Hey folks

IF THIS IS TOO LONG SKIP TO THE QUESTIONS AT THE BOTTOM IF YOU FEEL YOU CAN ANSWER THEM

This will be my first time DMing although myself and my friends who are joining me are in a similar position, so we're all willing to flip pages before tables should things go less smoothly at first.

Honestly I feel the core mechanics of DW are suited to our ability or lack thereof as the dice rolls are pretty simply, i.e. roll lower than the number required. The compelxity comes in having a lot of things to remember and factor in but I have techniques that will hopefully make this much easier, namely a 'trigger list' that will have different headings such as 'taking skill tests' or taking damage for example, and underneath will be listed all the possible benefits that facets of their character can offer.

In short if somebody is taking a parry test, they can look under tests, and see listed that they may have the Ultramarine chapter trapping that gives a bonus to this test, so as to not need to remember it off the top of their heads.

Overall I feel the real challenge is making the story interesting and not very cliched, with a mixture of interesting single missions tied to together to a greater or lesser degree by a larger overarching story. In this way I feel my main weakness atm in is the Lore department. Out of the players I have the most experience with the universe but more so on a personal level I feel more comfortable knowing I have the lore and stuff nailed down as much as possible.

Here are some questions I have surrounding Lore and other thangs:

-Is terminator armour available for single missions, or is it for specialized squads - can a single mission be in a space hulk?

-How do the various races transport themselves; if i want to have my kill team explore a world or settlement that has recently gone silent, how would tyrannids or orks or chaos have arrived there?

- I plan on having a pre campaign session with pregenerated characters to help with this, but how many enemies can a squad of 5 take on realistically?

-Also any ideas on mission archetypes are more than welcome

Welcome aboard, Remenance . Before I get to your questions, I highly recommend that you check out the latest DW Errata. The revised weapon statistics are especially important; without them, it is comically easy for the heavy bolter to drop 'boss monsters' in a single round...

I don't have the rulebook handy, and none of my group has enough Renown to afford it yet, so I'm not sure Terminator armour has other requirements beyond standard equipment (-Terminator Honours, maybe?). I think it can be used for a single mission, but that's a bit unrealistic, fluff-wise, so most players try to get it as Signature Wargear.

Tyranids have biological equivillants of most technology; they travel space in giant hive-ships that are, for all intents and purposes, living vessels. They usually get to the surface of a planet in mycetic spores- basically organic drop pods. Chaos uses much the same tech as the Imperium, except they tend to navigate the Warp better. The other races use ships of varying effectiveness, from the ultra-nimble ships if the Eldar to the lumbering Kroozers and Roks of the Orks.

As far as how many enemies to throw at your players, I recommend running at least one test combat before beginning the campaign proper, to determine just that. When I started my campaign, after role-playing the PCs arrival at their Watch Station and first meeting with the Watch Commander, I set them to the station's training arenas, to fight wave after wave of Combat Servitors (I used a combination of individual 'Astartes-grade' Combat Servitors from the adversaries section of the DW rulebook, and Hordes of 'commercial-grade' gun servitors from the Dark Heresy rulebook). This was very useful to give everyone- players and GM- an idea of what constitutes a 'legitimate threat' to a kill-Team vs. a mere 'speed bump'.

Yes but as Adeptus-B mentioned, Terminator Honours are generally required for players to be able to request them in the initial loadout and wear them with pride. Additionally a player MUST have sufficient requisition to buy the armour and arm it with weaponry. However that is not to say that a GM cannot allocate them if a mission requires it and override this rule. Any gear requisitioned for a mission is generally for a single outing and returned once done. Only their starting gear is exempt (plus anything they find and keep). So your players can requisition them if they have the renown, honours and requisition but it is up to you to authorise and goes back to the armoury afterwards.

-How do the various races transport themselves; if i want to have my kill team explore a world or settlement that has recently gone silent,

how would tyrannids or orks or chaos have arrived there?

Most species are warp capable to some degree.

