Assemble the Deathwatch!

After wrapping up the Techmarine the other day I figured it might be a while before I paint any other troopers so I figured a muster shot was in order. I do have three other figures (two regular and one Terminator) to paint up, but they're not even in the HUD so they'll linger a while in the bits bins. Here's the breakdown...

Tactical, Apothecary, and Librarian Ultramarines

Tactical and Techmarine Black Templars

Tactical, Apothecary, and Assault Sons of Minos

Blood Angel and Salamander Tactical Marines

Devastator, Assault, and Tactical Dark Angels

The others I mentioned will get painted up eventually and added here, making for fifteen total Deathwatch troopers and a single Terminator Captain. They are; a White Scars tactical Marine, a Fists (Imperial or Crimson) Assault Marine, and the aforementioned captain whose parent chapter I don't know yet.

Mk6 Deathwatch Techmarine

On the eve of the last Deathwatch RPG game I finished up this figure for one of the players at the table. When rolling up his armor and armor histories he got both the Mark 6 Corvus armor as well as the "xenos foe" history. I don't remember the details exactly but basically his armor has the claw of some alien embedded in it. This old school Techmarine model is perfect for that since it has a Genestealer claw adorning the right shoulder.


Over at Constantly Ricking Obscurity there is an amazingly awesome tutorial on how to make your own servo-arms. It came about a month after I kit-bashed the one you see here, but it's good to know for future reference.


Of all the Deathwatch I figure the Techmarines are the most particular about their equipment, so I kept the backpack/servo-arm and the helmet traditional red. I also painted everything with a lot of wear-and-tear, scratches, dings, and dents. The right pauldron is covered by the Genestealer claw, so you can't see parent chapter livery (this Techmarine is a Black Templar) and the left pauldron looks to be a mass of nuts, bolts, and wires. Not exactly the Deathwatch symbol and crest, but I didn't want to hack up a classic model.

L to R: Librarian, Techmarine, Tactical, Devastator, and Apothecary

Here's the whole five-man team of RPG player character models. There is still one model missing, and that would be Andy's Space Shark assault marine (can't find any pics of it but here's some of his Deathwatch). Our RPG group is a little different from the tabletop group in that most of the RPG guys don't currently paint figures, that's why I painted all of these up for them to use in our Deathwatch sessions.

Deathwatch Techmarine WIP

Necessity being the mother of invention I had to whip up a servo-arm for my old-school techmarine. Also, my own Barter Bucket failed me and the part I thought would've been here by now never made it. As I type this up our Deathwatch game is tomorrow night, and this is the last trooper of the bunch I need to crank out.


After reading a post of Mike's a while back at Constantly Risking Obscurity, I saw there were a couple of kit-bashed servo-armed figs. I had asked and it seemed like old Mage Knight bits were used in part to make the packs.


I have a shoebox full of Mage Knight figs, but only a few of the figures that make up the 'steam punk' faction. I did have an robot-mecha thing with some cool arms that might work, but first I had to hack away the giant buzz saw blade.


As you can see I also clipped and used a LEGO piece for the pincer hand itself. In the end I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, the arm looks nimble and robust at the same time, and I absolutely love the way the ball-joint seems to mesh so naturally into the back pack. Speaking of the backpack, it was just a plain pack and I added an extra "techmarine-esque" doo-hickey on the back of it. Next up is to paint him, in one night apparently. He's technically from the Black Templars chapter, but there's really no place convenient I can show that. All right, it's time to get cracking, err, in about ten hours.

Deathwatch Kill-Team: Name Those Battle Brothers!

The first five Deathwatch troopers are done of my big batch. I have no idea how I chose these five, because they're not a squad by themselves, they're actually from all three kill-teams I had devised in the original planning. These guys were a blast to paint up, but the pics didn't turn out quite like I had hoped, the Black Templar for instance looks way too shiny when in person he's really not. I was going for a semi-gloss look to the armor however.

From the title of the post you might be wondering how we're going to name these guys. I stole this idea form the Sons of Taurus blog (which is really cool and should be checked out for sure) and I thought I'd try it here. SoT invited readers to name members of his Traitor Guard army, I got to name the Rough Rider tramplemaster "Gyro", which was cool.

Well, let's do the same kind of thing here, but there's a slight catch. You have to have had, or currently have, an army of the Battle Brother's particular chapter to name him. For instance, if you've got a Black Templar army, ahem BJ, you'd have first shot at naming the above Black Templar. If this is too restrictive, we'll just open it up to whoever wants to name a guy, but chapter holders get first dibs. Just leave a comment below, say who you are, what chapter you represent on the tabletop, and what the Battle Brother's new name is going to be. It can be whatever you want as like as it sounds, you know, stalwart defending soldier of the vast dominion of man, kind of name, no "Sgt. McFluffy McFlufferson" or whatever.


Apothecary: Ultramarine


Tactical Marine: Ultramarine


Tactical Marine: Salamander


Tactical Marine: Blood Angel Brother Malach


Tactical Marine: Black Templar


The shoulder pads are what make a Deathwatch team so fun, and even though everyone has the same color armor, you still get lots of variety here. As you can see, I'm sticking to chapters whose decals I have access to, I'm not feeling up to free-handing this stuff. This does mean I'll miss out some of the more flavorful chapter icons, like Space Sharks!


Not only did I try to individualize them by shoulder pads, but I also tried to paint each Battle Brother's gear in different and unique ways. Left to right up top; the Blood Angel has a short sword in a red scabbard, the Ultramarine has leather pouches and a holster, but the Salamander has green pouches, an assortment of grenades, and a Kroot pistol which I'm passing off as some kind of dueling laspistol trophy from some past campaign.


I only had a single apothecary backpack, nothing else, so I had to get creative for the rest of the medic's (left) accoutrements. An ammo missile pack, painted up to match the pack, came out looking not half bad and can certainly pass off as syringes and the like.

For the Black Templar (right) I went with white gear to match his shoulder pad. I really like the way these turned out too, it's a great contrast to the black armor, yet is so simple to pull off. The combat knife is from second edition, and the backpack is from the Games Day Emperor's Champion model that came out a while back.


Here's a shot of all seven Deathwatch members so far. As you can see, in addition to individualized gear, I also mixed of the colors of the boltguns for each trooper as well to further each trooper's distinction. This pic includes the most recent five I just painted up, Brother Elyas for the upcoming RPG, and my original test model. It's doubtful these guys will actually see action in an 'official' game of 40k. I intend to use them as PC avatars in upcoming games of Deathwatch, as well as "impossible odds" type special forces scenarios using the 5150 rules or the like. I still have my copy of Inquisitor as well, maybe dust those off a bit as well. By the way, go to the Specialist Games section of GW, and those Inquisitor rules are free!