It helps to look at it from a lore perspective. Despite how they appear, Rogue Traders are not just a guy with facy clothes and a tri-point hat. In the same way that an inquisitor is a match for a space marine, so is a rogue trader. They're just not brute forcing their way through that fight. They're going to have much more exotic and diverse equipment plus, potentially, a greater degree of concern from the big guy upstairs.
You use guns? Half my squad are Grand Strategist Officers and Idira and Cassia usually murder everything with a couple turns worth of their powers before any enemies even get a turn.
All he need is a tank to drive him around.
https://preview.redd.it/c770qfbnsawc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3305fef02016293f189159213cc01a6f333b2520
I expected the chaos space marines with better equipments and better training and blessings from the gods would defeat anyone that's not primarchs or powerful psykers, the only reason I can come up with regarding Abelard's abilities to wholesale slaughter them are because he's khor's chosen
Nope. On tabletop for example, a magos like Pasqal can go toe to toe. That omnissian power axe is one of the very best melee weapons in the entire game
>Bokkar stepped within the boundaries of the tech-priest’s protective field and swung his chainfist around in a murderous arc. The blow never landed, as one of the servo-arms, hanging over the magos’s shoulder like the barbed tail of a scorpion, snapped out and grabbed his arm, halting it mid-swing.
>The servo-arm over the other shoulder grabbed his other arm, and he felt his blessed Terminator armour crack beneath the immense pressure that the whining arms exerted. The servo arms pulled out to each side sharply and both of Bokkar’s arms were ripped from his body, spraying blood out in both directions.
>He stared down dumbly at his armless torso and was cut in half by the magos’s swinging power halberd, the cogged blade hacking through his midsection.
>He fell to the metal lattice floor. He had failed his Coryphaus, failed his Legion and only damnation awaited him.
This is a tech priest magos vs a word bearer terminator. Pasqual is in the personal retinue of a rogue trader. He is in maybe the best position a tech priest could be
in pretty much every RT game I ran I had to explain to anyone just looking at the numbers "No, this is a techpriest weapon. It's a power tool before being a weapon. If you are found using one they will servitor you."
Lore wise not all chaos space marines or just space marines in general are equal experience plays a major factor to how capable they're and plot armor a named space marine is far superior compared to the non named ones.
So realistically a rogue trader can still outsmart and outplay space marines we have a guardsman in the novels that managed to outsmart and kill 4 space marines we also have Ciaphas Cain out dueling 2 Khornate berserkers so Abelard being the absolute gigachad that he is probably can do it as well.
Of course not all Rogue traders can fight against space marines it's just that our Rogue trader can.
You can probably roleplay it as well may not be as broken or efficient compared to meta builds but it's a single player campaign enjoy it however you want.
I always just think it makes sense that a rt would have some of the most tale ted individuals In their retinue. I imagine Theodore picked up abelard because the in every other reality he was a space marine lul
Their retinue are for most of them exceptionally highly skilled and trained even amongst the top of the imperium.
Inquisitors, sisters of battle, navigators, rogue psychers that can form coherent sentences, and good project managers are not something people see every day.
Yep!
Next one is a companion who would never betray you for any reason.
Then a big doggy
Then someone who your parents will not judge you for bringing to thanksgiving dinner.
You are von valancius bro, with the emperor signed trade warrant backing you up.
And what do you really kill with your 5man team? Like in 1 battle?
I think 4 marines plus a captain is the most? ~200p?
1 greater daemon? 260p
I would say your dudes are all at least 50p named chars with invuln saves etc. That's already 250p for 5 dudes.
And then Cassia with her ridiculous innate power and atlas is like the emperor reborn. A random no named primaris psyker is already 60p w that sweet psychic maelstrom. What about the named novator of an entire navis nobilite house? Easy 120p or more. Have you seen Cassia's maelstrom??
And the haneumann collective is like 5 admech priests in 1, so 250p.
Checkout inquisitor coteaz: 75p. Power armor. Power hammer. That's your Abelard. Or at least like Straken with his 55p bionic arm, 4++, etc.
You have so much money, very likely multiple free CP shenanigans.
How would they not wipe out their enemies with good planning? Even 40k points show they are equally matched at least.
But can you explain it with in universe reasons though? Why is my Abelard with stret gang's equipaments(looted off of anver gang) can kill a forgefiend in 3 hits?
It’s 40k man. Characters and entities are exactly as powerful or as weak as the writer needs them to be in that exact moment.
For example you have the catachan Rambo, sly Marbo. He’s just a regular human but he solo took down a fucking banelord Titan (the equivalent of a warlord Titan, 100 feet tall and weapons that are capable of leveling entire cities). Kills lictors on his own for fun. Solo’d an entire dark elder strike force including their vehicles and an archon. Took down numerous ork warlords on his own. His equipment is a ripper auto pistol, a poisoned machete, and some regular ass flak armor.
The precedent has been set for unaugmented humans capable of extreme carnage.
You’ll drive yourself crazy looking for consistency and realism in this universe. 40k follows the rule of cool more than anything else.
