When an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos requires warriors of absolute discretion and lethality, they turn to the Xenos Inquisitorial Cadres. These specialised kill teams are seconded to serve as an Inquisitor's personal blade, deploying to investigate alien incursions, recover forbidden xenos artefacts, and eliminate threats too dangerous to acknowledge openly. Their operations are cloaked in secrecy so deep that even other Deathwatch brothers may never learn what they have done.
Members of these cadres are chosen for temperament as much as skill, for they must operate in the morally treacherous world of the Inquisition, where alien knowledge is both weapon and poison. They may guard a captured xenos specimen, escort an inquisitor into a tomb, or purge an entire settlement that has been tainted by alien influence. Bound by oaths of silence and utter obedience to the Ordo Xenos, these warriors carry out the darkest work of the Deathwatch. They are the shadows within the shadow, and the galaxy is safer for the fact that so few will ever know they exist.
Deathwatch
Order of battle
The Xenos Inquisitorial Cadres field the units of the Deathwatch — a detachment from the roster:
Kindred formations
Other Deathwatch formations
Fort PykmanAn isolated Deathwatch watch fortress in the Ghoul Stars, holding the line against emergent Barghesi and waking Necron dynasties in the Imperium Nihilus.
Tyrannic War SpecialistsA doctrine as much as a formation, the Tyrannic War Specialists are Deathwatch warriors who have dedicated their Long Watch to the destruction of the tyranids. Steeped in the anatomy and instinct of the Great Devourer, they field munitions and tactics honed across countless battles against the endless swarm.
Watch Fortress EriochAnchored deep within the tyranid-haunted reaches of the eastern frontier, Watch Fortress Erioch is among the most storied of Deathwatch strongholds. Its garrison has spent generations charting the migrations of hive fleets and answering the alien incursions that plague the surrounding sectors, becoming masters of the surgical strike against overwhelming numbers.
Watch Fortress NostradaWatch Fortress Nostrada guards a haunted stretch of the galaxy where ancient tomb worlds lie buried and stirring. Its garrison specialises in the war against the necrons, maintaining eternal vigil over dynasties that could wake at any moment to reclaim a domain older than the Imperium itself.
Watch Fortress Talasa PrimeThe headquarters and foremost training world of the Deathwatch, a fortress-planet within Ultramar where kill-teams are forged against the xenos.