This Wednesday came with both expected and unexpected arrivals for Kill Team players. While the rules release for Wolf Scouts and Stealth Suits shocked no one, they also came with a pretty substantial FAQ and errata for the game itself. This is one of the larger rules updates we’ve seen for the game outside of a proper dataslate, and addresses some of KT’s top meta boogeymen while offering much needed clarity on some opaque rules.

Kill Team App Updates

The Kill Team app was updated to include the new Kill Teams released with Dead Silence, as mentioned at the start, but also included some quality of life changes as well. Kill Teams can now be sorted into four categories: All, Classified, Downloaded, and Favorites. This is a great change here, and will cut some time scrolling through to find rules.

Universal Updates

Core Rules Updates

Guard rules are updated here to clearly apply to Tomb World as well as Gallowdark, a fairly common sense ruling that's still nice to see on paper, as well as adding the note that Guard goes off when an operative is set up, which means you can use Guard on an operative that uses a teleporter. Jumping is cleaned up here, changing the ability so that now you need to be on Vantage terrain at least 2” high to jump (so no more jumping off of teleport pads), and that an operative must jump from the highest part of a climbed rampart, rather than jumping part of the way up. Rules Precedence is touched up, so that the active operatives controlling player takes rules priority over the player with initiative, which is now the bottom of the precedence list.

Credit: Paulie Wallis

For the commentary, it's noted that an operative who has a higher APL stat at the start of an activation before losing APL, like a Canoptek Operative walking off the matrix, does not prevent it from completing an action, even if it means it's spent more APL during the activation than its final APL stat. Firefight Ploys are explicitly ruled to only work during the Firefight phase and cannot be used out of activation. Finally, passing with an operative does not trigger guard, they must take some sort of action.

Approved Ops Tournament Companion

The Approved Ops Tournament Companion was updated to reflect the current suite of classified teams, officially kicking anything released in the Octarius season into declassified. The companion also makes a great clarification for Inquisitorial Agents that operatives that are on declassified teams can still be selected as a part of the roster in classified games. A good job on the rules team’s part for getting ahead of the curve on a potential rules dispute there.

Mission Packs Update Log

The maps for the Tomb World missions were updated here. Note that these are maps from the Tomb World PvE missions found in the tomb world book, not the Approved Ops mission maps, which is a little confusing at first blush.

Approved Ops Updates

The largest and most impactful changes by far in the Universal update category, the changes here finally clarify the biggest question marks in the most recent season’s Tac Op scoring. Firstly, Flank now requires wholly within the opposing players to score/deny, shutting down players ability to toe a zone and score off it, and changes the wording for Envoy so that it’s no longer able to be scored by expendable operatives. The latter is a blow to the chin for Canoptek and Wreckas in particular, who’s expandable operatives were excellent candidates for easy Envoy scoring against elite teams.

Dominate scoring was ruled on here so that any damage caused by an operatives datacard ability does count towards scoring the tac op, not just attacks. This is a nice shot in the arm for teams like Raveners, Plague Marines, and Nemesis Claw, who all have powerful poison abilities that now explicitly count towards scoring if they kill a model. The final big point here is a definitive list of how expendable models interact with the Tac Op, making it clear that basically any Tac Op that requires the expendable operative to die does not score points or generate a token.

Nemesis Claw Visionary. Credit: Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson

Overall, an excellent list of changes here that neatly addresses the big question marks that have weighed down Approved Ops 2025 since its release, while curbing the power of two of the games' disproportionately strong scoring options.

Universal Equipment Update Log

Only one point here, but its a big one for teams with abilities that reduce piercing. The errata here states that yes, abilities that reduce piercing do stack with the Smoke Grenade’s piercing reduction, which now seems like one of the only methods currently in the game to ignore piercing two.

Team Updates

Interestingly here, the changes and errata include declassified teams alongside classified ones. There aren’t any earth-shaking changes to those declassified teams here, but it is nice peace of mind for anyone who was concerned these teams would be left to the dustbin of Kill Team history.

