We (FGB.club In Warsaw, Poland) have pleasure to invite You to Kill Team Commander’s World! Commanders wants to show themselfe thanks to international ruleswriters team. Our clubmember Mateusz Mikołajczyk, known as Boatman, wanted to said some words about NEW Commanders Rulespack!

 

  1. Hi! Can You say some words about New Commanders format? Some about rules, some about army building?

 

The format is developed by 3 people, i.e. me and the above-mentioned Nikolay from Ukraine and Jonathan from Hong Kong (who is by the way British, such a combo). The format is dedicated to tournament and league games (but not only!) And is tested in Warsaw, Kiev, Odessa, Moscow, Hong Kong and Krakow.

 

There is few differences between this set and ‘typical’ Elite army building. First of all, we raise the points to 200 according to the "textbook" Commanders. Apart from that, it literally introduces a few additional rules and restrictions that eliminate the disadvantages (and few overpowered rules) of commanders, and do not interfere with their advantages, as well as a set of additional additional secondary objectives emphasizing the role of the Commander as a killing machine or a supporting hero. The result is a very balanced and, above all, a hellishly funny format.

 

  1. Nice! How did your cooperation with the international team creating the format started?

 

For a long time I have been following the activities of the team dealing with the Kiev format and I have played it myself while having a great time! Unlike the rest of the world, the Ukrainians did not abandon the Commanders almost immediately after their release, and they tryied their tournament playing on them from the moment of release. But I have never come across a real, well-published and polished tournament package in the full sense of the word. Well, I just got bored of waiting, I decided to take matters into my own hands

 

Thanks to YouTuber "Glass Half Dead", I managed to get in touch with Nikolay Shastalov, who had previously worked on the Kiev format. I offered my help in working on a more global format, conducting tests in Warsaw or Boatimore (hehe ...), but eventually we quickly started working on the new version together. Meanwhile, in the global KT group, I came across Jonathan Sloanes, who was doing surveys of the KT community himself and was planning to develop his own Commander format.

 

I knew his earlier entries about tournament victories and after reading his proposals, I found he had great ideas, so I offered him directly to join the team. Jon (nice guy) agreed right away. And frankly speaking, it was great decision. You know how it is, sometimes you want to do something good and there are even people who theoretically want to help, but in practice it turns out that they are impossible to work with, or they are incompetent. Fortunately, it was different here, from the very beginning, our work went without any problems and even in the case of disagreement at individual stages of work, logical arguments always won. Even then I knew that the project would simply succeed.

 

  1. Tests and works are still underway to make this format even more interesting and even more balanced, do you already know what the next steps will be?

 

Work on the format is actually being finished, every day we refine a few more inaccuracies so that it is as clear as possible, but also balanced. We also want to use our format to fix some obvious errors, such as the limit on Repentia for Sisters of Battle or the lack of an update to the Commanders' specialization from the Rogue Trader expansion. The next step will be to finally dress the entire format in a nice layout so that it is eye-friendly and looks professional. Work on this last point has recently started (August 27, 2020). In the meantime, of course, we test as much as possible, although I am proud to admit that we already have answers to most of our questions.

 

  1. What are the major differences between your Commander format (no official name so far) and the standard Kill Team?

 

Well, the basic one is to raise the point threshold to 200. Besides, the format, unlike the "textbook" Commanders, does not allow Commanders above the first level. The latter is due to many reasons, including the truth that we were unable to balance it, and there are other reasons such as increasing the entry threshold to the format, excessive complication, etc. We assume that one of the greatest advantages of KT is that it's easy to start playing and hard to master. We did not want to give it up. In addition, our format solves such problems as, for example, the control of objectives by Commanders. The old objection "how it is that my 100 point Commander holds a point as well as a 5 point guard" made sense to us from the beginning. That is why we introduced the Commanders' system of tiers'. Thanks to this, more expensive Commanders keep points better, and moreover, certain tiers are sometimes assigned additional missions available only to them! For example, a cheap, fast Commander can score points for his team by sneaking behind enemy lines, and the murderous Grey Knights Brother Captain can score extra points by being extremely aggressive and putting everything on one card.

 

  1. Is the Commander format also suitable for playing in the Arena? I still consider Arena to be the most interesting version of KT, so I'm even more interested in it.

 

Yes and not only with Arena. The first idea of ​​the format was that it would only work as a supplement in other tournament and league formats, including Arena. The idea of ​​adding your own mission pack to it arose later. In the final version of the format, there will be a whole paragraph explaining clearly how to use it in the form of a supplement. Our format will also work perfectly with LVO. Of course, combining it with both arena and LVO 2021 areas has been tested by us.

 

  1. Do you consider any army to be the most underpowered in standard KT? How they doing in Commander?

 

Deathwatch and Death Guard are, in my opinion, the two armies that are the biggest losers of the current KT line. DW suffers from a lack of access to cheap models and on the threshold of 125 points is unable to list enough of its murderous shooters to compensate for its weaknesses. DG, however, without access to the Commander and at the threshold of 125 points falls into a kind of limbo, does not have enough points to insert effective units in the form of its terminators, and after using their fighters and gunners, they are left with a poorly effective spam Poxwalker or overinvested, cheap version a Terminator you can't rely on. The introduction of our format solves the problems of both factions, both Deathwatch gains points for additional strong gunners, but also has access to, for example, Primaris Chaplain which fills the gaps of a solid dealer melee damage in the DW roster. DG gains access to their Commanders, who can, for example, shoot effectively, and at the same time can afford murderous Terminator with a scythe.

 

  1. Now let's reverse the question. Are the stronger armies from the standard ruleset closer to the others in Your Commander format?

 

Yes, but in the right way. Ie. they do not lose their strength, but the problems of other factions are eliminated, as I explained in the previous question. They gain more options, they can play differently, the player can build his roster again and change the playstyle of his beloved Kill Team. A good example is the Asuryani, one of the much stronger factions. With Commanders, they does not lose their potential, but gains access to units such as psykers or solid melee fighters, who are able to survive long enough in a crisis situation. So the Asuryani player is no longer sentenced to throwing Space Marines with a barrage of shots from the shuriken catapult, hoping that something will eventually squeeze, and maybe play much more elitist, or get around the problem with a psyker. For the same Space Marines, the problem of raging psybolts also hurts less because they gain access to good psykers or additional primaris bodies that will buy time for other team members.

 

  1. If any changes were ONLY up to you, what would you change in the Kill Team?

 

As a whole game? I would remove Custodes and Sisters of Silence and introduce Talons of Emperor so that they can complement each other. Custodes are simply unhealthy for the game at the moment.

 

  1. It's also time for a bit of private life, what does your favorite army build look like and how do you play with it?

 

Of course, this is the schedule of my beloved Astra Militarum. I have a few commanders here that I just love, but the winner is probably my team on flamers with Sly Marbo flying behind enemy lines. This Commander may not be great for all matchups (though some are!), But how it can spoil your opponent's blood is simply priceless. And since I am malicious by nature and feed on someone else's anger, that is an added value for me! Generally, Commanders open up almost unlimited possibilities for a good player, suddenly Imperial Guard can play like a melee faction, Marines can afford spam cheap bodies if they want, GSC do not bring one aberrant to the "pitch" only 4 and still can afford the sea of ​​genestealers, we have also acces interesting powers available, not just psybolt etc. Anyway I hope you like it!