The Deathwatch Index is out, and It’s pretty much the same as the original index. So there isn’t much to say about the Index itself, but a quick rundown never hurt anyone.

The Army rule is Kill Teams which is how they deal with toughness mixing in their Kill Team units; these are units of mixed marine squads for those who’ve never seen Death Watch be played before. Which is like, 97% of players.

In short you use the toughness of the majority, if the majority is tied, you use the highest.

It also mentions that transports still use their regular rules for determining what can go inside. Fun.

You do also keep Oath of Moment, which is a bonus.

The detachment rule is called Mission Tactics and is much like Gladius where you can pick an ability every round but can’t re-pick that ability again later.

• Furor Tactics gives you Sustained Hits
• Malleus Tactics gives you Lethal Hits
• Puragtus Tactics gives you Precision on critical hits

These are all good and usable, with Purgatus being a fun piece of tech with Oath of Moment re-rolls.

The Detachment page also gives a list of restrictions for units you can take. It has all the usual “No Blood Angel models, No Dark Angel models, No Ultramarine models, etc. etc.” but also the inclusion that no “first born” marines can be taken and more importantly, no scout squads. That’s rough buddy.

Enhancements

Only here would they reverse the order of layouts for the detachments. I was very confused when stratagems came up first before these. Don’t do that please, Games Workshop.

Thief of Secrets is a cool 25 points and gives an Adeptus Astartes model +1 strength, armor penetration, and damage to their melee weapons. If you slay any models with the bearer, at the end of that fight phase increase the bonus to +2 instead for the rest of the battle. I had to read this over a few times to make sure it actually said model and not unit and as fa as I can tell, it is just one model. It makes a fun Smash Captain mini game. B+

Osseus Key goes on a Watch Master or Techmarine and for 15 points you can select an enemy vehicle within 12″ and force them to take a leadership test. If that vehicle passes, they subtract 1 from their hit rolls, if they fail, they can’t shoot. On the surface, the 12″ requirement is pretty bad. But with stratagems like Site-To-Site Teleportation make this very okay for the point cost. B+

Beacon Angelis gives the bearers unit Deep Strike and the ability to use Rapid Ingress for 0 command points. For 25 points this is a steal. Easy A+

The Tome of Ectoclades goes on a Watch Master or Captain model which once per battle lets you pick a second Oath of Moment target. It’s 30 points but I don’t know a Marine player that would say no to this. A+

Again, nothing really changed. Consider this all a reminder of what’s coming back.

Stratagems

For stratagems as always we will just skip over Armor of Contempt. It’s good. You know it’s good.

Adaptive Tactics lets you pick two Kill Team units or one Adeptus Astartes unit and give them a different Mission Tactic until the start of your next command phase. It’s good, it’s 1 command point, and flavorful for incentivizing Kill Teams. It won’t be something you spam every turn, but it doesn’t hurt to have the option. Classic A

The next three are the special ammunition’s stratagems. They’re all 1 CP, can only go on Kill Team units, and you can’t use two different ammunition’s on the same Kill Team. We’re going to rapid fire these off for the sake of not repeating the same thing over and over.

• Hellfire Rounds: Ranged weapons gain Anti-Infantry 2+ and Anti-Monster 5+. This does not apply to weapons with Devestating Wounds. If you were there at the start of 10th, you know why. This let’s you pick up infantry pretty reliably. The monster part is just a nice bonus. A+
• Kraken Rounds: Ranged weapons gain 6″ to range and improve their armor penetration by 1. Fortis Kill Teams probably like this the most, but most things only become AP 1 with it, and cover exists, so…Probably a B. It’s Death Watch, I’m spit balling.
• Dragonfire Rounds: Gives you Assault and Ignores Cover. Speed is always good, cover exists. A

It’s more the Marine datasheets holding back how potent these can be than the stratagems themselves. They could become busted with the next dataslate if James Workshop doesn’t tread carefully. But it could be really fun to just go crazy with Hellfire rounds on some units. I hope Death Watch players enjoy it. All 5 of you.

Lastly, we have Site-To-Site Teleportation lets you at the end of the fight phase pick two Kill Team units or one Adeptus Astartes unit not in engagement range of enemy units. Put them into reserves and until the end of your next movement phase, they all have the Deep Strike ability.

This is obviously very good, but I have a feeling that the Deep Strike lasting only until the end of your next movement phase will be lost on people who try to read too fast. Like me. This is very good for mission play, and will likely be used every game. A+

Kill Teams are cool

There are four different Kill Teams and they actually have some pretty cool abilities, let’s talk about them.

Talonstike is the jump pack boys and they get +1 AP and Lance one the turn they Deep Strike. You’ll be going up and down a lot with Site-To-Site Teleportation so you won’t hate this. But 9″ Deep Strike is not something you should ever play around. If you’re reading this and just thought about how often you rely on a 9″ Deep Strike, maybe reevaluate.

Fortis is your bog-standard normal armor marines. Intercessors, Hell Blasters, and Infernus. They get +1 to hit against below-starting strength enemy units, and +1 to wound for below half-strength. These kinds of abilities have always been pretty underwhelming. But it’s still fun to make Hellblasters hit on 2’s I guess.

Indomitor is the Gravis kids. If you shoot the closest thing, or melee in a turn you charged, gain +2 strength. This is actually kind of good. Strength 10 Twin Power Fists goes hard. Or Strength 11 multi-metlas on the Eradicators.

Lastly is Spectrus which is all the phobos. who get to go into reserves if at the end of your opponents turn there are no enemy units within 6″. With the ability to give this unit Deep Strike via Beacon Angelis, this could be cute tech, if not a bit too expensive. Doesn’t help that phobos killing power is questionable on the best of days. Still, you love to see it.

Final Thoughts

“Josh, where’s the list section?”

Buddy, I don’t know a single person who actively brought Death Watch to events and placed well enough to talk about it in any capacity worth listening too. If someone reaches out, we’ll add something but I mean, let’s stay realistic.

Some interesting stuff shown to me while writing this was the points cost and unit sizes. It’s an expensive army for one, and the Kill Teams are all forced to be 10 models. No more, no less. MSU means something different here I guess.

Is this competitive? Well, it wasn’t last time it was out so I wouldn’t hold my breath.

But I’m just happy Death Watch players don’t have to bonfire their armies. It was crazy that a marine army got taken out of the game in 2024. And while it is unlikely that Deathwatch will get a Codex Supplement this edition, I hope they do in 11th though.

We can only hope that this mistake isn’t repeated again.

Tomorrows Custodes, which will be interesting given they just won Worlds. Will they be punished yet again for sins not of their own making?

Probably.

Be safe everyone, remember to drink water.