Despite the debate going on in the Gamemasters Forum over scouts being in the Deathwatch. I'm of the opinion that there would be specialist scouts that have chosen to remain in their respective 10th Companies from various chapters that due to their natural skill or perhaps unorthodox methods get recruited as they are Scout Sergeants to be in the Deathwatch.

So I've put together a Specialty doc to cover those that may want to do this. I'm limiting my players to One Scout marine per Kill-Team, IE one person can play a scout marine out of the group if they so choose as an added house rule for me.

What I'd really like is some feedback on the specialty. I've had some of my players make mock-up characters and doing free level advancement to test it with small gameplay scenarios. It's proven a little weaker than a tactical marine in most situations, and the most troublesome setup has been the Scout opting to continuously purchase a heavy weapon to sneak to a flank and fire.

If you have feedback, I'd love to heard it, and I'm more than willing to make adjustments on the fly to the document.

Looks pretty good, but I don't think they should be penalized for using heavy weapons.

I think a full career is overkill. An advanced specialization available at rank 1 would make more sense to me.

I would limit it to tactical, devastator, or assault careers only and swap out wargear to make certain that players wouldn't look at it as a cheap, easy way to get certain advances.

The penalty applied to the Heavy Weapons is actually from the book, and they can buy the requisite talent to eliminate the negative at level 3. I put it up that far in the advancement because of the rarity it is for scout marines to have heavy weapons. In a normal squad for table top they're limited to 1 out of 9 will have a heavy weapon the rest will be assorted bolters, shotguns, needle rifles, and flamers. Which really are the bread and butter of the scout marine arsenal.

If you have suggestions on how to adjust that I'm all ears, but this was the best solution I could think of at the time I was writing this (like 3 am after a 10 hour work day, I have a busy work schedule).

The overall design is like a generalized weak version of all the specialties if you choose to go that direction, with great emphasis on being stealthy and having demolitions skills.

I haven't read your document, but I agree it should probably be an Advanced Specialization. What really sets Scouts apart from Tactical marines? Stealthiness and perhaps more unorthodox tactics (and in some cases, weapons). I would give them access to Concealment, Silent Move, and some Lore skills and exotic weapon training. Also, working off the traditional usage of "scout", you might give them an ability to engage Squad Mode at a longer distance and something that extends the range of their comrades' abilities. Also, make sniping an appealing option (perhaps give them Sniper Rifle/Stalker Pattern Boltgun/ Stalker Bolts as standard Wargear?)

Nerdynick said:

Most of the advice you have is covered. I focused on Stealthiness, Conceal, and more specialized weapons including the Needle rifles.

What really sets them apart from Tactical marines is the ambush or skirmisher tactics, they're intended to be shoot then move individuals where they keep an enemy at range while a standard space marine is a fire and advance tactical doctrine. Eh, guess using that terminology isn't the easiest to understand cause the game tries to adhere to some military terminology.

They're coming from differing ideologies where they approach a problem differently. From what I've seen of advanced scouts in the fiction is they'd rather infiltrate and use precision fire to eliminate a target, or explosives to take down a structure. The counter point is that standard marine doctrine is to establish a beachhead, then push forward engaging enemies as they arise until they've reached their destination. It's far less subtle but can be equally effective. If you're looking at the codex the standard marine approach is the acceptable one, while the scout approach is considered unorthodox but effective none the less.

In fiction Davion Thule acknowledged Sergeant Cyrus' talents , even calling them unorthodox, but have been found to be effective and implemented some of those ideas into his command.

I notice that the scout can't take the talent for the Needle rifle. Or is that part of Astartes weapon specialisation?

Equerry of Tzeentch said:

That is part of the astartes weapon training.

Looks good. In Dawn of War 2, Syras, the Scout Sergeant was in the Deathwatch for 200 years, according to his in-game bio. There's simply no reason Scouts shouldn't be in Deathwatch.

Kilbourne said:

It should really be Scout Sergeants that get either recruited or seconded to the Deathwatch as they're fully developed marines. This Specialty assumes the player is a fully developed Marine that just happened to be good at doing what the scouts primarily do so the remain as such.

Looks good to me, I was actually going to do a build Cyrus from DoW2 with this specialty.

DaedalRogue said:

It's worth noting that Cyrus does say that he's been in the Deathwatch it doesn't say he was a scout in the deathwatch, he way only have started to act like a scout when he re-joined the chapter and started training in the 10th company. it doesn't say he didn't like to stealth about while he was in Deathwatch either.

Face Eater said:

It does state he was selected for service in the Deathwatch due to his unorthodox tactics. And really it goes either way, it never states he was a tactical, devastator, or assault marine in his service of the Deathwatch. Just because there is this ambiguity means there is wiggle room to have specified Scout Marine specialists. It's in the fiction at the very least that some chapters do have them (Space Wolves), and others that don't (Black Templars). Opening the option up to say that the chapters that do have Scout Marines in general just is for usability and player options.

