Ideally, since the Space Marine felt executing the officer was the best course of action, he should automatically step in to fill the command chain vacuum. He can't just execute and officer and expect the military organization available to run nearly as efficiently (if at all) without a commanding officer.

Space Marines are outside of the chain of command. They have no real authority over IG. The colonel can protest, and the Space Marine can take that protest under advisement (even if a ranking IG officer offends his wittle feewing wiff a pwotest). A Space Marine has no authority to pass summary judgement, only that with which to defend himself from potential physical threat. A Deathwatch Space Marine IS NOT a member of the Inquisition, he is on loan to the Chamber Militant of the Ordo Xenos from his parent Chapter. Technically, the Space Marine is way out of line, but what can you do now, after the fact? Reprimand him, that's about all. Meanwhile, defense of the planet goes to complete ****, far worse than the Kill-Team are capable of handling, as the IG forces have no commanding officer. That's how I'd play it.

I'd like to do something like that, but if I let them go and tell them after that the planet is screwed, they may drop the blame on the IG... I'd rather have them on the planet while everyting crumbles around them. They will have a chance to reorganize the army, but for that they will have to plan for everything, from the basic (protect the supply lines, maintain proper discipline without destroying the morale) to the Tau attacks on the different outposts and the IG scouting squads. Most of the work will be finding the guy who know how to do the thing they need before it's too late (I don't really plan for them to do everything, like the latrine cleaning schedule). And if they fail, the continent will fall to the Tau (and maybe the rest of the planet if they really fail hard). Lots of fun for everybody if it works as planed.

I only fear I will forget something important.

Wow. You got a player who has a god complex.

I would have him step in to fill the leadership role. If he isn't the Squad Leader, have the Squad Leader order him to. I would then do as you say, and put this marine in charge of the defense, etc, while the others get the rest of the mission. When it comes down to it, ultimately I feel like he should take a renown loss for his actions. But that's just me. My players know I play hardball, and hitting his renown by a point should sting enough to let him realize he was out of line (the character I mean). However, I also hink its important that players not be penalized for characters actions. As in, punish the Blood Angel, not his player.

Yes, I don't want this to become personnal (and not only because he is our Dark Heresy GM).

Here is what I think I'll do : I let them a day to finish the mission, and when they make their report, the Inquisitor, in accord with the Deathwatch Captain and the IG will put him in charge of the garrison, integrated to the IG hierarchy as a punition. He will report to Lord Commander Ebongrave.(a good occasion to introduce the NPC to the group).

They will have three main characters to help them with the camp :

Commissar Friedrich is here to maintain proper discipline. He will be my fuse if they begin to chain executions, poor commissar will have an case of friendly fire "accident". At this point, the base is near rebellion and will rejoin the Tau if the players don't handle very well the situation. He may or not encourage a zero tolerance politic that will doom him. He will tell the Blood Angel that yes, since he is now in the IG hierarchy, he is allowed to execute him if he mess up, but don't worry, a true member of the Astartes can be nothing short of perfect. Right ?

Head techpriest Marcius will take care of all machines. I don't plan to trap them with him, he will do his job without protest as long as the materiel isn't abused and he has access to enough spare parts and fuel.

Adept Wilfred is the Munitorum Oficer. He is pretty much the most important person in the base, and it gives him an ego the size of a battle barge. He will be insufferable, but the group will have to follow his whishes or do without logistic. Hopefully, he is only bureaucrat to the extrem, and they will have to read, fill out and sign a metric ton of paper every days (well, the Blood Angel will). He won't have time to properly train, and it will give him a -5 to WS and BS until the end of the mission.

They will have objectives from the Lord Commander, guerilla warfare from the Tau, a traitor in the base and when they will begin to be overtaken by events, an unrelated Inquisitor will arrive and order them to personally provide help for him on his secret mission, mainly research and provide an escort and transport for a secret mission (oh sweet revenge). In the end, they will receive a call from their Inquisitor, telling them the man they helped is a radical that disappeared a time ago and needs to be apprehended. Cue pursuit and final fight against the bad guy and his trump card (an artefact letting him control Vespids).

If everything works, they will have fun and the Blood Angel will learn his lesson. He may even end with a slight renown gain if he does the right things (the other will gain more since they won't have a penalty to begin with).

If you feel the battle brother made a mistake and stepped over the line, you should make this clear (in game). Not waffle about and put him in charge of a garrison. The player might misconstrue this as a promotion or reward...

The first step would have been for the commissar of the IG unit to arrest the battle brother, with lethal force if necessary. Because even an inquisitor would face repercussions for gunning down a IG colonel.

