The point of any story is that you aren't going to right about the poor schmuck SM's that die as a scout or the troops that take a plasma gun or dakka gun shell the first time they step outside in power armour. So authors have the right to follow some special cases to make an awesome story.

It's worth noting, as you just said, that Deathwatch also pick the very best Space Marines so you have access to a potential hero. You don't have to make it easy for them either though.

This topic reminds me of an incident in the 80's. In Grenada the US sent in what is still one of the largest Navy Seal operation. The thought was basically if one or two 4 man fire teams can do "X" then a whole platoon of 40 Navy Seals should be able to do "Y". This proved to be incorrect. They were tasked with capturing an important target at a small Airport. They were spotted and pinned down by enemy fire resulting in one of the worst losses for the Navy Seals to date. The Navy Seals are a covert operations team, and those don't work well when unit size is scaled up.

The same goes for the Deathwatch; they are largely a cover operations team and scaling up the size of their operation wouldn't necessary equate to scaled up success. When you scale up operational size a team goes from being Navy Seals to being Army Rangers with a greater emphasis on conventional warfare skills.

The same applie to Deathwatch attempting to engage in a hit and run attack against a Tyranid fleet. Historically a smaller force would be more likely to be successful than a larger one in a hit and run operation. A fleet would probably pop in launch boarding torpedoes or thunderhawks lay down cover fire till those vehicles make contact then break away. A team or two would conduct its operation and then attempt to return at predetermined time relying on a ship or fleet to provide the cover fire to escape.

That said it seems some have missed the point of how elite Deathwatch members are. The "rookies" of the Deathwatch are the best of the their respective chapters; captains and librarians are used as sergeants and the best sergeants and best specialists are "standard" members. These are the most elite of all space marines. Out of 1,000,000 or more humans only one will have what it takes to be a space marine, and "out of 100 only 1" is good enough to be a Deathwatch member. That means a chapter of 1000 marines has 10 members good enough to be Deathwatch members, not counting Captains and Librarians which are outside of that body count.

Kage2020 said:

One answer, Power Fist. Let's rip you a new sphincter.

Atheosis said:

Ultramarines novel with Uriel Ventris. He is part of the Deathwatch, they kill the Narn Queen by boarding a Hive Ship and defeating the entire fleet.

So done by BL already boys. Tyranids are dangerous but still relatively unintelligent.

Where an army may not pass a single man can. This is where deathwatch comes in play. Really beleive the hive ship goes hey wait I have 4 intruders on board lets stop the invasion and derive all resources to stopping them! No, probably reacted with instinct by activating basic response and by the time they escalate your kill-team is in position to damage the hive fleet theoricly.

Wow am I in the minority here.

I guess everyone else thinks four Deathwatch Marines are some kind of unstoppable force...

That's kind of interesting.

Certainly not unstoppable - in fact, there's quite a few things in the scenario that can stop them quite permanently. However, it isn't exactly unthinkable that they succeed and the fact that noone was ever stupid enough to try something like that on this hive fleet before helps as well.

Atheosis said:

Depends moslty on how you want to play your Kill-Teams.

Are you a space opera kind of player ( most of the 40k universe revolves around the Space Opera concept) or you want a realistic/impossible universe?

If you follow all the fluff and basic rules a Genestealer can kill an entire kill-team with a bit of cover and distraction... You want to play at rerole a dead marines or a "balanced" kill team?

Again no one ever said they should all come back or that it should be easy. If you look at the free quest moslty every where you have the GM boxes on how to add the sense of urgency or the impression of the suicide mission and yes most kill team mission should have that suicidal feeling else it just 4 tank on a foot slugging stroll down the evil's lair.

Kill Teams are stoppable. They are just the best of the best marines, so it takes a bunch to bring them down. They're smart enough to know when to and when not to fight, they use surprise and stealth to their advantage and they are hardened veterans who have encountered many aliens in battle.

