Deathwatch - 1d4chan
Deathwatch - 1d4chan
Deathwatch - 1d4chan
Deathwatch
From 1d4chan
"They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil."
The Deathwatch
– Governor Ratcliffe, about Native American Indians
As well as anti-xenos tactics, Deathwatch marines are also instructed in unorthodox and covert warfare techniques,
as well as training for missions that are normally completely outside an Astartes' function like hostage rescue,
kidnap and false flag operations. A large part of their induction is spent getting marines to unlearn hidebound
chapter doctrine and learning how to adapt to new tactics from other sources.
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Their armor is painted black save for one pauldron which remains painted in the chapter colors to avoid pissing off
the machine spirit. The other pauldron gets replaced entirely with a superfancy silver one bearing the Inquisitorial
Seal (despite them no longer having anything to do with the Inquisition). Surprisingly this paint job actually
manages to look really badass even if it ends up being totally pointless with the Black Consuls, Black Templars,
Raven Guard, and anyone else wearing black. They get their shit done and get it done quickly and now finally have
their own codex. There are also a few fan-made codices for them as well as an RPG where they star as player
characters though.
Origins
The origin of the Deathwatch is apparently a point of contention, since
over the decades there have been several different accounts of how
they came to be, with variances across the codices, novels and
Sister Carmella appreciates Battle Brother
roleplaying games.
Bellerophon's screening for Genestealer
contamination a bit too much. The outrage
1990s - 2016 fluff and jealousy offer Brother Seraphicus a
perfect distraction to slip away from the
The original origin for the Deathwatch wasn't really fleshed out too team, seeking objectives unknown.
much other than to say that at some point, a group of Inquisitor Lords
sat down with esteemed Space Marine Chapter Masters and assess the
encroaching xenos threats and decided to hash out an agreement where the many disparate chapters of space
marines could work together with the Inquisition to create a more effective fighting force.
The Deathwatch (RPG) eventually put a name to this meeting and called it the Conclave of Orphite IV and in this
telling the Ordo Xenos already existed, who shared the belief that without imminent action, humanity would be
consumed by alien beasts and the Age of Imperium would come to an end.
The Deathwatch RPG and the original fluff differ on what form the Deathwatch would exactly take, as in the
original 90s articles, "Deathwatch Kill Teams" were basically a synonym for the "Ordo Xenos Kill Teams", where
squads would be raised at the behest of individual Inquisitors and commanded by them, but in certain exceptional
cases these Kill Teams might be led by a Deathwatch Librarian or Captain. Beyond this, GW had been very
neglectful of the Deathwatch for decades and never really provided any new fluff or crunch. Conversely, in the
RPG of early 2010s, the Deathwatch would become its own entity with a heirarchy of ranks, capable of sustaining
and directing itself without direct input from the Inquisition and was not beholden to the Inquisition (explicitly
calling them equals), though still tied to the Inquisition who would root out the foes for the Deathwatch to
eradicate.
Recent Origins
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With regards to the status of "Chamber Militant"; the Codex for the
Deathwatch and their section in Imperial Agents outright ignores any
Inquisitorial attachment. They wear the same sigil, which is apparently
open to everyone now, and occasionally find themselves allied with an The old but still-used front for the
Inquisitor but that's the extent of their relationship. Deathwatch (RPG) core rules... Well, at
least it's kinda goofy.
Following the release of the Codex though, the Beast Arises Series
offers a take on their origin that differs in some ways. We learn that
during the days of the WAAAGH! Beast, the Orks were an almost unstoppable force and many marine chapters
were slaughtered. The Imperial Fists Chapter Master and Lord Commander of the Imperium at the time: Slaughter
Koorland determined that taking the Orks on head-to-head no longer worked since the Imperium's technological
advantage was being eroded. So he colluded with Grand Master Assassin Vangorich (yes, the dude that killed all
the High-Lords, and he was a rather cool dude back then) to create much smaller kill-teams with mission specific
profiles which would be better suited to cripple or behead a threat rather than slug it out on a battlefield. Thus
many chapter mixed units were formed and have their armor painted black, they forgoed their allegiance to the
chapter and most importantly, its dogma. With this concept the Space Marines would have an extremely flexible
force: from the melee prowess of the Blood Angels, to the stalwart defense of the Imperial Fists. It was a specialist
force, but all the specialists were mixed in giving each unit an edge on every possible situation.
