Kill Team 2024 Combat Rules

Combat rules — defense & the shooting save sequence · Last updated September 2026

Defense Mechanics

Defense Dice

All operatives roll exactly 3 defense dice.

This is a fixed value in Kill Team 2024 and cannot be modified by abilities or equipment, with one exception:

Exception - Piercing X:

  • Piercing 1: Defender rolls 2 defense dice
  • Piercing 2: Defender rolls 1 defense die
  • Piercing 3: Defender rolls 0 defense dice (no save possible)

Save Characteristic

Each operative has a Save value (e.g., 3+, 4+, 5+):

  • Normal success: Die roll ≥ Save value
  • Critical success: Die roll of 6
  • Fail: Die roll < Save value

Cover Saves

Operatives in cover can retain automatic saves without rolling:

  • Cover provides "auto-successes" retained before rolling defense dice
  • These are retained as normal successes (not critical)
  • Piercing can reduce the number of available cover saves

A dice can only be retained once. A cover save was retained (as a normal success) without ever being rolled, so a rule that lets you retain a normal success as a critical success instead — Rending's wording, and the calculator's NormsToCrits input — has nothing left to do with it. Only saves that came off the dice can be promoted that way.

A rule worded as changing a success rather than retaining one is not restricted like this, and could act on a cover save. Note that the change-worded promotions Kill Team actually gives you (Severe, the KT2021 Waaagh ploy) are attack rules, so they never apply to saves — on defence the practical effect is simply that cover saves cannot be promoted.

The same limit applies on the attack side to Accurate dice and to a Punishing fail retention: both are already-retained dice, so Rending and NormsToCrits can't promote them.

See Retained vs Modified Dice for the full breakdown of which rules lock a dice, which can still change one, and the worked examples.

Changes from Kill Team 2021

Removed Mechanics

❌ Invulnerable Saves - This mechanic no longer exists in KT2024

Modified Mechanics

✓ Defense Dice - Now always 3 (was variable based on operative profile in 2021)

Attack Sequence Overview

  1. Attacker rolls attack dice

    • Number based on weapon profile
    • Modified by weapon rules (Balanced, Relentless, etc.)

  2. Attacker retains successes

    • Normal successes and critical successes
    • Modified by weapon rules (Accurate, Lethal, Rending, Severe, etc.)

  3. Defender rolls defense dice (always 3)

    • Modified by attacker's Piercing
    • Modified by cover saves

  4. Defender retains successes

    • Normal successes and critical successes

  5. Cancel hits with saves

    • Critical saves cancel any hit 1:1
    • Normal saves cancel normal hits 1:1
    • Normal saves cancel critical hits 2:1

  6. Resolve damage

    • Remaining hits deal damage
    • Devastating damage occurs regardless of saves
    • Saintly Relics (if any): for a damaging attack dice, roll 1 D6 (or 2 D6 if INSPIRING); on any 6, ignore that dice's damage entirely (at most one dice per action)
    • Feel No Pain (if any): roll one die per surviving hit; each roll at/above the threshold reduces that hit's damage by 1

Defender Abilities

Obscured

When the defender is obscured from the attacker:

  • All attacker crits are retained as normal successes instead
  • Crit-triggered abilities cannot trigger (Rending, Punishing blocked)
  • One attacker success is discarded at the end

Just a Scratch (Crits)

Cancel one attack die just before damage is resolved, before saves:

  • Chooses the die that saves the most damage: tries cancelling a crit and cancelling a normal, and keeps the lower damage
  • Does not always drop the crit. Cancelling the normal is kept when it leaves less damage — the normal deals more, or a save can still block the die that remains
  • On equal damage, cancels the higher per-die damage type (a crit when the two deal the same). If only one hit type landed, that type is cancelled
  • MWx (Devastating) damage is counted from the original crits, so cancelling a crit never removes it

Just a Scratch (Normals)

Cancel one normal hit just before damage is resolved:

  • Only targets normals: Will not cancel critical hits
  • Useful when you want to preserve the option to cancel crits with saves

Feel No Pain (FNP)

Just before damage is resolved, roll one die for each surviving hit (strike):

  • Threshold: 4+, 5+, or 6+ (set in the Defender's advanced params)
  • On a roll at or above the threshold, that hit's damage is reduced by 1 (to a minimum of 0)
  • One roll per surviving hit, not per point of damage
  • Even MWx (Devastating) damage can be prevented via FNP

Saintly Relics

Whenever an attack dice would inflict damage, roll to ignore all of that dice's damage:

  • Modes: 1D6 (normal) or 2D6 (the operative is INSPIRING), set in the Defender's/Fighter's advanced params
  • Roll the relic dice; on any 6, ignore all damage from that attack dice
  • Caps: at most one attack dice ignored per action and two per battle; a failed roll uses up neither
  • Shoot (exact): targets the highest-damage surviving hit first (crits before norms), trying each damaging dice in turn until one is ignored; over multiple rounds the two-per-battle cap is enforced across the battle
  • Fight (Monte Carlo): spends the ignore on a strike only when no larger strike is still pending from that attacker (so it lands on the biggest)
  • Not modeled: MWx (Devastating) damage is never ignored (matching Just a Scratch)

Curse of Rot

Plague Marines firefight ploy, used when a friendly PLAGUE MARINE is shooting or fighting. Tick it on the PLAGUE MARINE. After the enemy rolls its attack or defence dice, each 3 is a fail that can't be re-rolled, and deals 1 damage to that enemy:

  • Shoot (Plague Marine attacking): the defender's 3s fail and each adds 1 damage. Each of those is its own 1-damage instance for Feel No Pain; Saintly Relics can't ignore it (it isn't an attack dice). The defender always rolls its defence dice, even when every attack misses, so curse damage depends only on how many defence dice are rolled (Piercing can still reduce that), not on the weapon's hits or damage
  • Not on a Shoot defender: the ploy isn't used when a Plague Marine is being shot, so the Shoot defender has no Curse of Rot option
  • Fight: the other fighter's 3s fail and deal 1 damage each straight after the roll, before any strike
  • Only the first roll counts. A die re-rolled later (Balanced, Ceaseless, Relentless) uses its new result normally, even a 3. Accurate and cover dice are retained, not rolled, so they can't be cursed
  • A cursed die is a fail like any other for later rules (Punishing, FailsToNorms, Indomitus, Purity Seal)
  • Approximate: with the BothOnesAndBalanced re-roll, the Balanced step keeps its usual formula
  • Assumes the range condition (within 3", or 7" of an enemy with a Poison token) is met

Key Principles

  1. Defense dice are always 3 (unless reduced by Piercing)
  2. No invulnerable saves exist in KT2024
  3. Cover provides auto-successes, not additional dice
  4. Piercing is the only way to reduce defense dice below 3