Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review

The iconic, shovel-wielding and gas mask-toting Death Korps of Krieg take on the ruthless and kunnin’ Ork Kommandos in the new edition Kill Team: Octarius box set. Will the brute strength of the greenskin menace overcome the Astra Militarium’s grimmest – and, possibly, grimiest – trench-faring warriors? Find out in our Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review

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Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Unboxing & Review

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Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Summary

As a standalone release, Kill Team: Octarius is, without doubt, one of the most complete and iconic releases in recent Games Workshop history. The miniatures included in the set are some of the best Citadel have ever produced, and will have painters’ jaws dropping with their stunning character and detail. However, the new era of Kill Team that the box heralds includes many changes to the way the game works that will leave many fans feeling hard done by.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Introduction

It feels weird to say that Kill Team is only just entering its second edition.

The Warhammer 40,000 universe has been around forever, launching with Rogue Trader back in 1987 (when I was something like -7 years old), and over its 34-year lifespan has spawned more spin-offs than you can shake a chainsword at, including the iconic Space Hulk and Shadow War: Armageddon, mention of which will leave certain elder readers misty-eyed and nostalgic, hearkening for simpler times.

Arguably, Kill Team is the present-day spiritual successor to many of these spin offs, borrowing bits from its many predecessors to come up with its current ruleset. Based on skirmish combat, Kill Team is a game that pits small groups of unique operatives against one another as players battle over objectives. It has always been designed to be a fast-paced tabletop game with a focus on creating, curating, and celebrating the unique forces delivered to the gaming board by its players.

But that may well all be set to change in the new edition of Kill Team, as we’ll see below.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – What’s New

I only briefly dipped my toes into Kill Team at the end of the last edition after I as the Pariah Nexus expansion foisted onto me to review. Whilst I wasn’t an enormous fan of the expansion set (funnily enough, I still haven’t painted the 3,000+ pieces of ridiculous cuboid terrain that came in the box), I did quite like the skirmish-style gameplay and found it fast-paced and exciting.

But there have been some quite significant changes to Kill Team with the announcement of the newest edition – and a lot of them have not been well received by the community.

So, let’s start with the rules. Heads up, though: Kill Team has been rebuilt from the ground up, so there’s going to be a lot to talk about.

  • Missions and Narrative Campaigns are now a real and proper thing, and form the heart of the newest edition of Kill Team. The new Core Book comes with information on 9 different kinds of missions you can play to keep things varied and dynamic. Also, the new Narrative Campaign rules will help your Kill Team grow and become more unique with each battle.
  • Points are gone. No more do you build your armies like you would if you were putting together a 40K force. Instead, you choose from a list of “Operatives”, each of whom are assigned different roles. You have ten Operatives in your Kill Team. No more, no less. Whilst this’ll make drawing up your list for your Kill Team super quick, it does seriously hack away your ability to really personalise your Kill Team – something that I found was always so synonymous and appealing about the game.
  • Points are out, so Fire Teams are in. Depending on the faction you play, the models you field will have to come from one or two Fire Teams. More on this in a moment, down in the Literature section.
  • Terrain has new rules, more rules, and can be used in ways you never previously thought possible. Terrain features have been given their own unique statistics and abilities to make the battlefield really feel like a battlefield – not just some miniatures getting a +1 to a save because they’re standing behind something. Instead, pieces of terrain now have strategic importance, and can tip the battle in the favour of those who used them correctly.
  • Range and movement gauges. You’ll have seen these bandied about the internet. Instead of the “measure everything in inches” spiel we’ve all got used to from playing, I don’t know, just about every other wargame or TTRPG ever, the new edition of Kill Team ties everything you can do with your figure to these, uh, plastic shapes. Take them for what you will.
Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Measures
  • New stats: Action Point Limit (APL), Defence (DF) and Group Activation (GA).
    • As you may suspect, APL dictates how many actions (or things you can do) a unit can perform with each activation.
    • DF is a measure of the unit’s ability to avoid attacks, and is the number of saves a figure can make each time they are fired upon. Finally,
    • GA refers to how many models can be activated. Whilst most operatives have a GA value of 1 some have higher values and can have more than one operative do something in a turn.
  • Unlike games of 40K, in the new edition of Kill Team matches have three phases: Initiative, Strategic and Firefight.
    • The Initiative Phase is the roll-off phase. Each player throws a D6 to see who rolls highest and thus gets to activate their units first.
    • The Strategic Phase is when you spend your command points on buffs.
    • The Firefight Phase is when your inanimate plastic animates and moves around the board and shoots (or hacks, chops, slashes, blows up etc.) at stuff. You and your opponent take it in turns to active your models and have them do things.

