Deadzone vs Kill Team, which is better?

Robin and Pete weigh up these two heavyweight titles in the tabletop skirmish realm and ask the important question, which is better...?!
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[@ianinman8342]

I like the closing analogy personally i think Deadzone is a far, far superior game for many of the reasons mentioned in the video but put simply - It is the perfect balance of board game style mechanics mixed with some tabletop wargame mechanics. It is the perfect game to introduce someone to tabletop wargaming.

[@picton101]

A fair summary. I nearly pulled the trigger on Kill Team but was distracted by life. Much later I bought a copy of Deadzone 3e and I'm glad I did. Just last week, I played a very simplified version of deadzone with my 5 year old daughter, we played it more like an RPG to be honest. She loved it. Since getting DZ i've ended up collecting 5 large forces, and now my friends and I play Firefight too. I just backed the Warpath Epic kickstarter so I guess I'm a Mantic Warpath fanboy at this stage. GW brought me in to the hobby but I can't justify their prices, for one reason i'm not a great painter so despite the amazing sculpts it would still look crap. I speedpainted all the Mantic stuff and it looks good enough on the tabletop. I'd say you still need to buy more terrain for DZ but its so cheap (relatively) and it doubles up nicely for Firefight too.

[@VJMorph]

Great review. So happy to see you guys talking about Deadzone. I agree with pretty much all the points made, except probably on the terrain (I prefer the DZ aesthetic for skirmish). The square bases movememt makes life so much easier & using a gridded mat really isn’t much of an issue IMO compared to the benefits. Keen to see you gents dig deeper :)

[@AgentsofSigmar]

The cube system for game mechanics definitely helps in a lot of areas and helps streamline a lot of things.

[@marcello9476]

I sctually much prefer some of the deadzone/warpath models to the gw models

[@AgentsofSigmar]

It's always tricky to compare two things when you're judging it on looks as that's a very subjective thing to discuss and everyone has their own opinions and no one's is more valid than anyone else's. Though in general the GW models are a hecking lot more detailed than the mantic one's its up to the individual to say whether they prefer that or not as more detail isn't always better.

[@nealbarton7434]

Deadzone is great, and superior. A good comparison: weight or even weight per pound sterling (like bang for buck). Good review fellas and great to see a side by side comparison

[@CesarIsaacPerez]

Just ordered the Deadzone starter set. I have to check out that cube terrain system, love the commend dice and exploding 8 ideas.

[@BenBoersma]

If Mantic took a more Kings of War approach with Deadzone and created a bunch of generic lists that shockingly matched up to other manufacturer's figures, then Deadzone would explode. They could then lean into releasing campaign, scenario and new lists books as well as terrain regularly to expand the game and contribute their revenue stream.

[@glenndean6]

Haven't gotten to play it yet, but I just finished painting all my Deadzone starter. I really like the rules set.

[@DarrinSK]

I have been generally impressed with both rule sets. there are things I love out of both. skirmish games in general seem to be in a golden age.

[@fredgilbert2032]

Great comparison Gents. Honestly I think the Deadzone Box compares more directly to the Octarius Box, and is quite a bit less in price, rather than the newer cut down Kill Team starter. Also use the Easy Army builder on the Mantic site to help you easily build a team and print out the stat lines. I definitely agree with you that GW still makes the best looking minis of anyone, however, thire pricing whew it hurts the old wallet pretty badly. IMO Mantic has been stepping up their game lately and their latest line of minis is much improved. I was interested in checking out the new Necromunda until I saw the price of the new starter. $300 US oh my!?! I am pretty sure I will still pick up the Octarius Box at some point as I love the Kreigers. BTW you can proxy Imperial Guard for GCPS, Orks for Marauders, Space Marines for Enforcers, Squats for Forge Fathers, Eldar for Asterians pretty easily. The last one Eldar and Asterians might be the hardest as almost all the Asterian units are robotic. This would let you use the lovely GW models many of you already have.