If the kill team was on a mission, they can either try to convince the commissar to allow them to finish the mission before returning the offending brother to custody (swearing binding oaths to do so) or leave the battle brother behind in custody. The player can play an IG scout for the remainder of the mission.

The second step would be a formal court-martial (which offers a great opportunity for role-play and allows social skills and talents a chance to shine).

And if found guilty (which is likely), then assign a suitable punishment for the player's character and the rest of the squad because they didn't stop him. That could be commanding a forlorn hope garrison about to be overrun by 'nids or some other suitably suicidal and heroic task such as retrieving the banner of that IG regiment previously lost on a planet during a battle against Orks.

@Ranoncles

Where did you get the idea that Inquisitor would be accountable to anyone else than Emperor of Man (well his superiors of course unless he is Inquisitor Lord).

Space Marine is only accountable to his Chapter Master & Emperor.

And it's hilarious notion that Commissar (less group of Guardsman) would draw his weapons against Angel of Death.

The same way a commissar is accountable. By the system or by real-life consequences. The basic fluff likes to suggest that inquisitors (and commisars) are not accountable and have limitless power. But do you really think that after Horus proved that being unaccountable and having limitless power was a bad thing, the Imperium would create thousands of mini-horus with similar powers? Commissars get reprimanded (usually by a bullet) or fragged if they let their authority go to their head. Inquisitors face similar if not equal real-life consequences. For example, that colonel your inquisitor just killed or wanted to kill? Maybe he once saved another inquisitor and now that one has designated you a traitor and ordered all IG units to kill you on sight. Guess who's orders the IG is going to follow....Or perhaps the colonel was supposed to lead an important attack which got derailed because he was killed in a fit of pique by an inquisitor (or space marine). The planet is lost, the general complains to the sector lord, the sector lord complains to the inquisitor lord, the inquisitor gets hammered because the inquisitor lord has learnt to pick his battles and pissing off the sector lord over this is not worth it. The Siege of Vraks Imperial Armour books even describes an Inquisitor Lord having to justify himself before his peers.

The imperium is a feudal society with different organizations all wielding immense power. Inquisitors are a powerful force within that but not all-powerful, especially at the higher levels. There, it is all a matter of politics and influence.

Or do you really think a newly minted inquisitor can judge a High Lord of Terra?

In this case, the space marine went outside his brief by presuming to judge a member of the IG. That's the job of the commissars. So taking him into custody and demanding a court martial is a logical consequence. That court martial will obviously be held by the chapter and according to their own traditions but the chapter will also have to weigh the consequences of pissing off the IG. Some chapters act alone and relish that independence, others cooperate with Imperial forces. This is where real-politik comes in. Shooting your allies is usually a bad thing. Placating them sometimes requires sacrificing the pion.

And why would drawing weapons on space marines be a silly thing to do? Commissars are trained to enforce discipline and regulations. And they habitually take on tough opponents to inspire the rank and file. If a commissar felt it was his duty to arrest the murderer of his colonel, would he refrain because it was a space marine? Would you expect him to refrain? And would guardsmen not follow orders? Are they suddenly expected to think for themselves?

Granted, this entire scenario is unlikely but it happens in many player groups when players get drunk on their assumed power and authority. I had it happen in my Dark Heresy group when a player felt he could shoot anyone he wanted because he worked for the inquisition. Let's assume that colonel had orders from the watch captain to perform a certain task and therefore could not comply with the request from the space marine. And got shot. What do you think would happen then to the space marine?

There is a chain of command for a reason. If every randomly appearing guy in power armour could just order IG colonels around without any written orders from the proper authority, any battle plan would be a failure. Requesting assistance is one thing. Ordering compliance is quite another.

I don't like the idea of a suicidal mission because either I'll have to cheat to make them survive, and it may give them a bigger ego to have survived that, or everybody make new characters and we have only done a couple of scenarii. It's too big a gamble for me, if they become bored and don't want to play anymore, I lose too.

I like the idea of a formal court-martial, I'll have to think about it, but no commissar will arrest them, they won't come peacefully and I'll have to send the entire garrison after them (if anything else, I have the feeling that someone will mumble "target rich environment", smiles will appear and the guy who bought Black Crusade is absent for a month).

This is something every army faces. You train people to kill, then give them weapons. Sometimes they forget their training and start abusing civilians, especially if away from official scrutiny but most behave properly because of their training, military creed and the fear of repurcussions.

