⚠ Warhammer rules change regularly. The information below reflects Blooded Kill Team rules as of mid-2025. Always cross-check against current official Kill Team publications for up-to-date operative profiles and rules.
The Blooded are Chaos Space Marine cultists — not the power-armoured legionaries, but the mortal human followers of Chaos who fight with improvised weapons, numbers, and brutal cunning. In Kill Team, the Blooded play very differently to most other factions: they are cheap, numerous, and mechanically interesting in ways that reward experienced players.
The Blooded in Kill Team: Overview
The Blooded are a horde-adjacent Kill Team: you field more operatives than many opponents, use their numbers to dominate objective control, and compensate for individual operative fragility with sheer volume. They lack the raw melee power of Legionary Chaos Space Marines and the ranged dominance of T’au, but they have something unique: Chaos Blessings (in some rule iterations called Favour mechanics) that can dramatically shift the capabilities of individual operatives mid-game.
The Blooded reward players who enjoy resource management mechanics, aggressive objective play, and using operative variety creatively — rather than players who want straightforward, linear power from their operatives.
Blooded Operatives
⚠ Stat profiles below are sourced from Wahapedia (Kill Team Blooded, mid-2025). Verify against your current official datacards before play — profiles are updated periodically via balance dataslates.
| Operative | M | APL | GA | DF | SV | W | Key Role |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traitor Chieftain | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 8 | Leader — token generation, flexible loadout |
| Traitor Trooper | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Core generalist body |
| Traitor Gunner | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Plasma / Flamer / Melta / Grenade Launcher (max 2) |
| Traitor Sharpshooter | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Long-las precision; Camo Cloak in cover |
| Traitor Flenser | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Melee assassin — Stalk + charge from Conceal |
| Traitor Butcher | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 8 | Self-healing melee; generates Corruption tokens |
| Traitor Enforcer | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4+ | 8 | Power fist + better save; suppresses injury effects |
| Traitor Brimstone Grenadier | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Diabolyk bomb — mortal wounds on incapacitation |
| Traitor Corpseman | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Field medic — heals wounds, stim buffs |
| Traitor Commsman | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 7 | Token management via Signal + Sacrilegious Actuation |
| Traitor Thug | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 4+ | 7 | Cheap tough melee body; better save than Troopers |
| Traitor Ogryn | 3″ | 2 | 1 | 3 | 5+ | 16 | Tanky elite — 16W, mortal wounds on charge |
M = Move | APL = Action Point Limit | GA = Group Activation | DF = Defence dice | SV = Save | W = Wounds
Traitor Sergeant
The Traitor Sergeant is your leader operative — better armed and tougher than standard Traitors, with access to a wider range of weapons. The Sergeant functions as a midfield controller: tough enough to hold contested objectives, capable enough to threaten enemy operatives in both shooting and melee. Positioning the Sergeant where they can support multiple Traitor units simultaneously is the key to getting value from the leader slot.
Traitors
Standard Traitor cultists form the bulk of your Kill Team. They are individually fragile — below-average wounds and saves — but cheap, and having more bodies than the opponent is a genuine tactical resource in Kill Team. More operatives means more activations, which means more tactical flexibility and better objective control. The key is not expecting individual Traitors to survive — it is accepting losses in exchange for overwhelming the opponent’s action economy.
Brimstone Grenadier
The Brimstone Grenadier is your area-denial specialist — grenades force opponents out of cover positions, disrupt tight groupings, and threaten operatives who would otherwise be difficult to reach with direct fire. Using the Grenadier well requires forward thinking: identify positions the opponent wants to hold (particularly objectives with heavy cover) and use grenade attacks to threaten those positions before the opponent can settle into them.
Chaos Ogryn
The Chaos Ogryn is the Blooded’s heavy hitter — a large, heavily mutated brute with significantly more wounds and melee damage than any other operative in the roster. The Ogryn is your answer to tough enemy operatives and close-combat threats. Position them where they will intercept incoming melee attackers or as a “battering ram” targeting an important objective held by the opponent. The Ogryn is expensive in points and draws attention — opponents will prioritise shooting it. Use the rest of your team to threaten other objectives simultaneously, forcing the opponent to split fire.
Chaos Corruption Mechanics
One of the Blooded’s most distinctive mechanics is the Chaos patronage or blessing system — the exact name and implementation vary between Kill Team editions and balance updates. In general terms: Blooded operatives can accrue favour from Chaos gods through specific actions or kill conditions, which grants them enhanced abilities mid-game. Managing these resources — knowing when to spend accumulated favour for a powerful effect versus saving it — is one of the more mechanically interesting aspects of playing Blooded. Verify the current blessing rules against the latest official Kill Team publications before your game.
