I am planning on introducing Deathwatch to my gaming club, so I thought about doing something experimental... Here is the idea:

a. There will be two Kill-Teams, let's call them A and B.

b. I will run "First Sanction" with Kill-Team A, with the following changes: all Genestealers (including the Broodlord) will have 2 extra points of Armour to all locations and the Regeneration (5) trait. The idea is that these Genestealers have a special genotype that make them resistant to standard ammunition.

c. Then I'll run "Extraction" with Kill-Team B. The time line is such that both "First Sanction" and "Extraction" are happening at more or less the same time. I'll make this scenario more difficult than in the book, so that there is some chance of failure. In this case, Magos Vyakai has studied the Tyranids attacking Avalos and has information on how to adapt the ammunition so that Genestealers of this genotype are not resistant anymore.

d. Finally, I'll run "Oblivion's Edge" with Kill-Team A. If team B was successful in Extraction, Genestealers will work as written; otherwise, they will have the same advantages as in the "First Sanction" scenario.

The interesting thing of running the three scenarios as I mention is that you can accommodate more players (as in my group) or that you are giving your players the chance of trying out different characters (specially valuable if you are planning a long campaign, as they then may decide what they prefer, plus you have a pool of extra Space Marines in case one of them dies).

Anyway, I find the three scenarios give a lot of good ideas, but not a lot of detail, so I have been doing preparations for the first scenario. My plan is to use miniatures and scenery from my club. I am not very good at map creation, so the maps I'll present will mainly be maps drawn by hand and scanned into the appropriate document... In this sense, do any of you use map making software? If yes, what would be your advice on software to use for creating cool tactical maps for science-fiction RPGs, and specifically Warhammer 40K?

Here you have some links to the preparation ideas (this includes several tactical maps I drew by hand):

Tokens I'll use to track time and ammo in "Final Sanction": www.4shared.com/document/r8hUbO30/Token_Printing_Sheet.html

Extra and House rules for my campaign arc: www.4shared.com/document/1UDCkENw/0_Extra_Rules_-_Final_Sanction.html

Baptism by Fire chapter of "Final Sanction": www.4shared.com/document/w9vPAERA/1_Baptism_by_Fire_-_Final_Sanc.html

Lordsholm Burns chapter of "Final Sanction" (general rules): www.4shared.com/document/ukIlDbul/2_Lordsholm_Burns_-_Running_th.html

Lordsholm Burns chapter of "Final Sanction" (location encounters): www.4shared.com/document/65IvFZ1R/3_Lordsholm_Burns-_Encounter_L.html

Also, this is the site with the map I'm planning to use for narrative movement through Lordsholm (thanks to Dave Robotham for drawing and sharing these maps): s337.photobucket.com/albums/n400/Dave_Robotham/LORDSHOLM/

And this is the link for the maze house rules cards: www.4shared.com/file/gVz2Bl3Q/Maze_Cards.html

Well, excuse me for answering my own post, but somehow I cannot edit my previous post as the edit button is nowhere to be found (tried with both Firefox and Internet Explorer, btw)... some glitch of the forums?

Anyway, I have updated one of the files of my preparations for this campaign arc. This one has a lot of information on random encounters I plan on using, and I have updated the information on tracking time in the First Sanction scenario. Here is the new link:

Lordsholm Burns chapter of "Final Sanction" (working at it now): http://www.4shared.com/document/AkcE_OEe/2_Lordsholm_Burns_-_Final_Sanc.html

This is actually really cool and helpful. Good work!

Uum, again I cannot edit my posts... I'm thinking it may be due to today being a Sunday? (sorry again for replying to my own post).

I have advanced a lot in my preparations for the First Sanction scenario, and here are the links for the new files (I'll edit old links out when I see I can edit my posts again). Now there are many more tactical maps in the files and some ideas for running a Chase with the Lord-Governor and the Genestealers:

(managed to edit the posts, so see correct links in original post)

That is a great way to introduce two groups of players to a similar story line. Plus, I like how you have the consequences of one mission effect the other one. It gives great continuity to the players. As for editing messages, I don't think I have ever seen an edit button. Granted I am new to the forums...

Ah, wait! I saw it. On the white bar above my message. If you don't see it there... I don't know? Try updating java?

The preparations for the First Sanction scenario as I want to run it in my introductory campaign arc are finished.

Some comments on the motivations I had while writing these preparations, so that you may better understand the ideas I propose:

1. I wanted to use miniatures and scenery from my club, and to have tactical intensive combats, as my friends and I are now in the mood of dedicating a bit more time to the tactics of the combat aspects of the game.

2. I read many posts in the forums of people commenting/complaining that the game was a bit too much "all or nothing", that opponents were eliminated in 1-2 Rounds by the Space Marines or otherwise would have a serious risk of killing them in 1-2 hits... so I tried with a couple house rules to increment the duration of each encounter but reducing a bit the lethality of the opponents.

3. I wanted to try some experimental ideas I had in mind when I first heard of Deathwatch. Mostly, I wanted to create during the game the feeling I've had while watching films or playing games related to the concepts of Aliens, Space Marines, etc. (some of the ideas have been inspired by reading many of the well written posts in the forums).

4. I wanted to explore the concept mentioned in many parts of the Deathwatch rules of counting time passage as an important aspect of the Deathwatch game.

5. And finally, I wanted to run the scenario with a real chance of the Space Marines failing, not because of a lethal monster combination that provoked a TPK, but because of time constraints of the scenario... To avoid frustration on the part of the players, I'll use this failing (or success) as a modification of the difficulty of the following scenarios... Also, my group and I have been playing D&D4 for 4 months now and are eager to try our teeth with something a bit more... demanding.

I plan on running the Final Sanction scenario during november-december. I'll let you know what worked and what didn't. Also, if you try any of the ideas in the documents, please let me know how it went.

These are great, will help me out a lot. I will be running Final Sanction on Friday night before moving onto Extraction and Oblivions Edge.

I will be looking for ward to seeing what you have planned for the rest of the campiagn.

This looks fantastic, but your "Baptism by Fire" link seems to be down.

Scratch that, clearing my cache and then attempting again cleared it right up.

Are these still available to download, I got these before but lost them when my hard drive died.

They were really useful.