I've been kicking around an idea where the Kill-team gets caught in the crossfire between two chaos legions over a deamonic artifact, something like a dry, withered heart that contains the spirit of a vanquished bloodthirster. One side wants to chuck it into the sun, thereby releasing the deamon, and the other side wanting to devour it for it's power. Either way, when the brothers get their hands on it they discover that it has a corrupting influence, presenting them with a challenge on how to dispose of it.

Also I've discovered that Thousand Son's disguised as inquisitorial muck-a-mucks are really, really good at stealing freshly liberated xenos/chaos tech from battle brothers right after a mission.

This was an idea I had for the DW scenario contest but didn't fully develop it…

The Kill-team are summoned to a briefing with an Ordo Xenos inquisitor in the Tower of Brass. When they arrive they are greeted by the Inquisitor who is in the company of the Rogue Trader Gravis Terrozant (from 'The Achilus Assault'). News has reached Terrozant that a fomer human world in the Velk'han sept (Jaya) will be the site for a ceasefire agreement between the Tau and a cell of the human resistance. After decades of conflict and with the approach of Hive Fleet Dagon the humans & Tau on this world have agreed to a non-aggression pact for the time being. The Tau are sending a water caste envoy to secure the ceasefire with the rebel leader.

The Inquisitor informs the KT that the primary objective will be the termination of the Water caste envoy. The KT will need to make a clandestine planetfall and infiltrate the meeting point in advance of the ceasefire agreement. The Rogue Trader Terrozant has a small retinue of human fighters as his bodyguard (possible members of the 'Winter Unending' resistance?) . These are instructed to remove themselves from the briefing room for the operational details of the mission. Once the RT's retinue leaves the Inquisitor activates a sigil on a control panel or has an inquisitorial psyker create a ward of silence around the room.

The inquisitor explains that there is another primary objective which must be completed prior to killing the Water caste envoy. When the rebel leader meets with the envoy the KT will first execute the rebel commander to make it appear that the Tau have betrayed the rebels. The RT lifts a weapon case previously lying to one side up onto the briefing table. Opening it he reveals that it is a Tau rail rifle that has been modified for marine use. The KT will use this weapon to terminate the rebel leader and capture the kill on a pict recorder or helmet cam. This video will then be later distributed as propaganda on the human world to show the Tau 'treachery'. Terrozant informs the KT that the alien weapon has been blessed by DW techmarines for use by the Adeptus Astartes and that they will be granted pre-emptive absolution as it will be in service to the Emperor.

The instant the human leader is dead the KT may then execute the envoy to make his killing appear as a reprisal for the death of the rebel general. The KT will be issued with a melta charge to be used to destroy the weapon once their targets are dead. The inquisition hopes that these two deaths will escalate the conflict on this world and provide a propaganda coup to the human resistance. The Tau will be forced to draw military units away from the Greyhell front and garrison them on the human world.

The KT will be secretly transported to the world aboard a ship from Terrozant's fleet (or even his own ship as he travels back & forth from the Sept). They will make planetfall and meet with a hardline faction within the resistance who are opposed to the peace treaty. This faction will provide intel, guides & transport to the meeting point of the treaty. The rebels may also provide support at the peace treaty in the form of a horde which will arrive to cover the retreat of the KT.

The resistance contacts believe that the KT's mission will be to kill the water caste envoy only. They know nothing of their former commander also being a target of the KT. They believe that the KT's mission heralds the coming of an eventual Imperial liberation fleet in the near future (in 40k terms that may be several decades). The inquisitor stresses that the 'loyal' resistance should not be disavowed of these beliefs. The world will be liberated but the Crusade cannot spare the resources for the forseeable future.

After the two targets have been terminated the KT are to co-ordinate their efforts with the resistance. They will aid the rebels by attacking high value targets in order to compel the Tau to strengthen their military presence on this world. Initially the envoy's bodyguard retinue will be tasked with hunting down his killers. The Tau will dispatch a strike force to the planet to reinforce this retinue as well as beefing up the garrison presence (the encounter with this strike force could provide the finale to the scenario).