The Deathwatch was the love child of Koorland himself, although the most of the High Lords (other than
Vangorich, who had inspired them) protested its creation, primarily based on deep seated fears of an Astartes re-
unification following the Horus Heresy and that it was bad enough that Koorland was an Astartes High Lord
himself, fearing him turn into a dictator (amusingly he would later go on to shoot the Ecclesiarch for Heresy). He
only gave it up when he was called out on the fact that he was already the Chapter Master of the Imperial Fists as
well as being the Lord Commander of ALL Imperial armed forces; So having a third title was a bit of a push. The
Inquisition happily took over the role as overseers to the Deathwatch because they themselves owe allegiance to no
single master other than the Emperor, so in theory were not likely to go AWOL with a powerful force of Space
Marines. Koorland agreed, but with three caveats:
At the time the Deathwatch would be referred to as the chamber militant of the Ordo Xenos, except for the fact that
during its inception the Inquisition didn't even have Ordos. Towards the War of the Beast, the Inquisitorial
Representative(s) decided that the Inquisition itself could be better served by dividing their attentions between
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Xenos and Daemon, rather than arguing over which was the greater threat. So the Inquisition divided into Ordo
Xenos and Ordo Malleus.
The differences between the codex and surrounding sources place doubt on what exactly happened, since no source
can seem to agree on the details. In the Codex there is no mention of them having fought in the War of the Beast
other than participating in the clean-up afterwards, though given how it's worded and what happened in that series,
it could be argued that they were formed partway through the war, rather than as a consequence of it (which the
codex seems to imply). Other differences with the codex:
Koorland's role in agreeing to Inquisitorial authority and restrictions to chapter strength is not mentioned in
the codex (though by rights, the Inquisition can oversee anything they like) though the book does say that
occasionally an Inquisitor will be in command of a Watch Fortress (almost definitely an elder veteran at
that).
The Codex doesn't mention any Inquisitorial connection which is arguably contradicted by the Inquisition's
entry in Imperial Agents, and more specifically the rule Chambers Militant which allows an Inquisitor to
field a Deathwatch squad but with the Inquisition faction, though that might be more a reference to how an
Inquisitor can command a Watch Fortress and using an older term rather than keeping the old "Inquisitorial"
Chambers Militant of the 90s.
The 2017 tie-in novel to the codex: "Deathwatch: Kryptman's War" by Ian St Martin has the Imperial Navy
believe that the Deathwatch carry Inquisitorial authority, (the source of which is not made clear) but no
Inquisitors are present in the book. Additionally Swordwind" by the same author directly deals with a
Deathwatch member's oaths to the Inquisition upon his returning to his parent chapter, refers to Deathwatch
vessels as belonging to the Inquisition and has him ferried home in an Ordo Xeno starship.
The original fluff barely made any reference to how the Deathwatch was organised aside from being an ad-hoc
arrangement of temporary squads and fortresses under the command of the Inquisition. In the Beast Arises,
Koorland set that the Deathwatch be set to "chapter strength" back in M32, and appointed a single Watch
Commander to oversee strategic aspects while taking his orders from the Inquisition. Admittedly, even the Watch
Commander himself had no idea what the position entailed.
