Most kill teams sneak around and stab people out of practical necessity, because small teams of elite operatives don’t want to get bogged down in a sprawling battle behind enemy lines. Most kill teams also realise that to maintain their stealthy ways, it’s a good idea to not scream about murdering people and rev ear-shredding chainswords while blasting through the air on rocket-powered jump packs.
The Murderwing are not most kill teams.
Why even have a jump pack if you’re not going to use it all the time? The ability to Boost is at the centre of everything the Murderwing are about, and it works in two parts – the first being the ability to soar over obstacles and enemy operatives as part of any straight-line section of movement.
JUMP PACK
Whenever a friendly MURDERWING operative is performing the Charge, Fall Back or Reposition action during its activation, at the start of any straight-line increment, as long as no part of its base is underneath Vantage terrain, it can do a BOOST for that increment. If it does, don’t move it for that increment. Instead, remove it from the killzone and set it back up wholly within x" horizontally of its original location. X is a distance of your choice (rounded up to the nearest inch, as per the Reposition action), but it’s added to the total move distance used for that action (in other words, move plus BOOST cannot exceed the action’s move allowance).
There are a bunch of conditions for Boosting, like not being under Vantage terrain*, but we won’t cover them here for brevity’s sake.
Being able to hop over inconvenient terrain and floor hazards is already a pretty great ability, but these supremely skilled Chaos Space Marines are fast enough to do all sorts of other things while in flight, collectively known as Boost actions. The area they cover while Boosting is known as the Boost Zone, and anyone inside it who isn’t also under Vantage terrain can expect some rather nasty surprises from above.
These surprises include vicious Bladefins – an equipment choice for the Murderwing – which grant your operatives the Slice From Above action. Many teams would kill to be able to drop wounds on the enemy with impunity, but yours kills just because it’s fun.
BLADEFINS
Corrupted power armour and warp-infused jump packs bristle with metallic spikes and scything blades with which to rend the flesh of unsuspecting prey.
Friendly MURDERWING operatives can perform the following unique action:
SLICE FROM ABOVE 1AP
BOOST action. Inflict D3+1 damage on one enemy operative within this operative’s BOOST ZONE.
An operative cannot perform this action normally. Instead it performs this action during the Fall Back
or Reposition action after setting up from a BOOST. A DEPREDATOR operative cannot perform this action during the same activation in which it performed the Carving Blow action (or vice versa).
There’s a lot going on with this kill team and they’re more than just a blunt instrument, so we asked Jason and Travis over at the Just Another Kill Team Podcast for their thoughts.
JAKTP: Presenting Shadowhunt’s sneaky, killy half – the Murderwing – who prefer to lurk, stun, and chip away at their foes before claiming them as easy kills later in the game. You get a mandatory Chaos Lord, who is a really strong beatstick, and five additional Raptors chosen from among ten useful options – which gives you a deep toolkit to learn and master.
Murderwing definitely don’t quite have the raw durability or damage output of other power-armoured kill teams, but they make up for it with trickery and treachery. The firefight ploy Malicious Narcissism is going to make them fantastic against any team that outnumbers them, flipping the script on opponents who are used to out-activating a Space Marine team! Killzone: Volkus terrain in particular makes it much easier to stage non-reciprocal threats against foes, but Tomb World denies the enemy places to hide against your Boost actions, so there are pros and cons to each terrain set – an interesting challenge for the Murderwing and their foes.
Thanks again, chaps. No operative exemplifies the sadistic glee with which the Murderwing cause havoc than the Curseclaw, who is so fond of grabbing people that he’s grown wings and really big arms so he can Snatch up unfortunates on his way overhead. The ability to shift opposing operatives around can open up some dramatic plays in later turning points, and frankly it’s just kind of amusing if you drag one into an incoming orbital strike. Classic Chaos comedy.
Keep coming back to Warhammer Community this week to see more from the new Kill Team: Shadowhunt expansion – including what the C’tan Shard of the Nightbringer looks like when he’s rampaging through a killzone. In fact, that’s what’s up next, so we’ll see you tomorrow!
* Murderwing brains are scrambled enough without adding concussions to the mix.
