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A bit of personal background is in order, to put my review in perspective, and show my bias that might affect this review. I have run Dark Heresy (originally published by Black Industries, then FFG) since it came out (virtually day one), and Rogue Trader (published by FFG) since it came out as well, so I am not a newcomer to the basic rules that Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader and Deathwatch all share, and I consider myself to be an experienced Game Master (GM from now on) and well versed in Warhammer 40.000 (40k from now on) lore. I have greatly enjoyed both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader games, and I have been waiting for Deathwatch with great anticipation. Whether all that anticipation was worth it, well, let's find out.
I am going to divide this review into the following sections: 1) game concepts, goals, and setting, 2) art, layout, editing, physical qualities, 3) go through the book chapter by chapter, 4) comment on what the game is like when played, 5) finish with my overall thoughts on the positive and negative qualities of Deathwatch Core Rulebook. One quick note, to avoid confusion throughout the review: when I am referring to a Space Marine Chapter (the organization he belongs to) I will capitalize 'Chapter', when I am referring to a chapter of the Deathwatch Core Rulebook, it will not be capitalized. Alright, let's get into it!
1) Game Concepts, Goals, and Setting
Deathwatch is set in the universe of Warhammer 40.000, familiar to most through the hugely popular table top game as well as previous roleplaying games set in the same universe. I won't discuss the overall setting of 40k too much, other than to say that it's a grim and dark (sorry, couldn't resist myself) universe of constant war, where culture and technology resembles European Medieval era (though with a lot more guns, space travel, and aliens), where humanity constantly wars with alien races and with darker sides of itself and terrible forces from beyond (daemons and malevolent gods). The setting – despite its murky canon and quite a bit of hidden tongue-in-cheekiness – is wonderfully ornate, very detailed, and presents no shortage of conflicts (armed and otherwise) that are bread and butter of role-playing games.
In Deathwatch the players assume the roles of the most iconic denizens of Warhammer 40k universe – the Adeptus Astartes, the Space Marines. They are genetically modified, brainwashed, zealous, super soldiers that are humanity's first and last line of defense. The Space Marines are divided into independent Chapters, each with its own set of rituals, combat tactics, gear, and so on. However, in Deathwatch, the players play Space Marines that are detached from their Chapters and sent to serve in the game's namesake – the Deathwatch. This is supposed to be a secretive organization that specializes in exterminating dangerous alien threats for the Holy Inquisition (for more on the Inquisition check out Dark Heresy role-playing game from FFG), although they are not above taking care of other threats to humanity along the way. In short, the players play elite super soldiers who are part of a team (called Kill-Team in Deathwatch Core Rulebook) sent to deal with the most dangerous alien threats.
So what are the goals of the game? What does it purport to do that sets it aside from previous two 40k role-playing games: Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader? Deathwatch is supposed to have epic characters: the players' characters are much larger than life, they create legends by their deeds, their actions shape the outcome of wars and billions of lives, they face threats that no one else can handle. In addition, Deathwatch promises to provide an experience of playing the ultimate special forces team, in a war-torn setting, while forcing the player characters learn to work together despite their differences. Its closest equivalent with other role-playing games would in my opinion have to be Exalted or epic-level Dungeons and Dragons – this is the kind of power-level that playing a team of veteran Space Marines entails.
2) Art, layout, editing, physical qualities The book is an 8x11 hardcover, full-colour, glossy pages, book. There are 396 pages in total, as well as character sheets and an ad in the back. The binding in my copy is very sturdy and the print quality is very high. Art is fantastic as always, most of the artwork is brand new, although there are still art pieces from other 40k products here and there. There are many amusing 'in-character' documents and little blurbs littered throughout the book to provide additional background to the setting, and to add to the atmosphere. Font style and size are fine, very readable. Layout does have a couple of issues, I shall touch on them in individual chapters. Editing on the other hand is average at best, which is a shame when the rest of the book is so gorgeous. Spelling mistakes, as well as evidence of the text being run through spell checker and not being proof-read afterwards abound. There are several incorrect page number references (for example “See page XXX” or sending the reader to an incorrect page). My distinct impression in this section of review is that FFG saved time on thorough editing and proof-reading, but lavished attention on other aspects of the production.
3) Chapters This is where we get into the meat of the book. I will offer a brief description of each chapter and what it contains, comment on new rules in each chapter (where necessary), and comment on what is right and wrong with each chapter in my opinion.
Introduction: in this section the rule-system is briefly described (roll percentile dice, generating a number between 1 to 100, compare the result to your ability scores plus or minus any modifiers, and you want to roll under your ability score. Damage is generated by rolling ten-sided dice and adding bonuses and penalties). The introduction also includes a detailed discussion of who Space Marines are, their history, how they are selected and transformed (the process of genetic and cybernetic modifications), how Space Marine chapters are organized, how the Space Marines are conditioned (or brainwashed if you prefer), and finally how the Space Marine progresses through the ranks from Initiate all the way to Chapter Master. Very useful chapter, especially for a newcomer to both Warhammer 40k setting and Deathwatch, and it is entertaining to read as well.
