Deathwatch - Post Psychic Awakening

[Prot]

So I fully understand, and agree with a lot of the negativity here. I'm not even going to attempt to sugar coat what is very clearly a copy / paste job with zero effort put into it by GW.

 

Now that we have that out of the way, is there some good to be had from the simple additions we are seeing?

 

Let's deal with what we do know which is only starting to surface this week. An example here is we have confirmed the (not so unexpected) port over of Strats and Doctrines, and Litanies.

 

We also know that it seems Deathwatch SIA rules do not necessarily 'turn off' when combined with Doctrines.:

 

 

 

Gaining Combat Doctrines is a big win for the Deathwatch – especially with the additional AP that each of the doctrines gives to various weapons. Coupled with special issue ammunition, this tactical flexibility makes your Deathwatch fearsome opponents indeed. This is only enhanced by their new Stratagems, which are the same ones gained by other Chapters, putting the Deathwatch on par with the rest of their brethren.

 

This has to give us some hope!?!? Does it not?

 

What I mean by this is I've actually been in the camp that I like our Primaris units when used in conjunction with other units. Ever since Split Fire became a thing, it's made for interesting combinations which I frequently use. IE: Helblasters + Intercessors + 1 Inceptor Deep stiking in.

 

Stalkers + Aggressor marching across the board. With that 'sniper' type strat, and the right situation this could be storng. Assault Bolters are something I used as well.

 

Do these Doctrines give us something more here? A poisoned Bolt Rifle is hitting at -2 AP in the Tactical Doctrine for example.

 

Question: Do we know what our Super Doctrine is? Is it confirmed we do or do not get one?

 

Primaris to me have been so-so since inception in the GW lineup. But Strats, and Doctrines really made them a LOT better when combined with other Chapters. Now we get a taste of that. In some cases our stuff really didn't work with Hellbasters, Aggressors, Etc, but now this gives us a little more reason to actually include Primaris.

 

The Vanguard units are a bit of a controversy, but I play a lot of those units, and honestly I think some of them (while I agree we should have them) aren't the best options. 

 

 

Non Primaris continue to be a decent option as well. The flexiblity there is still strong. I've always liked our Bikers too.

 

Let's see what we can come up with from the new rules, even if they are recycled. I can tell you quite honestly I have played a few marine armies, and then tried firing up my Deathwatch and found just the lack of Doctrine really stunk.

 

 

[Qui-Gon]

Until I have an explanation of how Combat Doctrines and Special Issue Ammunition operate together, I will assume that any interaction between the two will not work in any fashion. We got burned so very, very, hard when GW released Bolter Discipline and then went "oops, that's way too OP, we must prevent them from being able to use the two rules together" (Nevermind that there are other units/armies in the game with arguably as good if not better utilization of Bolter Discipline and their respective AP -2 guns). Games Workshop demonstrated an unwillingness to let a powerful new rule operate with our shtick of SIA, so I have no reason to trust that GW will allow another new powerful rule to stack with it, based on history.

 

My stance on CD and SIA established, I believe that CD will be good for everything BUT SIA wielding dudes. Frag cannons, lascannons, missile launchers, melee weapons, Aggressors/Inceptors, all of these will become more potent. Between generic chaplain buff, plus a doctrine stratagem, a frag cannon that can wound knights on 3s, re-rolling 1s to wound, at AP -2 is going to make every single Knight terrified. A unit containing 4 frag cannons putting out 8d6 shots can melt a knight in a single round of shooting supported by a chaplain and with the right stratagem. Similarly, Aggressors now getting AP -1 on their boltstorm gauntlets/fragstorm grenade launchers makes those models better. We have the proof of the core marine codex having demonstrated this point oh so bluntly with ultramarine aggressors being terrifying. I am glad that we are finally back on SOME degree of parity with other armies in this regard. Inceptors going to AP -2 on their assault bolters, AP -4 with the plasma exterminators. Lascannons going AP -4 in turn 1 will help.

 

Now, what the inclusion of Combat Doctrines really lets us do is to include outside chapters and maintain the full run of parity. I am not sold on spending 3 CP to allow a stalker bolt rifle squad to shoot at a character when I could invest the same number of points and get out of chapter Eliminators which will do that job just fine without the CP surcharge. Does it mean not running Deathwatch pure? Sure, but supposedly we were never meant to be a proper independent army anyway, and if there is no Super Doctrine bonus, then there literally no point not to. "Deathwatch" scouts/Phobos units that are taken for command points/pure unit functionality is another major highlight of what Combat Doctrines enables and its at little to no opportunity cost. A dirty cheap Techmarine and 3 anti tank anything with Master Artisans would very effectively replace a lot of the anti tank woes we have, and what do we lose? Nothing.

 

Of the list of stratagems I am expecting us to gain, I am also not impressed with what they can do, because the good ones are so absurdly expensive in an already CP hungry army.

 

Target Sighted (See previous comments comparing to Eliminators)

Rapid Fire (Makes a 9/10 man unit of bolt rifles half way decent with SIA enabling silliness with vengence or hellfire rounds)

Boltstorm (Less useful since for us our auto bolt rifles are best used in intergressor units and so won't have the full 10 man to abuse. Besides, its only marginally better than Rapid Fire without a watch master or if negatives are involved, and you shouldn't be letting either happen if you can help it)

Duty Eternal (Going to be nerfed. We use dreads a lot, so somewhat appreciated, if late)

Fury of the First (We don't use Terminator units as Terminator units, and it won't see any use in my view)

Hammer of Wrath (We don't use Vanguard Vets or other Jump Pack units as those units either so see FotF)

Big Guns (Finally, the Corvus can move and fire heavy weapons without penalty! Doesn't mean I'm going to change how things are constructed. It is still an overpriced plane and it doesn't have enough guns to justify it in my view. This just makes the Corvus OK, not good)

Skilled Riders (Bikers being Bikers....one valid unit choice that sees independent play, but unlikely)

Steady Advance (Bolter Discipline optimization we will never use)

Transhuman Phys (Defensive buff, but we already have slightly tougher units due to mixed toughness. Mixed bag, but overdue)

Gene-Wrought Might (Intergressor units rejoice!)