Battleclade

If you use Noospheric Network, you can’t go on Guard as a counteraction, which limits some of the team’s offensive surprises, but a nice buff here in that the System Exorcism ploy dumps all negative effect tokens currently on a model, which will come in handy in matchups against teams like Salvagers who want to stack up Grudge Tokens.

Canoptek Circle

The biggest update by far this time around, which comes as no surprise given Canoptek’s dominant position in the metagame as well as their funky rules set.

Credit: Dan "Swiftblade" Richardson

Firstly, let's look at the changes to clean up Canoptek’s Obelisk Matrix rules. Abilities that move the obelisk node are clarified slightly that they move horizontally, and a later ruling clarifies that this movement ignores climbing, dropping, accessible terrain, and obstructing terrain. The only terrain type to obstruct node movement is wall terrain from close quarters maps. Arranging nodes in a triangle does not count everything within the triangle as within the matrix, and nodes do not “curve” around wall terrain in close quarters maps for purposes of being within 6” of each other. Finally, if the Geomancer is using Matrix Manipulator to count as a node, the matrix area between that operative and the nearest node is measured like a cone, and not a 20mm straight line. This last bit, as well as the curving around walls FAQ, includes a diagram, which is a nice touch.

Two other minor changes include clarification that a new warrior operative brought back by a ceaseless scuttling does count as a new operative, no ifs, ands, or buts, and if an ability cancels the use of Nodal Response, a different strategy ploy can be selected or the CP can be refunded with no ploy used.

The final change to note here is the most impactful, which is that the Geomancer cannot use his Animate Obelisk Node ability to perform the Retrieve action. Between this change and the other scoring changes from Approved Ops 2025, Canoptek is going to have to play a more honest game and move up important models to score, which is a good change to a very passive playstyle team.

Corsair Voidscarred

The Felarch interrupt as well as the Kurnoth Hunter interrupt has been changed to include out of activation actions as well, giving the model some counterplay against abilities like Command from the Necron teams.

Death Korp

Your Sapper Operative’s Detonate rule picks up Lethal 5+ on Close Quarters killzones. Neat!

Deathwatch

Credit: JD Reynolds

The other Tomb World meta monster, Deathwatch, gets off light here with one errata. When using their Auspex Triangulation rule, subsequent shoot actions after the first must also meet the requirements of Auspex Triangulation to work, rather than having the ability apply to all shooting just because it worked for the first shot.

Exaction Squad

The first in a handful of teams with a ruling related to the Sanctifier’s ability to say “no” to an action. If commanding declamation or a similar ability is used on an operative activated via Execution Order, then their activation ends and the CP is not refunded. A powerful buff for any team who can shut down free activations like this.

Fellgor

Frenzy has been updated so that you only count as 1 APL for controlling objectives as well as controlling territory on the board, a great change that brings Fellgor’s ability to score flank stunningly well to heel.

Goremongers. Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

Goremongers

Your Stalker operative must drop from vantage terrain 2” tall or be on top of vantage terrain at least 2” tall to get Relentless. Stop trying to do backflips off the teleporter pad.

Mandrakes

Similar to Exaction, the Dirgemaw’s Haunting Focus ability can also be canceled by “no” abilities. Not a fun buff, but it’s nice to see that the team that won the WCW didn’t catch a wild amount of flak for doing so.

Novitiates

A quick update to another declassified team, the Duelist operative’s Riposte damage is considered attack damage, so abilities that reduce or ignore attack damage can work here.

Phobos Strike Team

Just like Death Korp, your special mine guy (the Saboteur, in this case) gets Lethal 5+ on Close Quarters Killzones. Love that for this dork.

