Going over all the competitive Into the Dark missions!
Today’s Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team article is my monthly Patron-requested video all about the new Into the Dark missions! I’ll be going over all 9 competitive missions in-depth and rate them from best, okay, to worst. I’ve also done this as a more in-depth YouTube video which you can watch here:
Into the Dark Missions
Like with normal Kill Team, I’ll be reviewing all the competitive missions for the Into the Dark game mode. I’ll be going over the best missions, okay missions and worst missions. For this I’ll be factoring playability and balance, not factoring stuff hugely like forward deploy ploys and the like. While we’re all expecting an Into the Dark FAQ, I don’t think that will change how missions work themselves. Into the Dark Missions also are very low scoring with most primary points on-offer being 12 points max on average. It’s something to factor but as overall Tac Op scoring is hugely erratic for Into the Dark, I’m mentioning it here now instead of for every mission.
Best ITD Missions
Command Station is a solid mission. While it’s a game of basically going for the closest objective to your and the middle objective with switching lanes impossible, it’s straightforward and balanced. No big firing lanes and lots of safe ways to make avenues of attack. A bit basic but still enjoyable.
Supply Raid, the dick mission, is probably my favourite mission of all of Into the Dark. Objectives are reachable and encourage early play, lane/room switching is easy and the mission itself is straightforward.
Full-Scale Attack has 2 central beta objectives and 4 alpha objectives. This mission, while incentivising holding the middle, is actually more rewarding for using the middle as a staging point to push into enemy territory (at least via the central beta objective) as alpha objectives in your opponent’s dropzone are worth 2 VP each. While it does have two large fire lanes, I really like the approach of the mission. You could ignore the beta right objective but then that leaves free VP for your opponent etc. Lots of decision-making needed.
Forge Stronghold is ITD’s Seize Ground. Primary VP cannot be scored during turning point 1 but it allows good early setup, lots of well-placed doors and basically no clear fire lanes. I was surprised by how much I liked it until I played it. One of the missions to make Central Control a real struggle to do. Very fun and hectic but in a good way.
Okay ITD Missions
Power Surge is an alright mission with a rolling objective from left to right. While it’s the only ITD mission to actually reward someone for being the defender, it kinda has the worst qualities of ITD missions, notably the inability to easily traverse the board. You effectively have to split your Kill Team into 4 smaller teams for each objective as it’s almost impossible to move left or right to reach the next objective down the line. Good concept but the poor door layout lets it down.
Vault Plunder is okay. However it basically devolves into popping the conduit objectives early, then waiting till the end of turning point 3 or start of 4 to commit to the vault objectives as they are scored at the end of the game. Good overall layout but earlier progressive scoring would make it much better.
Exposed Trove is the ITD Loot and Salvage but just not as good. Alpha objectives are a slot to reach and the other 2 objectives are very exposed, leading to tight deadlocks basically or wipeouts. I think not having L deployments would help (instead being a square) but 2 more objectives would be great as well. Not a horrible mission, just one that is short of being really good.
Worst ITD Missions
Junction Assault is…not good. It has 2 big flaws: no objective markers and 5 huge fire lanes. 3 barricades only go so far so the game becomes a shooting deadlock. No objectives messes up faction Tac Ops, normal Tac Ops and operatives’ abilites. If the competitive missions had more light terrain for cover, it wouldn’t be so bad but this mission is just a big mess. I’ve seen some people talk about adding dud objectives for Tac Ops and abilities but that’s just a poor placeholder for a hugely flawed mission.
Junction Assault, possibly the worst mission we’ve had for Kill Team. Each person can only Scan once per turning point but literally, if you roll a 6 on the first objective you basically automatically win. While it doesn’t happen all the time, when it does you can’t do anything. Drop zones are hard blocking, B1 should be swapped with B3 so there’s some movement. Just bizarre how this mission made it into the competitive pack, even narrative missions are more balanced than this. Literally D6 and I win with a horribly punishing drop zone split (the only mission to punish drop zones so hard). Never play this.
Into the Dark Missions Overview
Overall the Into the Dark missions are pretty good but I find the normal Kill Team missions way more engaging. Still, ITD’s best missions are really good and are a lot of fun. They make good use of the ITD terrain and setting to be fun, engaging missions. Even the okay missions are still fine, just with some flaws. The worst missions, like, just wow. Somehow worse than Master the Terminals. I’ve already seen tournament organisers banning 2.1 and 2.3 and I totally agree with this sentiment. While I get people want to try and fix them, these 2 missions are so hugely flawed that I feel Games Workshop needs to do it themselves as they basically both need to be re-written.
Remember, the best missions are ones I recommend using all the time. If you’re a TO, you won’t have many issues using them all the time. They have lots of ways to access the board with good door placement so traversing the board doesn’t feel like a huge slog. The okay missions are good too and are great to use now and again in-place of a better mission. Worst missions, just never use. It’s not like Master the Terminals where you can sometimes have an okay time. These are all my opinions but they’re backed up with experience and practice, still use your own judgement at the end of the day.
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That’s it for now. Until next time, remember that no matter how many crits you roll, it won’t always ensure victory. Unless you’re playing Mysterious Signature!
Can You Roll A Crit? 