They aren't unstoppable. The Deathwatch game emphasizes hordes because you are still only 4 marines but a horde can and will eventually get lucky. Otherwise you're fighting creatures that would rip apart most humans. Though marines are superhumans, and to some degree the best way to think of them is as the closest things to the superheros of the 40k universe... just grounded in the setting and technological frame work of the narrative.

crisaron said:

I tend to like the feel of a Norse epic where the heroes are uber but ultimately doomed to die in battle. That said, when I run Deathwatch people are probably going to be rerolling fairly often.

Being in Deathwatch is a *****.

Atheosis said:

You should look more at Dark Heresy then, the system is made for fast in game rerolls. Mostly all characters can be generated within a few minutes. When a deathwatch members is killed I doubt there is available replacement anywhere close by. So loosing a Kill-Team member should be a crippling thing and a very big set back for the team it self and not just a oups factor.

there will probably be a dishonor points for loosing team mates or something akin.

Honestly, reading that adventure. I'd go so far as to say it isn't even going to be easy. Especially if the PCs do some of the more crazy secondary and tertiary objectives. I could very easily see it being suicide, they're just lucky to have teleporting beacons to get the hell out of dodge. Success in stopping the hiveship is pretty much the stuff Legend is made of. That's what Marines do. And I do think the adventure does a good job of showing in multiple spots that the PCs should realize they likely aren't coming back from this. It's a gambit, and one with long odds at that.

crisaron said:

Really? What's Dark Heresy? I've never heard of it. Is it fun? Can I play an Inquisitor? (Sorry, but I couldn't resist.)

As far as replacements being readily available, I tend to disagree. If a kill-team can't replace lost members fairly quickly they aren't going to be a viable military unit. If you think that a small team of Marines taking on huge swarms of enemies shouldn't result in casualties fairly often, well then there isn't much of a thrill in the combats you're putting them through. Obviously, if a member bites it during a mission he won't be getting replaced immediately, but within the Jericho Reach it would seem that Deathwatch has a significant presence, so I tend to think getting a replacement between missions wouldn't be that hard.

Although the idea of Marine replacement does have interesting implications for PC death...

Kage

The Deathwatch teams that are stationed together I'd say would have to be larger than the actual unit sent on a mission. Even still I wouldn't call it significant. We are still talking squads of veterans and not anywhere near an army stationed at any given locale.

I'd imagine in a given fortress, there are about 12 marines, sent out in teams of 4 or 5; two tending to be captain or librarian ranks the rest being different specialists. One or two teams sent out on a given mission with a few left watching the base when they're away and acting as replacements. Deathwatch, a special forces type unit, really need to be thought of as a scarce resource. Since the Deathwatch are stationed across the Imperium so they can react quickly its not as if you can put a whole lot in one location and still support the distributed needs.

How the Deathwatch operates is actually one of the things that I'm actively looking forward to with the release of Deathwatch. It might be interesting to see what FFG add to the "lore," as it were, and to see how much and what kind of detail they get into.

Kage

LOL.

They are a scalpel made for a specific job. War are fought by billions of imperial guards thrown out to the meat grinder. Space marine forces will be the sword tip to a vangard or the hammer to a crushing advance, yet without millions of foot sluggers to take the brunt of the enemy danage the Space marines would loose in the end since they are too few and hard to replace.

Kill-teams are what your black ops are now. A black ops while dangerous unit is still a small unit with clear kill or seek and destroy objectives, last stand defence before, planetary evacuation recue of presice target etc. Yes they can old their own against a horde but they should not conquer world by the 4 of them they should stall or block an enemy but always as a small but very important cog in the Imperial machine. Each reclamation crusade as millions of troop to suport and die during the large scale attrition wars of the 40k millenium.

A kill team will be able to stop a war boss toe to toe but will eventually bu crushed by the tide of flesh, not an imperial army, it will work the tides but the boss will take it's death toll maybe breaking the Imperial guard moral with it's nob squad. The kill team jump in kill the guy and make the Imperial guard proud and fuels them with the Emperor Wrath!

