Battle Simulation

Space Marine the video game is coming out next week for all of you unawares, but for many it’s not too late to preorder your copy, and depending where you preorder, there are a lot of options of in game goodies.

Preordering from Gamestop will give you the Emperor’s Elite Pack, which features skins for the Space Wolves and Black Templar skins for multiplayer

Preordering from Bestbuy will give you the Traitor Legion pack, which gives you access to the Iron Warriors and Emperor’s children for multiplayer

Preordering from Steam will give you the Blood Raven’s pack, which gives you access to their armor combinations, as well as a free copy of the game Darksiders

Preordering from Amazon will give you access to a Golden relic Chainsword

Preordering from Walmart will give you access to a golden relic Bolter

And preordering from THQ will give you a power chain sword to rip through your enemies.

Expect to see my review of the game soon after it comes out.

Posted in Intel | Leave a comment

The Crusade continues

Deathwatch rarely goes after the Heritic, but the one known as Heretical Jones had to feel the emperor’s fury, and I personally went after the foul heathen, who we found was plotting with the Xenos. After a long and protracted campaign, victory was ours, and another system of planets purged of the foul smelling lot.

However, new initates to the Deathwatch are required. If you’re in or near the sector that contains Echelon, New Jersey and are near their games workshop, I will be running new recruits through dangerous missions this Saturday, August 20th with my trusted battle brother Captain Palinus. If you believe you’re up to the task.

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Purge Complete

There Heretical control of this station has been purged. We are investigating how they got control at current. A warning to ignore their obscene heretical information, but until we can figure out how to take it down, it will be left up for study by the Inquisition. All who believe they have read it or are suspected of reading it should/will report to the chamber of vigilance for mind cleansing.

Thought of the Day: A single thought of heresy can blight a lifetime of faithful duty.

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We Captured it for Chaos!

Hellllllo. Hello? Is this thing on?

Hiiiiiii,

There is nothing wrong with your transmission. Well, really, there is. We control the Horizontal, the Vertical, and…all the other good directions.

My name is Heretical Jones, and I’m a little crazy. Hehe, little crazy. We decided that we’re taking over this site from the stupid deathwatch. Little crazy. heheheHahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

ahem.

Anyway, I thought we’d take over from that stale and stuffy Deathwatch. They’re always “We have to kill the xeno for the corpse. Bladeeblahdeeblah”. Don’t they realize that if they came over to chaos they could kill anybody they wanted? Or do anything they wanted! The universe is your Ambull! You just have to wrestle it to the ground and crack it open to get to it’s juicy meat inside. Just makes me salivate thinking about it.

That’s why you should go and get Black Crusade once it’s out. It takes out all that order crap that defines all those others. No more Ranks, just buy all the advances you want! And, if you start buying certain ones, you start getting the dark gods favor. You could be a charismatic perfect being for Slannesh, or a Blood thirsty killer for Khorne. Or you could be like me, and dabble in all four.

All it costs is your soul. And maybe your sanity.

But good news! They’re overrated anyway!

Thought for the Day: DEATH TO THE FALSE GOD

Posted in Codex Astartes | Tagged as: Chaos | Leave a comment

Honor your Machine Spirit

I must have missed a litany or two while posting. I finished up some posts in good time, tried set them up to auto post, and left them to work on other things for the site. Friend of mine tells me the posts aren’t up, and I come back. Find out that not only have they not gone off, but some of them are missing!

Great.

I’ll break out the incense and the oil. Get this straightened out. Mean time, I recovered and posted them up manually.

With your strength you protect me,
With my care I repair you,
With sacred oil I appease you,
Be quiet, good spirits,
And accept my benediction.

Posted in Watch Fortress Reports | Tagged as: Abysmal Failure | Leave a comment

Honor your armor!

To some, Astartes Power armor is just about two things. The Strength bonus, and the armor points. But that’s not all it offers you, and some of them are pretty damn handy.

Auto Senses: Easily one of the most forgotten. Helmet gives you Dark sense, and depending on the model, can give you up to +15 on your awareness checks!

Vox link: Not only lets you talk to your Battle Brothers, but also lets them know how you’re doing with a built in bio sensor.

Recoil Suppression: Allows you to one hand your boltgun. Like the God Emperor intended!

Osmotic Gill Life Sustainer: Long as your helmet is on, you’re environmentally sealed. Take that poison gas.

Bio-injectors: Giving you +10 to resist toxic since the early 31st millennium.

Magnetized Boot Soles: Clamps you on in Zero G, but who says it doesn’t have other uses?

Pain Suppressant: Get your dose of vitamin M! Allows you to resist the effects of critical damage 1d10 rounds and help you shake off stunned in one round or less.

And Nutrient Recycling: May not taste good, but means you don’t have to carry food around for two weeks.

Thought for the Day: Waste not what the Emperor has provided for you!

Posted in Strategic Assets | Tagged as: Stuff for Players | Leave a comment

Chronos synchronized

Deathwatch takes place in the 814th year of the 41st millennium, if you like to keep to the time line. I thought it might be useful to outline what has and hasn’t happened thus far.

