Warhammer 40K for RPG Players – Kill Team vs the Ultimate Starter Set
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| Image by Focus Entertainment |
[7 min read]
Giant armoured super-soldiers. Endless war. Aliens versus humanity. It’s hard not to be drawn in.
But coming from tabletop roleplaying games—D&D, Dungeon Crawl Classics, that sort of thing—I didn’t really know where to start. Do I jump into the full army-on-army experience? Or try something smaller?
So I tried both.
I played through the Warhammer 40K Ultimate Starter Set (the full game), and the Kill Team Starter Set (their smaller skirmish version), with one question in mind:
How do I try Warhammer 40K without overwhelming myself?
The First Friction: You Don’t Start by Playing
The biggest surprise?
You don’t start by playing.
You start by building miniatures.
When I opened the 40K Ultimate Starter Box, my first reaction was: wow, that’s a lot of models. And I’ll be honest—I’m not really a miniatures hobbyist. I like using minis in my RPGs, but I’m not someone who enjoys building and painting for its own sake.
So this was friction straight away.
Even though the models are push-fit, I still needed clippers to get them off the sprues. I’m not particularly dexterous, so I was clipping bits wrong, struggling with pieces, and generally feeling like I wasn’t doing it properly.
And because the game tells you to build the minis first, I didn’t feel like I could just jump in.
In reality, the first tutorial mission is just one model versus one model—you could build just those and start. But I didn’t. I felt like I had to prepare everything.
It took me about a month—on and off, evenings with podcasts or YouTube—to get both forces ready.
That was the biggest barrier to getting the game to the table.
Not rules. Not complexity.
Just… getting started.
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| Get your clippers out! This is something I learned is called a... sprue. Image courtesy of Howlcorp. |
Warhammer 40K Ultimate Starter Set – Big, Structured, and Epic
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| Image by Games Workshop |
Once I actually started playing, though, something interesting happened.
The onboarding is excellent.
The booklet walks you through everything step by step. It starts with a simple one-versus-one fight, then builds up to squads, then full armies. The sections are colour-coded, clearly laid out, and you always know what you’re supposed to do next.
I never had to look anything up online. I didn’t need to ask questions. I just followed the book.
That part is genuinely impressive.
What It Feels Like
Even that first battle—one alien creature versus a Space Marine captain—felt epic. The models look incredible. There’s a real sense of scale and drama baked into the game.
As the missions expand, that feeling grows. You’re no longer moving a single character—you’re commanding squads, then full armies. It becomes this sweeping, battlefield experience.
And the dice… there are a lot of dice.
Coming from RPGs, where you might roll a single d20, here you’re rolling to hit, then to wound, then your opponent rolls to save, and you’re working through a whole sequence just to resolve one attack.
At first, it feels like a lot.
But there’s something satisfying about it too. You’re physically removing dice as hits fail, watching the pool shrink, seeing the outcome emerge step by step. It’s tactile in a way RPG combat isn’t.
Eventually, you find a rhythm.
Where There Was Friction for Me
Even with strong onboarding, there were a few things that didn’t click for me.
In RPGs, you move one character. Here, you’re moving groups of models, measuring distances with a ruler, and maintaining something called coherency—keeping models within a certain distance of each other.
It felt… fiddly.
Everything has to be precise. Line of sight matters. Positioning matters. And for me, that precision felt more like friction than fun.
I like being able to set something up, play for a bit, and come back to it. With a full 40K battlefield, that’s harder.
The Payoff
That said, when it all comes together—the final battle, full armies on the table, rules flowing—it does feel great.
It feels like what Warhammer 40K promises: scale, spectacle, and momentum.
For me, though, it was something I appreciated… more than something I wanted to keep doing.
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| The 40K Ultimate Starter Set has... table presence. |
Kill Team – Smaller, Faster, and Closer to Home
Kill Team was a very different experience.
Instead of armies, you’re controlling a small group—around seven units per side. Straight away, that felt more familiar.
More like a party in an RPG.
Getting Started
The biggest difference was speed.
Fourteen models total. That’s manageable. I still had to build them, but it was a fraction of the effort compared to the full set.
Also, the models were clearly differentiated—different colours, distinct designs—so I didn’t feel pressure to paint them just to understand what was what.
I was playing much faster.
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| The terrain in the Kill Team Starter Set looks great and is easy to set up - no fiddly bits! Image by Games Workshop |
What It Feels Like
At the table, Kill Team feels more focused.
You’re moving one unit at a time. Each model matters. Each has its own abilities. You’re making more granular decisions.
Coming from RPGs, this made sense.
It felt like:
- Running a party of characters
- Or, as a GM, managing a handful of distinct enemies
That mental model translated well.
The Surprise
I expected Kill Team to be “Warhammer Lite.”
It isn’t.
It’s smaller in scale, but not necessarily simpler.
In fact, in some ways it’s more complex:
- More individual abilities
- More tactical options
- Mechanics like conceal/reveal states
So while it removes some friction (fewer models, less setup), it introduces a different kind of crunch.
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| Each Kill Team mini looks and plays differently, like a bespoke hero in an RPG Image courtesy of Games Radar |
What Actually Matters (If You’re Coming from RPGs)
After playing both, a few things stood out.
4. Scale vs control is the real choice
- 40K = big, cinematic, army-level decisions
- Kill Team = focused, character-level decisions
So Where Should You Start?
If you’re coming from tabletop RPGs:
Start with Kill Team.
It’s faster to get to the table, easier to understand conceptually, and closer to how RPG players think about characters and actions.
But go in with your eyes open:
- You will need to build miniatures
- There is still crunch
- Precision is part of the game
Final Thoughts
I enjoyed my time with both.
I’m glad I tried them. It helped me understand a whole side of the hobby that I’d only really looked at from a distance before.
But I also came away with a clearer sense of what I enjoy.
For me, miniature wargaming is a bit too precise, a bit too tactical, and a bit too involved in setup to become a regular thing.
That said—the miniatures are incredible. I’ll absolutely reuse them in RPGs. The terrain from Kill Team is especially useful. And if you are interested in this space, both starter sets do a genuinely excellent job of getting you in.
Just be ready for the real first step.
Not playing.
Building.
Dashmeister
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| How would a Space Marine fare against one of my favourite Sci-Fi threats? Image by FilibustStuartLittle on Reddit |
This blog is written by me, with a little help from AI editing for clarity and tone. All ideas, feelings, and memories are mine.
