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Introduction: Kill Team Rapier was a Deathwatch strike team formed in 920M41, originally stationed in the Jericho Reach. The team was led by Watch Sergeant Alyxander, with Veterans Auranis, Gorlin, Validus, Lucena and Rarai'an under his command. As of 925M41, Kill Team Rapier had a short yet eventful operational history that has taken them from the Jericho Reach to the Agripinaa Sector, striking down heretics and Xenos that threaten the Imperium's holdings. Kill Team Rapier assembled. Kill Team Rapier’s first assignment was during the siege of Hargotta in 920M41 to locate and identify the heretic Astartes commanders of the Stigmartus warband. Despite their success the Imperium crusade forces abandoned the siege, much to the chagrin of the Kill Team. Shortly after, they made an ally of Ordo Xenos Inquisitor Jemini Malethann, who sought to utilise them for his own projects. It was the offer Kill Team Rapier needed to get away from the strife and politics of the Jericho Reach. Watch-Sergeant Alyxander and Veteran Auranis face off against an Ork mob. After accepting Malethann's offer, Kill Team Rapier soon found themselves stationed out in Segmentum Obscurus, under the Inquisitor's command. Using their experience in fighting heretics, their knowledge of Xenos, as well as their newfound brotherhood, they quickly set about tracking down an Ork Waaagh! plaguing the innermost sectors of Segmentum Obscurus. Their search would eventually embroil them into the seemingly unending conflict between Waaagh! Brassjaw and the Steel Reavers in 925M41. Current Members: Kill Team Rapier is a six-strong strike team comprised of the following members: Watch-Sergeant Alyxander Chapter: Black Templars Chapter Initiation: 882M41 Former Chapter Assignment: Initiate of Fighting Company “Bohemond’s Brothers”, post-Crusade of Vice. Deathwatch Initiation: 914M41 Alyxander is the sergeant of Kill Team Rapier. He is a Black Templar initiate who was crusading with his fighting company, “Bohemond’s Brothers”, across the northern stretches of the Segmentum Ultima. Before joining the Deathwatch in 912M41, his company was part of the Crusade of Vice fighting against Orks in the Tamahl sector. An advising Inquisitor took interest in Alyxander when she witnessed him slay an Ork Warboss with a broken power sword. Alyxander was honoured to join the Deathwatch, but was unprepared for the radical nature of the Inquisition, particularly their dealings with Xenos and their technology. He has become disenchanted with his assignment as the Inquisition's methodology often clashed with Alyxander's faith. Now, he is simply content with the opportunities given to him to purge the various aliens, mutants and heretics across the galaxy. He and Auranis have a strong bond, one built up from their decade of service together. Watch-Sergeant Alyxander Veteran Auranis Chapter: Crimson Fists Chapter Initiation: 875M41 Former Chapter Assignment: Sergeant of 5th Company 9th Devastator Squad. Deathwatch Initiation: 912M41 Auranis is the squad gunner of Kill Team Rapier. Hailing from the Crimson Fists chapter, he joined the Deathwatch in 912M41. Before the Deathwatch, he was Sergeant of the 9th Devastator Squad, 5th Company. He and his squad earned battle honours during an encounter with a Drukhari raiding party in the Loki Sector in 907M41, where they destroyed an entire Venom squadron. The Chapter Master of the Crimson Fists recommended him to the Deathwatch, and though Auranis was pensive he accepted their offer without complaint. He has not regretted his decision since, and he takes great pride in his duties and assignment with the Deathwatch. He and Alyxander have a strong bond, one built up from their decade of service together. Veteran Auranis Veteran Validus Chapter: Raven Guard Chapter Initiation: 850M41 Former Chapter Assignment: Tactical Marine of 7th Company 2nd Tactical Squad. Deathwatch Initiation: 912M41 Validus is the sharpshooter of Kill Team Rapier. He hails from the Raven Guard chapter, and was initiated into the Deathwatch in 890M41. He was a member of the 4th Company 2nd Tactical Squad, and during this time he was nearly killed in battle by an Ork Meganob. He was in suspended animation for six weeks before returning to service, being reassigned to the 7th Company, which would not see battle for several months. Validus lamented his defeat in his last battle, and his “demotion” to the reserve companies. Naturally, he seized the opportunity to join the Deathwatch when they sent their recruiters to the Raven Guard’s chapter keep. He successfully impressed the Deathwatch emissaries with his exceptional marksmanship and quick manoeuvring. Despite his withdrawn and brooding personality, he has a newfound pride and purpose as a member of Kill Team Rapier. Veteran Validus Veteran Rarai’an