Fixing my Deathwatch

[ServoBadger]

Back when Death Masque came out I built a small Deathwatch army, mostly as a painting project and to use up some bits and pieces I had lying around. I wasn't really worried about making them competitive as my regular opponent played Space Wolves and never liked all power armour games.

 

A couple of years later and a couple of new opponents are running GSC so I'd like to make my Deathwatch at least slightly game-worthy. Any chance of some advice about how to expand what I've got?

 

HQ

 

Artemis

Chaplain

Librarian

 

Troops

 

Sergeant with Combi-Melta and Xenophase Blade

4 Veterans with Combi-Meltas

 

Sergeant with Power Sword and Bolter

2 Veterans with Power Sword and Bolter

1 Veteran with Power Mail and Bolter

1 Veteran with Heavy Thunder Hammer

 

Black Shield with Thunder Hammer and Storm Shield

2 Veterans with Shotguns

Veteran with Frag Cannon

Veteran with Infernus Heavy Bolter

 

Elites

 

5 Vanguard Veterans with Bolt Pistol and Power Sword

 

Terminator with Heavy Flamer

2 Terminators with Assault Cannons

2 Terminators with Cyclones

 

Venerable Dreadnought

 

Fast Attack

 

5 Bikers with Power Swords

 

Heavy Support

 

Land Raider Redeemer

 

Flyer

 

Corvus Blackstar with Assault Cannons, Hurricane Bolter, Blackstar Rocket Launchers and Infernum Halo Launcher

 

Also a Rhino and a Drop Pod

 

So, definitely a mess as is!

[IronDreddKnight]

My initial thoughts are..

 

You’ve got a lot of points spent on melee weapons, DW prefer to be shooting with the SIA. This also kind of makes the chaplain a bad choice for DW armies, a captain would be a more effective choice.

 

You’ve got very few storm shields, which is one of the best things separate DW from marines. If you Acquire X amount of shields and are will to make the conversions, it’s well worth changing from melee to shield.

 

Add vanguard vets and terminators to the veteran squads to allow them fall back and shoot, have a 2+ armor save, and immunity to moral. This would make the rhino surplus since VV and termies cannot embark on them.

 

Drop pods aren’t necessary since we can deep strike our troops through the teleportarium for 1cp per unit.

 

These changes should free up quite a few points. I recommend spending them on bikes, they’re fantastic for grabbing objectives.

[Kallas]

Are you wanting to build up a competitive army? I'm going to base my advice on this assumption - if you're not going for a competitive army, then you can kind of use whatever the hell you want anyway!

 

If so, you need to bulk out your core units with more Storm Bolter/Storm Shield Veterans - they are the bread and butter of competitive Deathwatch. I would also recommend getting some Storm Bolter plus Power Sword/Axe/Maul Terminators to accompany your Veteran squads, as these guys seriously increase their survivability against AP0; the Terminators you have aren't necessarily bad (although the Heavy Flamer one is, because GW hates Flamers  ) but for Veteran squads they're best kept relatively cheap as the unit on the whole tends to get expensive quickly.

 

That said, you have some solid loadouts, even if they're not hyper-optimised:

• Combi-Melta Veterans are pretty solid, if you can attach Storm Shields to them then more so;
• I've found Frag Cannons to be pretty solid, and enough of them will add to your anti-tank options; 
• The Bikers are solid, again as part of a Veteran squad, as they're additional wounds (I personally find them somewhat useful for soaking up Smites!), additional mobility (with Mv14" and a long base, they can significantly cut down on charge distances) and can pack in a Teleport Homer (essentially for free, over a regular Biker);

The main non-competitive loadouts you have (again, working from the assumption that competitive is the goal) are:

• Power [Weapon] plus Bolter - simply, Bolters need to be replaced with Storm Bolters wherever possible, they're that much more effective; the Power Weapons are debatable - personally, I'd say keep any Mauls and swap out any Swords (Str is too low to be useful generally speaking, in my experience) or Axes (I find the extra Str of Mauls to be more useful than the S/AP of Axes, but your mileage may vary!) for more Mauls.
• Land Raider Redeemer: in 8th edition it is pure garbage. Sorry. It just is. If you have them, switch out the sponsons for the Crusader's Hurricanes. Better yet, if you can switch out those and the hull weapon for the regular Phobos' Twin Lascannons and Twin Heavy Bolter then that's a much better variant in general. Not to toot my own horn, but I have a http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/355832-shh-were-hunting-xenos-kallas-dw-battle-reports/#entry5310214'>battle report thread where I have been using two Land Raider Helios (Forge World variants) to some good use, and some others have also been trying them out and giving some feedback - I would recommend giving them a look, if you feel like running Land Raiders at all.

