I have a player who loves to play against stereotypes and in an upcomming game she is deadset on playing a melee weapon wielding astropath. We don't really have a dedicated melee powerhouse in the party (or any melee characters, if we disregard our Colochite Servo Master or more specifically - his minions), so it's not like she will be compeeting with the rogue trader's alternative of Khorne's Incarnate, still surviving in melee and doing at least something once there is important.
Is there some disciplines, psyker specific items and alternative ranks that can help her in this endeavor? The other players are easily distracted by elite advances with little combat benefit (gambling, cooking, etc.) so she can afford a melee centered elite advance or two (or struggling with the WS, S, T advances) without falling too much behind in XP. Rolling a 9 and 10 for her starting weapon skill also helps (it actually inspired her for the whole melee astropath fiasco on the first place). Her other stats are pretty average although I don't remember them in detals... low strength and balistics, average toughness and fellowship, average to high perception and willpower.
The rest of the party is in the middle of rank 3 by the time of her introduction to the group, so she will have a bit of XP under her belt. They also seem to work pretty well together and cover their major skill needs, so besides being a two-legged fax - there is nothing else expected from her so she can follow her fencing obsession.
Edited by Arlandiel