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Since Celestine can be an HQ for any imperial army... why not take her, and give a deathwatch captain the castigator. He can load it with the poisoned 2+ rounds.

Wounds on a 2, AP 2, BS6, no invul saves. It's like one guaranteed wound per turn against anything.

Keep in mind deathwatch is a low model count army with soft units (for the cost) and expensive upgrades.

To take a 200 points chunk out of the army for the sake of an almost guaranteed wound on something really isn't worth it.

For less points you can grab a vindicare to ignore armour.
He also has the ability to hunt just about anything on the table.




Don't get me wrong, it's a nice thing, but 200 points for 1 wound per turn.
That's 9 basic vets instead that could Atleast put 1 wound on the same target while being tougher than 1 character and can also be customised a lot more.

Well yes, but don't forget you get Celestine on top of it. Who is considered to be very strong. I do think the DW would benefit from a fast moving melee character that's hard to kill, and will attract a lot of the enemy's attention.

I'm not sure.

Celestine is a great character, don't get me wrong. I actually think she is probably the best of her class (specifically unique models with the Independent character rule)

However, DW are not a death star army, and she really really benefits deathstars. She could go with vanguard vets, and give them a bit of survivability, but I would rather have tons of single vanguard vets (if you are taking the blackstar strike force), or more frag cannons.

If you run her by herself, will she really do that much? AP3 is handed out like cookies in our codex (literally everybody has it) so I'm not sure.

200 points is not a large amount for us, its mostly normal, however it is inicredibely important that every single point is put to use in our codex.

The Castigator doesn't have access to special issue ammo, y'know.

Waaaghpower wrote:
The Castigator doesn't have access to special issue ammo, y'know.

The fluff says it is a Bolt Pistol, so if you think the fluff influences stuff like that (GW has not been clear on that), Castigator WOULD have access to SIA. The character always has SIA unless they are in Terminator Armor.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
The Castigator doesn't have access to special issue ammo, y'know.

The fluff says it is a Bolt Pistol, so if you think the fluff influences stuff like that (GW has not been clear on that), Castigator WOULD have access to SIA. The character always has SIA unless they are in Terminator Armor.

It's not explicitly given, though. If we assume everything about the fluff as a given, then the rules quickly break down into a grueling mess of reading flavor text to get advantage.

Just think about it this way: The pistol alone doesn't give AP2, it also has specially blessed magic ammo. If you swap out the ammo, you've just got a very fancy, blessed Bolt Pistol.

Waaaghpower wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
The Castigator doesn't have access to special issue ammo, y'know.

The fluff says it is a Bolt Pistol, so if you think the fluff influences stuff like that (GW has not been clear on that), Castigator WOULD have access to SIA. The character always has SIA unless they are in Terminator Armor.

It's not explicitly given, though. If we assume everything about the fluff as a given, then the rules quickly break down into a grueling mess of reading flavor text to get advantage.

Just think about it this way: The pistol alone doesn't give AP2, it also has specially blessed magic ammo. If you swap out the ammo, you've just got a very fancy, blessed Bolt Pistol.

I respectfully disagree. You have as much of a basis for your argument as I do. "What is intended". I think the pistol can be blessed. Like a holy sword. And besides the rules don't point that out explicitly. I think you can use this for sure.

 crimson_caesar wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:

Waaaghpower wrote:
The Castigator doesn't have access to special issue ammo, y'know.

The fluff says it is a Bolt Pistol, so if you think the fluff influences stuff like that (GW has not been clear on that), Castigator WOULD have access to SIA. The character always has SIA unless they are in Terminator Armor.

It's not explicitly given, though. If we assume everything about the fluff as a given, then the rules quickly break down into a grueling mess of reading flavor text to get advantage.

Just think about it this way: The pistol alone doesn't give AP2, it also has specially blessed magic ammo. If you swap out the ammo, you've just got a very fancy, blessed Bolt Pistol.

I respectfully disagree. You have as much of a basis for your argument as I do. "What is intended". I think the pistol can be blessed. Like a holy sword. And besides the rules don't point that out explicitly. I think you can use this for sure.

There is precisely zero RAW to back up what you're saying, and no RAI text either. The only ground you have is a bit of flavor text describing it as a Bolt Pistol.

My flavor description wasn't an argument. It was a flavor description, if you wanted a fluffy reason to back up the actual, literal rules of the game.

40k is a permission-based ruleset. No explicit permission means you can't use it.

It's a bolt pistol. Rules as written, any deathwatch unit or character shooting a bolt loaded weapon can use special ammo. The Castigator is a Bolt Pistol. There's your explicit ruleset. The special ammo rules are the only rules that cover subject, so one should go off of them as written. The fact that there are rules about this issue doesn't mean you can ignore it and say it's not allowed.

 crimson_caesar wrote:
It's a bolt pistol. Rules as written, any deathwatch unit or character shooting a bolt loaded weapon can use special ammo. The Castigator is a Bolt Pistol. There's your explicit ruleset. The special ammo rules are the only rules that cover subject, so one should go off of them as written. The fact that there are rules about this issue doesn't mean you can ignore it and say it's not allowed.

It's not a Bolt Pistol though. In the same way that a Burna isn't a Flamer weapon, being described a certain way in flavor text doesn't mean jack for actual rules.
Or, at the very least, you'd lose all the Castigator's special rules. Special Issue Ammo replaces the original gun's statline and special rules either way, so you're not gonna be AP2 or ignore Invulns even if this were legal.

This probably belongs in YMDC.

Agree to disagree. I can see your point though, and I appreciate the input.

Someone with a copy of the actual rules on the Castigator chiming in would be nice right now.

 crimson_caesar wrote:
Agree to disagree. I can see your point though, and I appreciate the input.

Someone with a copy of the actual rules on the Castigator chiming in would be nice right now.

I have them. Right in front of me. Its only ever called a Bolt Pistol in flavor text, and its actual name, weapon type, etc. Does not call it a Bolt weapon of any kind. It's just the Castigator.

Bolt weapon relics with names probably won't have "bolt" in their name. It is clearly a bolt weapon. I wouldn't push this at a tournament really... the tactic isn't that big of a deal, but use your head. It's a bolt pistol.

It's pretty irrelevant, since the special issue ammunition replace the profile of the pistol in question when you fire with it. I don't see the benefit for any Deathwatch character - the shroud of the anti martyr or the Divine Blade would probably be better.

The best use for Celestine is probably with Wolfstars or Centstars. I was toying with putting Celestine in my Centstars list instead of the AA/SE CM, since with 9 wounds and effectively T5, and at a discount... and, more importantly, hit and run.