A couple of spanners to throw into the works : the hardline human rebels may have been already infiltrated by tendrils of hive fleet dagon. The Hive fleet does not want a unified resistance on this world any more than the Imperium does. How will the KT react if they discover that their allies are in fact puppets of the hive fleet? What if turning on the corrupted rebels means that the KT lose their intel as to the meeting point of the treaty?

Some of the rebels may stumble upon evidence that the KT have more than just a single target at the peace treaty eg. the weapon case for the rail rifle breaks open as it is loaded onto a transport; one of the rebel guides at the meeting point approaches the KT location and discovers them in a firing position with the Tau rifle. Will the KT try to explain to the rebels that what they do is "for the greater good of Humanity" (something which the partisans will find dangerously similar to Tau propaganda) or will they silence the rebels permanently in order to maintain mission secrecy?

The reference to Enslaver Plagues in the Deathwatch Rulebook set me to wondering how to use these horrors as opponents. Since Enslavers aren’t combat powerhouses, the bulk of the challenge will be fighting through lots of enslaved humans. The tricky part is making it ‘feel’ different from just putting down a conventional rebellion. Here’s what I came up with:

When returning from a mission, the Killteam has to transfer from one vessel (an Imperial Navy cruiser) to another (a small escort ship), as the cruiser is urgently needed at the battlefront. The ship the Killteam is on arrives at the rendezvous point late due to some warp turbulence, but the escort that is to take them back to the Watch Fortress is no-where to be found. They scan the area and get a hit at extreme auspex range: the ship they are to rendezvous with is on course toward the nearest inhabited planet- a xeno-held world- at maximum plasma-drive speed. The stray vessel refuses to respond to hails from the cruiser, and the Astropath is unable to make contact with his counterpart on the escort vessel, saying he can only sense a terrible, non-human presence. Assuming that the ship has either been seized by aliens or willfully turned traitor, the cruiser mounts a boarding action- naturally deferring to the Killteam to take the lead.

Once on board the escort ship, the Killteam and their naval allies have to fight through hundreds of glassy-eyed crewmen, at first poorly armed but eventually equipped with gear that can actually threaten a power-armoured Astartes (such as welding equipment and Sentinel walkers with power lifters). There are occasional signs that someone on board ship is helping the Killteam, by doing things like closing blast doors to seal off hordes of enslaved crewmen. They discover that there are some loyalist techpriests barricaded in the Enginerium (they are the ones who sabotaged the ship’s warp drive, limiting it to slower-than-light travel). They won’t allow one of the sacred machines of the Omnisiah to fall into xeno hands, so they have rigged the ship’s reactors to overload in a matter of hours. The Killteam has that long to root out the Enslavers who have taken over the ship and turned its Navigator and Astropath into living warp gates.

I've been cutting the hell out of my campaign, so this isn't going to end up in it sadly, but I thought it was a good enough idea to share it with you. KT is given a mission - something fairly standard involving escorting an Inquisitor (my plan was to use Quist but that's for campaign reasons). They set off, you have stuff on the ship, you have them arrive - and find out that whatever reason they were there for is gone. Xenos, cults, artefacts - they were destroyed/left/whatever. So the KT and the pissed off Inquisitor pile back onto the ship, set off back for Erioch. On the way however, the ship is attacked, or its drive malfunctions, or both, and the KT end up scattered in the wreckage with the Inquisitor on a planet somewhere.

