Lucius Valerius said:

None of those are considered standard gear. If your team really wants to spend their requisition on them, then fine. Auspexes are a fairly understandable choice, but should not be considered essential, unless you mission is specifically to scan something (and then you will probably get it for free). Cartograph? With the correct intel most Space Marines would be expected to find their own way about with little trouble.(they all receive Surface Navigation as a starting skill). That's only needed on very special occasions. Dataslate? What do they need that for? Seem pretty much to be a mission specific item again ("Take this dataslate with important intel on it to blah") and so free again. Screamers? Can be useful, but then it's your choice to spend those points on that (having to pass on some items to choose what you want is part of what the requisition system is about). Certainly not standard gear. Vox Caster? The presumption seems to be (based on the published adventures so far) that the team largely works on their own, and so will not regularly need long range coms. Ok, again, mission specific objectives might require it (Find the location of the rebel base and then call in an orbital strike), but most of the time it is entirely unnecessary.

Personally I would aim for about 15-30 requisition per player (depending on difficulty and length of the mission) with it going up as the campaign goes on (and some more epxnsive starts becoming available). Most of the most expensive things I see as being items that they would be aquire as Signiature Wargear or in other events in the campaign, and that limit allows them to get some not too bad stuff at all, but they would have to make some real choices if they wanted non weapon gear.

borithan said:

This is Deathwatch not Tactical Marine 2nd Squadron. DW is an elite force that not only deal in surgical strikes but on intel gathering as well. They operate in hotspots with thousands of enemy combattants around them and while some missions might just be go there and kill Bob the Evil SOB, missions should be really a little more complicated then that, otherwise orbital bombing whould be standard practice

Now let's see what you can do with said item and see it they are really needed or not.

Auspex: Are you really telling me your team goes around without scanning their surroundings every now and then ? How many ambushed have they fallen into ?

Cartograph: It's not just a tool that show you the "you are here" dot, it's a dettailed topographic map of a huge area and the team can use ti to plan assault, guess enemy position, possible ambushes and the like. A map can be many things if used effectively.

Dataslate: This can also be used to record data. Enemy forward positions the DW was not aware of, collect intel of various nature that might be later delivered to the captain of whoever is in charge with minimal lose of data. Yeah Astartes are supposed to have an eidetic memory but not all masters believe that.

Vox Caster: How are you supposed to be in contact with the mothership you arrived with or your commander's thunderhawk without one of this ? Smoke signals ?

Screamers: How many time your team have to crawl into an enemy fortification or in underground enviroments (AKA dungeon crawl) ? This guys are the best tactician and operators in the galaxy, are you telling me you go into an enemy closed enviroment without leave something behind to make sure you are not outflanked ?

Gosh if you say you don't need any of this stuff for a surgical stike on enemy position I guess your team is going to be short lived

+1 to what Lucius Valerius is stating.

1) Auspex: Are you really telling me your team goes around without scanning their surroundings every now and then ? How many ambushed have they fallen into ?

- Searching surroundings using their already impressive senses and the stuff their armour comes with? Sure. And if they had an auspex they would use that as well. But they would have to choose to take that instead of something else as they decided to prioritise it over something else (like fancy ammo, or whatever). The requisition system is about making the players make choices. Do they take the auspex or do they take a couple of clips of stalker rounds? It's not standard equipment, but they have every right to choose it if they wish.

2) Cartograph: It's not just a tool that show you the "you are here" dot, it's a dettailed topographic map of a huge area and the team can use ti to plan assault, guess enemy position, possible ambushes and the like. A map can be many things if used effectively.

- Do that with the data provided at the beginning of the mission and then have to memorise it/record it on something slightly less fancy. Again, if they choose to pay for it, fine they can use it, but in no way should it be regarded as standard for every mission.

3) Dataslate: This can also be used to record data. Enemy forward positions the DW was not aware of, collect intel of various nature that might be later delivered to the captain of whoever is in charge with minimal lose of data. Yeah Astartes are supposed to have an eidetic memory but not all masters believe that.

- Memorise the data, carry it in the form that it was acquired. If they are truely expected to come across important data that will need transporting, then they will probably be issued with one at the start of the mission (free of requisition). Any totally by chance info they get they will have to work their own thing out for, and they might choose to pay for one if it happens often enough.

