Our migration from Deathwatch to Wrath and Glory

Premise / A short overview of the setting

Ok, so in early 2017 we started a Warhammer 40k Adeptus Astartes Campaign titled The First Generation (or sometimes, the first harvest). 3 Players and 1 Master. We used the FFG’s Deathwatch Rules as basis but made some alterations to fit our setting. We would not start as full marines or even deathwatch but as Aspirants, chosen to become marines for the Doctors of Doom Chapter, more precisely, the 4th Company. We would create characters but without much of the boni of an astartes, so more like mere humans. E.g. attributes would be 25+2d10 (instead of 35+3d10) and we would be missing most of the skills and all organs for now. Chapters would be re-flavoured to represent different regions on the Chapters Recruitment Planet Latveria IV.

The first sessions would be training and slowly gaining some of the organs, in general we gained the additional +10 for some stats, some skills and some talents. We picked Archetypes and spend XP. Soon, we would go on our first mission, using the requisition rules. And later, we would add the rules for Solo and Squad mode, Oathes, and finally we rose to be fully accepted Battle Brothers, earning our place among our Brethren and the right to wear the ancient power armors. Well, let’s meet the gang.

Meet the Squad, the Party composition

The Squad consists of three Marines: From the House Isenwell (reflavored Storm Warden Chapter), we have Brother Ferris. An agile duelist that chose the garments of the Assault Marine. The other two came from the House Hironiat (reflavored Imperial Fist Chapter). One is a born leader, Yordrik ‘Steelvoice’. Born to lead from the front, he also was destined to join the Assault Marines. His fellow brother from the same house, was a Scout during is time as mere Human. His name is Gar, a quiet, determined and disturbing fellow that was accompanied by an animal companion: a falcon that he also called Gar. Oddly enough, the Master of The Forge, Brother Raziel, claimed this one, so he took the mantle of the Techmarines.

Reasons

Approximately 17 Sessions and 2 Years later, the Squad bordered Rank 3. And after the last session, we thought about switching to Wrath & Glory, due to the positive experience with the W&G system and the bad experience we had with the (in our view) complicated rules set of FFG’s Deathwatch system. We decided to convert the characters, see if that works for us, and if not, we would just stay (revert back to) Deathwatch.

Migration Approach

Together with our GM, we decided for the following Rules regarding the Character Creation.

The general Setting Tier would be Tier 3 and the respective Rules regarding ascension and archetype requirements would apply. Due to the lack of Assault and Techmarines, we would consider taking Archetypes from some of the Homebrews (check out the Vault!): The Emperor’s Angles or An abundance of Apocrypha. The Emperor’s Angles supplement would also provide us with rules for House Isenwell (read: Storm Wardens).

I want to talk a little about our Species choice. First, we considered making a Tier 4 Campaign and using Primaris as base (we would reflavour them as basic Adeptus Astartes because we do not follow the Primaris Timeline). But in the end, we thought Tier 3 would be more appropriate and leave more archetypes that would be fitting for our Lore. So Tier 3 it is. But we would gain some additional BP (quite a bit, read 130 BP) as a reward for our sessions played. The Rank would be determined by the GM (in this case, we would be Rank 2) and not by the BP gained. We also decided, that everyone needs to pick the Angel Of Death talent.

Condensed Creation Rules

So, here we have the condensed rules that we used:

• Framework/Setting is Tier 3 (300 BP as basis)

• Additional 130 Build Points, thus 430 Points

• Species is Adeptus Astartes (50 BP)

• Archetypes Restrictions: Any up to Tier 3 (~50 BP)

• Character Rank is 2

• Everybody must take the Angel Of Death talent (30 BP)

This leaves approximately 300 build points to distribute freely.

One final note. We also added a new Skill: Tactics (Intelligence). This will allow for some more distinction in addition to the related skills Leadership and Scholar.

The respective Characters

Let’s check with what we came up, shall we? As that is my character, I can go a little deeper into the thought process. I will explore the details of the other characters in a different post.

Brother Gar

Ah, the Techmarine. At first, I was tempted to use the Techmarine Archetype from one of the supplements. But then, in regard to the scoutish heritage of the character, I decided to take the Scout Archetype and Ascend with the Stay the Course Package. This would give me some custom gear and augments and also the Adeptus Mechanicus Keyword.

I then increased Attributes and Skills with a focus on

1. First: Agility, Ballistic Skill and Stealth, representing the Scout part.

2. And second: Intellect and Tech.

3. Finally, some supporting skills are: Awareness, Investigation, Pilot and Scholar.

Ok let’s check the Talents. Angel Of Death was mandatory and thus set. I wandered through the talent section multiple times, but couldn’t find one that hooked me. Finally, I decided the Bombardment talent would be fitting. It’s quite costly and I needed to convince my GM to ignore the Rank 3+ restriction (great success). I would reflavor the Talent so that it represents preparation by Gar, setting traps and explosives on key locations, to be triggered once the enemies are in place. His gift would allow him to estimate precisely where enemies would stand.

And that’s mostly it. There is some final tweaking to do, but I think this will work well. I build the character with the Forge (of course) and uploaded the respective PDF, if you want a closer look into the details…

Follow Up

That’s for today. Additional posts will follow, once I have the time to write some more. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed the view into our migration progress. Any questions or remarks regarding our approach?

I can also give more details on the narrative and history of the Recruitment World, the Chapter or the Characters, if you wish.