Kill Team Dead Silence: Wolf Scouts Kill Team Review

Not long ago we had a major new release of Space Wolves for 40k, and now it’s Kill Team’s turn. The Wolf Scouts famously take an unconventional approach to scouting, which explains why they've shown up some time after their brothers. They bring with them a pet dog, lots of plasma weapons, big knives and some very bad weather.

Wolf Scouts Kill Team. Credit: Rich Nutter

Wolf Scouts are nothing at all like the Scout Squad. Space Wolves don’t usually have their neophytes go off scouting but instead send Veterans. In Primaris era they’ve even seen fit to equip them with Phobos armour instead of Scout armour. Well, most of Phobos armour anyway. The Wolf Scouts like to keep their arms bare for some reason, which feels like a particularly eccentric choice for people carrying so much plasma weaponry.

Wolf Scouts will come out roughly at the moment that the Octarius Season teams lose their Classified status. As such they kind of replace the Phobos team, with which they share some similarities. It’s definitely not a like-for-like swap though and the two teams will play very differently.

Thanks to Games Workshop for providing us a set of the rules for this review. Now put your big coat on and let’s see what these sneaky space vikings can do.

If you'd like a video review, our good friend Can you Roll a Crit can help.

Faction Rules

A Wolf Scout Kill Team is made up of one Fenrisian Wolf and five Marines. You can pick any combination of Pack Leader, Fangbearer, Frosteye, Gunner, Trapmaster, Rune Priest Skald and Hunter. You don’t have to take the Pack Leader but you always will and it’s unlikely you’ll use Hunters, the generic “warrior” of the team, much at all.

This means Wolf Scouts are a sort of five and a half model elite team. The Scouts are a bit better than other marines but the Wolf is nowhere near as strong - though it certainly has its uses. The Wolf counts as a Wolf Scout operative for most purposes, though some rules and all the faction equipment only work on the actual space marines. They count as six models for the Kill Op.

For Archetypes you have Recon and Seek and Destroy. Stand out Tac Ops for me are probably Dominate and Rout, as Wolf Scouts are good at scoring kills and staying alive. Retrieval and Scout Enemy Movements should both get play. Wolf Scouts will want to mostly stay in their Storm, which might not be great for Flank. The Storm is massive though and Wolf Scouts are hard to kill, so maybe they’ll be able to dominate on APL by the mid-game. Sweep and Clear is just a pain to score for everyone.

Many Wolf Scout abilities key off their Elemental Storm. As a Strategic Gambit they get to place their Storm marker anywhere in the killzone. Operatives within 6” horizontally are in the Storm. That’s a lot of the board, though closing doors on ITD boards will reduce it somewhat.

Wolf Scouts who start or end a Charge in the Storm can do so on Conceal. With a 9” charge range this gives them enormous coverage to do concealed charges.

Wolf Scout Rune Priest Skjald. Credit: Rich Nutter

Wolf Scouts are Hunting Astartes, which is similar to the usual Astartes rule. They can shoot or fight twice in each activation. It costs an extra AP to fire a plasma weapon a second time, which is actually slightly awkward as loads of them have plasma weapons. They also can’t fire two Psychic ranged weapons. Interestingly there’s no restriction on grenades, so Wolf Scouts may bring Krak grenades quite a bit, though they may prefer to just bring their faction equipment as it’s excellent.

Also, as part of the Hunting Astartes rule, Wolf Scouts can change their order while counteracting within the Storm, or change their order instead of taking an action. This means your Gunner can be hiding somewhere on Conceal but then counteract with a devastating non-hot supercharged shot if the enemy are silly enough to let you. All your models have respectable guns so your counteractions will be nasty.

Strategic Ploys

Wolf Scouts get a set of straightforward but powerful Strategic Ploys, mostly triggering off the Storm.

Cloaked by the Storm lets them reroll a defence dice whenever they get shot at while in the Storm. That’s excellent against shooty teams but not always required, as you’ll often be on Conceal and difficult to shoot anyway. You might want to put your storm on top of enemies you intend to charge when playing against shooty teams, to protect against retaliatory fire. Combined with equipment that can reduce enemy Piercing once per turn, Wolf Scouts are more resilient against shooting than you might expect.

