so back on track with my progress; after fixing all theconduits on the Light of Terra, they descended down into the depths to find the cogitator. a little close quarters swimming and rusty door fenangling later they find the Pale Mothers grotto. a few short words were shared and the party hallucinogen grenaded the not yet hostile group into submission so they could easily blow them to pieces with plasma and hellgun fire. fixed up the cogitator within a couple hours and returned to the captian.

the captain was raving for his final quest and such, the group asking for his support on their endeavor and cargo rewards. the holds open, the captain continues his rant and the timer starts up. 2 hours. the group rushes to the holds and loot, run for their ship, and order the thousand or so crewmen to stop escorting void walkers and leg it for the cargo holds and start filling lighters as fast as they can. a load or two into it the party decideds getting away from the Light was in their best interest and left their crewmen behind in place of more loot. they push their big red humie button and blast for the warp point just in time for the Light to break warpspace, opening up star sized warp explosion engulfing the players, causing emergency navigation for a warp storm exit before the 'portal' closes up and just barely escape.

Bastille was forgotten about and seemingly didnt notice the warp explosion (I forgot to add his reaction at end of session / beginning of next)

Next session starts with Nav calling on his house for assistance and meetup and the portal to processional (only known to party as point with no star or system where charlabelle said an eldar ship attacked) they get lost in transit and end in random system, receive their own astro message, then one from their house saying they went to meet and party didnt show, another saying they went to partys last known location to no avail, then a ship showed up, owned by the house saying they followed their tracks here. messenger on board gave them a chart from a later to be discovered ork system to their personal starbase in Accursed demense space.

here the Navigator met his patriarch, who performed a heretical ritual on him giving him enough insanity and corruption to mutate him into having regeneration, along with invulnerability disorder, while also striking insanity in the rest of the party who witnessed. a bit of bargaining later and they rented out a raider and transport from the house in exchange for the starmap of their quest. as a bonus the patriarch was able to read the map so well he was able to work out the dread pearl location without them having to go to the prcessional. From here the group did some last minute aquisitions and headed for the pearl.

found the storm from a distance but as they got closer realized in was only in system and they were still able to drop from the warp on the outskirts of the system and 'view it' from here they see the other traders, see above and here we are

my group definitely took their sweet time moving forward. so long that I had a hard time justifying why the competition would have to take just as long. ended up with some hogwash that warp travel is usually so finicky that it could easily take everyone months to complete the trail. also adding small rumors here and there that some had to make trips back to footfall etc (like the party did) but mostly they ignored the rivals anyway. I just reached part 3 myself and am figuring out what order they all arrived (simplifying it basically to a die roll on each and justifying why after)

so far;

Gerrit was first to arrive. his super augers got his answers real quick, plus he was found earlier selling Dross point to people, and running off when the explorers are spotted leaving the atmosphere

Charlabelle next, who was quite mad at the party for unknowingly hiring her own kroot allies on footfall to kill her. (they hired footfall kroot to kill any competition that come back after. she showed up as they were cruising to warp point and neglected to tell her about the kroot; disregarding their alliance with her yet hoping for the best)

Fel also showed up. not much to report from him, although he owes the party a favor for helping him against eldar first leaving footfall, the party doesnt remember and basically left him with a "may the best man win"

Lee is here too, but has yet to be spoken to. ever. so... yeah

The group was fifth to show, speaking with the others a bit before Bastille arrived. they jammed his communication immediately. the group's allied pirate transport shows up, and Bastille fires upon it and the session ends.

I'll go into the pirate alliance next but first, I'm not sure how to handle the upcoming battle, who should arrive when, what sides, if anyone is going to gun it through the dying storm etc. kind of made it seem that even though everyone had vastly different routes, the route to the Pearl ended up dropping them all within an hour/day/time period

Well ... the party taking a long time can be adressed in much the same way as a party that speeds through things.

The Warpstorm preventing access to the Pearl doesn't even begin to lessen in strength until after everybody who is going to make it has arrived. As a result, nobody even considers trying to make their way through early, leaving those who arrived in advance to wait around, intrigue with one another, etc.

