I'm starting to put together my plans for running my first rogue trader game and have a question about the numbers of fighting troops a rogue trader can put on to the field. Is there anywhere in the rules that I have missed covering what percentage of crew can be considered soldiers? I know it's one of the questions my players will ask...

Take a look at Battlefleet Koronus, p72 "Those Who Serve". The estimate is 5-10% of the ship's crew are armsmen. These aren't 'soldiers' per se, they're military police and serve vital functions on board a ship. You can probably spare a few hundred from a cruiser to help you out.

But if you want to actually land ground troops I'd suggest fitting in a Barracks component. There's no set number on how many can fit in a Barracks, but many go by 10% of the Crew as well. These are fighting men and women, with their own armouries, quarters, training facilities, etc.

To add to Marwyn's good advice; armsmen are generally armed with cheap weapons like shotguns and other weapons with low/no penetration which pose minimal risk of damaging your own ship. Nor are they generally considered to be heavily armored.

As a rule of thumb, most players tend to believe that one barracks component will house one complete infantry regiment and their equipment and training facilities. Y

For Barracks I make the same assumption as Marwynn, that the number of troops is equal to 10% of the maximum crew population. It works out reasonably well, and is still a heck of a lot of people. I don't grant them any additional facilities beyond bunking though. They are assumed to train in cargo bays and store equipment (and not be firing it off inside of the ship).

I've toyed around with inventing new components that will "improve" the skill of troops stationed on that vessel, but it seems like a little too much fiddly work to keep track of. The basic idea being that they'd be things like Shooting Ranges/Skirmish Yards/Drill Parade Lines that when installed allow troops to train more intensively in certain areas on board that vessel, and these skills provide boosts (e.g. Ballistic Skill/Weapon Skill/Willpower) when the troops come to be deployed on a planet. If they are off that vessel then they lose those boosts because they don't have the same room to keep their skills sharp.

There is no official ruling on how many troops the Barracks holds. The FAQ that's part of the official Errata says that it was intentionally left vague, but suggests that it should be considered to hold a single regiment of troops, which according to the Scale chart is about 500-1000 troops. The thing I note is that the Barracks has the same space requirement regardless of whether it's placed on a Grand Cruiser or a raider, and even 1 point of space is a very large chunk of a ship. So i figure about 5-10,000 is appropriate. 5,000 for raiders, frigates, and small transports, while cruisers and large transports (universe and Goliath factory ship) get 10. Small arms and such fit in the barracks, but vehicles and larger stuff winds up in the cargo holds.

That means you could in theory fit a Universe class with 100,000 troops and fill it's four holds with war gear.

In regards to barracks capacity I just go with two guard regiments for a raider/frigate barracks, three for a light cruiser, four for a cruiser, five for a battlecruiser and so on. Now keep in mind that a light or medium infantry regiment is roughly two to five thousand guys of which only four out of five of which are actual combat troops and another one in five are reserves. Also for contrast a Lemun Russ tank regiment is probably only about thirty six active tanks plus twelve in reserve despite having about a thousand people in it as most of them are staff, service and maintenance personnel.

I use a brigade for the barracks component. And yes, a brigade is about as vague as an Imperial Guard regiment, but limiting barracks to standard regimental size (3,000) when a ship can carry 100k colonists and all their equipment in a cargo bay that takes up the same amount of space in a ship as the barracks just doesn't make sense. Nor does varying the barracks for ship size. So...on the subject of a brigade, that MIGHT mean

1 infantry regiment composed of 3 battalions, each composed of 3 companies, any or all might be mechanized

1 tank battalion

1 artillery battalion

1 recon company

1 engineer company

1 AAA company

1 TAC company

1 signals company

1 quartermaster company

1 medical company

and assorted HQ units

because to me, a barracks means room to store vehicles, otherwise I'm certain that I can find room aboard a 300 million cubic meter cruiser to house a few thousand people with small arms and heavy weapons.

I tend to vary the Barracks' capacity with the size of the ship. On a frigate, the barracks can carry 1 infantry regiment... on a Cruiser, probably 3.

It doesn't necessarily make logical sense, considering the size requirement is the same. I just feel like a larger ship should hold more without requiring multiples of the same component.

Similarly, I let my crew bunk a Company of Light Infantry on their cruiser at no space/power cost on the assumption they're being housed with the regular voids men. 100 compared to a crew of 90,000 isn't enough to notice.

I tend to vary the Barracks' capacity with the size of the ship. On a frigate, the barracks can carry 1 infantry regiment... on a Cruiser, probably 3.

It doesn't necessarily make logical sense, considering the size requirement is the same. I just feel like a larger ship should hold more without requiring multiples of the same component.

The scaling of ship - and component - sizes is ... not that great.