Some investigation reveals that this world is non Imperial - it hasn't yet been touched by the Crusade, or the xenos or chaos (that the KT can see). I was planning for early 20th century levels of tech, but you could have anything, any setting (save primitive jungle, it's overdone). They clearly believe in something that's the God-Emperor, even having a statue of him. They obviously know nothing of the Imperium, so to them the Inquisitor is just someone bizarrely shouty, and the KT are just awesome warriors. From here you can run whatever plot with them you like - maybe there's some ancient communications device on the planet, its location shrouded in rumour that would allow the KT to tell the DW where they are, maybe they can rig up a communicator but it's going to take two plus months for them to be retrieved. Have ammo issues, have power issues - have the KT having to rely on the planet's tech. Let there be interfering xenos - I was going to have Dark Eldar, but you could have vanilla eldar or tau or chaos or necrons.

Also have the Inquisitor be a **** to everyone. The KT should be torn between their job - protecting the Inquisitor - and trying to prevent them from getting them all killed by pissing off the natives.

I was also going to have a trapped demon prince, a C'tan pyramid, a recurring Obliterator villain and a crushing maiden, but that's just my flavour.

Here's something I came up with to take a Killteam out of their comfort zone:

After completing a mission, the Killteam is 'cooling their heels' in an Imperial Guard camp near a warzone, waiting for their transport ship to arrive and take them back to their Watch Fortress. While they are waiting, a courier arrives with an urgent message from the local General, and, as a courtesy to the scions of the Emperor, the local Colonel invites the Killteam to attend the briefing. It seems that a high-value target has been identified in the area: a Tau Ethereal (and his bodyguards) who is hiding out in a 'no man's land' area of the battlefield, apparently conducting some kind of intelligence operation. The Colonel states that he simply doesn't have the manpower to dedicate to hunting down a possible 'bogey' without jepordizing the line he is charged with holding. If your players are anything like mine, they will gladly volunteer to go on an impromptu 'search and destroy' mission…

So far so good. But when the smoke clears and the Killteam is searching the Ethereal's corpse, they find a series of communiques between the Ethereal and an Inquisitor, arrainging for the Ethereal to defect, bringing vital information about the Tau's troop placements with him. When they check with the General who sent the info about the 'target', he says he sent no such message! The Killteam has been duped, used to assassinate the Ethereal by a traitor loyal to the Tau somewhere within the Imperial forces. The Inquisitor will be arriving in a few days (on the same ship that is to transport the Killteam home); if they want to avenge their dishonour, they will need to root out the traitor- potentially an even higher value target than the Ethereal himself- before the ship arrives…

Rumor has spread that an ancient, pre-Imperial Star Map has been located in Vanity's underhive, a planet already in a warzone. Apparently the map indicates the location of an Eldar Exodite world within Imperial space in the Jericho reach. Some puritans already want to destroy the map as heresy but the Lords of Ordo Xeno's believe the map could be true and may confirm their suspicions that the Eldar have technology that mask an entire solar system from perception in the warp.

Proof of this concept could affect strategy across the entire Imperium. Finding this Exodite world, which may even be a Maiden world, would not give the Imperium access to the resources of the Eldar system and enable them to deny it's use to the multitude of Corsairs which constantly plague the Imperial merchant vessels.

However the Biel-Tan craftworld seem to have been made aware of the map and are trying to destroy it themselves to protect the world. The normaly obtuse Eldar keep their thoughts to themselves but in a rare frank exchange with a Farseer the Ordo Xeno's learned that, to this particular group of Eldar at least the Imperium is their archenemy, due in some part to some perceived 'genocide' during the great crusade and afterwards.

Inquisitor Rathamus was sent to locate the map, but encountered some of the Eldar forces. His entire retinue has been destoyed and he is wounded. Infiltrate the lower levels of the hive, rescue the Inquisitor and defend him as he tries to obtain the map. Be alert the Eldar cannot move freely in the hive and they will be using their foul 'magics' to appear human or to not appear at all. In addition, the Chaos forces that are probing the planets defences might move against you once they spot you in the area; there is a an ancient secret human society dedicated defending the Eldar due to pre-Imperial co-operation with the race; there are parts of the Adeptus Terra and even the Inquisition that may not want you to find the map, either due it's apparently heretical origin or just their unwillingness to open up a fourth front against the Eldar; and final watch your footing in the underhive it's dangerous place for even Astartes, who knows what might be lurking down there.