• Imperial vessels use warp travel, warp being faster than light but comes with big risks (daemons, getting lost etc) hence the need for protection (like gellar fields) and people to navigate the currents of the warp (navigators).
• Chaos use nicked Imperial ships and also have their own navigator like things or fields so that covers them nicely but they are still at equal risk of daemons.
• Orks meanwhile use Roks , basically bolting engines on an asteroid, stuffing it with orks, tanks and other random stuff following that aiming it for the nearest warp anomaly or let it drift till gravity tugs it to hit a planet and see where it ends up. They do however have a number of rag tag vessels just in case but they wont be massively sturdy.
• Tyranids generate ships for specific purposes. The one which is most used for this in their fleet to cross vast distances is the Narvhal which basically uses gravity and space/time compression. These ships generate the corridors of compressed space and the fleet follows it through in its wake thus avoiding the warp but allowing exceptional speed, they then revert to normal sub light methods (never fully explained what this entails).
• Necrons use inertia-less drive, basically allowing them to move at speeds equal to or faster than the speed of light all with the benefit of avoiding the nasty warp stuff that causes many races issues.
• Tau use powerful engines which basically allow them skim at the warp and be thrown out with greater force than they put in, meaning they avoid going into the warp staying safe but their vessels move at overall 1/5th of Imperial warp speed.
• And finally the Eldar and Dark Eldar make use of the Webway but meanwhile their Craftworld vessels slowly lumber along.

- I plan on having a pre campaign session with pregenerated characters to help with this, but how many enemies can a squad of 5 take on realistically?

There is no hard and fast answer on this one as a lot of it is down to what you want to throw at them, what you're using, what they are like, what the terrain is like and most importantly, luck. Best method I've seen so far is to assume that each marine is worth roughly 50-70 points in 40k tabletop and make an opposing army to match that. So for that many you could feasibly get away with a good few hundred gaunts plus warriors or two and make for a decent challenge...if you're feeling braver (or sadistic), throw in a Hive Tyrant and/or carnifexes. The only way to get an exact measure of this is to give it a play through. If you think it's going too well for your liking, add more enemies to the pot or change the way they are attacking and what they attack with. If you think it's going poorly for the players then feel free to find a way to twist odds in their favour or have the enemy leave to take on a better threat but the important thing is that players should recognise when they are beaten and be prepared to make tactical withdrawals before then.

a few notes: 1) contrary to what was said above you cannot signature terminator armor (see errata)

2) as for balancing difficulty, its not easy. since the damage die is a D10 and your players health is around 20 it only takes one swing of the dice to really hurt your players. Given the players high armor and toughness it can be hard to hurt them at all.....But the great thing about this system is that losing all your wounds is not fatal so you're players will be around for a bit in crit damage. And even then once you get through the crit table you're not dead yet. You're burning fate points to stay alive. So what all this means is you can go hard on the difficulty especially the first outing while everyone is figuring things out.

One good opening encounter i find is 1.5 genestealers per marine. The team has to focus fire on the stealers to burn out their dodges. When a genestealer charges they're not likely to do much damage, but the next round when they get to make their full round action the marine is likely going to critical. This teaches team work as well as most combat mechanics. Don't forget they can use fait points (and demeanours) to make an attack to undodgeable. I'd also suggest hinting to the players to bring photoflash grenades.

Thanks for all the replies, this will be very helpful, i especially like the idea of training vs combat servitors or something simillar.

One more question is about a story idea i have. I was thinking of having a deathwatch leader joining my guys team after his previous team was completely wiped out for one reason or another. How realistic would it be for there to be suspicion surrounding him?

Lets say the rest of his team were wiped out by chaos and he managed to survive, would it be possible for there to be suspicion of corruption or perhaps some unknown favour of him by the chaos gods on him without the rest of the imperium simply killing him or do something worse?

It is not uncommon for a single marine to survive various situations and occasionally you do get murmurs and whispers in corridors but overall these are just hype and that the Emperor smiled upon him that day. Worst case scenario he'd be checked by the Inquisition and given the all-clear. If approved and ratified sane by an inquisitor then there is no issues with him being there and if questioned he can refer back to that.

