Greetings, Deathwatch fans!

This week's designer diary includes two special previews of the war-torn setting for the Deathwatch RPG: The Jericho Reach. Enjoy!

Very nice Looking forward to getting my hands on this!

LOL.

As posted elsewhere, I really liked some of the artwork, specifically the column art from the second (chapter) introduction. I still need to see the whole thing before being able to "judge" the product. It's not about the parts, but how they relate together.

With that said, it's always good to see the crumbs from the table!

Kage

Finally, a map! After play testing this with just my imagination of how stuff was positioned, its nice to finally see what its "supposed" to look like.

Not many planets on that map for a whole sector ...

Adam France posting a negative comment about Deathwatch? Never! LOL!

Space Monkey said:

So ... I'm meant to see loads more planets than there are shown?

Just because I always seem forced to post negatively here doesn't mean I'm not always right.

Adam France said:

Yes, actually. Just like with the Calixis Sector and Koronus Expanse maps...

All three region maps show a sample of significant worlds. By no means do they cover everything, nor should they be expected to - they're left with enough 'blank space' for GM's to add to and customise the regions as they see fit, particularly in the case of the Koronus Expanse (as it's largely unexplored).

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Ah, thought so, the old 'blank space/do it your fricking self policy', that basically means EVERY GM has to do almost all the work on setting creation themselves, rather than just the ones who don't like properly detailed official setting fluff. (Oh that we had such a thing.) A terrible, abominable, policy that I will always oppose.

There was a reasonable (though still imo annoying) excuse for the Expanse being a bit vague and empty seeming. However Calixis had well over 150 (?) planets on the map ... on a quick scan (someone else is welcome to do the hard work of getting an exact count for a precise comparison) Jericho has about half that, maybe.

Seems a bit light to me. Especially as Jericho was a much older sector by the look of it ... so presumably would have been bigger and richer than 'out on the fringe boondocks Calixis' and would presumably have had more planets. Some of those salients seem to have only a handful of worlds on them ... hardly similar to the massive multi-system fronts seen in canon such as the Gaunt books.

With as many planets in a sector (150+ in Calixis named on the map for example) I don't think GMs are going to run out and absolutely need to create their own. Especially as FFG has a stated policy of not giving dedicated detail specifically to the setting itself (as opposed to a paragraph or two dotted throughout upcoming new rule books).

I expect the usual suspects will come up with some excuses ... ah sorry 'reasons' for why there are so few planets on the map. However as my original comment was 'Not many planets on that map for a whole sector', I stand by that. There aren't many, even in comparison to Calixis.

It's terribly illogical and just the work of lazy developers that one section of space has fewer planets than other. That's the way it works in real life too.

Wait, what?

Artemesia said:

So ... there are less planets in Jericho than Calixis then? So No1 is incorrect in stating there can be assumed to be as many, but one has to make them up oneself?

I'm not about to take sides and say one person's opinion is more valid than the other, but picking apart something as insignificant as the number of pretend planets on a pretend map seems a little silly.

I'm sorry Adam, I just find you very entertaining whether you mean to be or not

Space Monkey said:

I make you laugh?

I'm a joke to you?

Ah ... had you going.

Artemesia said:

I wasn't aware mentioning something classified as 'picking it apart'.

How many planets there are (roughly) in the Reach could well be an important factor in many people's campaigns. I think it's worth mentioning at the very least. If it is particularly small on the Imperial scale, that could be relevent to ongoing story lines. If there are as many planets as any other major sector, but over half of them aren't on the map, I think that's lazy.

Adam France said:

If you look at the map you don't even see Avalos there. Yet, Avalos is in Jericho Reach "on the edge of Orpehus Salient between Hethgard and Well of the Night" . Thus I'd say only world of great significance are shown in the map.

Then fankly Roleplaying for you is not the hobby to be persuing.

It's about using your imagination.

It seems you balk at doing this and only stay to troll the boards by QQing "wtf no kontentz again?" on just about everything that FFG offer up as a preview.

They're one of the few companies that do this (offer as much as they do on a product before its release), hell even TSR, Wizards, Paizo & WWg didn't do it as standard other than one or two maps (for the fantasy stuff) or 1 page of material until After the product was released.

