Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[SpaceWizardz]

I fucking hate ooga-booga Space Marines, they should be disciplined warrior monks (room for specific exceptions obviously), not gears of war meatheads damnit.
Astartes nailed this vibe nicely.

Aggression aside he's not really a meathead. He puts on a show for the Drukhari that captured him but once you get him back to the act 3 hideout he comes across as fairly intelligent.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

"nope, this shit is boring" and pulled us into a fight.

Based Marine

 

[skaraher]

I remember that SW were fine until one of the latter editions Codex went bonker with the wolf theme. Half of the items were "Wolf + noun" and they even introduced wolf riding units.

Also, from 1d4chan :

The Space Wolves remind me of a 13 year old’s first D&D character: very cool, special, powerful barbarian hero who is morally flawless but doesn't listen to authority and always does the right thing but don't you dare cross them. They get away with shit because they're so special and the rules don't apply to them, guys. They got to wage war on the Inquisition with a slap on the wrist, while the Celestial Lions were slaughtered for merely questioning the morals of the Inquisition. They get a free pass on mutation in a setting where that gets chapters purged. They drink and party while other chapters lose hundreds of brothers on meaningless, forgotten battlegrounds. They aren't even Vikings! The White Scars are Space Mongols. The Black Templars are Space Teutons. There are Space Rome. Space Egypt. Space Iroquois. But Vikings? No. They don't raid. They don't pillage. They don't terrorize. They don't explore, chart, map, and push boundaries. They just fuck around, being special, unique perfect little dudes who don't suffer in GrimDarkness.

They exist in the wrong game.

 

[Alienman]

Lol, they sound like some kind of favored by teachers bullies in school.

 

[Trithne]

I remember than SW were fine until one of the latter editions Codex went bonker with the wolf theme. Half of the items were "Wolf + noun" and they even introduced wolf riding units.

Also, from 1d4chan :

The Space Wolves remind me of a 13 year old’s first D&D character: very cool, special, powerful barbarian hero who is morally flawless but doesn't listen to authority and always does the right thing but don't you dare cross them. They get away with shit because they're so special and the rules don't apply to them, guys. They got to wage war on the Inquisition with a slap on the wrist, while the Celestial Lions were slaughtered for merely questioning the morals of the Inquisition. They get a free pass on mutation in a setting where that gets chapters purged. They drink and party while other chapters lose hundreds of brothers on meaningless, forgotten battlegrounds. They aren't even Vikings! The White Scars are Space Mongols. The Black Templars are Space Teutons. There are Space Rome. Space Egypt. Space Iroquois. But Vikings? No. They don't raid. They don't pillage. They don't terrorize. They don't explore, chart, map, and push boundaries. They just fuck around, being special, unique perfect little dudes who don't suffer in GrimDarkness.

They exist in the wrong game.

They were always a bit insufferable, but the 3e codex was hilarious and it just got worse from there.

Also, the most uninspired name. Space Wolves. In addition to existing in Starseige Tribes, they were introduced around the same time that Battletech was similarly wanking itself over Clan Wolf. And compared to most other chapters, The "Space" prefix just sounds retarded. Plenty of dumb names, but SW are up there with Ultramarines for silly.

 

[skaraher]

They also had a splinter faction in the 3ed Eye of Terror codex, the lost Thirteenth company, which could field large amounts of wulfen and had its members wearing a mash up of chaos and loyalist armors. But GW never really did anything with it.

 

[Trithne]

Oh, they also actively refuse to follow the Codex Astartes and instead have their own special organisation and don't limit their numbers. This would usually get the inquisition on your backs as the Codex was part of the agreements to not have the Imperium liquidate the Space Marines after the Heresy (that and it would've been a bloody affair that would've weakened the Imperium more).

They're just the Mary Sue Chapter.

 

[ArchAngel]

Oh, they also actively refuse to follow the Codex Astartes and instead have their own special organisation and don't limit their numbers. This would usually get the inquisition on your backs as the Codex was part of the agreements to not have the Imperium liquidate the Space Marines after the Heresy (that and it would've been a bloody affair that would've weakened the Imperium more).

They're just the Mary Sue Chapter.

Fuck the Inquisition. SM are only true sons/progeny of the God Emperor.

 

[Dayyālu]

They were always a bit insufferable, but the 3e codex was hilarious and it just got worse from there.

Also, the most uninspired name. Space Wolves. In addition to existing in Starseige Tribes, they were introduced around the same time that Battletech was similarly wanking itself over Clan Wolf. And compared to most other chapters, The "Space" prefix just sounds retarded. Plenty of dumb names, but SW are up there with Ultramarines for silly.