Thanks for all the replies, this will be very helpful, i especially like the idea of training vs combat servitors or something simillar.

One more question is about a story idea i have. I was thinking of having a deathwatch leader joining my guys team after his previous team was completely wiped out for one reason or another. How realistic would it be for there to be suspicion surrounding him?

Lets say the rest of his team were wiped out by chaos and he managed to survive, would it be possible for there to be suspicion of corruption or perhaps some unknown favour of him by the chaos gods on him without the rest of the imperium simply killing him or do something worse?

It's not even just combat servitors. Erioch has environment chambers - essentially huge kilometre-across vaults with glaciers or jungles inside with suitable predatory beasties to hunt the kill-team in training exercises.

Deathwatch Training: It's Designed To Be Survivable - But That Doesn't Mean It's Not Intended To Kill You.

It would depend on the circumstances in which the kill-team was wiped out. Which, of course, may well be sealed records thanks to the same inquisitor who cleared him back for service. He may not even remember himself (memory deletion by mindscrubbing or selective psychic blocks)

Terminator plate - it's issued on an as-needed basis. I'd hold off on using it to make it all the more awesome when you actually do get to use it. The increase in firepower at the same time is insane because stormbolters are disgustingly effective against....well...anything, really.

Thanks again, this should help with story alot :3 the idea of things being secretive but with rumours or slight suspicion about is great, as I want there to be opportunity for twists or that kinda thing in the story that I can manipulate when needed without having to plan every possible outcome from the get go.

Just to help out I Included some exerpts of different conversations I have had regarding the beginning of my own campaign. Some of it may be out of context because I just copied my old posts and messages, but it might give you an idea of how these training missions could be structured. HAVE A GREAT TIME!!! My campaign has been going a few months now and we have done some epic stuff and had a total blast.

I first began with something I called "The Trial of Binding" where my six players went into a darkened training chamber and hunted (and were hunted by) a lictor that was in the room with them. The twist was they had to go into the scenario wearing only ceremonial robes and carrying only their bolt pistol and a combat knife. The squad leader was also entitled to a krak grenade. I also used a pattern of hexagrammatic warding on the room to make it so the librarian was stuck without his powers. Well they finally used the complicated machinery available to turn the lights on in this room and were immediately ambushed by the lictor who grievously wounded the librarian. Then they called Bolter assault, several bouts of righteous fury later and the lictor had been completely vaporized by the hail of bolt pistol shells. So I get that I overestimated the danger of a single lictor to six nerfed marines. But rather than have more lictors I figured I would try to make this thing memorable. So up from beneath the floor comes a dias with a wounded carnifex (no regen.) I had him chained down to the dias, but straining against them thinking it would give them two turns to figure out how doomed they were before the chains broke. But instead of just shooting the carnifex, they took out the nodes that were keeping the hexagramatic warding in check. I thought it would be a fun mechanic that they could slowly unwork the warding and make the librarian viable again. Well this happened.

The assault marine had the krak grenade and while the carnifex was still chained down he charged the backside of the carnifex, climbed it, and stuck the grenade into one of the great chunks that had been blown out of it's chitin when the fight started. (Tested acrobatics to run through the insane rubble, used his reaction to do a dodge against the macetail that was flipping around, aced a climb test to get up the thing, then dominated the BS test to get it into the nook in his armor. Naturally I had the spore cysts detonate on his back as well nearly sending the assault marine into crit damage. By now the librarian was back at mostly full strength and pushed smite, he hit righteous fury on 4 out of his six dice (I was watching.) Needless to say, the carnifex pretty much expired immediately. Huge success, we had two badly injured marines, everyone else was OK.

Before all of this I had it so that the watch captain ordered the kill team to the arming chamber attached to the side of one of the many hunting halls in the watch fortress. He told them that their final challenge awaited within and that the only things they were permitted were faith in the Emperor, and Faith in each other. Then he signaled and a bunch of chapter serfs came in and removed their power armor and weapons from them with the exception of their bolt pistol and combat knives. Then the gate opened and a darkened chamber shaped like a hexagon 100 meters across illuminated only by the light of a single red ceiling light awaited them. They walked through the gate, it shut, and the party started.