Tempestuous Wrath gives your team Balanced on its melee weapons when fighting or retaliating, while in the Storm or if they started their activation there. So those concealed charges will tend to do pretty consistent damage, in melee at least.

Storm’s Bite reduces the Attack stat of enemy melee weapons by one, to a minimum of three, while they’re in the storm. This is absolutely crippling for melee teams with four attack dice, who will have an extremely hard time killing a Wolf Scout.

Savage Fighters makes melee even more horrible by dealing D3+1 damage whenever a Wolf Scout finishes fighting or retaliating. So you charge in your Goremonger, do one or maybe two hits to the Wolf Scout before getting parried out, take however many strikes back from his knife and then get stabbed for another 2-4 damage. Not fun.

Firefight Ploys

Firefight ploys provide mostly new ways to hurt enemy operatives. They don’t rely on the Storm.

Acute Senses is used when you’re picking a target to shoot. Your gun gets its range reduced to 6” but gains Seek Light and the enemy can’t be obscured. This is obviously pretty handy for people with lots of plasma pistols, who don’t much mind losing the range. It might allow some especially nasty shots for the Skjald with Jaws of the World Wolf.

Counterattack is used at the end of an enemy’s activation or after they do a Fight action. You can do a Fight action against that operative. So if that poor Goremonger somehow lived through the D3+1 damage from Savage Fighters, you can just strike them dead before they get to fight again. Attempts to pin Wolf Scouts in melee will also fail badly thanks to this, as they’ll just fight the enemy operative at the end of its activation and probably kill it.

Touched by Lokyar is used after rolling your attack dice for an operative more than 5” from their friends. They can reroll all their dice. This won’t come up all that often but it could be very impactful when a Wolf Scout fluffs an important roll.

Transhuman Physiology is the standard Primaris ability to use a normal save to block a crit. Makes these guys even tougher vs incoming shooting.

Operatives

The Wolf Scouts (not the dog) all have 3 APL, 7” moves, 3+ saves and 13 wounds, except the Leader who has 14. The Plasma pistols most of them carry have the standard stats of 4 dice on 3+, 8” range, Piercing 1 and doing 3/5 on coward mode or 4/5, with lethal 5+ if supercharged. In melee they bring Combat blades, doing 4/5 damage, usually with 5 attacks on a 3+. Even the gunner and Frosteye have these 4/5 damage weapons, though they only get 4 dice. They are much nastier in melee than the gunners in most teams.

Wolf Scout Pack Leader. Credit: Rich Nutter

The Wolf Scout Pack Leader has a Plasma pistol and a 5 dice 4/6 Lethal 5+ Power weapon. His Lupine Guile lets you reroll your initiative dice once per battle, which is quite nice.

His key ability is Grizzled Veteran. The first time he’d be incapacitated he stays alive with one wound left and can’t be killed for the remainder of the action - though some elites might be able to fight or shoot again to finish him off. Charging this guy is unlikely to go well at all as even if you “kill” him he will not die. Your Fight action then ends, you’ll take D3+1 damage from Savage Fighters. Then if he even needs to he’ll use Counterattack and crit you for another 6 before you get a chance to hit and finish him off.

Wolf Scout Fangbearer. Credit: Rich Nutter

The Wolf Scout Fangbearer is the team’s healer, though they don’t actually have the usual “medic!” ability to save an operative who gets shot. They do have Healing Balms, to give an operative within control range D3+3 wounds back as an action.

The passive Spiritual Chirurgy ability is incredibly useful and makes the Fangbearer an auto-take. It makes your Marines (not your dog) immune to loads of stuff. Your stats aren’t reduced by being injured, Shock and Stun doesn’t work on them and you can ignore changes to their APL stat. And all this stuff keeps on working even if the Fangbearer dies.