Of course, if the players make it early, it gives them another opportunity to cut down on the competition. If the competition arrives well before the players do, it gives the competition time to cut deals with one another, backstab each other, and/or arrange an ambush for the players.

Question: so back on Quppa Psi the party looted the dead eldar to gain their witchblades. now that we're finally getting to the Pearl theres the mini encounter Sacred Blade, where they find a witch blade and have to pass a willpower to hold it. how can I explain why they didnt have to with the first blades or why it causes it now? any way I can buff a witch blade to allow this? my RT really wanted it to be more special than just a power sword, so maybe nows the time

Question: so back on Quppa Psi the party looted the dead eldar to gain their witchblades. now that we're finally getting to the Pearl theres the mini encounter Sacred Blade, where they find a witch blade and have to pass a willpower to hold it. how can I explain why they didnt have to with the first blades or why it causes it now? any way I can buff a witch blade to allow this? my RT really wanted it to be more special than just a power sword, so maybe nows the time

Declare Witchblades retain their attunement for a lengthy period of time, and cannot be attuned to a new wielder unless that new wielder is an appropriately trained Eldar or relative of the previous wielder, or has been away from an attuned wielder for a sufficiently long period of time. The witchblades they recovered from the dead Eldar haven't been alone long enough to loose their attunement, while the witchblade found on the Pearl has been lying there long enough to loose attunement on its own.

Or something along those lines.

Assuming your RT isn't a psycher. (heresy!) you could switch the Witchblade on the Pearl with a Diresword . In this case he has to basically convince the Spirit Stone that he could help the Eldar Cause by working with the RT, rather than lying in the sand. It's also more useful for the RT, as it doesn't require the user's psychic ability to function.

Well he's not a psyker, and that idea does sound good. is the stats for a dire sword in any of the books? also I dont think the witchblade requires psychic so much as a willpower test not to lost INT and WP before dropping it. although being a psyker helps out.

Well, fluff wise Witchblades should - they're basically advanced force swords.

The DIresword is hidden in Koronus Beastry. (pg 59)

update: group told their transport to emergency warp jump and basically abort mission, then ended up just debating what to do about the rest of the ships. nobody was firing on them and they were too scared to fire on anyone else and didnt bother setting up an alliance. eventually Fel started making for the warp storm so they decided to race him to the planet. survived the storm, got to the Pearl first. landed, explored the first island, found a bunch of eldar stuff etc. followed a human back to his tribe and was greeted by the heads of family. got a just above neutral response. group tried setting up trade but the tribe didnt really want or need anything here, group couldnt think of anything to try trading and couldnt think of anything to trade for either. as the failed trade ended, an orbital bombardment was seen miles north and session ended.

I wasnt very pleased with how this entire session went. a few mistakes on my end, what with letting them drag out their decision making in space instead of it being rushed before they knew anything, and I possibly could have described the planet better upon entry, but the big thing for me was instead of the "oh wow what an awesome planet" reaction the Pearl is supposed to convey I received more of "wheres the piles of treasure?" response. it was apparent before but obvious now that my group hasnt been playing Rogue Trader so much as Space DnD. the whole first two parts of the book can be played in space DnD style fairly easily; skipping anything needing more resources than what they can carry etc, but getting to the Pearl and not finding gold or magic items or better gear right off hand, not seeing anything of immediate value in the hands of the locals, not having the locals tell them exactly where the treasure or eldar are, they were noticeably disappointed. worst part is I dont know how to save it for them.

next session I know they plan on going in the direction of the lander they saw speeding overhead to see what their only known competitor is up to while checking in with their ship to see what going on in orbit. obviously bastille is bombarding, I'm gonna say it was fel they saw overhead as he was the only other one to brave the storm's doing, what the others are up to, how to make the competition into a whole session before eldar attack (hopefully) I have no ideas for it.

tl;dr help

My group is at almost exactly the same point (campaign buddies! ). My group met the locals and, rather than making small talk, decided to ask where all the aliens who made the ruins are, and also we're from space, and have you heard of our Lord and Savior the Emperor? They were one misplaced comment from being kicked out of the village. BUT I did manage to gain their interest in the locals when the RT passed an awareness check by massive degrees, and noticed an archeotech bolter inside an open tent... being used as a flower pot. Could be that the locals HAVE some interesting stuff, they just have no use for it and so don't think of it as anything other than amusing baubles.

