Kill Team: Shadowhunt | Review and Unboxing | Warhammer 40K

David Jennings 3 hours ago Leave a Comment

The wrath of the ever faithful Adepta Sororitas clash with the mysterious Night Lords in a brand new expansion for Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team, Shadowhunt!

Yes, it’s time for another box for Kill Team and another expansion on this seasons theme. In this box we have two brand spanking new Kill Teams and not one, but two gameboards, as Shadowhunt features a campaign which branches both sets of terrain we’ve had in this season, but more on this a little later on.

This box introduces the Celestian Insidiants for the Adepta Sororitas and the Murderwing for the Nightlords. Two very different Kill Teams.

In this unboxing and review we’ll be taking a look at both Kill Teams as well as the campaign in the book, not to mention new NPOs that make an appearance in this book, including a certain C’Tan.

Our thanks to Games Workshop for sending us a copy of Shadowhunt to unbox and review for you folks. This box is up for preorder right now, and you can save money Vs RRP (and give us a massive helping hand) by using our affiliates over at Element Games via this link right here. Go on, you know you want too…

Unboxing Shadowhunt

Before we get into the meat and potatoes of this article why not check out the full unboxing of Shadowhunt in the video below? Not only do we show off all the components of the box, but we also go through the full book so you can scope it out for yourself.

Fancy a closer look at the contents including the sprues? Well, you are in luck!

Matt has done a superb job of building and painting the entire Kill Team (minus the Chaos Lord, who is next on his agenda!).

I’ve painted one of the Sisters. I really enjoyed building this Kill Team and painting this mini. I cannot wait to finish off the unit!

With that out of the way, let’s crack on with a look at Kill Team: Shadowhunt!

Kill Team Rules: Celestian Insidiants Kill Team

The first Kill Team we are going to check out is the new unit hailing from those nuns with guns aka the Sisters of Battle aka the Adepta Sororitas.

We’ve previously seen a Sisters unit in Kill Team before, the Notiates. These ladies are armed in the traditional power armour, making them a little more sturdy (although you do get less Operatives in this Kill Team, compared to the previous.)

You can have 9 active Operatives when playing these gals in Kill Team, and you have a few options to choose from:

Superior: Your leader choice. Has a couple of equipment options. You’ll always have to take her.
Reliquarius: Your ‘banner’ bearer in this force. She’ll provide buffs to your Kill Team
Censor: Armed with a Virge of Admonition
Mortisanctus: Wielding a huge Blessed Broadsword
Abjuror: Similar to Sacresants, this lady is armed with an awesome looking shield and Blessed Sword
Cremator: Null mace and Hand Flamer armed Sister
Denuncia: Buffing model, armed with Staff of Delamation
Warrior: Your standard warriors, armed with Condemonor Stakethrower and Null Mace.

Aside from the Warrior and Cremator (although Cremator has a cap of two in your Kill Team) all other operatives can only be taken once. The Insidiants have the Security and Seek & Destroy archetypes.

They have a cool faction mechanic which is very in keeping with the Adepta Sororitas. It’s called Inspiring and it causes your operatives to become Inspiring whenever one of the following happens:

Incapacitate an enemy operative that has a wounds stat of at least 6
Perform a Charge action

If your Operative is Inspiring, then all the weapons on the Operative’s datacard have the Severe special rule.

The Celestian Insidiants are an Anti-Psyker unit, and as such have rules that back this up.

They can’t be damaged by Psychic ranged attacks, as well as shutdown any Psychic actions used by another operative within 3” as well as stop them from firing ranged Psychic attacks.

Many of the weapons have the Anti-Psyker keyword, which grants that weapon Lethal 5+ against Psyker keyworded operatives.

That isn’t the end of the special rules for these Sisters, as they have one more, Martyrdom. If an Inspiring Celestian gets incapacitated, then a nearby Sister within 6” gains a Benediction, which is basically a buff from a table of abilities. Benefits include healing, extra APL or a free Charge/Dash.

As you’d imagine, the Strategy and Firefight ploys are very Adepta Sororitas. I’ve picked out a couple from each to give you a bit of flavour:

Holy Resilience: Whenever an Inspiring Operative is fighting or retaliating, Normal and Critical damage of 4 or more inflict 1 less damage.
Suffering and Sacrifice: Whenever a wounded friendly Operative is shooting, fighting against or retaliating an enemy operative, its weapons have the Balanced special rule.
Unshakeable Pursuit: This ploy allows you to ignore any modifications or changes to the Move action, and you gain an extra inch of movement if the selected Operative is Inspiring.
Fervent Hate: You can use this ploy if you are shooting or fighting an enemy Operative that does not have the Imperium keyword. Your weapons gain the Ceaseless keyword, as well as the Relentless keyword, so long as they are a Chaos Kill Team.