I think a unit of size on the bigger ships is also larger than on the smaller ships. Kind of has to be, really - a ship twice the size is 8x the volume, but only gets twice the space.

I tend to vary the Barracks' capacity with the size of the ship. On a frigate, the barracks can carry 1 infantry regiment... on a Cruiser, probably 3.

It doesn't necessarily make logical sense, considering the size requirement is the same. I just feel like a larger ship should hold more without requiring multiples of the same component.

The scaling of ship - and component - sizes is ... not that great.

I think a unit of size on the bigger ships is also larger than on the smaller ships. Kind of has to be, really - a ship twice the size is 8x the volume, but only gets twice the space.

Agreed. There's some weirdness there, for sure. That's why I just houserule things like a barracks on a Cruiser holding more troops than one on a frigate. We are free, as GMs, to fix things we don't like. So, we should do that.

I have said this before but I believe many components hold more than just what they obviously state. In the case of the Barracks component; It has been pretty much accepted convention on these forums that it holds one regiment. But let's detail that out a little more. Given the size of 40k starships I would submit that a Barracks component is almost a self contained military base. So a Barracks might come complete with the following:

1.) Berthing space for up to a division sized regiment. (Per BFK this is up to 100,000 men!) Smaller (Escort class) ships might only hold a Brigade sized regiment. (Which per BFK can be up to 20,000 men)(Note that most "Standard" IG regiments are about 5000 men.

2.) Galley facilities for all embarked troops

3.) Armory facilities for embarked regiment with complete with small machine shops for equipment maintenance

4.) Training facilities including firing ranges and advanced education facilities. (The background material in the codex pretty clearly indicates that many PDF regiments are "converted" to the IG standard while enroute to their warzone. This could, in some cases, involve some fairly significant facilities.)

5.) Basic Medicae facilities. (Nothing on the order of an actual medicae component which is an onboard hospital, but enough to triage and do emergency trauma care similar to a M.A.S.H. unit.)

6.) Consumable storage. Because their are a lot of supplies the troops need that would strain the capabilities of the onboard systems without help.

Note that I did not include vehicles or landers. Vehicles are kept in cargo bays while landers are kept in the launch bays or in more specialized components. (Like the devourer setup)

Why so much you ask? Well if the Barracks doesn't have all these facilities why not just shove your regiment into a Cargo bay? (As was done on more than one occasion with Gaunt's Ghosts!) The scale of a Cruiser sized vessel is literally the size of a small city! I see no reason why a barracks component could not hold all of the above!

Note that I did not include vehicles or landers. Vehicles are kept in cargo bays while landers are kept in the launch bays or in more specialized components. (Like the devourer setup)

Why so much you ask? Well if the Barracks doesn't have all these facilities why not just shove your regiment into a Cargo bay? (As was done on more than one occasion with Gaunt's Ghosts!) The scale of a Cruiser sized vessel is literally the size of a small city! I see no reason why a barracks component could not hold all of the above!

I'd have a tough time believing that a barracks on some random Frigate would even remotely be capable of holding an Armour Regiment's tanks. Not to mention, if the Leman Russes were in the Barracks, how in the world would you get them to drop craft? Drive 'em through the hallways?

Well, based on my calculations a barracks component would have between 12,000 and 36,000 square meters of floor space depending on your opinion of space wasting items on Imperial ships. An Armour Regiment is about (10 companies of 10 tanks each, plus command) 110 LRMBTs each with a footprint of 35 square meters. Double that to allow for reasonable spacing and driving paths, that's a total of just under 8,000 square meter garage. Assuming the Imperium isn't super-wasteful of voidship space, that's more then enough left over room for tank crews, galley, munitions storage, etc.

And if you're going to all the trouble of installing an Armor-Ready barracks in your frigate, then you're **** well going to make sure the corridors from there to the drop craft are large enough to handle them. So yes, drive them through the hallways.

Yeah, I still have a tough time believing that's the case. Even given your calculations, add in the barracks for the crews, their gear, support vehicles for the tanks, etc... and it stretches disbelief, at best. Just applying logic, I'd pretty much never presume that a warship would be carrying armour regiments around. It would make far more sense if regiments such as those were transported en masse by larger, troop/material carrying craft. If you were going to try to put such a regiment on, say, an Endeavor-class Light Cruiser, it would require significant jury-rigging and putting things where you can fit them.

Besides, a Barracks is, by definition, where you house troops and their gear. I don't think "their gear" encompasses tanks. But hey, that's just me.

I didn't say it was a logical choice, I was just noting it's possible. Rogue Traders do all kinds of things that aren't logical.

