Into the Dark has been out for quite a while, but I’ve been a little behind the curve and have only just got around to picking up my copy over the Christmas holidays. Opening it up, and reading through the build instructions, I realised there were lots of choices I needed to make, so I spend the time doing the research.
In this article, I’ll go through the various build options in the box along with recommendations on what you should build for the best game experience.
Let’s start with the terrain.
First the bad news, you are going to need to do a lot of work on the terrain. The design has tabs that will fit into slots, but the fit is tight and it can be a pain in the ass getting them in and out. And this is before you get around to painting them.
After clipping out the parts from the sprue and completing the assembly required it’s worth spending the time filing down the tabs so the connections aren’t as tight. Once you get around to painting them, blue tack or tape off the tabs and slots. Adding paint would just make them tighter and it’ll end up rubbing off anyway. So we’re looking for a loose connection, these are chunky parts and aren’t going to float around, they’ll also have the cap piece to keep the whole thing secure. Time to put in some elbow grease.
On the plus side, all the scenery fits into a 4 Litre box, the kind that is popular these days for storing miniatures.
Two extra tips, first the maps in the book have a door symbol, but that door symbol isn’t consistent so the door could open out onto either side. That’s important because of how the walls link, so focus on the edges when working out how to orientate the walls.
Second, take the time to write the numbers on the underneath of the walls, that will make it a little easier to put the maps together.
- War Hammer Man Studios has a great video looking at the scenery and the extra filing you need to fix it.
- Mediocre Hobbies has a cool video painting the scenery up quick, you can see him tape off the tab.
- The Painting Phase has another approach, rather than masking they build a really long piece and sprayed it as a solid thing, so the tabs were already covered and don’t get painted.
Onto the Kill Teams, lets start with the breakers.
From this box set you can build 1 Sergeant-at-arms and 9 Navis Armsmen along with 2 constructs, the C.A.T. and the Gheistskull. The straight build from the instructions, isn’t exactly what you’re looking for. You definitely want 2 of the gunners which is the max you can take and having the option of the third gunner weapon would be nice, but the box only has 1. You’d also like extra Armsmen so you could sub out the C.A.T. and Gheistskull when you wanted. For all that you’d need an extra box, With just one box we’re going to do the best we can.
Navis Sergeant-at-arms should be built with the Heirloom Autopistol and the Chainsword. If you want to be fancy you can magnetise the options, usually the Autopistol is the best option although not always, and the chainsword is best against normal troopers while the power sword is best against against elites.
Every time we can build a specialist instead of a Armsmen we do so. There are 6 easy options here, the Surveyor, Axejack, Endurance, Void-Jammer, Grenadier, and Hatchcutter. You also get to build the C.A.T. and Gheistskull which can only be taken along with their respective specialist but do count as their own operatives.
There are two models that can only be build as Armsmen. There aren’t any options here, it’s just Shotgun and Hatchet. Leave these guys to the very end though, as one of them is going to converted. It’s a bit of a waste as the the advantage for the Armsmen is they are GA2, but specialists will be better overall. A second box or a few choice eBay purchases would get us the full set of options down the line.
For the Gunner, there are 3 weapon options, we can field two Gunners, but unfortunately only one in the box. So we’re going to be taking one of the two armsmen and converting them, although we will need an extra 28mm base instead of the 25mm it has, as the Gunner and Endurant both have the larger base.
I’m recommending assembling the Plasma and Las Volley. The Plasma is your go to weapon that you’ll always field, then you take the Las Volley against low armour and the Melta against heavy armour. For assembly, since the Delta and Plasma both share an arm A82, we’ll stick with the Plasma.
The LasVolley has a back pack, so build that as part of 11. The plasma parts A75 and A76 should work well with model 4 or 5. The arm design is slightly different for the Gunner than the normal arms man, the gunner loses the shoulder armour, so for this conversion you will need to trim the arms to fit under the extra shoulder armour. In theory you could try magnetise the Plasma and Melta options, but that would be wasted effort as the plasma is the best first option. Due to the backpack you can’t really switch the LasVolley and the Melta.