So….

It’s been two years since three craftworlds came together to stop hive fleet Naga, but a single Tyranid, the Doom of Malan’tai ravaged that craft world.
It is 83 years until the Necrons will ravage Sanctuary 101, marking the first real imperial encounter and the awakening of the Necrons. However, they have been unofficially encountered several times before.
It has been 72 years since the Tau were rediscovered amongst the eastern fringes, their first real discovery happening almost 5,000 years prior
It has been 69 years since the Tyranids attacked Tyran, giving them their name sake. In that same year, they attacked Macragge and failed, but at great cost to the Ultramarines.
It is 87 years until the Balab war, where the Astral Claws start their revolt and general path downward to becoming the Red Corsairs twelve years later.
It’s been 76 years since the last founding, the 26th
The third war for Armageddon won’t happen for another 184 years. For that matter the second war won’t happen for another 128 years. The first war, covered up by the Inquisition, happened 370 years ago.
It’s been around 59 years since the Warp Gate to the Jericho Reach has been discovered. 37 since the crusade has been launched.
It’s 149 years till the ill fated voyage of the Fire Hawks into the Warp, which will 23 years later will see few of them return as the Legion of the Damned.
In 131 years, Fyodor Karamazov’s clash with the head of the Ecclesiarchy over his burning of people. Probably from his walker too.
Logan Grimnar has been the Chapter Master of the space wolves for 155 years.
In 174 years a few orks will have the brilliant idea to invade Rynn’s World, and try to take on the Crimson Fists. Surprisingly it seems to go well for them, at least at the start.
In 41 years, Ultramarines will drop for the Assault on Black Reach
616 years ago, DeKere’s World bore one Gregor Eisenhorn. 24 years later, he was an inquisitor. His legend goes from there.
In 178 years, Ursarkar E. Creed, in his first act as Lord General of Cadia, will use his tactical genius to punch Ulthwé in the face.
In 162 years, Marneus Calgar will be rebuilt after loosing all of his limbs in a skirmish with the Tyranids. It’s M41 folks. They had the technology
The tendrils of Hive Fleet Kraken will spread out in 176 years to try to consume Terra. However, the Inquisition made a purge several years earlier, even on Earth, of what was a Genestealer infestation. The maw of Leviathan will open in 183.
And in 185 years, that little scamp, Abbadon the Despolier will start his 13th black crusade out of the eye of terror. It’s been 665 years since his last failure, but with everything else that is going on, maybe he’ll have a better chance this time.

Thought of the Day: A hundred thousand worlds, ten hundred thousand wars. There is no respite, there is nowhere to hide. Across the galaxy there is only war.

Posted in Imperial Primer | Tagged as: Fluff | 1 Comment

Sector Map: The Jericho Reach

To start off our new section in the Imperial Primer, I thought a good start might be where it all takes place. The book setting for Deathwatch, and where we get our namesake, the Jericho Reach.

The Jericho Reach sector is a little war-torn slice of hell in the galactic southeast of the Imperius Dominatus. Once considered a jewel of the Imperium, warp storms cut it off from the Emperor’s light, and in the darkness Dark Gods, Xenos, and feral barbarity moved in. The Achilus Crusade has been launched to take it back, but their forces are flung into what is essentially a cage fight with the enemies of man. And watching them from the shadows is a group that’s always been there. Everyone’s favorite Marines in Black.

What? No. Not the Black Templars. No, not the Mortifactors either. Raven Guard? No….. DEATHWATCH! OK? ITS THE DEATHWATCH!

The story of the Reach starts way back. Conquerored late in the game in the Great Crusade, it was quite a bloody battle to get it into the fold, with a few alien civilizations having to be put down and a few bloody revolts (And being the 40k universe, such things have been covered up or forgotten). It was also a battle ground during the Horus Heresy, but when the smoke finally cleared, it became a jewel for the imperium. A shining beacon of light so far from Terra.

But with most good things in the 40k universe, that didn’t last very long. During the Age of Apostasy, when the rest of the rest of the Imperium was on the brink of civil war, strange happenings started to occur in the region. Astropathic messages not going through, and more and more ships being lost in the warp. What was actually happening was that a powerful group of warp storms started to surround in the region. And cut off from the rest of the Imperium at large, to put it mildly, all hell broke loose.

Within a generation, most of the planets within the sector fell into barbarity and chaos. Civil wars and unrest ravaged worlds, either turning them into radioactive wastelands, or blasting them back to the feudal ages. The sector capitol, Varrus was swallowed up by their the Hadex Anomaly, the Jericho Reach’s own little Warp Disturbance. Samech, one of the most prized Forge worlds, became a seat for the dark mechanicus, trading with whomever brings them something interesting, or slaves to be used in their experiments. Planets like Castobel, that survived the horror intact, were few and far between. Darkness fell over this whole sector, and it was written off by the Imperium as lost in the late 37th millennium.

However, some things have changed.