Beyond that, the basics are there. It very much depends on your own personal preferences for a lot of things beyond the optimal Storm Bolter/Storm Shield Veteran. Deathwatch has so many options and while they might not be the most optimal, it doesn't mean they're not good. Combi-Meltas are decent, as are Combi-Plasma; melee weapons like the (Heavy) Thunder Hammers are useful, especially considering that Deathwatch has some solid reroll and buff options (eg, Watch Master, Doctrine Stratagems, Mission Tactics, etc).

[ServoBadger]

Thanks for the replies. Kind of wish I hadn't used up my spare Storm Shields on jump pack Blood Angels, but there you go!

 

So, Storm Bolters. What's the best source for these? I can cut some off spare Terminator arms, but would these look too out of scale with the veterans?

 

I'm going to buy at least one more box of veterans (the three squads above are made from one veteran kit and an old tactical squad) but I wanted to ask - not worth adding Intercessors as well or instead?

[Mobius0288]

For storm bolters; if you go to shapeways.com and search for storm bolters, you will get a lot of variety including a few DW "engraved" storm bolters. There easy one handed guns where you can just chop off the existing one-handed bolter. They also have some two handed versions that look like ones out of the sternguard box.

 

You can also get a lot of good storm shields from them as well.

 

From a pure GW product point of view, the sternguard box does have the most amount of bolter variety. They have those "special issue bolters" that could easily look like storm bolters. I have a couple units of old school converted space marines with DW upgrades and left over DW parts. Looks really cool if you happened to keep your previous kill team sprues.

 

I think 1 or 2 intercessors would be worth it. They usually get compared to stalker bolter veterans. Intercessors have the best range for a rapid fire gun, with a built in AP -1. Hellfire rounds from these guys tear things up. You just have to balance out the want for special weapons since intercessors can't take any. Basically they are great ground fire support teams for your other teams. Other opinions may differ but I recommend the power fist on the Sgt. I wish I had done that before I made mine.

[Mr4Minutes]

A Fortis kill team of 5 intercessors and 5 hellblasters are really good. My strategy with them has been to advance a jump pack captain with the beacon and teleport them up the board.

 

With the +1 to wound stratagem and rerolls they can take a lot of wounds of a vehicle.

 

By themselves intercessors can sit in the back and camp an objective fairly effectively. The problem I have with them is for the cost of 10 of them I can have a guard battalion to do the same thing.

[Black Knight]

It used to be Ebay but they are quite pricey now, around £1-£1.5 a Stormbolter. Shapeways do bundles of Stormbolters at around 10 for £10. I haven't tried the terminator ones on a normal marine but I think the hand after the wrist is the same scale?

 

Intercessors are a nice edition but really only if you are going to add some Hellblasters or Aggressors to them, otherwise best to stick with the normal marines due to the ability to carry Stormbolters.

[ServoBadger]

Thanks for the replies. I've got another box of veterans coming and I've dug out some storm bolters from my bits box. It's a start!

 

Another question, in a pure Deathwatch army, what do you recommend for long range shooting? Really I've only got the Venerable Dreadnought's twin lascannon right now.

[Valdr Fell-fist]

If Forge World is allowed, I swear by my three Mortis Pattern Dreadnoughts. Six twin Lascannons has done plenty of work for me, especially parked near a Watch Captain with the Tome of Ectoclades for flexible re-rolls. I bring all three to any game above 1500.

[ServoBadger]

Mortis dreadnoughts sound good. I'll pick up some Lascannon arms on my next trip to Warhammer World.

[quasistellar]

I didn’t see a watch master listed in your HQ. Definitely want one of those.

[ServoBadger]

I didn’t see a watch master listed in your HQ. Definitely want one of those.

 

I bought and painted one up but he's not seen the table yet. I also got a watch captain in terminator armour, he did pretty well in the one game I've played with him so far.

[ServoBadger]

While I think about it, is it worth adding a lascannon/stormstrike Blackstar before the rumoured price increase?

 

I've found the lack of POTMS hurts the one I have, but it might also add some anti vehicle punch at range?

[Black Knight]

If you like the model then yes but there are better sources of Las(Dreadnought). Wish we could get POTMS if we lost transport space.

[Lemondish]

If you like the model then yes but there are better sources of Las(Dreadnought). Wish we could get POTMS if we lost transport space.

It really should have it anyway.