Character Creation: this is potentially the most important chapter of the book, and I urge every Game Master and player to carefully read and reread this chapter several times. Even Game Masters with previous Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader experience like myself will benefit from careful reading of this chapter, as there are quite a lot of changes. This chapter includes character creation rules, demeanours, Space Marine Abilities, and Space Marine Chapters. Character creation steps themselves are straightforward to anyone who has ever created a character for a role-playing game before. You generate your character's characteristics (his raw strength, toughness, etc.), then select his Chapter (more on that in a bit), then select your character's speciality within the Kill-Team (more on that in its own chapter), randomly generate the character's wounds (hit points) and fate points (that you use for variety of things during play, such as rerolls, getting bonuses, replenishing wounds, and more), and figuring out how fast your character moves. Then you get to assign some starting experience points (each skill and talent and characteristic advance has its own experience point cost depending on your Speciality), pick your equipment, and figure out what your character is like (physical description, behaviour, history, the usual background stuff). Each section within this chapter is clearly laid out, with helpful charts to make figuring things like movement out easier, and provides frequent examples.
To figure out your characteristics you can either roll randomly, or assign points (Game Master's choice). The biggest changes to note are how much stronger and tougher Space Marines are than characters in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. Instead of home worlds (like in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader), you pick your character's Chapter, each Chapter provides certain bonuses (more on that in a bit), and also limits your Speciality (for example, Black Templars cannot pick Librarian and Devastator Specialities). Space Marines will also have on average more fate points that characters from other 40k role-playing games, and move faster. This chapter also provides a list of starting equipment.
What else is in this mammoth of a chapter? There are fun past history charts (they have no mechanical impact on your character, but can provide good ideas for characters and role-playing them), that you can roll randomly or pick. Each Chapter has its own set of past histories to offer to the character, that will surely provide veterans of 40k lore with a few knowing grins. Another new rule introduced in this chapter is Demeanours. What is that? Well, it is a way to give your character personality that sets him apart from other Space Marines. I hope you'll permit it a brief but necessary aside here; when Deathwatch was first announced, many people voiced concerns that role-playing a supremely obedient, brainwashed, zealous super soldier will be difficult or boring. Demeanours are a way to address these concerns. Demeanours are personality traits of a character that provide in-game bonuses if the player role-plays this trait particularly well. If the other players agree that the player has role-played well, s/he gets an in-game bonus. It's a nifty idea and works well in practice.
Another important part of this chapter (I did say it was mammoth-sized didn't I?) are the Space Marine abilities. You see, not only are they much stronger and tougher than mundane humans, they also have a host of other special abilities. This section tells the player which skills, talents, and traits their character starts with, as well as explaining a myriad of other bonuses that Space Marines get. These range from ability to go into suspended animation, to breathing water, keener senses, and more bizarre abilities like spitting acid, or gaining the enemy's memories and skills by consuming a part of his body. There are 19 such abilities to keep track of – that is a lot, however, the character sheet very handily summarizes them all, so you don't have to keep your book open on this section.
Alright, the final part of this chapter are the – ahem – Chapters of Space Marines. There are six to choose from (and more promised in future supplements), each provides bonuses to characteristics, sometimes limits which Speciality you can take, and provides a Chapter Demeanour (that is 'personality' of the Chapter that is ingrained in each Marine of that Chapter). The Chapters are: Black Templar, Blood Angels, Dark Angels, Space Wolves, Storm Wardens (wholly new Chapter created for Deathwatch Core Rulebook), and Ultramarines. Each Chapter gets several pages of background information, Chapter myths, history, rituals, combat tactics, as well as tantalizing hints and rumours. Very delicious reading I must say, even if I already knew most of this information before (except Storm Wardens obviously).
So what does this section do right? First of all, it is laid out very well, the information is clearly presented, there are many examples, and you can create the character almost painlessly by simply following one step after another. The 'almost' in 'almost painlessly' is what is wrong with this chapter. One of the bizarre omissions from this chapter is the Power Armour History chart, which is instead found in the Armoury chapter. This chart is only used during character creation, and yet it is buried under Power Armour description in the Armoury chapter. Given how much certain Armour histories can impact the character's statistics, it is puzzling that this important chart should be buried more than a hundred pages later into the book. Indeed, during our character creation I had to point out the Power Armour History chart to my players, otherwise they would've missed it entirely.