Chapter: Mortifactors Chapter Initiation: 801M41 Former Chapter Assignment: Tactical Marine of 7th Company 1st Tactical Squad. Deathwatch Initiation: 885M41 Rarai’an is the specialist of Kill Team Rapier, skilled in Astartes medicae and mechanics. He is the oldest member of the Kill Team Rapier, having joined the Deathwatch in 880M41. He was a veteran Astartes of the Mortifactors, where at separate times was an novice apothecary and apprentice techmarine. His desire to learn as many new skills as possible made him a prime candidate for secondment to the Deathwatch, which Rarai’an saw as a great opportunity for himself and to honour the chapter. Rarai’an is studious and insightful, and strives to master every skill an Astartes may learn. Despite his seniority among his Deathwatch squad mates, he shies away from command positions. He prefers to take on an advisory role, which can be frustrating for his superiors and intimidating to younger Deathwatch Astartes. Nevertheless, he has found a place in Kill Team Rapier, who appreciate his knowledge and wisdom. Veteran Rarai'an Veteran Gorlin Chapter: Flesh Tearers Chapter Initiation: 895M41 Former Chapter Assignment: Assault Marine of 3rd Company 7th Assault Squad. Deathwatch Initiation: 921M41 Gorlin is the close combat specialist of Kill Team Rapier. He is a young Astartes hailing from the Flesh Tearer’s 3rd Company, 7th Assault Squad. He was headhunted by Inquisitor Malethann after witnessing his savage yet controlled ferocity in combat against heretics, during one of the Inquisition’s many “observations” of the errant chapter. He was initiated to the Deathwatch in 921M41, joining Kill Team Rapier as his first assignment. Gorlin considers himself a master of blades, and relishes new opportunities to fight and kill new opponents. He is ambitious and aggressive, as befits one who hails from the Flesh Tearers chapter. This has often caused friction with his squad, who need to constantly remind him of his duty and the mission at hand. They have learnt to tolerate his bloodlust and acknowledge his mastery with a chainsword. Veteran Gorlin Veteran Lucena Chapter: Howling Griffons Chapter Initiation: 859M41 Former Chapter Assignment: Tactical Marine of 2nd Company 1st Tactical Squad. Deathwatch Initiation: 901M41 Lucena is second-in-command of Kill Team Rapier and serves as the Astartes advisor for Inquisitor Malethann. He hails from the Howling Griffons 2nd Company, and was offered to the Deathwatch as a tribute; Lucena took it as an honour to serve the Deathwatch on behalf of his chapter. Inquisitor Malethann was impressed by his leadership skills and strong loyalty to the Emperor, and sought to employ him as an advisor and bodyguard for his operations. He was initiated to the Deathwatch in 901M41, but would not join Kill Team Rapier until 921M41. Lucena is a charismatic and ambitious Astartes, and is very confident in his abilities and leadership skills. This has made him an effective leader among many Imperium officers, but can be aggravating for his fellow Kill Team members. Despite his seniority, he is still seen as a new member to Rapier, and does not share the same bonds of brotherhood as the others. Veteran Lucena

Hello everyone! I've been working on this army for a long while and thought i should post it here to see what you all think. I always like to get comments and constructive criticism on my work so please let me know what you think of them all! I've taken some photos of the whole set plus i've added the photos from my entry to Armies on Parade last year. If you want to see any of the models in more detail let me know and i can add photos of them, OR you can check out my other topic in the deathwatch forum here. I'll be updating this as build and paint more models, the first update is already below! I've arranged the army in a rough outline of the watch fortress structure, they all have the correct squad designations on their kneepads and i've got an excel sheet to record who is in which squad! Almost all of them are from different chapters as well (another reason for the excel spreadsheet) I like to make them all a bit unique with the names and chapter background, i endeavor to add some elements of their home chapter to the model but after the 50 most well known ones it gets difficult! So i come up with a feel for their chapter from the name, colour scheme or what i decided to make up for them. I like to add little details like that, as you can see from the photos i am very fond of converting. All of them have the deathwatch wrist scanner, shoulder pad and elbow pad, where possible i also give them the ammo pouches and more! My goal is to build a deathwatch version of every unit currently available to them! So if you can't see something in these photos i will build one eventually! Please let me know what you think of all these!!!

