Not the Sid Meir's game but as in pirates that are not Orks (Freebooters) or Eldar (Corsairs) in 40k universe. Were there any in Battlefleet Gothic or in some obscure novel? Are there any in new RT rulebook?

I ask because I itched to GM anti-Imperial piracy game that is not 'We are all Chaos Cultists here' one-shot lunacy since I read that 'Orcs in Space' article in Dragon 149. If you remember one of plots was one where PCs have to defend bucolic pastoral world against Imperial expansion and I just thought what if PCs could work against Imperium for a change but not be bloodthirsty Khorne fanatics...

The way I would do it, is i would allow players to be any class except RT, they act as a sort of pirate council commanding the ship. There are raiders and brigands which are not affiliated with chaos. Most of the time these people are just traitorus and cowardly. of course running such a game allows you some fun like running imperial blockades and being chased by inqusitors. Another idea is that you wouldnt allow any navigator houses except the rogue house ones. of course your pirates might actually be working for the imperium...

Weren't in BG rulebook some mention of Pirate fleets that menaced parts of Gothic sector?

I am of two minds how to do this. One, I would maybe love to to 'On Stranger Warp-Tides' kind of thing. You know proper pirates. Space Blackbeard with cyber-fuses burning in his hair and beard, carrying a necklace made of severed Mechanicus parts, sailing off from his hideaway and menacing the New Frontier for his own unknown reasons. Players could be some strange space - buccaneers. Settlers that have grown to be a part of this strange new frontier, left there from previous expeditions and grown to love their new freedom. It would be like classical piratical tales. Buried treasures, ghosts, unfriendly and friendly natives, straight and narrow governor chasing them, high warp-wind of galactic Jamaica kind of thing... My biggest gripe currently with this approach would be> where would these guys get their ship? Mutiny? Highjacking? Ancient relic they found?

Other approach would be kinda 20.000 miles under the warp type of story. PCs would be rogue Rogue Trader family that has unjustly been accused of treason, their family slaughtered and their lands confiscated and now only thing they have left is their superb ship and their daring and family oath to strike against corrupt Inquisitor that has made the accusations! Kinda like Nemo meets Sandokan set on the Far Eastern fringe of the Imperium on the backdrop of the great clashes between Tau Empire and the Empire of Men. Biggest gripe with this one: too much story driven.

But enough about that. I would love to hear your ides on such things as plots and NPCs and gimmicks for piratical campaign.

I can think of two examples of non-chaotic human pirates from the fluff:

The 40k novel Relentless indicates that the eponymous vessel was in danger of "going rogue" as the command crew slowly slipped in their duties and fealty to the Imperium. Essentially the Relentless was tasked with boarder patrol for many years and was fairly autonomous whilst doing so, the crew started to take bribes from smugglers to let them past and demanding tolls from legitimate traders. They were able to legitimately extract an imperial tithe from boarder worlds to keep going and were zealous in doing so. The command staff engineered "Engine Failures" at the right moment when they were called to battles in order to keep themselves isolated from the rest of the fleet and in order not to risk their ship. It was implied that if this went on then the ship would eventually completely abandon its duties and simply start preying on the trade lanes in that sector.

In Dan Abnett's Ravenor Trilogy there is significant interaction with merchant vessels including Rogue Traders. Abnett used the term to indicate those traders who operated outside the law and boundaries of the Imperium without any form of sanction. They were heavily armed and not above raiding fellow human vessels although they tended to make better money on smuggling rather than raiding.

I seem to remember there was a "wolf packs" article in either white dwarf, or the short lived bfg mag. They used mostly imperial frigates, and armed transports. There were even fan authored rules.

PS- If you want to strip mine BFG for ideas the place to start is Warp Rift. It's not cannon, but it's got great idea.

http://www.epic40k.co.uk/bfgmag/

A Rogue Trader is a fine pirate captain! In fact, I do not know how you'd model a pirate ship with out him. Void-Master, sure! but RT's have those command bonuses that could mean so much.

Just like you wouldn't run a Necromunda DH game of all Scum, you shouldn't let the name of the career hold you back from using it. Look more at the advancements, tweak them a bit, but don't toss out whole careers.

If you want your rogue trader group to indulge in some piracy you could always start a trade war,navigator house A (your RT's),attacks navigator house B.

This way you can attack shipping,factorums and warehouses with impunity,this has the added benefit of being sanctioned by the lords of Terra so your group dont end up being excommunicated and hounded across the galaxy for ever more.

right now i am working on Campaigen there is about a " Dead" Pirate captain and his lost Treasure, in ahort story its the PC there get invited by a rich noble to find a lost ghost ship there have stranded on a planet, and the rare Artifacts inside it. through the whoole adventure the Noble is going to be more and more hostyle and at last they are just about to break out a fight between the Noble and the PC, the " Dead" Pirate Captain is going to return and kill the Noble and chaseing the PC around the Ship untill they find out the way to kill him.