Specialities: this chapter deals with the different specialities of Space Marines (think classes in games such as Dungeons and Dragons), how the players upgrade their characters (purchasing skills, talents, and characteristic bonuses is called advances) and go up levels (called ranks in Deathwatch). The system for purchasing skills and talents is almost unchanged from Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, with two differences. Firstly, unlike Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, starting characters get to spend a lot more experience on their Rank 1 advances in Deathwatch (1000 experience to be exact). Secondly, rather than being limited to spending only on advances from their Speciality, they instead can choose advances from four sources: General Space Marine Advances (generic skills and talents that all Marines can purchase), Deathwatch Advances (much more specialized and esoteric skills and talents, most of which having to do with forbidden lore, and aliens), Speciality Advances (skills and talents most important to the chosen Speciality), and finally Chapter Advances. General, Deathwatch, and Speciality Advances are limited by Ranks (for example, at Rank 1 you can only purchase advances from Rank 1 Advances table, when you go up to Rank 2 you can purchase advances from Rank 1 and Rank 2 tables, and so on). By contrast, advances from Chapter Advances tables can be purchased whenever, regardless of rank. We found that this change creates more versatile and able characters than either Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader, and gives a lot of options even for a starting character.
The Specialities themselves include: Apothecary (the guy who heals, removes corruption, conducts alien autopsies and figures out new ways to kill said aliens by creating toxins and poisons), Assault Marine (close combat specialist who usually uses a jet pack to get into the thick of it), Devastator Marine (the guy with the heavy weapons, taking on vehicles, or large groups of enemies), Librarian (a powerful psyker who also knows many secrets and hidden lore), Tactical Marine (a versatile jack-of-all-trades, with emphasis on leading other Marines), and Techmarine (the specialist in esoteric weapons, fixing stuff, figuring out ancient or alien technologies). Okay, so in case you thought you were done with character creation at character creation chapter, each Space Marine Chapter gives you even more starting skills, and you also get to pick from two or three abilities for each Speciality. These abilities are all quite powerful and further emphasize the role of each Speciality within the team. Each Speciality is also accompanied by a detailed background information (the 'fluff'). Generally I had no issues with this chapter, except that some Speciality abilities are better than others, and some Specialities (like the Techmarine) don't get a choice at all.
Skills: The least amount of changes are in this chapter. This chapter is exactly what it sounds like – a list of all skills available to the characters, and a description of each skill and what you can do with it. Deathwatch takes a cue from Rogue Trader and uses broad weapon proficiencies (i.e. Characters are automatically proficient with most weapons, rather than having to purchase each weapon type proficiency individually). This is a welcome addition. The only issue I have is that the description for Medicae skill (specifically First Aid) is still very ambiguous, despite the fact that the authors could have just used the much improved description of this skill from Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader errata.
Talents: talents are kind of like feats in Dungeons and Dragons, Advantages in GURPS, and similar style mechanics. Some provide you with a bonus to a certain type of action (like more acute sense of hearing or sight), others give you new options in combat (such as performing devastating assassin strikes, cleaving through multiple enemies, etc.), while others give you new options or bonuses out of combat (when interacting with other characters, or whatnot). Many talents are also very thematic, like for example getting new friends and enemies, or having intense hatred for a particular group or species. I got no issues whatsoever with this chapter, it does what it purports to do, and does it well. The only word of caution I can offer is that the players should read carefully in the Character Creation and Speciality chapters as to which talents they get automatically at character creation, so that they don't make the mistake of buying them twice. They get a LOT of talents for free. This chapter also has a section on Traits. These are like special racial traits and abilities. This section used to be in the Adversaries chapter in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, so Game Masters should definitely be aware of this and read this section over. There is some very important information in this section, especially for Horde rules, and Tyranid Synapse rules. Overall, this is a solid chapter, and it's worth going through it, even if the Game Master or player thinks that they already known all the talents from previous games, because: a) there are a number of new talents, b) some of the old talents do new things when used by Space Marines.
Armoury: ahhh, a sight for sore eyes of any player! Not only does this chapter introduces a huge amount of new gear, but it also discusses two very important new rules: Requisition and Renown. Unlike characters in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader who had to purchase their gear, the Space Marine has no need of money. Instead he has his personal preferred trusty gear (what he starts with), and is assigned gear on a mission to mission basis (or he asks for it), instead of having to purchase it. Each piece of gear in Deathwatch Core Rulebook Armoury section has a cost in terms of Requisition points. Every character gets a fresh pool of Requisition points for each mission, that varies with the difficulty of the mission, length of the mission, and what kind of threats one is likely to face on that mission. Then there is Renown; even though Space Marines are not limited by wealth, the authors had to limit the quality of gear available depending on the rank of the character, otherwise even starting characters could start with all the best gear in the game. As Space Marines complete missions, their special Renown Rank goes up. Each piece of gear has not only Requisition points cost, but also the minimum Renown Rank that the Marine has to have in order to requisition this piece of gear. The Game Master is of course free to give whatever gear s/he feels is necessary regardless of Requisition or Renown. Another two new things worth noticing in this chapter are the new rules for the craftsmanship of the gear, and new Weapon Qualities available. Game Masters should definitely not skip this chapter expecting same-old-same-old.