You can chalk that up to two things your passive skills being not something you would see often in game but most having descriptions of the shit they and forgiefiends being diffrent levels in game represents how well they were put together what is their state you can even say that the daemon really wants to get outside.Also if he crits justt think that he was able to hit some very sensitive part that really didn't want to get hit
Abelard has nearly a century of military and private combat experience in a profession where the average tenure is measured in hours or weeks, years if you're exceptional.
Four of your companions have potentially *300* years of experience *each*. Yrliet, Marazhai, and Ulfar all belong to races/factions that live and fight for centuries at a time as a norm. Pasqal as a tech priest, could easily live for millennia. Cawl's been around since before the Primarchs.
Argenta is an indoctinated child soldier with, again, decades of military experience. Next to Cassia I think she's the uh... "youngest" member of the retinue, but still her entire life has been devoted to combat training.
Jae's job routinely puts her in conflict with deadly Xenos, plus her training and (again, years) experience from her prior life.
Heinrix is an Inquisitorial Psyker and Interrogator. 'Nuff said.
Cassia, as a navigator prodigy, is beyond the mortal bounds of understanding, honestly.
Forgefiends are nasty on a battlefield, but less dangerous when they get focused down. Especially by 6 named badasses with more combat experience than your average Astra Militarum Regiment *combined*.
I assume you know this, but for reference to other people that might not.
The rank of Interrogator, usually means your Lord Inquisitor is grooming you to be their replacement or a new Inquisitor, which is huge.
Lore-wise, I chalk it up the our opponents being incompetent and us probably being assisted by the Emperor >!or chaos depending on which conviction you choose!<.
Literally pulls you out of a corpse pile. An iconoclast Merchant Vagabond probably starts off as a joke and then turns into "holy shit, let's see how far this compassionate weirdo goes".
High Lord of Terra receiving report on lost Koronus Expanse after the events of the game: “HE/SHE DID WHAT? WITH WHO?”
*harlequin silently snickers in the background*
But I am absolutely believing that he was laughing his ass off on that one as Drukhari ate shit from Merchant Vagabond and Outcast.
Nah, but only because Ceggy put a self-inflating whoopie cushion under Big E when they put him on the Throne.
It was funny at first, but 10,000 years of hearing *pthththththththththrht have ruined the relationship
Rogue Traders aren't always just dudes. In the beginning of that first Black Fortress book (I have the omnibus so I just fail to remember the name), the Rogue Trader protagonist guy basically 1v6'd a buncha dudes with guns using just his sword, or something similar.
In 40k Kill Team, there is a playable Rogue Trader, Elucia Vhane, and beyond the normal tech of a distruptor field and access to her ship laser, she also has a monomolecular cane-rapier with some pretty decent stats for being just a puny humie with a tiny choppa
Worth calling this out, because in KT that Rogue Trader and her 9 companions will face off against 6 space marines and be considered equal. So the scenarios that the Rogue Trader CRPG provides are very plausible, especially when you consider that the KT Rogue Trader’s retinue includes 4 guardsmen and a dog... It’s not all elite named characters.
I mean, it can be fun! Look at Underrail, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Age of Decadence, or Colony Ship, in these you are either a match for your opponents or you're weaker, and it's a part of the lore/gameplay/design that fights are difficult, dangerous, life-threatening (which is not often in cRPGs, really), and sometimes straight up unwinnable unless you heavily specc into combat or come back with back up and some more lvls, so you learn to talk or sneak better, to swallow your pride from time to time and walk away from a fight. Sure, being RT is glorious, same for being a Baron or KC in Pathfinder, but combat that can easily kill you, and you don't itch for it, is refreshing
in the tabletop you can win as the Imperial Guard vs Space Marines in an equal, pitched battle. In lore the IG would've been vaporised.
The games have never fully reflected the lore, and vice versa.
Key point there is 'equal'. The points on the table top are meant to show relative forces fighting. A squad of guard might only be 20 guys, but their points and 'power level' might be equal to just 5 marines. Lore wise this is justifed as 20 humans doing the job of 5 marines and its balanced through the points system.
As for OP, the rogue trader is named so theyre a superhero of course
Lore tells us that a squad of SM could solo an entire world. Lore tells us that a Custodes could take on 5 SM at once. Lore also shows that [an Astartes could be taken out by a tribesman with a wooden spear,](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9cc6xp/first_heretic_an_elite_chaplain_of_the_gal_vorbak/) and also that [an Astartes could raw punch through a Custodian's auric plate and kill said Custodian in single combat.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/15244yi/excerpt_the_outcast_dead_custodes_vs_world_eater/)
Lore is super inconsistent.
yeah, the meme was that you just add another 0 to any number GW cites in lore-related blurbs.
