It's about time for that, don't you think?

So how about a home-brewn list until FFG has lobbied GW to do at least a WDex?

HQ

Ordo Xenos Inquisitor (Lord) (+Retinue)
Watch Commander (+Chamber of Vigil equivalent command squad)
Watch Captain
Deathwatch Keeper
Deathwatch Librarian/Epistolary
Deathwatch Forge Master

+1 or 2 named characters (Mordigael? Carmillus? Axineton? someone other notable DW marine from canon?)

Elite

DW Dreadnought variants
DW Kill-Marine (similar to SW Lone Wolf?)
DW First Company Kill-Team (terminators, freely mixing of shooty and assault)

Troops

DW Kill-Team (roughly Sternguard equivalents with quite some additional rules)

Transports: (Damocles) Rhino, Razorback, Drop Pod, Land Raider, Storm Raven, Land Speeder Storm (see Shadow of Madness), Chimera for Inq

Fast Attack

Land Speeder
Bike
Assault Bike

Heavy Support

Thunderfire Canon
Land Raider (+variants)
Predator
Whirlwind
Vindicator

Don't know about you but it sounds **** Awesome! to my ears. Only troops section is a bit deserted. Any ideas?

As for the kill-team, it's a special squad and should pretty much have in principle individual upgrades working similar as the options of vanilla Marines' Honor Guard/Command Squad (Apothecary, Champion, Techmarine, Chaplain). I also had the idea of a special rule of combat squading the team on the table (most likely into an assault and a support element). Don't know if that is feasible though. Also: xeno tech, xeno tech everywhere.

Alex

To round things out I would suggest DW Assault Squads (i.e. kill-teams where everyone has jump packs) and DW Devastator Squads (kill-team equipped entirely with heavy weapons).

Not sure what to do about the dearth of troops, though. DW Scouts, maybe?

Lex1nat0r said:

I don't think it's how the Deathwatch works though. I think a kill-team is supposed to be like a swiss army knife, more or less. It's supposed to be able to handle about anything all by itself. That's why I suggested on-table combat-squadding.

Lex1nat0r said:

Hmmm... DW Infiltrators maybe instead? Scouts and/or Marines with masking screen and the like?

Alex

I started something like that a long time ago before the Codex Space Wolves came out I believe.... If you find something useful you can use it.

http://fenvar.lima-city.de/Warhammer40k/Brother Altair.doc

http://fenvar.lima-city.de/Warhammer40k/Deathwatch %20Kill%20Team%20v2.doc'> http://fenvar.lima-city.de/Warhammer40k/Deathwatch %20Kill%20Team%20v2.doc

http://fenvar.lima-city.de/Warhammer40k/Deathwatch Captain v3.doc

http://fenvar.lima-city.de/Warhammer40k/Deathwatch %20Librarian%20v2.doc

I also thought about using lone wolf-like rules for kill-marines, with murder-servitors instead of wolves. Even though I would really like it if the kill-marine could infiltrate....

How about Deathwatch Oaths?

Okay, trying to transfer those directly will be OP. And I guess Oath powers would make SoB players cry foul...

Alex

Oaths? No swearing in class.

Concerning the kill-marine again, how about making him the Coteaz of the list? Meaning he unlocks retinues as troops. Kill-Marines can on the one hand work with acolyte cells or Rogue Traders, on the other hand they are sent when a full kill-team isn't deemed necessary, so you could use them as practically helping out a small Imperial Guard, Arbites or however you configure the retinues force? I guess I'm going crazy again. Ignore me.

Mjoellnir said:

I shy a bit away from including other imperial personnel now. Those can be added later if need be (for example inquisitorial stormtroopers are always an option for later inclusion as troops selection).

It'd be best to build the core as deathwatch in my eyes and tack the rest on later. After all, the army list is supposed to reflect the RPG to quite some degree...

