just started a deathwatch and one of the players is a black shield. he is a lunat wolf from the time the chapter turned to chaos, he saw the chapter falling apart and along with a few others fled to join the loyal chapters. now in the present he has blackened his armour and joined the deathwatch. he want to purge his soul and gain forgiveness for his ex brothers evil deeds. he even wants to restart the chapter and fight chaos with his loyal brothers.

i for one wish him all the luck in the world. as GM I am really looking forward to seeing how far this goes. there are a number of people who know who and what he is and are looking for him, chaos followers and agents of the imperium. its going to be interesting

do you have a black shield in your game, are you the players or gm? lets see what other people are up to

So far no, but I have managed to get my hands on a couple of downloadable Chapter rules for the Traitor Legions in case that someone would like to try it out.

Is this fudged by saying he was locked in the Omega Vault for a few thousand years and just stumbled out of it? Otherwise, to be a Lunar Wolf, he'd have to be ludicrously old.

I'm running a game set around the current 40k universe date, rather than surrounding the events of the Achilles crusade. There are two Black Shield NPCs - Watch-Captain Eskari whose chapter, the Saber Wolves, were wiped out by an Ork Waagh while he was serving with the DW. Hearing this, he adopted the Black shield and served for the remainder of his life, being posthumously elevated to Watch-captain as he was placed inside a dreadnought chassis.

A member of another Kill-team in the watch-ship (I've based the game out of a Deathwatch Watch house that is based inside a Strike Cruiser. Gives me more flexibility) is a Marine Errant who has recently found out about the fall of his chapter to the Red Corsairs. He's quartered his chapter colours in black with mournign, with the intention of serving permanently with the Deathwatch should his chapter be disbanded.

*grins* Unlike 70% of the other games out there I don't have any black shield Luna Wolves or Alpha Legion. I feel like I'm letting the team down

I'm currently playing in two Deathwatch campaigns, GMing in the one and simply playing in the other as a Consecrators (Dark Angel successor chapter) Librarian.

The GM of the game I'm playing in has two Black Shield NPCs involved in the overall story line. The most prominent of these two is his Watch Master (the most senior Watch Captain in the Jericho Reach, his version of a Deathwatch Chapter Master). The GMs been pretty tight lipped about this guy's true chapter, only letting onto the fact that he's from a Chapter that's been wiped out (we're both running our games around the M41 830-850 timeline). My paranoid librarian really, really, REALLY doesn't like the fact that this guy has a hidden identity of sorts (took the paranoid talent AND the master of secrets deed from RoB to reflect and utilize this in RP terms) so needless to say I'm quite keen to find out more about this guy as the game proceeds. His second Black Shield NPC is an ancient, pre-heresy Blood Angels marine the party really hasn't encountered yet. My paranoid librarian struck some gold digging around Deathwatch service records that listed this guy is as KIA, active, AND incarcerated! Not sure on the origin story behind this guy, but he's a vital part of some internal intrigue within the Deathwatch that our GM's came up with. As a tabletop 40k player, our GMs a pretty big fluff buff, so I'm sure this Blood Angel guy's more than just cliche fan service.

Currently in the game I'm running, there is only one Black Shield NPC running about. He's a recon specialist from a homebrewed chapter called the Ascendant Dragoons. I've put alot of thought into the background for these guys. They double up as my own tabletop Space Marine chapter, so between modeling, wargaming, writing about, and now RPing as one I've come up with quite a bit of creative "refuse" surrounding their personal saga as a chapter. Long story short, Kohl is a second term Deathwatch veteran. After finishing up his first tour of duty, he returned to his homeworld to find his Chapter torn apart by internecine warfare. After coming to blows with his "new" Chapter Master over the state of the Dragoons, he took upon himself a self inflicted exile, and returned to the Deathwatch as a Black Shield to oath himself once more to the only other brotherhood he truly believed in.

No one as a PC has really created a Black Shield yet in either of these games. The stereotypical "let's play a good guy from a bad guy chapter" idea was thrown around a bit by several players (including myself ) at character creation, but most of us thought the idea was a bit too cheesy to realistically pull it off. It takes alot of work to make it seem really believable. Anybody attempting to do it though can just fall back on the classic 40k excuse for anything kinda wonky and cliche... just say a warpstorm did it! Seems to work for GW and Black Library as a believable gimmick...

We had our 'group leader' tactical marine be a Black Shield, and at the time it was the only time that player was the only one allowed to use the Rites of Battle Custom Chapters (I decided I wanted people's first characters to be pre-made chapters, but made him an exception because it made a bit more sense for what he was going for).

His background was that his chapter was annihilated by Chaos, and he was the sole survivor, and only fresnly going through the space marine implants and training.

His chapter master handed over his gear and told him to go to the Deathwatch, asking for their aid in protecting the sacred wargear (this will be his relics in the future) in exchange for his permanent position as a Black Shield.

His character's goal is to leave behind a legacy of his chapter and to see his own geneseed used to create a new chapter to fight against Chaos.

I Gm a group of 8 people,one of which is a black shield,assault marine imperial fist.The player was willing to do a history for him and ran through it with me which gave some great ideas for encounters and seperate missions.Basically the character was on a mission where his unit was cut off from imperial lines,fighting hard he slowly watched his team of brothers get taken down until he was left and doubt got into his mind.When he finally got back to imperials he asked his master time to recover his honour to which he volunteered for deathwatch,his master said yes but on the condition he didn't bring dishonour to the chapter he must denounce himself. So far its working quite well

I Gm a group of 8 people,one of which is a black shield,assault marine imperial fist.The player was willing to do a history for him and ran through it with me which gave some great ideas for encounters and seperate missions.Basically the character was on a mission where his unit was cut off from imperial lines,fighting hard he slowly watched his team of brothers get taken down until he was left and doubt got into his mind.When he finally got back to imperials he asked his master time to recover his honour to which he volunteered for deathwatch,his master said yes but on the condition he didn't bring dishonour to the chapter he must denounce himself. So far its working quite well

I GM a group of three people, and in the current mission I'm having two Black Shields accompany the Kill-Team. One is Brother Vigilant, the NPC Chaplain from The Jericho Reach, the other is their Watch Captain for the mission, a completely silent Space Marine that communicates with the Kill-Team through writing on data-slates. The twist here is that the Captain actually is a very high-ranking Fallen Angel in disguise and one of the regulars of the Kill-Team is a Dark Angel, part of the Deathwing. I really want to see how that plays out.

