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Warhammer 40K: Kill Team – New Balance Dataslate & More Numbers

4 Minute Read
Sep 27 2022

Games Workshop has released a new Balance Dataslate for Kill Team and released some data behind the numbers.

Kill Team’s latest season is going strong and Games Workshop is hoping to keep the momentum going with a Balance Dataslate to help tweak the game.

via Warhammer Community

With the release of Kill Team: Into the Dark and the return of Organised Play, there are big changes afoot in the best skirmish game in the galaxy. Right on cue, the latest quarterly Balance Dataslate has arrived to keep things fair, and make sure your games are as fun and exciting as possible.”

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Download the Balance Dataslate for Kill Team Here

Note the new Core Rule above

In terms of changes the following Kill Teams got update in the Balance Dataslate:

  • Hunter Clade
  • Pathfinders
  • Void-Dancer Troupe
  • Space Marines/Grey Knights
  • Death Guard
  • Craftworlds
  • Tomb World
  • Novitiates
  • Phobos Strike Team
  • Warpcoven

They also updated some of the names of various Kill Teams as well:

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If you play any of those Kill Teams then you definitely want to take a look at your changes. Games Workshop also made a change to everyone equipment options concerning indirect fire.

So why all these changes? Games Workshop has gotten data from various events and determined that Kill Team could use some tweaks. That’s the short answer. But here’s some data to back things up:

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The Studio Team had this to say about the data:

“Overall, we’re pretty happy with the state of balance. With a few exceptions, win rates are looking close to our aim of 45% to 55%, and there has been a good mix of factions winning at events with 20 or more players. 

We’re entering a really interesting quarter for Kill Team. Into the Dark offers a brand new way to play, and a whole host of new factions have arrived. We don’t want to change too much at this time to see how things settle with all the new variables. However, there have been some updates.”

Ideally, they want pretty much everyone to fall within that 55%-45% win rate. And looking at the chart you can see there are a few outliers. On the top end you’ve got the Novitiates and the Blooded. The Novitiates did get a nerf in the Balance Dataslate that targeted some of their more popular wargear options. The Blooded, on the other hand, were a little tougher to tweak. They didn’t have a very high pick rate so GW decided to leave them alone until they got more data. It’s nice to know they can stay hands off when they don’t have enough data to make a call.

On the bottom end of the spectrum we had the Phobos Strike Team. Interestingly, while they had the lowest win rate they were also a very popular option and even managed to place at events.

 “The Phobos Strike Team started off well in June, but as their popularity has increased, their win rate has fallen behind. They’ve performed better than average in terms of podiums and event wins, so we believe they are a high-skill team with great potential. They can struggle, however, against other elite teams such as the popular Heretic Astartes Legionaries and the new Intercession Squad teams, so we’ve given them a new Strategic Ploy that will be particularly useful against those teams – we will continue to track their progress.”

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It will be interesting to see if this new Strategic Ploy makes a (big) difference as it adds some extra punch to their shots

What do you think of the new Kill Team Balance Dataslate?

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Author: Adam Harrison
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