Deathwatch - now viable Water Warriors?

[Volth]

Who remembers the good old tactica Way of the Water Warrior? Ah, I love this tactica. One of my favourites. But I never made it work. Somehow 40k seems like a game that's decided at the desktop, while list building and there is little ways around unless your opponent fields total crap (aka a fun list). Now with Storm Bolters gaining a lot of versatility now, might it make a reactive playstile viable?

 

The core element of Silent Requiem's lists where

1) shooty squads that also punch in cc

2) resilient carriers to shuffle them around

3) a shooty hq.

 

In Deathwatch terms this would be

1) veteran squads with Storm Bolters and Chainswords

2) Corvus Blackstars

3) Watch Captain with Storm Bolter.

 

Can this work? Let's say you get two of each 2) and 3) in your list and fill the rest up with SB-Vets. Could you play to the enemy's weak phases .. with success?

[Kallas]

Even with Bolter Discipline Deathwatch can maintain a good amount of mobility with Storm Bolters. While they're not as effective as they are when stationary, they're still generally more potent than similar infantry, especially other Troops, and keeping on the move to keep LOS to a minimum means that they can maximise their resilience while leveraging their ranged advantages. And if the enemy do close in, then their firepower increases commensurately, which of course helps.

 

Blackstars and Razorbacks are good for transport, particularly Twin LC Razorbacks which can add some additional anti-tank fire support even on the move (they're not going to kill a buffed up Knight Castellan, but they can put a few wounds on it, which can be followed up with other things). Also, DW has a few other options: Bikes and Vanguard (possibly split off from a Troop Kill Team) are nice and mobile with decent firepower; Bikers with Teleport Homers can let you shift Kill Teams with Terminators, which can be very handy for pulling units out of tight situations and leaving the enemy out of position after they move to engage you; Beacon Angelis does similar, as it can let you radically shift a unit across the board when they thought they might have hemmed you in/pinned you down.

 

Watch Captains are good shooty characters, and Watch Masters aren't bad either with their Guardian Spears (especially if one likes Castellan of the Black Vault to make it a very punchy couple of shots and a nasty melee weapon). Also worth mentioning is the Chaplain Venerable Dreadnought, which is protected by the character keyword and can pack in pretty much untargetable Twin Lascannons - and while expensive, they're a damn solid unit.

 

Rereading Silent Requiem's tactica, 8th Edition Deathwatch should be able to emulate it very well, as a lot of the basic principles are part and parcel of Deathwatch, notably engaging portions of the enemy's force while minimising how much of theirs can retaliate.

[Lemondish]

Kallas is right on the money here

[jpwyrm]

That's an interesting concept, I'll need to read that article. As for the basic chassis of 2 x captains/Corvus/razorbacks with lascannons and 3 x vet squads it ticks off at around 1450 pts. Still a lot to play with. It definitely needs more CPs to capitalize on Deathwatch stratagems though, but it's a good start.

[Mr4Minutes]

So, I’ll admit that I did not read the articles, so I am just going off what you’ve posted.

 

I think our ability to DS up to 3 vet squads is more a fit for 2. It’s not a shuttle, but you’ll be able to fill out the kill team with bikes/VV/termies without worrying about transport capacity. I’d consider riding the SS/SB wave and give 4 vets in the squad SS/SB and give the sgt, termie, bike and VV(black shield as well if you take them) a CC weapon (I’m thinking power swords personally for the ap, but I could be wrong) to go with their SB.

 

Watch commanders have decent shooting, and the better reroll buff. But, the captain can take a jump pack. I’d consider a SB/TH with jump pack option to land with your kill teams. I haven’t used a termie captain, but they may also be good choice.

 

Points to spare, I’m thinking of running 3 squads of SB/SS in rhinos as well.

[vigitant]

He's got a lot of good stuff, and obviously knows his stuff.

It's important to have a framework to analyze a tactical situation through.  Human thinking is based around words and understood concepts.  We have trouble seeing things we havent conceptualized already.  Having the concept of a maneuver will make a player much better at the game.

Deathwatch have a powerful advantage, in that our rules are such that we can create lists that can drastically change tactics depending on what you are up against.
To do this well, you have to give a lot of thought ahead of time to how different matchups can run.  When you start a match, be looking for what your opponent's strengths and weaknesses are, and compare them to yours.  

To put it in Silent Requiems eastern concepts:  Deathwatch can shift water to fire to earth to air depending on matchups.  Remember that strengths and weaknesses are relative.  

[templargdt]

I miss Silent Requiem.  I wonder whatever happened to him.  I devoured his posts when I started playing Grey Knights back when they were just part of Codex: Demonhunters.

[FabulousRex]

I think you can do better with Deathwatch by making a Water Squad instead of an army. Intergressor squads fit this, IMO, as do Termi heavy Veterans. You can fine tune deathwatch to fit any of the elements you like, at a squad level.

 

Air Squads are basically Bike Squads and Bike+VV combat squads, and the Blackstar as well.

 

Earth are Repulsors, ML squads, Rhino Walls, Aggressors, and Dreads.

 

Fire are VV squads, deepstriking Stormbolter and or Plasma squads, DSing Dreads (bigger the better).