By M40 in the codex and contemporary fluff, Koorland's singular position of "Watch Commander" doesn't seem to
exist and command is decentralised to the Watch Commanders of their respective fortresses and surrounding
domains, making them roughly analogous to Chapter Masters. These new fortress commanders are usually Watch
Masters but the codex implies this may not always be the case. (Interestingly, the new "Watch Master" role has
been amalgamated with the old RPG rank of Watch Keeper who was one of the few permanent Deathwatch staff
members and carried the same Clavis that Watch Masters now do) Whether the Masters have any higher authority
above them is not made clear, depending on how much influence you think the Inquisition actually has over them.
Despite nominally being referred to as a chapter, the issue of "chapter strength" also seems to have been ignored,
though this depends on how large you assume the "average" Kill Teams to be. For example: kill team Cassius was
11 strong, while kill team Artemis was 6 (plus himself as Captain for 7).
A traditional Fortress such as Talassa Prime has been shown to have five companies of four kill-teams plus a
Watch Captain. So there is probably somewhere between 21 - 41 marines per company, making 105 - 205
marines per Fortress, plus a dedicated command staff including a Librarius, Chaplaincy and any attached
Dreadnoughts for around 9 - 10 members, plus an armoury of indeterminate size to maintain the fortress's vehicles,
though a conservative estimate would be 3 more techmarines given the size of the other departments, especially
considering the huge redundancy of experience spread through the kill teams themselves, which can compose of
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their own techmarines, librarians, chaplains and Apothecaries. All in all this puts a watch fortress at somewhere
between 119 - 219 space marines. The Deathwatch tie-in novel shows around 200 members mustering at fortress
Furor Shield, though this was a joint action including watch teams from nearby jurisdictions, but probably
remains a good estimation of roughly how large a bulked out fortress can be.
Across the Imperium there are four "primary" fortresses which probably have either significant strategic value or
play host to unique facilities (Talasa Prime is said to be a major training facility) plus fourteen other regular
fortresses, which are all said to generally follow the same core structure, so the concentrated bulk of the chapter
would be anywhere between 2142 - 3166 Deathwatch Marines, much higher than "Chapter Strength", assuming all
of the Fortresses are equivalent in strength to the primary ones.
The final number is also complicated by the 40+ smaller Watch Stations which house anything between squad or
two all the way up to a full blown company! Though it is not made clear whether or not those small stations fall
under the purview of the closest Fortress and being assigned squads from there, or if they have their own discrete
commands, otherwise that would add about another 200 - 1640 to their roster. Nor does it account for any
Deathwatch Marines on detached duties (Kill-Marines) that appear in the RPG but are not mentioned in the codex
unless you count those units which can be deployed in squad sizes of 1.
In addition, the 8th Edition Deathwatch Codex mentions that Roboute Guilliman assigned "multiple chapters"
worth of Primaris Marines to the Deathwatch. While its quite possible that this hasn't increased their overall
numbers if they took greivous casualties due to the Great Rift/Blackness, this alone implies that the Deathwatch are
far bigger than any chapter.
Given the possible final numbers anywhere between around 2100 - 4800 marines, assuming the Deathwatch
maintains itself at full strength all of the time, and that all Watch Fortresses are equal in strength.
If that seems like a huge amount, remember that would imply that each chapter of the thousand or so in the
Imperium are donating only about two to five marines at any given time. But given the number of repeat chapters
represented in Talasa Prime alone, added to the fact that apparently hundreds of chapters are risking dishonour by
actually requesting their battle brothers return to their parent chapter, this unusually high number may not be an
unfair estimation.
As their recruits are full-fledged space marines and not mere neophytes, they usually believe they have some idea
what to expect; most assume that they will be brought to a heavily-fortified space station where they will be trained
much in the same way they are already trained, but with more specialized weapons (after all, Space Marine training
is already quite intense and comprehensive). This notion is immediately proven wrong as the inductees first gaze
upon a Watch Fortress. What greets them is a systemless planet floating in the middle of nowhere, encircled by a
colossal artificial ring, supposedly built millions of years ago by an ancient alien civilisation. It is on this ring,
bristling with Imperial gun batteries and missile defences, that the Deathwatch and its private fleet of warships
make their home.