On the whole, the rules seem to make sense. Whilst this is a completely new ruleset for Kill Team, there are still a few bits in there that will look familiar to experienced players. To my eye, the whole restructure looks to have been done to simplify the game: things are broken down into fewer phases and there are fewer numbers being thrown around. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it’ll make the game way more accessible to brand-new wargamers.

As I said, though, there are a number of changes in the above that have not been well received by the wider Kill Team community. Primarily, these are the new Fire Team rules, which are closely tied to the new Kill Team Compendium book (which doesn’t come in this box) as well as the recently released Kill Team Roadmap. If you don’t feel like reading everything below, I’ve stuck a tl;dr at the bottom in nice big letters so you can’t miss it.

When I reviewed the Pariah Nexus expansion, because Bosshammer is a nice bloke and a pleasure to work for, he picked me up a copy of the old Core Book. This book had just about everything you needed to play Kill Team in it – bar the info for two or three factions, which I have been reliably informed were released later. This was a decent book; even when looking through it as an absolute novice, I could tell it was a decent bit of kit, and it really helped me in my first couple of games.

Now, the Octarius box has a Core Rules in it, as well as the Octarius War Manual which has all the information you need to play with your Death Korps of Krieg and your Orks. This is fine. If you’re only planning on playing either DkoK or Orks. And if you’ve only bought this box.

If you’re new to Kill Team Second Edition and you don’t already have a bunch of Orks or DKoK figures to play with, you can’t just buy the Core Book. Oh no, my friends, you cannot play the new edition of Kill Team with the Core Book alone. You will also need the Compendium to supplement the info in the Core Book. These books £30GBP/$50USD/€37.50 each.

Ouch.

That’s not a good start, and it’s about to get worse.

Although it’s not included in this set, it’s important we have a proper chat about this Kill Team Compendium. Whilst doing some research for this review, I stumbled onto a number of pages and videos concerning the new Kill Team Compendium, and there’s some stuff you all should know about it and how it works with some of the rules changes outlined above.

The Compendium is, essentially, an index. You know those Munitorum Field Manuals that get released as a free download and stuck as a freebie to pad out an issue White Dwarf every year or so? It’s basically just one of them, but way bigger and with more colour in it. The book, whilst drizzled in a liberal helping of artwork and photos of cool miniatures, is little more than a Yellow Pages for all the Kill Team units you can currently play with.

Anyway, let’s get on to the crux of the matter. In the new edition, Kill Teams are made up of Fire Teams, as I mentioned above. Some factions get two Fire Teams per Kill Team, some, like Space Marines, get one. The Compendium contains lists of Fire Teams that you can pick from when composing your Kill Team – and thus, here begin the issues.

If, for example, you’re like me and you want a Dark Angels Space Marine Kill team that you can stomp your smug Eldar- and Tau-playing friends with, what you need to do is – in the absence of a specific boxed release – find the page in the Compendium for Space Marine Fire Teams. You’ll get a list of several Fire Teams: Intercessors, Assault Intercessors, Incursors, Infiltrators, Reivers, and so-on. Once you’ve browsed the list, you may think “Damn, I love the sound of Heavy Intercessors; they big ol’ boots’d be able to stomp the brains out of some smug Tau. They’re going to be my Fire Team! What next?”

What’s next is you pick a couple of weapons options for your sergeant and boom, you field a bunch of Heavy Intercessors and that’s your Kill Team.

That is it.

There is no mixing and matching. No chucking a Bladeguard Veteran or a standard Bolt Rifle-weilding Intercessor into your team to help individualise your force. If you were hoping to use your Kill Team of, say, two Reviers, a few Assault Intercessors, maybe a Bladeguard Veteran and whatever else, you’re going to be very disappointed. Your Kill Team can only be made up of the models listed under your chosen Fire Team and that’s it.

Sure, you can take “operatives” with special traits (like a comms guy, for example), but thanks to the new Fire Team rules and the Compendium, you’re still locked to fielding only the models from that one Fire Team. How unfathomably, mind-numbingly, jaw-droppingly boring.

“Okay,” you may think. “I can live with this. I’ve got a bunch of Heavy Intercessors ready to go. I’ve painted them and I’m happy with them. They must have some fun abilities and stuff on their datasheets, right?”

Wrong.

Things only get worse when you turn to the datasheets in the Compendium. Swathes upon swathes of the units listed in the compendium have absolutely nothing listed under Abilities or Unique Actions. You’ll be shunting your Heavy Intercessors around the board and rolling to hit and to wound, and that’s about it.

And because you can only take one or two types of Fire Team in your army, it’s not like you can even spice things up by chopping and changing models for extra abilities. No, if the figures in your Fire Team of choice have no Abilities or Unique Actions, that’s it.

And now we arrive at the Kill Team roadmap.

Warhammer Community have already teased us with this roadmap, which promises oodles of Kill Team content over the coming months. We’re promised plenty more stuff for the new edition, including, no doubt, a ton more boxes like this one full of exciting new models and whatever else, as well as exciting individual rules for your factions like those for Orks and Death Korps of Krieg that we have in this launch box that will eventually bring all the factions into the new edition.

Kill Team Octarius Review Roadmap

But, as the roadmap shows, these aren’t going to all arrive at once. GW isn’t going to throw open the factory gates and flood us with a whole tide of releases with all the new rules for all the Kill Team factions all at once. We’re going to have to wait.

And that’s totally not fair.

The roadmap GW released extends well into the future, with releases similar to Octarius being teased at least once every three months. If you’re an avid Kill Teamer, I can’t imagine how gutting it may well be to have to sit by as months roll on, waiting for an announcement for new rules for your favourite Kill Team faction. You’re going to be using your £30GBP/$50USD/€37.50 Compendium book as a stopgap until then, fielding dull units with no abilities and hoping things get better when your version of Octarius is released – if it ever is.

But even then, it’s not like you can actually use your old Kill Team models. No, thanks to those Fire Team rules, you’ll probably have to use either the Kill Team provided in the actual launch box, or bite the bullet and commit to the dull Fire Team selection rules which let you play models from only one or two units.

I get that it simplifies it. I get that it makes Kill Team easier to access because all you need is a unit or two. But at the same time and there’s less pressure on newbies to spend a heap of cash and man-hours buying, converting, building and painting a totally unique Kill Team.

But I always thought that was the point of Kill Team.

THE TL;DR: The new Fire Team rules mean you can only field models from one or two units according to the Kill Team Compendium, which you have to buy separately. The Kill Team Compendium is not only expensive, but is also bereft of unique rules for a huge number of models. If the Kill Team Roadmap is anything to go by, these rules probably won’t appear until well into the future and will require you to spend more money to obtain.

Ugh.

Anyway, we’re miles off track. Let’s try and forget about all this and have a proper look at the Octarius box.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Unboxing

And speaking of boxes, here it is:

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Unboxing 1 - Edited

The Kill Team: Octarius is the biggest box for a while. Whilst it’s the same length and width as all their other boxed releases, Octarius is a little fatter – even a little fatter than Dominion, which mas huge compared to the previous special collectors edition release, Indomitus.