I overhauled your Deathwatch Captain. Not much to change there. I gave him the standard 3 Attacks for Captain only. I renamed your special ability to Chapter Tactics without changing the mechanics. I give him bolt pistol and chainsword as standard loadout because it seems to be the standard for captains and chapter masters and I don't think a Watch Captain will be necessarily different. I made the Deathwatch special ammo + Bolter cost 15 pts, a bargain, I guess given that hellfire usually costs 10. Replacing Bolter with Boltgun is additional +5 because of stacking with ammo.

Allows for a fairly shooty built.

Beyond that I am still pondering the on-table combat squading... it's how kill-teams operate in my short experience in DW RPG. The Devs stay back and fire while the rest advance. And then if the Devs catch-up you can set loose your jump-packed Assault marines. It'll of course much more difficult to handle because every marine would be fairly unique. I guess you got to limit the special roles.

Two charging jump-packed DW marines with power weapon and bolt pistol can hurt (if you include preferred enemy at that) non-assault specialists. I'd give them Hit&RUn too, so they have to survive just one round of melee. I see it working like this: they combat squad during movement, allowing the support element to count as stationary when firing their ranged weapons. In the assault phase, the assault element is allowed to charge the unit the support element has been firing at (if it's within range). If any survive the combat rounds, they can use Hit&Run but must try to return to their unit and merge the two units into one again.

Also, Assault marines and Devastator squads in the vanilla codex aren't the most efficient choices anyway. So I'd be inclined to work in the direction of the above approach.

Alex

ak-73 said:

There are no inquisitorial stormtroopers anymore. The Ordo Xenos Inquisitor from Codex Grey Knights includes the cost for unlocking one retinue squad that can be configured as a stormtrooper squad, my idea would just shift them into troops and therefore allow up to 6.

ak-73 said:

I don't want to be annoying, but have you thought about movie marines as a base? Or maybe making them something like the Grey Knight Paladins with 2 wounds? They will die awfully fast for the RPG otherwise.

ak-73 said:

Hehe, strange, I gave him 4 attacks, I believe to counter the lack of a bolt pistol and later the Wolf Lord got 4 attacks.

ak-73 said:

Thanks to suspensors the devastators can be fairly flexible. I think forcing units to merge again could become messy....

It really ticks me off that there have now been two Grey Knights Codices in 40k TT, and we are still waiting for the first official Deathwatch/ Ordo Xenos one...

@Adeptus-B: I think you can field an OX Inquisitor in Codex Grey Knights at least. Still not the same.

Mjoellnir said:

2 Wounds is a thought. Attaching an Apothecary could be a thought. Gaining invul saves could be a thought.

Mjoellnir said:

Space Wolves are better?

Mjoellnir said:

40K Devs have no suspensor rules and are significantly less cost-effective than Long Fangs, no? Of course you could field Dev squads with Long Fang rules/costs and Assault squads with BA Heroic Intervention. I don't think non-marine gamers would appreciate it though.

As for combat squading... there's likely caveats, I just don't see them right now. If you're back to 2 inch, you are being declared as one unit again. Would also give the elite Astartes feel.. like regular Astartes only better at the same thing.

I also think that if it's not an army-wide rule a named character should have a special rule that brings out the best in the unit he's joined with which unlocks special rules for the unit he is joined with. That way you represent the synergies of the various chapters, a trademark for the DW. Similar to how Calgar, Kantor, Vulkan, etc unlock their chapter's special for their list. Which is unfortunate as they should be chapter-based and not named character-based imho.

Alex

Adeptus-B said:

I don't think the Deathwatch really need a Codex all to themselves. We could really just make do with a kill-team entry in the standard SM Codex.

Lex1nat0r said:

Actually I think that is not quite correct. What is necessary is the ability to add an OX Inquisitor. Sternguards model Deathwatch kill-teams okayish. You can use chapter masters and captains for Watch Commanders and Watch Captains. You can't mix vanilla marines with inquisitorial assets though, that's where the SM Codex falls short.

Also you'd need for flavour at least a few special rules like DW Epistolary psy powers, Preferred Enemy rules, etc. Also access to xeno technology equipment would be nice.

