The 53rd episode of the Grim Dark Podcast has now been posted on iTunes and on our website at www.grimdarkpodcast.com

We're back around to Deathwatch, and in this episode we go through the Massed Battle rules from Mark of the Xenos. We also review The Rising Tempest, go through the history and culture of the Blood Angels and have a chat about using the Inquisition in your Deathwatch game.

Happy Listening!

I gave it a listen and while I can't offer a comprehensive review, I still have some thoughts I figured I'd share. All of this is based on the last DW episode, mind you - I checked out other episodes in the archive, but that's a much bigger scope.

First, hats off to the guy with the flamethrower. It sounded like fun.

There are some minor mistakes and omissions in the Chapter discussion I want to get out of the way first: the Blood Drinkers (lovely chaps) are actually playable, they are in Rites of Battle (to be fair, people tend to forget those Chapters who appeared in RoB but didn't get a makeover in HtC); when talking about Blood Angels solo and squad modes, it would be nice to include the additional ones from First Founding; and when talking about the available Chapter advanced specialities, the Librarian Dreadnought is surely worth at least a mention as it is unique and unavailable elsewhere.

Massed battles are concisely explained. The review is a bit clunky though. Mainly because it comes across like only one of you read the book in question, and what we hear is not really a dissemination of the adventure module - it's one guy explaining the plot to the other. It'd be nicer if it could be more of a discussion of two experienced GMs or players familiar with the topic.

The GM advice content, on the other hand, is quite solid, I enjoyed both the plot hook and the thoughts on how to use the Inquisition, good insights there.

But the main issue is this. I'm GMing in DW for a while now, so I know the books and backgrounds at least to some degree. For me, the podcast sounds like it's aimed at either beginners, or possibly for people planning to jump systems between 40k lines - I'll certainly go through the archives when my Rogue Trader game gets thawed out, but, in Deathwatch episodes, what I'd like to hear is less recounting the text in print, and more specific insight on them.

Some examples: I'm not that good in the number-crunching department, so to offset that, I would love to hear about more unusual ideas during character building - the Blood Angels template lends itself easily to creating a melee character, that much is obvious at the first glance, but about half of their offered Talent list is available for Assault Marines anyway up until Rank 4 or 5, so is it not a bit redundant, like a Black Templar Chaplain? What other Specialisations could benefit from their Agility-enhancing and Frenzy-giving development tree, and how would that be explained in their lore? I love playing Apothecaries, and if I plan to contest the Kill-Team leader position more often, the Sanguinary Priest is apparently a good choice, but where to start if I want to go with a shooty Apothecary instead of a choppy one? How would you put a Sanguinary Guard (or other non-Codex, unique specialisations, like Iron Fathers) together?

A bit more time reserved for GM ideas or advice could see an answer to, or a discussion on some general topics apparently bugging the community here:

What are your thoughts on the recurring question of prospective female players not being thrilled by the idea of playing a male super-warrior with tripled testosterone and adrenaline glands? How would you resolve such a situation?

How you handle the more murky aspects of Healing in your games?

It seems to me that the best way to handle a female player who doesn't want to play a Space Marine is to give her an Inquisitor or Interrogator. This creates an issue in dealing with the Inquisitor's own work between missions.