"Rules similar to Rogue Trader" Topic

Ther recent "best 40K ever" thread has me wondering if there are any currently available rules that capture the spirit of Rogue Trader? I'll leave it up to you to define what "spirit" means if you suggest something. :)

Shockforce/Warengine is probably the closest for the crazy "anything goes" approach.

or if you would like a copy of Rogue Trader and have $50 USD + postage send me an email quester666 at yahoo dot com I have 1 extra copy :)

Laserburn, Rogue Trader's daddy. Still available here-
link

I picked up 5150 a few weeks ago. It is rough around the edges- which is a point of commonality with Rogue Trader to some extent.

5150 has a very different game mechanic (not I GO U GO) but it seems to fit the 'spirit' of old school 40K- which I envision to be smaller actions, focused on shooting rather than melee, not too many figures and characters with some moxie. When reading the rules I pictured myself using my Rogue Trader figures…

Well I guess I have to name my project here: Crimson Dust, still in the process, by there's a rough working copy out. The idea is to have a reasonably detailed skirmish system (10-20 models a side), which is reasonably customisable. One of the beauties of RT was how easy it was to customise and the sheer range of things covered.
If anyone fancies a look here's the current working copy:
link

Laserburn, Rogue Trader's daddy.

If that is true, then GW is apparently trying to deny that sort of thinking with some revisionist history (or the Games Workshop "Hobby" isn't just a hobby unto itself, but its own parallel universe).

I was flipping through an older issue of White Dwarf, #342 from July 2008, and on page 34 is a discussion with the senior Games Designers about the history of W40K. In it, Rick Priestley debunks that idea -- "…this is clearly the case of a little knowledge being a very misleading thing!"

Curiously, there is no mention of the Star Wars connection to W40K, either.

Have you taken a look at "No Limit". Its free.

From what I understand Laserburn was the great great grand father to 40k. It started as a 15mm game more like a cross between a role playing, and TTG. Next came Imperial commander, a addon to laserburn to make it more of a TTG with larger forces. From there it lead into Rough trader, then 40k 2nd edition.

I have been using Beamstrike for a few years, as it is an updated version of Imperial commander. This version if free, and open. There is a community out there working on the rules and a yahoo group supporting it. I have even contributed with the base vehicle rules.

link

Noel

I actually had a chance to ask that question of Rick Priestley a few years back over email.

The connection is that Bryan Ansell offered Priestley that he could use any of the weapons and gadgets from Laserburn, as Ansell was working for GW at the time.

Rules wise, the two aren't connected at all (though Confrontation and later Inquisitor might have borrowed from there)

Rouge Trader (sic) was the son of warhammer Fantasy 2nd Ed, bringing in some of the concepts that would later be retrofitted back into 3rd Ed. (multiple wounds instead of multiple hits etc).

From the same article:

Rick: Rogue Trader started as a spaceship combat game that Bryan Ansell, as head of Citadel Miniatures, had commissioned me to design. It was to go with a range of spaceships that I'd made before I joined Games Workshop in 1981. One of the understandings of me joining the company was that I'd put that game into production. I remember there was a human spaceship, an Orc ship and an Elf vessel.

Rick: People often mention Laserburn in the context of 40K, but this is clearly the case of a little knowledge being a very misleading thing! Bryan [Ansell] wrote a game called Laserburn in the very early 80s. It was a decimal based system so had nothing to do with 40K. It certainly wasn't the "precursor" to Rogue Trader as some hoary old myths claim. The only similarities were a couple of the naming conventions, which we used again because we produced an existing sci-fi range Citadel Space Farers -- which we wanted to re-use for Rogue Trader.

Gav: I know that you'd already written a couple of sci-fi games before you joined Games Workshop.

Rick: Yeah, there was Combat 3000 in the late 70s and Imperial Commander a bit later, both written along with Richard Halliwell, and have a far closer ancestry to 40K than Laserburn ever did -- primarily because they shared the same author!

And *Starguard* still remains the probable granddaddy of sci-fi miniature wargame rules (first published in 1974).

As for a Rogue Trader feel, I second the recommendation for 5150. There's even a 5150 site for WH40K conversions to use 5150:

link

Hope this helps!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

Hmm. Bolt guns, space marines, swords, sunguns (meltas), a high tech society slipping back into an age of barbarism, power swords, power armour, dreadnoughts (terminators) etc etc. The rules are different but 40K is a straight evolution of Laserburn when it comes to background and overall feel.