4) Vox Caster: How are you supposed to be in contact with the mothership you arrived with or your commander's thunderhawk without one of this ? Smoke signals ?

- Part of the point is that your not meant to be in contact all the time. They are a team of super soldiers who deal with most stuff they come across on their own. They don't have back-up most of the time, and will usually have non-radio reliant ways of getting extracted (Be at the pick up zone at a particular time, link up ith friendly forces and use their signals, when the destruction of the Tau base is deteced a Thunderhawk will be sent down to a pre-arranged location, or even simply have a ship of their own to park somewhere and return to), and if it turns out they need to communicate with a ship in orbit outside pre-arranged methods they will need to improvise. Find a local abandoned coms station, infiltrate an enemy base and use their coms system. Missions which are coms reliant they should be issued one for free.

5) Screamers: How many time your team have to crawl into an enemy fortification or in underground enviroments (AKA dungeon crawl) ? This guys are the best tactician and operators in the galaxy, are you telling me you go into an enemy closed enviroment without leave something behind to make sure you are not outflanked ?

- I sure as hell wouldn't use screamers. Give away the fact that there are enemy infiltrators as soon as someone stumbles across them. Just keep your eyes open (maybe leaving someone to monitor the escape route to ensure it is not cut off). Screamers are more for securing a fixed location like a campsite. As for being outflanked... if you wander into an enemy held facility the default position is to be outflanked. Just make sure you don't trip of the alarm until you are ready, and then prepare top be pressed on all sides.

6) Gosh if you say you don't need any of this stuff for a surgical stike on enemy position I guess your team is going to be short lived

- None of this is really surgical strike gear. For a surgical strike you need lots of weapons, demo equipment, and any necessary gear to get anything out you are going in for. There is not time to go snooping around for enemy intel, radio communication is probably un-necessary as you will probably ride out in what you arrived in, or the mission will be short enough for a pre-arranged pick up time ("The extraction gunship will meet you at the extraction zone 20 minutes after you land"). The gear you are talking about is more for a sustained infiltration mission... and then you will probably have less need for weapons and so have the points to spend on that kind of gear

Lucius Valerius said:

Nope, my team hasn't usd any of that crap.

So if I understand correctly (having only skimmed the Req section), a team get x pts of Req per objective. Does the DM count also the secondary and the tertiary (secret/optional objectives) and not tell them?

IMO, the DM should give any known objectives in advance and a Req total (although I'm a fan or more than using 9-4 as a per group number. It does get a bit '...and the kitchen sink' when the brothers have a bit of Renown under them if it's per brother.). That Req total should include any hidden objectives and the difficulty modifiers. As a GM, I would not give any difficulty modifiers at all.

Yes, that does mean that the group can reverse engineer to determine that they haven't done all the objectives, but so what? With the difficulty modifiers, you can't be sure if there are tertiary objectives or just Veteran Primary, etc.

So if I understand correctly (having only skimmed the Req section), a team get x pts of Req per objective. Does the DM count also the secondary and the tertiary (secret/optional objectives) and not tell them?

Assuming the Deathwatch's intel is more or less correct, he should, as the DW will have some relatively accurate guesses on the difficulty of the mission. On the other hand, if the DW's intelligence gathering has been botched (maybe there's a traitor somewhere?), the characters might find themselves radically underequipped and with unsuitable equipment looking for WMDs that don't exist - oh, wait.
Surviving and even succeeding in such a mission should obviously yield a little more XP and Renown than usual.

Cifer said:

You know what...I retract my answer. This makes more sense. No Req for secret objectives not known to the Deathwatch.

Oh, I think in most cases, the DW will hand out the amount of requisition that truly fits the mission, including secret objectives, simply because they know there'll always be some kind of target of opportunity. Unless at some point they somehow don't, which is when the excrement is introduced to the rotating air-scrubber blades...

tkis said:

I was considering base requisition per group to divvy up, plus requisition equal to each characters renown, plus exploding 1d10 per renown level.

I'm just sticking with what a majority of the book says.

Req is for each Space Marine. Plain and simple.

You want to carry around ridiculous amounts of wargear? Sure, just show me where you're sticking that Thunderhammer, Bolter with telescopic site, Bolt Pistol, 5 Meltabombs, Power Axe (for back purposes), specialty rounds, and all those other goodies you took.

