Kill Team – Reflections on the Challenges of Balancing

 

As we know, the Balance Dataslate for Kill Team is published quarterly.

This is a set of rule adjustments (the so-called buffs and nerfs) aimed at rebalancing the power level of the factions being played.

This balancing is theoretically based on results from various events recorded on BCP (Best Coast Pairings) over a certain period.
Surely there are also other "hidden" data points on which certain decisions are based, but BCP statistics remain a solid potential indicator.
Moreover, it has been repeatedly stated that a healthy meta is when most factions have a win rate between 55% and 45%.

I won’t evaluate the latest Balance Dataslate or comment on the current state of the meta—this article isn’t about that.
Instead, I’d like to reflect with you on some factors that might actually make Kill Team a very difficult game to balance.
But first, a couple of disclaimers:

• You’ll probably read a few things that could easily be considered “unpopular opinions” and/or overly purist, but I want to be clear: the goal of this article is not to say “you must play this way or you’re wrong.” Absolutely not.
  In fact, I fully agree with the closing notes found in the official Tournament Guide.

• I have no intention of devaluing the work of any TO (Tournament Organizer), who instead deserve credit for promoting organized play and developing local (and in some cases international) communities.
  I have nothing but admiration for them.

That said, here are what I believe are the elements that make balancing Kill Team particularly challenging:

1 – KILLZONE

Anyone who has played a few games of Kill Team knows how important the Killzone is.
It’s undeniable that, in the previous edition, many TOs struggled to create balanced maps without the help of official layouts (which we now have in the current edition).
I’m mainly referring to open Killzones like those from the first 2021 season (Octarius, Chalnath, Nachmund, and Moroch).
Great from a narrative perspective, but a nightmare to balance for matched play.
We owe it to some content creators who released map packs that we had any semblance of structure for those Killzones.
Gallowdark layouts were eventually released, but had the “problem” of being completely symmetrical.

In the current edition, we have official layouts for Volkus as an open Killzone and Gallowdark as a closed Killzone.
Bheta-Decima, sadly, only exists on paper, as it is almost entirely ignored in competitive circuits (even official GW events like the Opens—check the player packs if you don’t believe me) due to balance issues with the Killzone itself.
Now we run into a contradiction:
In the Tournament Guide, it says:
"To encourage adaptability and strategy, tournament organizers can create new maps using their Kill Team terrain collections, using the 2024 Certified Op Killzones as guidelines."

So yes, using Killzones without official layouts is allowed.
After all, they couldn’t exactly say, “You know those 15 Octarius sets you own? Yeah, throw them out this edition.”
So freedom is allowed.
But… is this good for balance?

If balancing data is pulled from tournament results on BCP without knowing whether those games were played using official layouts, can we still consider that data valid?
We (and probably even GW) can’t really know if the games were played on the balanced layouts defined by Approved Ops.
And I’ve personally seen tournaments—even ones offering Golden Tickets—featuring Octarius, Bandua, and other boards with TO-designed layouts.
So this becomes a factor completely out of control.

Another issue from Killzones: system equivalency.
In a perfect world, each tournament should have an equal number of open and closed tables.
Example: out of 10 tables, 5 should be Volkus and 5 Gallowdark.
This would help balance factions that perform well in one system but worse in another.
A perfect example was the drastic drop in win rate for Pathfinders when Gallowdark was introduced.

Again, how can we know if tournaments are actually using equal numbers of Killzones per system to guarantee balance?
In many tournaments, this simply isn’t feasible (sometimes just due to scenic availability).
So again—can we truly consider that data valid, especially combined with the issue above?

2 – PAIRING / PLACING

The Tournament Guide also provides parameters for how to set up BCP tournaments in terms of Pairing and Placing.
Are these parameters followed by all TOs?
Definitely not. Just look at some BCP event results.
So this, too, becomes another uncontrolled factor.

3 – THE HUMAN FACTOR

Another undeniable aspect is the ability of a skilled player to achieve good (even excellent) results with factions considered low-tier.
Many well-known players come to mind who are capable of doing this. The most recent example is Orion Wilfong, who won the 2025 Goonhammer US Open Kill Team GT on July 5th using Gellerpox.
Note: Gellerpox have about a 44% win rate and were ranked C or even D in recent tier lists by major content creators.
So, this raises some obvious questions:

• How much do “pro players’” choices to always (or almost always) pick S-tier teams influence balance?

• How many low-tier teams could actually achieve great results in capable hands?

4 – THE ROTATION SYSTEM

At the beginning of the new edition, an article on Warhammer Community explained the “Classified Format.”
In summary, the game designers admitted that it’s very difficult to keep a game balanced when there are “too many” factions.
As a result, they created a team rotation system.
Every September starting in 2025, teams from the oldest season will no longer be tournament-legal.

However, they clarified this only applies to official competitive tournaments (i.e., the ones that offer Golden Tickets and the World Championship), and for all others, it’s up to the TO whether to apply it or not.
Of course, as with Octarius terrain, they couldn’t say outright, “Please stop using these or the game will be impossible to balance,” so they took a softer approach.

That said, between players who love their "pet team" and TOs who want to avoid drama, many will hide behind the “freedom of choice.”
So, with the number of factions increasing regularly (there are 40 at the moment), it’s likely that the game will become even harder to balance.

This, overall, is how I see the many challenges behind trying to maintain balance in a complex game like Kill Team—and it only increases my respect for the developers of this game.
What do you think?