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So I’ve been trying to work on a pure (or at least primary) Deathwatch army. A lot of the options seem fun, and I’ve been assembly-lining a good theme. However, the last thing I want is to put a lot of work into getting this army together and painted, and then get stomped so hard in my first game that I throw up my hands and shelf the army for a year like what happened to my Eldar (which, after that year has passed, has just gotten stomped so hard again that it will probably be another year before I feel like playing them again).

My most frequent opponent plays two different armies that are so beard-chewingly frustrating that I would give up on entire codexes after playing against them. One is a set of Genestealer Cult formations (not exactly clear on which ones, as I’m not terribly familiar with the codex) that basically say ‘I get to deploy half my melee-oriented army 6 inches away from yours and charge on the first turn so you may as well forfeit until you seize the initiative.’ The other is an Admech War Convocation that runs a Knight Warden and lots of grav. The Admech is what I mainly want to talk about, but any advice on the Genestealers would be appreciated as well (though I feel the only solution there is just ‘build a better melee army than his’).

So, in trying to devise a list against the War Convocation, there’s a number of assumptions I’m making that makes playing Deathwatch particularly difficult:

- TONS of AP2/AP3 and Grav - Seriously, unless I have a cover or an invuln save, it’s just better to assume I don’t get a save at all.
- Shroudpsalm - With the ability to grant stealth and shroud to his entire army twice per game, that means a 4+ save just for standing out in the open, and some easily attainable 2+ saves for even the most pithy obscurants. With at least two shooting phases per game being complete non-starts, I may as well eschew shooting entirely.
- Grav - This means no vehicles as well. I even want to shy away from the Corvus, since with the right once-per-game abilities he can punch out a hail of twin-linked grav shots to bring it down. Transports will likely be immobilized/destroyed before they’re of any use.
- Nasty Melee units - Between the knight, Dominus, Kastelans, and those spindly stalker types, I’ve got lots of melee crap to deal with even under the best of circumstances.
- Also Grav - Seriously, feth grav.

The current loadout I’m mulling over is a list heavy in Strategium Command Squads: Going Aquilia killteams with 5-6 Veterans with Stormshields and shotguns, accompanied by 2 vanguard vets with stormshields and power mauls (they work out -slightly- less expensive than standard vets with the same loadout), a terminator with a chainfist (mostly there for fearless), and a bare bones Watch Captain to grant the 6+ FNP command benefit. The rest of the army would be the absolute minimum to fill out the detachment - maybe if I can spare the points, ally in an Inquisitor with some bolter acolyte squads to squat backfield objectives. Deep strike where necessary, but with my luck I think I’d rather slog up the field on foot.

Now, I realize fielding as many Strategium Command Squads as possible gets downright expensive. After a cursory check, I realized I would be outnumbered 2 to 1 in unit count alone, which isn’t a place I want to be unless my units are positively godlike (and they probably aren’t). But maybe 3+ invuln saves on almost everything will make up for it? I’m not sure, and my luck is so anomalously bad it’s hard to gauge the effectiveness of anything through game play. Even going full sharp cheddar, units rarely do well at their given jobs for me.

Any suggestions? Is there a more intelligent way of fielding Deathwatch against the War Convocation I haven’t thought of? Is it even worth looking into, or should I just shelf the DW and give up?

Abandon all hope ye! There is not chance against a WARCON, best chance is drop pod turn 1 and nuke that knight or nuke those pesky kataphron destroyers and their heavy gravs. After that nuke the infiltrators/ruststalkers and HQ. Everything else is secondary.

This is what I did to edge out a minor victory against WARCON.

Checkout the attachment if you want; its basically 6 pods from deathwatch cad and 2 pods from skyhammer. All the gravs and melta will ruin your opponents day. So that is 6 pods turn 1, very hard to counter. So just divide and conquer.

Against cult, just spam them frag cannon and hope for the best!

Yikes! That's an army's worth of models I wasn't planning on taking or having - That's at least 8 drop pods more than I ever planned on using in my 40k career. But I guess I need to build an entire army specifically for killing the War Convocation if I want it to be an actual game. Thanks for the handy sheet, though!

The play style doesn't at all match with my current aesthetic of WWII'esque armor plodding through muddy trenches, though. :/ Was sort of working on that paint job before I realized what a problem AdMech would be... or before I started asking around for tactics. That's what happens when 2000 points is the minimum for any game, and so your armies have to START that big.

I gotta have some fun with this, though. Are there any clever kitbashes for drop pods? Ideally something that would make them look more at home in WWI trenches?

Generally speaking, build the Deathwatch around Alpha strike is the way to go. It is noticed that they ARE Glass Cannons for their points and they have some really shining toys. Also, they have Detachment rules to allow everyone DS so maybe you don't need that many Droppod it can save points and your money Fighting WarConvocation, it is when you can consider using Null deployment and alpha strike them. What you need maybe is more equipments that reduce enemy cover saves. Auspex you might want to consider.

I suggest take a few Librarians in your kill teams. Fish for Perfect Timing to Ignore cover or Invisibility to give your important expensive guys the only chance of survival. Also, it helps you to deny those nasty Psychic power from those Nids-Human mutant abominations.

Fighting GSC is totally another story. It is better to take lots of Rhinos not Droppods. They can easily MSU which is what your expensive guys can never achieve. Never try to out melee them, their First Curse formation can dish out 100 S5 rending attacks plus 6 S7 AP3 rending attacks which by maths will take out IK and WK before their opponent strikes. They can redeploy easily and Concentrate on and eat your army part by part. If you deep strike, droppod or not, your guys are footsloging and been very slow and out of protection, so are basically waiting to be wiped. Rhinos on the other hand, a 35pts transport give your expensive guys good protection against first wave of combat, and allow you to shoot out, as well as you can bubble warp.