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.

Gotta agree with the part about a varied-gear kill team slowing down the game. I just tried out attaching KT Cassius to my Custodes, and shooting or fighting with that squad is practically a nightmare.

That's why I liked 9th's Combat Squadding KTs:

Yes, you could still go bonkers and bring in all the weird mixes... But if you wanted to simplify things, the 5/5 split was doable.

People weren't sure they liked the 5/5 split, because they thought it was milking the rules, and for some players, that may have been the intent. But for me, it's just that it's easier if my Proteus is five vets and five termies, my Fortis is five intercessors and five aggressors, etc.

Bikes could act like bikes, termies could act like termies, and many were happy. A few people were like, "That's doing an end run around the rules..." but many of those where the same people who preferred "Oh there's one Terminator in the unit, so the whole unit can teleport" like THAT wasn't an end run around the rules.

 PenitentJake wrote:

Breton wrote:


I think it should have been parallel to a Deathwatch Codex Supplement, not replacement for. i.e. Here's what DW have in the supplement, here's what crosses over to Agents of the Imperium and how it slots in so that an IG or IK army could have added 2 squads of DW and a Captain or some such but it would have been really limited cross over.

Right now, you can take a Watchmaster and two units of DW and put them into Guard or Knights. The most you can do in 2k is Watchmaster, Artemis, 2 KTs (which are actually DW Vets now) and a Blackstar- this burns 3 Retinue and 2 Character slots.

So the only thing that would need to change for your vision to be achievable is that the DW supplement should still be there, and as I wrote above, I totally agree. While the Agents dex got the few units of DW that GW decided to keep official, the Agents Dex and the demise of the DW Supplement are two separate issues. People are looking like the Agents dex like it's the cause of the DW demise, but it wasn't. GW could very, very easily have done both.

The demise is linked. They added the one at the same time they removed the other. My point is that neither should be linked to the other. Even points costs listed for the "same" datasheet should be un-linked.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Manfred von Drakken wrote:
Gotta agree with the part about a varied-gear kill team slowing down the game. I just tried out attaching KT Cassius to my Custodes, and shooting or fighting with that squad is practically a nightmare.

To be fair, KT Cassius was an odd man out - it wasn't even a 40K Unit, it was one side of a boxed stand-alone game that then got some rules for 40K.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PenitentJake wrote:
That's why I liked 9th's Combat Squadding KTs:

Yes, you could still go bonkers and bring in all the weird mixes... But if you wanted to simplify things, the 5/5 split was doable.

People weren't sure they liked the 5/5 split, because they thought it was milking the rules, and for some players, that may have been the intent. But for me, it's just that it's easier if my Proteus is five vets and five termies, my Fortis is five intercessors and five aggressors, etc.

Bikes could act like bikes, termies could act like termies, and many were happy. A few people were like, "That's doing an end run around the rules..." but many of those where the same people who preferred "Oh there's one Terminator in the unit, so the whole unit can teleport" like THAT wasn't an end run around the rules.

My only "problem" with the KT's was how it made 3 and only 3 units into a 5 half of 10. Those units should have always been 3-5, or 5 only. Something that 100 is divisible by.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 ender502 wrote:
Hard disagree. DeathWatch should be an elite level army like the grey knights or custodes.

Another hot take, but those also could do with being made into not-full-armies.

It's a ship that's sailed, but if I was redesigining, GK, DW, and Custodes would all be "you may add a unit from this faction into your army", not a full army in their own right. Or, "no more than 1000 points of this faction may be taken in one list" - a small game, sure, but anything larger? The focus isn't on that one faction any more.

But hell, at least the Custodes and GK have a wider selection of their own units that aren't just "Space Marines painted black with a silver shoulder pad".

Again, I'll stand by it and say that Deathwatch should not have the full Space Marine arsenal. They should be centred on *Kill Teams* with a *variety* of weapons, rules which let them act with great flexibility, control and autonomy, and be supported by their own few leaders and vehicles (Rhinos/Razorbacks, Corvus Blackstars, Land Raiders and Dreadnoughts), and be taken as a supplement to an existing army. If you want an all-Deathwatch game/army, then you should either be playing Kill Team, or be limited to only 1000 point games.

