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

[Sarathiour]

I was a bit worried a first regarding artistic direction, because the model looked like carbon copy of tabletop. which would not be a bad thing in itself, but you can only go so far before having to make your own shit at some point. The few recent one are making me a bit more optimistic, we're not going to completely dodge the inevitable token diversity straight out of fanfic, but at least it's going to looke better than pathfinder.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Not sure if I like what I see, I mean when I read books about spaceship in WH I did not envision something like THAT, is there any official arts of inside of the ships other than bridges and hangars/troops hold?

 

[Chippy]

So I haven't really been following this, and I'm under the impression Warhammer games have avoided the woke mind virus. So there's no room for WOTR wokeism in this from Owlcat right?.

 

[Volourn]

Too many retarts in this thread. I even saw a fukkin' garbage picker claiming that AMN was one if the best RPG cities ever. WHAT THE FUCK!?!

Come on, Codexers, do better. Stop acting like you have the 2022 Dumbass Disease.

Thank you,

Classic Codex.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

New demons:

And a concept art showing political negotiation:

 

[rusty_shackleford]

wizardry butthole demons just like cleve predicted

 

[Vermillion]

wizardry butthole demons just like cleve predicted

That's because Type B's are female.

 

[skaraher]

Will it be wokeshit badly written garbage like WOTR ?

 

[Stoned Ape]

New demons:

View attachment 27190

Spoiler

And a concept art showing political negotiation:

View attachment 27191

Those guys are Chaos Spawn rather than demons. Mortals that have been mutated so heavily by the corrupting power of chaos that they have entirely lost their reason and act like beasts.

 

[thesecret1]

wizardry butthole demons just like cleve predicted

Since this is Owlcat we're talking about, I assume they'll be romanceable.

 

[Humbaba]

New demons:

View attachment 27190

Spoiler

And a concept art showing political negotiation:

View attachment 27191

Those guys are Chaos Spawn rather than demons. Mortals that have been mutated so heavily by the corrupting power of chaos that they have entirely lost their reason and act like beasts.

Not necessarily mortals, Chaos Marines can also turn into spawns for example by botching their ascension to demon princedom.

 

[Stoned Ape]

New demons:

View attachment 27190

Spoiler

And a concept art showing political negotiation:

View attachment 27191

Those guys are Chaos Spawn rather than demons. Mortals that have been mutated so heavily by the corrupting power of chaos that they have entirely lost their reason and act like beasts.

Not necessarily mortals, Chaos Marines can also turn into spawns for example by botching their ascension to demon princedom.

But Chaos Marines began life as mortals, they were granted gifts by Chaos to become what they currently are.

Any Champion of Chaos could eventually accumulate enough blessings from his patron to either ascend as a Daemon Prince or fall into corruption as a Spawn; it's just extremely rare for a non-marine Champion to live long enough to gather enough attention from the ruinous powers to reach deamonhood. It generally only happens if they achieve something on a spectacular enough scale for one of the gods to pay immediate attention.

 

[Chippy]

wizardry butthole demons just like cleve predicted

That's because Type B's are female.

How dare you assume the gender of C?. Well, I'm assuming the third one is C anyway. Fuggin alphabet monsters now.

 

[lightbane]

Any Champion of Chaos could eventually accumulate enough blessings from his patron to either ascend as a Daemon Prince or fall into corruption as a Spawn; it's just extremely rare for a non-marine Champion to live long enough to gather enough attention from the ruinous powers to reach deamonhood. It generally only happens if they achieve something on a spectacular enough scale for one of the gods to pay immediate attention.

Note that Daemon Princes are still subjected to being punished into becoming Daemon Spawns if they fuck up spectacularly.

In the PNP RPG games, becoming a Daemon spawn due maxing out your Corruption track rarely happened, as you would likely retire your character by then, except for Black Crusade, where your entire goal is to do bad things fast enough before you inevitably become a mindless monster, so most characters don't worry about that (unless you're something like a Sister of Battle/Priest using Faith powers).

The insanity track is more interesting, as you don't have to worry about its drawbacks until it's past 50, and even then it gives you partial immunity to Fear effects, so it's still not that bad.

Reducing insanity and corruption points requires EXP, which means that no player ever did that.

 

[Volourn]

"In the RPG Games"

In the RPG Games.


FUKK OFF.

 

[Serus]

Not sure if I like what I see, I mean when I read books about spaceship in WH I did not envision something like THAT, is there any official arts of inside of the ships other than bridges and hangars/troops hold?

in Gaunt's Ghosts mentioned that imperial guard regiments are followed by huge retinue between worlds and that's pretty much what end results looks like. whores, traders, various performers, gambling halls.

wellll... I think Gaunt's Ghosts is entertaining to read, but I also think it's fairly liberal with some stuff, starting with the whole officer+commissar idea . No other novel I remember mentioned any sort of "retinue" for a regiment, that is not associated to transport, medical, tech or similarly necessary services.