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As part of the training, each marine is forced to watch endless hours of vid-recordings of space marines losing
battles against Xenos. The lesson there is two-fold, one is to understand Xenos strategies, tactics, and weaponry,
including all their strengths and weaknesses. The other is that though the Deathwatch marines come from diverse
backgrounds, apparently nothing creates better unit cohesion and hatred against the Xenos than for a Space Marine
to watch helplessly as another space marine fights a desperate and ultimately doomed last stand, again and again
across thousands of battles. At that point the point is pressed home--it does not matter what chapter you are from,
the Space Marines in the recordings were mercilessly slaughtered and you must now avenge them with extreme
prejudice. The experience is so realistic that all inductees must be physically restrained to their seats prior to
donning the vid gear (which in all likelihood includes a Pain Glove nicked from the Imperial Fists, so that the
Deathwatch trainees get to feel the pain the Astartes victims of Xenos likely felt in those recordings, which must be
especially unnerving if the recording a trainee is watching came from a helmet cam mounted to an unfortunate
Astartes being disemboweled and then beheaded by a Genestealer or certain Dark Eldar).
At the end of their training, every Deathwatch Space Marine has not only been reforged into an unparalleled
Xenocide machine, but a Deathwatch Kill-Team as a whole will royally fuck up the shit of their target. Though
extremely rare as Deathwatch is more of a small unit spec-ops force meant to infiltrate and eliminate specific
objectives and targets instead of fighting all-out battles, the arrival of additional Deathwatch Kill Teams typically
spells the end of whatever unlucky Xeno son of a bitch is on its receiving end. And if the shit has hit the fan to the
extent that one hundred or so Deathwatch members have to deploy to just one battle and organize into an actual
company, it probably means that the Imperium is going to be sending a lot more than just the space marines.
Before deployment, each marine has the Deathwatch pauldron added to their armour and has the rest of their suit
painted black. This process is surprisingly dangerous and must be carefully overseen as the machine spirit of the
armour must be coaxed into accepting its new designation. Each suit of Deathwatch armour is thereafter twice
blessed; a unique entity in itself and a single-minded foe against xenos.
In 2016 the game Deathwatch: Overkill was released. While not a full army, it
did give a small set of special units using the packaged models, each of which
was based on the hero of a story written by Black Library and led by a
younger, un-nommed Ortan Cassius. Each model has their own Chapter
Tactics (or equivalent thereof), but don't officially have it, so they can fit in
any other Marine army without complaint. A good majority of the units also
have Sternguard ammo, making them far more useful than their Damnos
forebears.
Then, in August 2016 a full Codex went up for pre-order alongside a new
game called "Death Masque" which featured new models for the Eldar (Xenos
filth!), Harlequins, and official Deathwatch sprues with Deathwatch Veterans, No danger here, just a bunch of
Deathwatch Vanguard veterans, and an upgrade sprue to make your own old ruins. Sure to be a lot of loot
Deathwatch units. There are also "new" (essentially the same thing but with a for the Deathwatch in there,
few "I"s to glue on) vehicles for them such as the Deathwatch land raider and don'tcha think?
Deathwatch transport/razorback. However, they do get one genuinely unique
vehicle in the form of the Corvus Blackstar, an airborne transport that carries a
decent amount of firepower, as befitting the Deathwatch.
One of the great things about the Deathwatch is that the kill team kits provide a lot of goodies for kit-bashing some
of your other Space Marine armies. Some of the items available are listed below:
Lots of chapter specific pauldrons. You only get one per chapter for every five-man kit, but they can be useful if
you want a nicer-looking pauldron for a single character (especially if GW doesn't sell transfer sheets or upgrade
sprues for said chapter):
Ultramarines
Dark Angels
Blood Angels
Space Wolves
Raven Guard
Salamanders
Imperial Fists
White Scars
Iron Hands
Crimson Fists (Technically it's the Imperial Fists pauldron, but the shape's identical)
Hawk Lords/Knights of the Raven (Using the Raven Guard pauldron)
Flesh Tearers
Raptors/Mentors/White Consuls/Black Consuls
Taurans (you can also use it for Minotaurs)
Black Templars
Mortifactors (only available on Captain Artemis' model in Death Masque)
Blood Ravens (only available from Jensus' model in Kill Team Cassius)
Howling Griffons
Novamarines
Silver Skulls
Blackshield (represented as a pauldron with scratch marks and chains)
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You can also give the Deathwatch pauldron to your regular space marine veterans to show their service, to give
your characters more flavor.
