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 LunarSol wrote:
Wouldn't be able to go for Abhor with the Librarian in there, correct?

I am curious if there's something behind a trio of Eliminators with a Phobos captain for heavy character sniping. Probably not worth it, but it sounds fun. I think the 5 Incursors option is probably ideal for mission overall but Eliminators are a lot more fun.

That Phobos Captain can get pretty dangerous, but prone to bad luck, from what I can see. His gun can get +2 flat damage added onto it (Marksman's Honors and the Special Issue Wargear that lets him use SIA for +1 more damage). 5 damage is kind of hilarious. Could easily still be 4 damage and always wound non-vehicle/titanic on a 2+ too. He would suffer from Vindicare syndrome though (despite always hitting on 2's and wounding on 2's and ignoring invulns, a Vindicare only has like a 49% chance to successfully wound something).

Sorry, when I'm talking about a trio of Eliminators I'm talking about 3 Spectrus teams. I'd want a Phobos captain just to provide them with rerolls from anywhere on the board.

 LunarSol wrote:
Sorry, when I'm talking about a trio of Eliminators I'm talking about 3 Spectrus teams. I'd want a Phobos captain just to provide them with rerolls from anywhere on the board.

Oooh, my apologies.

 LunarSol wrote:
Sorry, when I'm talking about a trio of Eliminators I'm talking about 3 Spectrus teams. I'd want a Phobos captain just to provide them with rerolls from anywhere on the board.

A 6/4 Spectrus formation is ~ 270 points or so. Even accounting for a Phobos captain you've still got half your list to play with. Digging 30 Primaris bodies behind a 1+ cover save out of the midboard isnt an easy thing to do.

Question -

On a Deathwatch Captain with Jump Pack, why do I want to give him a Storm Shield?

(I ask in reference to the player who ran one with the Xenophase sword build, which I love).

He already has a 4++ so the 10pt shield just gives +1 to saves, which in my gaming world only ever applies when the small stuff takes a whack at him and he will be escorted around the board

 Da-Rock wrote:
Question -

On a Deathwatch Captain with Jump Pack, why do I want to give him a Storm Shield?

(I ask in reference to the player who ran one with the Xenophase sword build, which I love).

He already has a 4++ so the 10pt shield just gives +1 to saves, which in my gaming world only ever applies when the small stuff takes a whack at him and he will be escorted around the board

If you are already planning on running with a screen, the dominus aegis is worth a look and is well worth keeping a shield for. Regardless of relic or escort though - the +1 to saves is worth it alone, your cap's biggest threat is likely going to be return fire, and against AP0 your cap is only as tough as 2.5 marines without that save boost.

Now that we can double dip on relics though I am considering alternatives to the shield - as well as a MC xenophase sword he could swap the default bolt pistol to purgatorus and grab a fusion pistol on the side.

We play casual in our group and we tend to get 2 to 3 rounds in. I have the 55pt Company Champion with a Watch Master and two Redemptors using the Aegis.

In our games my elite guys are always hit with -3 AP weapons so the +1 is meaningless as his 4++ Iron Halo is there.

Good info, I am thinking of giving him a Thunder Hammer along with the Xenophase sword so he can threaten the bigger stuff. Just replace the shield since its only giving a +1 for 10 points.

2 to 3 turns means we have to go more all out and I have a lot of other threats moving up quickly so they will have to pick.

Yeah that would be perfectly fine in casual play - if things start getting more serious though remember that the hammer isn't much better unless the target is really big as the hit penalty and low AP will offset a lot of the gain from strength and damage it brings (you trade very accurate for very woundy and ignore almost all saves for high damage) - without getting stuck into maths I would estimate that the target would have to be at least T7 to see a noticeable difference between either weapon and someone else could be carrying that same hammer to give you the benefit of having both.

I feel better having the Company Champion if I'm just going with the Teeth slash captain. I like the guy, but 55 has to come from somewhere.

Honestly, more and more I'm feeling like something like the Indomitus Captian or something similar with more of a buff focus serves us better than going the offensive route. If only we could take a master with the Dominus.

It's interesting that we've got so many "pick 3 of 4" kind of choices in the army. I think of all of them, the Captain loadout is definitely the hardest one to nail down.

Yeah, I like my build and I want the Captain with Jump Pack to run with a squad of Vanguard Vets, but nailing down his other arm is hard.

The Thunder Hammer is situational because I'm only using it against something T7 or higher or something with a lot of wounds and no real saves.

Wound an Xenosphase sword and inferno pistol be better than a Thunder Hammer?

The Xenophase sword really only makes sense if you mastercraft it. D1 is kind of a dealbreaker for 10 points otherwise. Inferno Pistol is an interesting option. Hadn't really considered it, but the price is right.