If I did the whole thing again I would have relieved them of their bolt pistol as well. Then scattered weapons through the area for them to find. It would have been a lot more tense, but still super fun.

I didn't originally think there would be a way to break the Hex warding, but my player suggested looking for weak points in it, which I thought sounded like a fun mechanic so I went with it. The whole thing was done by the seat of my pants actually.

As for the oath, I pulled this from the forums. I had the players actually pull a "repeat after me" in real life as the Watch Captain led them through their oaths in front of the Omega Vault.

-Is terminator armour available for single missions, or is it for specialized squads - can a single mission be in a space hulk?

- I plan on having a pre campaign session with pregenerated characters to help with this, but how many enemies can a squad of 5 take on realistically?

-Also any ideas on mission archetypes are more than welcome

Alright, I've only moderated 2 missions but I have accumulated a nice amount of knowledge regarding enemies and whatnot. Just last night I had a rank 2 librarian (with a new player) fight a few enemies one on one. I can tell you that devastators with heavy-bolters are one of the best specialties when it comes to taking on hordes, Librarians are pretty great at this at well but devastators can be... devastating against hordes depending on the weapon they're using.

One on one though, sorry I get sidetracked, the Librarian did well in most cases, he was able to take down a single Tyrant Guard using smite and then buffing himself using might of the ancients, a Lychguard was able to 1hko him (with a warscythe, weapons with the felling quality are incredibly threatening to a space marine), a frenzied berserker managed to kill him as well. Genestealers are an even match for a melee-oriented character, and stat-wise (mainly in terms of combat) are more than a match for an average space marine. I'll probably do more of this.

I assume you are using the Errata weapons stats. But you are pretty much on point with your observations so far. For hordes I recommend multiple smaller hordes to one GIANT one

Marines are basically destined to die in battle, if your badass enough and you live long enough eventually you will fight a battle where your the only one that survivies. That in itself i nthe grand scheme of things isn't such a big deal. If it happened repeatedly it might raise eyebrows. Especially if the marine was in command.

I would potentially suggest playing a Dark Heresy scenario first. Deathwatch has a lot of rules which can be a little overwhelming to remember, whereas Dark Heresy uses a very similar combat mechanic but without a lot of the add ons. This might ease your group into things.

One way of doing this is is as a 'Cold Opening'. LIke you know how at the beginning of the X-Files some shmucks would get eaten by the monster in the first 5 minutes before the Ordo Xenos...I mean Mulder and Scully, were called in? Well the Dark Heresy scenario could be the PCs playing the shmucks

Marines are basically destined to die in battle, if your badass enough and you live long enough eventually you will fight a battle where your the only one that survivies. That in itself i nthe grand scheme of things isn't such a big deal. If it happened repeatedly it might raise eyebrows. Especially if the marine was in command.

I would potentially suggest playing a Dark Heresy scenario first. Deathwatch has a lot of rules which can be a little overwhelming to remember, whereas Dark Heresy uses a very similar combat mechanic but without a lot of the add ons. This might ease your group into things.

One way of doing this is is as a 'Cold Opening'. LIke you know how at the beginning of the X-Files some shmucks would get eaten by the monster in the first 5 minutes before the Ordo Xenos...I mean Mulder and Scully, were called in? Well the Dark Heresy scenario could be the PCs playing the shmucks

I read a great analogy on the forums somewhere comparing an encounter in Dark Heresy and Deathwatch, it was something along the lines of this:

DH: The acolytes are venturing down a hallway on a space-hulk and open a door, behind it is a group of genestealers snarling. The leader says "SHUT THE DOOR AND RUN LIKE HELL!"

DW: The kill-team is venturing down a hall on a space-hulk and open a door, behind it is a group of genestealers snarling. The leader says "Hold positions and lay down fire brothers, PURGE THE XENOS!"

