Humanity has been amongst the stars for millennia. So many planets were occupied over such a large swath of space that many were never known to the Imperium. They developed entire distinct civilizations in isolation, never interacting with any other human colonies. Many of those civilizations were snuffed out by rapacious Xenos forces, their dying screams unheard in the vacuum. Dravon was just such a planet. The marauding horde of Orks that extinguished it never knew its name.

On Dravon the Orks found the closest thing to profound happiness a greenskin can know. It became a continuous war zone, with Ork tribe vying with Ork tribe. The innate adaptability of the Orks led them to develop increasingly violent and creative ways to wage war. Several hundred years passed with the art of Waaagh being refined to a razor edge, well as refined as anything Orks do.

Only one thing could increase the perfection of Dravon, an opponent to push the Orks’ to new heights of destruction. The Tyranids and their ceaseless evolution offered just such an opponent. Waves of green muscle smashed into waves of chitinous armour all across the planet’s surface. Death on that scale could not go unnoticed. It did not go unnoticed…

The great rift did more than just create a tear in the physical universe. It created a tangle of the Warp, connecting flows and surges of psychic energy that had never been joined before. It was through these new connections that two distant psykers learned of the planet of perpetual slaughter. Their discovery set two fleets on course for a hitherto unknown place. A place that not only resonated with death, but with a psychic energy that pulsated throughout the Warp. This place would be the end of something, maybe the end of everything.

A group of four of us decided we wanted to get together and play Kill Team for a day. Our friend Colin graciously agreed to host us and I volunteered to write a loose narrative to guide the day. I asked people what factions they wanted to play (Colin: Orks, Dan: Death Guard, Rafal: Servants of the Abyss and me: Tyranids) and then I got to work. I had some guiding principles:

It needed to be fun, so there had to be more to it than just winning games. That’s what tournaments are for.

Telling a story was important and game elements should contribute towards that.

It shouldn’t last too long, so it should wrap up in 5-6 hours maximum.

The Rules

I wanted the games to tell a basic story… a planet being fought over by the Orks and Tyranids was like a beacon to Warp sensitive beings. It was drawing the Death Guard and Servants to it. I also wanted there to be a mystery, so I asked the players to keep track of two things:

Campaign Kill Count (CKC). The number of enemy models they’d taken out.

Mission focus (max once per game):

Orks – ‘out of action’ more enemy models than you have put out of action.

Servants – 2 x Fight phase out of action in a turn.

Death Guard – Shooting and Fight phase out of action in a turn.

Tyranids – ‘out of action’ an enemy model while having at least three of your models engaged with it.

I didn’t tell them why they were tracking these! We’d play three one on one games and then have a 4 player game:

Kill Team Campaign Day

Game 1

1.1 Death Guard vs Servants of the Abyss: Arena Mission. Set on a space cruiser inbound towards Dravon (the planet).

1.2 Orks vs Tyranids: Sweep and Clear (P56 of Core). Urban map. Represents carnage on the planet surface.

Game 2

2.1 Orks vs Winner of 1.1 Recover Intelligence (P58 of Core). Represents an insertion force seeking something!

2.2 Tyranids vs Loser of 1.1: Terror Tactics (P59 of Core; No Reserves). Represents cruiser crashing in Tyranid territory and a breakout attempt. Desolate map.

Game 3

3.1 & 3.2 Choose pairs who haven’t fought yet: Rampage (P138 of Elites; player with most wins is attacker). Represents a bloody slaughter!

Game 4

4 player game. Escalating Conflict (P140 of Elites).

Now, back to the things the players were tracking… Mission Focus would contribute +1 CP for each time it was achieved (max once per game) to the player’s starting pool of Command Points in the final game. Players choose deployment zones in order of CKC. It would also impact the number of starting wounds the Chaos Daemon Prince I’d start with would have! I wasn’t going to use my Tyranids in the last game. Instead I was going to use a fresh servant of Slaanesh, manifest into real space thanks to the carnage on Dravon. I guess what the kill counts would total to and made the following chart for starting wounds: 40+ : 8 / 30-39: 6 / 20-29: 5 / 0-19: 4. It would also have the Emperor’s Children Legion Trait. It also received only 1CP per turn… it was already dangerous enough!

The Campaign

So? How’d we get on? Well, we all had a lot of fun, so that’s the main thing. The campaign also ran very well. Game 1 saw the Death Guard assault the space cruiser of the Servants of the Abyss and sabotage it. This caused the ship to come down away from their intended target and amongst throngs of Tyranids.

The Tyranids were pushed back by the Orks, only to for the Death Guard to arrive to fight their way through a ruined Imperial city, a place of great power.

The Tyranids swarmed towards the Servants of the Abyss, further hampering their plans to reach the nexus of energy in one of the destroyed urban areas in Dravon.

The Servants eventually made it to the city and fought hard to repel the Orks.

The Tyranids rampaged into the Death Guards rearguard, punching through and disorganising them.

After the three games, a total of 62 ‘out of actions’ had been achieved. Colin’s Orks had the most on 20, followed by Rafal on 18, Dan on 14 and me on 10. This would determine the order of choosing deployment areas in the final multi-player game. Dan and Rafal both secured 2 extra CP for that game, and Colin got an extra one too. My Slaanesh Deamon Prince would arrive on full wounds! Here are some pics from that game:

The Death Guard narrowly won, but all teams were in a bad way by the end. A special mention needs to go to ‘Pox’, a brave Gretchin who charged the Daemon three times (he failed twice, but that didn’t deter him). He was brought down (after being flesh wounded first), but I like to think he survived.

This was a fun day of gaming. I thoroughly recommend giving something similar a go. Kill Team games play quickly, so it was easy to get a full campaign played in a day.

Until next time,



Owen