My devastator has heroically died one too many times and I qualify for being a Dreadnought. I plan, however, to have a non-Dreadnought 'backup' character for times when he is not needed. It seems interesting for him NOT to be a Space Marine but to be roughly competitive with a space marine (a highly advanced Dark Heresy character, for example). Has anyone got any ideas/dire warnings about a) making a dreadnought, b) making a very high level dark heresy character?

I don't really have personal experience with this, but here's my two cents:

An Ascension-level character is at least theoretically capable of running around with a Space Marine. Psykers, Vindicare Assassins, and Sisters of Battle are probably your best bets here. You can set up any one of those to be absolutely devastating in combat, particularly since there's not as much call for social/interaction skills in Deathwatch as in Dark Heresy. For a Deathwatch game, the Psyker is going to have some stupidly powerful psychic powers, and the Assassin is going to be absolutely brutal against most enemies (Dodges equal to Agility Bonus, AND Unnatural Agility? Ow). With that being said, though....

Hordes are more than likely going to eat you alive. Dark Heresy characters are considerably squishier than Space Marines and use (mostly) inferior kit to boot. So in the case of the Assassin, yeah, you have a bunch of dodges, but the one time you DON'T Dodge is probably going to mean burning Fate. In the case of the Psyker, you'll need to either retool your powers to work with the Deathwatch system, or else work out something with your GM where you get access to some of the Space Marine powers.

TL;DR - Pros: Stupidly powerful Acolytes. Cons: Dangerously squishy Acolytes (particularly versus Hordes). Psykers will require some work with your DM.

Black crusade introduced rules for hordes vs mortals...

they can dodge, they receive normal dmg without bonus Xd10 and players can kill less enemies in horde but from my experience (I've been using hordes in DH ,RT and BC) I can say that high level combar oritented PC who can dodge horde is capable of fighting and killing hordes without more changes

Find out from your GM how he views skill rolls of over 100%. Many of us employ the 'jam' rule to general skills as well, leaving an opportunity for failure at all times. If you don't employ those rules, and you biuld your Vindicare "correctly", you will never need to make a standard dodge roll unless there are significant modifiers to it. If you enforce the jam rule you'll fail your dodge 4-6% of the time. You'd also need to check with the GM to see if the Assassin's dodge ability could be used against a horde- the horde attacks normally can't be dodged, so you'd have to run it by the GM to make sure the 'super dodge' ability would even work in the first place.

In addition, the Vindicare can get unnatural toughness, so the only thing you'll really be missing out on is 7 or so points of armor (which is nothing to sneeze at by the way) but you may have more wounds than most of your comrades. Combine that with the stealth suit and silenced weapon, for the most part you should be shooting from cover and not even being targeted.

Psyker is the other route I'd take- I'd go Sanctioned Psyker into Inquisitor if the GM allows it. Sanctiond get Unnatural Willpower at Rank 14 while Inquisitors pick it up 5 ranks earlier (rank 9), and nearly all of the powers get a benefit of some kind based on your WP bonus- either bonus range, duration, or damage, and it means in contested rolls you always gain an extra degree of success over your competition if you make your roll.

In the end though, DH/Ascension characters are going to be much less useful versus hordes, as their weapons tend to be non-explosive and non automatic fire. Those that are autofire will probably need to roll each time to wound.

I was thinking either a psyker (Inquisitor) or an assassin type character. Seems kind of interesting. Our kill team actually has two characters with absurdly good people skills, but stealth is clearly not our strong suit.

Also, my main character is a rank 5 devastator, so I don't mind being useless vs. hordes since he usually melts them (like 40+ magnitude per hit).

In my experience a vindicare can outbalance a DW game nearly as much as it does a ascension game.

Umbranus said:

Really? Aside from being hard to hit, what else could be OP?

Vindys do seem as though they can balance things in Elite/Master combats, as they have a 95% chance (assuming your GM caps success chances at that level... otherwise, it's even worse!) of dodging everything thrown at them, and can thus survive remarkably well...