But the main point remains adding an Inquisitor to the army.

Not to mention that it would also be nice promotion for the role-playing game. Wink, wink, FFG.

Alex

ak-73 said:

Ha, you wish. I did think that GW might do a DW codex when DW was coming out but alas no. Although now we know that SoB is going to be a WD codex they could do the same for DW.

Onto the list. A number of things are in the Codex GK that apply to Ordo Xeno's that you are missing Inquisitorial assets, plus a few things that generally Inquisition should have be Malleus avoid.

HQ

Inquisitors (non lord, cheap very flexible characters + henchmen which are technically in the Elites section but not really)

Elites

DW Techmarine (I know you have them as a HQ, in C:GK they are elites, could even be heavy support I suppose).

Temple Assassin (1, require Inquisitor Lord Character)

Jokearo (lolz)

Troops

Inquisitorial Storm Troops (not in C:GK, I presume because they are pretty much wasted if you are going against demons, pretty much standard against Xeno's though and the default extra troop).

Fast Attack

Vanguard Killteam (in the RPG it's fine to mix to heavy weapons and jump packs but that don't work so well in the TT).

ak-73 said:

I think 2 wounds + Apothecary like Paladins would be best, invulnerable saving throws should still be provided by wargear.

ak-73 said:

The Deathwatch WD rules had an assault profile for the heavy bolter. Basically you could switch between moving and shooting with the normal ammunition but at reduced range (18 inch assault 3) or using it as a heavy weapon with the hellfire ammunition.

ak-73 said:

True. It was a bad replacement for the create your own chapter rules of the previous Space Marine Codex....

Not sure about giving basic troops, even if they are DW Veterans, 2 wounds, otherwise it won't make much sense compared to current SM codex's, those kill teams are going be troops after all. Essentially you are looking at a highly converted Pedro Kantor list and people are going to wonder where their vets wounds went when they re-joined the chapter.

For the basic kill teams I think there's obvious special rule:

Deathwatch training: Give prefered enemy when fighting Orks, Tau, Tyranids, Eldar, Kroot or Vespid.

For the heavy weapons: Suspensors: Give the model the Relentless trait. I don't know if that's just going to be for heavy bolters, a purchased upgrade or base increase in HW costs.

I'd suggest allowing them to upgrade squad members to Apothecaries (for FNP), Tech Marines (cover upgrade?), and Librarians? I know the BS do it differently in that it's a single elite choice for 3 SP's, you could do that but if you envisage all squads having a Apoth, Tech or Lib it might be prohibitive.

I don't think it's worth the combat squading thing tbh. In TT a jump pack trooper can't go in a vehicle, you'll be limited to moving 6" for the whole squad even if you have the heavy weapons moving and firing. Even if you let them rush forward and attempt to get back to the squad if they fail to destroy the target you've basically put them well within charge range on their turn giving up the advantage of engaging them first to stop them charging,

No one's going to judge you harshly if you had to make some background decisions to make this work, assuming that they re-squad into more standard units if they are gathering in sufficient numbers to face a mighty army.

Plus of course if you have vanguard squads they would get heroic intervention.

Okay, we have been too hasty, I feel.

The basic question is: what is the modus operandi of a Ordo Xenos Deathwatch-based army. It's a bit difficult to determine because the numbers normally are even lower than those that vanillas field. That said, I would guess the average MO is similar to vanilla marines: soften the enemy up with (often mid-ranged) firepower and then assault for the kill.

With the Deathwatch, a single kill-team should have the means to do so with many different xeno units.

So let's get through some of they key points of a DW army:

-Durability: Power Armour, Apothecary, perhaps one or 2 models with invul saves (through gear of course).
-Mobility: largely vehicle based. A foot-slogging KT is normally not very mobile. Entirely jump pack based KT are not my DW gaming experience.
-Ranged destructive power: Marines with the best the Astartes have to offer. Like Sternguard, possibly even better. Need to say more?
-Combat: They're all veterans so that is good. But they are by default no combat monsters. My RPG experience however says that they can be kitted out to be very good in melee, not top tier but good. It depends on what you pay for them. Plus they should be good against xenos in melee with Preferred Enemy.