Space marines are part of a chain of command. Consider them commandos. If they encounter a force of regular soldiers, they don't have any authority over them. They can't requisition supplies or give them orders. Because they are on the same side they might get some assistance but only if that doesn't clash with the orders of the other unit.

You need to make it clear to your players what the deathwatch is and what they can and can't do according to your campaign and setting. If it was a genuine misunderstanding of their power, give the player 's pc a slap on the wrist and move on.

If they genuinely want to play space marines as lords of creation, they might enjoy black crusade more. Either play their fall from grace and subsequent flight to the screaming vortex or start a new campaign.

Wow, I can't imagine how his DH games must be..

I mean executing a IG colonel because he protested a rather ridiculous order (I don't know the scenario, but looking a whole planet in the mist of a war against the Tau is rather crazy- that or it is to look at tons of data to find the info, to which bureaucracy is not the Guard's main reason to be) while the kill team sits around and twiddle their thumbs make for lackbuster marines, who are supposed to be the best of their chapter as well.

And they are not Inquisition per se, that would be like a guard private making tactical decision down at Segmentum command because hey, he's in the guard, he gets to defend the Imperium and all

It's not that bad actually, he was clear from the beginning that he was taking liberties with the fluff (the campaign setting is 500 year in the future, Terra and Mars have been destroyed by something unknown and the Imperium is falling apart) so we don't expect things to be by the book (and we rarely have a situation where we do something based on the fluff that doesn't work in his world or the inverse, can genestealer infected victims really be cured ?)

Putting him in charge won't be a promotion, I'll make it sure to point that he's temporary stripped from his Astartes "status", that should be a big enough humiliation for his character to reconsider things without affectig gameplay too much.

For Black Crusade, I won't be mastering it, someone else took the book in our group and I'd like my investment in Deathwatch not to be lost (books aren't cheap)

His action should be penalised in some manner, a loss of 1 to 3 points of renown would be appropriate, he has betrayed a trust, Those IG look up to the Astartes.

You could give the offender either Rival: Imperial Guard, or Enemy: Imperial Guard.

Also some people might be thinking he's suffering the effects of his Primarch's curse, he's getting a bit too blood thirsty for his own good, have his competence questioned by those in charge, maybe he's just not fit for the Deathwatch.

Scare him a bit with his superiors assessing his situation, he can't really act arrogant with his peers and superiors now can he.

He already got Enemy : IG the second he did his little stunt, and a renown penalty seems logical as much.

As suggested here, he will be put in a trial and forbidden to be squad leader for a time, and his time as the head of the garrison will be more paperwork and audits than glorious battles. I plan to play this for one or two sessions, then when the novelty will wear off go back to classic play.

Thank you for your inputs, this is a great help to shape the next scenarii.

Everyone is accountable for their actions....even Inquisitors. If you've read any of the BL books involving Inquisitors or the Deathwatch, you will know this. Inquisitors have agendas and require the assistance or even permission of other Inquisitors from time to time. Political alliances and the resources, or even turning a blind eye in another persecution of their "calling" is always a factor and regardless....there is always someone to which one is accountable or answerable to.

Chain of command as mentioned above was usurped by the Blood Angel. Not only did he step out of line, but he did so in a MAJOR fashion. The act was undisciplined at the very minimum not to mention insubordinate as there were NO orders to execute anyone. If the player is a DH GM, I wonder if he has ANY idea what he is doing playing an Astartes much less a Blood Angel seconded to the Deathwatch. Menial paperwork aside, this is a grave over-stepping of ones authority. Astartes are NOT members of the Inquisition when seconded to the DW. They are there to do the "heavy work" as an extension of the Inquisition via the orders of the Inquisitor that controls and commands the KT. They are his/her tools to get the job done and the actions of the PC would've thrown ALL the Inquisitors plans to the wind.

Whatever sanction is deemed, it should be significant and singularly specific and clear to emphasize that one does NOT perform such rogue and independent actions without orders. To disgrace ones Chapter with such kinds of actions requires punitive measures so that all those that witnessed it will know the wrath of the Inquisition as well as be reminded of the Apocryphon Oath they swore as well as every other Oath of Loyalty and Honor ever sworn under the eyes of their Primarch and the Emperor. A penance should be awarded as well as a loss of Renown to reflect the dishonor of the deed performed. Let it be an example of how NOT to represent an Astartes regardless of who he may be as a GM in another game. Know what you play or be schooled until you learn.

Now he's asking for a backtracking of the "conversation" with the colonel, hope is not entirely lost !

Since it was the very last thing we did in the session, I'm considering letting he do it, maybe with a Fate point. I'll keep the suggestions for the next screw up.