Alright, let's discuss the gear a bit, because selecting gear is absolutely vital to the success of the characters on their mission. Experienced readers will instantly notice how much better all Astartes (i.e. Space Marine) versions of weapons from Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader are. They are MUCH more impressive. Unfortunately, when the authors were handing out upgrades they were not exactly even-handed. What we have already noticed through gameplay experience is that the standard starting gear is often as good as, or even better, than the weapons that the characters are supposed to upgrade to. The issue with the relative lacklustre statistics for various supposedly-powerful weapons compared to the starting bolter (or heavy bolter) have already been pointed out. Now, characters are expected to pick up non-standard gear for special occasions, but fortunately or unfortunately the authors have put in so many new types of special ammunition for bolt weapons (standard starting weapons in Deathwatch) that there is almost no need to carry any ranged weapons than bolters. Furthermore, the ranged weapons available to Space Marines are much much better than grenade weapons or melee weapons. That is to say that grenade and melee weapons for Space Marines also received a power boost, but nowhere near as significant as the ranged weapons. The other issue is that the amount of melee weapons to choose from is simply not nearly as big as the choice of ranged weapons. The poor Librarian pretty much has only two melee weapons to choose from. The silver lining in the weapons section are the new weapon upgrades available, and the large amount of special issue ammunition. Together these two add quite an impressive dimension to picking weapons before the mission.
Then there is the Armour section. I really enjoyed this section as it goes in-depth about the Space Marine's iconic Power Armour. It provides a lot of bonuses (like enhanced sight and hearing, increased strength, and more), all of which are summarized on the character sheet, and it has the aforementioned Power Armour History chart, which would have been more useful in the Character Creation chapter. Just to be clear though, the Power Armour History chart is absolutely wonderful even if it is in the wrong place in my opinion, it really helps distinguish one team member from another, provides interesting quirks, and even plot hooks. There are ten histories to choose from, some provide a bonus and a penalty, while others provide only bonuses. This section also includes the legendary Terminator Power Armour, the Astartes Scout Armour, and generic armour types that various non-player characters might wear.
In this chapter, you will also find several new types of gear: force fields, relics, and trappings. Force fields have been present in 40k role-playing games since Dark Heresy's Inquisitor's Handbook supplement, however, in Deathwatch force fields use a completely different mechanic, so it's worth a read. Relics are absolutely unique and powerful items, that are only available at the highest Renown rank. Trappings are nifty little additions to the Space Marine's power armour, there are two trappings per Chapter and each player can choose one of the two at character creation (you cannot gain another during play so pick carefully). Again, the Character Creation chapter mentions trappings only once and it is buried in that chapter, so the players might miss out on Trappings at character creation (I know we did). Finally there is a bunch of miscellaneous gear (scanners, tools, drugs, etc.), and very brief cybernetics section. These sections left me underwhelmed. Cybernetics offered very few choices, and nothing particularly interesting at that (so that's a downside to playing a Techmarine). The miscellaneous gear didn't have much new gear as compared to Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader. Overall I found this chapter to be very much hit-and-miss. There are issues with balancing of weapon stats as I already mentioned, there are only three armour types to choose from for the players (Power Armour everyone starts with, Scout Armour that is much worse, but better for sneaking around in, and Terminator Armour that doesn't become available until much much later due to its Renown requirement). Perhaps the two biggest complaints I have about this chapter are: 1) the chapter introduces Requisition and Renown and then doesn't talk about how these are acquired or how Requisition might vary from mission to mission for another hundred pages, 2) while it is very easy to figure out Requisition cost of gear from Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader books, determining Renown is pretty much left to Game Master's discretion. Given the wealth of gear in existing books, it is puzzling that a better conversion system was not provided. On a final note, the chapter also does not have any details on services. It is assumed that the characters get transportation to their mission destination, but what if they want to order an orbital strike, or get ground vehicles, or need someone to do research for them, or request supporting forces? No such information is provided.
Psychic Powers: in this chapter we learn what psychic powers are, the background about human psykers, alien psykers, and sorcerers. We also learn a lot more about who Librarians are, how they are selected and trained, and of course the rules for using psy powers as a Librarian. The rules are the same as the ones used in Rogue Trader: a Librarian has a Psy Rating, each time he manifests a power he chooses the power level (Fettered, Unfettered, and Push). At fettered, his Psy Rating is halved, at Unfettered his Psy Rating is unchanged but there is a change of some sort of side-effect, and at Push level his Psy Rating is increased by three but side-effects are guaranteed. The charts for these side-effects (called Psychic Phenomena and Perils of the Warp) are the same as in Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader, and include anything from cosmetic effects (temperature drops, or a wind blows, etc) to creepy (all animals flee, horrible visions are inflicted, insanity), to full-out daemonic incursions or massive damage. As for the powers themselves, Librarians can choose from several generic Disciplines and Codex Powers (sets of powers common to all Librarians), and from Chapter-specific powers. The powers are not limited by rank, so a Librarian can purchase whatever power he wants whenever, provided he has the necessary experience points. Most of the powers in this chapter are completely new, and a few might only share a name and cosmetic description with Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader powers. All of the powers are significantly more impressive than in previous games (except for Dark Heresy Ascension book – they are about the same power level as Psyker Primaris powers). Overall I had no issues with this chapter, it is all clearly written, there is a lot of great background information, evocative power descriptions, and lots of new stuff to play around with. The Chapter-specific powers are appropriately thematic and really emphasize the differences between the Chapters.
