Review: Kill Team: Hivestorm Pt. 1 – the models

This review kicks off the brand-new 3rd Edition of Kill Team with the Kill Team: Hivestorm box. In part 1 of our two-part mega-review, we take a closer look at the models – we show you on high-resolution sprue images what you can expect from the Tempestus Aquilons, the Vespid Stingwings, and the Killzone: Volkus terrain.

The new Kill Team: Hivestorm box can be preordered from Saturday, September 21, 2024. It goes on sale Saturday, October 5, following a two-week preorder window.

Kill Team: Hivestorm contents

Inside the heavy, packed box, you’ll find:

• Tempestus Aquilons Kill Team (11 models)
• Vespid Stingwing Kill Team (11 models)
• Killzone: Volkus (14 new and existing pieces of terrain plus double-sided cardboard gaming board)
• the new Kill Team upgrades and accessories sprue
• the new Kill Team Core Book (softback edition)
• the Hivestorm Dossier expansion book
• Kill Team Approved Ops 2024 card pack
• two sheets of cardboard tokens

Kill Team: Hivestorm – the models review

This is part 1 of our Hivestorm review, in which we take a look at all the models – the Kill Teams, Killzone: Volkus, and the new accessories sprue. We’ll start with the two new Kill Teams, which both are brand-new models, not old kits repackaged with a new accessories sprue.

Tempestus Aquilons kit review

The Tempestus Aquilons come on three medium-sized sprues. The set includes 10 28mm bases for the Scions, as well as a 40mm base for the Aquilon servo-sentry. The assembly guide suggests specific combinations of bodies and arms, but since the shoulder contact points are smooth, you can experiment with swapping the arms. Additionally, the heads are interchangeable and on ball joints, and there are various optional pieces of equipment.

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

• Aquilon 1 can be built either as a Tempestor or a regular Trooper with a hot-shot lascarbine. Both variations are standing on a tactical rock (a piece of building debris) and have a grav pack with an additional sensor. The Tempestor has the option of an extended or bent right arm, either with a bolt pistol or hot-shot laspistol (the laspistol is also used for making the Gunfighter, so keep that in mind). There’s also a left arm with a chainsword and another with a power sword. Alternatively, you can equip the Tempestor with a hot-shot lascarbine and a pointing right arm. The set includes two special bare heads with berets (one male, one female), as well as a unique helmet.
• Aquilon 2 can be assembled either as a Grenadier or a regular Trooper with a hot-shot lascarbine. The Grenadier has a special chest plate with a grenade belt and an arm pair equipped with a meltabomb and hot-shot laspistol.
• Aquilon 3 is posed on elevated debris and can be built as either a Gunfighter or a regular Trooper with a hot-shot lascarbine. The Gunfighter option comes with an arm pair wielding hot-shot laspistols (one of the laspistols is also used for the Tempestor, so keep that in mind).
• Aquilon 4 can be built either as a Marksman or as a regular Trooper with a hot-shot lascarbine. For the Marksman, there is a hot-shot longlas included, while the arm pair remains the same.
• Aquilon 5 can be assembled either as a Gunner or as a regular Trooper with a hot-shot lascarbine. The Gunner has an extra arm pair that can be combined with either a plasma or melta carbine. With minimal conversion skills, these weapons can also be fitted to other arm pairs.
• Aquilon 6 can be built as either a Precursor or a regular Trooper with a hot-shot lascarbine. The Precursor has an alternative chest plate and an arm pair equipped with a dagger and hot-shot laspistol.
• Aquilons 7 through 10 can be assembled as regular Troopers with hot-shot lascarbines. For one Trooper, there is a specific backpack build wired to his/her lascarbine.
• The Servo-sentry can be equipped with a hot-shot volley gun, flamer, or grenade launcher (thanks to the push-fit connection, the weapons can be swapped without magnets).
• In addition to the three heads for the Tempestor, there are 9 helmeted heads and 8 bare heads (6 male, 2 female, all without berets).
• As optional accessories, there are 10 pouches with cables in three different designs, as well as 3 sets of two frag grenades, 4 sets of two krak grenades, 3 combined frag and krak grenades, and 5 sheathed daggers.

All in all, it’s a really cool kit (and the studio paint job looks brilliant). Unfortunately, I don’t have any old Tempestus Scions to compare, but the proportions of the limbs have been slightly modernised and are more in line with the new Cadians. The only thing I can complain about is that there aren’t enough bare heads for the entire squad. Although there are 10 heads included, two of them wear the beret with the skull symbol for the Tempestor. However, you might have some spare bare heads from the Cadian or Imperial Navy kits that match in size.

Vespid Stingwing Kill Team review

The Vespids of the T’au have received a real glow-up compared to the old and fairly dated metal models. They’ve grown a bit in size, the proportions have been modernised, and the wings are now more three-dimensional. The poses are dynamic, with all Vespids placed on pieces of Imperial debris, giving them extra height. The Vespid Stingwing Kill Team kit also includes three medium-sized sprues, 10 28mm bases, and a 25mm base for the drone.