Can't do that? Oh well, take less.

I have mixed feelings about this ruling. On the positive side it makes Signature Wargear all the more precious. On the negative side the requisition system does not seem to be set up for this model. I find it a bit odd that a team of any number of Deathwatch can often only buy three clips of special ammo for a mission.

I hope they fix the requisition model in the FAQ.

Well you don't have to rationalize it to yourself any longer- I took the time to ask Mr. Watson who graciously clarified himself. My request and his reply have been put up in the FAQ and Errata thread, but I'll post them here as well for posterity.

> Rule Question:
> There has been some controversy surrounding the replies you have been giving out as relates the proper way to set requisition. It has been asserted >that table 9-4 on page 273 is intended to be used to set the total requisition a group has access to among all members, rather than the total requisition >each member has access to on an individual basis (which can then be pooled). The problem is that this contradicts the text on 273 which reads:
> "The final part of creating the mission is to choose its Requisition total. This is the amount of resources that each Battle-Brother has to >draw weapons, >armour, and equipment from the Chapter armouries for >use in the field."

> and the text in the example on 274 which reads:
> "A GM creates a mission with one Skilled Primary Objective, One Veteran Secondary Objective, and two Novice Tertiary Objectives. Adding all of >these together gives a total of 62 requisition for each Battle Brother."

> The only thing even *vaguely* contradicting this is the box relating to pooling requisition on 273 which mostly seems like a clarification of an optional >way to spread resources around the group rather than anything contradicting the "per member" interpretation.

> This is important because it's causing a furor on the forums and has pretty HUGE implications for games- using the "clarified" method means that a >straightforward mission like the one used in the example is going to give a party of 4-5 Deathwatch members around 60-70 requisition total, which >means that a load of Hellfire rounds for a Devastator's heavy bolter, an auspex and a single melta bomb are going to tap a squad's "budget" for an >entire campaign. This seems at odds both with common sense, the described setting, the rules text on 273 and 274 and the text in the armoury chapter >on page 138 where the per-Battle Brother requisition of a "straightforward mission" is said >to be around 50, a number that would be VERY difficult to >reach using >the numbers from table 9-4 as a measure of total kill-team resources >(as it would imply a "straightfoward mission" for 5 players had >around 10 primary and secondary objectives).

> So my question is- is the requisition REALLY determined by taking the number generated from table 9-4 as an aggregate total, or should >that table >be used on a per player basis as my reading of the text on 273, 274 and the rest of the book would imply? If I'm wrong, I'm wrong, but I feel it's more >likely this is just an innocent minor error that has gotten blow way out of proportion.

> Thanks for your time and your wonderful game!

Please post this answer on the message boards if you wish:

Mea culpa...It would seem that my logis implant failed due to irregular maintenance and not enough blessed oils!

The correct answer for Requisition is that it is per Space Marine in the Kill-team, not per group as I had previously stated.

The servitor responsible has been duly re-lobotomized.

Ross Watson
Senior RPG Developer
Fantasy Flight Games
[email protected]

Well... that is definitely a reply worth a "wheee!". Thanks for asking!

Yeah - I got same answer from Ross. Requisition Points are per marine, not per team.

Also, I got an answer on the Force Weapon Question. The special ability is used just like a psychic power i.e. choose power level, roll test + psy rating x5. This can generate perils and phenomena. Also, he confirmed that the D.o.S. from the defender subtract D.o.S. from the attacker on opposed rolls to determine the final D.o.S....

So, librarian rolls test and gets 3 D.o.S. Defender rolls WP test and gets 2 D.o.S. Librarian successfully uses ability with a total of 1 D.o.S.

Dont know why, but I CANT COPY AND PASTE the **** email he sent me! Dont really wanna copy it word for word - I asked a fair number of questions. Anyone got any idea why I cant copy and paste in this text box???

Short version: Because the forum software is an abomination that should be purged with fire.

Long version: You'll have to enable pop-ups, press ctrl+v to open a pop-up, paste the text there and click ok.

Cifer said:

A thousand thanks. I've had the same problem. FRUSTRATION! You the man (or woman)!

I had to open the forum in IE Tab within Chrome to get cut/paste to work. Between the hassle of cut/paste and how terribly the login/refresh stuff works, I must agree. This forum software needs a major exorcism.