Credit: Keewa

Ratlings

A nice boost to some of Ratlings abilities to interrupt activations, especially for the Battlemutt. Both the Battlemutt and the Sneak’s interrupt abilities delete the clause about activation/counteraction, and the Battlemutt can trigger from an operative being set up. The Battlemutt’s ability also works outside the firefight phase, which is a much bigger concern in a world where Wolf Scouts can charge their wolf at you in the strategy phase.

Raveners

While a small dog with the heart of a champion can trigger its interrupt abilities in the strategy phase, the Ravener Tremorscythe cannot, being explicitly limited to the Firefight phase with its subterranean ambush rule. But its wording does now include set up, to bring it in line with similar abilities changed in this rules pass. Also, the Tremorscythe’s ability could get shut down by Sanctifiers using Commanding Declamation. Lame.

Sanctifiers

Another ruling on Commanding Declamation, making it clear that if you use the ability to stop a shoot action triggered by guard, the opponent could instead fight if eligible (or vice versa). Nice to see some counterplay in a corner-case scenario, but a Declamation is still a gold-tier rule that probably came out even stronger after this FAQ.

Vespid Stingwings Kill Team. Credit: Jack Hunter

Vespid

This is a real weird one. The commentary itself is very straightforward: Your Swarmguard can bend their torch zone around wall terrain. However, the diagram used to show this effect does not have wall terrain, instead using a ruin from Volkus without the Wall keyword. They probably could’ve gotten away with not including this diagram at all, the ruling is pretty simple, and the mistake here will muddy the water for newer players who aren’t firm yet on what is and isn’t wall terrain.

Warpcoven

The commentary here states if you select a model for Temporal Flux, and then move them into an area where they cannot use their Psychic rules or abilities, it does not get to teleport away via Temporal Flux. Right now, this only applies to the Sisters of Silence you can take on the Inquisitorial Agents team, but it’s something to be aware of so your operative doesn’t get stuck without its get out of jail free card to rely on.

Wolf Scouts Kill Team. Credit: Rich Nutter

Wolf Scouts

A small change for one of the newest teams on the block, making it clear with an errata that Lupine Guile lets you reroll your initiative after both players roll to decide initiative. Simple, clean, and will do very little to slow down Wolf Scout’s upcoming reign of terror.

Wyrmblade

Your Locus operative’s interrupt has the line about activations/counteractions struck through, bringing it in line with the other changes we’ve seen here, and your Locus can trigger this ability outside the firefight phase. A good buff to a strong operative.

XV26 Stealth Battlesuits

The other newcomer from Dead Silence comes in with two errata changes. First, its made clear that the Drone operative only has cover or obscured if the original operative was while using Saviour Protocols, just like other “protect the president” abilities in the game. The Drone operatives also get an additional bullet point with the same expendable rule text found on the cards of other expendable operatives, like Squigs and Macrocytes. It probably would’ve been cleaner to just add an ability with this text labeled expendable independent of the Drone rule, but to me it reads that the same restrictions to Tac Op scoring we covered earlier in this article apply here.

Final Thoughts

It’s surprising to see such an expansive update to the rules here outside of a dataslate, but its nearly universally welcome changes. The Tac Op changes in particular are a godsend for the health of the game, and I’m glad that Games Workshop recognized that something needed to be done about nebulous scoring conditions around expendable operatives and the potential for teams to abuse Flank and Envoy for runaway scoring.

As far as the team changes go, the only team that really feels like it got hit at all is Canoptek, which again is no surprise. I like the fact that these changes don’t really nerf the lethality of the team or its durability, but rather force the team to play less passively and expose its operatives to more risk. I don’t think it’s quite enough to truly bring this team back to the balance level it needs to be, but I’d love to be wrong.

Overall, a really great update for Kill Team, giving us some nice rules updates for classified and surprisingly even declassified teams. I hope that Games Workshop releases more substantive FAQs like this one in the future to address questions and concerns with the game between dataslates, rather than waiting for a Dataslate to make big changes like some of the ones found here.

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Tags: Kill Team | Errata | Core Games | approved ops | Rules Update

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