"Starwolf" in Tribes. Naming conventions in Sci-Fi are always dumb, and Clan Wolf in Battletech is a Designated Protagonist Faction so it always wins (in the contemporary timeline they're the IlKhan because everyone else is retarded and people kill each other for the luxury of bowing to them). I won't even discuss the narrative problems of BT of having Clan Wolfity Wolf winning everything forever even when losing.

The Space Wolves however did... degenerate. 3rd edition had quite a lot of Space Marine-only Codexes, and 4th ed gave us the Black Templar Codex (that despite being cool as fuck it's essentially fellating the Templars harder than you can ever imagine lorewise). The 3rd edition Space Wolves Codex is kind of.... low-key, even. The true problems started with the 5th edition Codex, where the Wolves degenerated into, God forbid, the most Wolf WOLF WOLF wank that would make Filoni sick of it. Everything was named wolf, wolfgun, wolfboat, wolfsword, they had wolf chariots, wolf cavalry an' wolf shit. One could argue that GW never gave a shit about coherency or even writing, but trust me, I was there and it was embarassing even for a campy setting as 40k. Blood Angels had a similar problem with everything being named Blood, Bloodgun, bloodammo, bloodboat, bloodsword, bloodity blood.....

Every Codex praises its own faction: the Wolves have the problem of being.... cheap. Poor writers fetishize badly-understood Viking pop kultur and the wolf cringe is so old even Hitler was on it. I do expect Owlcat to be smarter than GW (like FFG, they care surely more) but nowadays the basic ingredients are hard to mix without being cringeworthy.

 

[Storyfag]

I remember that SW were fine until one of the latter editions Codex went bonker with the wolf theme. Half of the items were "Wolf + noun" and they even introduced wolf riding units.

Also, from 1d4chan :

The Space Wolves remind me of a 13 year old’s first D&D character: very cool, special, powerful barbarian hero who is morally flawless but doesn't listen to authority and always does the right thing but don't you dare cross them. They get away with shit because they're so special and the rules don't apply to them, guys. They got to wage war on the Inquisition with a slap on the wrist, while the Celestial Lions were slaughtered for merely questioning the morals of the Inquisition. They get a free pass on mutation in a setting where that gets chapters purged. They drink and party while other chapters lose hundreds of brothers on meaningless, forgotten battlegrounds. They aren't even Vikings! The White Scars are Space Mongols. The Black Templars are Space Teutons. There are Space Rome. Space Egypt. Space Iroquois. But Vikings? No. They don't raid. They don't pillage. They don't terrorize. They don't explore, chart, map, and push boundaries. They just fuck around, being special, unique perfect little dudes who don't suffer in GrimDarkness.

They exist in the wrong game.

At least Magnus fucked their shit up

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/wa...warhammer-mass-effect-and-you-can-own-planets

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is Warhammer Mass Effect, and you can own planets​

Plus, visit Commorragh for the first time in a game

In the grim darkness of the far future, the galaxy is your oyster. Or at least it will be, once you've played 100 hours of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, an RPG from Pathfinder developer Owlcat in which you can buy planets, configure your genocidal Dark Eldar friend to strike ten times a turn, and gaze on ruefully as a demon explodes out of your Psyker's head.

An immediate and shameful disclaimer: I can't match Nic Reuben's deep knowledge of the 40K tabletop universe, which saw him ruminating upon the mysteries of the Koronus Expanse back in 2022, while holding Owlcat's feet to the fire over the absence of space dwarves. The nearest I got to playing 40K as a lad was its Battlefleet Gothic spin-off (which none of my friends were interested in, so when I say "playing", I mean that I sat in a room staring glumly at some unpainted Lunar-class Cruisers while other kids went out and climbed trees). The framing I'm working with instead, based on an hour of hands-off Rogue Trader gameplay, is that it's sort of Warhammer Mass Effect, but with XCOM-style turn- and grid-based combat, and while there are opportunities to be a compassionate hero, you fundamentally only have the option of playing Renegade. Let's dig in!

First, a quick recap on what a "Rogue Trader" is. "They're essentially pirates that explore the fringes of the galaxy to bring new worlds into the Imperium," creative director Alexander Mishulin told me before our demo. Unusually for subjects of 40K's undead God-Emperor, rogue traders can amass enormous independent wealth and operate their own starfleets and planetary colonies, without getting slapped down by the Inquisition. Part of the thrill of playing one is going gently mad with power, but that unbridled autonomy is also essential for a plot-branching CRPG in the Pathfinder vein. "The Imperium is a very strict and tyrannical society," Mishulin went on. "So to make an RPG that has all these choices and consequences, we had to find somebody in this society who can make those choices and not just get shot."