Playing The Game: as I mentioned before, Deathwatch uses the same basic system as Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader (and similar to older editions of Warhammer Fantasy Role-play) – you roll percentile dice, add and subtract modifiers as assigned by the Game Master and the gear, and you want to get under the relevant characteristic or skill. There are additional rules for opposed tests and extended tests, but overall I find the system easy to comprehend, and very easy to wing as a Game Master. This chapter also explains how fate points work, rules on climbing, jumping, flying, lighting, and even effects of different gravity. What I want to concentrate on, however, are the really big additions to rules in Deathwatch: Cohesion, Solo Mode, and Squad Mode. Remember how way back in the beginning I said that one of the goals of the game is to make you feel like a badass special ops team? Well this is where Cohesion and Modes come in. Cohesion is measured in terms of Cohesion points that are generated at the start of each mission, and depend on different factors such as: who is the team leader for this mission (the players are expected to rotate leadership within the team), certain types of gear add to Cohesion, and certain talents can further add or subtract from Cohesion. Cohesion measures how well the team works together and how well they can pull off impressive feats of teamwork. Accomplishing mission objectives, spending fate points, besting powerful foes, and good role-playing as a team gives more Cohesion points. Certain types of enemy attacks might take away Cohesion points.
So what do you do with these points? Well, by default everyone starts in Solo Mode – that means the characters aren't concentrating on teamwork. In this mode everyone has a number of abilities to choose from, limited by the current Rank of the character. Some of these abilities can be used once per combat, others more often or more rarely than that. Solo Mode abilities might give a character a boost to speed, ignore critical hits, and so on. Each Chapter also has its own Solo Mode, which are much more impressive. Best of all – players don't need to spend experience points on these abilities, they are assumed to know them all. Squad Mode abilities on the other hand require the characters to be in close proximity, and using these abilities costs the team Cohesion points. What happens if Cohesion runs down to 0? No more Squad Mode until Cohesion is restored. However, these abilities are very powerful. They might give everyone an extra attack out of turn, or an extra chance to dodge or parry, or to charge into melee as a team for extra damage, regain health, gain extra rerolls, and other impressive feats. There are generic Squad Mode abilities, as well as Chapter-specific Squad Mode abilities (two per Chapter). Unlike Solo Mode Abilities, Squad Mode Abilities are not available all the time; instead, the team chooses which Squad Mode Abilities it gets before each mission (it's called Oath-Taking – don't worry, there's a handy table summarizing all the different options). So this is all very new, very exciting stuff for 40k role-playing games.
And this is where Deathwatch really began to break down for me, because this is possibly THE biggest new addition to the rule-system, and this is THE part of the book that felt the least play-tested and worst-edited. The most glaring issues with these boil down to the following. 1) The editing and proofreading is bad, at one point the book promises that each Solo Mode Ability explains what kind of action is required to activate it, yet only half of Solo Mode Abilities state which combat actions they use, the table of Squad Mode Abilities lists at least one Ability that is actually called something else in the text, and worst of all perhaps the examples of the abilities in play do not always match the rules and ability descriptions, leading to much confusion! 2) Remember how each Chapter also has its own Solo Mode and Squad Mode abilities? Well these aren't balanced very well; in our game experience it has already become evident that some Chapters just have it better than others. 3) That most unforgivable sin of all – the rules sometimes contradict each other which left us (and many others posting on FFG Deathwatch forums) puzzled and confused. 4) The Oath-taking mechanic (selecting which Squad Modes are available) is very neat in concept, but in practice it is obvious that most of the time whoever is playing the Tactical Marine will be the squad leader. The Tactical Marine can select 4 out of 6 available Oaths which gives him the widest range of Squad Modes to pick from, plus the Tactical Marine Oaths provide more Cohesion bonuses and better commanding abilities, and Tactical Marines are the only ones who can share Chapter Squad Mode abilities with other characters. In comparison, the Techmarine and Devastator Marine are limited to only 1 Oath, Assault Marine and Librarian to 2 Oaths, and Apothecary to 3 Oaths. This is especially disappointing, given how much the authors stress that the players should rotate the Team Leader for each mission. I hope that future supplements will introduce additional Oaths, with more diversity, to encourage rotation of team leadership. 4) This is more of a personal preference perhaps, but the way Solo and Squad Mode abilities function, with a Cohesion cost for the latter, feel very 'game-y' (in a video game sort of way) and very abstract. Many of the Squad Mode abilities take place out of turn and ignore or circumvent rules on using reaction actions, and this has already demonstrated a lot of opportunities for abuse. Moreover, the scarcity of Cohesion points (6 or 7 Cohesion points appears to be standard with certain wargear, oaths, or power armour history), encourages the players to stay in Squad Mode as much as possible so that an ability that costs 1 Cohesion point benefits the entire team, rather than just one or two team members. In gameplay terms it makes the players often reluctant to take heroic action that might take them out of Squad Mode range (such as charge the enemy, scout out ahead, etc.). Again, this is just my opinion and personal observations from running Deathwatch, take it with a grain of salt. What is clear, however, is that a great deal of errata and FAQ is necessary to resolve all the confusion surrounding Solo and Squad Modes.
