“They are my bulwark against the Terror. They are the Defenders of Humanity. They are my Space Marines, and they shall know no fear.”Introduction and OverviewWarhammer 40,000 was released in 1987 as a small skirmish game that introduced the world to a unique futuristic setting that, years later, would rise to be one of the strongest intellectual properties in gaming. Since the very first incarnation of the setting, Space Marines have been the cornerstone of the lore; easily the strongest item of the entire 40k universe. After 20+ years of patient waiting, people finally have a full-fledged RPG centered around Space Marines; Deathwatch.
The Bolter & Chainsword had the unique opportunity to be part of the playtesting for Deathwatch. This means several of us got the chance to see the game mature over the course of several months into the item I am reviewing today. This review is going to assume a few things, the largest assumption being this: as you got here via the Bolter and Chainsword, you obviously know what a Space Marine is -- and have a good basic understanding of the 40k universe.
Deathwatch is the third installment of the 40K RPG system, and likely the one that will have to live up to the highest expectations of fans everywhere. Within this game you take the role of a Space Marine freshly recruited into the ranks of the Deathwatch. This setting allows players to play various chapters and still have a cohesive reason for working together. As most will know, the Deathwatch are the chamber militant of the Ordo Xenos division of the Inquisition.
Deathwatch uses the same percentage-based rules that all of the 40KRPG games use (Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader). The core rules will be immediately familiar to any who have played these other two games. Similar to the power jump that occurred when Rogue Trader was release, Deathwatch takes the 40KRPG system to its very limits with character-power and encounter difficulty. I will explain in more detail later on, but suffice to say that they have stats for things like Hive Tyrants and Daemon Princes in the book; that should give a good example of the type of encounters you can expect with this game.
Character CreationYour options for characters within Deathwatch should be pretty obvious from the start: you play a Space Marine. There are no other options outside of this. This brings up one of the most discussed details of the RPG, the ability (or lack thereof) for female characters. To be blunt, the are no options for females within Deathwatch. Fantasy Flight has stuck to the 40K fluff in this regard, and to be a Space Marine means to be male. This is an unfortunate side effect with basing a game 100% on Astartes, but in reality there is no other way around this. Obviously, not all Marines are created equal, and this is where the real meat of character creation occurs. There are two major choices a player has with their character: Chapter and Speciality.
Chapters:The Deathwatch core rulebook has six Chapter options: Black Templars, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Ultramarines, and the Storm Wardens. The latter is Fantasy Flight Games’ personal chapter and is the only non-founding chapter option. We were also told that more Chapters will be presented in future supplements, including rules for creating your own. Before you go grabbing the pitchfork and torches about your favorite chapter not being included, settle down and keep reading. Chapter is a major part of what makes up your character. Fantasy Flight had two real options when dealing with this. One, dilute the uniqueness of Chapters so they could include a lot or two, they could go into full detail and make them truly unique. They chose the latter and as such, your choice of Chapter will impact your advancements, psychic powers, chapter-specific wargear and background, as well as one of the new mechanics you will find in Deathwatch -- demeanours.
Demeanours are a role-play tool designed to make your character play different from another. Each character will have a personal demeanour and a chapter demeanour. While all Black Templars may be “Stoic” (their Chapter demeanour), some may be hot-headed, or stoic, or even proud. The in-game effects of Demeanours function similar to Fate Point that can be used once per game session. To “trigger” the demeanour, a player must role-play the how and why this would affect the current situation. The GM will then allow them to use it. Many may feel this system is a bit loose or open to interpretation. However I believe it will encourage players to keep their Chapter’s methods and ideals strong.
Specialties:The second most important choice a player has is their Speciality. In more generic terms, you could consider the Chapter a characters “race” and the Speciality their “class”. Deathwatch allows for the following Specialities: Apothecary, Assault Marine, Devastator, Librarian, Tactical Marine, and Techmarine. This choice will heavily affect your advancements, equipment, skills and talents. Most of these will be pretty obvious to 40k players -- Apothecaries are medics, Devastators use heavy weapons, Librarians are psychic and so-on. One thing to note however is the Tactical Marine. In an effort to make them stand out compared to other specialized roles, the Tactical Marine’s unique advancements come in the form of group skills and leadership. Fantasy Flight did a great job of making them have their own much-used niche in the game; otherwise many players would tend to gravitate towards some of the “cooler” roles.