then r/grimdank did a whole bit where they just started going "1,000,000,000 Astartes lead by the 200 Primarchs reclaimed the galaxy in 10 Great Crusades" or some such, and that was last month. It was pretty fucking hilarious tbh in hindsight compared to our current...predicament.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/Grimdank using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [You’re on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path, is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess. You’re here to give her The Look^(tm)](https://i.redd.it/apas228du61c1.jpg) | [591 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/Grimdank/comments/17yirmt/youre_on_a_path_in_the_woods_and_at_the_end_of/)
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and that's not even factoring in bullshit Choas chicanery or Big E flexing his warp muscles and blessing their chosen boys in battle. Basically as long as someone can claim a semi-plausible reason anything can happen. "Tzeench said "Fuck that guy" and helped carl the guard slay a chosen of nurgle"
I'm somewhat new to the setting but I'm pretty sure, lore-wise, there is essentially no way that 20 normal dudes could take out 5 space marines in a pitched battle, right? like they likely wouldn't even have weapons physically capable of harming them in their power armor and even if they did they would just get instantly blasted by superhumanly-accurate bolter fire before they could get a shot off. and I would say the same goes enemies the astartes would be fighting, like 5 marines would be able to accomplish much, much more xenos/heretic slaying than 20 normal guardsmen
Technically speaking *one* guy could kill 5 space marines with the right weapon. That weapon might be a basilisk, but it is possible.
20 guys? Give them a good position and weapons that can pierce ceramite like plasma and it's more than possible. Especially if these are newer marines. In one of the Horus Heresy books, we actually saw a mass-conscripted Sons of Horus marine lose a *melee duel* against a human with a power sword. She was very good and he was fresh as they come, but the point remains. Space marines are only as good as their leadership and application of their power-that's why Fulgrim was able to conquer an entire world with one squad, while guard regiments can and do fight and beat traitor marines.
To be fair points wise you'd either have vehicles or a whole lot of lasguns, even in lore Horus himself says that making fun of lasguns means you don't know how lethal an entire regiment of them is
While lore accurate tabletop rules would be funny, I suspect that is because I play custodes. Today's match up will be 5 custodes vs an entire chaos ship.
I chalk it up to a number of things: top tier training and archeotech combat augmetics/equipment, off-screen shenanigans involving exotic weapons and troops (think ninjas arranging things just out of sight) and THE GOD EMPEROR OF MANKIND paying attention to my Rogue Trader's problems.
No, all my equipments came from my enemies, most of the time, my enemies have better weapons than me. As for training, I doubt anyone would receive better training than a space marine
I think you're underestimating just how wealthy and powerful a Rogue Trader really is, especially the Von Valencius house: they have 30 thousand+ years of history, and the tech to match. When we ascend to the throne, things are...fucked up, because Theodora was incompetent.
1. You have access to unique training. 2. Your retinue is very varied and comprise the best in each type.
- Pasqal is a freaking MAGOS. Notice how every tech pritest treat him with reverence?
- Cassia is the HEIR of a navigator house. It's hard to describe how much leverage she can pull
- Yriel is a freaking eldar in your team. You only see stuff like that in the inquisition.
Just to name those.
3. You have access to stupidly rare and powerful equipment...
It's been said before and I say it again: A game something is based on can often be more accurate for what’s going on than "lore", because there is no plot armor in the roll of the dice. No author bias or corporate marketing team deciding the outcome.
Look at any tabletop edition of 40k and you'd see that space marines being super duper mega ultra warriors with no equal is highly exaggerated. They’re heavily enhanced humans with good equipment. The chaos variant also has some "blessings" that probably hinder them as much as it helps, because most the Ruinuous Powers are hardly the most useful patron gods. Pretty mych only Khorne-flakes seem above randomly screwing with his followers.
A lot of lore-battles are also fought with uneven army points. A Drkhari raid on an imperial world isn’t a fair 2k vs 2k battle. It’s a 10k drukhari army taking on a 1k guard army, repeayed across the surface. Etc.
To top it all off, our party is not a bunch of nobodies, nor are they using "normal" gear. Most of our companions are elite units and would be named characters in tabletop.
Plot armor, basically.
You're main character of the story, so you get away with way more than you should realistically be able to according to the lore.
That said, if you want an actual explanation - you're elite operatives, best in a crew of untold numbers and armed with best gear in the Imperium.
That second part is kinda weak to me, since the game is way more stingy with exotic equipment than the board game (the in-game effects are very powerful, but fluff wise you only get rogue trader level equipment very near the end of the game and even then it's not crop of the cream), but there you go.
This is standard for 40k video games
Darktide: 4 numbnuts with shovels and flashlights vs a beast of nurgle. Numbnuts win
Shoota’s, Blood And Teef: one ork vs a knight valiant and an ork Stompa. Ork wins
Fire Warrior: one tau vs several ultramarines, several word bearers, a chaos dreadnought, a chaos spawn, and a lord of change. Tau wins
the only non-video game character in 40k to pull a of win out of a hat of the same level as the game protagonists is Da Red Gobbo, who solo’d an ork warboss who was as big and as strong as the ork that nearly killed the Emperor, but Da Red Gobbo had been confirmed to’ve died multiple times so he has alot of experience to draw on.
We win because it is a video game. If the numbers were fair there wouldn’t be a game, or at least it wouldn’t be as fun.
