Hey folks, we’re back with a holiday release breakdown for the new Battleforce army groups. Games workshop has four of these for Warhammer 40,000 and four for Age of Sigmar. Today we’re taking a look at the brand new Deathwatch bundle, and we’ll breakdown the units you’ll get and what you can do with them. These holiday bundles are currently estimated at the 165-170$ price point, so these represent considerable savings. Let’s dig into the big box and see what it has inside.
Deathwatch Watchblade Taskforce
The Deathwatch Watchblade Taskforce comes with 27 miniatures. Presumably if used as depicted, it will match a formation called the Watchblade Taskforce, (hopefully included in the box). It’s an excellent starting point for collecting a Deathwatch army, let’s break down the box.
- 1 Watch Master
- 1 5 man Deathwatch Bikers
- 3 5 man Deathwatch Kill Teams
- 1 5 man Deathwatch Terminators
- 1 Razorback/Rhino (Built as a Razorback for the formation).
The Deathwatch is a small, extremely elite fighting force. This box gives you ample varieties and methods of showing that off on the tabletop. Many of the Deathwatch formation options encourage you to mix terminators/bikes and regular marines within squads, so from an experimental standpoint, this collection gives you the parts to tinker with that idea. Moving forward, you’ll have a solid core to pick up additional options for your army.
Note, that the Deathwatch does not have a start collecting box, but there are a couple of choices you could use to fill that space. First up, the Furor/Malleus kill Team
For the same price as a start collecting box, The Furor/Malleus Kill Team gives a new player a 5 man Kill Team, and a 5 man squad of Deathwatch Terminators. You can use these to fill out the existing squads in your army, or you can build either the Furor Kill Team or the Malleus Kill team as they show up in your codex. This set will make a fine addition to any Deathwatch army.
The other two options are a little different, and require some thinking on your part, but can certainly be useful.
Warhammer 40,000: Death Masque
I know some of you are wondering why there are funny looking clowns in this Deathwatch Box. That’s okay, those are Harlequins, one of the Eldar (Space Elf Groups). The idea behind this purchase is to split it with a friend, meaning he or she ends up with the nimbly space elves, and you end up with the Deathwatch half of the box. You two can sort out who gets the rules and such. (If you split this purchase with a friend, this nets you out about 75$, depending on your FLGS)
From a unit pick up standpoint, you pick up another 5 man kill team, a 5 man Vanguard Veterans team, A Deathwatch Dreadnought, and an exclusive character, Brother Captain Artemis. It also has the additional benefit of netting you a copy of the rulebook if you don’t all ready have one.
Kill Team Cassius
Kill Team Cassius is a squad of special characters that you can take as a Deathwatch player. They’ve got a little bit of everything, and you can choose which models you want to field when you construct your army. They’re a Swiss army knife for dealing with problems, so you could do a lot worse than picking up the Kiill Team Cassius unit.
Closing Thoughts
The Deathwatch operates in small, extremely skilled units and with the Watchblade Taskforce you can have a lot of fun putting that into practice on the tabletop. The options I’ve listed as first choices to add on to your army are ideas. If you find something you want more (like one of those Corvus Blackstars) get one.
You’re going to have a lot of fun with this army, and learning its quirks. From a hobbyist standpoint, the army color scheme is pretty easy to get down, but you have a ton of options for making your force truly your own.
