Second, they let you combine aesthetics and conversion details from every chapter in the Imperium. On the modeling side, Deathwatch are great for two reasons: First, they have the most recent (and possibly last) small marines kit ever made, and it’s fantastic – covered with lots of options and extra bits.

And if you’re a fan of wonky rules interactions and weird corner cases, the Deathwatch mixed squads and combat squads rules have plenty of silly interactions for you to play off of, even with their more streamlined versions in this update.

From storm bolters on veterans to single Infiltrators in a squad to power sword bikers, there are lots of interesting combos and ways to build your army. This means armies that contain fewer models and give you more opportunities to use different interesting loadouts and kits. On the battlefield Deathwatch tend to operate as an elite army of specialized units, where every model is a veteran kitted out with the best custom wargear you can afford. One reason to play Deathwatch is because you want to build a marine army that uses lots of different weapon loadouts and a smaller number of models. They tend to operate in specialized squads called Kill Teams that mix units with different armor types and weapon loadouts, allowing them to operate with greater flexibility. Unlike the Grey Knights, the Deathwatch isn’t a standing chapter of its own but rather pulls from chapters around the galaxy, taking elite warriors from other chapters and training them for a time in a kind of special service before they return to their chapter. Now folded into the broader Space Marines army, Deathwatch have access to nearly the full suite of tools that other chapters have, plus some nasty tricks of their own.īut how do these new rules stack up, and do they make the Deathwatch a compelling army? Let’s dive into the new book to find out.ĭeathwatch are the elite Xenos-hunting ranks of the Adeptus Astartes, specially trained and outfitted to deal with alien threats to the Imperium, kind of like an anti-alien version of the Grey Knights. All of that changed with the release of Codex: Space Marines however – thanks to the new codex and the Index, Deathwatch suddenly got a massive influx of new units and abilities, and that has continued with the release of their own Codex Supplement. They had some reasonable play in soup lists, but since the second Codex: Space Marines dropped in September 2018, they’ve struggled to win games with an armory and unit pool that suddenly looks inferior to their more generalist cousins. Lacking in unit variety, fragile, expensive, and struggling with some functions, monofaction Deathwatch were a tough army to play and play well. 8th edition was, on the whole, pretty rough for Deathwatch.

Where do space marines keep their ammo