Advancements:With the other 40KRPG systems, your characters advancements came typically from only your class. In Deathwatch your advancements come from multiple sources. Each character will have upgrade options from the following:
- Chapter Advancements: Skills and talents that reflect your choice of Chapter. These are not bound by Rank and are all available at Rank 1.
- Space Marine Advancements: Skills and talents that any Space Marine could have access to. You could consider these your “codex” advancements too I suppose. These are broken up by Rank.
- Deathwatch Advancements: Unique skills that only a member of the Deathwatch would have access to. Broken up by Rank these include things like forbidden lore, xenos-specific talents, ciphers, etc.
- Speciality Advancements: These are the more traditional 40KRPG upgrade options. Broken by rank they also include your basic characteristic increases and skills/talents unique to your speciality role.
Past Events and Power Armour History:I want to touch on a couple of items within character creation that I especially enjoy. First up is “Past Events”. Each Chapter has a small 5-option chart that players can roll on to add some life to their back story. While not as complete as it could have been, keeping in mind page-counts, I think they did a good job with these. You will find things like Encountered a Fallen, Purged a Space Hulk, Tyrannic War Veteran, etc.
The second item is your Power Armour History. Your Power Armour is something that makes you an Astartes. As such, each player rolls on a chart to determine the history and unique features of their suit. Our playtest group unanimously enjoyed this option and is one of the more fun items you get to do with character creation. Each option has a suitably 40k-sounding title such as “None shall escape the Emperor’s Wrath”, “Terror be thy Friend”, or “Thy strength be Legend”. They all bring small stat changes or other in-game effects. A note: Mark VII is the only option presented within the core rulebook. Fantasy Flight has stated that other marks will be presented in future supplements, though there is nothing stopping a player from cosmetically saying they have different mark of armour.
Space Marine Implants:Since the very first mention of the Space Marine there has been a list of implants that makes them more than human. Veteran fans will be happy to know that the complete list of implants is not only shown, but each one is detailed and has an in-game effect. Everything from their secondary heart to the betcher’s gland that allows them to spit acid are here.
Skills, Talents and TraitsAs with all 40KRPG games, characters will have an assortment of Skills and Talents with the possibility of Traits. Some of these will come from creation, and others will be acquired over time with experience. I won’t go into a lot of detail as it would likely be a bit dry, but suffice to say there are plenty of Astartes-specific items introduced with Deathwatch. One thing that veteran 40KRPG players will notice is the Traits section has been combined with Talents, making things quite a bit easier to look up overall with the rulebook.
ArmouryOne staple of RPG’s since the very beginning as been the concept of money and loot. Well, this is mostly gone with Deathwatch. Astartes don’t horde gold or loot weapons from foul Xenos filth. Instead, there is a new system called Requisition that replaces currency.
Requisition:Requisition is something given at the beginning of missions by the Game Master and represents the amount of extra gear you can obtain from the armoury. Any items “purchased” with requisition are returned to the armoury when done with the mission at hand, so that other battle-brothers may use it when needed. We found this system to work great and keeps the feeling of a military-based game without being totally stale. You are allowed to pool requisition if there is something especially large that one player may need.
Renown:The only caveat is that some items have a Renown requirement. Renown is an abstract statistic that each player has that represents their standing with the Deathwatch. As your character advances so does your Renown. Higher renown brings with it more difficult missions, but also brings more advanced gear options.
Equipment:I was a bit concerned when I initially heard of this game that equipment would be stale and boring. Thankfully, I was wrong. Fantasy Flight has done an excellent job of filling the Armoury chapter with all sorts of “cool stuff” for players. This section includes every weapon you would expect it to: missile launchers, melta guns, assault cannons, etc. However, it also includes things like different pattern bolters, stasis grenades, photon grenades, digital weapons, conversion beamers and the like.
One of the largest sections is Special Issue Ammunition. Since the Deathwatch were first introduced in the tabletop game, they have had various bolt shells that were unique to them. This is continued and expanded in Deathwatch. Hellfire rounds, kraken rounds, metal storm rounds and Witch Bolts are just some of the options given. Armour is covered in detail, everything from Artificer armour and Terminator armour to force fields, Iron Halos, Storm Shields and the like. You will also find a full list of everything which make up Astartes Power Armour. There are rules and effects for all of the sub-systems, down to the magnetized boot soles and auto-senses.
