Quote from: Windjammer;413218Ladies and gentlemen, I present the review which turned me off buying Deathwatch. Bless this guys at DarkReign for cross posting their stuff at the fanboy HQ.

OK. So it's all about the "videogamey" aspects of the game for this guy, with "autowin" tactics and such. But at the same time, it's a "first blush" review: the guy doesn't read some of the background information and chapters in the book, and then says there are too many rules and there's not enough role playing in the book to him. Isn't that contradictory?

Larger topic of this thread: what do you think of Deathwatch? Did you play it? Share your experiences and opinions on the game.

I think it sets out to do what it's intended to do.  Create an RPG based around pretty powerful characters that work independently or as a team to tackle badass situations.    If you don't want to play an RPG based around Space Marines kicking ass then you probably don't want to play this game.  

It's group rules and it's mass killing rules are fantastic to emulate the setting and create a very cool dynamic with the group where players have areas to shine individually but still good reasons to act in tangent.  

I think it's a success if that's what you want.  If you are expecting it to be about struggling through and the tough grind you'd get from Dark Heresy but now with cooler gear, it's not the game for you.

Inever read the book, but I played a session and had fun.

I have the bitter tears of unmet expectations... but then I've got five years or so of waiting for it, and twenty plus years of wanting something Just.Like.It...

... so take that with a grain of salt.

No. It is perfectly serviceable for what it is. Perfectly servicable is a 'dog whistle' term for 'its a good fucking game'.  Solidly built on the framework of its predecessors without being a too simple take on them (I like that the Space Marines have both a 'core' progression chart and a 'specialty' progression chart, cutting down redundancy and avoiding mishaps where, say, a Librarian can't use a Bolter because some bonehead forgot to put that talent in his list or some such...)

There are a few editorial choices that make it a little denser than it needs to be.  Listing the effects and processes of every one of the 19 Geneseed implants is a little over the top. Repeating them all in the 'special rules' section where half of them consist of 'contributes to Unnatural Strength' makes it a little more opaque than it needs to be for new players, likewise putting the rules effects of chapter and solo 'tactics' at the very end of the book instead of 'grouped' with all the other Space Marine rules is sort of... silly.

On the other hand, the fluff was surprisingly good, all things being equal.

On chapters: However: There are ONLY twenty 'core' chapters (18...) and a full half of those went evil.  Instead of putting in a 'successor chapter of unknown provenence' such as the Storm Wardens, why not simply detail all 9 or so of the First Founding Chapters that still exist (which, Ironically, would remove the Black Templars...) and list some of the famous succcessor chapters under them?  Given that many successor chapters do deviate enough to justify their own entree you still have material to expand into with later books without making that poor 'Raven Guard' fan in the corner weep bitter tears for being the last girl at the ball to dance.

Of course: They may have tried to cram TOO MUCH into the Jericho Maw. Tau and Tyrannids and Chaos Oh MY! No Necrons or Eldar?

Wait? No Eldar? This is the third game in the setting and still Eldar are given short shrift? Man, someone at the black library hates those nancies.  

I mention the Necrons specifically:  When the Deathwatch was first mentioned/explained they were specifically mentioned as watching over worlds where the C'tan slept... at the time the C'tan were pretty much a cipher. Now, of course, we know they lead the Necrons to exterminate everything...  

And there you have it. Deathwatch on a stick.

I haven't gotten a look at it yet but I wonder if it has anything to offer to someone who is interested in the setting but has NO interest in playing games with Space Marines as PCs?
To my mind they are combat-drugged near-automatons... raging religious zealots with no life outside of battle and devotional rituals. I can't seen any joy in playing such a thing (outside of a wargame)... but maybe I'm missing something.

Not much. It definitely does not go into 'drugged out' territory... speaking of: Where did you see Space Marines as drug freaks?  Not that its important...


At best it does provide information on Tau and Tyrannids if you wanted to use them as threats in your Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader game... not worth a 60 dollar core book, and stats for 'Astartes' weapons and armor (better than the regular stuff... which... um... disconnect, but I'll leave it at that), again, not really worth buying a core book for.

The Jericho Reach 'sector' may be worth it too you, and its well detailed, maybe better than the Kronos Expanse in Rogue Trader in some ways.

There is also the squad cohesion rules, which could be adapted to a non-Deathwatch, Non-Spacemarine game involving lots of military/psuedomilitary characters in a warzone.

Taken individually there isn't much to justify the price if you are not a Space Marine fan.  Taken together it is still a hard sell for the non-fan.

For the fan (moi), no question.

Quote from: Spike;413425Not much. It definitely does not go into 'drugged out' territory... speaking of: Where did you see Space Marines as drug freaks?  Not that its important...