Points about them "slowing" the game down are super valid. It'd suck but just make DW weapons 3 modes (AT-short range, Horde-like a short range D3 flamer, Long Range - precision bolter shot) to simulate their specialist ammo and the whole squad has to use 1 mode.

How would that work if members of the squad have drastically different weapons? Let's say, a shotgun, a frag cannon, a bolter and power sword, a storm shield/power sword, and a heavy thunder hammer.

What's the plan there?

You'd do exactly what GW is saying we need to do now with our terminators and such....such great modeling that means nothing for game play. If it sucks when I say it, it's even worse when GW does it because they write these dumbass rules.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:

 ender502 wrote:
Hard disagree. DeathWatch should be an elite level army like the grey knights or custodes.

Another hot take, but those also could do with being made into not-full-armies.

It's a ship that's sailed, but if I was redesigining, GK, DW, and Custodes would all be "you may add a unit from this faction into your army", not a full army in their own right. Or, "no more than 1000 points of this faction may be taken in one list" - a small game, sure, but anything larger? The focus isn't on that one faction any more.

But hell, at least the Custodes and GK have a wider selection of their own units that aren't just "Space Marines painted black with a silver shoulder pad".

Again, I'll stand by it and say that Deathwatch should not have the full Space Marine arsenal. They should be centred on *Kill Teams* with a *variety* of weapons, rules which let them act with great flexibility, control and autonomy, and be supported by their own few leaders and vehicles (Rhinos/Razorbacks, Corvus Blackstars, Land Raiders and Dreadnoughts), and be taken as a supplement to an existing army. If you want an all-Deathwatch game/army, then you should either be playing Kill Team, or be limited to only 1000 point games.

Points about them "slowing" the game down are super valid. It'd suck but just make DW weapons 3 modes (AT-short range, Horde-like a short range D3 flamer, Long Range - precision bolter shot) to simulate their specialist ammo and the whole squad has to use 1 mode.

How would that work if members of the squad have drastically different weapons? Let's say, a shotgun, a frag cannon, a bolter and power sword, a storm shield/power sword, and a heavy thunder hammer.

What's the plan there?

That's fine (them never existing as a full army) and I don't necessarily disagree but people have bought full armies of these guys and it really sucks if that has been invalidated. It's horrible anti consumer practice imo and deserves complaints whenever GW does it.

I wasn't interested in the min maxing of weapon options (especially the storm bolter fiasco), would have been happy with far more generic options. I loved the mix and match blokes. Reminiscent of the old commando and similar comics, dumb kids TV etc. Having a bloke on a bike alongside the man with a monkey? Hardly practical and yet kids TV had no problems.

In practical terms picking a core of terminators, vets and assault marines for your squad (5), then having the option to add vets, termies, assault marines and bikes (up to 10), allowed me to build these odd little narrative squads. But I totally get why they don't fit with tourny hammer as its a lot more complex for very little gain.

We did a few CSM low point (500?) narrative games in various scenarios, picking them in similar ways. Core of CSM veterans combined with choice of terminators, bikers, possessed, raptors, Havocs and cult marines. Like the book squads BL likes to publish stories about.

 Sgt_Smudge wrote:


For me, I really like the way they'd be hypothetically more laid out in Kill Team (the game) - individual specialists within the squad, who each bring a different skill. But what we got on table in 40k wasn't "mix and match squads", it was "4x frag cannon" or "5x storm bolters and storm shields", and that doesn't feel "mix and match" to me.

My honest opinion is that Deathwatch should never have been a full army. They should have only been Veterans on foot, Veterans with jump packs, Veterans with scout armour, Veterans in Terminator Armour, with a *handful* of vehicles (Blackstar, Rhino, Land Raider, Repulsor, Dreadnought)*. The wargear options should've encouraged a variety of weapons within the unit (which most 40k players hate), and as an army, they should have been limited to how they are in Agents - you take them to *supplement* an existing army. One Kill Team, Leader and Transport per 1000 points, etc.

