okay so i just went for a really really long drive to another country and Yesterday was the drive back day, while i was there i got to play some killteam and try out the brand new Nemesis Ops Dossier that i had got really lucky and found and so !
heres some Long Drive Thoughts. copy-pasted and slightly edited from my rambling in discord, as i often do.
its got Rules Bloat things that interrupt the flow of the game without really adding value
so like. I've said it before and I'll yell about it forever warcry is just PERFECT for what I want in a game well, almost. the faction rules are a little underwhelming. its pretty damn close.
none of the rules interrupt or slow gameplay, and it doesn't lose any tactical depth for it but it doesn't work for a SciFi setting, fundamentally, because the existence of Guns totally changes how the game needs to be played
so the warcry framework can't really be applied to SciFi game and OPR Firefight, the simplified SciFi skirmisher, has a good framework but its got a couple big fundamental flaws;
the 'shaken' wounding system makes it feel REALLY BAD when you've got one poor guy that just doesn't get to okay for three rounds in a row. its distinctly not heroic feeling.
the lack of activated abilities or distinct faction rules makes every faction feel like it plays kinda the same, and there isn't really any good cohesion between models
killteam has one absolutely BANGIN thing going for it; being only 'bespoke' teams, each of them has some kind of Gimmick that most of them go kinda crazy awesome example; the raveners they get to tunnel?? they just disappear???? then ambush predator on your ass only when and where THEY want to fight and if they want to lurk and lie in wait in their tunnels they just can, for as long as they want
it gives them a GREAT game feel, very unique playstyle that really gives them character and feeling
but. killteam suffers a lot from Bloat
there are just so many ploys to remember all the time that have super specific activation conditions and a proper game having both crit op and three tac ops and kill op and choosing from universal and faction equipment Every Game and dear goodness the sheer number of KEYWORDS
I was kinda on the fence about it but ultimately the conceal/engage orders I think ARE a good central mechanic that add good interest and decisions to the game, but there's just so much layered on top that thats totally buried and doesn't really get an opportunity to be as significant to the game as it should be
like, I think that if the Orders game mechanic could be as big and central to the game as warcry's Ability Dice that alone is enough to give the gameplay good tactical depth!
its just everything else to worry about and occupy brainspace, to me, overshadows it and overall makes the game feel bad in a way that I previously didn't see any enjoyment in the orders mechanic
game image intermission;
so my preliminary thoughts on making killteam feel better;
equipment is almost good. I think that reducing or even dropping entirely the universal equipment, and allowing only two selections per player, generally feels pretty good.
ploys have just gotta go. not entirely but like they can't stay as they are. the split between strategy and firefight, some of them being so hyperspecific, and having Eight to remember per team is just crazy. I'm not against having an Ability Resource, but this is not good implementation to me. I think that most of the ploys should be worked into activated abilities on datacards (once per round or once per battle), and each player should be allowed to just declare one of their four strategy ploys each round for free
scoring.. crit ops are all good generally. but tac ops are too much, and kill op disincentivizes going for objectives which is I think just generally ungood. so playing one crit op and one tac op each maybe, and ignoring the archetype shittery, might feel better.
the lite rules generally are pretty good and smooth, but there are a few things that need to be included like Vantage and a few that really need to be avoided like the distinction between Heavy Cover/Light Cover/Obscured
the keywords,, ouh. oof ouchies. at minimum they need TRIMMED. that whole situation is rough and i really dont know how to approach it. like i dont hate the idea of weapon keywords and they do add meaning to choices but that list is too damn long and every description it super difficult to parse and just... that needs so much help. and like 5 for ranged and 5 for melee AT MOST.
and now, about the nemesis operative book;
generally, pretty good ! they really feel like something big and scary that you have to respect.
that said, a couple small changes that I think are really necessary; the way the rules are written, every nemesis get the Bulky, Extra Defence, and Towering core rules applied to them. this feels BAD, especially for smaller models being used as nemesis ops. its a bit weird that the Bulky and Towering keywords both are mostly negative with a good thing tacked on, and Extra Defence is Just Good™ so I think that a good way to look at that maybe is that, as there are three size classes, every step up adds an additional one of those rules. so small=ED, med=ED+Bulky, Lrg=ED+Bulky+Towering.
Aside from that, the Nemesis Traits are just a bit underwhelming (ESPECIALLY as an option to give up a weapon slot for???), and despite activating twice per round it feels like the NemOps' options are a bit.. bland. it would be really nice if they had some kind of activated abilities to choose from, so I think it might be a nice idea to go through each team and steal one firefight ploy each to have as a list for NemOps to choose from in building and use as a once per round kind of a thing
