Warhammer 40,0000 Kill Team Chalnath Preview

Kill Team Chalnath is the first expansion for Kill Team, and features the holy forces of the Emperor's Light, the Adepta Sororitas Novitiates, fighting against the forces of the Greater Good, the Tau Pathfinders. In this article, we'll have a look at what's in the box, and talk about the two new kill teams.

Kill Team is a skirmish wargame, set in Games Workshop's larger Warhammer 40,000 setting. As a skirmish game, Kill Team features a small number of elite troops, fighting special operations battles, rather than huge battles fought with entire armies. If you want to know more about Kill Team, you can check out our full guide here.

Kill Team Chalnath contains:

• Kill Team Chalnath campaign book
• Ten Adepta Sororitas Novitiates
• Ten Tau Pathfinders and three drones
• Imperial Ruins scenery set and double-sided game board

Kill Team Chalnath is an expansion for Kill Team, which means that it's not playable straight out of the box, a copy of the Kill Team Core rules are required, as are some dice and measuring tools. If you have the Kill Team Octarius box, then it contains everything you need to start using Chalnath right away, as does the upcoming Kill Team Starter Set that was revealed at Gen Con 2021. You can purchase the items required to play separately, and they are all detailed in our Kill Team Guide.

Kill Team Chalnath Campaign Book

The Calnath campaign book is split into several chapters, the first, Warzone Vedik details the lore and narrative of the Vedik system and the forces battling within it. The next details the background for Tau and Adepta Sororitas kill teams, along with narrative ideas and hooks to flesh out your kill team.

The core of the book are the datacards, abilities, special rules, ploys, and spec ops details for the two new kill teams included in the set, the Tau Pathfinders and Adepta Sororitas Novitiates. These are different kill teams to those previously presented in the Kill Team Compendium, and we look at both in detail below.

The book closes with Killzone: Chalnath and special rules for all the Imperial Ruins scenery in the box, rules like Punishing Vantage Point, that increases accuracy and protects the shooter if they are positioned in cover on the top of the ruins. It also has a Special Operations: Chalnath Mission Pack, a series of nine narrative missions that make use of the Killzone: Chalnath scenery.

Adepta Sororitas Novitiates

The sisters of the Adepta Soroitas Novitiates aren't the fully battle-ready sisters of battle from Warhammer 40,000, these sisters are a brand new unit type with the release of Chalnath, and although they're first available in Kill Team, Games Workshop has also made their 40K rules available in advance. The Novitiates are junior sisters, straight out of their initial training, flung straight into battle before finding their path in the order. Their teams are led by a fully-fledged sister of battle, and they have a variety of options available.

• Novitiate Superior - A proven fully-fledged battle sister, training and keeping an eye on the novitiates. She has a better save and one more wound than the rest of the kill team, and three weapon options, the longer-ranged bolter, bolt pistol and power weapon, or plasma pistol and power weapon. They can inspire another nearby novitiate to activate immediately after them.
• Novitiate Militant - The standard novitiate sister, can be armed with an autogun, or autopistol and novitiate blade.
• Novitiate Penitent - As punishment for any failings, they seek to clear their name in combat and wield a huge chain weapon, the penitent eviscerator. They can reroll any or all of their attack dice the first time they fight each round. They can also fight twice for one action point using their unique Absolution Through Destruction action.
• Novitiate Purgatus - The flamer wielding novitiate, cleansing their enemies with holy fire. Their burning advance unique action lets them dash and then shoot. Their flamer has the new Inferno special rule, that gives an inferno token for each critical hit, which can then cause mortal wounds at the end of the turning point.
• Novitiate Pronatus - The Pronatus are only armed with autopistols, but they have a unique action where they can earn two faith points each turn. Faith points are also earned at the start of each turning point and by specialists during the turn. They can be spent on Acts of Faith, which can boost attacks and protect your operatives.
• Novitiate Exactor - Armed with neural whips, they can attack the enemy, or encourage nearby novitiates through pain and give them extra action points using their own unique action. If the nearby novitiate is a penitent, they boost their movement as well, as they inspire them to throw themselves into combat quicker.
• Novitiate Reliquarius - Novitiate standard-bearers, they allow nearby novitiates a shoot action before they are incapacitated. If their unique Plant The Icon action is used near an objective, it halves the action points of nearby enemies for determining objective winners.
• Novitiate Hospitaller - The novitiate medic. Using their unique action, they can heal 2D3 wounds on a nearby novitiate, and they also have a special ability to save a nearby novitiate once per turn, if neither of them is within engagement range of an enemy. The saved unit remains on one wound and can make a free dash towards the hospitaller.
• Novitiate Preceptor - An inspiring novitiate. They have an aura ability that lets nearby novitiates reroll their defense dice and a unique ability that lets all nearby sisters reroll their fight dice. They are also armed with a Mace of the Righteous, which has the Inferno trait that lets them continue to burn their enemies.
• Novitiate Dialogus - The dialogues have two unique actions, the first adds one to the action points of a nearby novitiate and the second allows them to place a Condemning Sermon token on the battlefield, which reduces the ballistic skill of nearby enemies.
• Novitiate Duellist - The duellists are armed with lethal dueling blades, which they are very effective at using. They also have the Expert Riposte ability, which lets them deal damage to their opponents when they parry with a critical hit.
• Novitiate Condemnor - Deadly anti-witch novitiates. They're armed with a condemnor stakethrower that has silent, piercing, and mortal wounds two. They also carry a null rod that reduces nearby enemies to two action points and makes psychic abilities cost one more to use.

