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I missed Execution Force too. Just didn't have the funds then.

 Snrub wrote:
They're gone from the AUS website too. This means they'll come back with the inevitable re-packaging price rise, which is a terrifying thought as they were already $60 a pop.

AND the US store, and now Coteaz is sold out...

I was lucky enough to get the Execution Force box when it was around. And the game itself is actually decent in comparison to some of the other little board games GW have done to sell models.

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
oh and, DW getting rolled in but [edit]GK[/edit] not feels pretty obvious. the GK army list is much more substantial, even if it still needs a lot of updates

The army list issue is of GW's own making, given they've been kinda aimless in how they've implemented the army in each edition.

From a kit perspective, by my count we're currently looking at 4 (1 character, 1 character unit) plus an upgrade for DW (after they cycled Artemis out for some reason), compared to 7 (of which 4 are characters, along with BC Stern being cycled out), so it's not like there's a huge amount of difference between them in terms of generics.

DW
Deathwatch Veterans
Corvus Blackstar
Kill Team Cassius
Watch Master

GK
Power Armour
Terminator Armour
Dreadknight/Baby Carrier
Castellan Crowe
Grand Master Voldus
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Brother Captain

I'd disagree that there's much ground for saying the GK army list is more developed than the DW - it's just been around for longer. They're both stretching certain kits to fill as many slots as possible, then adding addition units from the main SM list, sometimes tweaked.

 Dysartes wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
oh and, DW getting rolled in but [edit]GK[/edit] not feels pretty obvious. the GK army list is much more substantial, even if it still needs a lot of updates

The army list issue is of GW's own making, given they've been kinda aimless in how they've implemented the army in each edition.

From a kit perspective, by my count we're currently looking at 4 (1 character, 1 character unit) plus an upgrade for DW (after they cycled Artemis out for some reason), compared to 7 (of which 4 are characters, along with BC Stern being cycled out), so it's not like there's a huge amount of difference between them in terms of generics.

DW
Deathwatch Veterans
Corvus Blackstar
Kill Team Cassius
Watch Master

GK
Power Armour
Terminator Armour
Dreadknight/Baby Carrier
Castellan Crowe
Grand Master Voldus
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Brother Captain

I'd disagree that there's much ground for saying the GK army list is more developed than the DW - it's just been around for longer. They're both stretching certain kits to fill as many slots as possible, then adding addition units from the main SM list, sometimes tweaked.

I would also like to add, DW would be around just as long if Alienhunters hadn't been scrapped back in the day.

Realistically, I think the issue is that DW have always had a identity problem, from the OG 3rd ed implementation, to the RPGs, to the current form. Every edition the focus has changed. 7th it was bespoke units and killteams, 8th was Spec Issue Ammo, in 9th it was wargear and customization and 10th index is them giving up. So I could see them throwing in the towel, tossing them into Agents and finally calling it a day.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
oh and, DW getting rolled in but [edit]GK[/edit] not feels pretty obvious. the GK army list is much more substantial, even if it still needs a lot of updates

The army list issue is of GW's own making, given they've been kinda aimless in how they've implemented the army in each edition.

From a kit perspective, by my count we're currently looking at 4 (1 character, 1 character unit) plus an upgrade for DW (after they cycled Artemis out for some reason), compared to 7 (of which 4 are characters, along with BC Stern being cycled out), so it's not like there's a huge amount of difference between them in terms of generics.

DW
Deathwatch Veterans
Corvus Blackstar
Kill Team Cassius
Watch Master

GK
Power Armour
Terminator Armour
Dreadknight/Baby Carrier
Castellan Crowe
Grand Master Voldus
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Brother Captain

I'd disagree that there's much ground for saying the GK army list is more developed than the DW - it's just been around for longer. They're both stretching certain kits to fill as many slots as possible, then adding addition units from the main SM list, sometimes tweaked.

I would also like to add, DW would be around just as long if Alienhunters hadn't been scrapped back in the day.

Realistically, I think the issue is that DW have always had a identity problem, from the OG 3rd ed implementation, to the RPGs, to the current form. Every edition the focus has changed. 7th it was bespoke units and killteams, 8th was Spec Issue Ammo, in 9th it was wargear and customization and 10th index is them giving up. So I could see them throwing in the towel, tossing them into Agents and finally calling it a day.