Combat: this chapter covers the rules on combat. Combat in Deathwatch is standard role-playing game fare. Everyone acts on their turn, on their initiative orders, plus an ability to take one out of turn action (usually to dodge or parry or shield an ally and similar actions). All actions in combat take a reaction, a free action, a standard action, or a full or extended action. Those who have played Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader, or Warhammer Fantasy Role-play will recognize it immediately. There is one small but minor addition that has really changed the dynamic of combat already – the ability to move while firing on automatic and semi-automatic. It's not a full move, and the characters might not get all the bonuses from automatic and semi-automatic fire, but it definitely changes things and discourages static firing positions. I and my players certainly love it. The chapter also includes the iconic and familiar critical hit tables, that have a deserved reputation for gruesomeness and blood-splattered hilarity.
Game Master: this chapter explains the role of the Game Master, what s/he needs to know, the basics of running a game in a Warhammer 40.000 setting, and the different types of Deathwatch adventures. I quite enjoyed excellent examples of adventures and themes that a Deathwatch campaign could deal with, and wish there were even more such styles of play provided. This chapter also deals with figuring out how much experience points to hand out, how to figure out how much Renown the players are getting out of a mission, and a system for calculating how much Requisition the players will need for each mission. This is all very handy and essential stuff for running Deathwatch, and it is well-written and clearly laid out. The chapter also presents a new spin on the Fear and Insanity rules After all, the Space Marines are supposed to “know no fear”, but that's not very fun in a horrifying grim and dark setting, now is it? So instead of Space Marine characters suffering the same crippling fear and insanity that mundane mortals are prone to, they become more distant from humanity, they begin to suffer from Primarch's Curse, see visions of the past owners of their Space Marine organs, and so on. It's a well written, very inventive way of dealing with Insanity, and has a lot of potential for plot hooks and great role-playing. By contrast, the Corruption rules are very bland. Rather than the Space Marine acquiring mutations, the Space Marine instead wastes away and is removed from play when he reaches 100 points. Finally, there is another minor but very nifty and thematic additional optional rule – what happens when a Deathwatch character sacrifices himself heroically to save his team or achieve the mission. I am not going to give it away, but I have to give the authors a credit for awesomeness on this one. If there is one downside to this chapter it is that it spends very little time discussing interactions between Space Marines and mundane humans – Deathwatch Core Rulebook pretty much cuts and pastes the non-player character Dispositions and Interaction rules from previous 40k books and does not discuss the unique challenges that Space Marines might face when dealing with mundane humans.
The Imperium: this chapter is a primer on the Imperium of Man – the great human empire that stretches across the galaxy, and which Deathwatch protects from alien scum. This is a primer only and useful for a newcomer to the setting. Those who've read Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader “Imperium” chapters will see few surprises. Nonetheless, it's all well-written and full of potential adventure and campaign ideas.
The Deathwatch: the organization to which player characters belong is a very secretive one and has not been extensively explored in previous 40k games (whether table-top wargames, role-playing games, or even novels). That gave the authors quite a degree of creative freedom and it shows – this chapter rocks! I do not want to spoil anything, but the authors managed to pack so much new information and ideas into 16 pages that it deserves more than one reading. Details like heraldry of Deathwatch, its rituals, the special gear and resources it uses, how it deals with Inquisition, other Space Marine Chapters, and Imperium at large, its ranks; it has everything a Game Master needs to really bring the organization to life and create memorable non-player characters and intrigue. It also contains fairly detailed and interesting write-ups of the most common alien enemies of the Deathwatch.
The Jericho Reach: the Imperium stretches across the entire galaxy – and that's a LOT of room, so the authors made the same choice they did with Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader – they provide a large, but self-contained sample sand-box for the Game Master, one that comes with planet descriptions, conflicts, adventure ideas, important non-player characters, and existing history. In Deathwatch case, the sandbox is called Jericho Reach – a sector that used to be part of the Imperium, then fell into darkness as Imperial borders shrank, and is now being reconquered by a grand Crusade. This chapter provides the Game Master with history of the sector, geography of the sector, history of the Achilus Crusade and the efforts to retake Jericho Reach, description of important planets and areas within this sector, major factions vying for control of this area, and the important people. Furthermore, it provides a wealth of information on the Deathwatch activities and installations in Jericho Reach, and reveals the tantalizing (but entirely optional) meta-plot behind the Jericho Reach setting. Best of all, the authors cunningly linked Jericho Read to both Calixis Sector (Dark Heresy) and Koronus Expanse (Rogue Trader). As has been the case with Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader books in the past, the authors do a stellar job of bringing the setting to life, giving the Game Master all the information s/he needs to start plotting a campaign, and still managing to pack away 10 potential plot hooks per page (I jest, the number is often much higher!). The only thing I wish this chapter included more of would be the Inquisition in Jericho Reach. After all, Deathwatch is expected to work with (and often for, and sometimes against) the Inquisition, yet aside from one Inquisitor there is very little else on the Inquisition's presence and goals in Jericho Reach.