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

• Vespid 1 can be built either as a Strain Leader or a regular Warrior, both equipped with a neutron blaster. An extra head with a communion helmet is included for the Strain Leader.
• Vespid 2 can be built as a Longsting or a regular Warrior with a neutron blaster. The Longsting has an extra pair of arms with a neutron rail rifle.
• Vespid 3 can be built as a Shadestrain or a regular Warrior with a neutron blaster. The Shadestrain comes with an extra head featuring a ghost rig helmet, and a pair of arms with a neutron sting and neutron grenade.
• Vespid 4 can be built as a Skyblast or a regular Warrior with a neutron blaster. An extra pair of arms with a neutron grenade launcher is available for the Skyblast.
• Vespid 5 can be built as a Swarmguard or a regular Warrior with a neutron blaster. The Swarmguard has a pair of arms with a flamer.
• Vespids 6 to 10 are regular Warriors with neutron blasters, with no additional options apart from the interchangeable heads.
• The Oversight drone also has no alternative build options.
• In addition to the helmeted heads for the Strain Leader and Shadestrain, 9 interchangeable bare heads are included. The 10 wing pairs are also interchangeable (but designed with specific bodies in mind).

As you’ve likely noticed while reading, the kit offers fewer variation options and fewer special operatives. Additionally, only 9 regular heads are included, which might be a limitation if you plan to use larger squads in Warhammer 40,000. However, purely from a miniature design perspective, the new Vespids are a brilliant update.

Killzone: Volkus terrain & board

Kill Team: Hivestorm includes a total of six terrain sprues that make Killzone: Volkus.

Two of these sprues are familiar from the Battlezone: Manufactorum ruins from the 9th Edition starter set. These can be assembled into two large L-shaped structures with a top floor (placed at 3.5″ from the bottom)and two smaller L-shaped ruins. The left and right large halves are interchangeable, as are the left and right smaller halves, allowing for multiple combinations. However, for the Killzone: Volkus layouts, you’ll want to assemble the ruins exactly as instructed. Since the Manufactorum ruins use snap-fit connections, you don’t need to glue them, providing greater flexibility for other games.

The other four sprues are new and build two large strongholds and eight pieces of scatter terrain. The strongholds are square, enclosed structures. The first structure with the promethium tanks, has a footprint of approx. 18 x 13 cm, with a max. height of 15 cm and a floor at 3″ height. The other structure has a footprint of approx. 19 x 19cm, a maximum height of 19 cm, with floors placed at 3″ and 6″ height. They are detailed in the typical Imperial Mechanicum style, making them a good fit with existing Warhammer 40k terrain.

Patreon bonus content: Ultra high-res, uncompressed versions of these sprue images (and backsides of the sprues) can be downloaded here.

However, these buildings are neither modular nor compatible (in proportions and connectors) with previous Sector Imperialis/Mechanicum kits. For Kill Team, this isn’t a drawvack, as the Killzone: Volkus is played with predefined layouts. However, I must criticise the connectors – they are quite small and don’t hold that well, meaning they wear out quite fast when you assemble and disassemble the structures often.

Additionally, we have eight pieces of scatter terrain. Three of the pieces are flat, so you can place models on them, the other pieces are barricades and rubble.

I want to mention the gaming board. It’s made of the familiar thick cardboard, identical in format to previous Kill Team and Warcry boards. One side, which can be seen in the promo shots, features deployment zone markings cleverly integrated into the design, resembling street markings – an excellent idea. I found the blue-grey colour scheme works well with a variety of paint schemes, as it incorporates both cool tones and warm browns into the rubble. The other side has a similar cityfight design but without the markings and with more debris.

The new Kill Team accessories sprue

For the new edition of Kill Team, there’s a new two-part accessories sprue that includes combat gauges and the new universal equipment, which can now be used by all teams.

The combat gauges now feature numbers in inches instead of symbols and a new skull design. You get a 1″/2″/3″ and 6″ gauge (unlike the old set where the multi-sided gauge was included twice). The number of the familiar barricades has been reduced from 6 to 2. However, there are 2 new heavy barricades, 2 portable barricades (which operatives can move with), 2 razor wires, 2 comms devices, 2 compacted ladders and 2 extended ladders, 2 ammo crates, 2 minefields, as well as 2 markers each for krak, frag, smoke, and stun grenades, and 2 smoke markers for smoke grenades.

All in all, this is cool and thematic game material. Since universal equipment is an essential part of the new edition, it means that every player will need to get a copy of this set. The new rules are supposed to be mostly free, but these accessories are the buy-in for the new edition. It’s clear that these accessories were designed by the game developers to drive revenue.

Value

Kill Team: Hivestorm is even more packed than the Kill Team: Octarius box. Apart from 2 sprues of terrain, everything in it is new, and you also get an overhauled rule set along with the matching Approved Ops 2024 expansion in the form of a separate deck of cards. This justifies the high price, as you’re getting a complete game (minus the dice) in one box. Most notably, compared to purchasing everything separately, you’ll save quite a bit – much better than the boxes from the Bheta-Decima season, where you had to buy the Killzone separately.

You can find the latest GW releases at our 🇬🇧/🇪🇺 partner stores Wayland Games, Element Games, and Firestorm Games, at 🇩🇪 Taschengelddieb and PK-Pro, and at 🇺🇸 Noble Knight Games with a welcome discount of up to 20% over RRP. Using our links helps to support Tale of Painters at no additional cost to you, so thank you very much for using them!

Stay tuned for part 2 of our review, planned for the coming weeks, in which we take a closer look at the Core book with its updated rules, the Hivestorm dossier and our first impressions of the new edition.

I hope you found this review helpful, feel free to leave a reaction or comment below, or post your questions here or discuss on our Discord channel.