Hello, dear fellow GMs!

I am looking to run a new BC game, and I've come across some rules I'd like some clarifications on, and perhaps some ideas to help out with. It's recently come to my attention that there was an additional armor suit added in the 6e of the tabletop for the various smurf armies.

My questions are as such: In BC, provided the players eventually come across these things, how should I stat out the Centurion and Dreadnought armors? I know the Dreadnoughts already exist in Death Watch, but I'm not exactly seeing them in BC. One possibility that came to me is to manipulate the Battlesuit rules from the Tau Character Guide for Rogue Trader to create semi-customizable platforms that the players can then make use of.

I was pondering having them come across an ancient one of these , and perhaps using Tau weaponry or even salvaged ork weaponry to augment it.

Another question I had is, could a Dreadnought be used to house a deamon and become a Deamon Engine? Like, are they big enough to be used as such?

Yes, Dreadnoughts can be used to make daemon engines. As for how your players could make use of the armour?

Well, a dreadnaught is a walking, talking tomb controlled by bits and pieces of the dead guy you had left over. Once they get interred in the armour, they're not taking it off again, ever.

Fair point, one of my players has expressed an interest in possibly becoming interred, even though he's looking to be a Heretek and not a marine.

An interesting development is that the party has all decided to be Imperials, and part of a Rogue Trader ship. I know I can work with this, and still include the customizable Centurion and Dradnought stuff, but I was wondering if using the Battlesuit rules from the Tau Character Guide would be a better way of handling these particular things.

As for the possability of there being marines aboard, I was thinking of there being a Death Watch unit aboard, but if y'all have better ideas lemme know.

I'd recommend Shas'o Rymr's Tau and Imperial Knight guides instead of the Tau character guide. Fear And Loathing In The Fringe is the one you want. You may notice disturbing similarities to the Tau book from RT, but FaLitF both predates it and is constantly kept up to date by its authour. Its battlesuit rules and mods are fairly simple, and you can easily grab an appropriate one for a dreadnaught.

Given the one who wants to go Dreadnought is a tech priest, he has considerably more options in that regard than a marine. If he is willing to go full heretek, I see no real reason why he shouldn't be able to turn the sarcophagus into a walker. He'd need the appropriate operate skill to use it, of course, but strictly speaking it isn't even necessary to sacrifice armour for it. I would personally require he have some skills at least, before startng to tinker, namely Trade (armourer), Scholastic or Forbidden Lore (Admech, Marines) and, depending on how he wants to modify these things, either the acquisition of or research of blueprints in some manner or the other, if necessary.

As for marines aboard the ship, that is really campaign dependant. Deathwatch are unlikely to go chaos, for example, but a contingent of a more suspect chapter, like, say, the space sharks, may make things easier, possibly a bit too easy. Browse the chapter list at your leisure, you might find some that fit with the party in a fluffy manner. Marines DO use associated rogue traders to transport units when they're short on vehicles themselves.

I found the Fear and Loathing In the Eastern Fringe pdf, and I love it, though I'd probably have to change the suit stats to fit the changes in BC.

You mentioned an Imperial Knight one as well? I'm unfortunately unable to find this one.

Part of the campaign is looking to be the RT's ship has been modified to access the Eldar Webway, but can't properly navigate, thus they end up in locations they've no idea where they are. An idea I had was the Ordo Maellus is aboard with a hidden army of Grey Knights for if **** goes way South and deamons become a problem, but they can't really touch the party because of the RT's writ. Those Space Sharks seem like an interesting chapter, I'll look more into them.

It's called "The Fringe Is Yours", though admittedly google searching that somehow only gets me results on hair styling for several pages. I'll see if I can grab a link in the next 40kRPG general.

Think I found one.

Just kinda looking through it, and your call that Fear and Loathing in the Eastern Fringe would be better for this appears to be on the nose.

When comparing the battlesuits in that to the Dreadnoughts in Deathwatch, I think I can come up with a mix of the two I'd be comfortable with allowing my players. I also think I know how to do the Centurions, too, and how to limit the available weaponry for them, too.

Thanks for the help, man.

A contingent of Grey Knights wouldn't give a **** about a rogue trader's writ.

Then perhaps a contingent of just normal marines instead? Or would they also not give a **** about a completely legit word of God?

I'd personally decide which chapter when you know what your party will be like and what they're playing. Then decide if you want the marines to be an ally, an antagonist or something in between and pick something from the chapter list that would fit well in that roll personality- and beliefwise. Since I don't actually know you're party, I'm afraid I can't get more specific than that, but it helps a lot if your players can forge some kind of personal connection with or -against- the marines; and with the personality-scrubbed Grey Knights, that is going to be difficult.

As Death By Grot said, it depends of the personality and actions of your group and the Space Marine Chapter.

But remember that a lot of Space Marines do not consider the Emperor as a god but only as the father of their father so they won't consider the writ given by the Emperor to one guy dead a long time ago as something that should protect someone that is acting against the principles the chapter defend.