Another especially cool option is given with Chapter Trappings. These are chapter-specific items that offer a small in-game effect, and every character starts with one! Devotion Chains for Black Templars, Wolf Pelts for Space Wolves, Heraldry Scrolls for Ultramarines, etc. are all covered. Each of the six chapters presented has two Trappings. They also have a list of Chapter Relics, all of which have a very high level of Renown required, but represent the top-end of gear available to players down the road.
Finally, there is a somewhat generic section called “Wargear”. This is the section I was most impressed with as it covers many items that many would have simply glossed over: Magboots, back banners, Repair cement for your power armour, Signums, Teleport homers, etc.
CombatObviously a game focused on Space Marines is going to have quite a bit of combat in it. This does not mean that it ONLY provides combat; players will only get as much role-play out of the game as they put into it. With that said, Combat is indeed epic and what any 40k fan would expect. Space Marines fight enemies on the same level as them, plain and simple. Firefights are done in a rain of bolter shells with plenty of big numbers thrown around.
One thing we noticed early on when playtesting is this game managing to push the 40KRPG system to its limits. Because of this, new players to the system may find combat a bit complicated at first. Compared to the other games in the system, Deathwatch has more dice rolling and math involved. This is because your characters are at a much higher power-level than the other games. It does not mean the game bogs down or anything, its just a simple fact of the system in general. Things happen with big numbers.
Solo Mode, Cohesion and Squad ModeDeathwatch brings a new set of mechanics to the table for Combat in the form of Squad Mode and Solo Mode. The concept here is to really try to highlight that Marines are a brotherhood and when deployed as a cohesive squad, they can work together to do far more than a common soldier.
Solo Mode
This mode is the default for all players. This is easiest described as how most RPG’s player, your character pretty much only affects himself and has little limitations. Each player will have Chapter-specific Solo Mode ability and some Codex abilities that they can use during encounters. Abilities are limited by Rank so the higher you are, the more powerful abilities you have at your disposal.
Cohesion:Cohesion is a mechanic used to show how well the kill-team is working together. Cohesion is a pool of points that can be used for Squad Mode abilities. This is an abstract value based on your squad leader. In Deathwatch any member of the Kill-Team can be the Squad Leader, but some are better than others (remember that Tactical Marine I mentioned earlier?).
Squad Mode:The mechanics behind Squad Mode allow a Kill-Team to perform abilities that benefit some or all of the characters in ways unseen in the 40KRPG system. Players can change between Solo Mode and Squad Mode during an encounter. Once in Squad Mode a player may choose to spend some of the teams Cohesion to start a Squad Mode Ability. Other players in Squad Mode can choose to assist the ability, and thus gain the effects from it. I won’t go into a whole lot of detail on the specifics of all this. However, these abilities can make or break a tough encounter. One example we found very useful was an ability that allowed members to share their reactions, thus allowing a member to parry more than once a turn. These abilities won’t be needed every single encounter, but players should always know their options, as in certain situations they can mean the difference between victory or failure.
Hordes:Another new mechanic found within Deathwatch are rules for Hordes. The Horde rules allow for game masters to throw enemies that normally would be no threat to a Space Marine at the players. Simply speaking, this lets you have units of enemies attack without bogging combat down. Hordes use a normal stat line, but replace Wounds with a value called Magnitude. Attacks that do damage simply take off a point of Magnitude, removing the need to track Wounds for every single enemy. Some weapons such as flamers and frag grenades are better suited for doing this. In our playtest games we found this mechanic to work flawlessly for fun encounters such as having 30 Termagaunts charge a Kill-Team. Using normal mechanics this would take a very long time, but using the Horde rules it took no longer than if I had thrown 3 Warriors against them.
MissionsAdventures and scenarios are built about a framework known as Missons. Deathwatch is at its most basic level a military RPG. You play members of a military force that has a chain of command. Missions are the tasks assigned to your kill-team by superiors. Each Mission will have a mixture of objectives and difficulty levels. Some objectives may be easy, some may be almost impossible. Some missions might not be fully understood until after they begin.
One thing I think need to be addressed for sure is voices crying out, “How can this game be a viable RPG?”. It seems that some people cannot get past the idea of a RPG involving Space Marines. For anybody who has only played the tabletop game, I can see where this comes from. However, reading any of the Black Library fiction will show that Marines -- while more than human -- are still human at their core. They have personalities, desires, flaws, and strengths. In fact, there is a section in Chapter 1 called “Roleplaying as a Space Marine” which should be required reading for any and all players. As with any RPG, players will only get as much roleplay out of a game as they put into it.