[@animusvids]

Kill Team has a few cool mechanics (NOT the LOS), but Deadzone is a far better game. The only thing that cripples Deadzone is the list making with granular points.

[@Torkijo]

List making is a lot easier in 3rd ed and EasyArmy works well

[@fredgilbert2032]

@@Torkijo +1 for Easy Army work perfectly for me and you can even print out your teams stat lines

[@markbrown8154]

Fantastic review guy's. Definitely Deadzone is the one for me. Game play is more important to me than the look of the minis.

[@sitrucsimian5450]

Let’s see a deadzone batrep!

[@danelmore2783]

Excellent video

[@NerdySatyr]

Hecks yeah Deadzone content!!

[@spaceoddity5674]

Ow ! ... I was salivating ...waiting to see the boxes operand what the terrain looks like on the table I front of you ...to scale ! 😊😂 .....useful review though 👍🙏

[@AgentsofSigmar]

soz we figured there's plenty better content out there showing off the plastics than anything we'd manage to cobble together

[@Colorcrayons]

If Deadzone is the ford focus, that means it is also more fun that the lamborghini. The reason for that is simple: You baby the lambo, and you could care less if the tranny drops from the bottom of the focus. Analogies aside, I am been pulled more and more towards deadzone, with full intention of bringing 40K models into the mix. Which is a shame, since I want to reward the company making the better game, not the better models. GW don't care since rules are an afterthought to their models and exist only to sell them. If they really were concerned about creating actually quality games, they'd still be employing James Hewitt to this day.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

This is very true, unfortunately the world is ruled by how sexy something looks not how it runs.

[@Torkijo]

I would take Deadzone every day of the week, great game, easy to learn and love the 3d nature, no measuring and exploding 8's.

[@Mark-nh2hs]

Got to love the exploding 8s!!! Lol esp when it becomes a roll of them on a row.

[@Mark-nh2hs]

I'm for Deadzone played it from 1st ed and had many cinematic moments with the game. Love it 😊. Never understood why people complained about the LOS in Deadzone 2nd ed I never had any issues with it at all? Didn't get the fuss lol

[@ondrejbartas1781]

Thanks for nice sumup

[@dwarrenmsp]

Compromise! Play Deadzone with GW minis as proxies. Everyone wins. :)

[@AgentsofSigmar]

like the idea!

[@szpaQ83]

We play few tournaments (and start a Silesian Deadzone League) in Poland and some strike teams was heavy proxied ( Warzone and GW models). As long as your oponent know what you use it's fine.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

@@szpaQ83 This is the way forward. Play the game you like with the models you like.

[@szpaQ83]

@@AgentsofSigmar Ronnie said same thing in interview.

[@Mark-nh2hs]

Heresy!!! 🤣🤣🤣 Slowly moving the GW minis behind some Deadzone terrain 🤣🤣🤣

[@ZeSheshamHahu]

Deadzone cubes are 3x3x3 inches. You can place two rulers on the edges of a 2x2 ft. matt and just wing it with the grid. You really can use any terrain for Deadzone, Mantic terrain is just made for it.

[@adamcondon5120]

Mats by Mars you can get any of their mats in the deadzone grid.

[@S0nyb1ack]

I know it is a very different genre, since it is closer to fantasy than Sci-Fi, but I've had sooooo much fun playing the 2-player starter set of Carnevale (at least it is a skirmish game, so not completely off topic). Such a great set with a pretty decent price: 65 pounds if ordered from TTCombat directly. The box contains: nine 1' by 1' double sided tiles to set up boards (and 3' by 3' is the biggest needed for the game), enough buildings (cardboard, but pretty nicely illustrated, they look good on the table) for full games, 2 full 100 point gangs (The Guild vs Rashaar), 1 resin gondola, 3 little gondola poles that can be good scatter terrain in the canals, the full rulebook + a small learn to play campaign book (and from my experience more than half of those missions are very replayable and I played them not only as a tutorial), more then enough dice for 2 players, tokens and markers etc. Additionally TTCombat does publish the rules for the game and all unit stats for free (TTCombat carnevale ressources). The box contains some older stats for the units, which are fine for the tutorial campaign, but their profiles have changed a lot since the box was made (so sadly with updates the gangs fall short of 100 points, but games can still be very fun). And some of the core rules where updated when they published the first expansion Blood on the water (the free PDF has all updates inside of it) The rulebook add: a ton of flavour and more campaigns (the free PDF has only 1 campaign (5 missions, all can also be played as stand alone missions), while the printed book contains 7 campaigns all together - I think with 5 missions each).