That might be my prejudiced reading of various bits of fluff over the years... aren't they chock full of stimulants and synthetic organs? Mental 'purity' indoctrination to ensure they stay in line? What do they do besides fight stuff? Is there much in the way of intra-chapter intrigue as there is with the Inquisition?
In general I wouldn't have much interest in playing any sort of military character anyway so it sounds like it's not for me... unless they somehow really push them as questing knights... or something.

As the game line has progressed, the abstraction level of the games has increased.  Rogue Trader had Profit and Ventures, and Deathwatch has Cohesion and Solo/Team Modes.

Deathwatch isn't just written to let you roleplay Space Marines, it's specifically written to let you roleplay a 40k session and a lot of the terms/effects are straight out of the wargame.  It's quite metagamey, but not very dissociated so you're not ripped out of the setting immersion-wise.

It does what it was supposed to do, allow you to play Space Marines using the FFG 40k system with structural differences from Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader as fitting the topic.  In other words, the rules changes fit the change in focus perfectly.

The background and setting is very well done and there is quite a bit of new information there.

If you want to play Astartes, this is your game, not 3:16.

Would the book be of use for PC Marine characters in Dark Heresy?

I wouldn't call Deathwatch bad per se, I'd just say it has the same problem all the 40K lines have of being really half-assed.

But it's even more prominent in this game, largely because this is the RPG where one would expect lots of big battles against all kinds of antagonists.  If any of the lines should look more or less like the wargame, this should be the one.

Here's my main problem with these big, shiny books: despite being twice as long as the usual RPG book and costing significantly more, I feel like I'm getting a lot less.

I feel like the Mongoose Traveller book had twice the content or more of the Rogue Trader book for less money and in a significantly smaller page count.  Just like Call of Cthulhu easily outclasses Dark Heresy and the old Twilight 2000 game outdoes Deathwatch.

I want to like these games.  I really, really do.  But what I end up doing is buying several very large and expensive books for each line and still end up with a tenth of the content I actually want.  It's just not doing it for me.

From what I can gather it looks piss poorly designed and horribly broken.

The antagonist section, again, is laughable. No orks, no eldar.

I really wish someone would buy my copy of Rogue Trader.

It's a pretty good game, but I wouldn't use it as an intro to the 40K roleplaying experience.

It's a military game. Military games are the toughest sorts of RPGs to make interesting over the long-term, IMHO, because you've got to have a real feel for the setting and the role of soldiers in it to rise above "This week your mission is to blow some more bad guys up".

It's easier to come to a non-fictional war with a lot of background knowledge than it is a fictional one. There's more sources, more perspectives, and you have the advantage of the situation having exceeded the bounds of a fiction writer's interest.

With fictional wars in fantastical settings, you've got to get yourself comfortable with the setting and develop some sense of how life works, what the concerns of ordinary people are, and how the individual soldiers are treated. Since most fictional settings, and Deathwatch is no exception, don't focus or think about those things, you've got to spend some time getting a sense of what your version of 40K is like.

Otherwise, it's just an endless sequence of "Fight the Tyranids. Fight the Tau. Fight some other bad dudes. Now do it all over again."

Quote from: Simlasa;413512Would the book be of use for PC Marine characters in Dark Heresy?

I think it would be of great use.  All kinds of weapons and armor, some Tau stats, etc.  Assuming the SM would be part of the Inquisitor's Retinue, he could still use all the Solo Mode abilities.   If he was the battle leader (and really, who else would be better), then maybe you could use a version of Cohesion and Team mode where only the SM can use the powers.

The only thing you'd have to worry about is the experience ratio, which is different and the ability costs, which actually would hurt the SM quite a bit, as DH levels of xp would leave him gaining slowly while everyone around him was piling on the Talents.

Deathwatch works much, much better as the "Astartes Supplement" for Dark Heresy or Rogue Trader, then Rogue Trader works as the "Space Travel" supplement.

However, breaking out an Astartes against something DH guys could take in combat would be overkill.  So I guess you have something else to worry about as the Astartes is going to be the Battle Leader/Tank/DPS all in one.

Its crap. Just like all other 40k RPGs were crap, because they're only one-third of an RPG.  This one may not even be that, based on what I'm reading.

RPGPundit

In the two games I've played I liked it quite a bit.  I feel like I'd need to play it a lot for to get a feel for its strengths and weaknesses.

At it's heart it is a war game though.  It's the Halo: Reach of tabletop games.  You're a group of superhuman soldiers sent into situations that the regular grunts can't handle, and you're expected to get the job done.

My only complaint so far is the price (damn full color glossy paper), and the fact that the character sheet looks like shit, and isn't printer friendly.