In the end all story arcs arc are possible but remember playing is fun for a little while mass killing but your players will get fed up of the dice rolls if there is never a danger of dying, neither should they be sent too often to the meat grinder, that is a job for the Imperial Guard, it's all about balance which is my point or the one I was trying to make.

I think much of the capabilities of a Space Marine squad can be considered "paper strength" as opposed to actual strength. This would speak more to how the Imperium logistics of their use, than to their actual capabilities.

For example, with Navy Seals and other special ops teams their on paper strength is many times larger than their actual ability. Like how a Navy Seal platoon is regarded as a company strength unit. This comes from looking at the resources at the units disposal and unit "force multipliers" that on paper increase the units capabilities. Such that mission planners say in place of this seals team I will need to send that many marines if I decide to approach this differently.

Looking at the Imperium, I forget what exactly the fluff say, but a company is regarded as enough to conquer a planet of a given size. In practical terms it'd be near impossible for so few men to secure an entire planet, but what a statement like that says is in the eye of the Imperium, a company may have the resources equivalent to what the Imperium would normally use, worth of Guardsmen, to take a planet.

Thus alot of the hyperbole could be regarded as putting marines into the like terms of their guardsmen counterparts.

peterstepon said:

I've just been reading about that for another post, the Ultramarines alone, and the entirety of Ultramars PDF (i.e. millions of men) and a Titan legion.

But I'm sure the Ultramarines did more damage than the titan legion right?

more then a titan legion? possible...

They lost the entire terminator 1st company on the last day of the seige if i remember correctly.

Face Eater said:

Yeah, but you have to remember that Marines are basically micro-Titans, at least in the estimation of some.

Kage

While it is cool an cinematic to have the DW team board the Hive Ship and fight Tyranids, I do have this nagging feeling that the SM characters are being made a bit *too* powerful in a sense.

I expect this comes down to my playing the original Space Hulk game, and the expansions. It took SM in Terminator armor to be close to even with Genestealers, especially in a boarding action. Hence the reason the Space Hulk used terminators. IIRC, Genestealers rolled 2d6 in close combat, choose highest, and terminators rolled 1d6 (+1 or +2 for power sword/fist, and 2d6 for lightning claws). The rules for SM in power armor, I believe, rolled 1d6-2. You needed 15 SM in power armor or so to equal 4 terminators ... and terminators were in general slightly worse than genestealers.

Just saying. I realize that they are different games, and of course, the 40k world has changed a little since then ... but I think this is why the DW SM seem a bit too powerful, even given the fact that they are "heroic PCs". Boarding a Space Hulk, let alone a Tyranid Hive ship, with only 4 SM in power armor and a squad of IG stormtroopers seems doomed to failure, not just suicide. A handful of genestealers *should* be able to wipe them out, especially in the maze that is the Hive Ship.

Then again, maybe genestealers in DW are just too weak?

@dvang

Um... I've just read the stats of the 'stealers... they have more WS than a Marine, more Strength, they inflict more damage (assuming marines without a powerfist), have about the same amount of wounds and only slightly less durability (TB 6 AP 6 vs TB 8 AP 8). If they get into melee with a marine unwounded, it doesn't take too much bad luck for the marine to die. How much more deadly do you want to make them, considering the Marines likely are almost First Company equivalent?

Cifer said:

Not to mention their "Rending Claws". It's brutal on the players in close quarters.

Alex

If a tenth of the total Marines out there could destroy the Tyranid threat for good the Lords of Terra would allready have ordered it.
No, the Tyranid are the slow doom of the Imperium and all other life, they can slow them down but will never be able to stop them....

Santiago said:

And Chaos is the inexorable tide of impossibility that threatens all of existence. And the Necrons are an undying, unyielding legion that outnumbers the stars and shall not cease until all life is dead...

The 40k universe is on the verge of a good half a dozen apocalypses by the end of the 41st Millennium. The big question isn't "how can we survive", it's "which one will hit first".