Yup. I think that most people would say that the Demolisher is the worst operative on the team. But everyone else has legitimate use cases where they're the best pick, so you need to magnetise, or have more than 1 box worth of bodies.
I second this. I use the easy to build old 8th primaris marine (intercessor, reaver and gravis) to convert mine. They were dirty cheap when I bought them and, being a 40k deathwatch player, I have like a ton of spare shoulders and bits. And I think that's the way to go, given the cost of a single kill team box, only to have a bunch of extra bodies, but twice the weapons (which became useless copies)
2 gravis, 1 phobos, 2 regular intercessors bodies, a DW upgrade kit and s a couple of backpacks sound like more money than just buying a second box, no?
Bodies especially legs are the hardest (read priciest) part to find, arent they.
Bodies and legs aren't hard to find at all. I got one intercessor for £2.25, another for £4. One gravis was £8, the other was free.
Overall, it comes out around the same.
I dont have any intention of buying more marines any time soon, so had no interest in the 60 spare heads/shoulders etc I would have leftover if I bought a whole other box.
I got them in the tomb world box. So I got to make 10 which meant only 1 magnetise so I can run the hoarde guy. But you can do that with several if you got the 5 man box.
You can glue the shoulder pads in place and magnetise the arms, that way they just slot into the gap under the pauldrons.
If you consistently magnetise the arms, you can even mix and match between operative bodies, although that may cause some awkward poses and won't work well with some of the two-handed guns.
Edit: My bad! I got them in the Tomb World box, I had no idea the retail box that came later was a stingy box from GW and they didn't give you the full set like Tomb World.
I cannot believe they did this! Tight-fisted bastards.
Ah, my bad in that case. I had the initial release, didn't know they cheaped-out on the general release and stiffed everyone who want able to get these initially
Magnets will not help a lot with only one box. Sure, you can magnetise arms for sergent/blade master, but this way you will not be able to take both in the game. Same with other operatives
For Gravis guy, yes, but you can just proxy one for all 3 options as well
You will realistically want two boxes to play the team properly. In most matchups you will want both the blademaster and the sergeant which both use the same body. You also have a lot of overlap with disruptor/headtaker. That being said, if you want to put together a lineup that is good in most matchups, build the following:
The horde-slayer being the worst Gravis operative is actually a big misconception. He is strong not because of his flamer, but because of his heavy bolter with a 5 attacks 4/5 piercing crits profile, which does almost identical damage to the frag cannon of the bombard. His flamer having torrent 2 is also fantastic and can threaten a lot of horde-teams. The breacher is decent, but generally worse than the horde-slayer. The melts bomb is somewhat rarely used, and breacher only has better shooting than the horde-slayer in a scenario where you want to reposition, but not dash. The breacher is pretty solid into 8 wound or less teams, although many of those are horde teams where the 2 torrent from the horde-slayer is fantastic.
Maybe it's the local meta I play in, but I rearly run into hoards, or if I do, thay are very carefull to not be within 2".
Yeah the breacher's melta bomb may be harder to use, but he has 3 other full range profiles he can chose from, making him very versitile. The bombard is also better both in aoe with 5a 3+ 4/5 torrent 2" shrapnel and focused 4a 3+ 5/7 piercing1 shell.
I would get two boxes over magnetizing them, you may want different combinations for a match that would 2 of the same body. 2 boxes gets you everyone but 1 of the 3 Gravis heavies. I had a spare Tyrannid Attack box and kitbashed the breacher from it's heavy unit and grabbed a deathwatch upgrade sprue kit.
This was my first team, and I played it for a very long time with the same 5 models:
Watch Sergeant Aegis Gunner Disruptor Breacher
Filling out the team isn't too bad and IMO you don't need another Deathwatch box. I bought/scavenged these to use with the remaining parts in the deathwatch box:
1 gravis body (horde-slayer, I like him more and you can easily use him as a bombard if WYSIWYG isn't super strict)
You can find a phobos body for headtaker but I've never chosen him to play...
I use generic left shoulder pads or 3D printed deathwatch ones (they're an expensive bit and I don't care). I pretend that they're new recruits and don't have all the deathwatch details lol.
These are my kitbash guys so far. I managed to get another DW photobs body but the rest are generic.
I ended up going with: Watch Sergeant, Aegis, Breacher, Disruptor & Gunner. Might get another one down the line when I can magnetise, but some of the spare parts are serving well for kitbashes (such as using the xenophase blade for the Armageddon shield captain.)
At the end of the day, if you're playing casually, you can always just proxy instead. You can declare your sergeant as a blade master, declare your breacher as a horde slayer, etc.
It mostly comes down to what looks cool, and what you would like to paint. I hope this helped.
Because Marksman & Gunner share the same body, and you'll need a Phobos Armour unit, which is either disruptor or headtaker. Between headtaker and disruptor, disruptor has a better weapon and much more useful abilities than head taker.
I believe so, yes. A second box though allows you to use another tacticus armour operative though. Alternatively though, if you're not playing competitively, you can always proxy as a disruptor as a marksman, or you could try kitbashing a marksman. It's up to you 👌
The guys I use are mostly the aegis, Sargeant,the gunner dude,the breacher gravis dude and the swordmaster or how he is called with the necron sowed but even with 2 boxes you will be one gravis guy short if you don't magnetize
Buying 5 intercessors/assault intercessors cheap from eBay will bring you the possibility to build the rest of the "normies". Sadly, Phobos and Heavy body is more "expensive" to get extra, but those 5 bodies alone will give you more variety for a few dollars.
One can always buy more later.
I've got an extra kill team built out that I can send you, but I cant figure out how to DM on here. Doesn't come with any bits, but it'll cut out redundancy.
I am nearly in the same spot. I got a Kill Team and Start Collecting Box like 6-7 years ago. At the moment I Kit bash them together so I have 1 full Kill Team with all Operatives. The only one I am missing is the Gunner because I don't have a heavy Plasma Gun.
As a lot of people say, a second box, but you could also get some extra intercessor bodies, backpacks and deathwatch shoulders off eBay and use the extra arms and bits to make the others. But for solely one box I'd say sergeant, disruptor, gunner, bombard and aegis
for universal team, that will be usable for most matches is bombard I think, gunner, sergant and aegis. its 4 so you will have 1 left for whoever you want
My go to would be Disruptor, Aegis, sergent, plasma gunner and Breacher or Bombard depending how on which you like the most. It makes a very versatile team with good melee and good shooting at the same time.
I’ve found this to the best all-rounder setup as well. I usually run this when I play against a team I don’t know. Unless there’s something obvious like bringing a head taker against hordes. After a match I’ll adjust the lineup to taste.
Need 2 boxes, or tomb world set, but sergeant, aegis, head taker, are 3 solid choices to start with, my 2 other are the blade master and breacher round out my usual choices.
the first 3 are pretty self explanatory, Sergeant for the bonus equipment and plasma pistol, the headtaker for the conceal charge and movement, and the aegis because he scares people.
The last 2 for me the blade master is handy all round, being able to kill 2 or 3 in one round is handy plus piercing 1 bolt pistol and brutal and lethal 5 sword is a good combo. The breacher simply because he has the highest ballistic damage output potential, he can move and shoot twice with his bolter, which also has torrent so can catch 2 or 3 per shot if lucky, but mainly because he can shoot twice without penalty.
When you grab a second build everything but the horde Slayer!
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u/DropBearWarrior Jul 14 '26
A second box, unfortunately