OR, the locals might blame your group for the bombardment, and they have to run emergency damage control to save their relationships. Being framed for someone else's **** move can make for some fun drama, especially when they have enough of their own to answer for.

Hope it helps!

basically when the bombardment started, the tribesmen all ran and scattered and yelled "its your fault!"s at the party and they just whatever'd away from the tribes. apparently no interest in holding a good standing since they had no immediate wealth. seems I'm going to have to have the party meet up with one (read more than one) competitor who are doing it right, and hope they get the right idea before the eldar make it too late. even though thats supposed to be right about now anyway

I suppose it depends on what the party wants out of the place. As a Rogue Trader and Co., one might look at "more than just baubles", since no amount of archeotech guns, or such, will justify the expense of the voyage. You COULD seize the planet, under the power of your warrant, and gain lots of cool things, or seize the people, either as slaves or guinea pigs for the AdMech. Not to dis your group, but if all they were hoping to find was artificer suits and some old-better guns, and that's ALL they usually look for, when RTs are pirate-warlords of space, you might not be able to save them. Finding Eldar jewels, weird Eldar statuary (trying not to spoiler this), and any left over Eldar weapons might be great, but a single point of PF can be a very big figure, and you might need to seize a planet, and all that, to make much from some endeavors.

On the other hand, better weapons and gear are an immediate gratification, and a nice one, so maybe have them find a cache of Aspect Warrior armaments, or some Eldar jetbikes (that would rock). Don't know; I love much of Lure, but I found the end planet just a bit of a letdown, for the build up. Capturing a world, and fending off numerous opposition, in addition to whatever else the campaign pulls out, has to be the idea of fun the group has for Lure to end well, though those who like to steal everything not bolted down, and run for it, might actually enjoy its ending better. This is also a nice rehash of why salvaging the Light of Terra is likely a failure endeavor; a lot of resources, and opponents, will have to be poured into it, and no one else will make it easy for you. At least Rogue Traders OFTEN seize worlds in their own name.

The funny thing is I actually liked LotE for the same reason. It provided a wonderful example to the players of "oh, right, that's why being a Rogue Trader is not for everyone." As I played it, if you managed to pull profit out of all of the (profitable) stops along the way, they were just ahead of where they started. This made the departure from the Pearl a "grab what you can, cut our losses" feel the players enjoyed. Particularly once they were back in orbit and talked with some of their surviving rivals/peers who were all "Oh, well, can't win them all." and write off more Thrones than most the GDP of some colonies.

But then my players were really into the space-east-india-company feal.

That being said, you could definitely give the players time to see what the rivals are doing. There is also a speed-of-communication issue, where the Explorers could get back in their lander and fly a couple islands over and try again. Armalon and Sun Lee are good ones to have doing it right.

I actually quite liked how the end worked out for my players.

When given the option to have an epic final battle with the eldar psychics, warriors, and those other things *cough*, and with the suspicion that killing the farseer and warlocks might stop the forming warp storm, they actually decided to cut and run. The end wound up a lot like what Quicksilver described, with everyone taking stock of their losses and gains, and trading a few last threats or jokes before splitting up and generally heading "home."

I liked describing how a part of their "profit factor" came from new business brought in due to local fame for those who successfully found the pearl. No free advertising quite like finding The Lost City of El-Dorado or whatever.

I liked describing how a part of their "profit factor" came from new business brought in due to local fame for those who successfully found the pearl. No free advertising quite like finding The Lost City of El-Dorado or whatever.

Yeah, there's this to. Fame is it's own reward.

so the party started out this session bygoing back to their ship and scouting out the competition. and... honestly not much more than that. brainstormed what they want to do and are basically planning a ship battle before returning to the surface to deal with natives. Strange order how they skipped out the first chance to battle, but I think I can tweak the campaign to fit. anyway heres what they got so far.