With that said, there are various examples of Missions given within the core rulebook that showcase some of the things you may be asked to do. Its easiest to think of the Deathwatch as an elite special forces group. You typically won’t be at the front lines or down in the trenches; instead, your small team will be tasked with doing things that assist the full armies in their success. You may need to secure a landing zone so that the Imperial Guard can make planet-fall. A high ranking Tau commander may need to be assassinated to ensure victory within a region. Xenos artifacts may be held by traitorous forces and you have to recover them. Then again, you may have to act as a bodyguard to an important Imperial ambassador, or even work to bring humans lost to the Imperium back into its fold. There is a lot of potential for missions with Deathwatch without things becoming too bland or similar.
The DeathwatchUnsurprisingly, there is a large chapter devoted entirely to Deathwatch fluff. Fantasy Flight has been given a lot of freedom by GW and it shows in this chapter. There are likely quite a few people who will want to read this chapter purely for the information within, regardless of their desire to play the game itself. One of the largest clarifications is how the Deathwatch works with the Inquisition itself. The previous thought that the Inquisition controls them is blown totally out of the water. They function more as peers, with neither having control of the other. In this regard, the Deathwatch is its own Chapter of Astartes, beholden to few.
This chapter also goes into great detail about recruitment, organization, and tactics of the Deathwatch. It also details some special ranks, including Watch Captain and Watch Commander. Finally, it details the various holdings used by the Deathwatch in its unique duties, including Watch Fortresses, Watch Stations, and spacecraft.
The Jericho ReachAs with all 40KRPG games there is a specific setting attached to the game: Dark Heresy took place in the Calixis Sector, Rogue Trader expanded beyond that into the Kronos Expanse, and Deathwatch adds a new sector called the Jericho Reach. What makes this important to all games is the fact that a stable and working Warp Gate exists between the Calixis Sector and the Kronos Expanse. This Warp Gate links that side of the galaxy to the Eastern Fringes, well beyond Macragge. This forgotten area of space is the Jericho Reach.
Fantasy Flight presents a setting that allows for a wide variety of adversaries and plots. Within the Jericho Reach you have a major Tau area of space, a major Chaos area (around the Hadex Anomaly) and finally a splinter force of Tyranids in the form of Hive Fleet Dagon. The Deathwatch have existed for a long time in this area of space, long before the Warp Gate opened. They are assisting where they can as a massive Imperial Crusade attempts to reclaim this sector for the Emperor.
Also similar to the other 40KRPG games, Deathwatch takes place slightly in the past. Though not as obvious as I would have liked it to be in the book, 817.M41 is the year you start in. This means that Macragge is still recovering from Behemoth, the Badab Uprising hasn’t happened yet, Armageddon has only had one major war, etc. I would encourage any game masters of Deathwatch to utilize the various timelines found on the web to ensure games feel like they are set in the proper year.
AdversariesAny game involving Space Marines needs to have Astartes-level enemies. This section covers the three major forces at work within the Jericho Reach: Tau, Tyranids, and Chaos. Each race is given a small section of background and a handful of stat lines. We thought this section was a bit light, but again keeping page-count in mind, it does a good job for what it needs to do. Within you will find rules for Hive Tyrants, Gaunts, Daemon Princes, Crisis Suits, Firewarriors and the like. I would expect Fantasy Flight to release a supplement that expands on these, as well as adding Orks, Eldar, etc. into the mix. For the time being you can easily use enemies found in the other 40KRPG.
ConclusionDeathwatch is a game that has to live up to larger-than-life expectations by its fans. I had a great time helping with the playtest and acting as the Game Master for our group. Those of us involved feel this game captures playing a Space Marine as best as it can. I would like to thank Ross and the entire Fantasy Flight group involved for providing the game to us fans as well as extending an the opportunity to help with it. As I mentioned in my introduction, some people have been waiting 20+ years for a real Space Marine RPG-- and its finally here.
“How many have given their lives in service to Humanity, their names never to be recorded, their deeds never to be celebrated? The Deathwatch seeks not laurels; it is sufficient that the Emperor knows our names and our deeds.”
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