Hi all,

My gaming group and I have just got into deathwatch. It's our first proper RPG as we mainly play board games and 40k. We chose Deathwatch due to its focus on combat and the fact we can use models we already own (although we sculpted our own true scale marines for our characters) and the fact that we're a little too self conscious about 'roleplaying' at the moment (I'm sure that will go with time!).

We had our first game last night. It wasn't a proper game as such, it was just a quick scenario my girlfriend, our GM, knocked up so we could all learn the rules and get a feel for our characters. Long story short it was a lot of fun and can't wait to start the proper campaigns (We're going to start with Final Sanction).

I do have a quick question however, has anyone else found that their Deathwatch rulebook is a bit fragile? We haven't had it particularly long and it's already coming apart from the binding which is a bit of a shame. Other than that though, we're really looking forward to taking this further!

I would scour these forums for house rules for your group. There is one person who frequently posts on the forums with their house rule list in their signature. I would grab that and adopt it. Also, I would use the Errata from the FFG website because I find it fixes a few important things and makes the weapon damages more consistent.

I haven't found my rulebook to be frail at all. Actually, this thing is built like a tank. Sorry to hear yours is falling apart!

Overall, Deathwatch, with some rules clarifying and a select few house-rules is an incredible game. P.S. if you use miniatures and a grid system, I would recommend using a scale of 1/2 inch per in game meter. Also, we have been representing horde magnitude with each miniature equaling 2 horde magnitude. It makes it easier to have a Magnitude 60 Hormagaunt brood running around!

Thanks for the reply

That's interesting to hear about your rulebook, if it gets much worse it will have to be an email to FFG!

We've got a lot of terrain at the moment so have been using our gaming table but I imagine we'll need to get some maps for times when we don't have the right stuff. We've been fairly flexible on scale. Initially we used what you suggest, 2m to an inch but when the main fire fight broke out it was a fairly close skirmish so changed to scale to 1m per inch. 2m per inch will be our default scale however!

We'll have a look a the FAQ. In what way would you say the weapon damages are a bit inconsistent in the main book? (We don't have much to compare to at the moment, especially after one game).

Cheers!

Another good idea if you do not have a lot of roleplay experience is to look at other roleplaying games or books and grab the info form there. Also recruiting a dedicated roleplayer into a group is a good way to show people roleplaying. Further more getting involved with other roleplayers from other groups will give you stories and experiences from their games.

Good to have new players to the system!

The current Errata changes some of the guns that are 2D10 damage to a 1D10 plus more instead, which makes the result more consistent and less extreme. Also, it makes things easier, especially with Tearing and a couple other special rules. The Errata also changes some of the Tyranid weapon damages and I believe it is a big improvement and allow for more of the monsters to be a threat towards the players.

Regarding book and the binding, yes, some of the books released by FFG suffer from a lackluster binding. It's nothing that unusual and pretty much every publisher suffers from it once in a while. My Black Crusade book fell out of it's cover and is now a paperback. That said just email FFG and they're really good about fixing the issue.

It indeed seems many different occasional books tend to fall apart. My barely used Mark of the Xenos book is going to be a paperback very soon. My other FFG books are fine however.

Books just die its sad. I usually only get PDFs now.

Interesting news about the ammended weapon stats, we'll have to have a look at that. As for Tyranids being more of a threat to the players, in our tester game we found that Tyranid Warriors whilst fairly easy to take down at range (especially with hellfire rounds), were absolutely beasting in hand to hand combat and usually won fairly easily. Maybe we were doing it wrong but from now on we'll certainly be shooting the big ones!

It's a shame that books do die, but I don't mind using a worn book that's obviously been used a lot as it's a sign it's been enjoyed. Pages on the verge of falling out 2 months after purchase though is a bit poor. I'll let FFG know and see what happens. Hopefully it'll get resolved as one of the things I really like about FFG that most of the time (at least in the boardgames department), their products are of an outstanding quality.

I can see what you're saying about getting an experienced roleplayer in to the group. That's actually a likely possibility, a friend of mine at work who has played many rpgs in the past has expressed interest in joining us if our game of Final Sanction goes well and we decide to stick with it. So here's hoping our Kill Team will go from 3, to 4 strong!

El Mariachi said:

I've found Tyranid Warriors to be weak foes. They seem to be just a step above the horde- only one of their guns will reliably hurt Marines. In hand to hand they're more reliable but still go down quickly. The other Tyranid foes seem to do much more damage, especially the Genestealers from The Emperor Protects, and the new ones from Mark of the Xenos.

Best of luck to you in your campaign; ours started shakey until everyone go into the whole space knights thing, and it's just gotten better and better, so don't dispair if you hit some struggles early on. It's definitely not a 'beginners RPG.' I agree with the others as well, in that you should steal other folks' houserules. For me, the erratta fixed a LOT of issues (particularly that nasty weapon damage one), but we still tweak the rules here and there to make things more fun and more fair. There is a lot that's been discussed already, so try a quick search on the forums and if that doesn't answer the question, ask away.

Dude, Tyranid Warriors, stock style with a Deathspitter and Scything Talons, are awesome. Throw 3 with a horde of gaunts at the marines and see how it goes. I send a few Warriors at my killteam with Scything Talons and Rending Claws. Rending Claws+Lightning Attack is nasty. Notice, if you remove the ranged weapon option, you gain lightning attack. The one downside is that they don't have Dodge (which I think is stupid).

El Mariachi said:

There's a whole thread about it here . The Errata stats are 'optional', but most people (well, at least most GMs!) seem to like the revised stats better- the higher minimum damage speeds up combat against 'grunts', while the lower maximum damage and reduced chance of Righteous Fury make the 'boss monsters' more of a challenge.