Hadarak Fel owes them a favor from saving his ass when first leaving footfall so they're hoping to call that in for an attack on Bastille. he is currently planetside and they were able to get a rendezvous coordinate from the CO aboard his ship

Charlabelle agreed to an alliance early on and they havent really gone through with anything helpful, and she caught them hiring her own kroot mercs to kill her (everyone) so her status is thought to be around neutral. planetside, no location

Blitz they totally forgot existed until they saw his ship. rolled well on RT knowledge so gave him the rundown from his profile and they think he'd make an easy short term ally

Gerrit they've been disregarding as basically non-threatening being a business man and havent put much thought into his use

Feckward they consider to be a total dong bag since hiring thugs to attack the party and they just want him to die regardless of any other option that happens

Sun Lee they know nothing about except Bastille shot her escort, and barely even put that tidbit together

Scourge they killed on Quppa Psi but his ship showed up anyway bascially promoting his existance on astropathic loudspeaker. I havent decided weather I want him dead and replaced with a scion, or have some new augmentation to make up for it and how severe. died from autogun headshot. was thinking like dibilitating amount of augments so he's basically helpless without his army or servants etc

Bastille they think is Neutral as well, considering he didnt kill them when he had the chance, and seems to be the most honorable. currently they also consider him biggest threat, having largest ship and escort. so they're considering who to get to ally up to take him out. then again someone suggested they ally with Bastille for same reason.

no plan has been made who they want to ally with or attack, but its fairly clear space combat is coming. although everyone would basically be planetside so I'm not sure how to run it. suggestions?

Space combat could involve a lot of last minute hasty deals. And backstabbing. Feckward would sell his family into slavery if he had any, so he'd be looking for vulnerable opponents to drive the knife into.

I've never run LotE (hoping to soon though). But I have played it twice.

The first time:

Our navigator was insanely good at her job and we easily outpaced the opposition. We tackled all of the planets in our frigate, the Weeping Angel.

Vaporius: saved the missionaries and invaded the city. Hunted down the Priest-King.

Zayth: traded for Zayth bolt weapons, which they had loads of. The landships had battleship grade weapon batteries.

Sabrine: left the traitor guard to die at the hands of zombies once we blew up their gates. They tried to screw us over and that never goes well.

Dross, Light of Terra, Processional: I think I missed these sessions.

Dread Pearl: The final battle vs the eldar was brutal but the GM let us keep the pearl by beating the farseer quickly. It was still difficult to reach due to partial warp storms having formed, but apart from the blown up island we now had a paradise world retreat hidden for ourselves.

The second time, with a different group in a Star Galleon.

Dross: we crashed, we left.

Vaporious: we raided a priest-king family travelling between cities and captured them for study.

Light of Terra: let Roth on his way with us richer.

Processional: we had to cut a deal with Blitz. Neither of our cruisers (his lunar and our star galleon) could fit through the eldar gate. So we had to take a smaller vessel in.

Zayth: can't recall

Dread Pearl: the **** world was devoured by a nascent potential chaos god who ate millions of soulstones. We made profit but couldn't keep the thing obviously.

The GM handled the competition being slower than our PC navigators (one had to be shot, see below) by a time dilation effect so the surviving competitors made it to the Dread Pearl system. Even if we still had a serious advantage.

The competition:

Hadarak Fel: we teleported into his trophy room on Footfall. Stole what appeared to be his *rosette*. Sold that at the auction. He was not happy with us.

Feckward: he drunkenly promised to "get you all" at the banquet. Then hired poor quality mercs to kill us. So when we encountered him fighting Charlabelle on the insect world, we gunned him down.

Charlabelle: we made an alliance and got on well. Two once-mighty dynasties with a lot of claims. Ended up the rogue traders got hitched so the combined Armalan-Paterbourne dynasty was on the up.

Abel Gerrit: we were cordial with him. He asked for a copy of the temple readings on the insect world for gamesmanship and we gave them. Charlabelle also got a copy, no-one else before we blew up the temple. But there were others temples across the planet so the others could read those albeit more slowly.

