As the topic line sais, is Death watch closer to Dark Heresy or to Only War, I ask since my gaming circle likes DH, but couldn't off load OW quick enough.

We'd like to play Marines, but don't want to put up with the character advancement structure like in OW

Mechanically, a lot closer to Dark Heresy. There's no Aptitudes; you have classes with a strictly limited progression just like in DH.

Gameplaywise, a lot closer to Only War, in that you have a squad of warriors in a military setting.

So ... basically what you're looking for?

DH , RT and DW are the same 'base' system, with various additions and tweaks based on the concept of the game (and widely differing power levels). Starting with BC , the system got a moderate reboot, which is the basis for OW and DH2 .

thanks, we never got in to RT, but I think I can swing the 30 OZ Bucks investment for the PDF of the Core book.

The rules system is closer to DH, but with the added strain of playing at a level the DH system was never really designed to play at.

Wondering what your group didn't like about OW.

How Advancement was handled, Comrades and a bunch of other little stuff that ruined what we thought would have bean an awesome game, we sold our copies of the core book cheap, and one was even given away we where so unimpressed with OW, and after so much hope we held for it after playing 11th hour.

Edit: we had out books for six weeks at the longest back in '12, 8 players each gave the game 30+ hours of play time each across 3-4 attempts at campaigns with different player mixes. I paid $120 for my core book and let it go for $50, we don't recall all the little thing that where wrong with it, we just rember the game wasn't right.