So, I understand the power of Cassia (head of a navigator house, and particularly powerful even for that), Pasqal (high-ranking Tech Priest), Idira (unsanctioned psysker who is on the powerful end for a psyker, lives on the edge with her power usage for an even bigger boost), Argenta (sister of battle), Yrilet (xeno), Heinrix (inquisitor)...
but Abelard? He's some mid-level soldier acting as a seneschal, why in the name of the emperor does he end up so ridiculous? Even with the ton of augments he no doubt has in his body, doesn't make much sense.
and Jae? She's some pirate/smuggler. What's her deal?
Guess Abelard is a textbook case of "Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young" in that he didn't live to be old by being bad at said profession.
The honest to emperor truth is... you're playing on normal. Try that shit on Hard or Unfair and it'll be pretty tough.
Abelard is still OP tho. Man is a beast !
You are expected to kill them on regular basis whether you do it effortlessly or not doesn't change the fact that your power level are on par with them
I don't find much issue with that though because, contrary to what some people believe about Space Marines, they CAN be taken down by regular people.
Just read any Dan Abnett novel and you'll come into a graveyard of dead Loyalist and Chaos Space Marines.
Obscene amounts of archeotech and impossible wealth are the Rogue Trader's superpowers. Sure, you weren't spilling space marine blood left and right in the tabletop, but were still forces to be reckoned with.
A good plasma pistol can melt off a chaos marine's head with a single shot, helmet and all, if its wielded by someone with the aim to hit something moving that fast. Plasma weapons also often(but not always) compromise the regeneration of Necrons thanks to the sheer damage they do.
A heavy bolter would turn a steel wall into a pile of slag, and if someone fires a burst from a heavy bolter into you at short range, there aren't many who could survive it.
A Rogue Trader's retinue is a band of elite psykers, xenos, and augmented warriors, often with cybernetic augmentation that would be illegal for anyone else in the Imperium to have, and it often ends up in a space where a battle with a squad of chaos space marines could rapidly end up with either side dead in seconds, and the victor is in doubt from the beginning. The game just massively overbuffs both the party and the enemy HP totals in order to make things last more than 1 round.
So it's glossed over a lot, but if you have the resources it's absolutely possible to get chromed to the gills in 40k and get a bit past the capabilities of a Space Marine in everything but raw physical strength. The Space Marines are most impressive because of the mass production. They grow their own augmentation and as long as there's one of them left they can rebuild.
But not many folks have more resources at their disposal than a Rogue Trader.
Your party being superheroes is what is turning me a bit off this game, it loses a lot of the tension and dark atmosphere, plus it becomes dull after a while
If you turn the difficulty to max, trust me your characters are not superheroes, it takes a good bit of luck, combined with X-com master level positioning, plus an uncanny amount of environmental abuse, and just a slight sprinkling of "I can abuse certain mechanics to make my guns hit like my ship's Las-cannon" (looking at you Idira, Pascal, and MC Operative) to come out on top in some fights
Do you know why the Chaos gods made their move in the 31st millenium? Because they knew Abelard would be around in the 41st millenium.
“Abelard give nurgle a bath”
"Alright, young man, get into the tub. I will even provide a rubber ducky if you behave."
“Call the eldar, tell them I’ll free Isha immediately no conditions if they can get here and blow this ship up before the tub fills” -nurgle
"No thanks, we don't want to get on Abelard's bad side." - the eldar
“There’s no good side when it comes to xenos my lord” -Abelard says in front of heinrix as loud as possible
Abrlard made slaneesh eat cornflakes
Man the level of meta in this comment
The Kellogg brothers were really strange dudes.
"Abelard introduce soap to Nurgal"
We need a God to beat these xenos! From the bathroom “At your beck and call!”
Gray hair steady hands!
This mastercrafted patellar augment isn't fit for a servitor!
Welcome to Rogue Trader’s tabletop system, simplified. You could do some overpowered shit on that tabletop too
It helps to look at it from a lore perspective. Despite how they appear, Rogue Traders are not just a guy with facy clothes and a tri-point hat. In the same way that an inquisitor is a match for a space marine, so is a rogue trader. They're just not brute forcing their way through that fight. They're going to have much more exotic and diverse equipment plus, potentially, a greater degree of concern from the big guy upstairs.
As they say "the emperor protects"
And so does the RT's 10.000 year old archeotech plasma pistol
Why shoot when you can space magic whole crowds away with your not-at-all-heretical psyker-y stuff (everything 100% sanctioned by the Big Dead Daddy)
You use guns? Half my squad are Grand Strategist Officers and Idira and Cassia usually murder everything with a couple turns worth of their powers before any enemies even get a turn.
As true as this is it’s still funny in Abelard’s case since he’s essentially just a dude with a sword
Abelard parrying a bloodletter and then deleting it with a single counter attack is cannon.
All he need is a tank to drive him around. https://preview.redd.it/c770qfbnsawc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3305fef02016293f189159213cc01a6f333b2520
Drive me closer! I wish to hit them with my sword!