A point of note so far from reading your background, it is not a nearly a badge of office to wield a chainsword, it is given to sargeant's upon their elevation to that position, as I recall it is specifically pointed out in the insignium astartes, I wish I was at home to give you the page number but it is there along with the change to the helment.

Zrako said:

True, but its down to the Marine's choice as to whether they choose to use this weapon. Also Not every scout marine would be a sergeant you do have the availability of marines who are specialized in being a scout not being a Sergeant at all. Wolf Scouts being the best example of this where they are veterans but not Sergeants.

It's also been noted recently that I haven't included the class Oaths, which means I need to add those as well.

Now updated with available Oaths under the special rules section.

Have fun, Enjoy, I think I'm done tinkering with this until someone points out a flaw or a balance issue or unless I've forgotten something again.

DaedalRogue said:

Actually in the core rulebook it states the needle rifle as an exotic weapon and the astartes training covers all but exotics.

One of my Killteam players wanted to have a less bulky armor ( disliked the looks of it ). So i had her play a Devestator marine with some adjustments:

that instead of MK7 Aquila Space Marine armor wore a Scout armor. This results into dropping of the -30 mods on concealment and silent walking. due to all marine armor being heavy armor. She now has Scout armor wich even gives ( core rulebook rules ) +10 to concealment but the normal penalty for firing heavy weapons.

And instead of the Heavy Bolter I let her start with the Needle Rifle as default weapon. Some might say this is to overpowerd but consider the 2 full action reload per shot with the fact that the needle needs to do a wound to deliver its poison. She now cannot take on heavy armored targets nor hordes due to her brittle and slow reloading sniper. Instead her team needs to handle that for her but she can do some real nice roleplaying now.

Along with this she can do all the Devestator advances in wich are already placed some neath sniper focused skills. So I did not have to create a new specialty as this is my first time GM, i did not want to take that risk.

I did not read your specialty though, but i think it will give your player the feeling he or she is playing somehthing special. wich is always good. I just chanegd it this way wich i find to be workign quite effectively to.

Nogard said:

Many people apply the RoB rule (astartes weapon: While this sniper rifle is in the exotic Category, for Space Marines it counts as a Solid Projectile weapon. This means that the astartes weapon training Talent (see page 113 in the Deathwatch Rulebook) is all that is needed for a Space Marine to use this weapon) and apply it to the standard astartes sniper. It makes sense, really, seeing that all Marines have supposedly been trained as scouts already.

Nogard said:

There is no penalty for firing heavy weapons. Heavy weapons need to be braced in order to fire unless you have bulging biceps, which all astartes have. The only real penalty I'd see for having scout armor and a heavy weapon is there is no real place for the standard ammo pack to go.

Nogard said:

I don't know anyone here that would say that's overpowered. The default Needle rifle is a very specialized weapon. Thumbs up for the RP, but it's definitely not a more powerful loadout.

Nogard said:

Devestator is a pretty good speciality for snipers. I personally suggest using the stalker pattern boltgun though. I've seen devs go with scout armor as you say (and get a +10 to conceal rather than -30), pick up that stalker, and spend most of their req on silent ammo and chameloline cloaks.

I created the specialty as a means to an end. When I looked at what scout marines do in tabletop as well as how it's been applied to the various virtual versions of the world (Dawn of War, and Dawn of War 2 being the prime examples) the scouts do more specialized functions than were permitted for any of the core specializations to do. It was difficult to by default craft a tactical marine, or a devastator into the role of having the scout specialized focus and extended training. This is what inspired me to craft this in the first place.

In the end the mixture I came up with is a bastardization of Tactical, Devastator, and Cyrus from Dawn of War 2 based on the rules provided in the Rites of Battle and Core rule books. Now that I have First Founding I may integrate some of the features from the Wolf Scout specialization they added in there, or generally mine could get tossed out the window as they have the full specialization there.

In hindsight I could've made this a prestige class along the lines of Chaplain, or Forge Master which would be selectable at Rank 1 or Rank 2 for Tactical Marines and Devastators. But I like having it as a starting option for someone. Via the fiction for Dawn of War which is considered cannon to some degree now. Cyrus as a marine was selected for his unique talents and choice of tactics. While those tactics were considered cowardly by the usual Space Marine methodology they proved immensely effective. Davion Thule Acknowledged these talents and even said his influence on the current generation of Blood Ravens would change the chapter forever.

In another view the Raven Guard follow the similar ideals of how this Scout Marine functions of Infiltration and Ambush. They adopted the tactics after a great deal of their numbers were annihilated in the Horus Heresy. For them it became a means for survival as a chapter while still combating enemies of the immortal emperor.

Take it or leave it for how I did this in the end, it functions for the group I'm running. The player using the Specialty opted for going the route of a sniper and has been using it to play an advanced vanguard infront of the rest of the killteam. It has proven effective and the player doesn't feel weak or useless compared to the rest of the kill team, while no severe balance or power issues have arisen either.