Hunter Slayer (Who runs Repulsors?)

Vengeance of the Machine Spirit (Who runs Repulsors?)

 

The stratagems are very much a ho-hum. They provide nothing significant. Duty Eternal & Transhuman Physiology are the only ones I expect to use unless I go primaris heavy, and even then, I'll only add in GWM and Rapid Fire. My grade: F- for GW.

 

Litanies are Litanies. We get parity with marine codex. Long overdue. Anything the marines can do, we can do at last. 5+++ vs MW, +1 to hit, +1 to wound, uber chappy buff, +2 to charges, all the usual things. And likely no unique chapter litany. Not impressed either. Chaplains finally have a reason to be taken, but how useful will they be? I'm doubtful they will. Too many circumstantials.

 

To re-iterate, I do believe that the true winners of Deathwatch finally getting psychic awakening are other marine players who might have felt that our benefits were worth giving up super doctrine for, but not combat doctrines. But I don't know how many of them would be wiling to with how good many of the unique chapter buffs are anyway.

[Mr4Minutes]

I’ve had some time to work my way through the stages of grief, and feel I’m getting closer to acceptance, so I can hopefully stay positive.

 

After C:SM dropped I was pretty excited at the idea of DeathWatch getting access to what they got. And it looks like we’re getting at least that.

 

I did not think they’d give us access to the bolt rifle strats(considering we could not use the Vigilus detachment) so I think that’s a great inclusion.

 

I’ve been running 9 stalker plus an aggressor for a while now. I really like it’s mobility. Now that squad becomes even deadlier with the ability to remove a key character.

 

I run bolt rifles in my hellblaster/intercessor squad so being able to do 20 RF shots within 15” sounds nice.

 

Litanies are something that also excites me. We may not get all the toys the other marines get, but I think we can take advantage of them the most,

 

The beacon combined with litanies could be great. The draw back of Litanies is that they go off at the start of the turn, so the chaplain must start on the table. Well, the chaplain starts off standing next to 10 hellblasters, gives them +1 to wound. Captain drops in up the table and teleports the hellblasters right next to a juicy target.(this is just one simple example, probably not the most optimized)

 

The +2” to charge and add 3” to pile ins and consolidated is another one we can utilize. This litany affects all units within 6”. Cast it at the start of turn. DS in your assault based units. Teleport the chaplain to them and charge away. We have no reroll charges strat, but 7” are better then 9”.

 

Transhuman is another strat that will be nice to have. Our survivability is already annoying to our opponents, now add in that there high S attacks only wound us on 4+. Screw you GSC and your wound everything on 2s rock saws!

 

Our vets squads also get a much needed boost. The additional ap on all the standard weapons starting t2 is going to be nice.

 

I don’t think we’re getting any obvious OP bumps, but we’re definitely continuing the trend of having a strong tool box.

 

I’m hoping we get to use SIA while utilizing the doctrine bonuses. I think the built in ap cap on most rounds keeps things from going to far off the rails.

 

And we may finally find dragon fire useful. Bolt Rifles in the tactical doctrine would get ap-2 so it may be statistically better to shoot at t3 units in cover then other rounds.

[GrinNfool]

The doctrines make SIA even better and it was already good.  Remains to be seen how the ap interacts with vengeance and kraken, but honestly the ap1 means vs most anything but terms in cover you will probably shoot hellfire while in tactical doctrine anyways.  Also makes frags even scarier which is amusing.  Terms might get a new lease on life with DW since we likely get transhuman, we have the cheapest terms (i think?) at 145 pts for 5 and we get SIA.  They certainly aren't going to out perform vets offensively, but for just having a unit to absorb shots I could see a single unit of them since don't need a cp or drop pod to DS (5 SB vets w/ drop pod is same cost as 5 terms more if you add storm shields)

 

Other obvious positives here are stalker rifle snipers getting to wound on 2s, and the rapidfire 2 strat turning bolt rifle intercessors into better than SB users etc.

 

The biggest problem I see before we see how things are worded in WD, is they are tossing all these strategems at us, and most of the ones worth using are pricey, and our own codex is full of over priced strategems.  Top that off with we are an army that is often CP light, it puts a little damper on it.  I am trying to set up lists atm to maximize CP, since we know this is coming, will be interesting if its worth while to do that, or build our army in the traditional manner that DW have used throughout 8th so far.

 

Beyond that not to much to say til we see how SIA works w/ doctrines, if we get a super doctrine or relics/WT etc etc.  Until then not to much to say about whats a copy paste job that should have been put online 6 months ago.

Edited April 14, 2020 by GrinNfool

[Debauchery101]

I can literally play the same army I do and perform even better than ever by a large magnitude. The stratagems alone are an amazing boon.

 

My only worry is that these dummies at GW who wave their magic wand in favor of all the really loud and whiny DW players that want Standard Space Marine stuff will lead to nerfs of stuff that is already available.

 

I feel that with their opening statement on the SIA and Doctrines it will be hard to dial that back. But they could easily increase CP cost for the strat stacking stuff. They could very well alter the loadout available to veterans. Or make mixed kill teams elites. I've always had the feeling that someday the ability to spam storm shields/bolters is going to get axed.. it came as a bandaid fix to make DW playable pre primaris and has been a crutch for competitive play.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Debauchery101