Fangbearers have Absolver bolt pistols, with 4 dice on 3+ doing 4/5 with 9” range and Piercing Crits 1. That’s a very nice profile for shooting at elves, especially since it can be fired twice for just 2 AP, not 3 like all the plasma weapons.

This combination of healing, a clutch buff for your team, good shooting and good melee means you’ll always take a Fangbearer. Just a fantastic operative.

You bring a Trapmaster for the Haywire Mine they come with. Otherwise they’re a pretty generic operative with a Plasma pistol and a five dice Combat blade in melee.

The Mine is the same one the Phobos team has. The Trapmaster can put it down somewhere and then if the enemy steps within control range their action stops, they lose an APL till the end of their next activation (if they live that long) and they take D3+3 damage - or D3+6 if they’re in the Storm. The mine doesn’t affect the Trapmaster but anyone else will trigger it, so try not to kill your own dog.

The Trapmaster gives you some great options. Against melee teams you can charge, fight, stab with Savage Attackers and then - assuming your target is dead - put your mine down so enemies can’t easily charge you back.

Your basic warrior operative is the Hunter. They have a Plasma pistol, Combat blade and Fierce Temperament, granting their weapons Severe while within your Storm. That isn’t an amazing ability in my opinion, especially when both a Hunter’s weapons will very often have Lethal 5+ already. I’ve built one of these but I’m not sure if they’ll get much use, except perhaps if I want to go all out in melee against a shooty team. But even then, the gunner and Frosteye are good enough to beat shooty people in melee anyway, so why not have their far better guns?

Wolf Scout Gunner. Credit: Rich Nutter

If a load of Plasma pistols just isn’t enough Plasma for you, the Wolf Scout Gunner has you covered - in even more Plasma. It’s pretty much the standard Plasma gun profile found in Kill Team with 4 dice hitting on 3s, Piercing 1 and either 4/6 damage or 5/6 and Lethal 5+ when fired on supercharge.

The fun with this is that, if your Gunner is in the Storm, the Plasma gun gets Punishing and the supercharge mode doesn’t have the Hot rule, meaning you can fire it safely without blowing up. People are not going to enjoy getting shot by this gun, especially if it gets them while they’re on conceal behind Light cover, thanks to the Acute Senses ploy.

The gunner also has a 4-dice Combat Blade but doesn’t have a sidearm. As such you can’t finish off a wounded model with a bolt pistol shot like some marines can, though you can charge a model, have a decent chance of killing it in melee and getting into position to shoot someone else. That might be useful against teams like Canoptek Circle, where you might be able to use the reach of a charge into a flimsy warrior to get a shot at a crawler. Just remember to switch to Engage before you charge, even though you don’t need to, if you want to fire your gun.

Wolf Scout Frosteye. Credit: Rich Nutter

The team’s sniper is the Wolf Scout Frosteye. They bring a 4-dice Combat blade and an Instigator bolt carbine, which is a 3/4 Bolter, with Piercing Crits 1 and Silent. It has a Heavy (Dash only) mode that hits on a 2+.

A Frosteye can also go on Guard in any killzone if they’re in the Storm, even with a Conceal order. There’s a rule saying they can only shoot one more time even if they counteract, but that’s superseded by the latest dataslate, which stops you counteracting at all if you went on Guard. Naturally you’ll use the Heavy profile for the Instigator when on Guard, hitting on a 2+

The Frosteye is pretty respectable in melee too, so your opponent won’t easily be able to tie them up in melee if they’re on Guard. You can initiate a Fight action, with their 4/5 weapon, perhaps buffed further by any Strategic ploys you have running.

They also have Hunter’s Senses, letting them spend an AP to grant their gun either Severe or Saturate and ignoring obscuring till their next activation, so it works for Guard and Counteract. They can move, switch on this buff and go on Guard.

The Frosteye is going to be a real nuisance to deal with. They can spend the whole game on Conceal, far from trouble. A 7” move and two good shots per turn will cause quite a lot of damage and going on Guard in Conceal is really harsh. There are better guns than a Frosteye’s Instigator bolt carbine but they tend to allow the enemy to fire back. Against hordes a Frosteye is very likely to score you two or three points for Domination by themselves.