Usually, I find myself agreeing with your posts, and this one really surprised me. I think it's the first time I've ever seen you advocate for the removal of options from the game- you generally advocate for people playing in their own sandbox.

To address your first point: min maxing is a PLAYER issue, not a game issue. No matter what the rules are, a certain number of people will always care more about winning than anything else- their opponent's enjoyment of the game, the narrative, the expense of buying an extra box of models for one gun so that you can make your unit AWESOME. And that portion of people will find any and every exploit, no matter how hard the rules try and prevent it. So removing options from people to try and minimize the potential for exploitation, well it's a bit of a fine line. GW removed not-in-box options to prevent one means of exploitation- buying a whole box of models for one gun to make another unit more efficient and powerful...

And people HATE that. It's one of the biggest complaints in the game, and has been since GW started moving this way in 8th.

To address your second point, what you advocate for severely limits narrative potential. Watch Fortress Y on planet X is attacked by aliens seeking revenge for their fallen soldiers.... But the DW can't defend themselves unless they can invite someone else to the party because a bunch of disgruntled players say so. I also feel like it falls into a common peril in discussions on this board: people thinking ONLY of the 2k game when they advocate for rules changes. Because if I'm playing 500 points, I'm sorry I don't have the points for the other army that you insist must be in every battle that includes DW. That just feels like kind of a myopic point of view.

My Deathwatch army in 9th was a Watchmaster leading five members of a Proteus Team (so all had to be foot vets) in a Blackstar, and an Inquisitor who was leading five members of a Fortis Squad (so they all had to be Intercessors) and a Blackstar. That's it. That's the whole starting roster. Over time, of course, I'd have earned requisitions to grow those units to max capacity- that's what Crusade is all about. If I remember correctly, the army came to exactly 25 PL, which was a standard starting roster in our campaign, so no room for anyone else. And in the world according to you, it should not have been allowed to exist.

Bad form Smee. Go back to saying things I agree with lol.

 PenitentJake wrote:
removal of options from the game- you generally advocate for people playing in their own sandbox.

I'm a big variety junkie, but I'm also of the opinion that options should be viable options. I think every army should have at least two viable and roughly equal quality builds. Be it Big Bugs and Little Bugs, or Massed Infantry and Armored Company, etc.

As for "Watch Fortress Y on planet X" that would still bug me. I have a hard time swallowing the only defense on a Space Marine Chapter Planet is the Space Marines. I feel like every Chapter Planet should be among the... oh what did they call it? Extremis Threat? Level I? I forget the nomenclature given to a Planet based on its importance to the Imperial War Effort - anyway I imagine all Chapter Planets are that level, and have a Titan Legion somewhere nearby, a knight house or two, and a large complement of Imperial Guard who may be going through Fort Irwin style exercises, or just flat assigned to the planet full time.

I did think the idea of a physical planetside location was naff. If ever a faction should have been void based it was them, would make far more sense. A strike cruiser and 2-4 escorts (say one hunter, one Nova and two Gladius) would make a lot more sense as a base.

@Breton- I didn't necessarily see it as "a marine planet" - the Watch Fortress is certainly the only Marine presence I had thought about when I wrote the example. I see the fortress as being isolated from the settlements.

@The_Real_Chris- Yes, I think so too. But that makes my point even more salient: if the Watch Fortress is a ship, and that ship is breached by an enemy, the Deathwatch certainly aren't relying on Guard or other Imperial Armies to show up so they can be fielded against the enemy. It's going to be a pure DW army that responds to that threat, so anyone advocating for a "DW must only be used as allies to other forces" is essentially saying that neither you nor anyone else should be able to tell that story... Which is bonkers on its face.