HDaniel said:

I'm curious here, what do you plan on doing with that Fallen/Dark Angel thing? I have two DAs in my group, some ideas would be nice!

Currently I am playing a Black Shield Tech Marine. The reason being was that White Scar's where not in any of the books so I went with Black Shield.

I would love to do a thousand sons black shield! Could you imagine a Rubric Marine that was faithful to the emperor serving in the deathwatch? His swelling anger at his chapter for turning to chaos and his infallible faith in the emperor leaving him in control and resisting his brothers sorcerous powers to control him!

Skeletor said:

The black shield I see commonly are pre-heresy loyalists aka Nathaniel Garro, marines whose entire chapter have either died or completely joined the dark side; or marines seeking to regain honour they have lost in someway (losing a relic, disgrace, etc). I was looking at the Badab war and had some ideas of my own.

I was toying with an idea of a Loyalist Astral Claw Apothecary. Not everyone shares the same opinion as their chapter master Huron. After learning that the chapter was swelling their ranks with geneseed from the tiger claws as well as their articles of secession. Learning of this, the loyal Astral Claw attempted to fake his death and fled to the deathwatch watch station.

He reported his case to the Deathwatch captain and knew that it would be likely his former brethren would kill traitors. In return for the information provided, the Deathwatch captain allowed him to assume the identity of a black shield to protect him. He aspires to either live out his remaining days seeking a glorious end worthy and redeem the wrongs his chapter has wrought.

If he should prove worthy, his greatest aspirations is to see the former glory of his chapter restored and the renewal of the Astral Claws loyal to the tenets of the Imperium, Emperor and the Codex Astartes.

Following the fall of his chapter, he pays special "attention" to reports of the red corsairs. If his paths were to cross with the Red Corsairs, he would fight with a vehemence alike how the Dark Angels would treat the 'fallen'. Except that he is one against an entire warband.

My favourite Black Shield story wasn''t about redemption, loss, honor but personal pride. He have come from chapter founded around 2k years ago, IF descendants not keeping close contact with their ancient fathers, fleet based. Very fanatical Chapter, great zealots, under rule of previous chapter masters they lose touch with codex astartes, they resemble more of black templars mixed with imperial fists and some tribal/feudal folklore.

His greatest curse was his IQ, his understanding of many things was close to become heretical in eyes of many of his battle-brothers, after big argue fight with chapter master he was sent to Deathwatch as punishment for his sins. First he was feeling as striped of his honour and pride, every other deathwatch marine with different set of beliefs and lore was like aberration and alien filth to him. But he adapted, slowly at first, then he started to like his new temporary home, all knowledge, all different cultures of Adeptus Astartes it become fascinating for him. But he missed his home, his chapter, his battle-brothers. After 10 year service in Deathwatch it was time to return home.

He was disappointed of what he saw. After few months of service he had enough of "that bunch of zealous idiots and rampaging rednecks", he was sent on mission he didnt supposed to survive, he left his chapter that day, in anger. He forced planetary governor to contact Ordo Xeno inquisitor who have taken him to Deathwatch fortress. There he striped his chapter symbols, repainted his shoulderpad into abyss black, and even changed his name.

He liked what he become.

I always thought an Alpha Legion (my third favorite loyalist chapter) marine* would make a great character. Whether he was disguised as specific chapter or a black shield. Of course he wouldn''t be actually serving the Deathwatch. . .

Of course he would have to think first if someone asked his name. "I am Alpharius, er, I mean Brother Skippy."

*I had this idea before First Founding mentioned the suspected disguised Alpha Legionnaire.

Skeletor said:

IIRC rubric marines have no will of their own, so the Thousand Sons rely on their sorcerers to control a squad.

DJSunhammer said:

You're not htinking about this right, DJSH - think of it less as a normal Deathwatch game, but more as an 80's cartoon where the good guys steal a robot from the bad guys and reprogram it. Now it can think freely! And fight evil! And maybe… love? *insert mad guitar riff here*

And it would almost certainly be called "Ruby the Rubric Marine".

The soundtrack would be 'You Could Be Mine' by Guns n Roses, of course.

The Rubric Marine would have to fight time travelling Necrons.

bluntpencil2001 said:

You should also check out Hammerfalls "Any Mean's Necessary," really good for Space Marines mind set.

My group has a Black Shield that hails from the Grey Knights. (player wanted to be a GK but we didn't want to make a Dark Heresy game) He's kitted out from the Daemon Hunter book as an interceptor and even sometimes out blends the Blood Angel assault marine w/ duel lightning claws.

Deepstriker said:

Jericho Reach actually has an Astral Claws Watch Captain, he even has a relic Lightning Claw.

Hpred said:

Also Manowar's "Gods of war" (I swear it's a Space marine Theme song!)

and Dream evil's; The Chosen ones. (This is IMHO the heart of the SM attitude!)

Gurkhal said:

I would love to get these, which chapters do you have?

Akroma said:

I've got

Emperor's Children

Thousand Sons

Word Bearers

World Eaters

The quality of the writing isn't something to get yourself jumping up and down but I think its ok.