Last weekend Dan and I got our first few games of Commanders. I used the Patriarch (Lvl1: Fortitude) and he had the Brotherhood Champion (Lvl1: Strength or Psychic) and the games were fast and brutal. Normally we try to play 2 games of Kill Team in an evening, we played four on Saturday night. We played the first three Matched Play missions for Commanders: A Meeting of Fates (P.114), Comms Down (P.115) and Hold the Line (P.116). The first two have very Commander-focussed victory conditions and they forced the Commanders into Close proximity to each other. Dan won the first game, but then the Patriarch really shined. I think squishy Commanders might really struggle in at least those first two missions.
At 131 points (of 200) the Patriarch seems expensive, but his cost is offset by the cheap models you can surround him with. Purestrain Genestealers are only 11pts and there are other cheaper options for objective grabbing. So, it’s still possible to build a decent sized team. Things are not so for the Grey Knight. All of their models are expensive and in order to include a 108pt Commander they typically need to lose another model.
Dan and I will get more games played later and we’ll see how our Commanders fare. They’ve dominated the games we’ve played so far, but that is to be expected: they’re a lot of points, they are new shiny toys and the missions objectives so far have featured them strongly.
I think they’re another tool in the tabletop storytelling toolkit. I look forward to integrating them into campaigns.
Until next time,
Owen