They're probably a bit at odds with one another though. The other downside of the Xenophase blade is that it takes a lot to get the strength up to armor cracking levels. I suppose there's nothing wrong with giving a character a melta to the face though.

I'm definetly Master crafting it via the Castellan of the black vault Warlord trait.

I have the Beacon on him, but not sure if I like it as much as using some combo of the Armor Indomitus and shield or shield eternal.

The Infernus pistol may be solid, but my god I can't make up my mind! :-)

* Edit: What value do you guys place on adding a wound to a warlords stats? (via something like Armor Indomitus) and if it has value does adding Armor Indomitus and a storm shield interest anyone? (+1 Wound, save is a 2+ with a +1 to save and a 1 turn 3++

Useful, but hard to justify when we've got the Tome, Beacon and Aegis. 3 excellent relics that have strong competition elsewhere make the Indomitus a hard pick, IMO.

In my list I have the Aegis. I'm not a fan of the Tome along with most one use, CORE items, but the beacon would be useful as a ten man unit of chainsword SIA gun wielding blasters lined up next to a jump captain.

I'm starting to see a pattern for me in simple terms = Offense or Defense for the Captain. Hmmmmm

 Da-Rock wrote:
...The Thunder Hammer is situational because I'm only using it against something T7 or higher or something with a lot of wounds and no real saves.

Wound an Xenosphase sword and inferno pistol be better than a Thunder Hammer?

In the tourney list I guess there is a chance that might of heroes is the answer to T7, as the sword would be at S7 then, for emergency use only if there were no other anti-tank weapons available.

The sword seems broadly better than the hammer vs anything less than T7, so yeah I guess sword plus pistol would stay true to that although you could still take pistol(s) with the hammer so if I were you I'd weigh up what you are more likely to face and what you want your captain to be hunting.

I'm starting to lean towards a double pistol build mainly for the very situational times where there may be two characters giving out overlapping auras (think captain/lieutenant), purgatorus and an inferno pistol would have a solid chance of taking out the weaker character before charging the stronger one, then potentially try and consolidate into something nearby. That's very niche though, a shield will generally be more reliable.

 Da-Rock wrote:
In my list I have the Aegis. I'm not a fan of the Tome along with most one use, CORE items, but the beacon would be useful as a ten man unit of chainsword SIA gun wielding blasters lined up next to a jump captain.

I'm starting to see a pattern for me in simple terms = Offense or Defense for the Captain. Hmmmmm

Yeah, you can either have them dive in in a blaze of glory or hang back and buff. Personally, I don't think we have better unique options for the latter, though the core problem is just that the Watch Master can't take a shield so we can't take one of each quite like we'd like.

After many hours of pondering I decide for a middle ground that was more defensive for a tiny chance it would have a reaction from opponents.

Armor Indomitus + Storm Shield = 6 Wounds with a 2+ 3++ 4++ and a +1 to saves.

I can see this making it hard on an opponent in deciding to use his best to attack it or to stay away from him with his characters...which may allow me to pin them down with my x2 Whirlwinds and x4 Eliminators.

Either way...we shall see. Thanks for the advice!

Dont discount the durability of what a 2+ base armor save and an innate +1 to said armor saves means. AP1 is the achilles heel of most 2+ defensive statlines, and straight up ignoring that is massive.

In casual games, that fella is prepped to do work.

Finally got in a game of Deathwatch in 9th edition against BA. Deathwatch took home the win after my opponent capitulated at the end of turn 4. The all-star squad was a Spectrus Kill Team with a Helix Adept paired with 4 Eliminators and a mine toting Incursor with the remaining Infiltrators. The Helix Adept saved3 wounds over the course of a game and an Apothecary brought back the only Elim. that went down. The infiltrators prevented several units from deep strike and didn't go down until the bottom of turn 3. The mine exploding a Sang Guard was worth it's points and helped the Infiltrators survive an extra fight phase.

The Devestator build for the Proteus Kill Team was surprisingly effective against vehicles and BGV's as well. 4 launchers and three CML Terminators can throw out a lot of krak missiles and a few ablative bodies helped keep them afloat.

Hellblasters felt a little flat. I'm not feeling the Fortis team.

I thought the Helix was FAQd to only work on Infiltrators and not Eliminators or Incursors. Did I misread that?

 Da-Rock wrote:
I thought the Helix was FAQd to only work on Infiltrators and not Eliminators or Incursors. Did I misread that?

The Helix will protect any model in the unit. Normally, that's only Infiltrators, but the Spectrus formation allows it to extend to other types depending on how you build said Kill Team.