I mean they operate in small distinct squads called kill teams, often in isolation and we have a killteam game about small squads of specialists operating in isolation. I think GW figured out exactly what their identity is/where it should belong, they just jumped the shark too early and now need to back pedal.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

Spoiler:

 Dysartes wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
oh and, DW getting rolled in but [edit]GK[/edit] not feels pretty obvious. the GK army list is much more substantial, even if it still needs a lot of updates

The army list issue is of GW's own making, given they've been kinda aimless in how they've implemented the army in each edition.

From a kit perspective, by my count we're currently looking at 4 (1 character, 1 character unit) plus an upgrade for DW (after they cycled Artemis out for some reason), compared to 7 (of which 4 are characters, along with BC Stern being cycled out), so it's not like there's a huge amount of difference between them in terms of generics.

DW
Deathwatch Veterans
Corvus Blackstar
Kill Team Cassius
Watch Master

GK
Power Armour
Terminator Armour
Dreadknight/Baby Carrier
Castellan Crowe
Grand Master Voldus
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Brother Captain

I'd disagree that there's much ground for saying the GK army list is more developed than the DW - it's just been around for longer. They're both stretching certain kits to fill as many slots as possible, then adding addition units from the main SM list, sometimes tweaked.

I would also like to add, DW would be around just as long if Alienhunters hadn't been scrapped back in the day.

Realistically, I think the issue is that DW have always had a identity problem, from the OG 3rd ed implementation, to the RPGs, to the current form. Every edition the focus has changed. 7th it was bespoke units and killteams, 8th was Spec Issue Ammo, in 9th it was wargear and customization and 10th index is them giving up. So I could see them throwing in the towel, tossing them into Agents and finally calling it a day.

A different angle on this is that the identity of the Deathwatch was never in question but the moment GW decided to blow up a single unit into a full army to sell more miniatures, it opened up a lot of questions GW's game designers were consistently unable to answer. But they had to stick with it because GW still wanted to sell those models.

If Deathwatch is cut back now it may happen not because they finally realized they don't know what they want for the army but that in the very recent past GW has been so successful that they don't have to worry about the repercussions of invalidating people's armies. GW has been happily doing that for a while now. They might see this as an opportunity to fix a mistake.

In theory I'm fine with DW being changed, or "tweaked" a bit here or there. I just ask for a few little things.

1. The obvious one everyone wants, points balance internally and externally.

2. Keep the special units/wargear. I still want to see the Corvus Blackstar, Watchmaster, and Frag Cannons.

3. Custodes are the exception to the "no Heresy Crossover" rule. Can you give DW a bit of leeway on the "no model, no rules" part? DW have a noted history of truly diverse weapons loadouts. I'm not saying it needs to be anything-goes, but just relax a bit? Bring back special weapons (melta, plasma, flamer, etc.). I'm not saying it has to be available to EVERY member of a squad, but 2-3 would be nice.

4. Keep squads with 4 frag cannons legal, even if they have to make a Devastator equivalent unit for it.

 ProfSrlojohn wrote:

 Dysartes wrote:

 StudentOfEtherium wrote:
oh and, DW getting rolled in but [edit]GK[/edit] not feels pretty obvious. the GK army list is much more substantial, even if it still needs a lot of updates

The army list issue is of GW's own making, given they've been kinda aimless in how they've implemented the army in each edition.

From a kit perspective, by my count we're currently looking at 4 (1 character, 1 character unit) plus an upgrade for DW (after they cycled Artemis out for some reason), compared to 7 (of which 4 are characters, along with BC Stern being cycled out), so it's not like there's a huge amount of difference between them in terms of generics.

DW
Deathwatch Veterans
Corvus Blackstar
Kill Team Cassius
Watch Master

GK
Power Armour
Terminator Armour
Dreadknight/Baby Carrier
Castellan Crowe
Grand Master Voldus
Lord Kaldor Draigo
Brother Captain

I'd disagree that there's much ground for saying the GK army list is more developed than the DW - it's just been around for longer. They're both stretching certain kits to fill as many slots as possible, then adding addition units from the main SM list, sometimes tweaked.

I would also like to add, DW would be around just as long if Alienhunters hadn't been scrapped back in the day.

Realistically, I think the issue is that DW have always had a identity problem, from the OG 3rd ed implementation, to the RPGs, to the current form. Every edition the focus has changed. 7th it was bespoke units and killteams, 8th was Spec Issue Ammo, in 9th it was wargear and customization and 10th index is them giving up. So I could see them throwing in the towel, tossing them into Agents and finally calling it a day.

It may well just be a release planning issue. If Grey Knights are slated for new kits (Primaris and upscaled Terminators), then that perhaps justifies their own book, at least this time around, and allows GW to go ahead and release Imperial Agents in the meantime. Deathwatch have an upgrade sprue so can simply function as an extension of the main Space Marine range.

 cuda1179 wrote:
In theory I'm fine with DW being changed, or "tweaked" a bit here or there. I just ask for a few little things.

