Hey everybody

I got into a discussion about the ranks inside the kill team.

He said that there is always a permanent Squad leader within the team. While I have read it as the kill team in on itself is very fluid rankwise, you chose your squad leader according to the mission.

So the only real permanant leader of the team is the Watch captain, and within the kill team there is no permanant ranks. Am I right or have I gotten it wrong ?

Right. Your Watch Captain is your teams immediate superior, team Leader is chosen on mission to mission basis. You might encounter additional ranking superiors during your missions however eg. inquisitors.

The same part of the books also suggests there might be a permanent leader but should be chosen by the players.

My suggestion is that during character creation the group elects a permanent leader so one of the players can adjust their build to it, Ultra Marines are best suited as squad leader.

I would really disagree with the idea of a permanent squad leader. First, doing so hinders your Kill Team. Your selection of leader determines which Oaths your Kill Team may take. Certain oaths are very useful in certain missions, and having a "permanent" squad leader prevents you from using that flexibility.

Second, from a standpoint of the story, it doesn't make sense to have a permanent Squad leader. If you are going on a mission to recover xenos-tech, then you probably WANT the Techmarine to have veto-power over the guy who wants to destroy it as heretical. If you are going on a mission to recover an important Imperial from a hostile psychic race, then it might be really useful to have the Librarian making the calls on that mission. If your mission is to defend a Sororitas shrine from alien invaders, then the Devastator might be the guy best suited to leading you on this mission.

Of course, if your team WANTS a permanent leader, then there is nothing wrong with doing that, but I really don't think it should be a universal recommendation for all Kill Teams.

tkis said:

A bit misleading.The Inquisition has no authority over the DW. They can only request assistance.

Alex

I do love these forums in my opinon fluff wise the kill team should have a permanent leader its rediculus to think at a military orginization would not a have a team leader and in my groups thats how we play. However game mechanic wise we choose a character before each mission who is" leader" as in we use him to base our oaths and coehesion points off of but roleplaying wise we have a standard leader in the team.

souljawebb said:

Well, the Deathwatch certainly isn't a standard military organization in most respects. The Imperial Guard, the Imperial Navy, even the Chapters of the Space Marines, would all (to one degree or another) be military organizations, but the Deathwatch really isn't (at least in any consistent way). It doesn't field an "army". It has members that serve as an oath, or as repayment of an ancient compact. It might assign the same Marine (with the same training) to a diplomatic mission, or an investigation, or an assassination, or a years long solo monitoring mission. It certainly is composed of Marines from military organizations (of a sort), but I don't see that it consistently meets a specific definition of a military organization.

Furthermore, there's just NOTHING in the book that suggests that Kill-Teams are always composed of the same members. While it might be a convenient way to play within your group, especially since everybody identifies with their character, there is NOTHING to suggest that is a standard or required practice in the Deathwatch. It would be perfectly within the rules, and within the known background of the Deathwatch, for one mission to consist of 4 Marines (two Tactical, one Devastator, one Assault) and the very next mission to consist of the same two Tactical Marines, a Techmarine, a Librarian, and two different Devastator Marines.

Your own gaming group might consist of the same members who play the same character each session, but another group might allow players to swap out different Characters between missions, and another group might have players who show up occasionally and only play in Missions when they can.

I can't see where you would get the impression, fluff wise, that the kill team should have a permanent leader. The rules specifically state otherwise, and I haven't been able to find anything in the "fluff" that suggests otherwise. In one sense, the Kill-Team does have a leader (the Watch Captain), but given that there are different Watch Captains for different Watch Stations, and members of the Deathwatch might serve at different Watch Stations at different times, it seems unlikely that all Deathwatch Kill Teams are always overseen by the same Watch Captain.

Finally, the rules make it clear that the "leader" doesn't get to boss the other characters (or the other players around). That would make it pretty clear that the "leader" isn't a leader in the same way as a commanding officer in a military organization. I don't know of many military organizations where your squad is free to ignore the dictates of their leader without consequences.

The point of the Deathwatch is to be flexible and adaptable, far more so than any normal chapter can be. Having a designated full time squad leader undermines this flexibility. The ability to have the specialist most capable of making the correct decision based on their knowledge, experience and temperament for the mission at hand is an indispensable asset for the Deathwatch.

Brother-Sergeant Cloten said:

Next there are several other sources of fluff that have been penned by GW and there subsiday the black library that talk about the nature of kill teams. And yes a kill team does have the same members all the time they might have a techmarine or another specialist attacheted to them for specific missions but other than that there make up stays the same.

