealed from turning point 3 and leaves you down 2 VP while also requiring you to be in the lead on total VP to score, e.g. a win more Tac Op. Soul Guard rewards you for not dying or collecting all your dead which just seems tough and can force you to play too defensively. Opportunists is my favourite as you can put it on melee/advance deployed operatives and play mind games with your opponent.
Psychic powers are pretty great here, with your psyker able to cast a 2nd spell on a +3. Lightning Strike is a great shooting attack and Freezing Grasp has unlimited range. My favourite has to be Warp Fold followed by Warding Shield. Put a gunner on a vantage point after moving there then hope you cast Warding Shield to give them a +3 invun.
Strategic and Tacticl ploys are mostly all good too, reflecting the pirate nature of the kill team while still being powerful. Plunderers is a situational dash whereas Outcasts is great for operatives on their own. Light Fingers makes Tac Op mission actions a breeze on top of any mission action while One Step Ahead is great if being the defender, you get to redeploy 2 operatives within your drop zone but can more importantly change their order too!
Operative wise, everyone is basically 8 wounds with a +4 save. The dreaded bird isn’t as good as first thought. While it does have unlimited range, it only triggers on a 6+ to turn off a single conceal, with various modifiers that will generally see it as a +4 roll. Not bad but you basically have to plan as if your roll is going to fail and play succeeding as a nice bonus because it won’t be too reliable.
The Kurnathi is a great (if not hidden) operative that only really misses having 5 attacks. Shame its first parry doesn’t do damage or something. Relentless and parry first is nice, just would have liked 5 attacks is all.
As for the dreaded Heavy Gunner, having unwieldly on both weapons is disappointing. I was expecting the Shuriken Cannon to be a weapon you could move and fire but the Wraithcannon just completely outshines it. Sadly both will probably lose out to the standard gunner.
Equipment wise is…okay? Lodestar (LONESTAR) Helm is an auto-take for your psyker and the Pathfinder Cloak gives your Fate Dealer permanent conceal which is great. No climbing ropes is sad but plasma grenades are great, even if they are now 3 EP.
You also get a slew of narrative rules for your Spec Op campaigns, covering everything you need to really get your storytelling juices flowing.
Overall this is a very good kill team, which is thematic and strong. However, it suffers from seemingly being from the design philosophy of the White Dwarf teams, e.g. very balanced compared to what came previously in Chalnath etc. 9 miniatures with only 1 type of gunner is disappointing. Even being allowed to take a normal Warrior to make the kill team 10 operatives would have been fine personally but we deal with what we are dealt with. Regardless, this is a truly beautiful kill team.
Legionary Kill Team
The Legionary kill team are the forces of Chaos making themselves known. Can these Chaos Space Marines trump the weaknesses of elite kill teams?
You can either select Security or Seek and Destroy, with Security being an amazing pick. Your roster gives you the choice of either 2 leaders and then 5 operatives, meaning 6 operatives total. Each model can be given a Mark of Chaos too. It’s great customisation but it’s disappointing you cannot mix marks on your roster. So you roster will have either Khorne or Slaanesh and Nurgle or Tzeentch operatives. I understand not being usable in the same kill team, but limiting the roster feels like a bad move. Only being 6 operatives is a shame too, I would have loved the kill team to be a leader and 6 operatives.
Faction Tac Ops aren’t too bad. Sacrilegious Mutilation is a nice reward for killing and using your 3 APL. Dark Desecration is great twist on the Security archetype, although it requires you to predict enemy movement and can get mission dependent. Savage Butcher feels just too un-scorable. It’s hard to survive combat un-wounded, let alone 3 times.
For Marks, you get great thematic rules. However the best pair seem to be Tzeentch on your ranged operatives and Khorne for your melee. It’ll make sense soon. Favoured of the dark gods lets you use a Mark of Chaos strategic ploy for free based on your leader’s Mark which is why your probably go Tzeentch on your leader but have a Khorne one in your roster too.
Psychic powers are nice but it’s a shame your psyker cannot cast twice. Fire Blast is nice but Life Siphon is some great damage and healing thanks to being 5 attack dice. Malign Influence is pretty great too, allowing you to buff a melee and/or ranged operative.
Strategic ploys are huge, based on your Marks of Chaos. They’re all pretty great but Tzeentch and Khorne have the best ones personally. Blood for the blood god allows you to do even more damage on a charge while both Tzeentch strategic ploys make your operatives far more resilient vs shooting. Tactical Ploys are pretty good too, although the Tzeentch one needs a clarification on timing as currently it doesn’t actually give you an extra AP, just make you count as APL4 after you have started to activate.
The Legionary Heavy Gunner’s Reaper Chaincannon is nice but not as good as the Warpcoven one. Just give him a Heavy Bolter and have him fire twice each turning point with a 51.3% chance to crit and have AP1 each time.
The Butcher is great as Khorne. Pop his strat for 6/8 damage on the charge and one-shot most operatives. His engagement range bubble is 1 white instead of 1 black, making him a great roadblock/movement blocker.
The Shrivetalon is a great disruption piece. While not being a huge damage dealer, he can strike first while being the defender in combat but his Grisly Mark action is amazing. Put it on a key objective and not only is your opponent at net -1APL for controlling the objective but mission actions cost 1 more AP to use (although not working on stuff that makes them free, damn sneaky pirates).
Equipment is expensive but good. Suspensor System for your Heavy Bolter, Tainted Rounds is amazing on a normal Warrior with Bolter and Grisly Trophy is great on a leader or Butcher.
As with the corsairs you get lots of narrative rules for all your Spec Op play.
Overall the Legionary kill team is nice. It is very thematic and balanced with TONS of rules to learn. However, being limited to 6 operatives and locking out Marks on the roster feels especially harsh. 7 operatives would have been ideal and allowing to take all Marks on the roster (which makes roster selection even more important to learn) but not mix on the table would allow more creativity. They have a lot of neat tricks and rules but I don’t think the Legionary kill team turns the tide for elite kill teams, especially as they are probably out-performed but the Warp Coven who can flex into running more operative via Tzaangor.
Once again, they are a good kill team with some really great miniatures. The legionaries are just missing that slight edge to make them really good on the tabletop.
Terrain
The above image lists all the terrain inside Nachmund, which is frankly a lot. Definitely more than Chalnath. While not having such important rules as Chalnath with Scalable and Doors, Nachmund terrain offers some nice thematic rules for this warzone.
Power Station is interesting if in the middle of the board whereas the smog stack is just weird. Not in a bad way but weird none the less. All in all, it’s some nice fairly even rules to use in your games of Kill Team.
Kill Team Nachmund Overview
Nachmund, overall, is a pretty great box in my opinion. You get some amazing kill teams that are really well balanced and look amazing too, especially the Corsairs. While the terrain may be a miss for some, it’s a hit for me with the ever-useful pipes and even nice Mechanicum terrain as well. The Nachmund book is pretty good also, combining the narrative and rules into a nice neat package. If I hadn’t received this for free, I would definitely have purchased Nachmund, even for the Corsairs alone!
If you want to buy the Nachmund box, you can do so either directly via the Games Workshop website of via my affiliate link at Element Games, doing so will net you a 20% discount with no additional cost to yourself and helping support my work, so check it out if you’re interested.
That’s pretty much it for me now. Remember, if you want more in-depth coverage my YouTube videos will be just what you’re after! Until next time, I’m going to paint some space pirates. So when you go pillaging or corrupting the stars, remember you can also have a chance to roll a crit!
Can You Roll A Crit? 