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Time to start my Deathwatch army. First, a little bit of lore for one of the watch fortresses I have seen on a wiki before, so I am going to give it my own take. Watch Fortress Sentinel IX Sentinel IX is a former Aeldari Haven Spire space station, now occupied used by the Deathwatch as a watch fortress. Pict-capture presumed to be of Sentinnel IX prior to capture by Imperial and Deathwatch forces Location: Sentinel IX is located in the Gamma Orionis system, a star situated at a nexus of several stable warp trade routes recently discovered. Previously the Haven Spire and system were infested with foul Eldar, to include the fleet of pirates known as the Bellatrix Corsairs. The Eldar were scoured from the system by the Deathwatch in centuries past, though the threat of future raids remains extremely high. Planet Banjan Major Sentinel IX orbits the planet Banjan Major; a large asteroid-ringed deathworld with several different biomes including oceans, forest, plains, blistering deserts, equatorial jungles, and polar ice caps. Many of the harsher environments and dangerous megafauna are used in training exercises by the Deathwath veterans. The ancient Aeldari infestations have been neutralized, though ruins still remain, and are now populated by human colonists, many the descendants of settlers believed to be under the thumb of their xenos oppressors. The human population provides both supplies and recruits for watch fortress PDF and serfs. Sentinel IX Haven Spire structure: The Haven Spire orbiting within the rings of Banjan Major is a gigantic space station of Eldar origin, now conquered by the Imperium and upgraded with large amounts of Mechanicus weaponry and tech. Five large solar sails capture energy that provide power to the station itself, and many batteries of Eldar lance weaponry have been repurposed by the Deathwatch for defense of the station. The many docking ports have been retrofit for Imperium voidcraft, and include berthing docks for the large strike-cruiser fleet of the Watch Fortress. The wide array of sensors keep a steady stream of data for the watch servitors to process for any hints of xenos presence within the system or in the surrounding void. The station is run by a large compliment of subservient serfs, technicians, armorists, and menials, as well as several thousand servitors. Watch Fortress Company Structure: Sentinel IX Watch Fortress is the home of four companies, comprised of roughly 200 marines when at full strength, not including officers and support staff. Companies nominally contain 50 marines including command element and specialists. Each company includes one Captain, two Lieutenants, and one company Senior Veteran Sergeant. Companies each contain four kill teams of up to ten marines each led by a Sergeant, varying between the companies in composition (Indomitor, Spectrus, Fortis, or Terminator squads). Watch Fortress Heraldry: The veterans of Sentinel IX differ only slightly from the standard Deathwatch color scheme. All marines repaint their armor black upon arrival to the watch fortress, save for their right shoulderpad which remains their original company colors, and their left arm which is repainted the color of steel. Instead of painting weapons, stripes, or other markings red, the forces of Sentinel IX instead use green. This includes the company markings, which are variations of black and green. Sentinel IX Company Markings Helmet coloration for the Deathwatch marines of Sentinel IX is as follows: Veterans- black helmet Veteran Sergeants- black helmet, green stripe, silver skull Lieutenant- black helmet, green stripe with white edges, silver skull Captain- black helmet, gold skull Sentinel IX Helmet colorations Non-marine crew serfs: Serfs assigned to the fortress include a cohort of some 4000 serfs assigned directly to the marines themselves. Duties include but are not limited to care of housing facilities, armor, weapons, food, and maintenance. In addition there is a formal Haven Spire station crew compliment of well over 10,000 serfs responsible for station operations and control, technical adepts assigned from the Mechanicus, ecclesiastical and inquisitorial staff, medical personnel, and secondary defense personnel for the station. This estimate does not include the servitors assigned to much of the stations physical labor, and who may themselves be hard-wired into the station for maximum efficiency. Mechanicus Support: The Watch Commanders of Sentinel IX have long been able to request the highlest levels of support and armament from the Adeptus Mechanicus, and maintain a large presence of tech priests and adepts within the ranks of the chapter’s support personnel. Most of the support the chapter receives is from the forgeworld Ryza, but out of necessity they tend to be the most radical elements of the forgeworld due to the large amount of xenos tech that has made its way into the fortress’ inventory. ...takes off lore hat... Really looking forward to this army. I had a lot of fun putting together the models and a bit of lore. Its been a while since doing any marines, so the primaris are a big change. Plan is to make the entire army primaris (save for a few choice vehicles) with plenty of options for kill teams, using primaris models in place of the firstborn marines. Current Army List Plans: HQWatch Captain- hammer or xenophase blade with stormshield and jumpack Primaris lieutenant with storm shield/power sword Primaris Librarian- force sword TroopsFortis Team- Sergeant with power sword, x4 intercessors (assault) and hellblasters (assault) Fortis Team- Sergeant with power sword, x4 intercessors (stalker) and hellblasters (heavy) ElitesAggressor Squad- boltstorm gauntlets and and fragstorm launchers Primaris Apothecary Fast- Thunderstrike Stormspeeder (can swap for Hammerstrike) Heavy- Stalker AA tank (can swap for Hunter) This is what I currently have on hand, gotta start small before I spend too much! I would love to expand into a full Indomitor kill team with some heavy intercessors, and some spectrus kill teams. Also hope to get a watch commander and some more officers, along with some of the new dreadnoughts. From what I have read vehicles don't seem to be great options for marines/deathwatch in particular, but I love the stalker so that was an auto pick for me (gotta get that drone defense somehow!) and I also like the new speeder variants too even if they are essentially a flying brick. Hope they can be some fast moving sacrificial anti-tank firepower. Next up will be pics of army assembly and my first attempts to paint marines in over a decade.

