As a new member on the forums I feel a bit odd starting one of these, but every time I come across one I love reading it and thought I would add my own. What follows is a very brief synopsis of the games that I've been GMing semi-regularly. The reason I'm making a post about it is to partially help me remember all that's transpired in our adventures and partially for anyone who wants to read it. Personally, I really enjoy hearing about the types of games others run, and the stories they have. The idea is to get readers excited about THEIR games and share ideas or anything else useful you can get out of it (feel free to steal left and right). I'll try to keep the thread updated with our exploits, and respond to any posts that others may have. Of course, if this sort of post isn't your cup of tea, feel free to ignore it in its entirety. And mods if this sort of thing isn't appropriate, feel free to lock it down and accept my humble apologies.

Game Feel: I always like people to know the feel of the game, just so everyone's on the same page. Deathwatch, to me is an epic action or adventure story, realism and grit can take a hike. If its neat looking, you'll get bonuses; generally imagine an action movie (hopefully sans cheeseball acting) and you'll have the right idea. I'll admit I like to go for the epic feel. Not knocking other styles or ways to play it, but that one is mine.

Step one: We need characters!
My players: 4 in total; two male and two female with levels of experience with RPGs from veteran to this being their second game. All in their mid to late 20s if you're interested in demographics.

--The Cast--
Brother Hallvard- Space Wolf Long Fang- Grizzled veteran who's been passed up for Wolf Guard honors. Mainly he's good at singing the praises of his pack mates, but not himself, fancies himself a skald. (The player was quite pleased that they could actually take a stat for storytelling)

Brother Sepheron- Angels Sanguine Assault Marine- (We used the Blood Angels rules) Very stoic character, however completely loses himself in combat. Feels the curse of his chapter heavily, and has not presented himself without his helmet to his squad. The “gene flaws” (i.e. fangs) of his chapter weight heavily on him.

Brother Aiden- Storm Wardens Assault Marine- Sees his position as a marine as a great challenge, just like the rest of his life. And any challenge he approaches head on with gusto, enthusiasm and perhaps recklessness. The player said “Think of the crazy Irish guy in Braveheart....like that only a marine”

Brother Elrick- Space Wolf Apothecary (Okay...so the player asks “Can I be a Space Wolf and heal people with beer. I say yes, but we do a little tweaking...)- A young wolf priest in training. Elrick is learning the ways of the body before he learns the ways of the soul (eventually Chaplin advances). Elrick has a strong thirst for glory and ambition, he see's himself as an upcoming great hero to his chapter and will do all he can to prove it. Can also distill some mean ale (create toxin).

That's our party. After creating their characters I spent the rest of the first session just having the players talk about them. Each one really enjoyed the history roll part of character creation. I explained that when we ran their first mission they had all been training with each other for months, if not longer. I had each player go around the table and have them each tell something their character admired about every other character, and something that “bothered” them about the other characters as well. Nothing to come to blows over, but little quirks that just irked them. It really gave the players something to go off of immediately when we started playing, the team already had a history.

Highlights-
-A bit of tension between Elrick and Aiden, both want the glory of the kill, Elrick for ambition and prestige, Aiden for the chance to kill the biggest thing he can and test himself...i.e. for fun as he put it.
-Brother Sepheron will be interesting. The big secret is that he has fangs...like ½ of the rest of the party. Elrick hasn't figured it out yet, scans don't come back to oddly, and he's a Space Wolf so he doesn't really think of that as odd. It will be interesting to see how its revealed, already the idea that Space Wolves seem to in no way mind this deformity has given Sepheron's player some role playing ideas.
-Elrick kind of out ranks Hallvard...who's older and does have more battlefield experience, it hasn't come up yet but the players mentioned the players could see an interesting dynamic there.

Good stuff for only 25 minutes of talking, I heartily recommend the idea if it works for your game, First time I've tried it and the players really liked the tools it gave them. I'll write up their first mission and post it soon enough.
Thanks for reading, and being a nice enough community that I feel comfortable joining in.

GM Goal: Get myself and the players familiar with the game’s systems and play style.