Hello Everyone! Been out the hobby for about 7 years and decided recently the Deathwatch are the army to get me back into it. Decided to record my progress as i go. I'll be adding some inquisition as well when I've got them time. But first i decided to make up some Primaris Deathwatch to get me started. I really wanted to see what the new primaris models were like and thought i might as well make them Deathwatch. Probably won't get any more though, just normal size after this. Here are some pics! Did a fair bit of conversion work on the basic intercessors to get them to be deathwatch. Added the shoulder pads and the elbow detail on the left arms, sculpted shot selectors into the boltguns, filed of the chest eagles and replaced them with pouches, grenades and bullets and sliced up the right arms to incorporate the wrist scanner. Here's a close up of the Sergeant Prior to this i painted up some random servitors i had unpainted from years and years ago as Inquisition for practice. I'll post more when I've painted the primaris squad. Let me know what you all think!

The recent Deathwatch Recruitment Thread has shown there is an acute interest in taking part in play-by-post games here on the Bolter and Chainsword. That's intensely gratifying - and to me, I think it demonstrates that we can sustain multiple games here. This thread is intended to serve as a resource both for players looking to join a game, as well as GMs looking to recruit. This is not really designed for conversations - if you find enough players looking for a specific game, start a new thread and PM them to join. Name: Interested in Playing: Dark Heresy 1st Edition / Dark Heresy 2nd Edition / Rogue Trader / Deathwatch / Only War / Black Crusade / Wrath & Glory / Other Knowledge/Experience of Rules: Have you played in campaigns before? Do you own the rules? Are you familiar with the rules? Other Pertinent Information: You might consider here notes on your availability; on your 40k interest, armies and hobbies; or anything else you'd like other forum members to know. You might consider thinking about , as this might help you think about the style of game you'd like to participate in.

Hello everyone! Lately I’ve been trying to figure out the structure and organisation of the Deathwatch. You might have seen a previous topic that I've written on the subject. This time I thought I would actually write it in detail. To start with here is the latest Watch Fortress structure chart, it’s from the 8th edition codex though, we didn’t get one in the 9th edition supplement. Hopefully we will in the next one! And below is my proposed structure in detail based on all the available information I have gleaned from the lore, codex’s and internet research. Deathwatch There are an unknown number of Watch Fortresses, at least 34 have been named. Assuming there are say, 50. Each fortress is roughly 260 at max strength including all marines which would equate to 13000 across the galaxy. Given that there are supposedly 1000 chapters (perhaps 1105 with the Ultima founding) I’d put the rough Deathwatch tithe number for each chapter at 10 marines (about 1% of a chapter, I can’t see them giving up more than that) so lets say that’s 11050 seconded marines. Even with the blackshields and marines that are permanently seconded to the watch there’s still are fair deficit of somewhere between 40 and 20 for each fortress. It’s probable that most if not all fortresses are understrength. Watch Fortress Watch Commander - Watch Master Inquisitorial Representative - 1 Inquisitor and Retinue Strategium - 6 Chaplains (including 1 master of sanctity and 1 Reclusiarch) - 6 Librarians (including 1 Chief Librarian and Librarians of varying ranks) - 6 Apothecaries (including 1 Chief Apothecary) - Fortress Ancient (Banner Bearer) - Bladeguard Ancient (Relic Bearer) - Fortress Champion Armoury - 6 Techmarines (Including 1 Master of the Forge) - 5-10 Tech-Adepts (Pilots/Drivers etc) - 5 Dreadnought Sarcophagi (types vary widely from Leviathans to modern though each chassis would have all potential weapon configurations) - Mechanicus delegation (varying numbers of tech priests, adepts, engineseers and skitarii to service the chapters arms, armour, facilities, bionics and vehicles) - Various Servitors - 25 Drop Pods - 25 Rhinos - 10 Razorbacks - 10 Repulsors - 5 Repulosor Executioners - 5 Impulsors - 25 Land Speeders (Various types) - 20 Storm Speeders (Various types) - 10 Invictor Tactical Warsuits - 25 Land Raiders (Various types) - 20 Predators/ Vindicators/ Whirlwinds/ Hunters/ Stalkers (Various types based on the rhino chassis) - 10 Gladiators (Various types) - 5 Astraeus’ - 20 Corvus Blackstars - 5 Thunderhawks - 5 Storm Raven Gunships - 2 Overlords - 5 Storm Eagles - 10 Stormtalon Gunships - 10 Stormhawk Interceptors - 250 Mark 8 Power Armour Suits - 250 Terminator Armour Suits (Various types) - 200 Mark 10 Power Armour Suits (with options for all Gravis and Phobos standard configurations for each suit) - 20 Centurion Warsuits (with options for any configuration for each suit) - 250 Bikes - 50 Attack Bikes - 100 Outrider Bikes - 25 Invader ATVs - Enough equipment of all standard production types for each marine to be able to be armed with any weapon or equipment e.g. 250 plasma guns, 250 chainswords, 