Scourge: We butchered his ship with Charlabelle aiding, boarded, killed him then banished the greater daemon inside him. The navigator nicked the book of lorgar (!!!) from Scourge's room and ended up corrupted himself a few sessions later. The Hammer of Truth was to be divided between the dynasties but then rendered moot by the marriage.

Sun Lee: ignored us at the auction as we were poor at the time. We didn't interact with her much after.

Bastille: at the end of the battle on the insect world, he happened to be standing next to the edge, where an "ELDAR WITCH" (not our astropath AT ALL) used telekinesis powers to push him off to his death. Charlabelle witnessed, guessed, and said nothing. Bastille's retainers left the race.

Blitz: we had a cordial temporary alliance to look over the processional.

Part of me shakes my head at how "easy" it might've seemed to have killed several other Rogue Traders, but then I suppose if you are likely to hoof it on the ground, with the rest of your entourage, they sort of should, too; maybe not Bastille, but I wouldn't miss him if he died.

We were extremely lucky with Bastille. The eldar had been driving him back before they were wiped out and our astropath took a gamble. If it had failed and Bastille copped what had happened, we would have made a very dangerous enemy.

In the Expanse, there is nothing to stop you from trying an action if you are physically capable of it. But there are plenty of potential consequences. Live by the sword can become die by the sword quite quickly.

update: The group (hereby known as Fenix) has basically decided at this point that their treasure isnt going to be in the planet, but in taking all their rivals ships, in some sort of master plan similar to the Joker's bank robbery plan in the Dark Knight. in that they're going to ally with as many of they rivals as possible to destroy the rest and slowly betray their allies one by one.

they started out by asking Fel and Charlabelle to help take out Bastille. Fel agreed, Char decided she was close enough to the end that she could handle it herself. being just 2 on 1 they then asked Bastille to ally with the 2 of them to take out Lee, letting Fel know we'd backstab him afterwards. Fel agreed, bastille agreed, and they went after her.

BTW changed their setting slightly at the beginning of this session. Fel Bastille Charlabelle and the party were the only ones at the planet so far and pings of all the others were just reaching sensor range as the warp storm receeded. they formed an attack plan and went to work. Bastille + escort, Fel, Fenix vs Sun Lee + escort. the battle begins. Bastilles escort is lost, and sun Lee is brought down to a single hull point before surrendering. Fenix refuses and cripples her ship. she sends out an astropathic message on blast announcing a bounty on Fenix's head and reward for returning her flagship to her dynasty as she jets to her escort for a getaway. Fenix hunts it down through a couple failed disengagements and hulks it completely.

Once the dust settled, and the next sesion started, the other rivals started to close in. Scourge came in to collect the bounty and assumably convinced Fel and Bastille to stay out of it, as he rammed at us. scared Fenix and them until they realized just how useful and how good at hit and runs and boarding actions they were. hooked on, and beat Scourges crew into submission while he holed up in the bridge. Astropath decided to take a guncutter in close enough to compel him to open the blast doors just long enough for some of our crew to get in. but didnt last long as his officers tackled him away from the controls and shut the doors again. so him and the Arch militant boarded, melta gunned the door, dispatched the flunkeys and compelled Scourge to lay down long enough to be bound. He's now held captive, and his ship was taken over.

Immediately following this, next session, Captain granted Scourges ship to the AM and gave the signal to Fel to attack Bastille. worked out a ploy to get him to align himself ahead of them all to 'defend them while they repair' so all three ships could get a concerted attack on him. a few excessively difficult command rolls later and they were able to fire a massively overpowered 3 ship volley on him taking out half his hull, to which he retreated into orbit around the planet, broadcasting to all about their betrayal. they chase him into orbit (I portrayed this by zooming in the battle map from planet being 1VU in the corner to about 7VUs diameter) and found the rest of the competitors ships powering up their weapons.

So this is where I called the session because I was in no way prepared for this situation. both their disregard for the planet itself and for their new goal of owning every flagship in the system. so I'm in need of some major advice for the next session. first off, how do I keep them from collecting flagships like candy, second how can I discourage them from ship combat within orbit of a planet, and third how would you expect Charlabelle, Feckward, Blitz, and Gerrit each respond to Bastilles announcement right before being chased into orbit by Fenix Scourge and Fels ships?