Opening this one up, and it immediately becomes obvious why.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Unboxing 2 - Edited

There are no fewer than 11 sprues in the Octarius box. Now, you may be thinking that that doesn’t actually seem like all that many for a box this large. However, the majority of the sprues are dedicated to scenery, and there is some chunky bits of the stuff in here.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Unboxing 3 - Edited

Ork aesthetic demands everything be big, chunky, and have lots of sticky-out parts, so the scenery sprues are both some of the largest and heaviest currently available. By comparison, the Komandoz and DKoK sprues seem extremely slimline and lightweight!

Anyway, beneath all the plastic lies a divider. As with all these releases, GW included a print of the box art to keep the spikey bits on the sprues form damaging any of the more fragile items included in the box beneath it.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Unboxing 4 - Edited

As always, this’d look great in a frame or tacked up on a hobby room wall – if it survives transit without any major scratches or punctures. Unfortunately, mine did not – there’s quite a big hole in it.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Unboxing 5 - Edited

Never mind.

Underneath the divider lies the rest of the box: the books, the build guide, the sheet of tokens, your transfers, the cards, dice, bases, and game board.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Unboxing 6 - Edited

Let’s take a closer look at all of this stuff first before we get into the miniatures themselves.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Contents

So, to recap, the Kill team: Octarius box set comes with just about everything you could ever need to set yourself up with an Ork Kommandos or DKoK Kill Team, and a few extra bits to ensure that your games of Kill Team can happen on an interesting battlefield.

  • 1 x Kill Team Core Book
  • 1 x Kill Team: Octarius War Manual Book
  • 23 x Citadel Miniatures
    • 11 Veteran Guardsmen
    • 12 Ork Kommandos
  • 2 x Transfer sheets (one for each team)
  • 17 x Terrain Pieces
  • 3 x Combat Gauge
  • 1 x Double-sided game mat
  • 2 x Decks of 27 Tactical Ops cards
  • 2 x Push-out boards of tokens
  • 10 dice.
Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review All 2 - Edited

I think we can all agree this isn’t exactly a stingy box. There’s an enormous amount of stuff in here, including all the dice, rulers, and what have you that you need to start playing the game. It really is a one-stop shop for everything you need to start playing.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Literature

Octarius comes with two books: the Core Book and the Octarius Book (well, three if you count the build guide for the Orks, DKoK, and scenery). The Core Book is your general, all-inclusive rules manual, whilst the Octarius Book contains all the extra bits you can use for playing your game in this particular Kill team setting.

Kill Team Core Book

The Kill Team: Octarius Core Book is designed to be your one-stop reference for all the rules and information you need to get stuck in to Kill Team. It’s a reasonably meaty book – as you’d expect – and it’s absolutely bursting with information.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Core Book 1 - Edited

The book is broken down into a few rough sections: you have your introduction to both Kill Team and its place within the lore of the Warhammer 40,000 universe, as well as various background narrative information on the universe and how Kill Team fits into that.

After all that – which occupies the first 50 or so pages of the book – you get the rules, which are spread over over 30 or so pages. After that, the rest of the book is dedicated to the different kinds of game you can play: Open Play, Matched Play, and Spec Ops and Narrative Play.

As you’d expect, the book is also filled with plenty of awesome artwork and pictures of world-class painted models.

Kill Team: Octarius War Manual

The Kill Team: Octarius War Manual provides specific rules and background to the two factions included in the Octarius box.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Octarius Book 1 - Edited

The first 39 pages are given over to background, lore, and exposition to the setting of Kill Team: Octarius. There’s even a little fiction in there as well if that takes your fancy. There are also a few tables to help you begin personalising your Kill Team, which can be found on the respective “Names and Demeanours” page for each of the two factions. It goes without saying there’s also plenty of photographs of eye-popping miniatures across the pages to keep you inspired.