All that will give us 1 Leader and 11 Operatives exactly. So unfortunately not much room to play around. To full round out the roster we would like a few more Armsmen. We will always take the Surveyor, as their ability makes them better than an Armsman and doesn’t require the CAT to use. We won’t always want to take the CAT or Gheistskull and without the Gheistskull the Void-Jammer is just an Armsman without the GA2. We also want that extra Gunner for the Melta games. So 3 Armsmen and an extra Gunner would be perfect.
For the Farstalker Kinband, we get 1 leader and 10 operatives. That has recently changed to 11 so there will be 12 models in total. We can have one of each of the specialists apart from the Hound who can have up to 2 and the Warrior who we can have as many as we like. As with most kill teams, we’re going to be taking as many of the specialists as we can, so we’ll have those 8. The box will let us build those 8, but we will have to sacrifice a Warrior which will leave just 1 Warrior along with 2 Hounds for out full Kill Team of 12.
The most recent balance slate had a number of buffs for the Farstalker Kinband, notably an extra operative bringing us to that total of 12. A number of ballistic skills were improved, equipment got cheaper, and abilities improved. Nothing here is going to change what we build, but it’s nice to know we have a buff before getting them on the table.
Your leader is the Kill-broker, who can be built with a few different options; Kroot Rifle, Pulse Carbine, or Pulse Rifle. If you’re only making one, the Kroot Rifle is the preferred option. The Rifle with that 3+ BS is a little more reliable but the Photon Grenade is only available if you have the Pulse Carbine. The Pulse Rifle gives you an extra point of damage on the crit but typically the choice is between the Carbine or Kroot Rifle.
If you have the Kroot from the Blackstone fortress box, you can use him as your Kill-broker with Kroot Rifle and make the new model up with the Pulse Carbine. Another approach is to use double blades and magnetise the other weapon options onto the back of the model. This might mean having to trim hands from the guns or use some spare Tau weapons.
For most of the specialists, you have the option to make them as a Warrior instead. Most are easy choices, the Long-sight, Cold-blood, Cut-skin, Pistolier, and Bow-hunter are all better options than the Warrior.
Two of the models only have Warrior options, we’re only going to make one of these in the end, so I’d recommend keeping them until the very end. Kroot Warriors can have Scatterguns or Rifles. We’re going to build a Scattergun. It’s more reliable with 3+ BS which will end up doing better damage. Unlike the rifles they can’t take special ammo and have a range limit. The bigger reason is that if we want more rifles we could pick up a box of Kroot Carnivores from the 40k range.
Model 19 is the Stalker and the Tracker, this one is a bit of a dilemma as you’d like to make both models. The recommended is to make the Tracker but use the Stalker parts to turn a Kroot Warrior into a Stalker. If you want to go a little further with the Tracker, the bird, the Pech’ra is placed as a token on the board. The Pech’ra on the model is a single piece so it can be left off the tracker and if you have some suitable bits, you can stick the Pech’ra on some rubble to make a token.
Model 22 is the Gunner who has the option between two weapons the Dvorgite Skinner or the Londaxi tribalist. The right arm and the gun are the only differences. So you could magnetise to have both options. That said, I have no idea which gun is the Skinner and which the Tribalest based on the models or indeed the instructions. So I’d suggest build whatever you think looks coolest and play it with the weapon stat line you prefer. The Skinner packs more punch but the Tribalest has better range.
Last up, we have the two Kroot hounds. No options, just good doggos.
Again, 1 leader and 11 operatives. To round out the options here we just need more Kroot Warriors. The Kroot Carnivore box for the Tau is a decent way to round out those options but really you’re just looking at last 3 slots of the Warrior and 2 hounds. Switching out one of the hounds would let you use the Warriors GA 2 effectively, but then the Hound can’t use its GA2.
And that’s everything. I still have to paint my scenery and actually assemble my teams, but now I know what I need to make. I’m really looking forward to getting this box finished as the two teams look like a really good pair. The Navis are considered one of the better teams out there, and up until their recent buff the Kroot were a bit weak but hopefully the recent changes will improve that. I figure I’ll play the Kroot and will give the Navis to a friend who maybe isn’t as familiar with Kill Team. The recent White Dwarf 482 also had some narrative missions for these two kill teams which looked like a lot of fun.
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