Here's one mission idea that I want to have my Deathwatch Killteam experience as a one-shot scenario.

Donkey Kong.

An extremely large and heavily mutated ape-like creature is terrorizing a Hive city on a Forge world key to the Imperium's crusade in this sector. Just so happens that an Ordo Xenos Inquisitor is at this Hive and requests that the Kill-Team help rescue one of his cadre, a Sister of Battle of no small repute who happens to be carrying and item of importance (left up to the GM as a hook for future campaign).

As the team closes in one creature, it makes its way up into the upper spires of the hab, wreaking destruction and causing chaos wherever it goes, until it makes its way to the uppermost Spire of the Hive.

What you do with the "ape" is entirely up to you. It could be a creature bio-engineered by any particular race that delves in such matters, even the Magos Biologis. It could be some warp-spawned abomination let loose by cultists. I'm just throwing out ideas here for fun.

Drop Assault: While engaged in a fleet battle with chaos ships in low orbit over a war torn planet, the players are in the armory aboard a small Imperial Navy ship, equipping for a planetary assault on a fortress. However, while they still have only limited supplies equipped, the hull of the ship is shattered, and the players are blown out, hurdling down toward the planet. They are fortunate enough to fall onto another capital ship. Unfortunately, it's a chaos ship. Having taken a fair amount of fall damage and being low on supplies, they need to get inside and take out the chaos ship, as the space battle rages on above. After they take over the ship and crash land it into the fortress on the planet's surface, it's time to begin the assault.

Joint Ops: Have the squad prepare to Air Assault an objective with gravchutes out of a Storm Raven Gunship. However, one marine stays behind to act as the gunner in the Storm Raven. The squad must advance on the objective as the gunner helps them take out targets from above, providing some extra firepower. Once they reach the objective, however, the Storm Raven is shot down. The squad has to go rescue the downed crew and teammate from the approaching defenders.

Armored Spearhead: Assign the Killteam a Predator tank, and have each member fulfill a different role: driver, turret gunner, pintle gunner, commander, etc. Their mission is to break through to a group of inquisitorial storm troopers and their inquisitor who are surrounded by your choice of enemy: Traitor Guard, Orks, Nids, etc. After they have reached them, bring the Inquisitor back to base.

Smart Kill-Teams tailor their equipment Requisitions to the specific enemy they are being sent to fight- and there are few opponents that can stand up to a group of Astartes with carefully optimized weaponry. One fun twist a GM can throw at such an opponent-optimized Kill-Team is the old 'Bait and Switch' :

The team is prepped to capture an enemy outpost; naturally they Requisition weapons optimal for the enemies they think they will be facing. Upon arriving at the outpost, however, they find that their expected opponents have been wiped out by...something else, something that they are most definitely not kitted out to take on...

There are any number of variants one could use in this scenario: after arming up specifically to battle Tau for the outpost, the Kill-Team finds it overrun by Tyranids, for example. Or the Ork fort they have been sent to take has been raided by Dark Eldar slavers (who would love to capture some Space Marines for their arenas); how useful will those Ork-busting Flamers be against opponents with sky-high Dodge and Movement rates...?

"Good idea but you need a set-up to give the Tau authors some wiggle room to use their interpretative skill. Either you do not use the Codex itself but a famous interpretative text and have the Tau mess with that or you have a Codex that has been "translated" into a local natives language.

Use a language your players are not familiar with and encourage them to use an online translator to translate what you have prepared back into your native language. Half way into the text let the clues become obvious.

Induce epic rage into your Ultra players (and laughter for everyone else I guess)."

If you want to use this - a canonical thing introduced into 40k in the Farsight Enclaves book is the Mirrorcodex - it's essentially the codex astartes as reverse engineered by O'Shovah. It's quite possible that one of Flamewing's more scholarly subordinates might have a copy, and finding it - and realising what it is - should provoke appropriate rage, especially if he's been successful at mousetrapping other kill teams recently.

It's also a useful adventure seed because that implies said commander has Farsight Enclave-ish tendancies which could be played upon.

C'mon, let's keep this thread going! How about-

Blackhawk Stormraven Down

On their way back to base after a mission, the Killteam's transport takes a direct hit, crashing well behind enemy lines. The Bad Guys are eager to take Astartes heads as trophies, and they don't care about the 'kill ratio' it takes to do it. Can the Killteam find a defensible location and hold out against the endless waves of attackers until another extraction vehicle arrives?

One way to make this extra tense is to override the 'unlimited ammo' rule- after all, it is specifically stated that Deathwatch Marines carry enough ammo for the mission at hand , and that mission was over at the time of the crash...

There is a massive siege on one damned world or another, Guardsmen and Battle Sisters storm Chaos fortresses. However, on this world a powerful Word Barer leader sits as overlord. Deathwatch has just discovered this and plans to send the kill-team in to eliminate him in support of the crusade efforts.

There are of course, a number of complications.

1. The IG commanders have been surprisingly successful on this world and are reluctant to let the Astartes have any of their glory. This could manifest in a lack of intelligence sharing, meddling in the kill-team's affairs by sending in their own men while the Astartes would prefer to go unnoticed, or perhaps they'll make a misstep and push too hard, assuming the kill-team is there to finish the war for them and thusly causing a catastrophic loss of soldiers. How will the kill-team react to this balking of their mission and reputation?

2. The Word Bearer has been withdrawing forces to consolidate in a large wasteland basin area, more or less allowing the IG to walk all over acceptably sacrificial targets with ease. In the basin, he is conducting a mass ritual that will summon his true allies, a massed army of daemons! To complete the ritual, he needs many willing souls (his men) and a holy relic to foul (which he has, and leads us to snag 3).

3. A Black Templar Chaplain is on a quest for vengeance against the Traitor Marine. Some centuries ago they fought and the Word Bearer made off with the Templar's relic weapon, The True Answer , a massive thunder-maul. The chaplain is on what he considers a holy quest and will take no assistance, perhaps reacting violently to interference from others. When he learns of what is going to happen to his hammer, he'll be utterly maddended, charging off alone into the hordes of chaos. Will the kill-team allow this venerable brother to die alone or will they follow him into the ruinous hordes?

4. The only good thing in this situation are the Adepta Sororitas, as they'll be helpful to the kill-team, but if they meet the brother chaplain, they'll probably want to go charging off in his wake...yeah.

5. Some of the IG commanders have become corrupted. It isn't just the WB pulling back that has given them success, they've started to be influenced by our old buddy the blood god. Their corruption isn't advanced, or complete, but their bloodthirst is starting to show. Eventually, if no one notices, the whole invasion force would be at risk of corruption.

The Indestructible Xenos

The Kill Team is tasked with bringing back a unique specimen of a xenos. A very rare xenos creature that through either Warp Taint or some kind of forbidden technology has been found to be almost completly indestructible. Small arms fire up to and including bolter rounds do little to impede it at all. More extreme weapons such as Lascannons or Multi-Meltas cause it pain but it quickly regenerates. Lance Strikes will disintergrate it and scatter it's ashes but a few weeks, months or years later it wil reform. It also has a knack for escaping confinment. Over a 600 year period the xenos has been captured and escaped from incresingly secure Deathwatch facilities no less than four times. The Deathwatch dearly wishes to destroy the creature but has yet to find a way of permanently disposing on it so has settled on capture.

The Exact details are left to the GM but I would suggest a creature that is roughly the size of a space marine, and about as dangeorus offensively. On the defensive give it huge Armour value (20 minimum) and at least 100 wounds. It regenerates 10-20 wounds a turn regardless of it's state of being or whether it has been killed.

It is intelligent and I suggest it has a cohort of minions (who are very killable). The PCs must find away of capturing the beast and confining it securely.