The original person iterated this better and it was a lot more funny. But you probably get the point.

I think that was me

Oh one other thing. Some of the ancient spaceship tropes (basically haunted house in space) that are easy to develop for games such as Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader can fall a little flat in Deathwatch.

This is because in Dark Heresy etc the PCs play normal humans. Even Guard characters can be fairly easily overwhelemed. Therefore you can use all the classic tricks from Alien, Pandorum and so on to create a feeling of claustraphobia and paranioa before the monsters attack.

In Deathwatch the players play 7 foot+ armoured Space Knights who basically don't feel fear and are equiped and trained with the stated aim of wiping out whatever foul xenos/mutant gribbily has the misfortune to bump into them.

Consider these two example

Example One. Dark Heresy

GM: You creep down the ancient rusted passage ways of the abandoned ship. You must be near your prize of the abandoned cargo hold. Odd eddies of dust spin in the low gravity enviroment and your foot steps are loud and hollow as the old steel plates beneath your feet reverberate from your weight.

Your path is illuminated only by the torch on the Guardsmans lasgun at the front of the group. Throughout the journey there has been an odd scrapping from within the walls and you can't shake the feeling that something lives here. But what misbeggoton void horror could make this dismal place their home?

You approach the main crew entrance to the cargo hold. You just need to enter, claim your prize and then bug out of this awful place.

PC Guardsman: I open the door

GM. Even through your gloved fingers you can feel the slickness of slime on the handle

PC Adept: I really hope that's just WD40....

PC Cleric: Everyone get weapons ready...

PC Guardsman: I open the door

GM: With a slow loud creak you pull the door too. Inside is stygian darkness. At first you think the hold is empty and then with mounting horror you realise that dozens of red eyes are staring back at you. You shine your torch over them and see that here are at least two dozen twisted mutated figures...Holdghasts....starting back at you....with a roar the pack lurches up and comes runnign towards you

PC Guardsman: Oh crap.

PC Adept: RUN!....

Example Two: Deathwatch

GM: You creep down the ancient rusted passage ways of the abandoned ship. You must be near your prize of the abandoned cargo hold. Odd eddies of dust spin in the low gravity enviroment and your foot steps are loud and hollow as the old steel plates beneath your feet reverberate from your weight.

Your path is illuminated by your helmets augemented visual systems . Throughout the journey there has been an odd scrapping from within the walls and you can't shake the feeling that soemthing lives here. But what misbeggoton void horror could make this dismal place their home?

You approach the main crew entrance to the cargo hold. You just need to enter, claim your prize and then bug out of this awful place.

PC Assault Marine: I open the door

GM. Even through your gloved fingers you can feel the slickness of slime on the handle

PC Devestator: I really hope that's just WD40....

PC Tactical: Everyone get weapons ready...

PC Assault Marine: I open the door

GM: With a slow loud creak you pull the door too. Inside is stygian darkness. At first you think the hold is empty and then with mounting disgust you realise that dozens of red eyes are staring back at you. You shine your torch over them and see that here are at least two dozen twisted mutated figures...Holdghasts....starting back at you....with a roar the pack lurches up and comes runnign towards you

PC Tactical Marine: 'Taste Flame mutant scum' Squad Mode abiltiy Fire for Effect. 'Taste flame AGAIN!!'

PC Devestator: 'The Holy Heavy Bolter of Antioch will strike you down!

PC Assault Marine: 'You do me an injustice brother leaving but a few of the unholy wretches to die upon my chain blade'.

GM:...In a hail of flame and Heavy Bolter rounds you cut down the majority of the mutant horde. The few stragglers are cut to pieces by the Assault Marine...

PC Tactical Marine: Well...that was a freebie.

In summary if you want to go for horror elements in Deathwatch choose your NPC opponents carefully. Basically the players feel fear so you can play on that, but their characters don't. Therefore you have to choose the enemies well. The Beast of Thule makes a good adversary to build tension because it is perfectly capable of tearing the Kill Team to bits. A Horde of mutants ala the Descent not so much.