1. The obvious one everyone wants, points balance internally and externally.

2. Keep the special units/wargear. I still want to see the Corvus Blackstar, Watchmaster, and Frag Cannons.

3. Custodes are the exception to the "no Heresy Crossover" rule. Can you give DW a bit of leeway on the "no model, no rules" part? DW have a noted history of truly diverse weapons loadouts. I'm not saying it needs to be anything-goes, but just relax a bit? Bring back special weapons (melta, plasma, flamer, etc.). I'm not saying it has to be available to EVERY member of a squad, but 2-3 would be nice.

4. Keep squads with 4 frag cannons legal, even if they have to make a Devastator equivalent unit for it.

I quite like the DW, though I'm not inclined to collect an army of them. And I agree with you that the special units/wargear give them personality. I personally think we won't see a huge amount of change to their datasheets, though I could be wrong.

I'm expecting everything to be cut down to the kits that exist. Watch Master, DW Veterans, Corvus Blackstar. They lose Oath and gain Agents and exist as a unit like Henchmen or what not that you can hire. All the Kill Teams gone.

 RaptorusRex wrote:

 cuda1179 wrote:
In theory I'm fine with DW being changed, or "tweaked" a bit here or there. I just ask for a few little things.

1. The obvious one everyone wants, points balance internally and externally.

2. Keep the special units/wargear. I still want to see the Corvus Blackstar, Watchmaster, and Frag Cannons.

3. Custodes are the exception to the "no Heresy Crossover" rule. Can you give DW a bit of leeway on the "no model, no rules" part? DW have a noted history of truly diverse weapons loadouts. I'm not saying it needs to be anything-goes, but just relax a bit? Bring back special weapons (melta, plasma, flamer, etc.). I'm not saying it has to be available to EVERY member of a squad, but 2-3 would be nice.

4. Keep squads with 4 frag cannons legal, even if they have to make a Devastator equivalent unit for it.

I quite like the DW, though I'm not inclined to collect an army of them. And I agree with you that the special units/wargear give them personality. I personally think we won't see a huge amount of change to their datasheets, though I could be wrong.

I think one of the ways they screwed up the codex is that they didn't know how to handle mixed units. Squads with Terminators, bikes, and power armor are priced ridiculously high, but point them any lower and players will just have minimal power armor and the rest terminators. My idea to fix that? Have a mechanic that is like reverse combat squads. Have all the "vanilla" squads, but make them 3-10 guys. Then a terminator squad, before the battle, can "reverse combat squad" into a tactical squad. Make the max unit size once combined to be 10 guys.

 cuda1179 wrote:

I think one of the ways they screwed up the codex is that they didn't know how to handle mixed units. Squads with Terminators, bikes, and power armor are priced ridiculously high, but point them any lower and players will just have minimal power armor and the rest terminators. My idea to fix that? Have a mechanic that is like reverse combat squads. Have all the "vanilla" squads, but make them 3-10 guys. Then a terminator squad, before the battle, can "reverse combat squad" into a tactical squad. Make the max unit size once combined to be 10 guys.

The way they screwed up the codex was letting the playtesters bully them into treating it like a real army in later editions.

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

 Kanluwen wrote:

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

I don't recall ever being able to take single model units in Deathwatch. You could in the weird little version of Kill Team they published around the same time as the Codex, but I think 5 man vet teams were always the minimum.

Deathwatch have never really worked. A lot of this is just a result of 40k being a game of redundancy and not one where a dozen unique loadouts per squad makes any sense at all. GW has always had this KT Cassius vision for the faction that never actually worked with how points actually work. Honestly, I kind of like how 10th just forced the variety in the squads and its really a good direction for them if GW put in the time to give each option a purpose.

The one consistent problem with DW though is a lack of attention. Every edition DW has been ignored. Early on they didn't get Primaris and when Space Marines got buffs they didn't transfer to DW despite them struggling. Pricing SIA has always been a major issue and created ridiculous things like Vets costing more than Intercessors despite having the same statline with SIA as the Bolt Rifles and half as many wounds. When DW does okay GW generally reacts immediately and nerfs them into oblivion to be ignored for the remainder of the edition.

Being a generic space marine chapter is probably the best thing that could happen at this point. GW has ignored the faction since its inception and generally left it in a worse place than if they were just generic marines. I love the kill team concept, but its very clear GW has no interest in giving it the attention needed to make it work.

