I'm new to Deathwatch.

I'm putting together my first character and would like to mainly focus on BS.

I'm tempted by a Devastator because of the heavy weapon and cheap BS upgrades but I noticed that heavy weapons require bracing or incur a -30 penalty.

Q1. Is there a way to by-pass this penalty with anything? and if so, what?

The other couple of things that seem important is the ability to dodge attacks, which requires the Dodge skill trained and high Agility; and decent Toughness for soaking up the damage. However there doesn't seem to be Speciality that doesn't have a pricey Toughness/Agility/BS.

Q2. What are my best options for a build based around Toughness/Agility/BS? [it doesn't have to be a Devastator]

Thanks in advance

bob

All Space Marines start with a talent called Bulging Biceps which allows them to fire heavy weapons at no penalty without taking an action to brace.

Techmarines are the only Specialty that get cheap Toughness progression. Nobody gets both Ag and T super-cheap. It'd be overpowered.

My suggestion would be a Tactical marine. No expensive stats, and you get a good number of ranged combat talents. Most of the chapters get a bonus to one of those stats and will be the main flavor part of the character at that point.

Dev will make for a superior shootist, but Nathiel is right in that Tac would be a good balance. I'd take a look at the advance table and figure out which types of skills/talents you like more and go with that.

Interesting, I was leaning toward the Techmarine for The Flesh is Weak and cheap Toughness advances, and a Bionic Heart.

I was thinking the extra Armour and Toughness would make him very durable, and all the tech stuff is all gravy on top. The downside is that rank 2 offers no bs improvements

I have to say the tactical option would cost less in the long run as all 3 abilities are at medium costs, plus the extra damage using bolt weapons is a nice free boon. The Dev certainly has the best shooting Talent options but very little else and pricey Agility.

Qu. Is the Dodge mechanic worth persuing ??? Or should I max out the toughness and BS instead?

Now I'm tortured!

Avoiding an attack with dodge/parry is always better than relying on soak. More enemies have Penetration than have ways to prevent you from dodging or parrying an attack. And not every rank is going to have super-cool must-have options.

As a tactical marine do not expect to be in solo mode very much unless your team has 2 tacmarines. Most squads will expect the tacmarine to do some leading because they are likely to generate the most base Cohesion and have Command for free. The squad mode option is in a number of cases a lot better because Kill Teams live and die by squad mode ability use. Being able to call upon the squad mode abilities of other chapters in your team can give you much better options than a flat BS and minor damage bonus, and squad mode is the place to be for dealing with Fear and other effects as well.

The dev is pure shooty. Great stuff early on but pretty minimalist in needs...take a good chapter for its advances or dive into the general or deathwatch tables. Devs can be heavy shooty and well-rounded in a variety of non combat or Int-based areas.

Techmarines, like Tech-Priests in DH, are a lot of fun. A lot of options and cool wargear, trained in an important skill and great fluff.

Just a note on TB vs avoidance: Accept that you're going to be taking hits. Accept that you'll go into crits at some point. It's going to happen. You can't be the best at everything at every rank.

Kshatriya said:

+1

Also, your characteristics can be raised at any rank. In theory you could buy an individual characteristic 4 times at early ranks and max it out, nothing but XP totals stop you there.

Thanks for the help. I'm still a little tortured as I've only played one sesion [using someone elses character]. It wasn't the greatest session for me...

R1: Lib pushes and our weapons are jammed

R2/3: Unjam weapons

R4: Hit in the head - stunned - lost an eye!

R5: Hit in the head - burn Fate to survive!

R6: Lib pushes and I fall - I stand and fire [dodged]

R7: Lib pushes and I'm very fatigued.

R8: FIRE and hit! [no 10's rolled ]

R9: Miss!

**** Pyscops!

I think that the Techmarine will be fun to play so I'm going with that. [i really like The Flesh is Weak even if it isn't amazing]

bob

You got brought into crits that fast? What were you fighting? Did you Fate any of your unsuccessful dodges/parries? Did you use cover? You know that marines halve all critical damage taken, right?

I got attacked by 3 stealers, they all hit, there was no cover, and yes the crits were halved. The character doesn't have trained dodge, and I was stunned when the second wave of hits got me!

You need to talk to your librarian, seriously. If he keeps pushing like that, none of you will survive. None. In 40K there is no limitation to psi as there is to magic in other games. No needing to memorize spells, no spell points that get expended.