[@AgentsofSigmar]

I've glanced at Carneval in the past but never more than that. So many games! It does sound good though!

[@stevepearce5206]

was looking for models to play a game of stargrave with (space zombies) and came across by complete accident mantic games and deadzone, i've been a fan of skirmish games since the inception/release of the original necromunda and was looking at a new purchase in the coming weeks... i particularly like one of the closing comments of using gw models in deadzone and was thinking along the same lines that although deadzone has specific models that it shouldn't be too difficult to be a bit "miniatures agonostic" with it ... good video i think it's helped me make my mind up :D

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Glad to be of service!

[@FranticGamer117]

Deadzone is life 😍

[@squallgoku777]

Also with the Kill Team Compendium, many of the teams are believed to be much weaker than the tuned Kill Teams that came out with the Book/box releases. Many of them have been touched up and improved such as the Void Dancer Troupe and the WarpCoven over their original compendium release.

[@JohnR1298]

Really interest/entertaining video guys. Your comments about GW aesthetics is very true BUT do they do Space Rats? No! End of story for me already (😆) Seriously though, the total completeness of the Mantic approach ie cheaper in the long run AND simpler, less interfered with rules and lists is a huge plus for me ( Especially given my less than perfect, memory nowadays 😕). Your comments about the figure quality are fair too, but I really like the Mantic humans. They make excellent Imperial Guard and the Reconn mono bike is terrific 😀. As for the Veermyn - Space Rats with Ray Guns 😀😁😂😃😄😆👍👍👍👏👏👏👏👏👏

[@bradp6452]

I think the gap in full sets between DZ and KT was diminished by the new KT21 rules. Many of the changes from kt18 to kt21 were similar to stuff already in deadzone from the beginning. Alternating activations, opposed dice tests, non inch measuring. I think that the lack of points is not as advantageous as you. Limits control of game size and lots of lists without real choices.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

tbh limiting choice in list building is a big plus for us, we don't have the time to sit down with pencil and paper and calculator these days so simplicity is always a big selling point but YMMV there 👍

[@squallgoku777]

I've enjoyed both Deadzone 2nd and 3rd editions and Kill Team 2021, it seems that Kill Team has been heavily influenced by Deadzone with the alternating activations and one roll combat resolution. I prefer Mantic's approach to selling their games and hate GW's limited release boxes that get nabbed up by scalpers quickly and resold for profit. I do enjoy Kill Team these days as I feel more invested in my GW minis than I ever did with my Mantic forces, probably because of the lore. Kill Team feels like a better way to enjoy 40K. Deadzone has superior rule writing though, the rules as written for Kill Team LoS are just painful to read.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

This LoS rules 🤯. Personally I like the simplicity of Shatterpoint LoS even more!

[@demon1103]

As far as Killteam's premade fireteams go I'm mixed on it. While it does make list building simpler it also makes it very limiting. Best example I have is my Necrons: I bought Indomitus, so I have a 1000pt Necron army...but I can't make a killteam force with those. Another is Death Guard: hey you want 6 Marines, 3 Marines/8 walkers, or......6 marines.

[@bombarded15]

But compare that to he way lists used to end up generally in the previous edition of Kill Team, it was never well balanced or beginner friendly to get the options you need from one or two boxes. That said, I do miss Elites, being able to bring a Terminator was fun

[@demon1103]

@@bombarded15 I get ya. That's why I said I'm mixed. Hopefully it'll get better over time and we see more options.

