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I was reading up on the fluff for the deathwatch ahead of setting up a campaign with friends, and a few things didn't quite sit right for me in the lore and I was hoping someone could clarify them for me?

1. According to the rulebook, whole squads are raised by each chapter the fight in the Deathwatch, if this is true, why don't the battle brothers in these squads fight alongside each other? How come when you see deathwatch marines it's almost always a mash up from different chapters?

2.I thought the original 'Chapter Approved' article explicitly stated the chapters chose a single marine to satisfy a quota, and they didn't specifically 'Raise' the marine for that purpose, they just chose their best because it would show the chapter in good light?

3. When a marine's Armour is painted all black and only his chapter symbol on the shoulder pad is left, do they remove other markings, like a Dark angel bearing a sword on his hand, or a raven guard with a raven on his legs?

4. The Deathwatch oversee the recovery and integration of alien artifacts into the imperial Armory, I mean, wasn't tech-heresy a big deal five minutes ago?

As to Questions 1 and 2, I always thought what you did - you send your best marine to show off, you don't raise a whole squad with the express purpose of joining the DW.

The "other markings" might depend on what the marking signifies - I'd imagine that it also depends on the marine - I'd not want to be the serf who paints over a Flesh Tearer's battle honour markings - but squad, company and chapter markings on the armour would be painted over.

And yes, tech-heresy is a very big deal, only the Ordo Xenos and the Deathwatch are trusted to play with Alien tech - if anyone else tried it, they'd get excommunicated.

Seeing as the DW and Ordo Xenos are the experts, they get to play with the toys and work them out, before quietly bringing them into Imperial use.

Well Rogue Traders and the Mechanicum both can obtain and experiment with Xenos tech.

The former as its part of their life and they usually trun over the nice stuff to the Ordo Xenos when "asked"

The Mechanicum can - although they are likely to get killed by anti-Xenos factions within their own ranks as well as maybe cause problems with the Ordo Xenos (if they find out). They have dedicated exploratory ships and whole fleets and other methods of obtaining such tech. They do tend to work with the Ordo Xenos on making alien tech into proper approved versions.

Half the BL novels have the Mechanicum messing about with it - when its not Inquisitors invoking Chaos.........

Worst kind of "Do as I say not as I do"

You're reading it far too literally and not taking into account the specifics of the Jericho Reach setting.

The crusade fleet marching into the Reach had an extremely large adeptus astartes presence. Not to mention they're passing within arms reach of a Deathwatch Watch Fortress. Any chapter that cares even a little bit about their standing with the Inquisition would be happy to send their marines to this incredibly local Deathwatch presence. Besides, there's a decent chance they'd be fighting alongside their brothers anyway.

They're not 'raising' them from birth. They're raising them like a king would raise an army from his underlings.

What Jareddm said.

There are a *whole lot* of fluff-derp moments in FFG's various 40K games, and none of their games are play-tested with a sense of balance (nor are their books well-edited, but I digress). So the way that the Deathwatch functions in the Deathwatch RPG really has no bearing on how the Deathwatch functions in the table-top wargame of 40K.

In the RPG, whether that's Deathwatch or Black Crusade, you're playing a Movie Marine.

It's also worth noting that FFG's RPGs contradict some stuff you may find in GW's material, so if you find conflicting information, that's why.

The Deathwatch working with Xenotech was not a problem because in GW's version, the Deathwatch was owned by the Inquisition, and who watches the watchers? That being said, in the RPG, you could easily say that either the now-allied Inquisition looks the other way, or that the Deathwatch just doesn't tell them.

As for question #3 - I'd say any unique markings stay on the armour, but they would be repainted to match the overall colour scheme. It could also be a case-to-case question, depending on how much they'd "break" with the overall look of the organisation. A compromise could be to paint the markings black, like the rest of the armour, so that they stay "on" but are not as immediately visible as the "primary" silver-coloured insignia.

Some chapters have stronger ties to the deathwatch, so will send more than one marine, possibly whole squads at a time, also the deathwatch will also seek out marine specialists from chapters in increased quantities if possible, especially if said chapter have a specific specialization to a certain enemy e.g. the deathwatch requesting increased numbers of ultramarines for their specialty in fighting tyranids, especially if the marines in question are tyranic war vets.

Lastly, even if multiple marines from one chapter may join the deathwatch at any one time, you are missing one key tactical reason why those brothers may not be a part of the same unit - each marine is going to be a specialist in a role, depending on the chapter they come from just like above with the smurf example, or just a specialist from the chapter in terms of the unit they usually operate in - heavy weapons guy - so they are going to want to make kill teams as tactically flexible as possible, so by mixing squads, rather than maxing they will be able to operate as a stand alone team if necessary. If the Iron hands sent three techmarines, a watch commander isn't going to put all three in the same unit.

I want to slightly hijack this thread...

Has it ever been stated how many marines compose a watch fortress?

I'm sure it isn't an exact number but I was thinking of trying to do a whole watch keep - Thinking at the moment it isn't going to be many marines, maybe 100 or so - the size of a regular company. For Deathwatch I imagine that composes of quite the force, considering they're all elite.

So, is my estimated guess anywhere near the ball park?