Adversaries: what would a game about killing alien scum be like without alien scum to kill? Hence this chapter. One of the big new additions to the rule-system in Deathwatch is the inclusion of Hordes. See, Space Marines aren't going to muck about killing one termagaunt or heretic at a time, instead they cut down swathes of lesser foes with a mere swipe of a chainsword or sweep of a boltgun. This is where rules for Hordes come in. They are treated as a single entity representing dozens or even hundreds of individual enemies that in small numbers would present no challenge to the Space Marines, but are dangerous in large numbers. Make no mistake – Hordes can be deadly, especially with automatic weapons, or in melee. The rules for Hordes are straightforward on the surface, but unfortunately they too suffer from poor proof-reading and ambiguity. There are already a number of contradicting rules and confusion, mostly related to the fact that damage done to Hordes is done differently than damage done to individual opponents. When you start to think about the sheer amount of combat options and attacks available to Space Marines (just off the top of my head: Speciality special abilities, psyker powers, flamer weapons, automatic weapons, explosive weapons, Blast grenade weapons, talents, various melee weapons, bonuses from Power Armour history, bonuses from Chapters, Solo and Squad Mode abilities, etc.), and then try to figure out how each applies to Horde damage, or what happens when a single attack against a Horde combines two or three different effects or damage types, the game bogs down very quickly. Furthermore, Hordes rules can potentially lead to a great deal of damage rolls – this can get tedious. There are also a number of unanswered questions about Hordes, for example: while player characters cannot dodge or parry Horde's melee attacks, can a Horde dodge or parry attacks? However, addition of Hordes provides for some very epic, dynamic and fun combat scenes, and creating a Horde is a breeze (take an existing individual enemy, figure out how much Magnitude the Horde has – how tough, numerous, or disciplined it is), give it extra damage as per Hordes rules, and slap some optional Hordes-only traits if you're in the mood. It's very intuitive, and is a great improvement on the mass combat rules introduced in Rogue Trader.
The rest of the chapter focuses on specific enemies and non-player characters. It presents new foes that have been eagerly anticipated: Daemon Princes and Chaos Space Marines, Tau and Tyranids, as well as Imperial non-player characters, and several sample Hordes. The enemies are a mix of Hordes, dangerous individual enemies (referred to as Elites), and terrifyingly powerful leaders (referred to as Masters). Mixing up the three is the best way to challenge the players and create a fun combat encounter. The three overall themes of enemies in this chapter (Chaos, Tau, Tyranids) present very diverse threats, and are a good variety for the first few adventures. Tyranids are appropriately dangerous and sneaky when necessary (and the rules on what happens if Tyranids lose their synapse Hive Mind connection are excellent), the Tau are a smart, highly advanced, and adaptable foe, and Chaos is sure to whip the Battle Brothers into rage. I quite liked the enemies presented in this chapter, but I found the list to be rather short. While there is already a wealth of adversaries throughout Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader core books, supplements, and published adventures, there are still some puzzling omissions in Deathwatch Core Rulebook. The section on Tau does not include any Kroot or Vespid stats (although they can be found in the Deathwatch Game Master's Kit)l; there are two different Hordes for followers of Chaos, even though both of them are so similar to each other stats-wise that one could have easily been replaced by something different such as a sample Ork Horde or a Nurgling Horde. I highly recommend downloading the free adventure “Final Sanction” from FFG website, as it contains even more sample Hordes, as well as the stats for a certain iconic alien threat, especially if you do not have any of Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader books.
Extraction: the final chapter is a short introductory adventure. I don't want to spoil it, so I won't discuss the plot, but I did not like this particular adventure very much. It is extremely combat-heavy, on a timer, with few meaningful non-player character interactions, and discrepancies between the provided maps and location descriptions. All in all, Final Sanction adventure, and its sequel (both available for free from FFG) are more interesting, and if you happen to have “Purge the Unclean” book for Dark Heresy, there is a wonderful Space Hulk adventure that is particularly appropriate for Deathwatch if you are willing to put in some extra work to upgrade the adversaries in it.
