Good day to everyone! It has been quite a while since my last RT game and I have never payed much attention to the mechanics of the games anyway. The problem is that I really feel like playing a melee character in the next game, but my my GM style of playing in the pass has made such a decision pretty suicidal. I would say on average 9 out of 10 melee characters end up dead long before any of their ranged allies and now that I think about it - casualties among ranged characters are almost unheard of.

My DM also has the happing of exploiting character's weaknesses, and with melee requiring more serious XP investment (at least that is my feeling about it) - there is a lot less to cover said weaknesses.

Basically what I want from my character is to be able to have somewhat secure way to get into melee, one there - murder an enemy in spectacular way, and be capable to do at least one more thing besides swinging a stick.

What would you recommend me?

1. An ork freebooter who is really tough and also a good commander for boarding action.

2. A kroot shaper who counts on stealth, uses human technology to autment his nice racial perks and is very decent scout?

3. Dark Eldar? Not really sure what those guys are capable of. Can they be decent in melee? Will probably require a lot of thinking to feet smoothly into the crew, due to their "quirks", but should be doable.

4. Some human career?

Should I consider some specific origin paths or alternate career ranks?

I generally try to get an interesting character concept down before worrying too much about mechanics, but if I was trying for what you're describing I'd probably go for an Explorator. They don't get a lot of fancy talents till later on, but they can get a high toughness, armor, and strength going on.

With Lumien Charge and Electrical Succor you can run around in power armor without too much worry about running out of battery life so long as you've got some las gun charge packs as "juice" boxes. Between that, a suppression shield, The Flesh is Weak, and some subskin armor your GM's going to need some pretty heavy weapons to get through your armor and toughness. Ork may have unnatural toughness (which will be better early on), but he'll never be able to get that sort of armor level going on.

Machinator array ups the strength and toughness, some Best Craft muscle implants for unnatural strength, toss on your power armor, and grab a mezoa thunder hammer and you'll be smashy smashying with the best of them.

And finally this will all be in addition to all the tech, knowledge, and weird powers that Explorators normally get as part of their progression.

If you're worried about getting around grab a jump pack and elite advance into pilot personal. Even if you're not a terribly good pilot just don't try to do anything fancy and you'll probably survive the occasional crash just fine.

So I notice all three of your examples are Xenos, so if you'd like to play one of those you've basically nailed the pros/cons of your three options.The problem with Xenos is their extra thing tends to be "Be a Xenos", although if you survive long enough to take the Dark Eldar Haemonculus there's some interesting things you can do there.

Spatula has nailed the advantage of the Explorator in terms of Melee survivability, but for Melee damage output the Missionary is still your best bet. You have a cheap WS advance line, and a large number of useful support social skills. Plus your Talents can allow you to become a leader of men in combat, and even more importantly yell at the enemy for massive bonuses with Inspire Wrath.

Assuming you're not allowed to Elite Advance into Pilot Personal you can pick it up in your Origin Path a couple of ways. I recommend Press-Ganged, because the thought of the Mechanicus/Ministorum forcefully recruiting people into their new Rocket Priest program amuses me greatly.

Rocket Priests.....

"WITNESS THE GREEATNeess...."

"OF THE EMPERORrr....."

"THROUGH MEEEEeeeee...."

"BLAAAAAAAMAMMMDVMAREMBVMW smoke everywhere!"

Que muscly missionary in brightly painted power armor and a great big jump pack, dual-wielding thunder hammers because RAW you can do that, crawling out of a big crater.

"PRAISE BE!"

Well the Rogue Trader himself gets good hand to hand combat options and the whole leader of men idea for red shirts to intercept the round meant for you could work

and yes you should duel wield Thunder hammers my RT does and he is unstoppable (the power armour helps )

Just a few thoughts for alternative ways to get into melee. Have you considered using a scout bike or other fast vehicle? Or if your battles are fought at closer quarters, how about extensive use of blind grenades to cover your advance? If that's a bit too finesse for you, how about a boarding shield to provide your own cover, or just hire a squad of bodyguards to hide amongst.

If you want something a bit more exotic, consider playing a Navigator with the teleport power (I forget what it's called), and take a more combat orientated alternate rank like the manhunter or reaver from Hostile Aquisitions.

I don't know if any of this will work for you, but it's more options to consider how to get up close and personal.

A Rocket Priest... by the Emperor, I have to make one, even if it's just an NPC.

A Rocket Priest... by the Emperor, I have to make one, even if it's just an NPC.

There were some theories around my gaming table of an AdMech tankbusting group which consisted of heavily augmented infantry with dual powerfists, best-quality muscle augs, jump packs and four utility mechadendrites or as many servo arms you can fit, combined with frag grenades.

1. Jump onto closest tank and smash it open with your power fists!
2. Tear open hole using mechadendrites.
3. Insert liberal amounts of frag grenades into hole.
4. If there's still any tanks left, goto 1
5. Jump away from exploding tank.

I have a very deadly melee based character who happens to be one of the most ignored careers, Void-Master.

He is an ex-Reaver, and rolled well on his melee weapon skills (he was originally meant to be shooty instead of stabby, but the dice have their own will).