Hi there! It has been a long time since I registered here but now I think it is time to start posting at last. I'm starting a tournament DW army and a small blog here. First of all, a roster: I am trying to make a "pure"(well, almost) DW army with a minimum of allies and first WiP's of bolter and chainsword armed Veterans(more will follow soon):

https://youtu.be/e6ERhROAKhc An00bis's Tau Empire vs my "Imperium" list comprising of deathwatch and count as ultramarines. 2000pts, tau empire had one battalion detachment, imperium was a battalion and flight wing I believe. - cover slaves

So I just had a horrid game. Probably my worst beating in 8th edition. But what I'm trying to figure out is if the Landraider or the Corvus is the 'go to' in the codex.... but I do believe it has to be one of those options because otherwise we have a very, very vanilla looking army. (just thinking of the constraint issues GW have given us with transport options for "Kill Teams".) I'm not going to do a full run down of the game and bore you to tears with it. Basically I had two very beefy Kill teams and they were both deployed in Corvus Blackstars. One had the Watchmaster, and a Termie + Vanguard vet + Black shield a few dudes with Frag Cannons. This loaded it up. The second Blackstar was deployed on the very opposite corner of the table. It had the second most kitted out Kill team. Similar to above, but a little less expensive and it was lead by Artemis and his super bomb. I had a third kill team which was fairly average, but flexible in a Razorback with twin- Assault Cannons. Then I had 5 bikes with a few good hth weapons for flexibility. The plan was to use the biker's TP homer to pull back the KT's with Termies if I needed it for objectives (This was a Maelsrtom game). So I had turn 1 and just to give some perspective how it went I deployed my first Corvus in the corner like so: That's a homing device, the Razorback is full, but it was hard getting full cover so it is definitely not 'center' of table.... The bikes are hidden in the middle... and the other Corvus is at the very far left, but you get the idea. I had such a small army that I of course am going first.... BUT Chaos steals the initiative, and this was a sign of things to come. The Chaos player had a well rounded army. Nothing over the top, probably most of his list was just adjusted with some recommendations I actually made including Abaddon and a 5 man Black Legion-esque Combi weapon Termie squad, and a lot of marines/cultists/Decimator dread/Defiler/Predator, Oblits. Well after stealing the initiative I tell him which Corvus has the Watchmaster/Librarian in it, and he unloads the Predator annihilator at it, needing 4's to hit because of Supersonic... he takes all the wounds off of it... the Corvus goes down, I lose 2 Kill team dudes. I basically end up with this. The Kill team is engaged by the defiler, 10 marines, shot up by a ton of stuff, the bikers hold their own and the other Corvus does surprisingly little in the air. This forces me to get the contents of it out, and assault the Decimator dread which heavy flames a good portion of the squad out of close combat and Artemis does 1 Mortal wound to the Decimator with his bomb, I re-roll it with a CP and it turns into a 2. Deep in my zone my large kill team did make an assault on a Rhino, but ... and this is a really, really goofy mechanism of 8th, the Watchmaster and Librarian FAIL their independent charge rolls. This leaves them alone, as the rest of the kill team has advanced beyond them. Of course Abe comes in with 5 Termies on my back row and the Combi weapons annihilate the