Mission Overview:
The team was informed that this mission was to serve as a test of their ability to work together under battle-field conditions, and so that Watch Command could get a relative idea of their skill level. Overall, the battle brothers were tasked with crippling a small Ork Waagh on a planet, and eliminating its command structure and resources. Thus they needed to eliminate the Ork warboss and the “mek” responsible for much of the construction of the Waagh’s devices. Other objectives including the elimination of Ork anti-aircraft positions and elimination of any ork leaders (Nob class) they cross.

The planet itself was little more than a backwater. An agri-world with little value to the Imperium beyond typical tithes. It was ruled by the Administratum that the involvement of greater Imperial forces would not be an effective use of resources, thus the planetary PDF was on its own. This made for a perfect low pressure mission for the kill team to cut its teeth on. If the world was overrun by the orks it would ONLY cost a few million imperial lives and mean an almost insignificant loss in sector production; all in all if the Deathwatch failed, no big loss.

The battle brothers requisitioned what would be considered rather standard equipment for their roles, Hallvard and Elrick chose weapons that would allow them to deal with large groups of infantry, while Saepharan and Aiden loaded themselves up with demo packs and melta bombs to deal with any hard targets (such as the AA batteries). Given some previous experience with orks, and a penchant for targeting commanders, Aiden was elected team leader (much to Elrick’s irritation). Taking their oath of the moment (To bring glory to the Emperor) the kill team boarded a pod for insertion. Moments before launch, a desperate plea for assistance came from the world’s meager PDF garrisoned at the planet’s main star base. The pod’s firing solution was modified to the team at that locale…

Having arrived at the spaceport the team set about rallying the local forces in the face of imminent ork assault. Luckily for the marines, the orks were assaulting across an open airfield toward a hastily built but fairly serviceable imperial barricade. Brothers Saepheran and Aiden would launch from the barricade to tie up the ork hordes slowing their advance. Hallvard and the PDF would use this delay to lay into the orks, hopefully killing most of the beasts at range. If they did close to the barricades Elrick was ready to provide point defense with his flamer. With this plan in mind the battle brothers turned to gaze across the fog covered runway. Across the mists came the echo of hundreds of alien throats giving voice to a battle cry.

-The Airfield-
Highlights and Turning Points:
-A group of orks armed with primitive jump packs engaged Hallvard and the line of PDF. Brother Elrick tried to keep his fellow Space Wolf safe, although it took the fury of Saepheran falling back to their position to see the threat removed.

-A small group of orks armed with high explosives used a much larger group as a meat shield to close with the line and deliver their explosives. It was the heroic actions of Wolf Priest Elrick that ended this foul tactic. Sprinting from behind the barricades though both friendly fire and the push of ork bodies, Elrick delivered holy promethium to the densely packed orks. A lucky hit caused the primitive devices used by the orks to cook off, felling many of the orks with the ensuing blast.

-A particularity large ork in side some sort of ramshackle truck arrived and assaulted the lines. Elrick spoke valiantly, rallying the PDF to hold the line, while Hallvard poured shells from his heavy bolter into the zenos transport. Saepheran used his jump pack to knock the Nob from his truck before engaging him in close combat. Aiden flew overhead, destroying the truck with krak grenades before also engaging the Nob. Between the might of two Astartes the greenskin stood no chance. Their leader dead and their numbers greatly reduced the orks retreated.

After the battle the team received some much needed intel from the PDF on the ork’s movements and the local geography. The battle brothers commandeered one of the PDF’s few intact Chimeras and headed towards the location of the ork AA batteries (which were formerly the PDF AA batteries)

-Ork AA Battery-
The ork anti-aircraft positions were on heavily forested foothills very near to the spaceport. Not wanted to risk detection the team left the Chimera behind and approached on foot. The plan was to strike from different angles of attack and confuse the orks. Spearheading the assault was Saepheran, whose initial attack was to deposit a demo charge amidst a group of ork bikers that were arguing with the battery gunners…
Highlights:

-Flamers + frag grenades clean out bunkers full of orks about as well as you’d hope they would.

-As the orks fled from the initial explosions they ran right into a killing field being covered by Hallvard.

-A few lucky hits from one of the biker’s mounted guns caused grievous wounds to brother Saepheran, who fought the orks in a rage filled haze…briefly calling out for his brothers to hold the gates of the palace no matter the cost. It was the timely intervention of Aiden that brought salvation to the Angel Sanguine. Firing his jump pack for maximum speed, Aiden slammed into one of the assaulting bikers, while the fall did not kill the ork; its cart wheeling cycle crushed another of the greenskins, missing Saepheran by mere inches. The two assault marines dispatched what remained of the ork bikers.

