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.
Welcome back, Kill Teamers, to the re-review of the Hernkyn Yaegirs. The short kings ended the edition in style, cruising in with a solid win rate before getting trapped at the lower end of the winrate. While they were without equal in terms of style, those 4”s of movement did seem to eventually weigh them down.
In this re-review, we’ll be going over the broad strokes of the changes, and trying to recontextualize the team in the new edition. Especially noting any larger changes, that are coming down the line.
Before we dive in, we’d like to thank Games Workshop for providing a preview copy of these rules for review purposes.
The slow standard has come to bring some headwinds to our Kyn. With 5” of movement becoming the standard, the team has mostly made it through the edition shift faster! Being a season 3 team, they see fewer changes and keep Infiltration and Seek and Destroy archetypes for scoring.
Table of Contents
Abilities
We’ve got two abilities, and Dauntless Explorers specifically getting a HUGE buff to its effects.
Resourceful
In the Ready step of each Strategy phase starting on turn 2, you’ll be getting up to two Resourceful Points. With a small table showing you how many you are getting. Luckily for us our Theyn leader gives us an extra point as long as he lives. Meaning we’re often getting 2-3 points. Resourceful Points can be used when you select an operative to activate that isn’t in control range of an enemy for one of two effects:
- Add 1 APL
- Regain D3+1 wounds
Notably these points wipe at the end of turn, so it’s a use it or lose it situation, but having a flexible floating comms buff is an incredibly powerful ability. Especially in a world with crit ops being 3 objectives!
Dauntless Explorers
As a Strategic Gambit on turning point 1, you can have EACH operative take a reposition that ends wholly within 4” of your drop zone. This ability sees a boost from 3 operatives of 10, to a team wide shuffle. This means your initial positioning can be use to bait opponents, and shooters can get into key places asap.
The Operatives
Most of our operatives come over to edition three much the same as their older iterations. Sporting 5” movement, 4+ saves, 8 wounds, and 3+s to hit in shooting, and 4+s in melee. Thanks to our defensive ploys we’ll often feel like 10 wounds, and sometimes those resource points will have that 10 feel like 12! Really pushing up the toughness of our basic operatives.
Yaegir Warrior
Luckily for us, the buff for Warrior-type operatives has come to give our required warriors a HUGE boost in viability. The Intrepid rule means that our resourceful points last until the start of our next activation, meaning we control through the end of turn as a 3apl operative, or we heal for 4 wounds. Considering we need to take 3, this means we should probably be angling to budget at least one resourceful point to a warrior a turn to give us future boons. Especially if we’re infiltrating and scoring points in the back line.
Yaegir Theyn
Our 9 wound, Theyn looks much the same as before. Granting us an extra resourceful point through Veteran Adventurer, and stalling death once with Outright Conviction. Keeping him alive is going to remain just as crucial as ever seeing as the extra APL remains critical on mission play. I’d expect to leave the Bolt Shotguns over on the warriors, as the extra attacks on the Plasma Knife will probably do more work.
Yaegir Bladekyn
A stealthy charger, who doesn’t need to change to Engage Order to charge. Our Irrepressible Hardiness allows the bladekyn to strike on death with a remaining success, which means we should generally get at least 9 damage from three strikes. Though seeing as the plasma knives are Ceaseless I’d generally expect 11-ish damage from her four attacks. The best part is backed by Tough Survivalist ploy we take 3 hits to kill when being charged by a 4/5 damage weapon so we can reliably expect that output! As far as ranged options, we can lurk and chuck knives at people to goad opponents into coming after us with our Silent throwing knives.
Yaegir Bombast
In the move from the old edition the 9” range of the Wroughtlock Revolvers has become far less noteworthy as most pistols moved up to 8” range. Luckily they’ve kept the reasonably spooky Ceaseless, Lethal 5+ keywords, on those 4 attacks with 3/5 damage. A profile that threatens most human-sized operatives, while presenting real chip damage to Astarte-sized threats. During the Strategy Phase we can pull those guns out for a Strategic Gambit in Wroughtlock Negotiation to flip our order and fire off a free shoot action. If you win an iniatitve in a good spot, this can really let you pour down the pressure under a pile of bullets especially when Brazen Killer can cause a Stun effect against any operative within 2” of a bombast’s incap target.
