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Hey Dakka

Slowly building a deathwatch army that'll end up around the 800pts-1000pts range for friendly pick up games

For troops I want to run intercessors, but I'm struggling to find a match up of bolt rifle variant and ammo type... is it better to run stock bolt rifles for the variety of ammo bonuses? or would I be okay running auto bolt rifles with kraken rounds? If I understand this correctly the kraken ammo gives back the 6" range and -1ap Lost on assault Bolters? so they'll be double tapping at 30" with the standard bolt rifle profile?

I'm definitely running aux grenade launchers, but would it be even remotely useful to run a single stalker pattern bolter? I like the idea of Primaris squads having a grenade launcher and DMR, feels very black ops to me? obviously the stalker wouldn't benefit from kraken rounds but would a 36" reach ever come in handy? I fear not, they'll probably want to be moving with assault bolters, and heavy 1 means the shot would only connect 50% of the time? if I paired it with the grenade launcher maybe??


GamerGuy

Hey having a bit of experience with deathwatch, its worth to not bother with auxilary grenade launchers. In normal marines sure, but when you have the 2+ to wound round available its rarely useful. Stock bolt rifles or autol boltrifles are far superior, unless you are against deathguard or anything with toughness 5 where you will mostly be using 2+ to wound. stalker boltrifles are only really good with the 2+ to wound round as the AP has a cap with both the -6 inches and + 6 inch range rounds. Normal boltrifles shine here, as you quite often extend the range to get it to rapid fire at 18 vs 15. Auto bolt rifles are also good and versatile, (they are my favourite). if you want to field stalker boltrifles try to keep them in a group with 1 aggressor so you can remain mobile without penalty. I know its a bit of a point drop but having a flame stormgauntlet aggressor on your objective camper Stalker boltrifle squad is great when people charge you! The cheapest and usually strongest option is 5-9 normal boltrifle intercessors with one assault bolter inceptor. Or a super aggressive load out, 4 x aggressor 1 x inceptor 5 x auto bolt rifle intercessors, the -6 inch ammunition when your in that 18 inch sweet spot is quite awesome. the unit is fast (all units can shoot without penalty when advancing) and toughness 5. with a bunch of ablative wounds to protect your expensive aggressors and inceptor. If you get charged merely fall back and continue shooting (thanks inceptor). or you can charge them into combat to stop them getting shot at is also a good tactic.

Sorry for the waffle and bad sentence construction, had one too many bottle of wine!

Deathwatchfanboy

When building mine I did two 5 man squads. One with basic rifles, the other with assault.

While I like the concept of the stalker, mechanically it's pretty lackluster.

As I type this, I remember that I did build one marine with the heavy rifle, but mostly just for looks. When the squad takes the field in KT, he’ll be the sniper specialist, but still count him with the stock bolt rifle.

Oner perk of the assaults is that if you stick an agressor in the squad they can advance and fire. Good to project fire around the table.

My theoretical is to DS the squad with the bolt rifles into rapid fire range, while the assaults move rapidly up the table.

I did include the AGL in both squads. It’s only a point. Power swords for the sarges as well.

I would post this question in the DW tactics section as well. You will probably get more responses/suggestions.

How do people feel about taking 6 Intercessors and 4 Helblasters and splitting them into two 5-man units with 2 Helblasters in each unit?
Given Special Ammo and the Plasma Incinerators, it could be a fairly effective way to run the squad....maybe (I don't have the codex, so I don't know what the points are)

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Thanks for all the replies guys!

Nev they look beautiful man!

Deathwatchfanboy That's cool man we've all been there, and your advice was helpful and consice enough, thanks for taking the time

Cheers lads
GamerGuy