The RPG experience doesn't tell me that there is Assault kill-teams and shooty kill-teams. They take the Marine swiss army knife concept even further: a single kill-team can be either (or balanced), depending on how you build it.

Of course you got to balance it all and make sure they don't get too good. They're not good as grey knights for example, except against xenos, I guess. Which are the more frequent enemy in 40K TT, so that should show in the points cost.

Alex

Face Eater said:

Logic is out of the window in 40k. With Kaldor Draigo you can field Grey Knight Paladins as troops. And just look at the Space Wolf army and the fluff and rules of the different units. Let's take a Blood Claw pack for example. If a Blood Claw squad is reduced to one member who doesn't have deserved a place in the Wolf Guard yet he becomes a Lone Wolf. He gets +2 WS, +1 BS, +1 Wound, Feel no Pain, and the equivalents of Saga of the Bear and Saga of the Beast Slayer. If he survives he gets a place in the Wolf Guard. -1 WS, -1 Wound, loses Feel No Pain and both Saga equivalents. So much for logic in 40k. Especially Wounds are fluff anyway. A chaplain isn't twice as survivable as a sergeant.

I think having an army of veterans is good enough, space marines are already durable and GK are better than Deathwatch Marines.

I see the DW slightly above Sternguard (due to Xeno Hunter training and due to having the best equipment that the Astartes can get, including xeno gear - and at times due to synergy effects between chapters) but below GK.

Also I don't think you need Assault Deathwatch nor Devastator Deathwatch. Competitive vanilla armies don't field either frequently anyway.

As for combat squadding, it's an option: you combat squad your assault element away and fire the support element as stationary. If a few enemies survive you mop them up with the assault element. Or you assault another enemy unit and mop them up. Or you keep the assault element as a sacrifical screenign element for the enemy turn. I'm not entirely sure how useful it would be but unless it's not a total waste, it'd be one trademark mechanic.

Alex

Perhaps the combat squadding is actually too powerful with late objective grabbing/contesting...

Alex

Believe me, an army of Sternguard would do fine, as I said the Pedro Kantor army list is well tested. And giving them preffered enemy against 2 thirds of the other armies, forget about it, job done, that would normally enough.

The problems going to be the same as it is with Sternguard, very few options, don't get me wrong the army list entry has a bunch of choices but they are not very appealing, no one wants to trade in a bolter with that special ammo rule. Other than to get a storm bolter or combi weapon.

2 options for this, either you allow specialist ammo to be used in bolt pistols or give them additional CC in addition to their normal load out (which would suddenly make Storm Bolters very popular, but that's absolutely in keeping with the RPG).

Plus of course apothecaries for all, that alone is going to massively increase your staying power.

Combat squading seems like the best solution but it's just not going to be used much, in general people are just going to that at the start of the game to send half squads of assault marine running off or they are going to equip their squads entirely for shooting or for assault and combat squad just to get objectives.

Mjoellnir said:

Yes but that's saying that the cheesiest combination in the cheesiest army should be across the board standard for DW. Most GK terminators only have one wound.

If you were trying to convince me that the Terminator elites should have 3 wounds I'd be fine with that, if you were going to have Grand Master of the Deathwatch special character with a special ability to turn those elites into troops, there's a precedent for that too.

ak-73 said:

Good analysis and the best place to start.

-Durability: The biggest upgrade is a an apothecary, but also increasing the base armour of some models (and then preferencially allocating hits to them) so if upgrading a member to a Techmarine gets a 2up armour save, put storm storm shields in their to allocate hit pen hits to, or other options for invul saves. Can you add a serge in Termy armour like you can with space wolves?

-Mobility: Indeed, don't overlook the drop pods. I do see this as very much like a vanilla SM army list, but in general in the RPG you don't have entire squads of bikers or jump pack troops so I'm not sure if we need to deviate from that to make them work.