Yaegir Gunner
We don’t get multiple gunners, we get a multiple profiles on one gunner! Our APM launcher does not pull punches especially with the new Volkus strongholds granting its two blast X” profiles lethal 5+! It’s certainly not the most reliable profile hitting on 4+s, but we’ll never leave home without it. Making sure to line up chances to gain Ceaseless by moving AFTER a shot is going to be critical. There is a fun note that new obscurity does tend to prefer more dice, and the Armour Piercing profile with Piercing 1, Ceaseless and Balanced, from Hidden Egnagement, could actually push through to maim most things as long as you can draw a bead.
Yaegir Ironbraek
Talk about a glow up, the Ironbraek got a big boost in the update to the new edition. Not only did he get faster, and gain 2” of range on that revolver. We get to place five tokens, with three of those being true mines during the equipment phase of deployment. Each must be more than 6” from the opposing dropzone and mines, while also being more than 2” from other markers and access points (in Gallowdark). Opponents attempt to find true mines when they get within control range of our 20mm tokens and those HY-Pex Mines can still be rearmed when this operative readies. Newly the mines have gained the ability to STOP the current action, but not the activation triggering them. Those explosions deal 3 damage with some extra based around the triggering save characteristic. Meaning opposing operatives are really going to have to wonder about any important moves that might get stalled by our mines.
Yaegir Riflekyn
Our sniper gets hit with the same nerf bat as many snipers losing the ability to permanently shoot Silently. Probably for the best considering vantage points now get cover! His Weavewerk Cloak now ignores saturate, and still allows us bonuses so long as we are in cover. With the drop to plasma lethality, this will probably end up keeping our sniper alive much longer to rain down his 2+ ballistic skill, 3/3 damage, Piercing 1, with Devastating 3 shots all game long. Make sure to lodge him into a vantage point as all our Devastating profiles being Heavy. Luckily our mobile profile is solid enough hitting on 3+s with piercing 1 working much like a bolter. A fun note, that the piercing here lets us shoot through obscurity but we lose out on devastating 3. If you need to tag a 3-6 health model hitting on 2s makes that breakpoint reasonably reliable!
Yaegir Tracker
While everything else has been getting new toys, it seems the Sam Fisher of old, has caught the nerfs for the team. As far as good things, our SiNR Handbow is now permanently Silent, which is real neat. However we used to treat operatives as engaged with our Pan Spectral Visors, and our Tracker ability gave us what is now Ceaseless. We keep the same solid loadout of silent weaponry and 3+s to hit hatchets, which let us doink 7-8 wound operatives with relative ease. However our Pan Spectral Visors now only grant Seek Light, and no Obscurity. While attacking expended operatives only grants use Punishing, which is a sizable pair of downgrades. I suppose his Plasma Knife attacks are more reliably landing, but it definitely isn’t as good as Ceaseless!
The Ploys
We keep all eight ploys of Kill Team 2021, which isn’t too surprising considering the Yaegirs were the last set of releases. We’ll be copying the older review while adding in new notes where relevant.
Hidden Engagement
When a Yaegir is shooting an opponent from cover the Yaegir gains a re-roll. Forcing you to estimate cover from your opponent’s point of view is a novel way to gain a re-roll. This will often help us land shooting attacks when necessary.
Masterful Bladework
One of our more questionable ploys, with the lack of any really compelling melee operatives. We get a single melee re-roll when we are the active operative or while we are concealed. This means we’re generally getting charged and getting the re-roll, or charging 7” to get that re-roll. Turns out we’re generally sporting Plasma Knives and this makes charging a yaegir quite the scary prospect for almost any team. When backed up by Tough Survivalists it means we can normally stay alive through any melee operative, and sometimes we’ll take a 5 wound chunk out of those aggressors.
Tough Survivalist
Starstrider’s best ploy rears its ugly head without restrictions! Each operative can block half the damage of the first dice applied to it during each turning point. This ploy on Starstriders was almost a must use, and a less restrictive version seems like a no-brainer. With 8 wounds and resourceful heals globally, the Yaegir will often feel like 10-12 wound operatives!
In Position
Team-wide super conceal, for all operatives on conceal. When you need to stay safe from shooting on turning point 1 In Position has you covered! Good when it’s good, and with a pair of silent long-range weapons opponents may struggle to interact with you.
Tactical Ploys
Stalwart Defense
A reactive Overwatch when a friendly Yaegir is put into engagement by an enemy operative. If you have a friendly Yaegir within 6” of the charged Yaegir, you can take a shot at the charger, breaking the restriction on engagement range shooting. This really incentivizes keeping each Kyn in a tight 6” network, so each Kyn can cover for incoming melee operatives. An excellent way to show off the tight bonds of the kinfolk. When paired with Tough Survivalist you can make most melee specialists blink, as a little off the top pairs nicely with those 5 damage crits from Plasma Knives.