Tau Pathfinders

The Tau Pathfinder kill team in Chalnath is different from the Tau kill team presented in the Compendium. These Pathfinders have a whole range of upgraded technology and abilities. Chalnath contains a normal ten model sprue of Pathfinders, plus an additional upgrade sprue to build the new units for this kill team.

• Shas'ui Pathfinder - The leader of the pathfinders, each turn they have access to two Art of War abilities that can be used to give all operatives a free dash action or give them an additional defense dice if they're in cover. They also have an ability that can be used once per battle to give a nearby pathfinder a cheaper mission action.
• Shas'la Pathfinder - The standard pathfinder, armed with pulse carbines. They have access to the Markerlight unique action. This action places a markerlight token on an enemy, which boosts attacks with cumulative abilities for the number of tokens for any pathfinders making an attack against that enemy.
• Blooded Pathfinder - A slightly upgraded pathfinder, with a better save and ballistic skill, armed with the silent suppressed pulse carbine and bionic arm for use in close combat.
• Drone Controller Pathfinder - The drone controller interacts with the kill teams' drones, allowing them to use a unique action to shoot with nearby drones and also increase the range of their battlefield deployment.
• Transpectral Interference Pathfinder - Equipped with visors that allow them to ignore obscure to target enemies, they also have a jamming unique action that reduces the action points of an enemy in line of sight.
• Assault Grenadier Pathfinder - These grenade-wielding pathfinders carry EMP, fusion, and photon grenades to reduce the capabilities of the enemy, and their unique headgear allows them to ignore penalties to their combat characteristics and actions points.
• Communications Specialist Pathfinder - These operatives have a unique ability that adds one to the action points of a nearby pathfinder.
• Medical Technician Pathfinder - The pathfinder medic. Using their unique action, they can heal 2D3 wounds on a nearby pathfinder, and they also have a special ability to save a nearby pathfinder once per turn, if neither of them is within engagement range of an enemy. The saved unit remains on one wound and can make a free dash towards the technician.
• Weapons Expert Pathfinder - These specialist weapon wielders can take either the lethal, mortal wounding rail rifle or the high damage ion rifle.
• Marksman Pathfinder - The marksman is armed with the marksman rail rifle, which is slightly more accurate than the weapons expert rail rifle. It also has a dart shot option that does less damage but allows them to shoot from conceal. They also ignore the modifier to their ballistic skill when taking an overwatch action.
• MB3 Recon Drone - The recon drone counts as two operatives if selected as part of your kill team, but they make up for that with some unique abilities. They give you a free recon option during the scouting step, and they can help friendly pathfinders target their fire on a selected enemy with their unique action, which lets the selected pathfinder reroll their attack dice in all ranged attacks during their turn. Their burst cannon will also stop your enemy from bunching up their units or risk the recon drone chaining attacks.
• MV1 Gun Drone - Armed with twin-pulse carbines, they're more accurate than those wielded by the pathfinders as the relentless rule allows them to reroll any or all dice during shooting.
• MV4 Shield Drone - Shield drones have a 4+ invulnerable save, and if a wound is lost, another 5+ save to stop it from being removed. Drones can take hits for nearby pathfinders using their Saviour Protocols rules, and the shield drone excels at that.
• MV7 Marker Drone - The marker drone adds two markerlight tokens when it uses its markerlight action, to really ramp up the effective fire against choice enemy targets for all of your shots against them.
• MV31 Pulse Accelerator Drone - The pulse accelerator drone boosts the attacks of nearby pulse weapons from your pathfinders, giving them an automatic hit before dice are rolled.
• MV33 Grav-Inhibitor Drone - These drones inhibit the movement of nearby enemy units, and using their unique action, can allow nearby pathfinders to easily fall back from rushing enemies.

Imperial Ruins Scenery

The Imperial Ruins scenery set allows you to build two large ruins with secondary levels, and five pieces of line of sight-blocking cover. It also contains a single very durable, double-sided game board. All of the included scenery is used in the Special Operations: Chalnath Mission Pack narrative missions detailed in the back of the Chalnath book.

Kill Team Chalnath goes on pre-order today (30 October 2021) with Games Workshop, and they guarantee you a copy if you preorder before Monday morning.

The copy of Kill Team Chalnath used to produce this preview was provided by Games Workshop.