I was wondering if anyone decided to do a standard chapter game instead of Deathwatch?

I had an idea to let the players pick a standard chapter (Space Wolves, Dark Angels etc.) and we would play a squad from there. Now I was wondering what excuse to use to gather different classes together in a squad, of course squad leadership becomes an issue as well since a chaplain or librarian would need to be in charge.

Just wondering on your thoughts.

Thanks.

Zin said:

That isn't what our group is doing, but it's a perfectly fine way of doing a campaign. The different classes in many cases already work together in a basic company, so it's not a terrible stretch to make them work as a team. The only tricky one being the assault marine (as devs can be in a tactical squad, apothecaries can attach to squads, librarians, etc.).

If you want a super varied party of all different classes, you could even keep some of the DW themes and make them a group of marines hand picked by the captain to undertake special missions and assignments for the chapter.

I wouldn't worry too much about squad leadership being an issue, you could simply give one of the brother's a suitable rank and be done with it.

hell you could have an assault marine just take away the jump pack and give him a bolter to compensate. Granted it would be harder to get in melee without the jump pack but he when melee does happen he would be prepared.

At least one person I know has done this. I believe it was a Space Wolf campaign. I've been tossing around the idea of setting one campaign like that into Badab War... alas, no time for that now, though.

I agree it's a perfectly valid idea.

As far as making sure the commander is a suitable class, you could just talk to your players and say "look, I want an appropriate class to be the squad leader, so which of you would like to be in charge, and are you willing to choose from X, Y, Z instead of the full list?"

Or you could just make the squad leader a veteran or higher ranking marine if he isn't of the approriate kind of "leader class." There's always a commander who can pull rank on a chaplain or librarian if you go high enough up the chain. You could even go as far as to make a DMPC for the purpose, although I generally dislike those, personally.

As far as adding an assault marine to a mixed squad, the idea of hand-picking soldiers for a special mission works well (and is in keeping with the way Deathwatch squads are generally assembled, to my understanding.) Alternatively you could introduce him mid-way through the first mission, being the sole survivor (or last two if you have two assault marine players) of a previously deployed squad who hook up to help out your team. You might have trouble coming up with excuses to keep the assault marines with the team that way, though.

The whole concept of using Deathwatch as a campaign background is mainly there because it allows everyone to play their favourite Chapter and the focus on small unit action. If you've got an excuse to run as a small unit (ie hand-picked forces), and players aren't yelling at each other about what Chapter they get to play, it's perfectly valid.

One of the campaigns we are doing is a whole Blood Angel group, **** near a squad since there are 7 of us.

Premise being that we were hand picked to work as a "pseudo retinue" for a captain. Intro campaign was the loss of the 3rd company banner, and the idea is the recovery of the banner. We have two tactical, two assault, devastator, apothecary, and Librarian. 9 times out of 10 two of the guys are never there so its not to bad.

I'm kind of working on an idea for a one-shot for conventions and the like that could be used for a campaign, too.

The PCs are all scouts of one chapter (not wolves, cause they should be fresh, not veterans). They are on a training mission in teir own territory, when some enemy launches a surprise attack on that planet.
All friendly fortresses are suddenly under siege and no help is near.
The scout squad is attacked and (hopefully) kill the small group of attackers but their veteran seargant dies, leaving them all on their own.

What will they do?
Will they ...

• try to sabotage one of the siege armies to help their besieged battlebrothers?
• do hit and run attacks on the attackers supply lines?
• assassinate enemy leaders?
• give up? (nor likely)

The scouts will not be full specialties yet but have certain fields of expertise like one with command, another with demolitions or exotic weapon (astartes sniper rifle).
Some will have boltguns, others Assault shotguns with shot and solid ammo, perhaps one with flamer or sniper rifle.

All would have the Scout armor with the autosense-goggles, but in my games I would rule that they are helmets with 4 AP, because I thinks it's stupid that SM-Scouts don't wear helmets. In my opinion they are too valuable to loose them on a lucky headshot whith a low power weapon.

Well the Assault could just by the squad sergeant just take away the jet pack give a backbanner and something else since they are armed with a chainsword and bolt pistol anyhow.

Thanks for the input folks. I was thinking of making a chapter with the specialty of boarding actions/Space Hulk investigations. I seem to remember a story in one of the novels where a chapter had squads searching space hulks frequently, especially if they caught a still active beacon.

Unfortunately I have one player who seems to think that if I am going to mix classes in squads why not just run a Deathwatch game, seems that he can't get past the codex/TT setup where you have regimented squads and no deviation. I tried to explain that the novels sometimes have mixed squads depending on missions. The most recent Blood Angel novels coming to mind.

I finally gave up, told him he was right and decided to make it a Rogue Trader campaign or wait for the Grey Knight rules to be released. Of course now I can't read the Grey Knight Omnibus because if the novels don't follow the codex to a T they are wrong. We have had other games over the years that didn't follow standard rules but that too was a wasted argument. I am sorry to vent/rant but I do feel better.

Thanks for the input again, maybe I'll try again another time, or just find a new group.

Why change groups over one player? Just find another one of those...