What did you think was in the FAQ? First I've heard of this.

I think the last codex/pre-DW version of infiltrators had a FAQ stating that the gauntlet (helix adept back then?) couldn't be used on other units back when it worked more like a mini-apothecary with healing and reviving, but that's way out of date now.

Insularum wrote:
I think the last codex/pre-DW version of infiltrators had a FAQ stating that the gauntlet (helix adept back then?) couldn't be used on other units back when it worked more like a mini-apothecary with healing and reviving, but that's way out of date now.

I seem to remember something like that back in 8th, so I can understand the confusion.

Now it says "Once per turn, the first time a saving throw is failed for the bearer's unit, the Damage characteristic of that attack is changed to 0." Thankfully, that means the wording leaves it perfectly capable of applying to a Spectrus Kill Team.

A lot of talk since the Goonhammer called us out as underperforming. I can definitely see why compared to chapters that are given more of a clear directive on how to play but its an interesting discussion regardless.

One thing that stands out to me is the tendency to overspend on characters. I keep finding myself considering up to 600 points in the guys, but it seems like 300-400 really needs to be the top. I find myself struggling to pick just 3 HQs and an Apothecary, but I'm curious if we really need to go down to just 2-3 characters tops.

 LunarSol wrote:
A lot of talk since the Goonhammer called us out as underperforming. I can definitely see why compared to chapters that are given more of a clear directive on how to play but its an interesting discussion regardless.

There's a lot of factors to that, chief of which is sample size. Deathwatch are a niche faction, and suffer most from other Marine chapters siphoning off playspace. I dont mean that from a rules perspective, I mean that from a player perspective, especially in the competitive environment (which is where most of Goonhammers data is drawn from). The primary strength of the faction is also why it's not getting traction IMO. Deathwatch live and die by their flexibility, which makes them a high ceiling / low floor army. We dont have a superdoctrine that pushes us ahead of the pack on a particular playstyle, which means they're not going to attract attention for being "assault marines" or "shooty marines", etc.

Now there's definitely rules reasons that are proving to be a handicap (looking at you SIA), but I dont know that fixing them would alter the overall environment too much. I think we'll see some noticeable, albeit non-spectacular, shifts in standing efficacy once the Heavy Intercessor models become available (the Indomitor team is a key asset that just cant be played in a competitive setting at the moment unless you're willing to spend an obscene amount of time and money converting).

Yeah, absolutely agree, though the numbers haven't been particularly great on TTS either where model limits aren't really an issue.

None of it really surprises me, I just think its interesting to take a look at what players can do to push the faction further, which to me comes down to optimizing what we've got. I think a lot of our kill teams probably aren't as efficient as they could be I suppose. Looking at my own list, I can probably see around 300 points of bling that's probably better turned into something more efficient.

Maybe though, that's the whole problem/point. I don't make those cuts because the army is more fun to lose with with the bling, than win with by turning it into something that could easily slap a different paint scheme on and have a better tactic. It's mostly a curiosity for me, but its definitely becoming clear that GW played it a little safe with some of our heavy handed restrictions.

Quick question since I'm still waiting for my supplement to even ship, let alone get here:

The Space Marine Codex says you can use one of the secondaries in the book for Matched Play. Reviews say the Deathwatch Supplement has secondaries too (some good ones too, from what they write).

Can you select both a Codex secondary and a supplement secondary in the same battle or is there language in the Deathwatch supplement preventing you from choosing one if you also choose a Space Marine Codex secondary?

Audustum wrote:
Quick question since I'm still waiting for my supplement to even ship, let alone get here:

The Space Marine Codex says you can use one of the secondaries in the book for Matched Play. Reviews say the Deathwatch Supplement has secondaries too (some good ones too, from what they write).

Can you select both a Codex secondary and a supplement secondary in the same battle or is there language in the Deathwatch supplement preventing you from choosing one if you also choose a Space Marine Codex secondary?

You can pick a maximum of one of each, but it requires you to be in a pure army (no soup), and have a Deathwatch warlord.

Sterling191 wrote:

Audustum wrote:
Quick question since I'm still waiting for my supplement to even ship, let alone get here:

The Space Marine Codex says you can use one of the secondaries in the book for Matched Play. Reviews say the Deathwatch Supplement has secondaries too (some good ones too, from what they write).

Can you select both a Codex secondary and a supplement secondary in the same battle or is there language in the Deathwatch supplement preventing you from choosing one if you also choose a Space Marine Codex secondary?

You can pick a maximum of one of each, but it requires you to be in a pure army (no soup), and have a Deathwatch warlord.

That is what I am aiming for. This is quite interesting and opens up a long of strategic depth I think!