A small question,...or a big one depends

Doe the deathwatch have their own space ships? Or do they acquire transport from rogue traders and normal imperial ships,....? Or do the deathwatch get ships from space marine chapters (like how they get the marines themselves). Is there anything mentioned about that in the book?

RyueOkami said:

I think much would depend on how you want to play it tbh. I would think in most cases they would travel via imperial ships who are diverted or are planning to visit the location required for the Kill Team.

However, it is possible the Kill Team are associated with an Inquisitor of Ordo Xenos, and therefore have transport.

They may even be on a RT ship - though once beyond imperial space the RT is free to follow his own mandate, though I doubt they would want to annoy a group of very tough Astartes.

Also I am not sure if the actual "getting there" is as important as the actual mission, unlike the other 2 games, where travel is more of a focus, especially with time scales being a factor.

40K 5th ed. rulebook had a small illustration of a small destroyer-class ship (can't remember the name) which has crew of 150 serfs and could support 5 space marines on board. I thought it would make a great "home-base" for Deathwatch campaign

My plan is to put an Ordo Xenos inquisitor, along with his/her closest acolytes, to lead the ship and the player characters to do the "heavy lifting" when investigations require it.

The Deathwatch do have a few frigates to ship them around the Jericho Expanse, otherwise they might use Inquisitorial/Naval/Rogue Trader vessels to get to where they need to go.

In the 2nd demo it says they have a Battle Barge.

Nope, no Battle Barge in the core book, though, of course, with the number of other Chapters in the Expanse, it might well have been the Battle Barge of one of those Chapters.

The Deathwatch rely on rapid-strike vessels, mostly destroyers and frigates, as their requirements for a ship is that they need to get in fast, off the Marines at their mission point, and then retreat/hide until they are needed to pick up the Marines again. In the Expanse, they do have a few raider and merchant vessels, mostly captured from pirates or donated to them, in reserve though, if a mission ever requires them

There are 6 main classes of space marine vessel. In descending order of scale:-

-Battle Barge

-Strike Cruiser

-Nova Class Frigate

-Gladius Class Frigate

-"Rapid Strike vessel" usually either a sword class frigate or cobra class destroyer

-Hunter Class Destroyer

Pictures here:-

http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat490027a&rootCatGameStyle=

The smallest of these ships is likely to be in the region of 1 km long, the largest 5-7km+.

Anything Frigate sized or smaller would make a perfectly acceptable transport for a small Deathwatch squad. Normally, such vessels would be crewed by at least a 10-man squad of marines, but the Deathwatch are an elite even amongst the Astartes, so they probably have one of the cooler small ships even if there's only a handful of them aboard.

Normally, vessels of this size would need crews in the tens of thousands, but Marine ships have always been portrayed as being heavily automated, with many servitors and smaller, more elite crews. No numbers have formally been released about the size of such crews, (EDIT: I missed Polaria's comment above, apologies, 150 sounds about right for a smaller vessel, though) but it's possible they may be in the hundreds as opposed to the thousands normally seen on an Imperial ship. It is doubtful that this would have any negative effect on the ship's performance: indeed, Marine vessels are usually portrayed as being at least equivalent in efficacy to Imperial Navy ships of the same size.

According to the old Battlefleet Gothic articles on the subject, Space Marine vessels tend to have very small crews anyway. With the only actual Marines on board being the officers, and some Techmarines working with the Mechanicus adepts assigned to the ship. The rest of the crew being made up of a combination of Chapter serfs and servitors.

I'd imagine you wouldn't find too many Dark Holds on a Space Marine ship, or if you did they would be referred to by a different name anyway... Practise.

I always wanted to start up a Space Marine fleet, but it suffers from the same problems as a lot of the specialist games, that being lack of players.

And of course being a crusade there would be nigh endless fleet of vessals serving the Departmento Munitorium operating in the sector.

it'd be cool to have a Deathwatch Strike Cruiser though. using the sexy forgeworld GK incarnation. oh yes. it will be mine.

I would have to agree, Frigate size or slightly smaller would be sufficent. Probably be a great tool if it wasnt Astartes either, good role play interaction with Captain and crew of a civilian vessel. Hmmmm, I think ive got an idea for my campaign.

That is a good point the idea of having a captain with a different agenda than the marines, perhaps warping them into an ambush? or maybe fooling with the equipment so they do not correctly, would need a good reason though, however they will probably want a ship after that has no "variables"

Of course, such tampering need not be malicious either. What commander wouldn't want a team of Space Marines to help them in their next battle? The Lord General commanding that piece of the crusade could see to it that the ship the Deathwatch Marines were on was 'accidently' detoured toward a different battlezone than the one they were originally intended to go to.

I was thinking of having the crusade "hire" a Rogue Trader to fly around the Death Watch team. He will of course think that they owe him a favor or two in his own endeavers. I am really looking forward to throwing charismaticly difficult RT at the team, a good guy that just pushes their "friendship."

A small frigate or trader size vessel would be perfect for a kill-team. Heck an adventure where they aid them could lead to the team establishing ties (or enforcing Imperial mandates) to obtain the vessel as a mobile base of operations. What rpg group wouldnt want a base! It also provides you a method of giving information to the kill-team, mission briefings, etc. There is a lot there to use, a transport ship is a great tool for GM's to use.

Firebreak said:

Trying to blackmail and/or manipulate Space Marines?

I can't see that not ending badly. lol

As for the Deathwatch and starships on the whole, I could see them having a decent number of ships for their own use, mostly frigates and destroyers, with an occasional Strike Cruiser that probably gets used as a mobile command base more than an actual transport and warship. And then I imagine that they have the authority (through ancient oaths of fealty and obligations, etc.) to request transport from the Imperial Navy and friendly Marine Chapters. With a Rogue Trader doing the job from time to time as well, because they're the most convenient.

I'd imagine Rogue Traders don't like having Space Marines around too much though. For all that they might be god and king on their own ship, noone really wants to piss off a bunch of Space Marines, they're kinda strict about loyalty to the Emperor and so-forth.

Blood Pact said:

There was something in one of the space wolf books, that they had an ancient treaty with one of the navigator houses I think.
Because of that treaty they got the navigators, but had to send some of their own as bodyguards for the high ranking members of that house.

Such kind of treaties could give them permanent access to ships of some houses (even rogue trader houses I think wouldn't be too desinterested in such dealings, that gives them a few very very tough bodyguards)

RyueOkami said:

You're thinking of the Space Wolves' oath to House Belisarius of the Navis Nobilite; an oath both have honored since before the Heresy. The wolves get highly competent navigators and the house gets the Wolf Blades. The Wolf Blades are kind of like "Pappy" Boyington's Black Sheep Squadron of WWII; all highly skilled, but ultimately viewed as screw ups by their brothers and lords.

-=Brother Praetus=-

Brother Praetus said:

They are also used as a Chapter Master training ground since moslty all Wolf Lords have passed through it at some point.

crisaron said: