I'm GMing a rather combat heavy campaign where the acolytes started out as a group of guardsmen. Now we have passed 14k xp and it's time to go Ascension. Unfortunately Ascension has almost nothing to upgrade the combat abilities of our group, once the major traits are taken. So I am seriously considering using the squad combat system from Deathwatch, including cohesion, squad mode abilities etc. My intention is twofold. First to give the players a feeling of developement with their fighting abilities. Second to give them new tools thus presenting them with further meaningful choice and thus new challenges. For example the micromanagement of Cohesion is a new factor to fights.

My players are pretty competent tactical gamers that like to use a system to its full extent, so they will min/max as much as possible with available gear and rules. I do understand that this change will make them more powerful in combat than any regular ascension character could possibly be, but I have no lack of imagination when it comes to creating opposition or simply stealing it from the DW book.

Have anyone tried this, or at least put some serious theorycrafting into it? Or do you have any spontaneous thoughts about how it would work, rules that would risk conflicting or other strange effects? Thoughts around how this matches up with story and background elements are also appreciated, since we are very fond of our story and RP moments.

Input of any kind is very appreciated. It would be nice if someone already invented the wheel on this one :-)

I think it should work though I wouldn't allow them any Chapter specific tactics.
Though I would develope a tactic based on the tactics they usually use with some little bonus.

Spontaneous thoughts, yes- the idea sounds like it could work, but remember the theme of squad mode is to show how the team is working in a concerted effort. If your players are min maxers, just make sure that scum that likes to hide off to the side and take pot shots, or the assassin that goes off on his/her own doesn't get to benefit from working together as a team when they are not.

As you mention they're mostly or all guardsmen, I would take the core of the system and reword the abilities- make them sound more like things a platoon or squad of guardsman would do rather than marines operating from the codex. Then adjust some of the abilities to work for the setting you want. You might also get some inspiration for abilities or ability modifications from the DW downloadable adventure Oblivion's Edge (they have a stormtrooper horde in there with some interesting abilities; it was written for a horde, but you could probably tweak it into something that would work for a team of individuals), and take a look (if you can) at the Imperial Guard Table Top Codex for the orders that officers and non-coms can issue their troops (fire on my target, etc.) for abilities.

And if they took storm trooper path from ascention...I'm sorry, that class sucks. If they did you could consider changing their progression trees up a bit and tossing in some talents/skills/abilities from the other classes to up the ante and give them a feeling of progression. When I played DH/Ascention, I went Guardsman->Vindicare, simply because the other classes didn't offer him a progression path (for example, I did not need any weapon mastry ascended proficiencies, I already had all the WPs from the Guardsman base tree). The armor was hard to let go of, but the multiple dodge made up for it.

I had thought about this a little. I think the point of the squad mode is that they are specifically trained to work together a cohesive unit, not something that a disparate group of Acolytes is likely to be able to acomplish.

But a squad of well trained troops of the same type, such as Arbites, Assassins or Guardsmen, that starts to sound very likely. If i had to guess i would say that the upcoming guard source book will have something similar.

But the difference (and this being a team of specialists working for the Inquisition they might more leway, be more adaptable) is that most of the Guard ones would rely on a fixed chain of command. This might be the squads Sergeant, Platoons Leuitenant or a higher ranking officer, issuing it but the whole squad MUST follow that order. This might be painful but might be similar to some complicated squad mode abilities.

Some examples (i might have a think about them later): Covering Advance!, Take and Hold!, Dig In!, Take It down!

Another option are situations where the guards are trained to point where they will naturally perform a concerted action. Such things would be 'Drills' and all that would be required would be a concensous (some would require specific situational criteria). These would be similar to certain basic squad mode abilities: Go to ground!, Retreat!, Salvo Fire!

It needs a lot of work and I don't have time now so I'll look again later.

Santiago said:

This. In my game, I have a Vindicare assassin who is considering working closely with the kill team, and hoping to eventually function in squad mode. Of course, if I allow for chapter patterns to be used with him, then when the Black Templar tac marine calls holy vengance, the Vindicare could potentially destroy anything (it allows a number of melee attacks up to the character agility bonus as long as they keep hitting).

KommissarK said:

Personally, I would not allow a Vindicare, or anyone else, to gain access to the squad mode abilities of Space Marines. A Vindicare is trained to function and fight alone. A Space Marine trains for decades/centuries to function as part of a unit.

This is touched upon in The First Heretic by one of the Word Bearers as they watch Adeptus Custodes fight. The Word Bearers watch the Custodes in action, they can't figure out why they are fighting wrong . One of the Word Bearers eventually realizes that the Custodes all fight as individuals, not as part of a squad like the Astartes.

I would say all the Defensive squad abilities should deffinetly be allowed to the guard since that is their strong point. Would probably consider tweaking some of the stuff. Another thing to consider is allowing them into the Confessor or Redemptionist alternate advancements(even though confessor only supposed to be allowed to arbitor and redemptionist only to assassins by RAW) for some limited access to faith talents from the blood of martyrs.