Well not epic as in power level, but epic as in both scale and quality. Our group recently finished a campaign, that I believe turned out to be truly amazing and is hands-down the best campaign I've ever played in. We had a split time-era campaign in which one we played members of the Alpha Legion during the Horus Heresy. In the other time line we were members of a Deathwatch kill team that had been working against the Alpha Legion in the sector with the help of an Inquisitor. Our GM masterfully blended both time eras (I can't give him enough praise for how well he ran this), with the Horus heresy timeline giving back story as to what the legion was up to, giving information our kill team could never know. All the while the Kill team was uncovering more and more information about the legion. It was a grand campaign, equal parts intrigue and combat in a way I truly never thought Deathwatch could do.

This brings me to the point of this thread which was quite simply what is the most epic campaign you've played in Deathwatch so far? How have you (or your GM) come up with ways to blend intrigue into Deathwatch? Also, has anyone actually ran a full Heresy era campaign, and if so, how did it go?

That sounds like it would be an amazing campaign. Tell your gamemaster he is a genius.

That sounds so great- what an excellent idea. So- were the Alpha Legion characters you played during Heresy times ultimately the same characters you faced up against in the 40k timeline? If so that is truly inspired and inspiring.

Those can be damned fine campaigns....and while the GM deserves his props, so do you players for helping make it work...you sound like you have a **** fine group there! Now stop it! yer makin' the rest of us look bad....

While I'm not sure it's quite as epic as the OP, I'm currently running a DW, RT and DH game set in the same requin of space, dealing with the heavy politics of a crusade. While the DW game is currently just a bunch of marines going arond hitting things, they're starting to get involved in conspiracies and the wheeling and dealing of a pair of inquisitorial cells.

The Lord Solar of the crusade (never Warmaster, if you know what's good for you) has turned out to be borderline incompetant and is being slowly controlled by the Adeptus Mechanicus. The Imperial Navy is divided and half of the fleet admirals want to return to Inperial space and abandon the area. The Imperial Guard are desperate for the attention of the Lord Solar, so they're committing themselves to fights they probably shouldn't be. One of the worlds in the path of the crusade appear to be home to a small conclave of Iron Men who are cooperating with the pre-imperial colony still on the planet, so the Adeptus Mechanicus are tearing themselves apart in violent religious debates about what that even MEANS. The crusade is on the verge of tearing itself apart even without direct opposition by the Archenemy and xenos forces in the region. The RT group are playing politics, tryng to keep the various noble houses interested and playing a littel war profiteering on the side. The DH group is starting to learn that the reason this region has been avoided by humans for the perceivable past are tales of the Iron Men... but not the ones currently co-existing with humanity, these ones are mysterious creatures that appear to take orders from a molten golden god. The DW group are just trying to do their duty, but are starting to suspect that the Inquisitor that they perform tasks for might not be fighting for the same cause that everyone else in the sector is.

Insane fights (fighting a Hierophant with a Haephastus Ore Seeker, duelling a nurgle tainted battleship through a dense asteroid field in a Firestorm Frigate, a duel against a dozen Dark Eldar Wracks in a Craftworld's Chamber of the Young King even as the Battlefleet outside launches a barrage of torpedos large enough to cripple a craftworld), insane politics, and the hint that the Primarchs may be returning (so sue me - I like the idea!). It's been pretty epic so far

So, professor: do you have 3 groups (rt, dh, dw), or is it one gang of players with different characters in the 3 games? Or is it one game, but using pc's from all 3 games? Or somethin' else? (we do the 3 games as one method, btw)

And, sounds good 'n epic, indeed! (oh, i assume it's a self-made craftworld...if not, may i ask which one?) And with the primarchs returning, it sounds like yer building up to an epic ending. Or would that be Ending...? (Soooo, i'd ask how the Emprah fits into all this....but, don't answer if there's a chance yer players might be reading this...)

Zappiel said:

I've got two groups, one of which is split into the RT and DW games. The RT game capped out on xp as they were starting a crusade, bringing all of their resources to bear, when all of the players and I realised that we didn't WANT to play through the crusade with those characters, cause they wouldn't really participate much. So we're playing DW primarily with the occasional session where the group play their RT characters for a session of intergalactic politics. That group is starting to learn that great forces are rising in the galaxy and that something, something horrible or glorious, is starting to happen.

The DH group is on the trail of the primarchs. The first storyline I ran with that game (about three years) ended up with them recovering a Primarch (I know, I know, but it was a fairly awesome sequence and they ******* bled for it.) and returrning to Terra.

Okay, so what happened was this. Canonically, the Golden Throne is starting to wear out and flicker occasionally. The DH groups inquisitor discovered this fact and started laying it out logically. If the Golden Throne is breaking down, who can repair it? No one. Okay then, who built it? The God-Emperor. Okay, so who redesigned it to act as a life support machine after the Emperor was mortally wounded? Well... still techincally the Emperor, but via psychic imprinting of Rogal Dorn. So where's Dorn? Uh...

So the campaign was all to find Dorn. The group ended up going mad, becoming corrupt as hell (the final act was travelling through the eye), dealing with insane traitors (Facetaker, the retired Emperor's Child. He has taken over a crone world deep in the eye where he acts as an information merchant to anyone who approaches him. He has a collection of faces taken from those that displease him - should he look through the eyes of the face he sees everything that face has seen. Should he speak through the lips, he knows every lie those lips have spoken), mad xenos ("The Darkness And Rage That Stands At The Edge Of The Abyss, an Ork warlord who took as a trophy the Witchblades, Runes, and Spiritstones of an entire Seer Council who worked together to possess him and who are now unlocking the method to channel the power of the Waaaagh into Eldar magics and finding it... strangely easy), and other, stranger beings (the handsome blonde man who possessed insane and godlike powers and later unfolded into a four metre tall being of liquid gold.)

It was pretty epic. And soon the other group will have a chance to deal with the Primarchs. As I've told them though, theirs is a little less pleasant...

(Oh, Used Ulthwe - primarily. I'm running in the Gothic sector rather than any of the FFG locales and Ulthwe was conveniently placed and given that a fair number of players are long time 40k fans they appreciated having a cameo of an official craftworld. )

Thanks for the responses guys!

Destructor: As a matter of fact, our original group of Alpha Legion marines did make appearances throughout the campaign, though I admit we only actually identified two of them for sure. My friend's Alpha Legion character actually was responsible for killing his Deathwatch character, which was deliciously ironic as he had a trademark finishing move he that he used on the character. As soon as our GM said "He tilts his head back and slowly puts the bolter to your left eye lense" our entire group knew who it was. My own Legion character made an appearance as a saboteur during one of our missions, and successfully ruined an entire facility we were supposed to be defending, which was without a doubt our worst mission failure ever.

Zappiel: Thanks! Trust me I know how good of a group I have here, having been part of some bad ones previously. I've never been in a group where we can have session after session without ever having any player to player issues whatsoever.

Proffesor: Now you said you weren't sure if it was as epic as the campaign I played in, but if a three system campaign that involves grand politics, desperate space fights against epic fleets, an actual Eldar craft world, a mission to help with the Emperor's golden throne itself, and the return of the primarchs themselves isn't epic then I certainly don't know what is. Reading through your posts it sounds like you have some lucky players!

Depending on the session, they may or may not agree with you Thanks, though!

yeah, prof.: all i hafta say is and

some nicely epic campaigns, guys! I clearly have more work to do...dammit!...