Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader
 | This article or section is about something oldschool - and awesome. Make sure your rose-tinted glasses are on nice and tight, and prepare for a lovely walk down nostalgia lane. |
"In the nightmare future of the 41st millennium there is no time for peace. No respite, no forgiveness. There is only war" -Ad in Dragon Magazine 147.
Remember when GW was good?
Remember when Space Marines were the coolest Wombles ever?
Remember when Warhammer 40,000 wasn't all about depressing GRIMDARK, at all times?
Pepperidge Farm Remembers. So do we.
Welcome to Rogue Trader. Make sure your rose-colored glasses are on nice and tight.
(Warning: Contains dangerous amounts of '80s.)
Not to be confused with the new Rogue Trader RPG.
Background
This book was written WAY back in the day when all Games Workshop put out was Warhammer. As in the fantasy kind. People back then would look at you funny if you asked them which one they were talking about because THERE WAS ONLY ONE. Anyway, this archaic tome was created as a GW-supported add-on adaptation of Warhammer, so players could experience the new, futuristic world of Warhammer 40,000. Needless to say, some people thought it was pretty cool.
Just for clarification, this was written IN THE '80S. This book contains less grimdark and more hair metal than most Neckbeards could stand before raging, but luckily this book is a Venerable Dreadnought. No joke. It inspires awe and sometimes even manly tears in neckbeards, its legendary reputation has been passed down for centuries, and it has a wealth of information with which to aid anyone in their quests to create homebrew rules or craft inspired custom models. This includes how to make a Land Speeder out of a deodorant stick, so your army can smell as manly as it looks. The Beakie and the Squat call this book home. This is the impenetrable fortress which crusty old neckbeards sometimes fall back to to defend their points and rage about how things suck in 6th Edition; and its reputation alone makes all but the hardest-core troll or newest newfag concede defeat. This is where fluff reigns supreme, and everybody was awesome. It is also a book so enormous that most copies are lost from being used to moor battleships, as anchors proved insufficiently manly. It contains the MOST COMPLICATED THING EVER in the form of the Imperial Robot rules.
This is the original source of Warhammer 40,000.
At the time, this was the finished product, what the original creators intended.
This IS Warhammer 40,000.
Pre-Heresy
Forge World has released a long lineup of so-called "pre-Heresy" models inspired by art from this era. They started with powered armor, like the Mk. III "Iron" and Mk. VI "Corvus" patterns, and moved on to special weapons, including banana-clip-fed Missile Launcher, the old (and still horrendous) Flamer, and of course the AK-47 Bolter. They moved on to re-make the old Land Raider Spartan and the bubble-turret Predator Tank, and now that they're making a whole game line set in the Horus Heresy, they're going all-out. These look just as amazing as you think they should, and really live up to the nostalgia; you just have to pay Forge World prices to get them.
Stuff
/tg/'s custom Rogue Trader Codex