That's interesting. Have you read about the mysterious xenos the inquisition captured that's in a containment field (they think...) though it registers no signature and is completely invisible? That idea creeps me out...

Smart Kill-Teams tailor their equipment Requisitions to the specific enemy they are being sent to fight- and there are few opponents that can stand up to a group of Astartes with carefully optimized weaponry. One fun twist a GM can throw at such an opponent-optimized Kill-Team is the old 'Bait and Switch' :

The team is prepped to capture an enemy outpost; naturally they Requisition weapons optimal for the enemies they think they will be facing. Upon arriving at the outpost, however, they find that their expected opponents have been wiped out by...something else, something that they are most definitely not kitted out to take on...

There are any number of variants one could use in this scenario: after arming up specifically to battle Tau for the outpost, the Kill-Team finds it overrun by Tyranids, for example. Or the Ork fort they have been sent to take has been raided by Dark Eldar slavers (who would love to capture some Space Marines for their arenas); how useful will those Ork-busting Flamers be against opponents with sky-high Dodge and Movement rates...?

I actually planned a similar mission! Basically they'll be expecting a "cleanse the gene-stealers and blow up the space hulk approaching an imperial world before it draws the hive mind to it" type of thing, but then they arrive on said space hulk to find lots of dead gene-stealers, possibly with their bodies arranged in the shape of the mark of Khorne, but I probably won't go for that as it would ruin the suprise! Basically they'll venture into another room full of more dead gene-stealers and then all of the sudden CULTIST HORDES WITH A SIDE OF BERSERKERS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Double post sorry.

That's interesting. Have you read about the mysterious xenos the inquisition captured that's in a containment field (they think...) though it registers no signature and is completely invisible? That idea creeps me out...

Yeah, that has given me a few ideas. That said part of me does wonder whether it is simply a malfunctioning sensor error that has got a bit out of hand.....

In M41, an entire religion could emerge from this idea.

SAVING PRIVATE RYANUS

Low-level Guardman Ryanus is on latrine duty when he sees an officer from a different regiment having a suspicious-looking covert meeting with a group of civilians. The guardsman reports the incident to his superiors; a few days later he is shipped off to the front lines.

Only later does the High Command realize that there is a traitor in their midst, selling secrets to the enemy. Too late, Ryanus' report winds its way through the b ureaucracy and catches the attention of the intelligence agents. Ryanus couldn't identify the officer at the sinister meeting, but he is sure he would recognize him if he saw him again. Orders are given for him to return to HQ.

Unfortunately, his unit's position was overrun by xeno forces, and all contact has been lost. IG forces are in retreat on this particular battlefront, and they cannot spare men to go hunting for a needle in a haystack behind enemy lines.

Can the Killteam locate the Guardsman and return him alive to HQ, despite the inherent 'squishyness' of mere mortals in comparison to Astartes...?

SAVING PRIVATE RYANUS

Low-level Guardman Ryanus is on latrine duty when he sees an officer from a different regiment having a suspicious-looking covert meeting with a group of civilians. The guardsman reports the incident to his superiors; a few days later he is shipped off to the front lines.

Only later does the High Command realize that there is a traitor in their midst, selling secrets to the enemy. Too late, Ryanus' report winds its way through the b ureaucracy and catches the attention of the intelligence agents. Ryanus couldn't identify the officer at the sinister meeting, but he is sure he would recognize him if he saw him again. Orders are given for him to return to HQ.

Unfortunately, his unit's position was overrun by xeno forces, and all contact has been lost. IG forces are in retreat on this particular battlefront, and they cannot spare men to go hunting for a needle in a haystack behind enemy lines.

Can the Killteam locate the Guardsman and return him alive to HQ, despite the inherent 'squishyness' of mere mortals in comparison to Astartes...?

This one could justifiably be in almost any of the Wh40K RPG lines. I'd imagine it would thematically be more suited to Only War although a Dark Heresy version with the decidedly non military acolytes working their way through a war zone would be interesting.