After that, the rest of the book is given over to rules, rules, and very more rules. There’s a huge amount of faction- and warzone-specific stuff contained in the Octarius book, so we won’t get into it here. It’s a heavy ol’ read, so not one for bedtime.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Wargear

Credit where credit’s due, the Octarius box is heaped with extra bits and pieces to help you get your first few games of Kill Team up and running.

Combat Gauges

The combat gauges need to be cut off one of the sprues, so be prepared to do that before you can start playing Kill Team.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Measures

They’re made from the same plastic as your figures. That does mean that if you so wish you could paint these up in some way – perhaps to mirror the aesthetic of your Kill Team faction of choice?

I mean, it doesn’t really explain why GW moved away from just using inches on a ruler like absolutely every other one of their games, but whatever.

Double-sided game mat

As always, I haven’t been able to fit the fully folded-out game mat into my lightbox. However, today I’ve engaged my brain (a hard thing to do on a Saturday morning) and realised the board can be partially folded out to give you a look at what is printed on both sides.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Game Board - Edited

The board is billed as being double-sided and, indeed, it is. However, the obverse/reverse are a little disappointing, given that they’re almost identical to look at. Both depict a dusty battlefield studded with slightly different ruins. There’s no real variation in the colour or contents between each scheme.

However, the board is good, well-made card that folds and unfolds easily enough before and between uses.

Tactical Ops Cards

Let’s rip the plaster off: the Tac Ops cards are super boring on the eye. They’re just white with writing.

But, and this is a big but, each set comes in a little cardboard holder.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Cards - Edited

Nothing frustrates me more with boxed games of any kinds than when they come with hundreds upon hundreds of cards and yet absolutely no way to keep them together. No matter how carefully you stack them in the box, how much time you take bracing them in place with other gaming pieces, or how carefully you store the box between uses, every time without fail, you open the box to find cards everywhere.

I can quite happily forgive the Tac Ops cards for being boring aesthetically when they come in their own little holders. It’s little things like this that just make the game all the more enjoyable, as it saves on set-up and pack-down time, and helps keep things organised on the tabletop.

Tokens

In the Twenty-First Century, it seems that no TTRPG, wargame, or any derivative thereof, can be considered complete without a staggering amount of push-out cardboard tokens for you to lose under the sofa cover your gaming table with. Kill Team: Octarius is absolutely no different whatsoever.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Tokens - Edited

All the tokens are double-sided and often display different icons to denote different things. We’re not going to get into this now, we’ll be here until the next Kill Team release, and I’ll probably have to do it all over again for that.

But anyway, these tokens are made of good quality card, just like the board, and won’t easily break or fall apart, so another tick from me.

Dice

A near infinitesimally minor gripe that I know I and a lot of people have with these boxed sets is boring dice. Yeah, we get it: it’s super easy to just sling a bag of plain white dice into a box and call it done. GW probably has entire warehouses full of the things, so you can hardly blame them for wanting to get rid of a few at every possible opportunity. But they are just a bit dull, eh? These boxed games come with all the bells and whistles, and usually, just have a boring set of clicky-clacky dice chucked in for the sake of it.

But not today, folks. Brace yourselves for this ladies and gentlemen.

Coloured dice!

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Dice - Edited

Sure, they’re not quite as interesting or fun as the faction dice you can buy, but it was a nice surprise to find some vaguely themed dice in the box.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Models

Now, on to the good bit.

If you’re reading this review, you’ve probably already seen the various Warhammer Community previews of this set, and you already know these miniatures are something special. Expectations are extremely high for this one, so let’s dive in and have a look at what we’ve got.

