Just to warn you, those interested in ancient lore, this is quite an explanation heavy episode of the blog. No apps or list makers here, just pen, paper and the book!
If you read the very start of the Rogue Trader book, it advises you need two players, AND, needing a GM, this third person is who sets the game, oversees the rules, and is even someone controlling a force against the two players. It was also written that ‘The GM should make sure that the players have sufficient dice, pencils, paper and any other items needed’!
There were no Codices to refer to, it was all down to the scenario a GM either planned or rolled, you could even use the RPG version of the games and have the tabletop rules for big moments.
This doesn’t mean there are no points involved, but that they are more designed for the GM to keep things roughly equal and good enough for the scenario. So with some flicking back and forth you can create an army list that would be recognisable as such.
Yes, this is a picture of my own copy of RT, hardback, a bit battered, but still good.
What troops and equipment do I have? For that we look at pages 178-183. It gives all the stats for Eldar from trooper to Major Hero, what equipment they all have, and a whole bunch of tables to roll for additional stuff from types of armour, to synthetic skin suits or web gun solvents.For the most part though, I’m going to be using an ancient word of power- WYSIWYG!
What You See Is What You Get! You give the model the equipment that is shown on the mini you’re using, so I’m not going to be using lots of equipment rolls.
From the lore, ‘the most common organisation amongst mercenary bands is based around squads of 5 warriors, ten squads making a company led by a Captain.’
A squad of 5, if we do 4 troopers and a champion then, with two hero characters to lead, we get a pretty well rounded force. What about equipment? That’s listed for all Eldar too, it changes between Mercenaries and Pirates, and I prefer the Pirate loadout.
‘5 warriors equipped with mesh armour and carrying a refractor field defence device... The helmet includes a communicator, photochromatic visor and breathing mask.’
‘Weaponry includes long knives throughout. The squad leader may carry a brace of laspistols, or hand flamers, in addition to his main armament of a plasma gun or flamer. Three warriors have shuriken catapults, and the remaining warrior carries a special weapon. Favoured special weapons are the flamer, melta-gun, heavy plasma gun and multi-melta.’
So we have the basics for every squad- champion, 4 troopers, equipment and basic weapons, is the same for all three squads- so let’s count that up using pages 58-60, then we add in our champion and special weapon choices to get each unit, then equip the Minor and Major Heroes with what they have and Bingo!
No, I’m not showing all of my calculations on here, this is one of the points cost lists I did, but the breakdown is;
Unit 1- basic equipment, flamer for the champion, lascannon for the special.
Unit 2 - basic equipment, missile launcher with Frag and krak missiles, and one plasma missile for the special, and a shuriken catapult for the champion. Some missiles last all game, some you buy individually.
Unit 3 - basic equipment with a hand flamer and power fist for the champion and a melta gun for the specialist, they also have flight packs and smoke grenades for funsies.
Then the leaders, we get;
A minor hero with basic equipment, a melta gun, a power glove and a plasma grenade.
A major hero with basic equipment, and I decided to run with the lore that says 75% of Eldar personalities are psykers, so we gave him a hand flamer, a force sword, and a psychic mastery of 2 (with 3 powers of each level and 10 psy points), because having some psychic power is going to come in handy.
Lastly, we have my ‘Scarab’ troop transport. There is a full guide to how you make a vehicle, with every stat costing points, it’s got to be an anti grav, it needs to have a carry capacity for one unit and a character, a lascannon, two shuriken catapults, and let’s give it auto drive, auto aim (so I don’t need the crew if it’s destroyed) and ejector seats to save passengers!
I used the landspeeder stats as a base, made it more armoured, tougher, and higher wounds than the speeder, but I made sure it was not as tough as a land raider (the Rhino was not yet a thing, so it wasn’t a reference point). This came to a good chunk of points, but definitely not something for an opponent to ignore.
Bringing this list to a grand total of…
919 points!
Not bad, 17 Eldar Pirates and their transport.
I’ve had a discussion with my opponent to be, and a 1000 point game is the objective, so I have 81 points left to play with. I could make the Minor hero a psyker as well, I could add more grenades, upgrade some equipment… we shall see, I need to keep some secrets.
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