He is also skilled with a Jump-Pack, allowing him to quickly close the distance between him and his foes when the situation allows him to use his pack.

To give you some idea of what he is capable of, he killed an elite ogryn bodyguard all by himself, though it did take some work to get him to that point.

Some suggestions, many of which are based on play experience

-Hatred. It will give you attack bonuses to hit your opponents, provided you hate them. Reavers get Hatred (All) as a talent, meaning they hate pretty much everything, including fluffy bunnies. This can become restricting to RP though, as one should generally RP their character's talents and abilities, and Hatred (All) makes your character a perpetual *******.

-Frenzy/Battle Rage. This will increase your strength, toughness, and weapon skill, making you better able to survive, though your character can't exactly act intelligently much of the time if you play these Talents properly.

-Power Weapons. They cut through most armour like a hot knife through butter, and do a great deal of damage. Void-Masters and Rogue Traders start off with them, though they shouldn't be too difficult to acquire for other careers which are inherently better suited for melee (or combat in general), like Arch-Militants or Missionaries.

-Good or Best craftsmanship melee weapons. They give you bonuses to hit. Killing your enemies as quickly as possible is important to your character's survival, and killing them quickly means hitting them as often as possible. Combined with Hatreds, this can create a huge bonus to hit that your base WS wouldn't initially suggest (during a charge, while in frenzy, with his hatreds, my character has to roll under 86).

-Jump Packs. They let you close gaps with enemies quickly, hop past cover, etc, mitigating several advantages of gun-wielding opponents. Instead of you taking a turn or two to charge distant opponents, taking fire all the while, you can quickly charge an obnoxious distance extremely quickly, falling upon your enemies before they can even get off a good shot. This can create the problem of getting yourself too far away from your allies if you aren't careful though, and jump packs aren't appropriate for all encounters. They can also quickly get you away from combat if you start taking too much damage. If you're a Dark Eldar, Skyboards (coupled with talents from the Skyterror Alternate Rank) can become useful for fly-by attacks

-Felling Weapons. They ignore Unnatural Toughness. Nuff said.

-Armour, shields, toughness, etc. Bump them up as much as possible. The more damage you can shrug off, the better, because you'll be taking a great deal of it.

These are just a few suggestions. I generally don't try to optimize too much, but having decided I really like RPing my character (******* that he may be), I have done everything in my power to make him able to survive the scraps he gets into so I can continue RPing him, the result being a very dangerous melee character. Take these suggestions as you will.

If your GM is gaming your characters by crafting encounters specifically to counter them, then he/she is a horse's ass.

That said, jump packs or that one talent (the name escapes me) that vastly increases your charge range, will solve your closing problems. Once in melee, the job is done unless you charged into a group of bads - at which point you're not bright and should pay the price for it. At the point that you engage a target in melee, it should, by all rights, be over. This is doubly so if the target is ranged-oriented and/or using a basic weapon vs. pistol. They almost have no chance of damaging you - best they can hope for is to dodge a lot. With the RT level of equipment/wargear your characters are carrying, kills should come quickly against non-boss NPCs.

Also... xenos PCs are stupid.

I actually agree with Traejun on this - I think that's the second time in recorded history.

I actually agree with Traejun on this - I think that's the second time in recorded history.

There must be some mistake. Maybe you misunderstood my post?

I re-read it several times to be sure.

It looks like we actually agree.

If your GM is gaming your characters by crafting encounters specifically to counter them, then he/she is a horse's ass.

That said, jump packs or that one talent (the name escapes me) that vastly increases your charge range, will solve your closing problems. Once in melee, the job is done unless you charged into a group of bads - at which point you're not bright and should pay the price for it. At the point that you engage a target in melee, it should, by all rights, be over. This is doubly so if the target is ranged-oriented and/or using a basic weapon vs. pistol. They almost have no chance of damaging you - best they can hope for is to dodge a lot. With the RT level of equipment/wargear your characters are carrying, kills should come quickly against non-boss NPCs.

Also... xenos PCs are stupid.

To be fair, though, if you're a melee type and don't or can't close quickly enough, it doesn't take a GM deliberately being an ass to get shot to pieces. If you don't get in close enough on your turn, the ranged hostiles are going to turn you into their number one target, because they know that if they don't stop you before you get to melee range, they're dead.

And ranged combatants can take cover and still be attacking from cover or while hiding - a melee guy can't really do that very well - and that's going to improve survivability a fair bit.

As for how to survive to melee range, anything that improves your movement speed, boosting armor/toughness, anything that can add a miss chance (force fields, usually). Being smart in how you move to get to melee range - move from cover to cover, and end your movement while you're in cover, even if that means not moving as far as you possibly could.

See if you can get friendly characters to give you support while you close to melee range in the form of suppressing fire - possibly get a forearm-mounted pistol or a throwaway gun to spray suppressing shots while you close

Displacer fields are the forcefield of choice if you're charging enemy lines. Its protection rating isn't the best, but since you teleport when you're hit that's effectively instantly dodging the remaining full auto shots, since they need to waste ammunition to "track" you to your next location.