I think that was me

Oh one other thing. Some of the ancient spaceship tropes (basically haunted house in space) that are easy to develop for games such as Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader can fall a little flat in Deathwatch.

This is because in Dark Heresy etc the PCs play normal humans. Even Guard characters can be fairly easily overwhelemed. Therefore you can use all the classic tricks from Alien, Pandorum and so on to create a feeling of claustraphobia and paranioa before the monsters attack.

In Deathwatch the players play 7 foot+ armoured Space Knights who basically don't feel fear and are equiped and trained with the stated aim of wiping out whatever foul xenos/mutant gribbily has the misfortune to bump into them.

Consider these two example

Example One. Dark Heresy

GM: You creep down the ancient rusted passage ways of the abandoned ship. You must be near your prize of the abandoned cargo hold. Odd eddies of dust spin in the low gravity enviroment and your foot steps are loud and hollow as the old steel plates beneath your feet reverberate from your weight.

Your path is illuminated only by the torch on the Guardsmans lasgun at the front of the group. Throughout the journey there has been an odd scrapping from within the walls and you can't shake the feeling that something lives here. But what misbeggoton void horror could make this dismal place their home?

You approach the main crew entrance to the cargo hold. You just need to enter, claim your prize and then bug out of this awful place.

PC Guardsman: I open the door

GM. Even through your gloved fingers you can feel the slickness of slime on the handle

PC Adept: I really hope that's just WD40....

PC Cleric: Everyone get weapons ready...

PC Guardsman: I open the door

GM: With a slow loud creak you pull the door too. Inside is stygian darkness. At first you think the hold is empty and then with mounting horror you realise that dozens of red eyes are staring back at you. You shine your torch over them and see that here are at least two dozen twisted mutated figures...Holdghasts....starting back at you....with a roar the pack lurches up and comes runnign towards you

PC Guardsman: Oh crap.

PC Adept: RUN!....

Example Two: Deathwatch

GM: You creep down the ancient rusted passage ways of the abandoned ship. You must be near your prize of the abandoned cargo hold. Odd eddies of dust spin in the low gravity enviroment and your foot steps are loud and hollow as the old steel plates beneath your feet reverberate from your weight.

Your path is illuminated by your helmets augemented visual systems . Throughout the journey there has been an odd scrapping from within the walls and you can't shake the feeling that soemthing lives here. But what misbeggoton void horror could make this dismal place their home?

You approach the main crew entrance to the cargo hold. You just need to enter, claim your prize and then bug out of this awful place.

PC Assault Marine: I open the door

GM. Even through your gloved fingers you can feel the slickness of slime on the handle

PC Devestator: I really hope that's just WD40....

PC Tactical: Everyone get weapons ready...

PC Assault Marine: I open the door

GM: With a slow loud creak you pull the door too. Inside is stygian darkness. At first you think the hold is empty and then with mounting disgust you realise that dozens of red eyes are staring back at you. You shine your torch over them and see that here are at least two dozen twisted mutated figures...Holdghasts....starting back at you....with a roar the pack lurches up and comes runnign towards you

PC Tactical Marine: 'Taste Flame mutant scum' Squad Mode abiltiy Fire for Effect. 'Taste flame AGAIN!!'

PC Devestator: 'The Holy Heavy Bolter of Antioch will strike you down!

PC Assault Marine: 'You do me an injustice brother leaving but a few of the unholy wretches to die upon my chain blade'.

GM:...In a hail of flame and Heavy Bolter rounds you cut down the majority of the mutant horde. The few stragglers are cut to pieces by the Assault Marine...

PC Tactical Marine: Well...that was a freebie.

In summary if you want to go for horror elements in Deathwatch choose your NPC opponents carefully. Basically the players feel fear so you can play on that, but their characters don't. Therefore you have to choose the enemies well. The Beast of Thule makes a good adversary to build tension because it is perfectly capable of tearing the Kill Team to bits. A Horde of mutants ala the Descent not so much.

This is definitely it, and this is funny because I will be doing a similar scenario for my players, but the enemies will be more potent.