Next Point I said in my group we have a squad leader IN MY GROUP if you dont like it dont do it, we still use the game mechanic of selecting a character to sware the oatch and so on and so on and I never said that anyone in my group bosses another around that was your assumption.

I fyou would like some references to specific deathwatch lore Ill point you to the books warrior coven and warrior brood both came before this and are about ther deathwatch a kill team lead by Quirion Octavious in said book he talks about how long his team has been together and some of the things they have been through as well as telling a interesting story.

I am still a firm beliver that choosing a leader before each mission is a game mechanic not really deathwatch fluff as it isnt in the big history of the deathwatch section of the book. However as many others have said we all have our thoughts on how it should be done your free to play how you want.

Hello everybody, thank you all for all the replys.

"A bit misleading.The Inquisition has no authority over the DW. They can only request assistance." From AK-73

I am a bit uncertain there, because in Warrior brood there is an Inquisitor that actually commands the Deathwatch kill team, she and he, the both of them command them like commanding officers, so most likely the inquisition has a bit more to say than is though.

Souljawebb brought up Quirion Octavious from the Warrior Brood/coven books, I am pretty sure his level of badassness indicates that he is a Watchcaptain, after all they say in the book that it is not unheard of that the Watchcaptain fight with his kill team.

So how I see it with all this input.

We have the Watch captain, the guy who looks over the kill team and sometimes when the dodo hits the fan lead them into combat as the leader again see Quirion Octavious.

within the Kill team we have alot of badasses, and according to mission one is chosen to be the leader/specialist for the mission. He shouldn´t need to boss around with the others simply because he is better at that certain kind of fighting.

So maybe FFG should call it the specialist instead of Squad leader?

Adaras said:

An Inquisitor can only command a kill-team if the kill-team has been instructed to accept that Inquisitor as a commanding officer for the mission by their Deathwatch superiors. This would be unusual though because the relationship is actually more one of partnership normally.

Alex

souljawebb said:

OK. So the Deathwatch is a military organization. That would mean that it is one of the armed forces of a "state". Presumably this "state" is the Imperium. It is certainly an unconventional military organization. It doesn't fall under the command of the military command structure that commands the Imperial Guard, or the Imperial Navy. It recruits through requests, volunteers, and reciprocal oaths. Its members serve variable terms of service, ranging from single Missions to years, decades, or even longer. It doesn't engage in any combat operations at much above the squad level, and it doesn't seem to answer to any particular higher authority (perhaps the High Lords of Terra). I suppose that you could call it a military organization, but I don't see how very much of the structure or organization of either current military organizations, or of other 40K military organizations really applies to it, as it is unusually structured even compared to a Space Marine Chapter, which is pretty distinctively organized for a military organization.

I am unclear that the C.S. Goto novels which feature a Kill-team indicate that the structure of that Kill-team reflects the structure of all Kill-teams in the Deathwatch.

These novels would presumably include Warrior Brood, which repeatedly describes the six limbed (usually) tyranids as arachnid (eight legged).

This novel also includes the Veteran Squad which uses lasfire from their multilasers (page 10) to gun down tyranids. Given that no Space Marines in any Codex (or in Deathwatch) are normally equipped with multilasers, this seems unusual. The description of multilasers is repeated on page 22, so this is not an isolated typo.

On page 12, a hormagaunt pins down the Mantis Warrior Devastator Sergeant Magnir, though the Hormagaunts in both the TT game and the Deathwatch rulebook seem much weaker than a Space Marine. This again seems unusual.

Magnir's devastator squad is described on page 9 as using lascannons, heavy flamers, and heavy bolters. On page 12, it is mentioned that his squad also has multimeltas. Given that a Devastator squad is normally 10 Marines, of which 4 are normally equipped with heavy weapons, and Magnir's squad must have at least two of four different heavy weapons (as all are described in the plural), this also seems unusual.

I am not going to say that Goto is simply wrong in his book, but it seems evident that his situations are "unusual". Many of the things that he describes are contradicted by existing fluff in other sources. I would not assume that the organization of his Deathwatch detachment is standard.

The Captain of the Deathwatch detachment in the book is specifically identified as "Captain Octavius" (pg. 44), so this seems consistent with the suggestion from Adaras that Captain Octavius should be viewed as a Watch Captain.

