Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi guys!
Just a few questions about Deathwatch list:
was it normally played in 2019? And if so, was it a valid army? How do you play it? Have you any advice to give me? (1500 pts)

Thank you so much

Collect cool marine models. Paint them nicely, then paint them black.

Deathwatch have never been particularly popular. Part of that is they get a bad rep from people drawn to their fluff appeal of a hodgepodge of special weapons that just isn't as practical in game. Pretty much anything from 2019 is irrelevant though as they received a MASSIVE overhaul in the new supplement, which is saying something for an army that gets massively overhauled quite regularly.

These days they're a proper Space Marine chapter which means they've got an endless array of choices, but lost some of their unique features. Kill teams are now have 4 variations based on armor. I think each one is interesting in their own right and generally think its worth taking a mix of them.

Characters and relics bend toward the support side of things. The new psychic discipline has several really strong options and the army can really leverage some powerful defensive tricks like invul saves, FNP, and apothecary healing.

Overall this is probably my favorite iteration of the army, but at the moment its not popular enough (nor are there enough events) for their to be a whole lot of "how to" to determine their place in competitive viability.

I agree with everything LunarSol said, but would add their Crusade content is AWESOME.

Fundamentally, it's a marine variant list, therefore what works for marines will generally work for Deathwatch. However, if you really want to dive deep into Deathwatch, latching on to their unique units/options makes the experience more enjoyable IMHO.

You would first have to decide if you want to play with just Primaris, or do you want to add some of the older marines? The latter is where most of the flavour comes from and you can't find a better place to start that the old Start Collecting box, if you can still find it.
What is nice is that the old stormbolter/stormshield (which you really couldn't build from the kits) is not the most optimal way to go. A kill team with Special Issue Ammo bolters, a few storm shields, a few combat weapons, and a heavy weapon works just fine.

What Deathwatch are able to do that makes some units attractive, is make kill teams with 2 types of units, then combat squad off one type and it will retain it's Objective Secured, even if it contains nothing but terminators, vanguard veterans, eliminators, outriders, etc.

I think the army is far more viable in 9th than it has been in prior editions, but I'm not attracted to the army for it's power in the game, the lore is what got me into playing Deathwatch. It's basically the Imperium's sort of variant of the Night's Watch from Game of Thrones, and even the artwork for the Watchmaster has him looking like Mormont.

Personally I found the appeal to deathwatch the fact that each dude could have their own unique loadout (I started playing them with Kill Team for that reason) and so my entire list essentially is Terminators, Veterans, and Vanguard Veterans with various support characters and transports.

You can position a list like this to all have high armor saves and invuln saves, which makes it a pretty quality skew list - any dedicated antitank gun is wasted, most light antiinfantry guns are inefficient, and you don't have a glowing weak point shaped like Plasma.

FWIW, if you're not going Primaris, one of the best ways to get more Veterans is to buy the Sternguard kit. It's another box of 5 marine bodies with a huge assortment of weapon options, most of which you can't find in the Veteran kit.

There were 2 people that used Deathwatch at the club and the rest avoided because of painting. Black is easy to paint but hard to paint well.

Yes they were valid lists but fact is they have always been the step-brother of the imperium and lacked the benefits the more traditional marine benefits lavished upon them by GW. Not to say they are rubbish of course and they have their own mechanic that people really like. That said, both players used deathwatch as an alternate army, not their main one.