It was the Jericho-Maw Warp gate that suddenly put eyes back on the the Reach. In the Kronos Expanse, the exact opposite direction of where the Reach is, a large artifact of unknown origin was found that was mysteriously active. Inspection proved that it was a gateway into the Jericho Reach, and eager to bring this territory back into the fold, a crusade was launched to take it back. Thousands of ships carrying millions of troops have traveled through the Warp gate, flooding the sector with Imperial Guard, Companies of the Adeptus Astartes, Missions of the Sisters of Battle, and even there are rumors of some Grey Knights being in the ranks of the Crusade. But they have their work cut out for them, because Chaos isn’t the only contender anymore.

The Tau have set their sights on the Jericho Reach, and are starting their expansion for the greater good. And from the cold depths of the galactic rim, Hive Fleet Dagon has started it’s decent, feeding on worlds recently taken by the Imperium. Now fighting a war on three fronts, the Crusade is threatened to be bogged down and pushed back.

And then there’s the Deathwatch. They have always been there at Eroich, and survived the Age of Shadow, and are not only aware of what’s happening with the crusade, but keeping their eyes open for even greater dangers that loom on the horizons.

Some say the end times are coming. Some say they’re already here. But there are many Inquisitors at Watch Fortress Eroich who are convinced that the Jericho Reach is going to play a part in it.

Thought of the day: Abhor the Night, it is the Light that Endures!

Posted in Imperial Primer | Tagged as: Fluff, Sector Map | Leave a comment

Epic Warfare

In RPG games, you can use abstract methods of representation. It works well just to say where players are, but where’s the fun in that?

For the campaign I’m running right now, which is the battle for Castobell (Coming soon to the website), once we finish it, I made up a very large and broad campaign that would cover several sessions. The players, relatively new Deathwatch members, are in charge of gathering the defenses of Castobell before the main hive fleet arrives. I gave their group access to a few vehicles and a Thunderhawk to ferry them around, and they have to plan out what they’re doing on a session by session basis.

Now, I wanted to make a map, but rather than just printing it out, I came up with a different approach. We had just finished up playing planetary empires, and poor Paul was complaining that the rules were good, but using the map was just too difficult. So, since the tiles weren’t in use, I made up this.

This went over pretty well. But then I took it one step further. I found a good amount of epic sized miniatures to use on the map, and now it’s really gone over well.

They really don’t serve a purpose overall I guess. But there is just some excitement in seeing the minis out on the board representing the battle as it unfolds. Not just for me, but the other members of the group as well. It’s almost like being a kid again, seeing the map there and the vehicles on it, knowing where they are so they can be moved around. Being able to touch them. Paul even painted up that black Rhino in the middle as a deathwatch Rhino. It’s really been cool.

If I’m honest though, some of it wasn’t exactly cheap. Rather than going to Games workshop, I opted for Ebay, and found some really nice deals compared to new prices, however, still a bit exorbitant. Each of the rhinos basically cost me around 50 cents to a dollar, the three dreads came in for five. The cheapest was the Ork Battle Wagons at about 50 cents a piece. The thunderhawk was the most expensive at thirteen dollars, which was a steal compared to the 25 dollars that GW charges for them new. I also really like the paint job on it, even if it is Dark Angels colors rather than Deathwatch. But if I bought it new, I’d be painting (and failing) at it myself.

Now if you’re looking to try this on your own, make note to just watch the bottom line. It can get expensive quickly, and their size is deceiving. Those Dreads are actually mounted on nickels, for size comparison. I was actually shocked at how small they are when I did it too. However, even when buying them, I didn’t try to go for full on accuracy, but rather tried to figure out what I could use pieces for. For instance, the Red dread I’m using to represent one of the head guys in the Ork Mob, and the Leman Russ I got I’m using as a predator, simply because the predators cost too much. This kept costs down but kept the magic alive.

Also if you’re planning on trying this, remember to watch out for the marks. Epic has been around for quite a while as well, and their first first models..well….

Old Thunderhawk

New Thunderhawks

Some like them. Some don’t. I prefer the newer one myself.

A cheaper alternative though, if you’d like, and I only thought of this afterward, is to buy up some micro machines or pull out some of your old one as representations. A few older military micros might be just what you need.

It really depends on how far you want to go with it, and how much money you’re willing to spend. Me? Don’t think I’ll be buying much more of these guys. Think I got enough.

Thought of the Day: A small mind is a Tidy mind.

Posted in Strategic Assets | Tagged as: Epic, Stuff for GMs, Vehicles | Leave a comment

Communications Restored

For the past two weeks, I’ve been really busy. Hosting two deathwatch sessions two weekends in a row sucked up most of my time. But both were successful, and fun was had at both by all who participated.

But now I’m back, and I know I owe you guys a lot of posts. And I’m getting them lined up. All this week I’ll be posting, and there will be changes and new things added to the site. I’ll post each article as I finish them, but it should amount to at least one a day, if not more.

So settle in, check a few times a day, and lets see what I can come up with.

Thought for the Day: A mind without purpose will wander in dark places.

Posted in Watch Fortress Reports | Leave a comment

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