Hi Guys,

I'm still preparing rules for my Great Crusade era Deathwatch game I am planning to run. I am thinking at the moment about the wargear that will be different due to the different setting, but my knowledge of the old style equipment basically comes from Codex Chaos 2nd edition (possibly my favourite codex ever made) and thus is a bit out of date. I am thinking

no Hellfire rounds because they wont meet tyranids for 10000 years

most special bolt ammos possibly not because they wont be part of the Deathwatch, same probably goes for fire selectors

Assault cannon replaced with reaper auto cannon

autocannon added to the equipment list

only marks 1-4 armour available, the book indicates that mark 5 was developed during the Heresy to make up for losses? so as my campaign will start years before istvaan no marks 5-8

no storm bolters

less terminator armour

no tau equipment (masking field)

Plasma weapons: if I remember correctly mk 1 plasma weapons fired multiple shots even the plasma cannon, but they also were less reliable. This sounds alot like the RoB plasma weapons so I will try to find a happy medium between core and RoB

Melta weapons: I don't think melta weapons existed in the crusade legions other than melta bombs and melta missiles. they hadn't recovered the technology to make melta guns. but I might be wrong there

Power weapons are probably easier to come by, as is probably artificer armour.

What do you guys think? am I missing anything/ wrong in anything I have said above?

Thanks in advance for any replies

Meltaguns or MultiMeltas are mentioned in the HH novels.

Terminator armor would be more prevalent, I think.

No one would use Mk 1 armor. It's old and outdated and hasn't achieved relic status yet.

Narkasis Broon said:

I'd suggest replacing Stormbolters with Combi-Bolters (which did exist at the time, as the primary armament of Terminators), essentially exchanging the Storm quality for the Twin-Linked quality.

I'd also suggest increasing the Renown Requirement of Jump Packs to Famed (60+), as they were rare and only issued to veterans. As a result, I'd remove them (and replace them with something else... not sure what, yet) from the standard issue of Assault Marines.

Reading over, things that come to my mind:

Termie gear: Rather than it being rare, it's new technology and untested, but Id' say it's perhaps becoming prevailent. So maybe keeping it the same as where it is now rather than less of it would be the way to go. I'd say to watch out for some technologies to be more prevailent, like perhaps teleporters and things such as.

Other than that, a few types of Land raider haven't been made yet, and I'm not sure if Vindicators are present yet either.

I'd rework some of the armor, maybe taking the base armor as a template, but the lower ranks of armor are meant to be customized for being old, and thusly don't have much in terms of their bases. Some of their extras are also based on others perceptions of them (Plus to fellowship for being so old of an armor). So you might wanna look into that.

There's osmething else, but I can't recal what it is

Teleporter Packs and beacons I think would be more common during the Great Crusade as the technology was either (re-)discovered during the time frame or the knowledge and production facilities hadn't been lost (yet). Mind you I don't have any authoritative sources so I could be wrong.

Something else, but what I wasn't thinking of earlier. But does anyone know if they collected the progenor glands back then?

To be honest my thinking with armour at the moment is give them all mark 4 power armour but take away the fellowship bonus and 2 of the 3 armour histories (because its not as old) thats basically the same as mark 7 but just a bit less efficient (less armour points, heavier etc)

ok terminator armour I will keep the same and make twin linked bolters standard armament.

Jump packs were uncommon? I've not heard that one before. I think I will either offer assault marines either a power sword (instead of a chainsword) as standard equipment to replace it or a meltabombs or two. (I just feel like assault marines should have melta bombs)

ok I will make sure teleportation is relatively common, might even make it a requisitionable thing per the RoB rules for requisitioning transport and support.

I will be careful with what tanks I use. just out of curiosity at this point did the Leman Russ exist? and was it called the Leman Russ?

finally I will keep melta weapons in. I wasn't sure about that one, like I said I am running off my memory of reading Codex Chaos which I bought somewhere between 10 and 15 years ago

On Progenoids, I guess they must have unless they were able to get it straight from the source (ie their respective primarchs) I can't specifically remember it happening though

Yep, page 23 of Horus Rising

""He was about to remove Tibor's precious gene-seed so that it might be returned to the Legion banks"

If memory serves the Thunderhawk is new, small, boxy and less well liked than the Stormbird.

Storm bolters are around in the HH novels. Horus himself uses one in the first scene of Horus Rising.

Assault Cannons are in there too, at least as a vehicle/dreadnought weapon.

Mk6 armour is in common use among the Ultramarines (and, it's inferred that others use it too) by the time of Battle for the Abyss.

in Mechanicum Sigismund captures the latest production run of armours for the Loyalists and those are all MK4 Armours. Mk6 where available but are surly rare in comparision to the standard armour of the Astartes MK4&5.

That is because Mk4 was only made on Mars. Mk5 and Mk6 was built from a greater number of Forge Worlds (including the one that supplies Ultramar). Even during the Great Crusade, units originally supplied by Terra started with Mk4, but almost all replacements were from other Mks.

Narkasis Broon said:

The first Imperial Armour book notes that the Executioner ("one of the oldest variants of the standard Leman Russ tank") equipped entire Imperial Army armoured regiments during the Great Crusade.

So not only was the Leman Russ around but so were some of its variants.

DW

HappyDaze said:

Horus had a storm bolter, yes, but that's on the Talon of Horus, his personal wargear. Early, custom-built storm bolter. It's not standard issue at all. If you use vehicles, there were no Land Speeders during the Crusade and probably none during the Heresy, either, since their STC was discovered in M31, during the Heresy.

IIRC, assault cannons were developed later on as a replacement for autocannons (stats in DH Inquisitor's Handbook).

I don't think power weapons would be "common" but would be more common than in 40k era. Specialist troops (maybe your PCs) would have easier access to them certainly.

The older marks of armour would already be gathering history. Remember, lots of action and hard fighting during the Crusade. And space marines already had a sense of pride in their legion's victories including those alongside the God Emperor. So it stands to reason that at the very least individual examples if not all suits of earlier marks would be cherished relics already. The Mark I worn by Brother Castigus who spearheaded the extinction blow against a species near Terra before his MK II was ready, that sort of thing.

Assault cannons are mentioned in thousand sons but the thousand sons still call them reaper autocannons as the reaper name has more 'power' but they are clearly assualt cannons not autocannons, storm bolters are also mentioned

Might I suggest taking a look at the Horus Heresy 30k Campaign .pdf from Bell of Lost souls. It's for tabletop rather than FFG RP, but has interesting information and wargear on the different Legions. Worth a look!