And this is why I squinted a bit, and stared in confusion, when other threads said "Rogue Traders don't just kill each other", and "you can't just take their ships, and be done." Kind of hard to tell whose right.

A few things come to mind.

1. Other rogue traders aren't stupid. If they see a pattern of betrayal, they may spot it in time to do something about it and live. Such as surprise attacks on the PC ship (see RT corebook p213).

2. One or more of the rogue traders may be planning to do the same thing to *them*. A variant of 1 but different motivations,.

3. There is no way the PCs are going to be able to keep wholesale murder and theft against the other dynasties a secret. Someone on their ship would blab, if only to boast, and that's *before* the underworld moles and agents there surely are on board. Blackmailing the PCs is a very real option for criminal groups.

4. The mass deaths of other navigators may or may not appal their navigator house. It could be rivals who died...or allies. Dynasty allegiances and navigator house allegiances do not always line up neatly.

5. The dynasties will not die with the loss of the rogue traders and their flagships, with the likely exception of the already weakened Armelan dynasty. Other dynasty heads will appoint new rogue traders, armed with the assets and profit factor of their houses. And they *will* be very interested to know where their property has gone.

6. Allies of those dynasties will take an interest.

7. Enemies of the PCs will use the incident to smear their names and organise support against them.

8. Bodies with an interest in Imperial stability will be asking very serious questions about why the PCs just murdered several peers of the Imperium and stole vessels from their dynasties. A fantastic explanation (or a backroom deal) may mean the Arbites and Inquisition won't hunt down the PCs like dogs.

Oh, I know. It's just fun to go between reading the above, and reading about player groups who automatically fall back on "set them all up, oh, and kill them, too." A lot of the printed material also seems to support "of course the NPCs, such as Fel, or Bastille, WILL kill you, if they get the option." It almost seems like killing a Rogue Trader is a little thing, they're just one person, but stealing, or blowing up their ship? That's huge, because you'll piss off some AdMech, Navigators, Ecclesiarchy folks, and whomever else was aboard, and YOU need those agencies, too.

A few thoughts.

I'd think Hardak Fel would be too savvy to be taken in by that sort of ploy. First you ally with him to attack someone out of the blue, then make a plan with him to ally with someone else to backstab them later? Of course he's figuring you're planning to backstab him too. He's supposed to be the guy who's been around and seen and done it all.

I notice you didn't say anything about Sun Lee actually being confirmed dead. Seems like the sort of thing that would turn her entire dynasty against you.

I'd definitely throw an eldar shaped wrench in the plans. Wait until the whole furball is going up then attacking whichever side seems stronger with a few salvos of torpedoes from silent running. They are still out there after all.

You're surprisingly likely to wind up with a plasma or warp engine explosion if you full on take out a ship with cannon fire, and don't forget that crew loss will affect your ability to make hit and run and boarding actions. There are some RT's with components and command rating that should be able to hold their own in that regards, assuming you've buffed them up a little to be equal to the PC's.

Scourge's ship should have some pretty horrific morale and crew percentage left, so remember to check for a mutiny at the appropriate time.

Sun Lee's flagship is crippled so generally a non-issue. Given what's going to happen on the pearl it's unlikely anyone'll repair it in time to escape the re-forming warpstorm. Sad.

As far as the situation I'd probably suggest this.

The remaining RT's will ally against Fenix and company.

Feckward will privately communicate with Fenix, offering to turn on his temporary allies at the right moment if Fenix targets the others instead of him. In all likelihood he'll simply wait a bit to see who's winning and jump in on the winning side..

Bastille will be out for blood, and being an old style navy guy with little chance of escape he'll fight to the end.

Charibelle is a fairly honorable sort and will be staunchly against Fenix, fighting until she has no choice but to try to escape. Given that she and her ship are the last of her dynasty it's unlikely she will surrender her ship or the Pearl in any way, especially to someone who apparently might just try to kill her even if she did surrender (see Sun Lee).

Abel Garret is also the idealistic honorable type who will fight against the backstabbing Fenix.