Blooded Kill Team Tactics
Activation Advantage
The Blooded’s greatest tactical resource is their activation count. In Kill Team, activations alternate between players — each player activates one operative, then the other player activates one. Having more operatives means you get more activations per turning point. This is a significant advantage: with more activations, you can respond to threats after the opponent commits, hold back key operatives while the opponent spends theirs, and dominate objective control in the final phases of each turning point. Build your strategy around maximising this advantage: keep operatives alive in early turning points to preserve activation count, even if it means being passive initially.
Objective Flooding
With more operatives than most opponents, the Blooded can contest multiple objectives simultaneously in a way smaller, elite teams cannot. Assign cheap Traitors to distant objectives — their job is not to fight, it is to stand on the point and score. Meanwhile, your Sergeant, Ogryn, and specialist operatives focus on eliminating the opponent’s forces. The opponent faces an uncomfortable choice: chase the cheap Traitors off objectives (taking actions away from the main fight) or ignore them and let you score freely.
Using the Ogryn
The Chaos Ogryn should never advance alone. It will draw every ranged weapon in the opponent’s team. Use terrain to screen the Ogryn’s advance — move it from cover to cover while the rest of your team creates threats elsewhere. When the Ogryn reaches combat range, it should be targeting the most valuable operative the opponent has, not wasting its attacks on cheap troops. The Ogryn is a commitment: once it is in the open advancing, your opponent knows what is coming and will respond. Have a plan for what happens after the Ogryn charges.
Blooded Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
- High operative count — activation advantage is a real tactical resource
- Operative variety: specialists cover most tactical niches
- Chaos blessing mechanics add complexity and reward skilled play
- Chaos Ogryn provides a credible melee threat
- Good objective flooding capability with cheap Traitors
Weaknesses
- Individual operatives are fragile — losing several quickly collapses the activation advantage
- No single operative with elite-tier individual power (outside the Ogryn in melee)
- Blessing mechanics require rules knowledge and forward planning to use well — punishing for new players
- Reliant on opponent not having a strong answer to volume: elite high-damage teams can neutralise the numbers quickly
Recommended Blooded Kill Team Squad Build
The Blooded are a horde-style kill team — you flood the board with bodies, generate Chaos Corruption tokens, and let the token engine amplify your hits. A competitive general-purpose build for mid-range terrain boards looks like this (10 operatives total):
| Operative | Qty | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Traitor Chieftain | 1 | Mandatory leader; drives token generation each activation |
| Traitor Trooper | 3 | Cheap activations; flood objectives; absorb fire for specialists |
| Traitor Gunner (Plasma Gun) | 1 | Hard-target removal — tokens make overcharge safer to run |
| Traitor Gunner (Flamer) | 1 | Area denial; punishes tight clusters; no line-of-sight needed |
| Traitor Flenser | 1 | Threat to isolated operatives; stalks through terrain unseen |
| Traitor Ogryn | 1 | 16W anchor; enemy must commit multiple activations to shift it |
| Traitor Corpseman | 1 | Heals Ogryn and Butcher to extend their staying power |
| Traitor Commsman | 1 | Sacrilegious Actuation recycles tokens — keeps the engine running late in game |
On boards with dense terrain and short fire lanes, swap the Plasma Gunner for a second Flenser — you want melee pressure everywhere simultaneously. Against shooting-heavy teams (T’au, AdMech), run the Traitor Sharpshooter over a Trooper to threaten their backline. The Ogryn is almost always worth its slot; 16 wounds means it rarely dies in a single round, forcing your opponent to waste two or three activations. Always verify your roster against the current Kill Team matched play rules before your game — operative limits and equipment costs change with each balance dataslate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Blooded good in Kill Team?
The Blooded are mechanically interesting and capable in the right hands. They are not the faction for players who want a simple, linear Kill Team — the blessing mechanics and activation management require experience to use effectively. But for players who enjoy resource management, positional play, and high operative variety, the Blooded are one of the more rewarding factions to learn.
What is the difference between Blooded and Legionary?
Blooded are mortal Chaos cultists — cheap, numerous, and individually fragile. Legionary are Chaos Space Marines — expensive, few in number, and individually powerful. Blooded play like a horde team with interesting mechanics; Legionary play like an elite melee team. They have different tactical identities despite sharing the Chaos Space Marine lore.
What size is a Blooded Kill Team?
A standard Blooded Kill Team typically fields 10–14 operatives depending on specialist selection — noticeably more than many elite factions that field 6–8 operatives at the same points value. This operative count is the foundation of the faction’s activation-advantage strategy.
For more Kill Team reading, see our Kill Team T’au guide and our 40k Combat Patrol rules overview.