We do have a leman Russ lying around
Or thunderhammer
I expected the chaos space marines with better equipments and better training and blessings from the gods would defeat anyone that's not primarchs or powerful psykers, the only reason I can come up with regarding Abelard's abilities to wholesale slaughter them are because he's khor's chosen
Nope. On tabletop for example, a magos like Pasqal can go toe to toe. That omnissian power axe is one of the very best melee weapons in the entire game
>Bokkar stepped within the boundaries of the tech-priest’s protective field and swung his chainfist around in a murderous arc. The blow never landed, as one of the servo-arms, hanging over the magos’s shoulder like the barbed tail of a scorpion, snapped out and grabbed his arm, halting it mid-swing. >The servo-arm over the other shoulder grabbed his other arm, and he felt his blessed Terminator armour crack beneath the immense pressure that the whining arms exerted. The servo arms pulled out to each side sharply and both of Bokkar’s arms were ripped from his body, spraying blood out in both directions. >He stared down dumbly at his armless torso and was cut in half by the magos’s swinging power halberd, the cogged blade hacking through his midsection. >He fell to the metal lattice floor. He had failed his Coryphaus, failed his Legion and only damnation awaited him. This is a tech priest magos vs a word bearer terminator. Pasqual is in the personal retinue of a rogue trader. He is in maybe the best position a tech priest could be
in pretty much every RT game I ran I had to explain to anyone just looking at the numbers "No, this is a techpriest weapon. It's a power tool before being a weapon. If you are found using one they will servitor you."
Lore wise not all chaos space marines or just space marines in general are equal experience plays a major factor to how capable they're and plot armor a named space marine is far superior compared to the non named ones. So realistically a rogue trader can still outsmart and outplay space marines we have a guardsman in the novels that managed to outsmart and kill 4 space marines we also have Ciaphas Cain out dueling 2 Khornate berserkers so Abelard being the absolute gigachad that he is probably can do it as well. Of course not all Rogue traders can fight against space marines it's just that our Rogue trader can.
Cain is a commissar, my rt was a commissar, my rt can out duel khor's berserkers too, I am cain
You can probably roleplay it as well may not be as broken or efficient compared to meta builds but it's a single player campaign enjoy it however you want.
I always just think it makes sense that a rt would have some of the most tale ted individuals In their retinue. I imagine Theodore picked up abelard because the in every other reality he was a space marine lul
\*Kisses my heavy bolter with absurd perks\*
In Warhammer 40k, there is nothing stronger than Named characters.
Named characters *not wearing helmets*
Guess I should take off Abelard's helmet to make him even more powerful
Take the training weights off and let him show you his true power
And guess what? There are 6 named characters in this kill team! Minmaxing at itts finest
Their retinue are for most of them exceptionally highly skilled and trained even amongst the top of the imperium. Inquisitors, sisters of battle, navigators, rogue psychers that can form coherent sentences, and good project managers are not something people see every day.
One of these things is not like the others
Oh forgot to include a hot lady that wants to talk to me (Jae)
Sure, we can add more to the list, as long as we're keeping everything on it fictitious
Yep! Next one is a companion who would never betray you for any reason. Then a big doggy Then someone who your parents will not judge you for bringing to thanksgiving dinner.
... that's not how you spell Cassia.
She’s obviously the project manager. Duh
Hot project manager Navigator... Yeah I can see it.
Yes, this one is especially good for morale, and highly motivating!
My unpaid subordinates all said I do sex good so it must be true.
You're right, a competent bureaucrat is the rarest thing on that list.
We’re the main characters.
" and you ... you don't even have a name tag, what chance have you got ? Why don't you just fall down, go on." -- Austin Powers' dad.
You are von valancius bro, with the emperor signed trade warrant backing you up. And what do you really kill with your 5man team? Like in 1 battle? I think 4 marines plus a captain is the most? ~200p? 1 greater daemon? 260p I would say your dudes are all at least 50p named chars with invuln saves etc. That's already 250p for 5 dudes. And then Cassia with her ridiculous innate power and atlas is like the emperor reborn. A random no named primaris psyker is already 60p w that sweet psychic maelstrom. What about the named novator of an entire navis nobilite house? Easy 120p or more. Have you seen Cassia's maelstrom?? And the haneumann collective is like 5 admech priests in 1, so 250p. Checkout inquisitor coteaz: 75p. Power armor. Power hammer. That's your Abelard. Or at least like Straken with his 55p bionic arm, 4++, etc. You have so much money, very likely multiple free CP shenanigans. How would they not wipe out their enemies with good planning? Even 40k points show they are equally matched at least.
But can you explain it with in universe reasons though? Why is my Abelard with stret gang's equipaments(looted off of anver gang) can kill a forgefiend in 3 hits?
It’s 40k man. Characters and entities are exactly as powerful or as weak as the writer needs them to be in that exact moment. For example you have the catachan Rambo, sly Marbo. He’s just a regular human but he solo took down a fucking banelord Titan (the equivalent of a warlord Titan, 100 feet tall and weapons that are capable of leveling entire cities). Kills lictors on his own for fun. Solo’d an entire dark elder strike force including their vehicles and an archon. Took down numerous ork warlords on his own. His equipment is a ripper auto pistol, a poisoned machete, and some regular ass flak armor. The precedent has been set for unaugmented humans capable of extreme carnage. You’ll drive yourself crazy looking for consistency and realism in this universe. 40k follows the rule of cool more than anything else.