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm expecting everything to be cut down to the kits that exist. Watch Master, DW Veterans, Corvus Blackstar.

I'll be extremely surprised if the Firstborn Veterans and Watch Master survive the coming cull.

 LunarSol wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

I don't recall ever being able to take single model units in Deathwatch. You could in the weird little version of Kill Team they published around the same time as the Codex, but I think 5 man vet teams were always the minimum.

Terminators, bikers, and Vanguard Veterans were able to be taken as singles.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

I don't recall ever being able to take single model units in Deathwatch. You could in the weird little version of Kill Team they published around the same time as the Codex, but I think 5 man vet teams were always the minimum.

Terminators, bikers, and Vanguard Veterans were able to be taken as singles.

Although only by cancerous virtue of the Killteam Cassius box existing...

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

I don't recall ever being able to take single model units in Deathwatch. You could in the weird little version of Kill Team they published around the same time as the Codex, but I think 5 man vet teams were always the minimum.

Terminators, bikers, and Vanguard Veterans were able to be taken as singles.

Although only by cancerous virtue of the Killteam Cassius box existing...

You mean the box that literally had a formation of all of those operating as one thing?

Whether you liked it or not, it was a better way of representing Deathwatch operating as a group than anything else they've done.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

I don't recall ever being able to take single model units in Deathwatch. You could in the weird little version of Kill Team they published around the same time as the Codex, but I think 5 man vet teams were always the minimum.

Terminators, bikers, and Vanguard Veterans were able to be taken as singles.

Single model units or single additions to the Kill Teams? I don't recall the former but 7th didn't really exist long enough for me to get that into it so I could just have forgotten.

SINGLE
MODEL
UNITS

You could add more to them if you wished, but the idea was to let you have some fun aberrations in your list.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm expecting everything to be cut down to the kits that exist. Watch Master, DW Veterans, Corvus Blackstar.

I'll be extremely surprised if the Firstborn Veterans and Watch Master survive the coming cull.

They only have first born minis iirc plus a plane.

Dudeface wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm expecting everything to be cut down to the kits that exist. Watch Master, DW Veterans, Corvus Blackstar.

I'll be extremely surprised if the Firstborn Veterans and Watch Master survive the coming cull.

They only have first born minis iirc plus a plane.

Get ready to have an upgrade sprue and a plane.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm expecting everything to be cut down to the kits that exist. Watch Master, DW Veterans, Corvus Blackstar.

I'll be extremely surprised if the Firstborn Veterans and Watch Master survive the coming cull.

They only have first born minis iirc plus a plane.

Get ready to have an upgrade sprue and a plane.

So a single kill team comprising of indomitus and gravis armour is I think the best that manages? Maybe a captain/Lieutenant to go with.

 Lord Damocles wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 Lord Damocles wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I'm expecting everything to be cut down to the kits that exist. Watch Master, DW Veterans, Corvus Blackstar.

I'll be extremely surprised if the Firstborn Veterans and Watch Master survive the coming cull.

They only have first born minis iirc plus a plane.

Get ready to have an upgrade sprue and a plane.

This would actually be better than what I expect.

Nah man, if they don't have Frag Cannons, Flamer-heavy bolters, and a Watchcaptain I'm building a killdozer and shipping it to London.

 cuda1179 wrote:
Nah man, if they don't have Frag Cannons, Flamer-heavy bolters, and a Watchcaptain I'm building a killdozer and shipping it to London.

I mean, I'm with you. I've just been worn down by nearly a year of being completely ignored. My expectations are below rock bottom.

Why London? GW are in Nottingham.

 Dysartes wrote:
Why London? GW are in Nottingham.

Shhh, they might have gotten rid of some other companies we'd be better without by mistake.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

The ORIGINAL Deathwatch Codex that dropped towards the end of 7E? Where you could take single model units? That was, is, and will forever be the best representation of both the Deathwatch and Custodes as a concept ever.

I don't recall ever being able to take single model units in Deathwatch. You could in the weird little version of Kill Team they published around the same time as the Codex, but I think 5 man vet teams were always the minimum.

Terminators, bikers, and Vanguard Veterans were able to be taken as singles.

furthermore, the way that you assembled kill teams was by taking veterans (multi-model units) alongside a number of these single-model units as formations. it worked really solid for the effect it was trying to have... but doesn't work in a rules system without formations, which i assume is why that iteration of the rules didn't survive past seventh edition (although 9th edition tried something similar)

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2024/07/11/warhammer-40000-metawatch-the-pariah-nexus-companion/