Hello!  I've grown tired of simply making new Chapters to suppliment the Deathwatch, so I've decided to expand my creative horizon to tackle something bigger.  Thus I'm announcing my newest project: The Deathwatch in the Dornian Heresy.

For those unfamiliar, it's an alternate universe created by someone at Bolter and Chainsword where instead of Horus, it's Dorn who betrays the Imperium and presents all the chaos legions as heroes and instead, all the loyalist legions turned traitor.  If you haven't heard of it, google it and read the pdf.  It's a very good read.

Anyways with the author's permission I've started statting up the legions in the hopes of one day creating alternate rules for players who are interested in trying something different to create a Deathwatch Kill-Team and explore this universe.  So far I've gotten the 4 loyalist legions featured in part one converted - the Thousand Sons, World Eaters, Word Bearers and the Emperor's Children.  I'll be starting work on the last 5 soon.

Please have a read through what I've done - I'm trying some slightly different things than what is currently presented in Deathwatch: maybe they'll work, maybe they wont.  Please let me know what you think.

Document here: docs.google.com/open

I'm looking for help if you are interested - While I'm confident I have the Space Marine stats more or less in hand, I've discovered I'm not all that good at creating custom adversaries, and I was hoping to recruit someone to help me make stats for the heretical legions, such as Vampiric Blood Angels, Iron Hand/Necron hybrids, Speed-Obsessed White Scars, Secessionist Ultramarines armed with Tau tech and more!

Thanks for your time and feedback!

 You definitely have my attention. I've always loved the idea of the Dornian Heresy. Not sure if I'll be able to help, but I'll offer any ideas I come up with.

I'm quite a fan of the Dornian Heresy era and even ran a Great Crusade (Rogue Trader/Deathwatch) game that turned into a Dornian Heresy game which really caught the players off guard. I had some stats made up for some of the Utramarine Successors gear like the Mk 16 Damocles armour I can share with you, I tried to avoid making the gear rules heavy and cumbersome as it is tempting to do so but might just bog down the game.

I played a member of the Alpha Legion in Gaius' aforementioned campaign. Off the top of my head, +5 Int and +5 Fel with easier access to various stealth and social skills.

I'm curious to see what you do with this. Best of luck!

Although at an initial first glance all of the loyalist legions seem quite well made I would express concern with regard to the listed damage and peneteration of  an astrates chain axe, it appears quite high in my opinion. They have the Legion Chainaxe in Black Crusade doing 1d10+5R Pen 3 damage with tearing and although it's only two points more damage thats often more than enough to make it an attractive offer. I'd be concerned that the ones you have included might be a little too good but that is just my opinion.

I think I found my MK 16 Damocles Power Armour rules, I just treated them as errant armour in all respects except they were 11 AP all over. I was just stating them like this to keep it simple however to show their more advanced technology you could potential improve the auto senses to +15 or even +20.

Gaius said:

Thanks for that.  I think I whipped up the chainaxe stats from a pre-errata book - I'll have to go in and fix that.  I'm currently debating the best way to do the Ultramarines armour.  Your idea is simple and effective, but I had an idea of actually lessening the AP value of the Armour compared to the standard Mk VII and adding a moderately-effective forcefield (rating of 50ish, overload on 10 or something).  It adds a few extra dice rolls, but plays up on their technological advances.

Either way I'm not worrying about that too much - I still have loyalist legions to take care of.

Heh, awesome.  Always loved the Dornian Heresy fluff... did the author ever finish the second part?  I really want to see what happened to the Salamanders and the Iron Hands.  Not to mention what he does with the other four "loyalist" chapters.

Gaius said:

On the issue of the chainaxe, there is a precedent for a Chainaxe dealing about the same amount of damage in Deathwatch. The Berzerker Axe in Mark of the Xenos, used by Khornate Berzerkers, deals 4 more damage than the chainsword. That'd come out to 1d10+7, basing off of the standard chainsword. Penetration would be 4, or if you're using errata'd stats for standard weapons, 3.

I like it alot. I hope you'll get the oppertunity to write up for the other legions as well. :)

Gurkhal said:

Thanks.  I'm working on the Iron Warriors right now.  It's a bit of a slog since they're not my favourite of the Legions.  After them, it's on to the Alpha Legion (real excited about that) and then on to the Night Lords hopefully before the final Legions are released in print.

I have a couple neat ideas for the Night Lords which hopefully will play out.

On a similar note, I'm looking for someone to assist me in creating adversary stats for some of the traitor legions, such as the White Scars Speed Marines and the Blood Angels Vampires and others.  If interested, please let me know.

Gaius said:

Love this idea. I'm going to try and do something similar. How did you do the characters? Did each player have both a RT and DW character? How did you handle the intermixing of game styles?

Where did you get the marine painter that does MkIV armor?

The Glen said:

I didn't.  I used artwork from the part 1 pdf.

Small update, I've mostly finished the Iron Warriors and have just started working on the Alpha Legion.  If anyone wishes to help me out, I'd like someone to work with and create some adversary stats for the Chaos Legions.  Think about it: teched-out Ultramarines, speed-obsessed White Scars and their daemon possessed bikes, vampiric Blood Angels, Necrontyr-Iron Hands… sounds like fun to me.

After a brief absence, I'm returning to this project and happy to say that I've finished both the Iron Warriors and the Alpha Legion.  I've updated the link in the first post and I'll post it again here.  The Night Lords are next, then I'll be up to date with all the Legions that have been posted thus far.

After the Night Lords, I'm going to try my hand at writing up the Chaos Legions, then it's on to writing up Advanced Careers for the Legions.  I'm hoping for at least one original career per legion and one that's re-appropriated from existing Deathwatch Material.

Please have a read and let me know what your feedback is.  The best way for me to finish this properly is to get feedback from those who will (hopefully) be playing it.

Enjoy! docs.google.com/open

 I like it, but a few minor proofing quibbles. Several times you misspell Alpharius as Alpharious. Also, you refer to the Adeptus Mechanicus as an Ordo in the Iron Warriors write-up. I don't believe the AdMech is referred to as such. If you mean the Inquisition, you might wish to make that clear.

If you're interested, I'm more than willing to offer my services as a proof reader for this project.

 I registered just to say awesome.  My only regret is that it is too difficult to fit these chapters in to a canon/standard Deathwatch game without resorting to the old "frozen in stasis before the Horus Heresy" trope.  Keep up the good work!