Blitz is definitely a swashbuckling adventurous rogue type. He wouldn't let the opportunity pass him by, but he wouldn't be as deeply invested in the fight as Bastille, Charibelle, and Garret. Fenix might be able to get him on their side, or at least to stay out of the fight, but given they've not kept up alliances and fired on a surrendering ship I doubt he'd trust anything they'd say. Maybe he'd play the hero and rescue Sun Lee from her hulked ship then try to seduce her??? Might make an interesting side plot.

As for Hardak Fel, I'm not sure. He's fairly ruthless, but he's also between a rock and a hard place. He can't guarantee Fenix won't turn against him when it's over, given what happened so far. And given Bastille is a hard bastard he can't trust that turning against Fenix will guarantee his safety, and there are still several fresh ships for their little group of three to fight in addition to Bastille's. He might actually decide to cut his losses and run once everybody else gangs up against him. Maybe require that Fenix give him some sort of concrete assurance of his safety (perhaps a PC hostage or two?).

EDIT: Wait. Doesn't Bastille's ship have a teleportarium? How would you like all the remaining RT's, including Sun Lee, to suddenly show up on the Fenix's bridge.

Have to give it to your group for being ambitious, but looking at the situation and what's left facing them I think they might have bitten off more than they can chew (not knowing their rank, level of minmaxing, or how much you've buffed the opposition to compensate).

to answer the very last bit, NPC RTs have been left fairly by the book, I see a definite need to buff them. Party is about lv4 right now consisting of RT, AM with ~60BS and the relic chain cannon from LoT, basic Navigator with regeneration and invulnerability complex (also the most likely to drift off when he doesnt see a use for himself) Explorator with nigh infinite inteligence shenannigans, and astropath who relies solely on flamer and OP mind control powers to throw any plot out the window (IE knowing everything NPC knows, sensing life anywhere in any direction regarless of hiding, compelling NPCs to kill eachother etc)

Bastilles teleportarium is unpowered. easy enough for him to fix, and only unpowered from lucky turn of events. (focus augered him with 3 successes, didnt care about list of components so much as 'are any components damaged or unpowered' yeah one 'which one' lets see, dice rolls. uhhh teleportarium 'he has a WHAT?'

assuming they are distracted for at least a round or whatever he might get that running. I'm kind of reluctant to bring Sun Lee back so soon but I do like that all RTs to bridge idea. I just dont want to turn it into the Final ultimatum before they even see eldar on the planet. although yeah having them show in space could work but I dont know how that would be able to be adjusted for the actual campaign climax etc?

Edit : how would the various imperial factions aboard respond to their ships captain being killed/captured and the killer/capturer basically stating "you all belong to me now or you will die" which is basically what they said to the crew in general. I'm pretty sure nobody realizes that all those factions are all on board or what they're capable of. Scourges ship in particular so far as they already took it over via automatic mutiny rolls.

but yeah how else in general is just taking over another ship more difficult that killing the captain and stopping a mutiny? thinking profit factor but I dont feel that will matter much til they reach a port for resupply repopulate and realize how expensive two ships is compared to one

There are definately arguments for upkeep or even profit factor costs for additional ships, especially if they're not locked into money-making routes. A fleet flying around that isn't making money is the sort of thing the Imperial Navy can afford but not many rogue traders.

As for buffing, there are errors in how the rogue trader ship stats were calculated. Run the bonuses from the components and the results are different to what's printed. You also should look into adding appropriate upgrades from Into the Storm and Hostile Acquistisions. They usually don't take space points but can be very handy.

Rogue traders are men and women of action. I see no reason Sun Lee wouldn't get back into the fray given half a chance to strike back. Nothing wrong with an epic battle or three in the void above the dread pearl. And it's not like the eldar aren't a threat all by themselves even if Fenix defeat every other rival before they land.

The crew and officers may play along, and some would surely turn for real. But even a few loyal men could cause serious problems for Fenix later on. Organising future mutinies (think Krooker from earlier in the book, but with a real cause), sabotage, or acting as inside agents for the original dynasty. It's better than being taken by pirates but not by much to some.