Rune Priest Skjald. Credit: Skyserpent

The Wolf Scout Rune Priest Skjald is a Psyker, with a not very subtle set of powers for blowing stuff up. Jaws of the World Wolf is a 5 dice 3+ 3/5 power with Blast 2” and Severe, while Thunderclap has 5 dice on 2+ doing just 2/2 with 6” range, Saturate, Seek Light, Stun and Torrent 2”. The Skjald likely to be very useful, as otherwise the team doesn’t bring anything with Blast or Torrent.

The Cast the Runes ability lets you roll 3D6 before the battle. Every 5+ grants you an extra CP while every roll of 1-4 grants you a free command reroll, which you can use on the turn that your dice rolled. I know for certain that I’d forget to use these rerolls without a way to track them, so I might start bringing some D4s along to games or something.

The Skjald has a normal bolt pistol, to potentially finish off anyone who survived Jaws of the World Wolf, and a Runic stave for melee. That has 5 dice on 3+, 4/6, Psychic and Shock. As such the Skjald is decent in melee but not much better than your other operatives. They want to be kept in the second line as a shooting piece, looking for a chance to let of Jaws.

Wolf Scout Fenrisian Wolf. Credit: Rich Nutter

All good Space Wolf stuff has the word “Wolf” in its name but the Wolf Scout Fenrisian Wolf has it twice, making it twice as good. It’s a 2APL 8” move operative with a 5+ save and 9 wounds, so much less tough than a Space Marine. Its Fangs have a Marine-like 5 dice hitting on 3+ doing 4/5 damage, with Rending.

The Wolf is on a 60x35mm oval base, which is more or less unique in Kill Team. This really long base can be used to perform some interesting things like locking two enemies that are 4” apart from each other in melee.

The Wolf’s Instinctive Predator means it can charge with a Conceal order but the only actions it can do are Charge, Dash, Fall Back, Fight or Reposition. It can’t do mission actions, including opening doors.

Once per game it can also Pounce, doing a Charge, Fall Back or Reposition action as a Strategic Gambit, though this reduces its APL stat by 1 and prevents it from doing any of those actions again until the end of its next activation. Use this to tie up enemy gunners or perhaps to occupy an important location, like the sniper spot in Volkus, before anyone else can. Or just run away from trouble.

Equipment

Like a lot of recent teams, the Wolf Scouts bring some excellent Equipment, which you’ll often want all four bits of. Unfortunately the Wolf doesn’t benefit from any of these.

Frost Weapons gives Lethal 5+ to all your Combat blades, including the Gunner’s and the Frosteye’s, and Lethal 4+ to your Pack Leader’s Power weapon. Crits are good, obviously, both for killing things and blocking incoming Damage before you finish someone off with Savage Attacker.

Runic Charms let you worsen the Piercing rule by 1 once per turn when someone shoots one of your Wolf Scouts. A life-saver, though not required against all teams. Actually you can take this against Goremongers if you want as you’ll still win, effortlessly.

Wolfteeth Necklaces are just Purity seals made out of wolf. If you get two or more fails you can retain one as a success, once per turn. Wolf Scouts have a lot of access to rerolls so might be the item to drop if you need a generic item.

Talismanic Trophies let you reduce the damage you take in melee from one success by one, every time you fight or retaliate. Fight twice and you’ll take 2 less damage. It’s yet another ability letting you weather a charge, parry someone out and then take them down with Savage Attackers and/or Counterattack. When attacking your opponent will often only land one strike, which will always be reduced. Interestingly there’s no minimum damage here, so when a Scarab swarm hit my Skjald in a joint ops mission it did nothing.

In terms of generic equipment it’s possible that you’d want to take some krak grenades from the generic equipment list. Your wolf scouts mostly aren’t going to easily get to double-tap opponents as it costs 3 APL to do so with their plasma weapons, so having something else to throw is tempting. However, I haven’t found grenades necessary as the Gunner is actually decent in melee. You can achieve a lot with charge, fight and shoot on the gunner’s activation.

