Deathwatch (Need some insight on it, aka from people who have played it)

[MasterValrik]

Looking to get a review on Deathwatch, or Dark Hersey in general. Ive seen the RPG books everywhere including Barnes and Noble as well as Books a Million. I really would like to hear some Pro's and Con's before I drop a 100 dollars into the RPG. I am also looking to see if theres a game being run at a local gaming store. But cant do that till next weekend. Thanks for reading and thanks for any reviews.

[BigRob]

It is an excellent game if you want a good combat based RPG. I loved playing it at our club (we are taking a break, I'm GMing Rogue Trader at the mo).

Character wise there is massive scope, all the Marine "Jobs" are there, Tactical, Assault, Devestator, Tech, Librarian etc. Its easy to make your own chapter and really go to town and this leads to great Roleplaying in game between the marines who have different beliefs or whos chapters don't get on. One memorable scene in a game involved (during a mission on a Tyranid hive ship), an Ultramarine shooting into combat and wounding the Space Wolf assault marine in the leg. After the mission he came over to apologise and shook the wolfs hand, asking if he was ok. The Spacewolf smiles, takes his bolter and shoots the Ultramarine in the leg, says "Sure, no hard feelings" and walks off. My Techmarine (with the machine trait) got into a deep philisophical discussion with a Librarian over who was better, the Emperor or the Machine God, in the middle of a massive firefight against a horde of traitor PDF.

Some of the rules get a little OTT, we were fighting hordes of traitor guard in trenches and quickly discovered that it was quicker and easier to use our knives rather than our guns and grenades....... Also you get a little godlike slaying countless hordes of guardsmen and the overconfidence costs you bad when a genestealer pops up to gut you like a fish.

Like all the 40K stuff from FFG the product is excellent, lovely weighty book packed with quailty info and great illistrations. I'd buy it just to read and look gorgeous on the shelf but all the suppliments are good and practical. Rogue Trader is more my game and with the exception of the Pre Written Adventure series (three linked books) its awesome and everything is packed with info. That is of course the only downside, FFG are great at making the setting but all of thier "Pre Gen" adventures are a little....meh, so the GM needs to be prepared to adapt it to get the full potential.

Have fun

[MasterValrik]

It is an excellent game if you want a good combat based RPG. I loved playing it at our club (we are taking a break, I'm GMing Rogue Trader at the mo).

Character wise there is massive scope, all the Marine "Jobs" are there, Tactical, Assault, Devestator, Tech, Librarian etc. Its easy to make your own chapter and really go to town and this leads to great Roleplaying in game between the marines who have different beliefs or whos chapters don't get on. One memorable scene in a game involved (during a mission on a Tyranid hive ship), an Ultramarine shooting into combat and wounding the Space Wolf assault marine in the leg. After the mission he came over to apologise and shook the wolfs hand, asking if he was ok. The Spacewolf smiles, takes his bolter and shoots the Ultramarine in the leg, says "Sure, no hard feelings" and walks off. My Techmarine (with the machine trait) got into a deep philisophical discussion with a Librarian over who was better, the Emperor or the Machine God, in the middle of a massive firefight against a horde of traitor PDF.

Some of the rules get a little OTT, we were fighting hordes of traitor guard in trenches and quickly discovered that it was quicker and easier to use our knives rather than our guns and grenades....... Also you get a little godlike slaying countless hordes of guardsmen and the overconfidence costs you bad when a genestealer pops up to gut you like a fish.

Like all the 40K stuff from FFG the product is excellent, lovely weighty book packed with quailty info and great illistrations. I'd buy it just to read and look gorgeous on the shelf but all the suppliments are good and practical. Rogue Trader is more my game and with the exception of the Pre Written Adventure series (three linked books) its awesome and everything is packed with info. That is of course the only downside, FFG are great at making the setting but all of thier "Pre Gen" adventures are a little....meh, so the GM needs to be prepared to adapt it to get the full potential.

Have fun

Wow, Thanks Rob, great review, thank you for taking the time to post it.

[Jedi152]

I've played a Deathwatch adventure at a roleplay convention and i loved it. It really is more combat based than Dark Heresy, which tends to be more about investigation, but you can get the core book for 50 dollars or so and that's all you really need.

Like Rob says, the pre-written adventures i've read aren't great though.

[Dakkagor]

I've run it once and played in a short compaign. I think I got it right, the game was pacy, fast, and the players loved the combat and got into character well. the campaign. . .less so. I think deathwatch will come down to how good the DM is running a game. If he can do a good, fast paced hollywood action blockbuster game, then your deathwatch experience will be a blast, because that is exactly what the game asks you to play.

[MasterValrik]

Well I hope to be able to put my spin on what I think soon, will probably buy a copy pay day, and run a small game for my son and brother. Anyone have any story ideas? I am thinking (I dont have the game yet, but) of making them scouts in the Ultramarines who are pulled in as part of the Deathwatch, mix them in with 3 NPC's a Scout Sgt from Blood Angels, and two fillers from Dark Angels and maybe Crimson Fist. something like that.

[Jedi152]

Unfortunately there aren't rules for scouts in the core book. There are tactical, assault, devastator, apothecary, librarian and techmarines - and the chapters available are ultras, blood angels, wolves, dark angels black templars and storm wardens.

[MasterValrik]

Unfortunately there aren't rules for scouts in the core book. There are tactical, assault, devastator, apothecary, librarian and techmarines - and the chapters available are ultras, blood angels, wolves, dark angels black templars and storm wardens.

Thanks for the heads up, I will retool my thoughts on the game I was thinking, and let them play a standard Marine, but they are sent as a scout unit for the Deathwatch, that will work and I can let them pick which chapter they each want to be from. Thanks again Jedi.

[Brother Loki]

If you'd like to save yourself some work on the adventure design front I'd suggest the 2-part intro scenario that's available for free on the FFG site:

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/ed...idm=108&esem=4

The first part, Final Sanction deals with a genestealer infestation on an imperial world that's the harbinger for a Tyranid splinter fleet (and also includes quickstart rules), while the second part, Oblivion's Edge, takes the fight to the hive fleet itself.

There's also some fan-written scenarios for download from the same page.

[New Cult King]

Pretty sure there's at least rules for Scout Armour, and stocking up on Scouty type skills would go some way towards your original idea. However, I may be thinking about one of the expansions.

[MasterValrik]

Pretty sure there's at least rules for Scout Armour, and stocking up on Scouty type skills would go some way towards your original idea. However, I may be thinking about one of the expansions.

Very cool.

Also thanks Loki, I will hit that sight up and get a look see, kinda excited havent RPG in bout 2 years.

[Badbones777]

My group play DH/RT in our game rotation (in fact we have just picked up our DH campaign after getting a few chapters into Masks of Nyarlathotep for CoC)
We all love DH/RT-but opinion on Deathwatch is somewhat mixed at best. Nothing mechanically wrong with it-the system being much the same as DH and RT-
but it's just that (in our group at least) no one actually wants/enjoys playing a Space Marine believe it or not! We all find much lower power characters far more interesting
and less creatively restrictive (both sides of the GM screen).

I can see a few storylines that would probably work out quite well, mind you, but playing/GM-ing for Space Marines just doesn't seem to grip the group as much as on paper
you might think it would!

[Jedi152]

From our experience GM's have to throw a bit of investigation in for the DW kill-team to make them game decent.