250 jump packs etc Navy - 1 Battlebarge - 5 Strike Cruisers - 20 Frigates (various types) - 5 Kill Ships - Various fighters and boarding vehicles Watch Companies - 5 Companies (Primus, Secundus, Tertius, Quartus and Quintus) Watch Company - 1 Watch Captain - 1 Lieutenant - 4 Squads of 10 marines - Various types, all firstborn form into Proteus Kill Teams and Primaris form into either Indomitor, Spectrus or Fortis. Each marine will remain with their assigned kill team for the duration of their service barring promotion or return to their home chapter. Each kill team is undesignated outside of battle (other than by firstborn or primaris) and will be designated by the commander of that engagement (sergeant, captain, watchmaster etc) as necessary e.g. Venator, Furor Malleus etc. Each squad is further able to subdivide into combat squads or individual Kill-Marines as dictated by the command structure. Support Staff - Various numbers of standard humans as menials, pilots, clerks etc - Explanatory Notes – You might question the sheer volume of arms, armour and vehicles but just think about it. The deathwatch are the SWAT, the special forces, the green berets, SAS, Navy Seals etc. The absolute best of the best! Furthermore they are the swiss army knife of the marines, able to adapt to any situation or threat and arm themselves appropriately so it makes sense to have all the equipment to support that. And finally, the Deathwatch are backed and funded by the INQUISITION, those guys can get them anything they need. It’s one of the reasons they have such a monopoly on mark 8 armour. So they are pretty much the most well funded and supplied space marine force in the ENTIRE imperium. The only chapters to come close would be the grey knights (few in number and far more specialised) the Minotaurs (shady funding from the high lords) or the Red Hunters (Inquisition Controlled). Also consider how many vehicles and weapons a regular chapter has, loads, and a watch fortress is about a quarter or at least a 5th of that strength. Take a look at the ultramarine structure below from the 8th edition marine codex and see how much they got! If a regular chapter can get that much I see no reason why the Deathwatch wouldn’t be better supplied. I’ve included less primaris tech as the fortresses would already have been equipped with the full set of firstborn vehicles and equipment due to previously having 100% firstborn. However they have yet to need as large an amount of primaris equipment. You could argue maybe they should give some of the firstborn stuff away but that seems unlikely to happen. For the specialists like chaplains I went with 1 per watch company, same for dreadnoughts. By comparison a regular chapter would have more of each but there are a few things that the deathwatch don’t need to be responsible for e.g. apothecaries creating new marines. So they wouldn’t need as many of each I also have 5-10 marines listed as “tech-adepts” which I made up to justify not having to include the pilots of the vehicles in the kill teams. That’s not saying that the kill team members can’t work the vehicles! Of course they can, any marine can drive a rhino. But the Tech-Adepts are more specialised and can work any of the vehicles as necessary. You would think the 5-10 is low due to the amount of vehicles but there are some crew roles that regular humans can fill or be temporarily assisted by a regular kill team marine. I see each company having the option to take a couple of “Tech-Adepts” with them on engagements as it’s unlikely that they would need too many vehicles for each engagement. The reason they have so many vehicles is both in case they need them and so that they can spread them throughout the fleet, fortress and stations so no matter where they are they have a decent selection of a bunch of vehicles. I’ve only listed 1 lieutenant as 2 seems excessive when they’re handling max 40 marines compared to the 100 regular chapters deal with. There’s also a few units that don’t currently fit into the watch structure that are left a little bit behind because they aren’t part of any kill team: - Veteran Intercessors (pretty ironic given all the firstborn are veterans. I’d count any deathwatch intercessor as a veteran and I fully expect a multipart kit to be the centrepiece of the next deathwatch release. - Bladeguard Veterans (possibly an honour guard? Otherwise they should really have been in either the fortis or indomitor kill teams) - Company Veterans (It’s strange we can use these, I figure as you can have almost the same loadout as a deathwatch veteran squad you could use the rules interchangeably) - Judiciar (I count these as taking up a chaplain slot) - Relic, Assault and Terminator Squads. (We have deathwatch terminators that can do way more, why do we still have access to these) - Suppressors (These seem to be largely forgotten by GW and are one of the few not to have a multipart kit, I’d say they’d go in Indomitor or Spectrus kill teams) - Desolation Squads (Coming soon! I expect them to be an option for the Fortis Kill team) - Deathwatch Keepers (from the Deathwatch RPG, I’d say it’s unclear where they sit as Watchmasters now have the Clavis . Bladeguard seem likely to be good primaris comparisons) See Ultramarines structure below for reference