Naturally you might also want things like barricades, ladders, smoke grenades and so on too. But you’ll be sorry to drop any of the Wolves’ own equipment for that stuff.

Assembling Your Models

Wolf Scouts sprue. Credit: Rich Nutter

In the Dead Silence box you get five Wolf Scouts and a Wolf, but there are seven different Scout operatives, which is slightly awkward. Who should you leave out, or are there other options?

First up you will always take a Pack Leader, Fangbearer and Skjald, so go ahead and build those - and the Wolf obviously.

That leaves you two bodies to make the Trapmaster, Frosteye, Gunner and Hunter(s). There isn’t all that much to visually distinguish their bodies so you could magnetise the arms if you have the skills and just swap them around between games.

There’s obviously the option of buying a whole new box but that’s not all that efficient when you only need a couple more models. You’d have two of several operatives that you can only use one of. This might be your best option if you play Space Wolves in 40k, making a second squad with just a couple of different operatives so you’d have a full Kill Team roster.

Alternatively you might be able to get hold of some other Phobos bodies, perhaps from the Easy to Build Reivers or spares from any of the other kits. You’d only need two more, if sticking to one hunter, which really ought to be enough. The Wolf Scout kit comes with plenty of spare arms, heads and wolf-themed gubbins for a couple of extra models if you have bodies available.

Training Report

I tried the Wolf Scout team out on a couple of the Tomb World joint ops missions. They managed them very easily but it was kind of interesting to give them a live fire exercise. They definitely had an easier time than my Ratlings did in Typhon! In both games the Wolf was my only casualty, caused by me being too brave with it. I’ve learned to keep my fragile wolf safe for times it can make a genuine difference.

The Wolf Scouts proved themselves to be extremely tough. You reduce incoming damage in melee and you’re good at parrying even Brutal attacks, since everyone has Lethal 5+ at worst in melee. If someone shoots at you, which is difficult when you’re on Conceal so often, then you can reduce Piercing and reroll a save thanks to the Storm.

Final Thoughts

We think Wolf Scouts are a very strong team, though definitely not equally strong against all opponents. Melee teams are going to have a really hard time against them but against shooty teams they might be a bit more reasonable. They will still be a very big problem with high speed, hitting hard in melee and charging on Conceal.

The Storm might be too big. A circle 12” across is easily big enough to keep a whole elite team inside. While inside they are harder to shoot, extremely difficult to charge and their shooting is better. They can leave the Storm to charge something on conceal and, if that goes well, you can just move the Storm to them and repeat the trick next turn.

You do have to decide whether to use the Storm defensively or to be aggressive, stick it on top of the enemy and run into it. The Storm is easily big enough to cover two objectives so opponents will have little choice but to enter it, which could well be a big choice. The Gunner and Frosteye both really want to be in the Storm but so does anyone who’s fighting in melee, so you’ll have to be careful with that.

Getting the most out of the Wolf is going to be a bit of a challenge. It’s easy to imagine it being sacrificed early on in most games and just tying up a threatening melta might well be a good option - just probably not for the Wolf. You can usually expect it to do some damage though, or at least some shenanigans. Inside the Storm it’ll often have 5 dice in melee vs an enemy’s 3, so fights ought to go its way.

I found the Wolf Scouts were a bit unhappy to be playing on close quarters maps. The Wolf can’t open doors or breach walls, which makes sense but is a bit annoying. The Storm covers much less of the board, meaning more of them will be without their buffs. That can make them feel a bit ordinary, removing key abilities like the Frosteye’s ability to Guard on Conceal.

I definitely expect to see Wolf Scouts feature on podiums at events and I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see them win. I’m not sure how they’ll do against the best teams like Canoptek and Deathwatch but I think they’ve got a perfectly good chance. This is a very meaningful addition to Kill Team.

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

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Tags: Kill Team | space wolves | Kill Team 2024 | Dead Silence