Your goal in the game as a custom-created Rogue Trader is to restore the trading empire of your predecessor Teodora, who has met a mysterious fate. Character creation sees you picking through a pleasing abundance of stats, including Carouse and Commerce and three flavours of Lore, while also choosing a Triumph and Darkest Hour to form your backstory. These latter choices have both minor mechanical impacts and larger narrative consequences. "Other characters might know about your greatest triumph or your greatest failure and deal with you accordingly," said Mishulin.

Having crafted a budding Roger de Flor, you'll sally forth to recruit your very own Warhammer 40K Catalan Company. Rogue Trader features ten storied companions, of whom you can take six (including your protagonist) into battle. They hail from different races or factions, and are defined by three broad philosophical alignments which may lead to disagreements and even desertion. Imperalis represents devotion to the Imperium, hatred of xenos and a love of order generally. Hereticus is for evil Chaos-worshipping, alien-loving hipsters. And Benevolentia represents "faith in the power of goodwill, capable of overcoming the horrors and dangers of the universe without the need for artificial prohibitions", to quote the game's menus. As I said, I'm not your guy for 40K lore dissection, but I feel like Benevolent characters are going to have a harder time navigating this setting.

Mishulin showed me a party of his own creation, representing the fruits of about 80 hours of play. By the sounds of it, one of the first characters you'll meet is Abelard, your right hand man and mentor. Mishulin's version of Abelard was a hard-wearing Seneschal, never happier than when taking Bolter rounds for the team. Mishulin demonstrated this in a demo battle by running Abelard right into the sights of a Necron Immortal equipped with a monstrous chain-hit lightning gun, while shuffling the rest of the party into cover to avoid stray bolts. We're right behind you, champ!


Image credit: Owlcat

If Abelard will always have your back - providing you don't turn to heresy, anyway - the same may not be true of Idira. She's an unsanctioned psyker, aka illegal magic user, and an old friend of Teodora. Her dalliance with the terrible energies of the Warp means that she's all but guaranteed to meet a grisly demise, possibly taking out anybody nearby in the process. "She could mutate, or her head could explode and a demon could emerge out of that," said Mishulin. Idira's key skill is divination, which allows her to buff allies in combat by predicting good futures. She can also tell the future at the level of the narrative, which sounds like a fascinating dynamic in a game that prides itself on setting up plot dominoes all the way to the epilogue.

Pasqal is the group's machine-worshipping tech-priest. He's a versatile fighter, capable of melee and ranged damage, and something of a strategist. In the demo, Mishulin had him placing melee, defence or ranged buffs on map squares, the catch being that once he's buffed three areas, he can only relocate them one at a time - a fun touch of in-game map-editing. Jae, meanwhile, is a "cold trader" - that is, a smuggler with whom you might develop a mutually beneficial arrangement, who can be upgraded to manage unit initiative and dollop out extra moves to party members.


Image credit: Owlcat

And then there's Marazhai, a blade-dancing Dark Eldar. The Dark Eldar are among the least friendly of Warhammer 40K's seldom-friendly races. They like to torture people from 'lesser species' and feed on the resulting psychic energy. "They don't work with humans," Mishulin commented. "They consider humans animals. But in this particular case, it was either Marazhai dying or joining the retinue." You'll have a hard time persuading him to get chummy with xenophobic human party members, especially Space Marines and Sisters of Battle. But it's worth the trouble, because Marazhai is an absolute lawnmower in the fray. As an assassin, he can attack from oblique angles to inflict bonus damage, jump through enemies to reposition while slashing them, and score additional movement points whenever he lands a critical.

The quirks of Rogue Trader's characters add welcome spice to the game's solid, but familiar battle system, in which you spend movement and action points to move people into full or half-shield cover. There are lots of smaller variables and gambits to get your head around. Burst attacks have a chance of hitting allies and explodable objects, for example. Some AOE skills travel in a line, so try to lure those rampaging Orks into an orderly queue. Unlike larger guns, pistols can be used inside melee range - useful if you're firing a Burst, because you're almost guaranteed to hit the target. I didn't get much chance to see how varied Rogue Trader's enemy units are by comparison, but the Necrons from Mishulin's demo battle had some nifty dynamics. The bigger, bipedal ones can resurrect from death after a turn, and order other Necrons to focus fire. They're often escorted by flying Scarabs, which make puny skirmishers but can heal their allies and interrupt your turns.

While battles do seem formulaic in places - there's that familiar XCOM mop-up period, with the last survivor dug in somewhere denying you a clean finale - the game's Momentum gauge is a nice pace changer. You gain Momentum when you take turns and deal damage, and lose it when you receive damage or get knocked out. Fill the bar, and you can perform Heroic Acts, such as giving one character a whole additional turn. Empty it out, and you'll gain access to Desperate Measures that allow you turn the tide, though I wasn't told exactly how these differ from Heroic Acts.