The limitation is in the risk you take and every psyker, their co-players and the GM need to be aware of that. Once you land on Perils of the Warp, things are hanging in the balance. And statistically next time he pushes, there will be a Perils of the Warp (every fourth Psychic Phenomena roll).

When a Daemon Prince of Nurgle appears, there is the threat of Total Party Kill in the air. And the GM can't go soft in this regard and be lenient on the psyker/group because then PSY becomes overpowered. So the only real solution is to Push only when you are back to the wall. Even Unfettered should give a second thought, especially at low ranks where it doesn't make that much a difference.

Psy is dangerous and librarians aren't universally loved.

Alex

tricky.bob said:

Ouch. Also nice on your GM

Uh, ALL Astrates have Dodge trained. Core page 36. Also shouldn't your bio-monitor have removed the stun effect? And it'd have been worth it to Fate away the fatigue or declare that your armor used a stimm to temporarily new it and Fate-heal 1d10 wounds in between hits. Also couldn't have hurt to call for a defensive squad mode right when they came on you. Food for thought.

Also I support Librarians pushing every time. Keeps things weird.

Kshatriya said:

Dodge is listed as a starting skill. I assume that is basic [half Agility]. I also assume you have to take it [300xp]again to get to "trained" level?

Where is the info on the Bio-monitor?

What is Defence Squad mode?

Thanks again!

The Errata specifies that all Space Marines have Dodge as a Trained Basic Skill.

(1) All those skills on that page? You start with them trained. Makes no sense for an Astartes to not know how to dodge competently.

(2) It's in the power armor section. Go look at it. Everyone's power armor have a lot of built-in useful features: bonuses to Awareness, mitigating stun, fully vacuum-sealed...among other powers.

(3) Squad Modes come in offense and defense types. They are additionally divided into Codex (anyone can use and benefit from them) and Chapter (only members of that chapter of can use or benefit from them UNLESS you have a Tactical Marine with the power to extend chapter squad modes to everyone with a Command Test). They each do different things but, generally, offensive help you take the fight to the enemy while defense helps protect you or preempt enemy actions. I encourage you to read the chapter. Squad mode powers are what allow kill-teams to utterly dominate their enemies.

The Bio-monitor in your armour will take you out of stunned effect. But its not immediate. If you get stunned, unless you spend a fate point, you will stay stunned for 1 round until your amrour take you out of it. So stunning can still be dangerous for Space Marines, just not as much compared to mere mortals.

And yes, look at all the abilities you get from power armour and from being a space marine. They are quite powerful.

Re-roll T tests for poison/toxic
+20 bonus for ingested/breathed poisons
Breathing water
Ignore the effects of critical damage for 1d10 rounds (though not lost limbs etc.)
Re-roll pinning tests
+10 bonus to any test to resist psychic powers
Learning some skill for a while from dead enemy by eating them (Speak language being one of the many!!!)
+20 to strength after Unnatural strength (for strength tests)
2 bonus DoS on successful opposed S test, 1 degree easier S tests (Unnatural strength)
2 bonus DoS on successful opposed T test, 1 degree easier T tests (Unnatural Toughness )

And more. Space Marines are Ded 'Ard!

Thanks guys, that's a real help. Looks like I need to read some more.

When it comes to Modes and their benefits, is it either/or, or would you gain both?

herichimo said:

What gives you the ability to resist critical damage for D10 rounds? I can't find that one.

It's situationally either/or. Though Rites of Battle says you can spend Cohesion in Squad Mode to trigger an Active Solo Mode ability (like the Dark Angel ability to gain bonus Wound). Passive Solo Mode abilities (like the Space Wolf Perception reroll) are always on regardless of being in Squad or Solo Mode with no additional cost to use.

Scoates said:

The Space Marine power armour includes an auto-injector that comes with 6 doses of pain-killer, adrenaline, stimulants, or whatever. The info is in the armoury section under the power armour entry. You may use them whenever you want and may chain the doses after another if you wish. When you use them they let you ignore the effects (except limb loss, bleeding, characteristic loss, etc.) of critical damage. So you won't get stunned or suffer fatigue until the stimm wears off, but your arm will still be laying on the floor ten feet away from you.

Fluff not: these stimms would more than likely kill a normal human, probably instantly, if they were to take them. As woul the medications and first aid concoctions the apothecary carries around with him. They are afterall, designed for Astartes. The coagulant needed to stop blood flow in a wound that would cause a space marine to bleed would likely instantly solidify a mortal man's blood inside his veins for instance.