Finally there is an index, a thank-you to playtesters, and the character sheet. I have to mention it yet again, but I was impressed by the quality of the character sheet, as it manages to concisely summarize the myriad abilities of Space Marines so that you won't forget about them, and won't have to flip furiously through the book during the game session. It also includes a handy sheet for Solo and Squad Modes to help track them. Just one quick note, the default character sheet doesn't mark Dodge and Intimidate as trained skills, so players might forget that all Space Marines start with those two skills as being trained.
4) How does it play? I found Deathwatch to run smoothly as long as the new rules presented in the Deathwatch Core Rulebook are actually clear (I've already discussed some of the issues regarding this). Character creation took much longer than Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader, most of that due to the players' natural desire to explore all the options and discuss them, but also because some of the components of character creation were buried throughout the book and were not always clearly indicated or referenced. Once the game got underway, it had really succeeded in projecting that epic-level heroic feel to it. My players gleefully mowed down hundreds of enemy mooks, came up with inventive ways to collapse buildings, engaged in some stealthy assassinations and information gathering, pulled off crazy plans that would've got their Rogue Trader characters killed in a heartbeat, and got into the heroic swing of things with ease. The Demeanours, Solo Mode abilities and Speciality abilities actively helped the players role-play their marines as individuals, rather than generic super soldiers. The Horde combat started out rather slow, but as we figured out a way to streamline damage-to-Horde calculations it sped up. There were no problems involving Solo Mode (other than house-ruling the type of action required to use certain Solo Modes), but unfortunately once the players decided to try to use Squad Modes the game ground to a halt, due to the number of rule discrepancies and ambiguities and unresolved questions.
5) Final Thoughts and Score: Deathwatch is in many ways a gem in the rough. It succeeds at what it set out to do, and the playing experience feels sufficiently different from both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader. The new rules and options help drive the fact that the player characters are elite, they are veteran, they are super-human, possessed of unique honour and responsibility. The 'fluff' and the rules stay for the most part faithful to the Warhammer 40.000 canon, and in some ways even enhance it. Deathwatch is definitely going more for the scale of 'novel' Space Marines, rather than the table-top Space Marines. There are many helpful tables that summarize various available options and abilities, and speed the game up. The character sheet is very good for summarizing abilities as well. The chapters on Deathwatch and Jericho Reach are packed with adventure and campaign ideas and are very well-written, and there are some rule concepts that make the game more enjoyable than it would be otherwise (Hordes rules, heroic sacrifices, Insanity rules, a few others). My players and I quite liked the changes to purchasing advancements, the many neat quirks to personalize each character with (Power Armour History, Chapter Trappings, Demeanours, the concept of Oath-Taking, to name the most memorable ones), and of course the new gear to play around with. Furthermore, there are aspects of Deathwatch that would enhance both Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader: crossover campaign (using high-level Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader characters) is a possibility, but using Horde rules for mass combat is equally interesting, and even such minor new rules as being able to move and auto-fire can change the dynamic of the game. And then of course there is the possibility of using Jericho Sector as a place for an Inquisitorial or Rogue Trader campaign, as well as the new alien foes from Deathwatch to encounter. There is definitely a lot of potential in this book.
That said, there are some problems that sour the experience. Insufficient editing and proof-reading make it seem like the book was rushed to the printer. Rule ambiguities and contradictions, as well as occasional vague wording of the rules, and discrepancies between the rules and the examples of play (more confusion!) should make an errata and an FAQ for Deathwatch a major priority before future products for this line are released. An errata for the weapons (particularly ranged ones, so that the players have an incentive to put their bolters aside from time to time) is needed as well. I am not going to hold the limited amount of gear and adversaries against Deathwatch when it comes to the final score - I understand that the page count is always an issue, and there are future supplements that will address both deficiencies, but I do need to point out that on its own Deathwatch Core Rulebook does not offer enough for a prolonged campaign.
And that brings me to my last and possibly strongest critique of Deathwatch – while it has a lot to offer to Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader campaigns, the many fine supplements for these two games, don't have a lot to offer to Deathwatch. The weapons and armour from the preceding games are woefully inadequate in comparison to Deathwatch wargear, and much of the specialized gear is unnecessary (for example, there is no need for rebreather if Space Marine Power Armour comes with one, not to mention that Space Marines can breath water, and virtually ignore most toxins and poisons, just as there is no need for a dark visor since Space Marines can see in the dark). The psyker powers from Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader are likewise for the most part underpowered compared to Deathwatch powers. While the Rogue Trader starship combat can provide an interesting diversion in a Deathwatch game, the Deathwatch characters lack some of skills crucial to starship combat. Most of the adventures published for Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader would either be thematically inappropriate or too easy for Deathwatch characters, while the adversaries from these two games might not present enough of a challenge without some adjustments required. As it stands right now, Deathwatch can be very enjoyable when it is used to play a stand-alone adventure or a brief campaign, but it needs an errata and more supplements to provide a more robust role-playing experience.
Style: 5. There are some spelling mistakes and editing mistakes, but not enough to detract from the style quality. Substance: 4. With a proper errata and FAQ I would not hesitate to give it a 5.
