A cut down version of Kill Team?

[Flamekebab]

I've been playing a bit of KT with some friends and the fundamentals are great. I really like the IGYG mechanic, the shooting mechanics, the hand to hand, and the movement. The keywords for weapons work fairly well too.

What doesn't work for us, at all, is the wildly overcomplicated faction rules that have been mashed over the top. If you're playing Mordheim there's a learning curve as you don't start with a hundred skills, special rules, and other optional crap on top.

I can mostly manage the DKK rules, for example. They've got four "orders" that can be applied to them which buff them in various ways. There's a load more "ploys" that can be applied too, which are a bit much to keep track of but are just about doable.

The same cannot be said for a friend's Vespid Stingwings, or Hernkyn Yaegirs. They've got a multiple resources they have to keep track of and work with (and therefore as their opponent I need to understand too!).

I don't know if cutting this complexity out would debuff a load of factions, otherwise I'd just be calling for all of it to be scrapped. I more wanted to create a topic to have a bit of a whinge about it and see if anyone else feels the same way.

With GW's skirmish games from the '90s, most factions start from a fairly similar point and then diverge over time as they slowly gain access to their special rules. It's a learning curve. KT seems to be more of a learning wall. Way too much to keep track of all at once.

Not once have we made it beyond turn 2 of a given game before we run out of time and headspace. It feels like there's a great game buried under all the cruft but I'm not sure how much work it is to excavate that game.

 

[Ben_S]

I haven't played a new GW game in years. Probably the last time was when Age of Sigmar first came out, I did decide to give it a brief try.

It does seem to be their style to have a whole load of special rules, so every faction - or even every unit - is special in some way. And loads of cards or other things to keep track of.

I do sometimes wonder whether it's them that have changed or me. (2nd edition 40k, for instance, had loads of cards and things to keep track of too.) But it doesn't appeal to me these days.

If you want something more cut down, perhaps look at One Page Rules. (I haven't tried those either, but they seem popular.)

 

[Flamekebab]

If I'm going to play a different game then that's a different conversation. Loads of rulesets kicking about, including GCE

I do sometimes wonder whether it's them that have changed or me. (2nd edition 40k, for instance, had loads of cards and things to keep track of too.) But it doesn't appeal to me these days.

Whilst 2e has a lot of rules, it's an army game, and so I would expect to be able to take all day to play. Also lots of units don't have special rules beyond the statlines on the weapons they're armed with. That said, I've never really touched the Dark Millennium stuff, so it might well have similar issues.

It's almost like they don't know when to stop writing a game. Oh dear gods, I know what it reminds me of - trying to wade through Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. Start with an interesting setting and then drown it in idiotic guff until readers lose the will to continue!