Kill Team: Nachmund

Following the opening of the Great Rift, when the galaxy was split in two, passage across the massive Warp Storm was only possible in a handful of routes. The most stable of these was named the Nachmund Gauntlet, and saw much fighting during the Indomitus Crusade, as the Imperium fought to control the area and ensure communications remained open with the Imperium Nihilus on the other side. The fighting centred on the hive world of Vigilus, but was by no means confined there.

Kill Team Nachmund is the third box in the new edition of the skirmish game, and features Heretic Astartes going up against Aeldari Corsairs. Of the three boxes released so far, it has been the most exciting for me, as I have wanted everything within, not just a small fraction of the models. We get the beautiful new Corsair models, which skirt the lines between Craftworld and Dark Kin, coming with design elements from both but uniting into their own distinct range. I was very excited to learn that they could be used by Drukhari as well, although slightly less excited when I found out their rules were only in the Aeldari Codex. I know I have said previously that I like how the game is its own thing, I still like to multi-purpose some things!

The Heretic Astartes are the somewhat-new 10-man legionary kit, with an upgrade sprue that comes in a similar vein to the Tau Pathfinders that we had in the Chalnath box. Who knows whether we’ll get all of these options available when the CSM Codex hits, as we did for the Pathfinders – I mean, one of the upgrades is to make a regular legionary a psyker… Again, though, it’ll be nice to have a unit that is just for Kill Team, but with this box I do now have 30 marines for my Black Legion (more on this later).

The terrain is all Sector Mechanicus stuff, and I have read that the cost of this alone is equivalent to the box. So I am pleased to have that level of value here. More Sector Mechanicus stuff is always welcome, even if I have decided to just build it as the manual wants me to. Even so, I like it, and between 40k and Necromunda already, I’ll have definite uses for it all!

I’ve built the Corsairs very much with this game in mind. In 40k, they fulfil either troops or elites – with the former, you can’t mix rifles and pistols, whereas the latter has a greater flexibility. However, the 40k rules seem to want you to build all of the specialists available to the squad, but I have only gone for a couple, instead choosing to have more bodies rather than a particularly elite squad. For the Heretics, I think I might go for some of the fancy options too, but I haven’t entirely decided what I want to do with them, so have only built the sorcerer so far.

I mentioned before having 30 marines for my Black Legion, but I still haven’t really got that project moving, and have been considering a refresh – maybe going for a completely different Legion colour scheme. I have only painted the Master of Possession for the army, after all. But as it stands, I think that particular project might be a long way off, so I’m not giving it a great deal of thought for the time being.

Kill Team seems to be firmly in the release model of big boxes, which was exciting at first, but as time has gone on I’m already a bit wary of this release pattern. In a comparatively short space of time, we’ve had Kill Team Chalnath, Warcry Red Harvest, and Kill Team Nachmund, with Necromunda Ash Wastes seemingly closer than anybody had perhaps realised. It is a lot to take on, when these boxes are around the £115 mark, and I really don’t think it’s sustainable for me to keep buying them. I did think this after the Octarius box, but then I got really swept up by the Sisters Novitiates, and having more Sector Imperialis terrain. This box, as I’ve said, was full of stuff that I really love, so it was pretty easy to throw my money at it.

I’m hoping that I can actually resist the next box, and perhaps only pick up those elements that really interest me when they’re released further down the line. I do wonder what else they could do for the game, of course – whether we start to see a shift away from big boxes and instead just teams with upgrade sprues, when they run out of “new” stuff they can do. Maybe we’ll get the Elucidian Starstriders vs Gellerpox Infected box re-branded? They don’t have a lot of terrain sets that can be used in these boxes, either – so I am very intrigued as to where they could take this product line in the longer term. I think GW have been successful so far in getting a lot of interest and excitement around these releases with producing the new teams, but I can’t help but think that Kill Team is in a very weird place as regards how it is being released. I mean, we have the Compendium, but it seems the more exciting teams are those with the full rules from these boxes and the White Dwarf articles – and there aren’t all that many of them! There haven’t been “full” rules for Space Marines, Eldar, Necrons etc so far, which just seems a bit weird…

At any rate, Nachmund has been a great box to get my hands on, and I’m going to enjoy getting it all painted up and maybe even convincing some folks to play it with me! As for what the future holds, I think it’s going to be a very interesting time…