""Fan Fixed" Rogue Trader ala NetEpic: Ever been Done?" Topic

Uesugi Kenshin's recent poll suggestion regarding Favorite 40K armies
TMP link
combined with my desperate need to pare down my collection of GW
Has me wondering:

Has there ever been a successful effort to capture the
'Lightning in a Bottle' that was Rogue Trader
with rules that are, honestly: more playable?
Candidates seem to be:

Rogue Trader Itself (rules oddities be darned!
Star Grunt
the "4-D Kay" project using 5150
Shock Force2/ WarEngine
Necromunda (using 2nd edition 40K codexes)
Space Hulk (what with most armies pointed out on the net)

What I am looking for is small scale skirmish,
consisting of 3-5 squads, maybe one or two vehicles (max!!)
playable in an afternoon:
rules people will actually consider playing.

Sadly, that last caveat seems to leave out
Star Grunt and War Engine (at least in my area)
(I've had those rules -forever-,
but have yet to find an opponent willing to mess with 'em…)

I am really currently enamored with 5150
(as I have been in the past , with the aforementioned
Star Grunt and War Engine, in their time)
but again: have yet to find any viable opponent(s).

Does anyone else have some suggestions?
I really prefer NetEpic (6mm) for the Huge Army battles
current 40K seems to prefer modeling;
and I am done with changing rules every four years.

I'm a big fan of NetEpic, and the way that community works
(although I'm looking at Epic Armaggedon due to popularity,
and current 40K Armaggedon using 6mm figs out of perversity…)
and I wonder if such an Animal ever existed for Rogue Trader…?

I have an unhealthy, ridiculous amount of 40K from the 3rd/4th ed 40K era
(when I worked at a Game Store and went more than a little crazy)
and I just don't use any of it, likely never will,
and will never paint the huge Whole Armies I acquired at that time…

(I have been justifying to myself Keeping this stuff
on behalf of 'the Boy' (my son, age seven)
but, recent events have taught 'the Dad' this is only foolishness)
TMP link

Since the Goal is to Divest from my 40K collection by 60-90%
(I plan on keeping one, and ONLY one, of each sculpt I own)
I suppose I'll end up creating profiles for the models
I want to keep for all of those systems I've mentioned,
and just keep looking for opponents…

… and the Quest for "the Perfect Game" continues….

Rogue Trader Itself (rules oddities be darned!)

Thats the one I use! 5150 is good and I have pinched some of the tables from it, but I prefer the wackiness of RT even after all this time.

Second is the fact that the perfect system does not exist and even if it did we would not all agree that it was LOL!

Happy hunting

AS

Strong recommendation for Forge of War.
This set was developed in response to disappointment with 40K rules. Although it doesn't pretend to cover the overwhelming minutia of 40K it handles the important areas intuitively and smoothly. There are also army lists available for other popular rules systems.

link

And of course it's free!

Sean Patten -of Necromunicon fame- developed a set of rules that might be up your alley. They are an expansion of the Space Crusade rules.
link
He's even expanded it to include Necromunda, Mordheim, and Gorkamorka settings

I've never played it, but it looks interesting as it seems to be aimed more toward small scale senario driven play and has a campaign system as well as provisions for cooperative and competative play.

I'd say RT itself (as well) with all of the "2nd Edition" additions (WD articles, compendium, battles book, etc…).

That aside, I do like the look of 5150 (have not played an actual game yet though).

I've used Shockforce mostly, but it is a bit more work than I feel like doing to completely convert the great variety of equipment and weapon categories.

For capturing the spirit of all the unusual asymmetric weapons, I'm more of the mind to use RT stats with some turn sequence modifications better suiting my current preferences, like alternating units or action based and with some basic form of reaction fire like Warzone, Shockforce, or Starship Troopers.

A long time ago I'd made up some quick convention rules I called Hammerzone that merged 40K with Warzone for pitting Grey Knights against The Brotherhood to determine the true heretics… It may be worth a revisit. Iirc, I gave the 40K troops 2 actions and halved the move for each action, then I converted the d20 Warzone stats to d6..or maybe the other way, I can't remember. Sadly that was around '94, and I don't even think I have the mod rules in electronic form from back then.

Goldwyrm->

'HammerZone' sounds interesting;
I started doing something similair with Void 1.1.,
but never really carried it that far (Void died within a year
with our group; nobody but me picked up on Urban War).

ordinarybrass->
I'd seen the SpaceCrusade version a few years ago,
but hadn't played it:
Thanks for the reminder!!

So: looks like I'll keep on with 5150
as long as my interest holds,
and then I'll start fiddling with RT proper again:
Anyone interested in co-creating "NetRogueTrader"…?

I might be. Keep me posted.

I feel with you! RT creating loads of opportunite for all sorts of fun, that later editions have sadly lost.
I've been working on two solutions for myself, the first is a D10 based system which works with expanded platoons and a few vehicles. The second, which I'm pretty buzzed abut is a multiple D6 system. This has lead to a lot of customability and some interesting ideas (mainly because I also saw Ghost in the Shell while writing it and wanted to add lots of concepts from that in too). If you're interested in taking a look and made getting ideas or even playing it, you can find them here (they're both WIP editions):
crimsondusk.webs.com

I would love to see a NetRogueTrader come about. I miss the small scale and the fun of those times.

me too, I think all you need to fix them would be to dump the super weapons that can kill every trooper and tank on the table :) we would not use them back in the day.

3-5 squads? you mean 30-50 troops on the table? Isn't that kinda big for Rogue Trader?

I've been kicking around a modification of the Infinity rules, where each activation was a fireteam instead of a single model, but that's still really rough at this point (I'm having trouble getting the HMGs to work right…)

nope we used to play games as big as 100+ per side yea they took 6 hours to play but they were fun.

"nope we used to play games as big as 100+ per side yea they took 6 hours to play but they were fun."

Nice! Though I doubt I'll ever top 50 per side!

"I think all you need to fix them would be to dump the super weapons that can kill every trooper and tank on the table"

Good call.

"I think all you need to fix them would be to dump the super weapons that can kill every trooper and tank on the table"

Vortex grenades anyone, but they are great for getting rid of Greater Demons etc..

AS

Vortex grenades were ok it was when you planted a mine field full of the things for 500 points that was a game killer or melta bombs.

1 or 2 50 point Vortex grenades were a good one off weapon to like you said take out a Greater Demon or a heavy tank.

If the people you know won't play Stargrunt or 5150 even if they can use their existing models, Im doubtful they'd want to play Rogue Trader "fixed" or not.

In terms of fixing RT I'd leave the weapons well alone (apart from correcting typos) as they were part of the fun. Though granted, a serious hike in the points cost may well be warrented for some. It would be interesting to fold back in the current generation of weapons and equipment from the new races.

Vehicle rules were the one area that needed serious work, GW certainly published a least one major tweak in WD and possible a couple of minor ones IIRC.

RT should be able to handle larger games given the basic mechanics are the same as WFB II (troops were easy it was the vehicles that killed the turn speed).

The battle manual had some nice tweaks to smoothe things along. THe blast weapon rules as written in the main book are rather obtuse.

I liked the vehicle rules from the compendium. Very nicely detailed if a bit clunky. But then, thats pretty much RT :)