Please, go play chess where it's all clear and codified as to exactly what you can and cannot do, stop woth the "Moar F4il!!11!!!!!1111!!!" commentary you seem to keep up on what FFg produce for us.

The write-up was nice. The setting has some interesting ideas, though I am hard pressed to think of why the the Imperium isn't dedicating all it's forces to eradicating the Tyranids before fighting the Tau or anybody else for that matter. It seems to me that if the Tyranid threat isn't dealt with, the entire crusade becomes pointless. Target prioritization seems like it would dictate this be about a Tyrannic War rather than the grab-bag they seem to be intending.

As far as the map goes, it's the standard fare: a bunch of planets arbitrarily arranged, most of which we will never get any real information on. As FFG and BI established long ago, they like to provide a bare skeleton of a setting, and let the GM flesh it out. That's fine with me (in fact, I really don't care as I'm probably going to design my own region of space) but I can understand why Adam thinks it's kind of lame. Though I can hardly begin to understand why Adam is surprised by it, or even really feels it's comment-worthy seeing as it's the route they've gone with all their 40k Roleplay material.

Atheosis said:

I guess I'm just ever hopeful of my low expectations being exceeded Ath.

Also, this one seems a declining standard, when DH was released we received a reasonable sized Sector with Calixis, this one seems half the size. If that means we get twice the detail on the smaller number of worlds I won't mind ... but something makes me suspect that won't be the case.

Do we yet know when this game is going to be set btw? As that hive fleet would be pretty questionable even existing in 815 imo.

Velvetears said:

I have never once posted a complaint that the DDs don't include enough content. Perhaps you can find evidence for your assertion that I ever have ... or post a retraction?

EDIT - Also ... aren't personal attacks the mark of the true troll?

Personal attacks are the mark of a bad troll. A true one is far more subtle.

Trolling is a art.

@Atheosis

The write-up was nice. The setting has some interesting ideas, though I am hard pressed to think of why the the Imperium isn't dedicating all it's forces to eradicating the Tyranids before fighting the Tau or anybody else for that matter. It seems to me that if the Tyranid threat isn't dealt with, the entire crusade becomes pointless. Target prioritization seems like it would dictate this be about a Tyrannic War rather than the grab-bag they seem to be intending.

I think we know too little about the Crusade to judge that yet. If the Tyranids were discovered only recently, Imperial Inertia might be at work, with the Administratum not yet having wrapped their head around redistributing reinforcements, especially with the odd logistics involved through the Warp Gate and the communication routes partially blocked by the warp storms.

An alternative explanation would be that the Warmaster assumes the Crusade has the 'nids more or less under control - but letting the bluies spread through the sector, disseminating their heretical ideas of the "greater good" wouldn't be exactly conducive to an easier campaign either.

@Adam

At the risk of being one of the "usual suspects", I'd assume the planets listed are those the Imperium both knows about and considers somehow important. There will certainly be all kinds of black rocks strewn in between as well as quite a few planets the Administratum forgot or considers irrelevant to the Crusade.

Cifer said:

Ah but look at the map. There are markers for Tyranid attacks all over it, even far from Hive Fleet Dagon. It would seem that the problem is widespread and has been going on for a while. While the Imperium is slow to act, a crusade, already mobilized for war, shouldn't be, at least not to the same degree. I guess we'll have to wait to see the details, but I can't help but think it would've been wiser to leave the Tyranid threat as something on the horizon, with genestealer cults and Lictor attacks forming the vanguard of a looming threat, rather than a full hive fleet threatening the entire sector. That way if a GM doesn't really want to go the bug-hunt route he doesn't have to ignore the tons of Tyranid attack markers all over the sector.

Funny - i hadn't noticed the attacks in the "southwest"... might be a splinter-fleet though, or perhaps only a few 'stealer cults waiting for daddy to show up.

I'm not sure if you mistook them, but most of the little symbols directly next to the planets mark watch stations, not tyranid attacks. Still, quite a few real attacks too many for comfort...

Here's something no one seems to have noticed, or at least not mention.

The planet Avalos from Final Sanction does not appear anywhere on the map. Recall that Avalos was described as somewhat unimportant in the grand machine of the Imperium. So, the map very well may only show those worlds that the Imperial military machine deem strategically important at this time.

-=Brother Praetus=-