Deathwatch - Brother Mortis's Continuing Adventures...

Well we've been playing Deathwatch pretty much every Saturday for months now so our characters have all come on a long way. We usually spend the whole day at it so we get some fairly substantial missions done.

Over recent months we've captured a Chaos Ship, Cleared a planet of Chaos taint,  Wiped out a Hive Fleet, Cleansed a Space Hulk of Orks (part of which used to be an Imperial Fist Star Fort so we managed to get them some of their relics back as well) and most recently we've had to help out one of the Imperial Fist Strike Cruisers that had come for the aforementioned relics when some followers of Nurgle managed to sneak aboard the vessel using methods that were never really explained adequately.....

What do you mean, I don't look like an Imperial Fist.....

Rather amusingly the leader of the Plague Marines was a former member of our kill-team that we'd presumed had simply returned to his own Chapter. Well as an Imperial Fist I suppose he sort of had.....just not in the way we thought. I'm now eagerly awaiting all the other 'guests' we've had start reappearing in various ways.....No wonder we've got a fucking Chaplain attached to the team now, lol.

The team now consists of a Librarian and a Devastator (the only original characters remaining), A Black Shield Apothecary, My Techmarine (not technically an original member as they'd already done a single session when I started), a Chaplain and a 'Keeper' NPC who's controlled by our GM. We've also had a few 'guest appearances' from other friends for one or two missions but they usually die heroically the next session when our GM gets bored of controlling them on the absent players behalf.

Brother Mortis is now mostly augmented bionics rather than flesh though some organic components do remain. I also had to slightly alter his character model to take into account his 'Signature Wargear' Storm Bolter,

Of course with all the extra hardware he has now, I'm working on a completely new model to represent him and as I'm only 75 XP away from being able to take the 'Forge Master' advanced speciality which gives me Artificer armour, a Servo Harness and a Power Axe* I'll need to add all that stuff as well.

* For some reason the Forge Master only gets a standard Power Axe rather than the far more appropriate Omnissiah Axe. I may have to start negotiating with my GM about that....

My GM has also started insisting on quite detailed reasons for anything other than bog standard upgrades and equipment which forces me to write stuff like this,

"Brother Mortis held his detached forearm in place with his Servo Arm and carefully reattached the neuro connections and servo actuators that joined it to the upper part of his bionic left limb. Once the connections were completed he ran through the sacred rituals of blessing in order to placate the Machine Spirits within. His limb had been designed specifically with this upgrade in mind so it had taken almost no time at all to complete the integration, besides which the enhancements themselves were well known by the Techpriests of a dozen Forge Worlds so the necessary rituals and blessings were freely available (to those initiated in the ways of the Omnissiah at least) and relatively simple to apply...

The Firing Ranges and training areas were almost completely empty as most of the Deathwatch Marines on board were preparing to deal with the recently encountered Space Hulk in one way or another. Mortis activated a combat Servitor and prepared for his newest systems first true test run.

The close combat equipped Servitor jerked clumsily into life and began to advance towards the Battle Brother in front of it, it's simple system programmed with a single purpose.....destruction.....whether it's own or that of it's target however meant nothing to it.....

With the speed of pure thought Mortis activated the weapon now integrated into his left forearm and there was a satisfying mechanical hiss as the firing port in the palm opened up and the unmistakable barrel of a Bolt Pistol slid into place through its carefully aligned counterpart in the Armoured Glove of the Marine's Power Armour. Targeting systems in his helm aligned perfectly with the direction of his outstretched arm and a burst of explosive shells hurtled towards the mindless automaton destroying much of it's armour plating. A second and a third burst tore into the unit at various locations but none of them were particularly critical. Of course had Brother Mortis intended it's destruction then it would now be little more than scrap but then that meant his other new addition could not be tested...

The bulky barrel of the Bolt weapon retracted into it's housing at the same time as a blade slid smoothly from the back of Mortis's other Arm and locked into place, Power flowed from his Potentia Coil through specially designed connections in the blades killing edges. Though having nowhere near the penetrative power of a true Power Weapon it nevertheless increased it's killing power by a satisfying margin. Belying his tremendous bulk Mortis avoided the first swing of the servitors Power Fist having calculated it's most likely direction of attack with startling speed and accuracy and drove his Blade through the gap created by the Bolt rounds and into a vital system in the drones chest...Genetically and Bionically enhanced muscles tore the weapon sideways through the doomed Servitors primary cables and power core before decapitating it with a brutal back-swing. The Techmarine watched impassively as the broken and headless machine fell in a shattered heap on the floor.

The test had been the expected success, both his Bolt Pistol and Combat Blade were now fully integrated into his enhanced form and as an added bonus he no longer needed to think about where to carry them....."

Just to get a couple of Bionics that I'm only taking for 'Fluff' reasons anyway, lol.

As soon as I've made some progress with the new model I'll post some pictures but as I'm off to act as team photographer for a number of people going to the Throne of Skulls tournament in Nottingham this weekend it's unlikely that we'll get any actual Deathwatch done for a couple of weeks. Though on the bright side this means that you'll all have lots of pretty pictures to look at next week ;-)