The Inquisitor Sketchbook (by John Blanche) has mention of 'Pirato-renegades' - Adventure and booty are this character's goals. If you can pillage it he'll take it. An interesting twist is the Pirato-grafter who steals body parts and organs from his victims and has them grafted onto his own body .

The Sketchbook includes a pic of a pirato-renegade with a power-hook and a double barrelled shotgun, which is quite cool. :-)

The Inquisitor game mentions pirates I believe also.

Personally the one thing I hate about 40k (and have excised from the setting as I GM it) are the Orks, and I have replaced them with large bands of renegade humans (and mutants) known as Pirato-renegades - examples are;

The Ramshacklers - Cruising space and the Warp in small fleets of crudely welded and patched together hulks, these pirato-slavers think nothing raiding Imperial settlements and ships to take their prey, which they sell on to other unscrupulous Imperial nobles, xenos, and the gladiatorial games found across known space. Perhaps due to the need to keep their rat-trap ships flying, perhaps through their lifetimes of plunder and theft, Ramshacklers are known to be expert black-technicians and excommunicate-enginseers, able it is said to be able to fix anything or build bizarre machines from scrap. The bowels of Ramshackle junk-ships are dungeons where racks of slaves are stacked atop each other, and the stench is unbelievable.

There's plenty of room, even just in Calixis Sector and it's surrounding regions, for renegade Imperial nobles, or naval ships, or army units (that have seized a ship perhaps), or even more unusual stuff like perhaps ... the descendants of pre-Imperial human socities of the region who live now at the fringes out in the black in old space-stations or the like, preying upon Imperial shipping etc.

I came up with something called the Wytchships of Sleef, which were something along these lines iirc.

sounds awesome,anything by john blanche gets a double thumbs up from me.

What could be 40K equivalent of vaporing?

To clarify:

Vaporing - The pirate ritual of screaming war cries and banging of weapons against the ship's gunwales to scare their prey prior to attacking.

source: http://www.piratesoul.com/resources_glossary.aspx

More on Wytchships of Sleef? If you post that I promise not to be lazy and post something on Warp-Dayakks of Kraken passage.

OK, if anyone besides me is interested I have found another reference on pirates in 40K universe. It is army list for Cragnor's Bucaneers in Book of Astronomican for 1ed RT.

They seem to be a group of rough and tumble men supported by squat clans of Kalak-Azrum system (cheesy I know) and Eldar mercs who are refugees from some unknown Eldar civil war.

If you have access to the Book of Astronomican you should check it out if for nothing else then for Imperial characters at end of the book.

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

Doing the same thing, putting the ships internal vox systems on open channel and broadcast the sound to the enemy vessel, perhaps?

in nightbringer novel the ultramarine have problem whit a dark eldar corsair ship

Varnias Tybalt said:

That sounds reasonable. Reasonable has no place in 40k.

The pirate ship could fire men at the enemy ship. If launched fast enough, they might be able to strike the hull while still alive and flailing for extra effect. After all, any ship which just decides to use it's own men as useless ammunition has got to be crewed by madmen, utter loonies.

More seriously, boarding parties have a tendency to use big crazy chain cutters to gain access to the rival ship. So, now instead of hitting a ships walls with their weapons and howling before leaping aboard, sailors will hit a ships walls with crazy howling chainsaws before entering. More of the psychological warfare would have to take place once the boarding party is abord the enemy vessel however.

Varnias Tybalt said:

Might be! Might be! But I would love some other crazy stuff. Maybe involving renegade navigators and/pr astropaths. What do you think?

Dalnor Surloc said:

Thanks for the heads up.

I'm the Warp Rift Dictator.

The RT main book has stats for witch which filled crudely filled the astropath navigator niche. I could certain see them having a ritual to broadcast their warcry or chant. Like wise an Astropath chorus could do the same. Orks could make use of their psykers as well.

Dalnor Surloc said:

Witch as a substitute for astropath or navigator? Sounds cool and that is something I was already toying with.

Astropath really, as according to the Lore, most Orks (with exceptions as Orks tend to do) just go wherever the warp currents take them. Orktropaths would certainly be more common (as no other race really has an equivalent to the Navigator gene).

Cat that Walked by Himself said:

Gaaaah! You're a lucky lucky man, Cat, that's the ONE 40k book I've been dying to get my hands on for years! It's also pretty much the only major 40k sourcebook that almost no one seems to own... You couldn't do a brief rundown of the book's contents for me, could you?