Welcome readers to Ashes of Faith – an exciting new way to play Kill Team. This supplement tells the tale of the planet Exhalus. The campaign pits an Inquisitor and their band of merry men against a burgeoning Chaos Cult. The backdrop of the world is rich with atmosphere, and the rules are surprisingly rich. Ashes of Faith is Perfect for a pair of friends or an extended group campaign. The fate of Exhalus is a compelling story to play out!
Table of Contents
Campaign Rules
Overall Campaign Structure
With 14 sets of territories and 4 different final missions, the campaign has plenty of meta rules to provide variety. Players vie for control over 6 different territories out 14, with a control system predicated on a system of bids that are gained through games of Kill Team. After 6 loops of the Battle, Draft, Scheme, Dominance systems, the world of Exhalus approaches a final Ritual to determine the fate of the planet.
Games of Kill Team happen during the Battle phase, with rules from the territory you’re fighting over. Victory points count towards the Draft stage so the focus remains on victory points. During the Scheme stage, players will bid drafted cards on territories. These bids will grant powerful abilities from the territories when revealed during the Dominance Stage. Interestingly enough the Ashes of Faith campaign structure is used in lieu of Spec Ops and provides different campaign bonuses from Spec Ops.
The one major complaint is that Drafting cards still happens due to Victory points, which means games are still focused on the standard game play. Players could opt for additional ways to accrue cards, or other narrative flourishes. However, to maintain a balanced setting the game is very much built on top the normal game play.
Territory Rules
While the rules can be a touch dense on first read they do provide a fair amount of replayability. Territories have match rules like “Light traits are also Obscuring” which can change up the moment to moment gameplay. Those same territories can be Persuaded or Investigated during the Scheme phase to get permanent or 1-time use benefits accordingly. Persuaded territories work as Assets providing your kill team powerful benefits like “Reroll for Attack and Defender…At the end of set up operative step, you can change the set up of one third of your operatives rounded up, including changing their order”. Meanwhile, investigating territories provides powerful 1-time boons like “Automatically gain the initiative”.
Since you only use 6 of 14 in a campaign, these are going to provide the most variability for a campaign playthrough. The terrain rules can change up games quite a bit, between healing actions, concealed charges, and other rule-breaking settings. Written lore does some lifting to flavor each game and provide players reasons to use the rules.
Components
As far as the provided components there are 6 territory boards, 14 territory cards, cards for both factions, and a handy rules reference towards the back. Everything comes in with the standard GW materials and should last well.
Campaign Missions
All five provided missions help tell the story of Exhalus. Each ritual provides unique gameplay that stacks the odds against the inquisition. When the chips are down what will be lost to stop Exhalus’s fall to ruin?
The Cult Revealed
A flavorful mission and introduction of the setting. Players both angle to capture opposing prisoners in low visibility settings. With a separate scoring track related to percentage of slain opponents, this mission really echoes a frenetic sighting of the cults. Focused on taking prisoners in a seedy underbelly, the inquisition needs information! Definitely a cool mission, with a very casual goal compared to normal matched play.
Ritual: Immaterial Shields
Factions slay foes over objectives that create lines of force. Those lines of force cripple ranged attacks by granting invulnerable saves to operatives. The star pattern in the center of the board provides a novel visual line for the map. Meanwhile the cults have the advantage of mutants and torments providing additional ways to score objectives. Really putting the impetus on the inquisition to overcome all odds.
Ritual: Malignant Leyline
A leyline has been corrupted providing the cults the ability to channel defensive force to a friendly operative. A mission with 1 line of objectives, where the cults dictate which one is the ritual of power. When a friendly operative activates the leyline, the final scoring changes to focus on the ritual objective, and that operative halves all damage to it. Since the ritual objective is hidden until the cults reveal it, the inquisition will have to make hard choices until the ritual begins.
Ritual: Accursed Nexus
Chaos cults get to freely set up 3 objectives markers that form a triangle area. The lines between those 3 remove ranged attack dice from attacks similar to the In the Dark rules. Again another mission where the Cult dictates much of the pacing. The inquisition has its hands full if it aims to keep the cult at 2 objective markers for this ritual mission!
Ritual: Anointed Offering
The cults can start a ritual providing the cultist with a 5+ feel no pain, and healing d6 wounds each turn. The inquisition pours resources into the cult to break up the offering before it’s too late! Surprisingly enough this mission provides a chance for a model to end up with 2 separate feel no pains, and I suspect a Torment offering itself up will be a hard model to remove. Stop the offering before Exhalus is lost to Chaos!
Overall Thoughts
The mission packs, and territory rules provide a strong backbone for a pitched struggle for the soul of Exhalus. I think the rules writing can provide a solid backdrop for any pair of players, or enterprising community organizers. In comparison to the In the Dark expedition map this packet provides a much more succinct experience that appeals to me. I’m definitely looking forward to giving this a trial run at my local shop! As always, if you have any questions or want to give us some feedback – drop us a line at contact@goonhammer.com.