(come to think of it I'm actually not sure that Gaunt's Ghost have a "huge" retinue, rather than some few people they picked up, have to look that up I think)

well, to be honest most of the things we know about guards we know from Abnett, so pretty much he IS lore.

In addition a retinue like you describe make perfect sense from "realism" POV. I know, realism is not the most important aspect of this system but some doesn't hurt. Those regiments, at least the Ghosts, as described in Abnett's books, don't seem to often get brake to some nice worlds with whores and other entertainment. At the same time no individual leaves as well. Which makes only one option possible - the one you described. Otherwise it would quickly end in massive desertions or even mutiny.

 

[Serus]

"In the RPG Games"

In the RPG Games.


FUKK OFF.

"In the role-playing RPG games" - would be even more prestigious, right?

 

[Reinhardt]

Not sure if I like what I see, I mean when I read books about spaceship in WH I did not envision something like THAT, is there any official arts of inside of the ships other than bridges and hangars/troops hold?

in Gaunt's Ghosts mentioned that imperial guard regiments are followed by huge retinue between worlds and that's pretty much what end results looks like. whores, traders, various performers, gambling halls.

wellll... I think Gaunt's Ghosts is entertaining to read, but I also think it's fairly liberal with some stuff, starting with the whole officer+commissar idea . No other novel I remember mentioned any sort of "retinue" for a regiment, that is not associated to transport, medical, tech or similarly necessary services.

(come to think of it I'm actually not sure that Gaunt's Ghost have a "huge" retinue, rather than some few people they picked up, have to look that up I think)

well, to be honest most of the things we know about guards we know from Abnett, so pretty much he IS lore.

In addition a retinue like you describe make perfect sense from "realism" POV. I know, realism is not the most important aspect of this system but some doesn't hurt. Those regiments, at least the Ghosts, as described in Abnett's books, don't seem to often get brake to some nice worlds with whores and other entertainment. At the same time no individual leaves as well. Which makes only one option possible - the one you described. Otherwise it would quickly end in massive desertions or even mutiny.

also it shows how big and chaotic imperium is. anyone who don't follow the regiment from battlefield to battlefield will probably never see it again. like that orchestra ordered many years ago by another colonel finally catching up.

 

[The_Mask]

Music you can hear in the background is from the upcoming OST.

 

[thesecret1]

Not sure if I like what I see, I mean when I read books about spaceship in WH I did not envision something like THAT, is there any official arts of inside of the ships other than bridges and hangars/troops hold?

in Gaunt's Ghosts mentioned that imperial guard regiments are followed by huge retinue between worlds and that's pretty much what end results looks like. whores, traders, various performers, gambling halls.

wellll... I think Gaunt's Ghosts is entertaining to read, but I also think it's fairly liberal with some stuff, starting with the whole officer+commissar idea . No other novel I remember mentioned any sort of "retinue" for a regiment, that is not associated to transport, medical, tech or similarly necessary services.

(come to think of it I'm actually not sure that Gaunt's Ghost have a "huge" retinue, rather than some few people they picked up, have to look that up I think)

well, to be honest most of the things we know about guards we know from Abnett, so pretty much he IS lore.

In addition a retinue like you describe make perfect sense from "realism" POV. I know, realism is not the most important aspect of this system but some doesn't hurt. Those regiments, at least the Ghosts, as described in Abnett's books, don't seem to often get brake to some nice worlds with whores and other entertainment. At the same time no individual leaves as well. Which makes only one option possible - the one you described. Otherwise it would quickly end in massive desertions or even mutiny.

Abnett's books shouldnt be taken too seriously, especially when it comes to his regiment of heavy plot-armored snowflakes. Hell, he even recognizes it himself and one of the novels deals with how different a "normal" regiment is from Ghosts. It should also be mentioned that the Ghosts did get pulled back for R&R semi-regularly (if with long time in-between) and that the novels are set during a crusade, which is an out of the ordinary situation.

Camp followers make perfect sense planet-side, with locals seeking profit or love from the soldiers, but transporting these hanger-ons between the stars seems like a quite silly waste of resources.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

More concert art:

Servitors

Dark Eldar Splinter weapons:

 

[Vermillion]

It's extremely unlikely, but I hope the Devs sprinkle some equipment that's based off the Solar Auxilia. Always loved that aesthetic, just call them "armored voidsuits" are sneak in the gun design for the archaeotech las weapons. It would also be nice to have more options before loading the whole party up in power armor.