While you did say that appointing a permanent leader was how your group played the game, you also said that it was "ridiculous" that a military organization would not have a team leader. If you and your group wish to appoint a permanent team leader, that is certainly fine. It definitely follows the rules (as the rules say that the group may choose to do this) and it doesn't violate the fluff, as at least some Deathwatch teams do have a fixed leader.

However, when you say that it is ridiculous that a military organization would not have a fixed leader, you are saying that you think that everyone who plays that way is worthy of ridicule. You are saying that every group that does what is specifically allowed in the rules (selecting a leader for each mission) is doing something that is ridiculous. That goes quite a little ways beyond just sharing how your group plays things, and goes right into telling other people that they are playing the game wrong (or at least in a ridiculous manner).

To argue that the team leader selection is 'just a game mechanic" and not really Deathwatch fluff, because it isn't in the "big history of the Deathwatch" part of the book would indicate that all of the stuff which isn't found in the "history section" of the book isn't fluff. There isn't anything in the History of the Deathwatch section of the book to indicate that the Deathwatch kill teams have fixed leaders, either.

That was my point. It is totally fine for you and your group to have a fixed leader for your Kill-team. It doesn't conflict with the fluff or the rules, and even if it did, it's your game. However, it is pretty presumptuous to come on the board and announce that NOT selecting a permanent leader is ridiculous.

Brother-Sergeant Cloten said:

ak-73 said:

I see it that since the Deathwatch is the militant branch of the Ordo Xeno, the inquisition got autority on them: the Ordo Xeno more than let's say, Ordo Hereticus, but still, he says jump, thye got to ask how high...if they do it or not is thier own discretion, but rest assured, the Inquisitor will file a report on the Squad who refused his official /demand request for help

Braddoc said:

Page 305 - the Deathwatch and the Ordo Xenos are equals . Neither party is subject to command of the other. Which in turn it means just what I said: the kill-team will do what their DW superiors orders them to do. And they only have to take orders from an Inquisitor if their superiors have told them explicitly so before.

Not only that, I suspect that at times the agenda between OX Inquisitors and the Watch-Commander will diverge. They should not but it's bound to happen sooner or later.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Correct. I support this.

Also, to souljawebb, you may have noticed that the internet is a terrible medium for conversation and things can get easily misconstrued. Keeping this in mind, I also interpreted what you said the same way that Brother-Sergeant Cloten did.

In this case, I agree with Brother-Sergeant Cloten's assessment of the fluff. I am also from a military background, just for the record.

Trying to avoid drama on an open forum is as pointless as trying to find a corner in a round room.

Just to make a quick comment on the Deathwatch / Military comparison.

Imagine a team containing a US Recon Marine, an Army Ranger, a british SAS member and a Delta Force member...

How do you pick who would be best as the leader? especially when you've just got the reports in from their superiors all saying how kick ass awesome they are.

How do you pick who is in charge without pissing everyone else off?

ak-73 said:

Just to expand on that. They're a lot of different things but mostly a liason/ambassador between O-Xenos & Deathwatch, plus an advisor when it comes to the myriad of weird crap the galaxy has to offer and maintaining a very big political buffer so the Deathwatch can do what they have to. Even my low level Inquisitor has all Forbidden Lore skills at +20, will soon have all Scholastic Lore skills at +20 and on top of that, has +20 all the social-political manipulation, investigation and command skills out the wazoo to make the other mechanisms of the Imperium jump very high, out of the way, into harms way and how often.

Basically, she knows all the things that marines go "uh nuh uhuh... derp?" when they can't easily solve it with bolter rounds, high explosives, tactics, intimidation and chainswords. It was made quite clear to my inquisitor by their captain that cant tell them what to do, but I've also made it abundantly clear that if they do something patently stupid that I advise against, I'm not responsible for it!

MKX said:

Nothing is stopping a Marine from obtaining the same skills.

Back on Topic... Lead by Example is very hard to replace as a Squad Power, as it provides better bonuses than most Squad Maneuvers once you get into the higher ranks.

KellionBane said:

True... but even having the same skills won't give them the social, political and religious authority of an Inquisitor (few things are easily comparable to bearing the absolute and unlimited authority of the God-Emperor of Mankind), nor is he likely to obtain the network of allies, informants, contacts, resources and subordinates that an Inquisitor will invariably have gathered over the course of many decades if not longer.

Basically, everything an Inquisitor needs to obtain the right information about a situation and manipulate it to take greatest advantage of it... and such a person is an extremely valuable ally for a Killteam, and simultaneously not the kind of person you want to annoy... even if you're a Space Marine.