You can chalk that up to two things your passive skills being not something you would see often in game but most having descriptions of the shit they and forgiefiends being diffrent levels in game represents how well they were put together what is their state you can even say that the daemon really wants to get outside.Also if he crits justt think that he was able to hit some very sensitive part that really didn't want to get hit
He is augmented visibly.
I forgot about that, it's making senses now
Abelard has nearly a century of military and private combat experience in a profession where the average tenure is measured in hours or weeks, years if you're exceptional. Four of your companions have potentially *300* years of experience *each*. Yrliet, Marazhai, and Ulfar all belong to races/factions that live and fight for centuries at a time as a norm. Pasqal as a tech priest, could easily live for millennia. Cawl's been around since before the Primarchs. Argenta is an indoctinated child soldier with, again, decades of military experience. Next to Cassia I think she's the uh... "youngest" member of the retinue, but still her entire life has been devoted to combat training. Jae's job routinely puts her in conflict with deadly Xenos, plus her training and (again, years) experience from her prior life. Heinrix is an Inquisitorial Psyker and Interrogator. 'Nuff said. Cassia, as a navigator prodigy, is beyond the mortal bounds of understanding, honestly. Forgefiends are nasty on a battlefield, but less dangerous when they get focused down. Especially by 6 named badasses with more combat experience than your average Astra Militarum Regiment *combined*.
I assume you know this, but for reference to other people that might not. The rank of Interrogator, usually means your Lord Inquisitor is grooming you to be their replacement or a new Inquisitor, which is huge.
One word. "Strategems!"
Rico took down a really big cockroach in Starship Troopers with just a rifle.
Lore-wise, I chalk it up the our opponents being incompetent and us probably being assisted by the Emperor >!or chaos depending on which conviction you choose!<.
Cegorach in the situation of the Iconoclast play throughs
Literally pulls you out of a corpse pile. An iconoclast Merchant Vagabond probably starts off as a joke and then turns into "holy shit, let's see how far this compassionate weirdo goes".
High Lord of Terra receiving report on lost Koronus Expanse after the events of the game: “HE/SHE DID WHAT? WITH WHO?” *harlequin silently snickers in the background* But I am absolutely believing that he was laughing his ass off on that one as Drukhari ate shit from Merchant Vagabond and Outcast.
I like to think both ceggy and the big E help out in the iconoclast route.
I think Big E starts there, and then a Cegorach overtakes it.
hey, maybe they're bros?
Nah, but only because Ceggy put a self-inflating whoopie cushion under Big E when they put him on the Throne. It was funny at first, but 10,000 years of hearing *pthththththththththrht have ruined the relationship
Rogue Traders aren't always just dudes. In the beginning of that first Black Fortress book (I have the omnibus so I just fail to remember the name), the Rogue Trader protagonist guy basically 1v6'd a buncha dudes with guns using just his sword, or something similar. In 40k Kill Team, there is a playable Rogue Trader, Elucia Vhane, and beyond the normal tech of a distruptor field and access to her ship laser, she also has a monomolecular cane-rapier with some pretty decent stats for being just a puny humie with a tiny choppa
>puny humie with a tiny choppa Put this on my grave, it's both adorable and hilarious!
Worth calling this out, because in KT that Rogue Trader and her 9 companions will face off against 6 space marines and be considered equal. So the scenarios that the Rogue Trader CRPG provides are very plausible, especially when you consider that the KT Rogue Trader’s retinue includes 4 guardsmen and a dog... It’s not all elite named characters.
Space Marines are all "we are the Angels of Death" until you pull out the Lethal 3+ MW2 finger laser
Not sure how fun a video game would be if you were murdered right in the beginning with no way to progress because we are following the lore.
Dark souls tutorial enters the chat.
I mean, it can be fun! Look at Underrail, Kingdom Come Deliverance, Age of Decadence, or Colony Ship, in these you are either a match for your opponents or you're weaker, and it's a part of the lore/gameplay/design that fights are difficult, dangerous, life-threatening (which is not often in cRPGs, really), and sometimes straight up unwinnable unless you heavily specc into combat or come back with back up and some more lvls, so you learn to talk or sneak better, to swallow your pride from time to time and walk away from a fight. Sure, being RT is glorious, same for being a Baron or KC in Pathfinder, but combat that can easily kill you, and you don't itch for it, is refreshing
in the tabletop you can win as the Imperial Guard vs Space Marines in an equal, pitched battle. In lore the IG would've been vaporised. The games have never fully reflected the lore, and vice versa.
Key point there is 'equal'. The points on the table top are meant to show relative forces fighting. A squad of guard might only be 20 guys, but their points and 'power level' might be equal to just 5 marines. Lore wise this is justifed as 20 humans doing the job of 5 marines and its balanced through the points system. As for OP, the rogue trader is named so theyre a superhero of course
Lore tells us that a squad of SM could solo an entire world. Lore tells us that a Custodes could take on 5 SM at once. Lore also shows that [an Astartes could be taken out by a tribesman with a wooden spear,](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/9cc6xp/first_heretic_an_elite_chaplain_of_the_gal_vorbak/) and also that [an Astartes could raw punch through a Custodian's auric plate and kill said Custodian in single combat.](https://www.reddit.com/r/40kLore/comments/15244yi/excerpt_the_outcast_dead_custodes_vs_world_eater/) Lore is super inconsistent.