Well that would be far more a boarding action or kill team game and I can, oh hang on

 PenitentJake wrote:
if the Watch Fortress is a ship, and that ship is breached by an enemy, the Deathwatch certainly aren't relying on Guard or other Imperial Armies to show up so they can be fielded against the enemy. It's going to be a pure DW army that responds to that threat, so anyone advocating for a "DW must only be used as allies to other forces" is essentially saying that neither you nor anyone else should be able to tell that story... Which is bonkers on its face.

No, in that case the Deathwatch would also be relying on the large detachment of human imperial navy arbites-equivalent who serve as the standing security force for the population of the ship and maintain order and discipline over the tens of thousands of humans who keep the ship running, as well as defending the ship from boarding actions and warp incursions.

Putting DW in the position of being a full army nuked their potential for being interesting.
As soon as the roster needed filled out they became a generic Chapter with a special plane.

They should have been left as Kill Team Cassius until KT proper came back and a far more interesting unit could have been created.
I mean the KT game system is named for them and how a DW KT operates with specialists from various Chapters fits perfectly with the specialists in the system.

 PenitentJake wrote:
@Breton- I didn't necessarily see it as "a marine planet" - the Watch Fortress is certainly the only Marine presence I had thought about when I wrote the example. I see the fortress as being isolated from the settlements.

@The_Real_Chris- Yes, I think so too. But that makes my point even more salient: if the Watch Fortress is a ship, and that ship is breached by an enemy, the Deathwatch certainly aren't relying on Guard or other Imperial Armies to show up so they can be fielded against the enemy. It's going to be a pure DW army that responds to that threat, so anyone advocating for a "DW must only be used as allies to other forces" is essentially saying that neither you nor anyone else should be able to tell that story... Which is bonkers on its face.

Currently, I cannot take a Sorcerer, Dark Apostle, or Master of Possession with my Daemons. I can't have a small cult bringing the might of a greater daemonic force on the tabletop.
Why can't I tell that story?

Some allowances have to be made for gameplay. 40k should have a wide variety of possibilities, but it can't cover EVERYTHING.

Well when 9th dropped, you could- that was exactly my point. Because you could take a detachment of daemons and a detachment of cultists. As the edition went on, they very much tried to put barriers up for matched play, but because updates to Matched Play didn't always apply to Crusade in 9th, there continued to be few if any problems with it....

Other than people complaining about the cognitive burden and exploit potential of two different sets of strats.

Which leads us to where we are now: mandatory single detachment armies with only 6 strats so that people's brains don't hurt. Worse, this is true even in Narrative play, where interfaction rosters are explicitly permitted.

I can work with it (and only complain occasionally), but it ain't the narrative powerhouse that 9th was- the base system is just too simplified, so even though Crusade tried hard to stay the same, some of the core mechanics that it built on are gone- psychic powers, more equipment options, character upgrades and of course, back to multi-detachment armies.

 JNAProductions wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
@Breton- I didn't necessarily see it as "a marine planet" - the Watch Fortress is certainly the only Marine presence I had thought about when I wrote the example. I see the fortress as being isolated from the settlements.

@The_Real_Chris- Yes, I think so too. But that makes my point even more salient: if the Watch Fortress is a ship, and that ship is breached by an enemy, the Deathwatch certainly aren't relying on Guard or other Imperial Armies to show up so they can be fielded against the enemy. It's going to be a pure DW army that responds to that threat, so anyone advocating for a "DW must only be used as allies to other forces" is essentially saying that neither you nor anyone else should be able to tell that story... Which is bonkers on its face.

Currently, I cannot take a Sorcerer, Dark Apostle, or Master of Possession with my Daemons. I can't have a small cult bringing the might of a greater daemonic force on the tabletop.
Why can't I tell that story?

Some allowances have to be made for gameplay. 40k should have a wide variety of possibilities, but it can't cover EVERYTHING.

As I said previously I think each faction should have at least two viable roughly equal power builds. I should also add those builds should be the "fluffy" builds. Slogging slow wave, Marines + Daemons, and sloggers and vehicles would all work for Deathguard.

