We have been pondering for some time playing a game with every edition of Warhammer 40,000 in succession. We finally got around to it! Since the 1980s I have always liked the look of the Genestealer cults, and once was even working on a Call of Cthulhu 1920s adventure which involved one on Earth. I got my chance to play a 1500pt force.
To be honest I have been dying to play Rogue Trader since the game first appeared 1980s. Another box ticked on the bucket list.
We used the old 1st edition army lists from White Dwarf magazine in the early 1990s and I opted for two squads of Genestealers, a patriarch and a magus, backed up by a couple of squads of Brood Brothers and a few hybrids equipped with heavy weapons. We used a scenario from the excellent Sci-fi Skirmish Scenarios by John Lambshead (available in all good bookshops), which I highly recommend and may use for Stargrave as well in the future.
My opponent Kelvin went with quite a focused group of Eldar, but he had an avatar and a dreadnought in the mix, plus a squad of banshees, so plenty of combat muscle there. While his army looked small, I anticipated they would be tough to contend with.
Above: The small but potent Eldar force in all its glory. While heavily outnumbered, it was extremely powerful and only missed a victory by a whisker.
One of the interesting aspects of Rogue Trader is that there is a lot of dice rolling before the game to generate powers/attributes. I had two level 4 psykers so plenty of rolls for powers to be made. This can leave you with some useful psionics, but also with some that are probably better suited for an RPG. This reflects the pedigree of Rogue Trader, which was trying to be a skirmish game with strong RPG elements, and recommended the use of an umpire/GM.
Our mission was to be the army controlling the sacred monolith in the middle of the village square by game end. The scenario is interesting because there is no cover in the square itself, so you have to time your rush.
Above: An Eldar squad backed up by the Farseer lurking at one end of the square. The monolith stands in the middle of the square. Timing was everything in this game.
I sent one squad of Genestealers around on my right to try to tie down the dreadnought. I knew the Genestealers would be excellent in hand to hand combat and they kept the dreadnought and the banshees busy for most of the game, but sadly not all, as we shall see.
A second group of Genestealers I used to engage the Eldar covering the square. Luckily my magus managed to use one of his psionic powers to turn the Eldar unit over to my side. This is a good example of just how dominant psionics can be with first edition 40K. It allowed me to tackle the Eldar avatar and keep him busy.
Above: Genestealers rush the Eldar dreadnought - I think they are called wraithlords - with banshees arriving on the right of the picture. I wanted to tie down as many Eldar as I could in this area. These Genestealers were sacrificial lambs, and ugly ones at that!
Things started to unravel in what was a largely solid plan when the Eldar Farseer began to make his presence felt. He was possessed of some fairly powerful mind control abilities himself, which he used to try to take over both my patriarch and my magus. This meant they both had to spend a huge amount of their available psi points just to defend themselves.
I eventually threw my Brood Brothers into the attack and they charged across the square to try to capture the monolith before game end. It was at this point that the patriarch was possessed by the damned Farseer who used him to attack one squad of Brood Brothers. This forced me to break contact with the avatar and bring my surviving Genestealers back into the square in an effort to take the monolith.
Above: Genestealers and Brood Brothers launch their attack across the square. I was hoping to swarm the monolith and hold it with superior numbers. I may have timed my assault slightly too early, but only just. The Farseer had other plans of course!
The Eldar on my right flank had by this stage finished off my Genestealers, and the remaining banshees and the dreadnought joined the fray. Amazingly, the dreadnought was able to jump 50 metres to land in the main square, which was nice for the Eldar.
The game ended in a draw, with the possessed Eldar still contesting the monolith. It was closely fought and a very entertaining scenario.
Above: The moment went it all went phat for me. The Farseer seized control of the patriarch, forcing a squad of Brood Brothers to tackle him in close assault.
Rogue Trader is much closer in feel to 3e and 4e 40K than I expected. Most of the core mechanics of the game are in place already and very recognisable. It has some granular elements which, I feel, were certainly not missed in 3e (e.g. in RT characters carrying heavy weapons are heavily penalised which means they quickly break contact with parent squads). I like playing narrative scenarios, and it is eminently suitable for this.
I would question the power of psionics in the game. We had three powerful psykers on the table and I would argue that they dominated the battle. I dread to think what it would be like to tackle an Eldar Farseer with no friendly psionics to draw on. We shall have to see how powerful psykers are in 2e.
Our plan is to move onto 2e now where I will be testing out the Dark Angels list, possibly with some squat auxiliaries. Stay tuned for more on that and on my army list.
I think one (major) issue with the psionics was that we were using separate rules. You had the basic RT rulebook psionics, whereas GW decided in the following years that the Eldar should have a bespoke system of their own that was more limited in terms of powers available, but very powerful in that it didn't use power points.
ReplyDeleteIt fits the Eldar well in terms of them being an ancient and powerful psychic race, but in terms of game balance it was a bit wonky, and exploiting the difference dragged me from a loss to a draw.
Everyone uses the same psychic system in 2e, at least, although powers do vary by faction.
I enjoyed RT and I'd play it again, although I think I would perhaps play with a different faction, as the Eldar list I used felt very much like a preview of 2e and although there was some randomness and grittiness, I don't feel like I was really experiencing it in its full 1987 glory!