[@bombarded15]

@@demon1103 for sure, or how engaging a campaign for a skirmish game is when you can't really recruit new models, just swapping special weapons doesn't compare to saving up to bring a fancy dude etc

[@phelyxz]

so you cannot make a killteam force with those. as if GW made that on purpose... on your point with "limiting": while i do not play the new kill team, that is also one thing that I thought when I saw the first reviews: i thought this would feel very limiting!

[@bigdave4859]

Deadzone all the way

[@Lucius292]

deadzone with 4“ movement set it free from the mat. plays great all the way. much fun.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Like the idea though adding a ruler can be a headache (but if it’s all the same maybe it’s not much of a headache 🤔)

[@nickbrooks2236]

Have you thought about doing a Firefight versus 40 K video?

[@jimw.5833]

Awesome review. The only reason I'm still on the fence is do to here in the States very few people play Mantic games. I would have to talk someone into playing the game, where as with GW games, there's loads of GW fanatics everywhere.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

That's is GW's neatest trick. They've captured the market of our imaginations.

[@fredgilbert2032]

I am in the States as well and I bought into Deadzone and am waiting on my Firefight starter as well. I hope to be able to demo the games locally at some point to raise interest.

[@joshual6305]

@@AgentsofSigmar we call it the GW brain slug in my circle of friends

[@AgentsofSigmar]

I love that!

[@colinmack8655]

Good to see got to disagree on the terrain as the terrain crate stuff is so modular. Could not get into kill team nu at all. And well I have been put off by gws awful rules writing. I moved to Mantic and damn Kings of War and Deadzone are amazingly written fun and balanced games Get on the 8 train.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

The whole thing is very subjective in the end and it all comes down to personal preference so its hard to really compare anything tbh, we just wanted to give our tuppeny worth :)

[@bombarded15]

Hey all, any experience comparing the two campaign systems? Wondering how much replayability length the Kill Team spec ops campaign has with no change to the basic fire team specifications. You unlock different weapon options and can give the guys stat upgrades and abilities, so I guess the only loss compared to Deadzone is you won't be able to recruit specialists (ie the Orks can't take a Meganob like how the Marauders can take a Ripper Suit). Great talking points in the video!

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Unfortunately we haven't played enough of either system to comment

[@fredgilbert2032]

I believe Mantic is starting a Deadzone global campaign soon not sure what all that entails.

[@igelkott255]

with mantic, since you have the complete force lists, you can raid your kid's lego sets for proxy figures and play any faction you want!

[@AgentsofSigmar]

this is true though with the compendium that applies to GW too (and puts the expenditure at very similar levels)

[@hydra66]

you forgot the vs infinity comparison. Ruleset wise, that's my preferred SF skirmish game

[@UnkaStunka]

Far far deeper game though not really comperable to these lunch break games.

[@cory7328]

Pretty firm in the Mantic camp.

[@haxan6663]

I have played Kill Team 2018 rules and haven't made the switch to the 2021 rules. This is because whenever I intend playing KT, I end up playing Space Weirdos or Starbreach instead! Much easier ruleset and so easier to get to the table and easy to teach others. I like the idea of KT and having all that variety for different weapons but the reality is that it takes away from actually playing and having fun. I haven't played Deadzone but watching playthroughs, it seems to be a more intuitive game than KT? With regard to the miniatures, Games Workshop are the industry leaders for a reason? Their minis are top notch and I prefer the terrain for KT to those of Deadzone, although I am sure that they serve the same purpose? I have some Mantic minis that I will use in my skirmish games, if I ever get around to building and painting them?! The quality is good but they still have a way to go before they are at GW level?

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Yeah, I would agree with pretty much all of that. I think the DZ terrain is more functional than GWs but GWs makes the tabletop look better.

