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. 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, on the attacker: 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). If every attack misses, no defence dice are rolled, so there is no curse damage
  • Shoot, on the defender: the attacker's 3s fail. The damage this deals to the attacker is not shown
  • 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