...Suddenly, the assassin is more tank than a squad of marines in full armour...

...until a horde turns up. As you can't dodge them, and it makes no real sense to allow Vindys a 'special snowflake rule' to allow such without allowing Marines the same thing, they turn any targeted assassin into pate in about 3 rounds.

fleshbearer said:

They are nearly impossible to kill, can deal lots of damage to master level foes with their special ammo, are hard to doge, can hide after each shot and in the end have more unnatural traits than the battle brothers.

In addition they have easier access to more powerful equipment, more skills and talents as every ascension char when compared to a marine.
So they are better at surviving single foes, comparable at dealing damage but better when it comes to skills and talents.

Except for combat versus hordes (where it's up to the gm whether dodge everything counts) they are at least equal but in parts better than the DW chars.

I'd stay away from making psykers unless you're only using Deathwatch psyker rules and powers. When my co-GM tried to introduce an ascension level psyker PC into our party of rank 1/initiate kill team marines, he clearly overshadowed all of us in sheer power. His DH "starting" healing power was more than twice as good as the one the party Ultramarine Librarian would get 4 or so ranks later. The two psychic power systems are just too different in scale and power when pushed to ascension level limits to be fair to any possible marine psykers.

I had a player run a 'guest character' (he couldn't play all that often). Said player didn't like Space Marines too much, so I let him bring in his old Dark Heresy character, a Psyker/Inquisitor. He could WRECK stuff with his pyrokinetic powers, but as soon as anything actually landed a hit on him (like a horde or the Chaos Marines I had running around), he was in serious trouble. In short, to reiterate what everyone else has said, they can be real glass cannons.

fleshbearer said:

If you have First Founding, I'd suggest a Wolf Scout. It covers your need of a stealthy character without requiring you to port over rules from a sister system (they may be close, but they don't mesh seamlessly). Optionally, try a Raven Guard - they are pretty good at stealth regardless of wwhat specialty you run with them.

Umbranus said:

You're looking at a level 5+ group though, which means any Assault Marine or Devestator (or a dreadnaught) are going to do tons to masters anyhow. As for being nearly impossible to kill, it's up to the GM how hard it is. Many would rule psy powers would not be dogeable either. There was on old post a while back where someone was playing a Vindicare and he died on the second adventure do to an unlucky ambush roll.

They definitely have the edge on skills and talents though (and wounds) as DH has a cheap skill buy up to the ascension level.

HappyDaze said:

I'd agree here, if you're looking for stealth then you can fill that role with an actual Astartes. Given the right skills and equipment they can be quite good- not Vindicare 100% good, but quite good and it will probably fit better with the group. It means you're also going much easier on your GM, as running for a group with an ascension character is a chore enough, and then when you get down and dirty he's got the dread to contend with.

Using Black Crusade as an example, Tech-Priests could easily work alongside your Deathwatch marines in a campaign and remain competitive. Apprentice level Magos etc. Trust me, they can be hard to kill with the Machine trait and high toughness values. You may even be able to use Black Crusade as a way to build him. My Tek-Heretek out of the gate is the equal of any of the chaos space marines, so it shouldn't be any different on the light side of the fence either.

How dependant are the ones from BC on the BC rule changes? I'm not privy to all of them, and likely won't be unless they're errated into DW, so I'm just curious to know how well would they fare under DW Mechanics.

Charmander said:

Im not sure I totally understand the question, but the convention for building characteristic increases are so different that a Tek-Heretek is not pigeon holed into having low agility or zero chance of increasing their fellowship. The stat increase during character creation comes from class not homeworld. The real reason why the "humans" can hold their own vs a "chaos space marine" in BC is because of how you receive gear.

After character creation, Im starting with a suit of light power armor (AR 7), with the same power supply that a chaos marine can get. Its armor is increased to 9 with a talent. A poor quality conversion field, and an Inferno pistol that has to recharge every other turn. And as backup I have a servo skull with a long-las. (Its not a great shot BS 16, but in the words of Commisar Cain, "I'll take every chance I can get, even if its a poor one.")