By examining the remains of the bikes the kill team was able to deduce what Imperial resources were used in their construction The relative rarity of such parts would hopefully point them to the Mek behind the Waagh. With the AA battery destroyed, the PDF was now clear to aid in the mission objectives. Their resources allowed for one close air support sortie on a location specified by the team, although depending on location, such an air strike could take time to reach them.

-The Mek-
Again, leaving their chimera the team approached an overrun Imperial vehicle depot by foot. This proved wise, as the team advanced through a drainage culvert orks spotted the chimera and opened fire on it with large weapons of an odd variety. Near the depot was a collection of the filthy creatures armed with a mix of seemingly scratch built heavy weapons. With the orks distracted by their “target practice” Hallvard laid down suppressive fire while the rest of the team charged. Cover and the Emperor’s own grace kept Hallvard relatively safe, and the rest of the team was able to eliminate the orks before they could shoot the charging marines.

The Mek called on some large mechanical walker which he referred to as “Clanky” before hiding within the depot.

-Highlights-

-Aiden used his jump pack to get behind and around and generally maneuver around the massive walker before liberal applications of melta-bombs to its back. -Elrick proved that precision is a quantity all its own. One very lucky and well placed bolt pistol round shredded much of the walker’s optics systems and actually stunned the driver inside
-Brother Saepheran was grabbed and crushed by the massive machine, and only the timely skills of Elrick kept him alive
-The vile machine destroyed, the mek tried to sneak up on Aiden and brain him with a remarkably large wrench. Hallvard spotted him, and unceremoniously executed the beast with a bolt round to the skull.

The team took their poor battered chimera into the vehicle depot to find the location in shambles. They set about making hasty repairs to their transport. However, none of the team was particularly skilled at such an endeavor. Rather than let that serve as a deterrent, the team relied on Aiden’s knowledge of orks and tried to make the chimera resemble one of mismatched devices used by their foes. This even included a slapdash new paintjob in red, a color preferred by the orks.

While perhaps not as structurally sound, the war spirit of the chimera must have given the battle brothers its blessing, for the machine moved quite quickly towards the main ork encampment (it probably moved faster because of removed armor plating and weight…certainly the paint job wouldn’t make a difference, that would be silly)

-Warboss-

From a distance the main ork encampment was massive. A direct assault was unfeasible, as the Deathwatch would be outnumbered hundreds to one. The team decided to call in their PDF airstrike and use the resulting confusion to sneak their chimera into the camp and assassinate the Ork warboss. As thunderbolts and a single marauder bomber made passes overhead, chaos reigned among the orks.

Piloted by Elrick the chimera made it to the middle of the camp, and the team was able to get a visual on the warboss and his bodyguards. The opening salvo from the chimera wiped out most of the Nobs. As Hallvard finished off the Nobs from the chimera’s hatch, first Saepheran then Aiden jumped out from behind him and engaged the warboss in what proved to be a rather titanic duel. Amidst the swirling melee Hallvard switched to his bolt pistol and with great precision put bolt rounds into the Warboss between his brethren. Eventually the enormous greenskin was literally disarmed before being hacked to death between the two mighty assault marines. Moving quickly back to the chimera, the team beat a hasty retreat before the orks could rally and restore order to their warcamp.

Once clear and several kilometers from the camp the team was extracted via stormraven.

GM Notes: Wow that’s a wall of text…I’ll try to make these shorter from here on out. I know this was a hack and slash, but importantly my players and I familiarized ourselves with how the system works. The next mission will be much less combat oriented.

Having an Apothecary is really nice. The team took enough damage to kill them all a few times over. Saepheran eventually needed to use fate to restore treated wounds, but other than that Elrick kept everyone pretty patched up. Ohh and that player, they roll 10s…a lot of them. I’m using DH’s righteous fury and it made no difference. With a 04 to hit and 4 RFs in a row on the rolls…it made for a few awesome moments though.

This was all before RoB came out, so I just sort of guessed at how the vehicles would work. I was more or less correct, and the players enjoyed the way it worked out was fun, and hey really that’s all I’m after. Thanks for reading.

Next Mission: Bodyguarding and…gasp…hobnobbing…