The Tau-allied Vespid Stingwings take on the Imperium’s Tempestus Aquilons in the new Kill Team Hivestorm boxed set.
Many thanks to Games Workshop for providing an advanced copy for review.
Unboxing Hivestorm
Bucking the trend of recent boxes like Termination, Hivestorm is a complete starter box. This is your one-stop-shop – everything you need to play the new edition of Kill Team. Models, books, game board, terrain, scatter, and so on.
The Books
- Kill Team 2024 Core Rule Book
- Hivestorm Dossier Rule Book
The Models
- Vespid Stingwings – The Tau’s insect friends get a major glow-up.
- Tempestus Aquilons – Flying Scions and their turret friend.
The Terrain – Killzone Volkus
- Four ruined buildings
- Ten pieces of scatter terrain
Play Aids
- Measuring tools
- Killzone Universal Equipment Pack
- Double-sided game board
- Approved Ops card deck
- Tokens & Dice
Models
If you are interested in our impressions of the teams from the box, check out our Vespid Stingwings and Tempestus Aquilons reviews.
Terrain
Fowler: The terrain is anchored by two large O-shaped buildings, along with two smaller L ruins. These are chunky pieces of terrain, but they don’t take up too much space on the table. Mercifully, many of the moldlines for these buildings are on flat edges or in spots where a file or rasp would work if you want to work quickly.
Sky Serpent: I found the new terrain relatively simple to build; however, some of the buildings lock together in a grid system in the corners and I just couldn’t get this to sit flush so I cut that away and glued the edges. I’ve long wanted to create a Deathworld board with overgrown ruins and the release of the great new Volkus terrain was a catalyst for this.
I started with a Grey Seer undercoat, picked out some key details in grey and bronze and hit it with a wash of Nuln Oil and Agrax Earthshade before drybrushing up the details.
Next up was to play with some AK Interactive Streaking Grime to achieve a lot of the weathering. After some touch ups and further details I created miss from modelling lichen which I stuck into any natural crevice.
Fowler: The scatter has some really fantastic bits. There are a few larger chunks that a fighter can fit behind, which all look like pieces of the Volkus terrain versus generic piles of rubble.
Play Aids
Measuring Tools
You may notice that the shapes are gone, replaced with numbers. The form factor is the same, now with more skulls!
Sky Serpent: Out with the shapes and in with good old numbers. And skulls. Lots and lots of skulls. The measuring gauges are fun and similar to the previous edition but it’s worth noting you only get one of the main gauges this time; however, there is a card alternative found on the token sheet.
I painted mine in bronze with a verdigris effect. Drybrush up with your favourite bronzes and silvers and then hit it with some watered down Sotek Green and then a bit of white in the mix.
Killzone Universal Equipment Pack
The equipment pack is overflowing with barricades, barb wire fences, grenades, and ladders. Not only are these great-looking pieces, but they also have various effects on gameplay.
Can You Roll a Crit: The terrain I did pretty simply. After a black undercoat, everything was sprayed dark silver, gold details painted in with bronze details too, washed thinned Ratling grime, then drybrushed everything bright silver. Other details were done individually after. Once varnished, they were all ready to go. My main tip is you can actually do pretty much everything on the sprues. The only items I painted either pinned to cork or on painting sticks were: the grenades, the 2 portable barricades, ladders, and comms devices.
Final Thoughts
CYRAC: I managed to somehow paint-up everything in the box on time. The Vespid were pretty easy with contrast for the body, with the weapons oddly taking the longest time for my Farsight Stingwings. My Aquilons, from the Battle-Ready Airborne Battalion, were done in a darker and faster method but came out quite nickel considering the limited colour palette I used. The equipment was pretty simple too but turned out nicely too. Even my terrain was pretty simple. It’s overall nice how all the contents finished despite me not going uber detailed with everything, which is a pleasant surprise.
Sky Serpent: I think Hivestorm is a really impressive box with fantastic terrain and great new models in the Aquilons and Vespids, they are very approachable for all levels of painters and welcome experimentation via the segmented bodies of the Vespids or the Imperial baroque armour.
Fowler: With two great-looking teams, attractive new terrain, and a fantastic core ruleset – Hivestorm is a slam dunk. KT2024 is a tight and well-written system; relatively easy to learn, but with a high skill ceiling. If you liked Kill Team 2.0, in many ways this is more of the same. If you are new to the game, Hivestorm is a great single buy to hop in.
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