Spoiler

 

[lightbane]

If we go with exotic stuff, which is fine since power armor and bolters are getting stale, sanctified gear should be a thing... As well as Daemonic Weapons for the idiots that crave power.
For what's worth, Rogue Trader pnp had a big load of weapons and gear besides the usual, such as an offbrand phaser, sonic weaponry, totes-not Berserker Armor from Berserk that "heals" critical damage at the expense of your sanity, a table to generate archeotech stuff (with some really broken stuff such as super-armor that can't be broken), etc.
Unfortunately, power armor is going to be the winner for sure, because most stuff in the pnp games had high PEN values, which means only the heaviest of armors were worth it in combat against high-tier targets. Power armor also usually increases your Strength and Toughness, making it even better than most other gear in most situations if only for the stats gain (barring stealth and social events). However, even Terminator Armor is not enough against melee enemies, like Jenstealers can slice off any armor with ease no matter what WH40k game is (including the PnPs). For these you're better off having shields that have a chance to negate damage, or dodge the attack entirely.
At high levels, combat in WH40k pnp games turned into some sort of Touhou with power armors where everyone is shooting projectiles everywhere, and the first guy that cannot roll out of the way becomes a red stain.

 

[Vermillion]

If we go with exotic stuff, which is fine since power armor and bolters are getting stale, sanctified gear should be a thing... As well as Daemonic Weapons for the idiots that crave power.
For what's worth, Rogue Trader pnp had a big load of weapons and gear besides the usual, such as an offbrand phaser, sonic weaponry, totes-not Berserker Armor from Berserk that "heals" critical damage at the expense of your sanity, a table to generate archeotech stuff (with some really broken stuff such as super-armor that can't be broken), etc.
Unfortunately, power armor is going to be the winner for sure, because most stuff in the pnp games had high PEN values, which means only the heaviest of armors were worth it in combat against high-tier targets. Power armor also usually increases your Strength and Toughness, making it even better than most other gear in most situations if only for the stats gain (barring stealth and social events). However, even Terminator Armor is not enough against melee enemies, like Jenstealers can slice off any armor with ease no matter what WH40k game is (including the PnPs). For these you're better off having shields that have a chance to negate damage, or dodge the attack entirely.
At high levels, combat in WH40k pnp games turned into some sort of Touhou with power armors where everyone is shooting projectiles everywhere, and the first guy that cannot roll out of the way becomes a red stain.

Oh sure, that's why ranged characters were basically all hip-firing crew served weapons and equipped with powerfields because the only way to stay alive is by killing all your enemies in an alpha strike first. Actually, it's one reason I really liked Only War's system of giving almost every character a generic squadie who had a percentage chance to just take any bullet meant for you.

As a digression, a squad based RPG based around only war would actually be fairly unique gameplay wise. Depending on the archetype each player/companion could have a set of NPC guardsmen "pets" that followed them around and used Baldur's Gate 3 "Horde"* rules so their actions didn't clog up the game. You'd have a button which would place the Squadies "in" or "out" of cohesion. This would be important for certain orders you could give them, some might require them to be in cohesion while others could require they be out of cohesion (of the top of my head a player "master of Ordinance" needed their squad member out of cohesion to make them use their mortar). While in cohesion the squadies would have a chance to take hits meant for your player, taking damage or dying as a result. While in cohesion they'd automatically take cover if the player was in cover, out of cohesion they'd move for the nearest available cover. Since the player would effectively have a small army on their side, you could throw some pretty nasty scenarios at them: holding a position alone against an Ork horde, trench warfare against traitor guardsmen, brutal jungle combat against Tau, a Chaos Champion, etc. Story wise it would be pretty fitting to make the player a low ranking officer with the story having them eventually becoming a high ranking General.

*Actually Fantasy Flight itself had some good rules for making the players fight huge armies or endless enemies with their own Horde rules. The units would act like one character and move as a unit. They'd deal bonus damage based on how many made up the horde and could combine or disperse into multiple weaker hordes or even individual units. The Hordes had special traits or abilities to account for the kinds of enemies that made them up. Usually you would try to damage them until the horde lost morale and dispersed, they made interesting boss fights as well since "obvious" counters to them like Flamers and explosives did massive bonus damage.

Horde Rules

 

[Trithne]

Camp followers make perfect sense planet-side, with locals seeking profit or love from the soldiers, but transporting these hanger-ons between the stars seems like a quite silly waste of resources.

Because we all know the Imperium is excellent at spending resources efficiently.

Given the nature of 40k starships as large enough to have entire cities worth of population on them and decks that can simply be "unaccounted for", it doesn't seem unreasonable for a portion of a regiment's entourage to just follow it on and take up residence.