Watchmaster (Slay the Warlord) and the Librarian is the recipient of everything else. The only thing I can hope to do to retaliate is the Razorback mini-Kill team pours out, the Bikers join in and shoot everything at the Termies. with only one Frag cannon, and higher AP SIA rounds, I manage to kill a whooping 2 termies (4 unsaved wounds). I won't have a chance in close combat so in T2 I call the game. perhaps the worst game I've had in 8th. I've already played a lot of armies, against a lot of very different opponents and this was one game that was very difficult to figure out what the appropriate changes would be. This is why I started thinking of the Corvus. It was so dehabilitating to lose one Corvus in the top of T1. Sure it was a bit of luck, but it's quite plausible to happen against a few opponents. But the result was so bad I knew I could not come back using a super slow army, with super small numbers. The opponent could circle me at will and throw rocks at my head until it was safe to come in for the kill. That weird mechanic of the HQs not making the charge has happened to me in other games and I find it one of the more awkward things in 8th where this results in squads 'abandoning' their HQ's, but it's super dangerous, and it can be incredibly self destructive because the HQ's become very exposed, and in some cases you're losing the 'aura/buff' which you heavily rely on. This made me think about the Landraider. I have a love/hate with it. I've used it in several games and it's finally become something that kind of plays like it is written. It can take a good beating, and it does perhaps have the best delivery system out of the codex in terms of reliability. BUT it is so incredibly expensive it takes a small army, and makes it smaller. One complaint about the Corvus I have is the Cluster Launcher bombs are kind of crappy... compared to the 2 Ork Bomber ones, and the Tau one (I've seen these so I don't know about other flyers.) But at 250-260 points each, the Corvus bombs give up to 10 D6 attempts at hitting units with Mortal wounds on a roll of a "6". Orks (!) and Tau seem to have better bombs, resulting in mortal wounds on a 4+. The Flyer is expensive, but still much cheaper than a landraider. So I'm starting to think of just using one flyer, even though the load out and speed is pretty impressive on paper.

I am continuing with some new techniques trying to squeeze a better appearance out of the army. This isn't 100% done but very very close. There is a shine on the models that would be gone with the finishing spray, but it's unavoidable with the glaze/wash I've created. I'm going to be honest I really don't know if the results are conveyed.... or are basically worth the amount of time put into each fig.

Hey guys, So after looking though the Index, and FAQs I had a few questions about the weapon restrictions to the Deathwatch. Thanks for clearing up this stuff! For the Watch! Can Deathwatch Veterans take both a Boltgun and a Chain sword? From what I'm reading they can replace their Boltgun with two items from the weapon lists. Meaning that they're limited to a Bolt Pistol when equipped with a chain sword. I see a lot of posts on forums that say other wise, but maybe I'm just getting confused. Can the Deathwatch Razor Back take a Lascannon? I don't see it listed as an option in the Index, and I didn't see it in any FAQs. A part of me has to think this is a typo because on the Deathwatch Razorback box you see a lascannon on the back of the packaging. http://www.tabletopencounters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/DWRazorback-e1473793401554.jpg