Image credit: Owlcat

I also didn't get to see much of the campaign beyond battle, but it sounds like there's plenty to do and explore. Grander locations include the Dark Eldar city Commorragh, which has never been glimpsed in a video game before. "We are working together with Games Workshop to make it as look as it should, to convey the Drukhari race, to show what they are into, and how it functions altogether," Mishulin said. "There's pretty tight cooperation between us." There are five main factions to befriend or alienate - the Drusians, the Explorators, the Kasballica Mission, the Fellowship of the Void and the Imperial Navy. As for planetary colonies, you can both found your own and reforge connections with Teodora's lost holdings, enriching yourself and accessing regional storylines, which may include dealing with problems your predecessor left unaddressed.

Befitting its title, Rogue Trader takes a more elaborate approach to inventory management. There are straightforward character inventories, but there's also a ship cargo screen that allows you to gift items to factions, bolstering your standing with them. All of this feeds into an overarching Profit Factor, which represents the potency of your imperial Warrant of Trade. The greater your Profit Factor, the greater your ability to, essentially, cheat by, say, forcing a faction to yield up a piece of precious armour without paying for it or affecting your reputation.


Image credit: Owlcat

Sadly for this lapsed Battlefleet Gothic player, Owlcat didn't share much during our demo about the game's spaceship - excuse me, voidship combat, but the broad strokes seem promising. "It's also turn-based but the mechanics are completely different," Mishulin said. "It's closer to naval combat, moving into position, attacking enemies with broadsides. And also facing - there is a powerful enemy over here, but you have to point the nose of the ship in the direction of another enemy." Sounds a lot like Tindalos' Armada adaptations to me, which I've always wished were turn-based (I played them pretty much exclusively in tactical slow mo).

I'm not sure I can face another hundred hour RPG right now, but if I were going to crack open another character creator, Rogue Trader (which is currently without a release date) would appear high up the list. I might have missed out on 40K as a kid, but I've learned a thing or two about Games Workshop's horrendous universe in the course of playing umpteen video game adaptations, and Owlcat's latest seems to tick all the boxes. It's vast, bristling with things to customise, and powerfully grim. The major question ahead of review is whether its bigger narrative choices and consequences will add up into a compelling saga on par with the best RPGs, or just another dragged-out spell in Warhammer's overflowing trenches.

 

[skaraher]

They're definitely aiming for recognition as the NuBioware. But who will win in those Diadoch wars between Larian, Owlcat and NuObsidian ?

 

[Infinitron]

Ignore clickbaity headlines.

 

[Tyranicon]

...because they are, without a doubt, the worst chapter.

Why so?

Even GW doesn't respect them and frequently refers to them as doggies.

 

[skaraher]

Ignore clickbaity headlines.

They still allude to conscious decisions from a marketing standpoint.

 

[Desiderius]

Ignore clickbaity headlines.

 

[frajaq]

sex with the navigator
sex with the sister of battle
sex with the eldar sniper lady
sex with the deldar twink

 

[sebas]

So, is there a 40k book I could read to get into..uhm..whatever traders/normal people do? I've only really read Horus Heresy books so far.

 

[Reinhardt]

So, is there a 40k book I could read to get into..uhm..whatever traders/normal people do? I've only really read Horus Heresy books so far.

try inquisitor novels - both eisenhorn and ravenor deal with traders regularly both as helpers and antagonists.

 

[skaraher]

So, is there a 40k book I could read to get into..uhm..whatever traders/normal people do? I've only really read Horus Heresy books so far.

Eisenhorn and Ravenor saga. Its about the Inquisition but it pretty much established the canon about civilian life in the Imperium while most other novels were war-drama or science fantasy adventures.

 

[Reinhardt]

basically if you want anything other than gud and ebul(nooooooo, akshyully they are not ebul! they are many tragic and misunderstood and da emprah is B-BAKA!) spehs mahreens pew-pew each other you go and read abnett. he's the only one who regularly writes about other branches of imperium. there is bureacracy, some logistics - how this imperium thingy works. they are not focus, but at least present.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Peachcurl]

sebas

If you really want to get close as possible to Warhammer 40k "normies" (as opposed to overpowering space marines, all-powerful inquisition) try the "Warhammer Crime" stuff.

See novels in this list:
https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warhammer_Crime#Novels

Side note: rogue traders are not "normal" traders in any way or form.

 

[Axel_am]

So, is there a 40k book I could read to get into..uhm..whatever traders/normal people do? I've only really read Horus Heresy books so far.

I bought Void King by Marc Collins. I've read the first few chapters so I can't really say if it's good or not but it has "A Rogue Traders Novel" on the front.

 

[Desiderius]

sex with the navigator
sex with the sister of battle
sex with the eldar sniper lady
sex with the deldar

Putting the Ho in Spaceward Ho!