Moving over to the Datacards, these ladies bring lots of special rules to the table. Remember, you can check out my video above for a full look at the Datasheets, but I wanted to pick out a couple of the abilities on offer:

Insidiant Superior: Holy Example gives Inspired operatives a free ploy. She can also make a nearby Sister Inspiring.
Insidiant Warrior: When Inspired, they add 1 to the Crit damage on the stats of weapons on the Warrior’s datacard
Insidiant Mortisanctus: Seriously, this Operative has one of the longest worded abilities in the game. In short, you get to issue an ultimatum to one of your enemy’s Operatives that is within 8” of this model. If they accept, then you get extra Attacks that target that Operative. Should this model incapacitate that enemy model, then it gains +1 Attack for the rest of the game. Should your opponent decline, then the chosen enemy operative gets -1 Attack for the whole game,

Across the board, this Kill Team has a movement value of 6”, with 2 APL (Superior has 3) 3+ Save (2+ on your Abjuror) and 9 Health (10 on the Superior, 11 on the Abjuror).

The last thing to point out is, of course, they have a number of specialist equipment you can bring to the table. My favourite has to be the Auto-Flaggelator, which causes D6 damage (which is then halved) to your Operative, however, should you get a 4+ then you become Inspiring.

They feel like a solid Kill Team. They do have a raft of abilities and tricks, but they feel like a good starting force if you are new to Kill Team. You need to make sure you position your Sisters well to make the most out of the mechanics, mainly the Martyrdom and Inspiring rules, as they really power up your Sisters. They aren’t the biggest Kill Team in regards to number of Operatives, but I think they’d be an awful lot of fun to play games of Kill Team with. 100% feel they are more forgiving than the Noviates.

Kill Team Rules: Murderwing Kill Team

Moving on to the more chaotic side of the box, with the Murderwing!

The Raptors for the Chaos Space Marines have needed a little bit of a glow up, and that’s exactly what we’ve had, with a fantastic new range of minis with multiple weapon choices. For the purposes of this book they are the Murderwing, a unit hailing from the insidious Night Lords.

In a slight twist, as well as the new Raptor models, this box also includes the not-to-old Chaos Lord with Jump Pack, which is awesome!

You can take to the battlefield a leader and 5 other Operatives. Your leader is, of course, the aforementioned Chaos Lord with Jump pack. He can be given any of the options off the sprue, so either a Bolt Pistol or Plasma Pistol in one hand, with a choice of Lightning Claw, Power Fist or Power Weapon in the other. Alternatively you could just take a good old trusty pair of Lightning Claws.

That leaves 5 other Operatives to choose from, and you’ve got options:

Warp Talon: He’s rocking Lightning Claws
Skysear: This guy is aiming for those harder to crack enemy operatives, thanks to his Melta Gun
Champion: Plasma Pistol and Power Weapon
Depredator: Two-handed Great Chainaxe? Don’t mind if I do.
Curseclaw: This Raptor is closer to Chaos than the others, and has Mutilated Claws to prove it
Shrieker: Chainsword and Bolt Pistol. Classic combo
Huntmaster: Massive two-handed spear, thingy
Raptor: Again, classic wargear. Has a Chainsword and Bolt Pistol

Being only able to pick 5 of the above could be a tough choice. Raptor is the only Operative you can take more than just the once. Archetypes-wise, these guys have Recon and Seek & Destroy.

On to the mechanics of how the Kill Team plays, and, as you would imagine, the first mechanic breaks down how those Jump Packs they are all packing works within Kill Team. The book goes to great detail on how moving with Jump Packs work, as well as Charging etc, but in short you utilise a ‘Boost’ as part of the Move/Charge action. The book explains it a lot better than I can, but as you’d imagine it gives your Kill Team a massive boon for traversing the Killzone compared to other Kill Teams. They do also have the Astartes ability, which allows them to Fight or Shoot twice, the same rule as other Astartes Kill Teams.

I’d have liked to have seen a mechanic that leaned more into the Night Lord theme, but I guess the jump packs are a big enough bonus.

Whereas the mechanics may not reflect the scary nature of the Night Lords, the ploys certainly do, with a few Night Lord inspired ploys to bring to the battlefield. I’ll get pick out a couple of each type of ploy:

Instill Fear: Your picked Murderwing gets -1 damage to it so long as the incoming attack is damage 3 or more.
Nightmare on High: Making full use of the multi level terrain (at least, outside of the Tomb World), this ploy allows you to re-roll a defence dice, so long as your chosen Operative has used a Boost
Murderous Descent: My favourite ploy in the entire book, and so very Chaos/Night Lords. It’s another wordy one, but in short, if an enemy Operative charges one of your models, and you have a model above them close by, they can then Charge in too. Love it!