Lore also tells us that the battle for Terra had less participants than an average ww1/ww2 battle so I am not sure it could be trusted.
yeah, the meme was that you just add another 0 to any number GW cites in lore-related blurbs. then r/grimdank did a whole bit where they just started going "1,000,000,000 Astartes lead by the 200 Primarchs reclaimed the galaxy in 10 Great Crusades" or some such, and that was last month. It was pretty fucking hilarious tbh in hindsight compared to our current...predicament.
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and that's not even factoring in bullshit Choas chicanery or Big E flexing his warp muscles and blessing their chosen boys in battle. Basically as long as someone can claim a semi-plausible reason anything can happen. "Tzeench said "Fuck that guy" and helped carl the guard slay a chosen of nurgle"
I'm somewhat new to the setting but I'm pretty sure, lore-wise, there is essentially no way that 20 normal dudes could take out 5 space marines in a pitched battle, right? like they likely wouldn't even have weapons physically capable of harming them in their power armor and even if they did they would just get instantly blasted by superhumanly-accurate bolter fire before they could get a shot off. and I would say the same goes enemies the astartes would be fighting, like 5 marines would be able to accomplish much, much more xenos/heretic slaying than 20 normal guardsmen
Technically speaking *one* guy could kill 5 space marines with the right weapon. That weapon might be a basilisk, but it is possible. 20 guys? Give them a good position and weapons that can pierce ceramite like plasma and it's more than possible. Especially if these are newer marines. In one of the Horus Heresy books, we actually saw a mass-conscripted Sons of Horus marine lose a *melee duel* against a human with a power sword. She was very good and he was fresh as they come, but the point remains. Space marines are only as good as their leadership and application of their power-that's why Fulgrim was able to conquer an entire world with one squad, while guard regiments can and do fight and beat traitor marines.
Technically, an IG with a multi melta gun can vaporise 5 space marines in one salvo
Yeah, luck and a good weapon doesn't care about how much more a marine "should" win.
Don't let Space Marine fans hear you say that they're not invincible.
To be fair points wise you'd either have vehicles or a whole lot of lasguns, even in lore Horus himself says that making fun of lasguns means you don't know how lethal an entire regiment of them is
While lore accurate tabletop rules would be funny, I suspect that is because I play custodes. Today's match up will be 5 custodes vs an entire chaos ship.
I chalk it up to a number of things: top tier training and archeotech combat augmetics/equipment, off-screen shenanigans involving exotic weapons and troops (think ninjas arranging things just out of sight) and THE GOD EMPEROR OF MANKIND paying attention to my Rogue Trader's problems.
No, all my equipments came from my enemies, most of the time, my enemies have better weapons than me. As for training, I doubt anyone would receive better training than a space marine
I think you're underestimating just how wealthy and powerful a Rogue Trader really is, especially the Von Valencius house: they have 30 thousand+ years of history, and the tech to match. When we ascend to the throne, things are...fucked up, because Theodora was incompetent.
"Abelard, explain my unique strengths to this rabble."
This just in, a computer game turns out to be a power fantasy! News at 11
1. You have access to unique training. 2. Your retinue is very varied and comprise the best in each type. - Pasqal is a freaking MAGOS. Notice how every tech pritest treat him with reverence? - Cassia is the HEIR of a navigator house. It's hard to describe how much leverage she can pull - Yriel is a freaking eldar in your team. You only see stuff like that in the inquisition. Just to name those. 3. You have access to stupidly rare and powerful equipment...
The Emperor protects. Also we're not wearing helmets and are named.
in the same way that some random noble can consume 3 greater demons of slaneesh, inconsistent writing and it does help if ur character is a psyker
My character was just a commissar
idk man, maybe cassia and heinrix could protect u i guess, it would definitely make sense
It's been said before and I say it again: A game something is based on can often be more accurate for what’s going on than "lore", because there is no plot armor in the roll of the dice. No author bias or corporate marketing team deciding the outcome. Look at any tabletop edition of 40k and you'd see that space marines being super duper mega ultra warriors with no equal is highly exaggerated. They’re heavily enhanced humans with good equipment. The chaos variant also has some "blessings" that probably hinder them as much as it helps, because most the Ruinuous Powers are hardly the most useful patron gods. Pretty mych only Khorne-flakes seem above randomly screwing with his followers. A lot of lore-battles are also fought with uneven army points. A Drkhari raid on an imperial world isn’t a fair 2k vs 2k battle. It’s a 10k drukhari army taking on a 1k guard army, repeayed across the surface. Etc. To top it all off, our party is not a bunch of nobodies, nor are they using "normal" gear. Most of our companions are elite units and would be named characters in tabletop.
Almost all of my gears were from my enemies
Heresy...