Unique weapons:
Their 8th Edition Codex shows that Primaris Marines will be included [1] (https://www.warhammer-community.co
m/2018/05/02/2nd-may-codex-deathwatch-building-primaris-kill-teams/%7Cincluded)
05:00 - Morning Firing Rites. The Deathwatch begin honing their shooting skills upon captured alien civilians.
Bonus points if it is an Eldar or Tau.
07:00 - Battle Practice. The Deathwatch descends upon the prisons holding captured xenos and proceed to find the
best way to maximize pain and suffering upon them before giving them the Emperor's Peace.
10:00 - Morning Meal. A light meal is prepared by the serfs in the Deathwatch. Permission to eat the xenos they've
killed is prohibited.
10:15 - Movie Time. New Deathwatch initiates are forced to watch videos on fellow battle brothers getting shat
upon and humiliated by the filthy alien. Each Deathwatch are strapped and bounded by ceramite braces to contain
their rage. The ancient films Alien and Predator are popular choices among Veteran Kill Team members.
11:15 - Tactical Indoctrination. The Deathwatch plans the next campaign to wipe out the filthy xenos and study the
weaknesses and best possible way to enact as much pain on the alien.
13:00 - Midday Meal. A meal is prepared by the Deathwatch serfs. Eating the alien is still prohibited.
14:00 - Evening Firing Rites. The Deathwatch practice fighting xenos in the Dark. Tau and Eldar Snipers are given
weapons and promised freedom if they survive. The odd few that ever do are then given freedom through a bomb
attached to said weapons they were given.
16:00 - Battle Practice. The Deathwatch fight Tyranid organisms. Due to the raw amount of Rage that the
Deathwatch possess during the battle, some wonder why they aren't Angry Marines.
19:00 - Evening Meal. A feast is prepared by the Deathwatch serfs. Eating the dead aliens is allowed if they are
deemed safe to eat.
20:00 - Evening Prayer. The Chaplain gives a stirring sermon. He also warns against ancient heretical pro-xenos
propoganda, like E.T., Star Wars, or especially Star Trek.
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22:00 - Interrogation Time. The Deathwatch interrogates and torture captured xenos on information and
intelligence. Any xenos who successfully resist are designated to be tomorrow's meal, if they are safe to eat. If not,
then they are thrown in with some starved Kroot.
24:00 - The Deathwatch ends their interrogation, punch their small posters of hated xenos, and proceed to go back
to rest in their chambers.
See Also
Warhammer 40,000/Tactics/Deathwatch(8E) - Tactica for the official Codex!
Cyrus - A fellow deathwatch and a well known scout sergeant.
Ortan Cassius - Another Deathwatch Alum and current Master of Sanctity of the Ultramarines
Alienhunters
Deffwotch
Deathwatch (RPG), part of Fantasy Flight Games' Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay system. You get to be a
Deathwatch marine and kill xenos.
Deathwatch: Overkill (https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/PDF/Deathwatch/40k-rules-deathwatch-
en.pdf) Rules for the Deathwatch units from Deathwatch: Overkill
A vid-recording likely included in the Deathwatch "compulsory viewing" curriculum for trainees. (https://w
ww.youtube.com/watch?v=nodA5bxueyo) Yes, this is from an official 40k product.
Categories: Warhammer 40,000 Imperial Space Marines Official Space Marine Chapters Deathwatch
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