Breton wrote:

 JNAProductions wrote:

 PenitentJake wrote:
@Breton- I didn't necessarily see it as "a marine planet" - the Watch Fortress is certainly the only Marine presence I had thought about when I wrote the example. I see the fortress as being isolated from the settlements.

@The_Real_Chris- Yes, I think so too. But that makes my point even more salient: if the Watch Fortress is a ship, and that ship is breached by an enemy, the Deathwatch certainly aren't relying on Guard or other Imperial Armies to show up so they can be fielded against the enemy. It's going to be a pure DW army that responds to that threat, so anyone advocating for a "DW must only be used as allies to other forces" is essentially saying that neither you nor anyone else should be able to tell that story... Which is bonkers on its face.

Currently, I cannot take a Sorcerer, Dark Apostle, or Master of Possession with my Daemons. I can't have a small cult bringing the might of a greater daemonic force on the tabletop.
Why can't I tell that story?

Some allowances have to be made for gameplay. 40k should have a wide variety of possibilities, but it can't cover EVERYTHING.

As I said previously I think each faction should have at least two viable roughly equal power builds. I should also add those builds should be the "fluffy" builds. Slogging slow wave, Marines + Daemons, and sloggers and vehicles would all work for Deathguard.

I don't play Deathguard.

 JNAProductions wrote:

Breton wrote:


As I said previously I think each faction should have at least two viable roughly equal power builds. I should also add those builds should be the "fluffy" builds. Slogging slow wave, Marines + Daemons, and sloggers and vehicles would all work for Deathguard.

I don't play Deathguard.

My mistake, for some reason I had Poxwalkers/Deathguard on the brain, but I assume you get the gist?

Given you've mentioned (repeatedly) about Nurgle Daemons in the past, JNA, someone assuming Death Guard isn't unwarranted - even if you did call out CSM units in your post.

 Dysartes wrote:
Given you've mentioned (repeatedly) about Nurgle Daemons in the past, JNA, someone assuming Death Guard isn't unwarranted - even if you did call out CSM units in your post.

Nah I should have caught it too. And it brings up a "problem" with playing Deathguard "Narratively". They have sorcerers, but the other "traditional" options for summoners are a little thin.

Dang this has me coming back from a large hiatus.
My story with this is that I was honestly kinda excited about 10th when it was whispers on the wind. People seemed to be a bit fed up with some of the competitiveness of 9th and I really
Hoped it would be more like 8th. I’d always liked deathwatch so I bought into them pretty hard. 5 killteams with all unique wargear on their marines, some characters assembled from choice marine parts, very cool dreads and bikers and all that stuff. I even picked up some really old forgeworld inquisitor stuff alongside a squad of stormtroopers to protect him.
My reward: total destruction due to the index. Deathwatch is an army entirely focused on wargear and unit customization and they just lost that because gw decided that the average player would surely not want a combi flamer to be different to a combi plasma.
Sia also got entirely shafted, which sucks due to it honestly needing to be touched up and expanded a bit
This is just turning into a rant but the treatment they got and the structure of 10th as a whole was just very dissapointing, especially as someone who’s into deathwatch.

If you've got a group that will let you play Legends, it might help- the old Kill Teams are still there, though I can't promise their unit options will identically match what you have, because that changed slightly from 9th-10th Index.

The KT's in the Legends document are identical to the Index KT's that were free online until the Agents dex drops.

 PenitentJake wrote:
If you've got a group that will let you play Legends, it might help- the old Kill Teams are still there, though I can't promise their unit options will identically match what you have, because that changed slightly from 9th-10th Index.

The KT's in the Legends document are identical to the Index KT's that were free online until the Agents dex drops.

Mostly! They fixed the issues with the Spectrus Kill Team wargear and the KTs aren't egregiously overpriced anymore!

Weirdly, Indomitor Aggressors are still less competent than their codex counterparts.

I haven't had a chance to try it out yet.

It still won't help Tim get his Dreads in, but it might help him use Kill Teams.