[@fredgilbert2032]

Nothing keeping you from using the Kill Team terrain with the Deadzone rules.

[@TableTopTransformer]

I can't see the benifits of monopose, considering you don't get the options you want/ need

[@mattbruce475]

Thanks lads. Why am I commenting here??? This is not Underworlds!!! Recently had Deadzone recommended to me after playing a handful of KT games. Maybe I should have jumped the other way but a toe in both ponds does not appeal.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Deadzone is simpler than KT we think by quite a margin

[@nealbarton7434]

Is that rulebook spiral bound? Office works?

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Were based in the UK and we had it done in Rymans

[@BenBoersma]

So is the solution to play Dead zone with Kill Team figures?

[@AgentsofSigmar]

This is what I (Robin) would lean to.

[@phelyxz]

you will have to see if you find factions that will fit you for the models. orks are easy. the standard humans too. the rest not so much unfortunately

[@charleshill9546]

Simple to play not so simple to master

[@AgentsofSigmar]

much like chess 😄

[@SootyWebster]

Mantic could really make a dent in GW if they could figure out how to get Necromunda Campaign rules into a flavor of the Deadzone ruleset.

[@Torkijo]

I dont think even that would make a difference as GW has people from childhood and is the mainstay of most clubs as a result

[@MiniMike_80]

The reason for Deadzone is always: „It is much more easier than Killteam, so it is the better game“ Why simple/easy gameplay means automatically a good game? Why anybody play then 40K and not the same people OPR instead? I played both and guess what: I like both. I like the fast action gameplay from Deadzone but I also like to sneak around in the killzone hiding from the enemies to score the mission points. In the opposite to Deadzone you get no points in shooting the enemies - you must focus on the mission.

[@thechad4101]

Infinity is far better than both.

[@tinywargamer3863]

Depends on what you are looking for...for instance Infinity (having some of the best systems in terms of ARO) is basically stripped of any campaign elements, and personally (as I am an old diehard Mordheim zealot) when I hear: Skirmish, I instantly think "campaign" (as for legacy), but as I said, to each its own!

[@jimw.5833]

I would agree Infinity fantastic game, however, is a much longer game and to play the full game with all rules can turn your brain to goo.

[@chaznightlord8664]

The best one is the one that you can find other players for easily. KillTeam 21 for the win

[@AgentsofSigmar]

Well that's definitely a factor, though if you hate the mechanics of a game would you want to play it even if thats the only one you can find games for?

[@chaznightlord8664]

@@AgentsofSigmar honestly I have never heard of the game Deadzone before this review, though I do own a terrain pack for it, to play with kill team.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

@@chaznightlord8664 nor had I (Pete) til one of our patrons suggested it

[@AndreasRugtvedNeumann]

Yeah. It's a bit sad, isn't it? Plenty of great and cheaper games out there with much better and simpler rules than what GW is offering. And still everyone keeps playing GW games and paying way to much for new extra rules and codices all the time.

[@AgentsofSigmar]

@@AndreasRugtvedNeumann or just giving up trying to keep up and moving to smaller game systems done by GW

[@liverpools]

Necromunda is better :D

[@AgentsofSigmar]

I just found I had to look through even more rules to work out what was going on with conditions and weapon rules and such, simplicity is the name of the game for us these days. Not to say we didn't love the aesthetics of necromunda or the games we played but they took aaaages

[@almister]

Constant new rule books to buy turned me off and I sold it all for deadzone, GW is making you buy new rules every 2 months it’s a pisstake

[@gobelinougobo2341]

@@AgentsofSigmar is deadzone easy to house rules to be more necromunda style ? I'm still hesitating with this game and necromunda...

[@AgentsofSigmar]

@@gobelinougobo2341 The honest answer to that is that I have no idea. I suspect it's doable, but it will probably take some effort. That said, it would surprise me if hadn't already been done.

[@gobelinougobo2341]

@@AgentsofSigmar thank you a lot :) the game looks super cool !