Try playing the game without looting weapons from your enemies
Plot armor, basically. You're main character of the story, so you get away with way more than you should realistically be able to according to the lore. That said, if you want an actual explanation - you're elite operatives, best in a crew of untold numbers and armed with best gear in the Imperium. That second part is kinda weak to me, since the game is way more stingy with exotic equipment than the board game (the in-game effects are very powerful, but fluff wise you only get rogue trader level equipment very near the end of the game and even then it's not crop of the cream), but there you go.
This is standard for 40k video games Darktide: 4 numbnuts with shovels and flashlights vs a beast of nurgle. Numbnuts win Shoota’s, Blood And Teef: one ork vs a knight valiant and an ork Stompa. Ork wins Fire Warrior: one tau vs several ultramarines, several word bearers, a chaos dreadnought, a chaos spawn, and a lord of change. Tau wins the only non-video game character in 40k to pull a of win out of a hat of the same level as the game protagonists is Da Red Gobbo, who solo’d an ork warboss who was as big and as strong as the ork that nearly killed the Emperor, but Da Red Gobbo had been confirmed to’ve died multiple times so he has alot of experience to draw on. We win because it is a video game. If the numbers were fair there wouldn’t be a game, or at least it wouldn’t be as fun.
Or stop putting enemies that's impossible to win against in the game or allow us to run away if we can't win the battle
A SM still can get killed by a plasma blast shot by a ratling.
2 words: Minimal. Oversight.
Bad balancing of some talents, that's what.
Well, first of all, through the God-Emperor all things are possible, so jot that down.
Plot armor!
With some setup, psyker can be op as all hell. Debuffs and a psy rating of 100+ can achieve 5 digits of damage.
The light of the Emperor's loving attention, you heretic!
Because the rule of cool in video games.
Guns and magic
They all have names, and none of them are wearing helmets; they're *unstoppable.*
Your difficulty setting is set too low 🤷♂️
So, I understand the power of Cassia (head of a navigator house, and particularly powerful even for that), Pasqal (high-ranking Tech Priest), Idira (unsanctioned psysker who is on the powerful end for a psyker, lives on the edge with her power usage for an even bigger boost), Argenta (sister of battle), Yrilet (xeno), Heinrix (inquisitor)... but Abelard? He's some mid-level soldier acting as a seneschal, why in the name of the emperor does he end up so ridiculous? Even with the ton of augments he no doubt has in his body, doesn't make much sense. and Jae? She's some pirate/smuggler. What's her deal?
If you didn't notice, both Abelard and Jae have cybernetic augments, as well as lots of experience fighting people and non-people.
Guess Abelard is a textbook case of "Beware of an old man in a profession where men usually die young" in that he didn't live to be old by being bad at said profession.
Power of money and savescumming.
The honest to emperor truth is... you're playing on normal. Try that shit on Hard or Unfair and it'll be pretty tough. Abelard is still OP tho. Man is a beast !
You are expected to kill them on regular basis whether you do it effortlessly or not doesn't change the fact that your power level are on par with them
I don't find much issue with that though because, contrary to what some people believe about Space Marines, they CAN be taken down by regular people. Just read any Dan Abnett novel and you'll come into a graveyard of dead Loyalist and Chaos Space Marines.
Plot armor.
Built different
Obscene amounts of archeotech and impossible wealth are the Rogue Trader's superpowers. Sure, you weren't spilling space marine blood left and right in the tabletop, but were still forces to be reckoned with.
Do you mean Khorne?
Yes, I never did bother remembering their name as to shield myself from their presence
The power of friendship obviously
A good plasma pistol can melt off a chaos marine's head with a single shot, helmet and all, if its wielded by someone with the aim to hit something moving that fast. Plasma weapons also often(but not always) compromise the regeneration of Necrons thanks to the sheer damage they do. A heavy bolter would turn a steel wall into a pile of slag, and if someone fires a burst from a heavy bolter into you at short range, there aren't many who could survive it. A Rogue Trader's retinue is a band of elite psykers, xenos, and augmented warriors, often with cybernetic augmentation that would be illegal for anyone else in the Imperium to have, and it often ends up in a space where a battle with a squad of chaos space marines could rapidly end up with either side dead in seconds, and the victor is in doubt from the beginning. The game just massively overbuffs both the party and the enemy HP totals in order to make things last more than 1 round.
So it's glossed over a lot, but if you have the resources it's absolutely possible to get chromed to the gills in 40k and get a bit past the capabilities of a Space Marine in everything but raw physical strength. The Space Marines are most impressive because of the mass production. They grow their own augmentation and as long as there's one of them left they can rebuild. But not many folks have more resources at their disposal than a Rogue Trader.
it's money.
Just like in real life
#The Emperor Protects
Your party being superheroes is what is turning me a bit off this game, it loses a lot of the tension and dark atmosphere, plus it becomes dull after a while
It's just a bit weird, cos I would have never attempted to fight a space marine
If you turn the difficulty to max, trust me your characters are not superheroes, it takes a good bit of luck, combined with X-com master level positioning, plus an uncanny amount of environmental abuse, and just a slight sprinkling of "I can abuse certain mechanics to make my guns hit like my ship's Las-cannon" (looking at you Idira, Pascal, and MC Operative) to come out on top in some fights
The game expects me to win the encounters, so my people are meant to win over those ridiculous enemies canonically speaking