I was also assuming you're having your frigate equipped specifically with an armor-ready barracks. Trying to park a regiment's worth of armor inside an infantry barracks isn't going to work regardless if you in a ship or on the ground. You're also perfectly correct that the majority of captains are going to want to house infantry, not vehicles, so they can be used in shipboard combat.

Traditionally in 40k, warships don't move troops around at all. All Imperial Guard deployments are from dedicated transport ships that move entire armies at once. Having a segment of your warship gutted and refitted to support a large quantity of ground troops is the kind of thing only a Rogue Trader or maybe an Inquisitor would ever do.

I'd disagree Traejun but that's those old military logistics classes coming back to haunt us all. Now, I'd never insinuate that a barracks component gave the kind of space needed for maneuvers, but yeah, I think it can carry tanks, recovery and repair vehicles, supply vehicles, signals, etc., etc.

An infantry regiment has maybe 3000 troops and many vehicles for supply, signals, etc. The armored regiment has only maybe 500 troops, and there's lots of space left over for the extra vehicles it has beyond what the infantry regiment has. Even the supply requirements won't be that much different.

Divisions are based around logistics. They are not maneuver elements, nor even operational elements. They are logistical elements, and they require largely the same amount of supplies, no matter what type of division they are, with some notable exceptions (i.e. light infantry). WWII armored division required about 50% more tons of supplies per day than an infantry division, but that was entirely a difference in POL (petrol, oil, and lubricants), which is largely gone in 40k with is plasma-powered vehicles. The element eating up all the ammo was always the artillery regiment, and the element eating up all the supplies were the soldiers. Tanks fire rarely compared to artillery pieces, and their rounds are usually smaller and lighter. So while a tank regiment might at first seem to be a daunting supply problem in theory, it usually isn't in practice.

"But wait, Errant, those WWII armored and infantry divisions had about the same number of men in them, and the armored divisions were often even larger!"

True, but the armored division's 3 main battle elements were 2 infantry regiments and 1 armored regiment. So it's still two-thirds infantry. Then you have the added battalions that often weren't given to their infantry counterparts, like AT, AAA, Recon, etc. Of course, all of this varied by country and date, but it's a good average to base a conversation on.

And yeah, Quick, Rogue Traders are exactly the kind of people that strip out some of a warship's interior and replace it with things like Cargo and Barracks components.

For that matter - a barracks specifically designed for armor, while it won't have room to run maneuver training, should have plenty of space for armor simulator/VR setups for training purposes. Assuming, of course, that they can be maintained and operated, and the knowledge to do so hasn't been lost.

Though that would probably need to be either a higher quality component, or a variant component, probably costing an extra point of power.

I would figure a 'standard' barracks can fit about five to six thousand mechanized infantry plus supporting elements, and their gear, vehicles, supplies, other logistical needs, exercise and training facilities, etc. If you get a pure infantry barracks, probably add 50-100%, depending on what kind of infantry you want to carry.

A barracks component is plenty large enough to fit in training ranges for infantry. However, you're not really going to have the space for a proper long-distance range, and your training facilities will likely have an urban/shipboard warfare emphasis - which, to be fair, is likely where most of the fighting is going to be.

All that being said ... most ships are not going to be able to land those forces very quickly, going by the guidelines for inherent small craft capacity.

I'm feeling the love for the Imperial dropships in Epic. They can land 3 foot companies or 2 armored companies in a single drop (or 4 scout titans, 3 reavers, 2 warlords, or 1 imperator). Apparently taking back off from the planet is a lengthy process. In the meantime, they seem to have battlecannons, missile launchers, lascannons (all turreted and some twin-linked), void shields, and enough small arms mounts to provide serious point defense fire.

I know Rogue Traders would be hired to transport any variety of troops from point A to B...but would a Rogue Trader keep a personal army aside from a ship-board defense force? Something they could effectively launch attacks with?

I think that's really what the Barracks component is for - one's personal army. If one is just carting around Imperial Guard units, the cargo bay works well enough. Barracks allows you to keep military forces in a ready state. Some Rogue Traders make a habit of launching their own combat operations, some even do it on commision for Imperial Agencies.

@Xraysteve

Mine does. Just short of 6,000 in fact. Of course this bites hard into what little money I have, because fielding what amounts to an Astra Militarum regiment is hella expensive, but still. In short, yes. It depends on the RT in question though. My guy is a former Lord-General of the Astra Militarum, so yeah, he leans towards "gimme all the flashlights!" Other RTs have differing priorities. I feel like Jonquin Saul might not put so much emphasis on beign able to assualt a city.

Any Rogue Trader is going to have some private/House troops beyond that of basic shipboard armsmen. While not every Rogue Trader is going to carry a large unit of them around all the time, I'd say that a relatively small honor guard is going to be minimum standard.