Hello! I'm curious to hear what people think about kill team setups and army lists. I've found that my results when playing have been extremely varied. I have only played a handful games atm, a couple of 2v2s and some 1-1.5k games. I'll share some of what I've been doing and perhaps people can fill in with what I might be doing right/wrong. Some of the different kill teams I've fooled around have been: boltgun + power sword shotgun + power sword frag cannon (chapter approved arrives) combi-plasma + stormshield combi-melta + stormshield combi-plasma + power axe boltgun + storm shield I found I've mostly leaned towards dropping the frag cannons because they are so expensive, and because I don't find them particularly useful with the limited range (esp. if charged from +8"). If I get charged by something like 30 Tzaangors combined with getting smite'd, I lose too many casualties to really make vanguard + fall back + shoot frag to really matter. I'm having a lot of trouble dealing enough damage with my kill teams before they just get wiped out. Mortal wounds is really a big problem, so I've ordered the DW Termie librarian so use as an HQ. Previously I've been using Watch Master + Artemis as HQs most of the time. My next plan is to try to use two 10-size kill teams where every model has a storm bolter + chainsword. Jumping out of a Corvus with 10 dudes and shooting 40 attacks, followed by a charge for up to 32 attacks seems like a good idea to me. Alternatively I might do 6 boltgun+storm shield and 6 storm bolter+chainsword, for 2 squads in 2 corvuses. The Corvus seems like a must-have, I tried to leave it out and used a land-raider crusader instead, but I found the land raider to be almost useless because it cannot fall back and shoot. I'm getting a second corvus now. Thoughts?

Hi Fraters, Alright so I've tried to write up this post *dozens* of times now and never quite managed to finish it up, so sorry if it's missing any important details. Essentially I've been sat on an two squads of Deathwatch Veterans from a Start Collecting box for literally years now and have built all my other DW units except for these guys simply because I'm too indecisive about how to actually build them. There's so many possible loadout combos which is a big factor in why I love the unit, but also the bane of my existence because I get easily crippled by choice. So I want to spec them to mulch infantry at range, preferably with some degree of versatility (i.e. be it Gaunts, Skitarii or Marines) but can't really settle on the loadout for that. I'd build the 10 models as 2 x 5 man Squads and put them either in a Rhino or a Drop Pod if that helps, looking to get them up close or into a good position. I like the idea of the following, to go through some of my current thoughts: Sgt with Plasma gun and Xenophase Blade, Veterans with Plasma Guns and Chainswords - Cheap and cheerful, really nice damage output at a reasonably good price and can hold their own in melee (probably) The same as the above, but with Combi-Plasma instead of regular Plasma guns. Gives me that sweet SIA bolter action plus the ability to absolutely spray multiple shots with both profiles albeit at -1. Obviously a full 50pts more expensive than option 1. Deathwatch Shotguns. Everyone gets a shotgun, except maybe the Sergeant who could have a XPB and another weapon (Melta gun maybe) for close range punch. These shotguns seem like a really nice and versatile close range gun for a cheap overall model price Sgt with bolter and XPB, 2 x Veterans with DW Bolter + Storm shield, 2 x Veterans with DW Frag Cannons. Frag cannons look solid if unexceptional on paper, I dunno if these heavy weapons are really worthwhile up close? Shield guys are obviously for tanking shots, SIA bolters seem great but maybe not unless deployed in bulk? Stalker Bolter and XPB on Sergeant, 2 x Veterans with Stalker Bolter and SS, 2 x Infernus Heavy Bolters, no transport for these. Decent long range damage output again? Those are generally the ideas I've had, kinda ranked in order from favourite to least favourite on paper, I'm just kinda really stumped on what to go with and would love to hear some ideas for reasonable squad loadouts that could go in a Rhino/Drop pod. I'll also list what I've got built and painted/available below in case that presents context that would be useful. Watchmaster Terminator Captain with TH + SS (would be using Dominus Aegis) Primaris Techmarine Primaris Apothecary Fortis Kill Team - 5 x Auto Bolter Intercessors + PF Sgt, 5 Hellblasters with Assault Plasma Incinerators DW Veterans - Sgt with combi-plasma + XPB, Vet with combi-plasma + Power sword, Vet with Frag Cannon, 2 x Vet with Infernus Heavy Bolter 5 Deathwatch Bikers, Sgt with TH Ven Dread with Twin-Lascannon + SB Redemptor Dreadnought (will be paired with the TM) Corvus Blackstar with twin-lascannon + Hurricane bolter Rhino Drop Pod Thanks for reading!