-Ranged destructive power: Yes and yes, I think the original Idea for DW as from the TT was that in most situations you don't want to get into combat with many xeno's shooting them down at range was key. The RPG took a more flexible approach as befits the change in enemies, in many cases xeno's aren't slouches in shooting anymore. But stil the focus seems to be on mobile firepower, which fortunately SM's are v good at.

-Combat: heavy melee focus is a little bit of a rarity amongst marines but when applied they are very good at it. Your basic marines (doubly so for vets) are pretty damned hot so spreading some melee in there just in case is a wise move.

Face Eater said:

Okay, let me put it this way: The Deathwatch is not a real army. The Deathwatch is an organization of bad-ass commandos. If you look at the fluff it almost always talks about the actions of a single kill-team, the only exception is that of the Remembrance Shield from Rites of Battle. So far their only depiction in the rules was as an ally to another army in a squad of ten. If they get their own army it should be really, really small. For that the Marines have to be better. While you can pile a lot of special rules on them it only makes each loss more painful, so you also have to increase survivability. And two wounds and Feel no Pain through an Apothecary is still a far cry from the same in Terminator Armour. And concerning the "superiority" of the Grey Knights that's pretty much gone from all rules except in terms of equipment.

However, I guess in the end that's a matter of taste.

Face Eater said:

No they still die as easily as other marines and cost a lot of more points. Against combat specialists they'll die with or without preferred enemy, I think

Face Eater said:

Storm bolter is the worst of all choices because you don't get special ammo for the storm bolter. Combi-weapons are of course a must at that price. But I also keep a single meltagun in so the enemy must destroy the unit completely even after all combi-weapons have been fired or else risk another close-up melta shot at his mech.

Also the twin Heavy Flamer config is very popular, it can ruin the day of swaths of enemies very easily, allowing for an assault to mop up anything that survives the onslaught.

Face Eater said:

Based on the RPG both should go. This raises and interesting issue: normally you wouldn't give your army all kinds of fancy options because that would be fanboy-ish. However the DW gets the best of the best. As long as it properly reflects in the points cost, it's okay.

Face Eater said:

Unless krak missiles and the like, right. But you got a valid point there. I can hardly imagine any kill-team going hit the board without an apo then. Which is about as it should be. Problem is: Techmarines will rather be seen as meh, unless you can buy them a conversion beamer perhaps. They are rather assault specialists but can't then be jump-packed to join the assault element.

Face Eater said:

Again, it seems to be very powerful to me, if you can combat squad 4 jump-packed veterans last turn for an objective ******/contesting. Very powerful indeed, probably leading "non-mehreens" players to complaining about it. Well, 40K gamers will complain about everything anyway.

Here is the the reworked Watch Captain:

Chapter Tactics is supposed to be the Preferred Enemy (Xenos) thing. Actually we could also keep the name Mjoellnir had been given it. The thing above mostly is Mjoellnir's work. Note this doesn't include the changes for giving the Watch Captain the Deathwatch special ammunition rounds (which may include other round types too, though more than 4 is too much, I think) yet.

Alex

Mjoellnir said:

Personally I'd rather give the Techmarine T5 Save 2+. Combined with an Apo and wound allocation games, it's okay.

W2... well, one could do it, sure. After all Librarians also have 2 wounds. But the army would be highly susceptible to instant death still. It would be pretty much their Achilles heel in either case. Very small armies do not work all that well, I think, so I would try to avoid fielding too few minis, regardless of whether W2 or FNP.

And against small arms fire FNP is just strong as W2, it only has a higher variance. You just have to make sure your Apo doesn't get killed.

The problem with W2 is W2 + FNP, no? It would turn every marine into an effective W4 marine against small arms fire. You can't sell that to non-marine gamers, it'll induce Ward-level rage. So attaching Apothecaries to kill-teams would be out.

I'm not saying it's not an option, I'm just not sold on W2.

Alex