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I have a small (~20 models) deathwatch collection made up primarily for Killteam incorporating a few vet boxes and a few extra space marines I had lying around. I haven't built them into anything resembling a proper army mostly because I hate Rhinos with a burning passion, don't particularly like the Deathwatch flyer, and I'm mostly interested in just painting a few individualistic space marines now and then.

I do know that Deathwatch have a 1-3 unit teleport stratagem, which with the addition of jump/teminator HQs allows you to deep strike a whole battalion. After the generous point drops for marines and marine accessories in CA, how useful would you say a dropforce of deathwatch would be allied with either vostroyan guard or stygies admech?

Would you run heavy weapon focused squads, melee squads or All Bolts All The Time? What would you take for HQs? Any reason to consider a drop pod to save CPs (I do have one Pod kicking around)?

I think deathwatch have a lot of utility and use as a deepstrike ally. For 200 points a squad you can have 10 veterans with storm bolters and storm shields drop down and puke out 40 rapid fire shots with SIA. Drop a captain with them and they are hitting on 3s, re-rolling ones if their target is infantry then you can use poison 2+ with their CT to re-roll 1s for a very high amount of wound saturation. Each squad would be capable of taking out multiple guard units or decimate a 30 man boy blob. Then on top of that they have a 3++ so they're fairly tanky. If you run into something a bit more beefy you can fire kraken rounds at it for 40 ap-1 shots and if you really want you can use their strat to get plus one to wound. They're not amazing anti tank, but they're not useless at it.

Two of those squads and enemy chaff is going into the dumpster. You can make them a tidy little patrol detachment, or beef them up a bit to a battalion if you want to throw in another HQ like a libby to sit with your main force and perhaps a small 5 man stalker team to sit on an objective and make pew pew noises.

Certainly possible. Dual JP/Termie HQs and three full Vet / Fortis teams can drop via strat is a hell of a beta strike.

For sure you're gonna want at least one 10-man SS/SB team. After that...you've got a lot of options. With MLs dropping to 15 points you can conceivably do an 8-2 or 7-3 split with Stalker riflement in a second squad, drop them in cover with a good view and disassemble your enemy from afar.

Plasma drops are also a possibility, but with Scions available in a soup list arent the most points efficient way to do it. Though if you're looking for a team that can conceivably survive the countervolley, SS / Plas Vets are it.

I'd avoid melee. Marines, even Deathwatch, arent punchy, and all the good DW toys are pewpew in nature.

Awesome, thank you for your input! By nature, my deathwatch are a bit suboptimally built (I wanted a wide variety of loadouts for Kill Team) but a Stalker squad and a Storm Bolter squad are both totally doable for me.

Looking at other stuff they can bring, it seems like when deep striking there are some worthwhile inclusions in the "random extra dudes tacked on to the squad" department.

A Terminator is essentially a 13-point upgrade to ignore morale and give one guy an extra wound and 2+ armor. Seems like you'd want at least one in your big SB squad. And a Vanvet with double pistols is one guy with half the firepower but he gives everyone fall back and shoot.

Is there ever any reason to throw a bike in there? 5 points for fall back and still charge, extra wound and T but no invuln? And at 38 points, how do you rate a terminator with one of those double missile racks, stuck into the longrange squad? 69 points is still a bit pricy I'm guessing considering for roughly twice that I can have a twinlas/single missile dread.

Cyclones are still overcosted IMO. As you said, for the price of two substandard Missile Termies you can have a TLC/ML Ven Dread.

Bikes and VanVets are bloody fantastic...but not in drop squads. You want to get the most bang for your buck, and squadding down to let them shine leaves you with only a 5-man team to deep strike with. You're better off gong for the full 10-pack, and starting your Bikes on the board.

Including a Termie isn't a bad idea to soak flashlights (and AP-1 fire while in cover), but I'm not personally sold on it for drop teams. A single dual pistol (of either the bolt or plasma flavor) is an excellent investment for a drop team, especially against melee-focused opponents.

I wouldn't put a cyclone terminator into a mixed kill team. You want him cheap to tank low AP shots, I go SB and power maul.
I wouldn't do plasma or melta, other armies do it better. It's all about making use of that special issue ammo. I also throw in a few frag cannons.
I also don't bother with bikes, not in a deepstrike unit. A van vet for sure, need to keep that shooting capability.

Awesome. Luckily, I have two power weapon/SB terminators, one from the black reach starter and one from space hulk. You're taking a shopping trip to Hot Topic, boys! Black and studs for everybody!

Does anyone have experience with using the Sternguard kit as an alternate Deathwatch kit for the Storm Bolters/combiweapons you can bash into more storm bolters? Seems I could just get some shields and put them on backs/wrists.