Deathwatch: It's like shooting 'nids in a barrel

Friday night I got together with some friends and ran the introductory adventure for the Deathwatch RPG, titled Final Sanction. The players formed a deathwatch kill-team coming in to clear out some tyranid infestation and general genestealer mind control on the local populace. The party has an assault marine, devastator, tactical marine, and apothecary. Each of the available classes fills a unique role, and they mesh together to support each other very well on the battlefield. What I liked in particular was the tactical marine's ability to fire bolt weapons better than other soldiers, which allows him to weild a simple bolter and still not be completely overshadowed by the heavy-bolter weilding devastator at ranged combat.

Overall the group seemed to have some good fun. They defended their drop zone from waves upon waves of enemies and then worked their way through a local Planetary Defense Force (PDF) base to get some support and rally the local militia. They finished up the night by securing the imperial weapon storage facility and reloading on some gear.

There's a lot more stuff to do, and a second adventure has also been provided. Both adventures are available for download on Fantasy Flight Games' Deathwatch website. We plan on running through these adventures and pick up the game a little bit when it releases next month. One of my friends wishes to join the game with a throne agent instead of a space marine, and so I've been looking over the rules in Dark Heresy: Ascension, and it looks like things will mesh up pretty nicely. For now I'm allowing him to build up and play one without taking all the special attack talents as the pregenerated characters in the Deathwathc adventure have a lot of rules stripped out. Still, he is able to sit pretty much on par with the party aside from lacking the strength and toughness boosts that are typical for a space marine.

I will provide a more in-depth analysis of the system and its parts over the coming weeks and months as I get more familiar with it. It looks like a great diversion from traditional 40k while still allowing us all to get immersed in the setting on a more intimate scale.