Death Korps of Krieg

At first, the DKoK sprue might seem a little intimidating. It’s quite big, and a lot of the components are very small. At a first glance, too, it might not be so obvious as to how some of the bits will go together – but trust the process, all will be well. The build guide for the DKoK figures is a good ‘un: I couldn’t find any errors in it, so everything should be numbered correctly. If you find something, however, please let us know in the comments – you might help someone else out!

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review DKoK 1 - Edited

There are heaps of build options to choose from throughout the guide: just about every special operative can be constructed as a regular veteran soldier if you so wish, so there’s plenty of room for personalisation. For the sake of this review, though, I’ve built everything to be as varied as possible in order to give you the best impression of what’s available in the box.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review DKoK 2 - Edited

There are bags of character in these miniatures (one of them, however, is an actual bag). In spite of them all having identical uniforms. No two poses are the same, and you get a real sense of individuality from figure to figure. It’s simply a shame there aren’t more of them in the box.

There are heaps of extras too: additional pouches, grenades, and, of course, there are even a few iconic shovels.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review DKoK 3 - Edited

They aren’t the most straightforward things to build, though. As I said above, though, the guide is good and easy to follow, but all the components are quite small. Just be patient and take your time from component to component and you’ll be fine.

All in all, though, these are some seriously impressive miniatures: oozing with character and rife with detail, they have broken into my all-time favourites list. The Orks have a hard act to follow.

Ork Kommandos

But follow it they do.

The DKoK miniatures’ details and poses from figure to figure help instil their personalities and capture their movements. It’s subtle but effective. The Ork figures, however, go in the completer opposite direction.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Orks 1 - Edited

The designs are absolutely bonkers; they’re a thoughtfully crafted blend of highly detailed and hilarious. Seriously, the detail in the sculpts is staggering. They are simply beyond anything I’ve yet seen. These miniatures are, in a word, incredible.

Of course, as with the DKoK, the majority of the Orks can be assembled in different ways, either as Kommandoz or various specialists, so you’ll have plenty of build options to choose from – as well as plenty of spares for your bits box.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Orks 2 - Edited

Whilst they are not difficult to build, they are very much let down by their sprue. Regular purchasers of GW products will know that whilst components on numbered sprues are rarely – if ever – in their actual numerical order. You can usually be reasonably certain that component 2 will be somewhere relatively near component 1. Failing that, components that pertain to a single miniature are usually grouped reasonably close together. Legs will be near a torso, the head won’t be too far away, and so on.

Not with Octarius’ Orks, though.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Orks 4 - Edited

Octarius’ Ork sprue is a real headache. No pieces are grouped by number, and rare is the occasion that a leg or arm may be near the torso it needs to be attached to. The Orks are spread across two sprues (well, one large sprue frame and one half the size again), and it’s common that all the components for a single Ork will be scattered across all three, so be prepared to have to hunt.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Orks 3 - Edited

But I think that can be forgiven for the end result. These are, quite possibly, my favourite miniatures ever. I can’t wait to paint them.

Scenery

There is an awful lot of terrain in this box. The last time someone gave me a box full of terrain, it didn’t go down well.

But, I’m pleased to say, the scenery and terrain in the Octarius box is excellent.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Terrain and Scenery

There are a few repeats: the four larger Ork structures are only two different models – you just get a pair of them. Everything else is nice, varied, and covered in detail.

I did have a few problems with building some of the terrain pieces, though. A lot of the buildings are held up on support pillars that need to be attached individually (this applies to all four of the larger Ork structures, the oil rig, and the two smaller bi-pod platforms). None of these pieces of terrain, however, have obvious moulds or indentations to guide where you are supposed to attach these supports.

This makes it very difficult to judge where they’re supposed to go. What’s worse, the build guide encourages you to glue them on to sculpted support struts on the underside of the platforms. However, these are both very thin and often at odd angles, which can make it even more difficult to judge where they’re supposed to go.

The worst culprit, though, is the oil rig. Its platform, the rig itself, and its pillar can take some pushing and pulling to get to line up properly. Even once I had it done as according to the guide, and after some fiddling, the support column still wasn’t quite touching the ground.

