Hey guys, I'm about to start running my first Deathwatch campaign in two weeks and I need some help developing rules for playing as Astartes of the Traitor Legions. I have the stat modifications and a few minor rules, but I need help refining them and developing Solo and Squad Modes.

I've run multiple campaigns of Dark Heresy, so I understand the core ruleset, but I don't have much pratical experience with the game. I don't want any Legions to be overpowered relative to others, or any to be so bleh as to be pointless. Night Lords especially I'm having a very hard time differentiating from Raven Guard, and the Poison Resistance for DG feels borderline impossible. Traitor Legion statlines are taken from Black Crusade splatbooks where applicable, with minor changes here or there, like Emperor's Children.

LEGIO 3: Emperor's Children
+5 WS, +5 BS, Martial Prowess Solo Mode

LEGIO 4: Iron Warriors
+5 INT, +5 T, Iron Within, Iron Without Solo Mode

LEGIO 8: Night Lords
+5 AG, +5 PER, We Have Come For You Solo Mode
Gain Dark Sight as a bonus Trait.

LEGIO 12: World Eaters
+5 WS, +5 STR, Blood for the Twelfth Solo Mode

LEGIO 14: Death Guard
+5 T, +5 WP, Unbroken Blade Solo Mode
Gain Resistance(Poison) as a Bonus Talent. Cannot be a Librarian

LEGIO 15: Thousand Sons
+5 INT, +5 WP, -10 Fellowship, Knowledge is Power Solo Mode
+1 Psy Rating. This does not affect later purchases of Psy Rating

LEGIO 16: Luna Wolves
+5 WP, +5 WS OR BS, Tip of the Spear Solo Mode

LEGIO 17: Word Bearers
+5 Fel, +5 WP, Zealous Fervor Solo Mode

LEGIO 20: Alpha Legion
+5 INT, +5 PER, Head of the Hydra Solo Mode

The Solo Modes I have little for besides the names. I also need to make Advance charts, but that's another matter entirely.

For Martial Prowess I want to give Emperor's Children either a bonus to parry or dodge rolls when fighting against an enemy with superior WS/BS or give them a passive that lets them take a Command Test to treat themselves as any other legion for the purpose of Legion-Specific Squad Powers.

For Tip of the Spear I was thinking something not unlike Righteous Fury, except targetted to the highest ranking enemy in a fight. So if there's an Elite level Nob leading a Troop of Boyz, you get bonuses to fight the Nob, since Luna Wolves Combat Doctrine was centered around taking out the leadership. Cut off the head and the body will die and all.

Zealous Fervor, I WANTED to let him provide Hatred to himself or make it a passive that extends Hatred range, but Litanies of Hate covers similar ground, and I want them to synergize well with Chaplain builds, not make them redundant.

So that's all I've got guys. Looking for any and all input! Only need Rank 1s for the Solo/Squad mode talents.

So updates! I've started on the Emperor's Children Solo Mode, since that was the one I had the clearest idea of. I've also edited the Night Lords' legion traits, so that they get the Dark Vision Trait instead of Unnatural Perception.

New Solo Mode Ability: Martial Prowess(Passive)

Rank 1: If an Ally within Visual Support Range activates a Legion Squad Mode ability, you may make an Ordinary(+0) Command or Fellowship Test.

If passed, you may benefit from the Legion Squad Mode Ability as though you were a member of that Legion.

Rank 3: When parrying an attack from an opponent with higher Weapon Skill, or dodging the attack of
an opponent with higher Ballistic Skill, you may add +10 to your dodge or parry check

Rank 5: Such is the Emperor's Children Astartes' skill at arms and experience, that he may automatically pass his Command or Fellowship Tests to be

counted as a member of a Friendly Legion for Squad Mode Abilities

Rank 7: You may parry or dodge a number of attacks per round equal to your UNMODIFIED Agility Bonus.

Example: Brother Demeter has an Agility Score of 40. Therefore he can Dodge or Parry up to four attacks every round! However, if Brother Demeter were to gain the

Unnatural Agility trait, despite his Agility Bonus increasing to 8, he may still only attempt to dodge or parry four attacks per round, since his base Agility Score before modifiers is

still 40. If he were to purchase advances to increase his base Agility to 50, then he could parry 5 attacks per round, since his base Agility Score before modifiers has increased

So they say "Necessity is the mother of Invention", and as such since my players needed to start building characters, I made Legion Advances Charts for the Luna Wolves and World Eaters. My immediate goal is to refine these Advances Charts and get the Thousand Sons one done for our Librarian

World Eaters

Luna Wolves

I obviously cribbed a lot from the Ultramarines for the Luna Wolves, since they weren't dissimilar, though I gave the LWs a more vicious CC streak and limited their tactics a little more to reflect their combat doctrine. Eye of Vengeance was chosen so as not to overly favour CC over Ranged. Gives a nice little trick to other classes. World Eaters are REALLY **** close to Blood Angels. I feel like they maaaaaaay be a little overpowered in CC, but that's compensated for by their lack of dimension in other areas. They kill well but that's ALL they do. I'm also considering making Frenzy cheaper since it's SO integral to the Legion's identity, and their Chapter Trapping of the Butcher's Nails exacerbates that.

I look forward to any input or feedback you guys may have. Any advice at all would be really really helpful.

Thousand Sons

I wanted something that would represent the Thousand Sons' love of knowledge, and their demeanour as Scholars as opposed to Warriors. Their tree is meant to make them highly knowledgeable, and incredibly adept psykers, at the cost of being subpar warriors. The Psyniscience and Invocation advances may seem redundant if you take the Librarian skill tree, but since all Legionaries are a minimum of PR1 it holds benefit for all marines. This one is a bit more tenuous, since I'm not sure how much it will upset balance giving access to high Invocation Scores earlier in the game.

Great idea, and hilariously enough it looks like we have almost exactly the same ideas in regards to the abilities of the other legions, and yours are very well done! Awesome work!

I actually created a supplement around this too called The Traitor Legions which can be found here . It's meant to allow for playing of the legions and includes post-heresy lore but I designed the advances based around their lore and specialties and left the degree of corruption out so as to allow for the rules to apply to pre-heresy.

One of these days I need to post the session play by play of the game where I used these rules to created nemeses, it was quite a fun experience.