With so many different Datacards, with really cool abilities and weapon options, it’s going to be tough to decide who you’ll bring in your Kill Team. Again, I’m going to highlight just a couple, but make sure you check out our video for a full runthrough of every datacard, as well as the other rules and campaign bits in the book:

Chaos Lord: As you’d imagine, this guy is nails. I really like his Path to Damnation ability. He starts the game with one point. Once per action, he can roll a D6 and compare the result to the number of Damnation points he has. If the roll is Higher then he gains a point and a buff. If it’s equal, then you don’t get a buff, if it’s less then you get dealt damage to yourself. The buffs are worth it though. An attack that hits you is minus the number of damnation points you have. Equally, if you are the one doing the attacking, you get bonus damage equal to the number of Damnation points you have.
Murderwing Depredator: This guy has a very cool unique action. It costs just the 1AP, and does 2D3 damage on each other operative within 2” and in the order of your choice (you roll for each operative separately).
Murderwing Shrieker: Modified Vox-castors is a very good ability the Shrieker has, which forces a nearby enemy operative to spend an extra AP to use the Pick Up Marker action.

Base stats time. APL 3, 6” Move (but you do get your Boost), 3+ Save and 14 wounds apiece (Chaos Lord gets 15 wounds).

The Murderwing have some really fun equipment to slap on, with gems such as Bladefins which grants an action called Slice from Above (1AP) and allows you to deal damage (D3+1) to an Operative you have Fell Back or Repositioned after setting up after a Boost. Clawed Armour deals a point of damage following a Charge action after setting up after a Boost.

Mission Pack

That’s the Kill Teams detailed, it’s time to look at the missions within the book.

This book uses a Descent Kill Zone. You get two boards with Shadowhunt, one for the Upper Killzone (Volkus scenery) and one for the Lower Killzone (Tomb World). The missions in this book allow you to traverse both, which is just, well…awesome!

Due to the above, you get new tokens, called Entryway Markers. It costs 3 movement and allows you to move between the Killzones. For a game that has plastic equipment you can use, I’m a little surprised we didn’t get some plastic markers, but anyway, tokens are good.

Some Kill Teams get additional rules allowing them more freedom of movement between the Killzones, such as Mandrakes.

Joint Ops: Shadowhunt Mission Pack

The first set of missions tackle the Joint Ops mode of Kill Team (PVE).

As this book covers both Killzones, there are some additional NPO special rules to help with interacting with Entryways, etc.

Speaking of NPOs, the book covers three different sections of NPOs. You’ve got some PVE datacards for Necron Warriors, Scarabs and Tomb Crawlers for fighting within the Tomb World. The basic Core troops (Brawler, Marksman) which of course you could use a variety of models for.

Finally, you get a datacard for the final boss…a C’Tan Shard of the Nightbringer! He’s insane, but not impossible to take down (just about!). 25 wounds, APL 2, 5” Move and a 4+ Save. He can never be injured, and his stats cannot be changed. He can move through walls…and oh yeah…when you do finally take him down, he can reanimate. Ouch.

You get three different missions, which seem super fun to play and have different objectives and board layouts to ensure they feel very different.

Adversary Ops: Shadowhunt Mission Pack

This is the PVP mode of Kill Team, although this does also feature NPOs.

Again, all the normal rules are in here, as well as additional rules for playing between the Upper and Lower Killzones.

3 brand new missions are also in this section, culminating in the battle against the NPO Nightbringer. The missions again look fantastic, I cannot wait to play through these.

Descent Killzone Maps

The final piece of the book is 6 different and new maps for using the Descent Killzones, for use with other missions from previous books, which I really like.

I loved Kill Team before, but this new Killzone split between the Upper and Lower levels takes it to another level, so it’s great that we can play other missions using it!

Summary

This is hands down one of my favourite Kill Team expansions we’ve had so far.

Yes, it is home to two fantastic brand new Kill Teams, but I think the winning component in this book is the introduction of the Descent Killzone, which introduces the two levels, fighting on the Upper board with your Volkus scenery, and the lower levels in the Tomb World scenery. Massive fan of this, and hope they expand on this going forward as well as returing to the traditional one level missions.

I’d have liked more missions, in particular for the Adversary Ops. Three is OK, and they are good missions. The team who wrote the book clearly thought about this however, and have included some Descent maps that you can quickly make work with other missions, including Spec Ops and the missions from the Core rulebook.

Going back to the Kill Teams, both seem really fun to play with. The Celestian Kill Team in particular feel new user friendly, but both clearly have a number of tricks and strategies to master on the battlefield.

I cannot sign off without tipping my hat to introducing the first ‘boss fight’ in this season of Kill Team, with the inclusion of the Nightbringer as an NPO.

Our thanks again to Games Workshop for sending us this box over to unbox and review.