Deathwatch receiving a digital re-work

[ZeroWolf]

2 minutes ago, Evil Eye said:

It's worth noting that, as incompetent as GW can be at writing rules, and the Legends solution is far from ideal (though still better than units being totally deleted; see Tyranid Shrikes) I feel the community- or elements of the community, to be fair- is far more devoted to playing 40K "as GW intended" than GW intended, as counter-intuitive as it seems. GW has always made it clear that the rules are ultimately guidelines and that if you and your opponent/group prefer to play with adjustments or house rules, you absolutely should. The idea that the GWstapo are coming to haul you off to the Warhammer Gulag if you play "wrong" is absurd and I don't understand why so many people are determined to let GW dictate every detail of their toy soldier games when GW themselves aren't interested in doing that!

I've seen games in GW stores that aren't even played as the rules state  I think if more people did this, there would be happier people.

[Lemondish]

On 10/7/2024 at 5:27 PM, ThePenitentOne said:

If I were GW, the whole update would be allowing Space marine units (except those not normally allowed to join DW) to join Ordo Xenos detachments; when an SM unit is added this way, it gains the DW Keyword. Simple. That's all they need to do to fix DW. (or at least, that's all they need to do to get DW back to 10th ed Index quality).

 

Then we should all be glad you aren't GW, because this would go over so incredibly bad for Deathwatch fans that you'd probably hear more negative backlash than you did when they first announced they were going Agents only.

 

Why? Two reasons...

 

1. If that was all you were going to do, why wait two and a half months to do it?

 

And more importantly...

 

2. If you're GW, and you announced this new ruleset on the back of a Warhammer+ video release starring a Primaris Deathwatch Killteam, you'd have to know that's a thing you can't currently do any longer (and arguably could never do in quite that way). Imagine how poorly received this would be after hyping up a new ruleset without it letting you achieve what their video showed, even just partially.

 

The least they could do would also be the most harmful.

[Indy Techwisp]

I know it's not what everyone probably wants from this Digital Rework, but here's my Predictions for what GW will do:

• [Deathwatch] units regain the [ADEPTUS ASTARTES] keyword. This would allow allied [Deathwatch] in a Space Marine army to benefit from the Detachment of the main army.
• The "Deathwatch Kill Team" unit gains a rule similar to the Voidsmen-at-Arms and the Inquisitorial Henchmen where taking a [Deathwatch] Character as an Allied Character Choice allows you to take 1 "Deathwatch Kill Team" without using up an ally slot. This would allow for more [Deathwatch] units to be fielded in a Space Marine army.
• "Kill Team Cassius" is returned from Legends as another [Deathwatch] unit option for IA, although maybe reworked in to a Generic Unit. I only suggest this because Kill Team Cassius is still available to buy on the webstore for some reason.

Alternatively, I could see the following also being possible:

• Loyalist Space Marines gain a new tourney legal Generic detachment (similar to how Drukhari got a new tourney legal detachment via download) which is essentially just Black Spear/Ordo Xenos 3.0 but with the ability to take [Deathwatch] Characters and Units from the IA Codex as though they were part of the LSM codex using their IA Codex Non-Soup cost, with the detachment ability, stratagems and enhancements applying to both [Adeptus Astartes] and [Deathwatch] units.

Finally, and this extremely unlikely to happen but would be incredibly funny if it did:

• "Corvus Blackstar" gains Dedicated Transport and drops to 130pts in both Allies and Native points. This might finally make this thing actually viable for once.

Edited October 10 by Indy Techwisp

[SvenIronhand]

The second is good for me. 

[Bouargh]

Intetestingly enough though, the online webstore (excuse the redundency in terms...) has not been updated since the codex being released. Browsing through Death watch entry you still find units and models that are in fact not legit as per the mainstream rules. Sure most are Legends one say, and Legendary stuff not discontinued is being part of other SM forces... This is hard to handle as a concept. A Legend that is still sales supported. Though it applied only to Secutarii units and  few HH tanks... 

Edited October 12 by Bouargh
Typos

[Emperor Ming]

A digital funeral pyre

 

 

 

[DemonGSides]

3 hours ago, Bouargh said:

Intetestingly enough though, the online webstore (excuse the redundency in terms...) has not been updated since the codex being released. Browsing through Death watch entry you still find units and models that are in fact not legit as per the mainstream rules. Sure most are Legends one say, and Legendary stuff not discontinued is being part of other SM forces... This is hard to handle as a concept. A Legend that is still sales supported. Though it applied only to Secutarii units and  few HH tanks... 

