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Working on a Deathwatch Kill Team at the moment, but I'm stumped on the CT to use. I'm using Codex: SM, not DA, SW, GK or BA for this, but I am open to Forge World CTs. These are my thoughts:

Ultramarines: A lot of diversity in the Doctrines used, and my Watch Captain is an Ultramarine.

Raven Guard: The Scout and 1st turn Stealth make sense for a Kill Team, but...

Raptors (FW): These have the Scout and Stealth of the Raven Guard tactic, but replace the jump pack rule with Rending on bolt weapons if I don't move, which seems to work with the master marksmen Deathwatch are.

Iron Hands: More durable, showing their SM+1 status.

Red Hunters: Even says in their CT description that they work closely with the , and they have a wide variety of special rules.

Salamaders: The master-crafted on Characters' weapons could show the Deathwatch's special armaments, and the better access to flamer/ melta weapons.

So, it could be any of these, or any other Tactic that I haven't thought of.
(Also, if this is not the correct forum, could you please move it? )

Whenever I play a multi-chapter Crusade force, I just adopt the Tactic of whoever is leading the force, so if your Captain is an Ultramarine, I'd use that.

I actually intend to use the Deathwatch as a solo force, or as Allies for my AM. They are comprised of a Sternguard Squad, a Captain or Librarian, a Scout Squad with LSS and a Stormraven. The Captain is actually part of the Deathwatch Kill Team. But good idea!

Imperial Fists is where I'm going with it so I can make the most out of the few units being used (Tacticals, Sternguard and Devastators), but I have a list for 2000pts that includes an Allied Detachment of Raven Guard tactics with a Jump Pack Librarian, Scouts, a Vanguard Veteran squad and an Assault Squad. Deathwatch seems to be the perfect fluffy excuse to use a spread of tactics for cherry-picked units.

Imperial Fists and Imperial Guard have this Primaris Psyker with Divination on Tank Hunting Devestators with Lascannons combo that I'm particularly looking forward to. Rerolling to hit and armor penetration if the psykers do their job... I like that combination in particular.

I would think they would use the Imperial Fists doctrine. The fluff implies that Crimson Fists represent a larger proportion of the Deathwatch than other chapters.

I thought about the IF, but the main problem is that their Bolter Drill doesn't apply to Sternguard Special Issue Ammo., which is the only bolter weapon in the list. (except their bolt pistols)

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I thought about the IF, but the main problem is that their Bolter Drill doesn't apply to Sternguard Special Issue Ammo., which is the only bolter weapon in the list. (except their bolt pistols)

The sternguard might not care, but the scouts in the LSS would in your list above.

I might be biased, but Ultramarine tactics are a decent go-to for Deathwatch. The ability to pop the different doctrines as needed can be useful, even though none of them do amazing things for sternguard.

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I would think they would use the Imperial Fists doctrine. The fluff implies that Crimson Fists represent a larger proportion of the Deathwatch than other chapters.

With around a thousand different chapters in existence, the Crimson Fists could be sending 10 times as many marines as other chapters and still only go from making up 0.1% of the Deathwatch to 1% of the Deathwatch. Even trying to be conservative, assuming only 1/4 of chapters actively have any marines in the Deathwatch (so each makes up 0.4% of the Deathwatch, on average), that still puts the Crimson Fists at 4%, if they're sending 10 times as many marines as the average participating chapter.

Meanwhile you have the Ultramarines descendants making up around 60% of all chapters... if you want to go the route of whose tactics are best represented in the Deathwatch by member count, Ultramarines would win hands down.

Personally I think the most sensible thing to do is tailor your Chapter Tactics to the units you pick and how you plan on using them. Fluff-wise, kill teams are flexible and pragmatic. You could be drawing on the strengths of any number of chapters, and have members of different chapters adapting each others' tactics depending on the situation.

 CalgarsPimpHand wrote:

 casvalremdeikun wrote:
I would think they would use the Imperial Fists doctrine. The fluff implies that Crimson Fists represent a larger proportion of the Deathwatch than other chapters.

With around a thousand different chapters in existence, the Crimson Fists could be sending 10 times as many marines as other chapters and still only go from making up 0.1% of the Deathwatch to 1% of the Deathwatch. Even trying to be conservative, assuming only 1/4 of chapters actively have any marines in the Deathwatch (so each makes up 0.4% of the Deathwatch, on average), that still puts the Crimson Fists at 4%, if they're sending 10 times as many marines as the average participating chapter.

Meanwhile you have the Ultramarines descendants making up around 60% of all chapters... if you want to go the route of whose tactics are best represented in the Deathwatch by member count, Ultramarines would win hands down.

Personally I think the most sensible thing to do is tailor your Chapter Tactics to the units you pick and how you plan on using them. Fluff-wise, kill teams are flexible and pragmatic. You could be drawing on the strengths of any number of chapters, and have members of different chapters adapting each others' tactics depending on the situation.

I agree here, I would freely interchange CTs where I felt like it. If I was going by my HQ's Chapter, I'd use UM, but I have Marines from practically every First Founding Chapter in the Kill Team, so I could use any kind of CT I wanted. I would only really use one build for my Deathwatch, the Captain/Libby, Sternguard, Scout Snipers with LSS and Stormraven. I could always switch, but I would like an idea of what I could default to as such. Thanks for all current suggestions by the way!

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:
I thought about the IF, but the main problem is that their Bolter Drill doesn't apply to Sternguard Special Issue Ammo., which is the only bolter weapon in the list. (except their bolt pistols)

That's what psykers are for using the Primaris Divination. Picks up the slack for the units not affected by the Tactics.

Id go with red hunters. seems to be the more cooky of CT.

Would be cooler to go with what chapter each member came from but that might be cool for a home game or something.

Honestly, Deathwatch are not suited to current rulesets due to how varying the individuals can be. The closest you could get would be taking a Captain from DA, SW, BA, IF, BT, Sallies, IH, RG and UM, and making them into a squad. You can then use Relics to diversify them. But then you have issues in that you are now unbound and have lots of points sunk into them. Then you need a Watch Captain (C:SM Chapter Master).

The closest single unit would be Sternguard with UM tactics, but then you have issues with diversity, such as Space Wolves and Black Templars being present who wouldn't suit such a set up.

Red Hunter Sternguard cover it damn nicely, I think.