In Kill Team: Brutal and Cunning, the diminutive Ratling Snipers take on the rather large Ork Wrecka Krew. Many thanks to Games Workshop for providing us with an advanced review copy.
Check out the video review of the new box by Just Another Kill Team Podcast
With the Hivestorm starter box out of the way, we are back to the “two teams and a bit of terrain” format.
Unboxing Brutal and Cunning
The Book
- Brutal and Cunning Dossier
The Models
- Ork Wrecka Krew – Heavy hitters (and the bomb squig friends).
- Astra Militarum Ratling Kill Team – 10 short kings and a dog.
Killzone Upgrade: Compound Siege
- Breachable walls
- Bunkers
- Cool crates!
Play Aids
- Tokens for the Ork and Ratling teams
Models
Wrecka Krew
Sky Serpent: When Brutal & Cunning was first announced I fell in love with the character of the Ratling models… but once in hand, the Orks really won me over. The Wrecka Krew have plenty of options for building the models and you will be able to have plenty of variation, even if you pick up a second set to max your options.
I focussed a lot more on the Tankbusta side and I really enjoyed the wide variety of rokkits that you can add to the models, especially those with the trail of smoke who have just been fired!
The Orks were really fun to paint, I created ‘Da Rokkit Waaagh!’, a group of Orks from a variety of clans who have a mutual love of rokkits. I love injecting stories into my models and this allowed me to have fun with a variety of colour schemes which I had a great time researching.
I always like to try new things when painting models and for the armour and metal I tried working in a backwards method, IE I drybrushed up through the metallics and then painted the colour of the clan on in a patchy method rather than adding weathering and chips later; this meant I could be messier if I wanted to as it added to the effect.
HappyRaccoon: The models are good! Chunky, with nice details. The back plates do feel a little crabby, but there weren’t a ton of mold lines to manage.
MasterSlowPoke: Carcinization comes for everyone, even the fungi.
My Wrecka Krew are a warband of Deathskulls klan Orks, who want to use their superior firepower and armored plates to get close to enemy tanks, blow them open, and loot all the choice wargear inside. Dealing with enemy Kill Teams is an annoying distraction, but nothing a few well placed rokkits (and many errant ones), or a knucklebusta to the schnoz can’t handle.
The models come together really well. If you build the Kommandos kill team, you’ll be glad to know their Wrecka cousins are all mostly laid out logically on the sprues, and there’s only a few bits you’ll have to hunt for. There’s four specialists – the Nob, the Rokkiteer with the backpack Launcha, the assuredly long-lived Demolisha with the Tankhammer, and the Krusha with their paired Knucklebustas. You don’t have to worry about which to build, there’s no shared bits between them and the regular Warriors.
You get enough to build the Nob and any combination of 5 Tankbustas and 5 Breakas (and the 2 squigs, of course). I’m not sure if in proper 40k there’s going to be two Datasheets or just one combined listing, but picking up two kits would easily give you two units, either all ranged or all crumpin’. They’ve got a lot of detail and it can be hard to get under the arms to make sure everything is painted. The way the crossbody arms tab in makes it easy to disassemble them if you just friction fit, so they lend themselves well to subassemblies. The Rokkiteer also has two options for their backpack Launcha – either a rack of Rokkits, or a single big Pulsa Rokkit. Both can easily be tacked in, and are very easily to magnetize too.
Ratlings
Fowler: I absolutely love these guys. The new kit is a fantastic glow-up; surprisingly almost 1:1 with the scale of the old metal models. The leader has three build options, and among the rest all but one have two builds. As small models, there is the occasional fiddly bit, but the Ratling proportions are chunky enough that the majority of the build is pretty smooth. Nothing needed any special gap-filling aside from the seam on the dog’s back. When you are assembling, keep in mind that the Ratling Big Shot (the one with the tankstopper rifle) is on a 28mm base – rather than the 25s for the rest of the team.
I had an extra Rein & Raus from the Combat Arena: Lair of the Beast box, and figured that it might make sense to get a couple of extra operatives out of them. Technically, Raus is a Ratling Raider – the one with the grappling hook. There are plenty of extra bits in the box, and I did a simple kitbash to turn him into a standard sniper. Folks will be happy to know that both of those dudes are the same scale as the Brutal and Cunning (and the Provisionally Prepared limited release model).
Terrain
The new terrain adds some breachable walls and bunkers to the Volkus kit. The aesthetic matches, and they sit pretty flush alongside the previous terrain kit. I really liked the breachable walls for Gallowdark Terrain that came along with the Soulshackle box, and it’s nice to see the gimmick come back. There are also some new crates, which is likely to be the highlight for folks picking this up to use with Necromunda.
Similar to the Volkus terrain, it’s made up of big, chunky pieces. Moldlines are pretty easy to clean up. As always with terrain, I recommend picking up a cheap set of woodworking rasps for quickly getting the initial cleanup done – you can go back in with sandpaper to make it neater.
Final Thoughts
Brutal and Cunning may not have the most universally exciting terrain for a KT box (aside from the cool crates), but the gangs included are fantastic. Both the Ratlings and Tankbustas got quality glow-ups, and are pleasant kits to build.
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