For the books, I read the Eisenhorn and Ravenor ones a long time ago I may have to refresh my memory, and I don't think the Deatwatch ones are sold in France yet. Any suggestion to which one I should look after to have a better understanding of the whole inquisitorial/deathwatch thing ?

Wow. You got a player who has a god complex.

I got 4 gods sitting at the table pretending being players. This is a difficult game in terms of fire-power-management and casualties control. I love it.

Ok, I let him redo the part with the colonel, and he managed to not assassinate him this time.

Instead he found later some new ways to screw everything up.

When they went to the Tau base to save the captured general, he used the crazy tau diplomat to open discutions, going into the base, and talking with the xenos. Great, now everybody is waiting for his order to attack... which never came. He just continued to talk while the general was escorted to the Orca ship, in plain view, trying to persuade the tau that giving him up would help with eventual peace talks. They were always talking when the ship flew up to the tau worlds. They managed to establish a communication between the tau and an Imperium commander who think the tyrannids are a priority, so there's that, but it's hardly a win.

In the end, they won some xp and lost whatever they had for reputation (what do you do when someone reach negative reputation ? I don't want to punish him much since he was just beginning and took the hit with the team)

Since it's "the planet that make people crazy", they have some excuse, but for the time, they won't be send against anything that can talk (no Tau, and definitively not chaos)

Why did none of the kill team react to his non activity, didn't they think he was compromised in some way? The Tau now have access to a high ranking member of the Imperial Guard. Also just because he's team leader doesn't mean he commands them, he's first among equals, his position only counts for reaching a consensus in decisions where the teams decisions are split.

Another side effect of the ineptitude could be the loss of Baraban as an Imperial asset, this could be a setback to the entire Canis Salient offensive, make sure you hit them with the full implication of what has occurred.

I'd do what you seem to have done, make sure they are only sent on kill missions, leave anything that involves diplomacy to more experienced teams

It's not that bad actually, he was clear from the beginning that he was taking liberties with the fluff (the campaign setting is 500 year in the future, Terra and Mars have been destroyed by something unknown and the Imperium is falling apart) so we don't expect things to be by the book (and we rarely have a situation where we do something based on the fluff that doesn't work in his world or the inverse, can genestealer infected victims really be cured ?)

Putting him in charge won't be a promotion, I'll make it sure to point that he's temporary stripped from his Astartes "status", that should be a big enough humiliation for his character to reconsider things without affectig gameplay too much.

For Black Crusade, I won't be mastering it, someone else took the book in our group and I'd like my investment in Deathwatch not to be lost (books aren't cheap)

As someone who really likes the fluff of 40K and the planet he is currently sitting on (Holy Terra) that campaign would really bother me. In my experience people who take that many liberties with the fluff just aren't happy with the universe and might find more joy somewhere else. Or he needs something new with the universe to keep him attuned with it. But I digress.

So your squad leader hasn't lost the GM mindset and wants to play god with your game, just don't let him. Have him burn a fate point for one of the other members of the squad to stop him from executing the colonel and then have the squad decide on a new leader after the mission is over.

Or you could have his character die after the execution and have him make a new one, thus you don't have to deal with punishing him. There will of course be repercussions to their actions, maybe the diversion of Space Marine assets from the Blood Angles to support the failing front. Thus more of his battle brothers die to atone for his mistake while the front he was destined for suffers increased casualties as well.

As for talking to the Tau and failing his mission objective just send him back to his chapter to have them deal with him. His expulsion from the death watch will shame the chapter and leading to a 50 year ban on recruits from the Blood Angels. Again redo character creation and don't let him be squad leader.

Alternately have their next mission be atonement for their failure with minimal gear and no support to rescue the General. The orders can be as simple as come back with him or don't come back at all. This isn't the most ideal option as it punishes the entire squad.

Finally it seems like he is deliberately sabotaging your games, I could be wrong, so pull him aside and talk to him about if he even wants to keep playing DW. If not then everyone else can start enjoying the game more.

After this mission we began Final Sanction with a new squad leader, and everything is much smoother. The player inquestion, after discovering the joy of flamethrowers on a horde asked to do a Salamander Devastator with a heavy flamer as designated weapon, so there again, everything falls down nicely.

It was more a case of disagreement on the fluff and the tone of the campaign, I think now it's launched.

I may even tempt them with a joined mission with the Tau against tyrannids (a la Ciaphas Cain's first book), with them fully knowing that accepting would make them loose renown but refusing and not doing the mission would lead to disaster. We'll see how the current mission ends.