 

Yeah it's almost like some people are gonna have to get over the tournament mindset and just accept that Legends are fine, like most sane people have for the entire edition. 

[HeadlessCross]

54 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

 

Yeah it's almost like some people are gonna have to get over the tournament mindset and just accept that Legends are fine, like most sane people have for the entire edition. 

OR instead GW could actively balance units they supported before and make them available to all modes of play, where standard play IS tournament play due to the neutrality of it. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

I fail to see what uber combination of legended models would ravage the tournament scene if allowed, but im also a poor judge of it on account of virtually not playing.

 

[DemonGSides]

7 hours ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

I fail to see what uber combination of legended models would ravage the tournament scene if allowed, but im also a poor judge of it on account of virtually not playing.

 

 

I don't think that's the concern, just that they can't possibly balance for every combination, there's gonna be models that get deprecated by newer versions, and also the corporate side said no.  That's about it. 

[Indy Techwisp]

There's already a Thread about Legends stuff here:

 

For Deathwatch's Digital Rules Rework/Update, it'd be nice if we had a hint as to what format the download will take.

[Marshal Reinhard]

12 hours ago, DemonGSides said:

 

I don't think that's the concern, just that they can't possibly balance for every combination, there's gonna be models that get deprecated by newer versions, and also the corporate side said no.  That's about it. 

Well, in a way thats the same thing. They dont want to account for every conceivable combination including past or limited models, so because there's a risk that some combination might be busted they're disallowed from tournament play. They're hardly being disallowed because they might under perform. Not like you need to use rare old models to make a poor functioning list.

 

Regardless the two necessary  conditions for legends being viewed as it is, is: GW not allowing them for tournaments and (most of) the community viewing tournament rules as the only valid form of play.

 

Or maybe we're all just sleeping on the killer game breaking combo using Calgar on the 'loo and it just gotta be this way.

[Ripper.McGuirl]

Primaris Potty Calgar will get a digital release shortly after Deathwatch.

 

[Domhnall]

One question I have that I don't think has been asked/addressed in this thread or elsewhere I can see, is that this digital re-work is great for the hobby, but is this because they were going to do it anyway, or is it in anyway tied to recently released Deathwatch Vignette? 

What is surprising is the Vignette is made by Bandai Namco rather than in-house with WH+. Could something more be coming in the future, or is it just a one off? Do Bandai Namco have the game/video licence to Deathwatch and need produce something to keep it? 

 

Like I say, could be nothing but a cool animation, but timing seems interesting to me, that's all. I suppose other animations are made by 3rd party studios, but then this one does have the credits for who is involved unlike the others 

[Lemondish]

On 10/14/2024 at 4:44 AM, Domhnall said:

One question I have that I don't think has been asked/addressed in this thread or elsewhere I can see, is that this digital re-work is great for the hobby, but is this because they were going to do it anyway, or is it in anyway tied to recently released Deathwatch Vignette? 

 

I'm honestly not sure we'll ever know. One thing is for sure, I've never seen so much talk about Deathwatch in the 40k community than now. I credit that to a sublime opening cutscene and mission in Space Marine 2, along with the vignette.

[ThePenitentOne]

To be fair, a lot of conversation about DW was generated by how dirty they were done with Codex IA.

 

But the Space Marine 2 content and the vignette were positive conversation rather than negative.

[drakheart]

Considering in the lore Deathwatch mostly deploy only as kill teams, that is where we are most missing them, I think they need to create a new primaris kill team set for KT24 and get the OG killteam back to where they belong using their specialist weapons and equipment. 

[ThePenitentOne]

On 10/18/2024 at 9:59 AM, drakheart said:

Considering in the lore Deathwatch mostly deploy only as kill teams, that is where we are most missing them, I think they need to create a new primaris kill team set for KT24 and get the OG killteam back to where they belong using their specialist weapons and equipment. 

I just use the Kill Teams from Legends.

 

They aren't perfect either, mind you. But they are real Kill Teams as opposed to Vets that are now called Kill Teams. The Primaris, Gravis and Phobos are there too. It'll be funny if the digital update is just the Legends document with Legends scratched out and "Digital Update" written in.