Kill Team 2024 Review: The Blooded

The 2024 Edition of Kill Team has overhauled the game, changing rules, datasheets, and bringing with it an updated set of rules for every team in the game. In this series we’re taking a look at each team, how they’ve changed, and what it means for how they play in the new edition. 

Today we will take a look at the changes to The Blooded, a team that has been very popular since their release with Kill Team Moroch. It isn’t unfair to say that The Blooded are perhaps the most balanced team in all of KT21, having received zero changes since their release and sporting one of the best sets of effective and flavorful rules. From a competitive standpoint this often meant that you could find The Blooded anywhere within the final placings of an event, but often kept just out of reach of claiming the top spot. Will KT24 be the chance for The Blooded to grab the glory they have been denied? 

Before we dive in, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing a preview copy of these rules for review purposes.

Team Overview

The Blooded fall firmly into what has been called The Horde category of Kill Team able to take between 12 to 14 operatives to a match. They combine effective close range specialists with Imperial Guard special weapons looking to overcome weaker enemies in melee, while using ranged threats to combat nastier enemies such as Space Marines or Gellerpox Hulks. As a match goes on the surviving operatives find themselves more effective as they are fueled by the death and destruction going on around them. 

Special Rule: Blooded

The Blooded faction rule is appropriately called Blooded and it revolves around the team generating Blooded tokens over the course of a game largely through killing their opponents or dying themselves (The Blood doesn’t care blah blah blah!). Blooded tokens grant the Accurate special rule to operatives, which allows for an automatic success in either shooting or melee. If the team reaches 4 tokens one of them may be placed Under The Gaze of The Gods to retain an automatic critical success. This rule is basically completely unchanged outside of its language adjusting for KT24. 

Team Composition

For those unfamiliar with the faction, The Blooded consist of 14 standard human operatives. This means most of your guys have 7 wounds, 5+ saves, and hit on a +4 with these numbers slightly adjusted in one direction or another based on the role that the operative is expected to perform. Additionally, players may sacrifice 2 standard operatives to substitute in two heavier specialists in the former of the Ogryn or Enforcer, effectively bringing the team to 12 operatives, but gaining more special abilities. 

The operatives at your disposal can be roughly separated into three categories: melee specialists, ranged specialists, and support specialists. For melee this team has The Butcher, The Flenser, and Ogryn all capable of dealing significant damage up close but through different methods. Ranged specialists come in the form of gunners who may choose different weapon types to suit your opponent along with Marksmen and Grenadier. The Commsman and Corpsman are your support specialists providing buffs to the rest of your team to increase effectiveness. 

Playing This Team

The Blooded are the team for players that enjoy a balanced approach to the game as they have an approach for nearly all situations. Your goal overall is to get multiple melee specialists into the threat range of your opponent, while having your ranged options ready to punish your enemy when the time comes. As a horde team you have to expect that eventually your operatives are going to start dying, and thus the goal is to determine the best order in which that should happen. In this regard the team’s special ability actually requires your operatives to die to fully benefit from it, and thus you want to ensure that your token pool remains full. When operatives die you lose your tokens (barring certain abilities) and you want to ensure you are either able to retrieve them or benefit from them before that happens.

Ultimately, as the number of Blooded operatives remaining decreases the overall efficacy of the team should go up with nearly all remaining operatives in possession of a Blooded token by TP3 and 4. Many of this team’s ploys and abilities only function, or function more effectively, while within your opponent’s territory, so you are encouraged to be aggressive. 

What’s Changed?

The short answer is, not much, but let’s go over the significant changes. Right off the bat, you can’t take the Chieftan’s Plasma Pistol and the Gunner’s Plasma gun at the same time. When you combine this with the overall reduction in plasma effectiveness in KT24 you are looking at a pretty strong hit when it comes to dealing with Elite teams, which have all received a significant buff thanks to Core Rules changes alone. 

A light sprinkling of improvements has been cast over most of the team, nothing major, but when combined in their totality they will hopefully be sufficient. The Grenadier’s Diabolyk Bomb sees the standard grenade changes along with +1 normal damage and Piercing 1. The Butcher gains Ceaseless, while The Commsman gains the ability to generate additional Blooded Tokens instead of moving them but must have one himself before doing so. The Enforcer now allows for an operative to perform ANY 1 AP action instead of just an Overwatch or Dash, greatly increasing his utility. The Sharpshooter is no longer able to move 6 inches and fire his silent profile, but gains the ability to be Under The Gaze of The Gods for TP1, a terrible trade in my estimation. 

The Blooded Ploys remain largely unchanged, with only two Strategic Ploys being switched out. Overcharge Lasguns has been replaced by Malevolent Grit which allows operatives with Blooded tokens or in enemy territory to re-roll a single defense die, while Dirty Fighters have been replaced by the much more useful Bitter Demise that allows operatives to deal damage, assuming a successful roll, to enemies within 2 inches that incapacitate them.

All the equipment options available to this team are useful, and you are likely to automatically take 2-3 of them. Wicked Blades essentially buffs all non-combat specialists to 3/4 damage, while Chaos Sigils makes the Reward Earned ploy cost 0 CP. Symbols of Bloody Worship allow operatives to regain a single lost wound if they dealt damage to the enemy in combat, while Sinister Trophies prevent your opponent from re-rolling 1s with on attacks made within 2 inches. All these options affect the entire team meaning they’re straight buffs and don’t need to be tracked when used, so score one for simplicity. 

Three Cool Things About This Team

• Balance. The Blooded remain one of the most well-rounded teams in the game, and there is really something for everyone here. 

• Perfect Synthesis of Theme and Rules. This team looks great, and its rules fit the theme of fanatics looking to please their blood hungry patrons perfectly. Players are actively rewarded playing the team in a style that fits the background behind it. 

• Easy to Learn, Hard to Master. Just because this team is well-rounded doesn’t mean it is bad, or unable to compete. Most of the rules this team has are very straight-forward, however getting them to synergize properly and help you dictate the flow of a game requires a lot of practice and repetition. 

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day the final verdict on The Blooded will come down to how much the new Approved Ops and changes to Elite teams affect the overall competitive environment. From the context of changes the team has received, both new and veteran players should be happy with them, the former due to their fun and rewarding playstyle, and later due to an overall increased Blood Token generation, and a few smaller individual buffs to make certain operatives more useful. 

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