Latrine duty... hmm. I wonder if the kill team could smell him out.

Got tired of people calling Deathwatch a shoot-em-up tabletop or bolter porn game?

Want your players to put their social and investigation skills to the front?

Look no further -

+++Shadows of Port-Falcon+++

Operation Quicksilver, a massive relocation of troops to Orpheus Salient is underway. Hive fleet Dagon methodicaly attacks systems with more biomass and weaker defences, minimizing its losses and growing in strength, and it percieves humanity as the most suitable target. Unless a massive, solid defence is brought up, the crusade will be overthrown, all if its salients will be abandoned with all personnel and equipment - a disaster endangering the whole segmentum. However if Operation Quicksilver will succeed, it is highly probable that hive fleet dagon will be either scattered or, better still, will unleash its power onto "softer" targets - worlds held by Tau and Heretics, giving humanity a much-needed opportunity to seize the initiative once more.

The key to victory is no longer in the hands of Lord-Militants and Admirals guiding crusade forces - it is in the hands of scribes and savants plotting and calculating without rest to turn a logistical nightmare into perfect strategical maneuver - relication of troops and equipment on a schale few mortals ever born witness to. And one of the cornerstones in their calculation is a void station Port-Falcon, an ancient void-station orbiting a nameless gas giant in a system whose importance was greatly underestimated before:

-It is located on the intersection of stable warp routs from Canis Salient to Orpheus Salient

-Its infrastructure allows for multiple ships being refuelled and rearmed, megatonnes of equipment stored and millions of troops stationed at any given time

-Station drydocks can perform repairs for any ship of imperial design

However, instead of becoming a safe harbour and open gateway for Orpheus Salient, it only blocks a large army group and navy task force urgently needed elsewhere - the station is partially held by imperial forces, and partialy- by Tau expeditionary task force. It is clear that open warfare will likely cause the destruction or unacceptable reduction in output of Port-Falcon, and a fragile ceasefire is maintained with both sides refusing to stand down. Imperial diplomacy had failed, and Ordo Xenos inquisitor with a kill-team as a show of force is heading towards contested station with all the power of the Inquisition and a number of tasks:

-If possible, xenos should be persuaded to abandon the station without restorting to military means.

-Otherwise, kill-team should be used to assasinate the Tau command staff, decapitate xeno task force and hopefully minimize damage to Port-Falcon.

-Securing the system and opening it for Imperial traffic at the cost of destruction of Port Aquila will significantly stall and endanger Operation Quicksilver - this outcome should be considered a tactical defeat.

-Loss of system to xenos will put an end to Operation Quicksilver and, most likely, to the whole crusade in a catastrophical strategic defeat.

However, inquisitor and water caste envoys are assasinated during negotiations, and with tension skyrocketing among both sides and astropathic responce from central command not arriving in at least 76 hours the kill-team, only survivors of inquisitorial mission, are forced to continue the inquisitors work, either by negotiations or planning and commencing a military operation.

From that point it is a small sandbox with kill-team having to deal with following factions:

-Imperial officers of army group HQ. Some of them believe the time for negotiations is over, some point out that performing a sudden surgical strike is even less possible as Tau mobilize and fortify their positions.

-Tau envoys and commanders, being outnumbered and outgunned (by a small margin, though) are less warlike and still hope to negotiate with space marines, but their opinions are also split and they want proof that imperials were not responsible for assasination - and they want it quick.

-Unknown to both sides, a genestealer cult is provoking both sides with assasinations and sabotage - hive mind perfectly understands the value of the station and would try to force the hostilities.

-Unknown to both sides, an Eversor assasin had been brought to Port Falcon by inquisitor, programmed to cause panic among tau in case of death of inquisitor. He can make for unexpected ally if kill-team decides to go guns blazing or a deadly opponent who must be destroyed in secret from Tau - shold xenos detect a temple assasin or a kill-team on their part of station this would most likely provoke them to start the battle.