Hardy
Downgrading all opponent’s retained critical hits to normal hits. An unassuming ploy that generally plays better than it looks, especially with plasma guns moving towards lethal 5+ in their Hot profiles.
Bonds that Bind
One Yaegir within 3” of an activating Yaegir can go after the first one activates. A pretty bog standard GA2 ploy, with one major restriction. Neither can be the Bombast if it used its Wroughtlock Negotiation Strategic Gambit. This ploy has some new light in the wake of our warriors being able to hold onto resourceful points through the turning point, meaning we should theoretically have far more options for GA2 3apl operatives! Letting us hold objectives against hordes, or tie against Astartes with ease.
No Kin Left Behind
The second flavor win, No Kin Left Behind turns an incapacitated Yaegir into a 3 inch aura token, now with the 20mm token range boost, that lets you push one failure to a normal success or one success into a critical. You can only have 1 token up at a time, but considering your low initial BS, and the higher crit damage of many of our guns this will overperform. If you can line up an expendable Kyn in the middle objective you can set up powerful melee and shooting actions.
Equipment
We’ve got somewhat uninspiring equipment, with most of these feeling optional outside of the plasma knives. I suspect we’ll often need to dip into universal equipment for ladders especially with that pregame move from Dauntless Explorers, and mines for more area control.
Plasma Knives
We’ve lost an attack, but everyone gets them now. Three attacks, on 4+s to hit, with 3/5 damage, and Lethal 5+ has given players fits from the entirety of their existence in Kill Team 2021. However with only 3 attacks this won’t reliably threaten kills on fresh targets the way their 4 attack versions have. I suspect you’ll always take these and be pretty happy you have them.
Stabilised Bolt Shells
Twice a turn you can go from 4 attacks on 5+s for 2/2 damage, to 4 attacks on 4+s for 3/3 damage on our Bolt Shotgun (long range) attacks. I suspect this won’t be worth it, as I’m expecting our warriors to more often want the fourth attack on their plasma knife, than a shotgun. Time will tell, but at least these aren’t our only shells.
Firestorm Bolt Shells
In the confines of the Gallowdark, and Volkus Strongholds, we can use these to juice one short ranged Bolt Shotgun shot to have Blast 1” upgrading that shot with Lethal 5+. Which means we’ll probably find some uses for this, but less than an always take. If a map is going to have us inside some deadly boxes, we should keep this in our back pocket!
KV-Ceramide Undersuit
Everyone gets defensive re-rolls against blast and torrent weapons, and ignore the ranged damage from X” Devastating X weapons. The primary target still takes those devastating wounds. Only take this when it’ll be relevant when you see torrent, blast or x” devastating x on the opposing data sheets.
Blades in the Dark
Hernkyn spent most of Kill Team 2021 being incredibly hard to shift, with some big deficiencies when playing for the 6 objectives in the long game. Fortunately the move to Kill Team 2024 has dropped us down to 3 objectives, and given the team far more range to create sniping nests. We can use those nests and that dwarven hardiness to craft a gameplan around stalling Kill Op, scoring Implant with our Silent weapons, and fighting on critical op. We can use No Kin Left Behind on the central objective to make that area much more dangerous for an opponent to into, while using our warriors with 3apl to cover the back and the middle objectives. Remember we may be hard to shift, but we’re not really able to push into opposing territory. Luckily for us if we can keep opponents to only 5 dwarves down, we can stall anyone going for the kill op. I’d probably look to land the primary op on either our tac ops or crit op in this game plan.
Final Thoughts
Hernkyn in Kill Team 2021 had a weird life. Starting out of the gates with a high win rate, while people struggled to learn how to shift them. Eventually most people learned to shoot first, charge later, and tank out the middling shooting of the Hernkyn. While most of those things will still work, we’ve been given new tools to interact with opponents hoping to chip us down. With 3APL warriors who can shoot, charge, fight, or venture off to cover objectives we’ve been given a new suite of tools.
I’m looking forward to giving the team a chance to shine especially with the new Ironbraek mind games, and the shenanigans of turn 1 repositions. I do expect the team to do better against wider teams, while Astartes in their various forms do seem like a hard pill to swallow. However the Yaegir have been harder to kill than expected, and maybe new Astartes will be surprised at how tough a kyn is to shift.
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