My advice would be to be patient and make sure you dry-fit everything first. You’ll get these eventually. The saving grace is that he terrain is very simple to put together, with only three or so components a piece, so it’s easy enough to make sure the parts that slot together are in the correct place.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Price and Availability

Straight from GW, Kill Team: Octarius will set you back £125GBP/$199USD/€155EUR. It is, however, still a limited-time release. This means that once it’s gone, that’ll likely be it and you won’t get a chance to pick it up again.

Many independent stockists and local hobby stores will have been able to secure a couple of copies – as will your official local Warhammer shop. Whilst buying from GW will always cost you more, you’re more likely in with a shot of getting a copy if you do. However, your LGS will probably be able top offer you a few bob off.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Where to Next?

This is going to be a bit of a scant section, I’m afraid.

This is the first proper release for the new edition of Kill Team, so there’s not really much else pertinent to this new edition available. Have a look.

Everything that you need to play is already in the Octarius box. Everything else is fairly non-essential, but will appeal to die-hard collectors and players.

If you’re really, truly desperate to get stuck in to the new edition of Kill Team, but don’t want to play either Death Korps of Krieg or Ork Kommandos, your only real choice is to obtain the dreaded compendium I spent the first half of this review smack talking.

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team Octarius Review Compendium
Sure, the book is an absolute swizz, but it does contain the most fundamental and bare-bones information you need in order to start playing Kill Team as a different faction. I think I’d still recommend saving your pennies to see if there is a future boxed release for your favourite faction, though.

Of course, once you’ve got a Compendium and have a better grasp of what’s expected of your Fire Team combos for your favourite faction’s Kill Team, GW’s catalogue becomes your oyster. Have a look at the various figures available and decide which you’d fancy building your Kill Team out of.

Just remember, don’t mix and match (unless your Fire Teams say you can).

Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius Review – Final Thoughts

ProsCons
Cool new rules for Orks and DKoK
Fantastic miniatures
Literally, everything you need to get started with the new edition of Kill Team
An interesting new way to play
Not really any use for anyone who doesn’t want to play Orks or DKoK

This is difficult. This is supposed to be a review of a boxed game. And yeah, whilst I think the Kill Team: Octarius box, as an isolated release, is absolutely smashing, I am concerned what the wider changes to the new edition of Kill Team mean for players.

Kill Team, for me at least, has always been about personalisation. One of my favourite things to do as a hobbyist is to look at people’s heavily converted and individualised Kill Teams, and that is being taken away from players – at least for the time being. Whilst this box isn’t the root cause of this, the new edition which it heralds is.

I guess there’s nothing to stop you from converting the pants off your chosen Fire Teams, but it’s not quite the same as having unique figures and units making up your team. Whilst I have no doubt the community will figure out some kind of workaround in the near future, these rules changes have led to my enjoyment of this box has been somewhat overshadowed. Whilst the Death Korps of Krieg has never looked better, and the Ork Kommandos are just downright incredible, I can’t escape the feeling that everyone else has been somewhat left out in the cold.

Still, setting the unfortunate rules changes aside and focusing solely on this release, this is a near-flawless box. Bursting with all the goodies you could possibly need to kick-start your Kill Team career, not only is this a must-have for Kill Team fanatics and avid collectors, but also for new starters top the hobby.

Five stars.

(Okay, okay, 4.5 stars. 0.5 of a star off for all the rules-changing rubbish that’s upset everyone. That feels fair.)

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Summary
Review Date
Reviewed Item
Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius
Author Rating
41star1star1star1stargray
Product Name
Warhammer 40,000 Kill Team: Octarius

VoltorRWH

Rob has spent most of the last 20 years playing World of Warcraft and writing stories set in made-up worlds. At some point, he also managed to get a Master's degree by writing about Medieval zombies.

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