I just got into Rogue Trader a month or two ago, so I've really only just begun. However, I'm in love with the idea of actually incorporating 40k terrain and models into our games.

Has anyone done this before, and played with Rogue Trader rules? The rulebook seems to suggest this is entirely applicable. I think having the detail of Rogue Trader rules on the TT a la Warhammer 40k would open up so many awesome possibilities that just the thought makes me want to sink my teeth into it immediately. (Maybe even include tokens that indicate dark areas, etc. - and I'm sure it would be reasonable to say 1" = 1 meter, no?)

I even wonder if this is close to the spirit of 1st edition Warhammer 40k.

Does anyone have any experience or input in regards to this idea?

Its totally doable, but not for every single situation. You will be going to different worlds, different buildings, different cities, so on so on, and so you will find it very hard to make a battlefield for each. I would aim to try it out in some climactic battle, and see how that works out. as for the scale, it depends on what wargear is used. Long range weapons will require a smaller scale to make it so that you are not shooting at targets off the field.

So it's really just limited by the terrain you can produce, you mean? Fair enough. Though perhaps you can get more variety if you just get those print-out sheets of images with a grid on top perhaps, and just make a model of a special building yourself? That should be able to keep up the pace with at least a bi-weekly game I think, no?

I think for the longer range stuff, it would be a fun challenge to bring in multiple tables with terrain to bear just to represent exactly that, without having to change the scale. Yeah, the more I think about it that seems like it would only make it more fun

I'd love more thoughts on it all, or for anyone who has tried this sort of thing before to chime in.

Terrain is the major limiting factor.

If you've been in 40k for a long time there are a number of helpful pieces, especially from Forge World, to help flesh out imperial planets. Barring that a local game store could help out with ruins and jungle terrain or whatever they specialize in. Gw's kits are generally wrecked cityscape, fuel lines and military bunkers, trenches, etc.

Old FW kits can even flesh out Tyranid terrain if you want to go that route.

Range, I think, is going to be your major issue. There's an old table-top joke of "in the far future, there is only paintball", a gag on the abysmal ranges of weaponry.

Your average bolter has a range increment of 100 meters, which means it fires fine up to 200 meters (extreme up to 400). Using the standard conversion of 1" = 2 meters (which makes infantry models about the right height), you would need a board over 8' x 8' before your characters could even take range penalties to shooting - a 16' by 16' board to have a target actually out of rifle range.

Terrain is easy to fake, and something most groups are experienced with - Models, i think, are more of a problem, unless you start doing a lot of counts-as, at which point you start losing some or all of the emersion of it, and can easily end up creating as much confusion as you solve. (So that ork boy is a yu-voth statue...)

I changed the range into boxes rather than meters (I only use meters when the action is strictly in storymode*)

Reduced Ranges HERE

Visual Aid HERE

I had to adjust how/when the bonus for Short & Point Blank is applied; in our case we play with Combat Advantage straight out of D&D - if you have combat Advantage over the target - then you receive said bonus, otherwise... may fate smile upon ye! LMFAO

Final note: I also reduce movement to 1, 2, 3, 4 regardless of Characteristics

1 - Half Move

2 - Full Move

3 - Charge (requires at least 3 boxes and is followed by a melee attack)

4 - Run (you grant Combat Advantage while running till the beginning of your next turn)

* Storymode - what you imagine in your head with out visual aids, minis, or the like - pure imagination...

Hope this helps some

Stay GAMING

Morbid

I tend to use models for ship battles but I keep track of ranges separately so that moving pieces around doesn't get too fussy and so that I'm able to represent longer ranges without needing an enormous amount of space.

If I need more models or don't have the right type I print out decent pictures of the required ships scaled to the miniatures onto thin card and slide these into little gripper bases.

The problem with really elaborate setups would be the pain if the players either A. never chose to go there or B. spent about 2 minutes there...

I use 40k miniatures all the time. I have a ton of them,

but like I don't have Tau, so I use papercraft for the miniatures I don't have in metal.

for example: https://sites.google.com/site/heroicsystems/akon-cypheson-40k/card-board-heroes

plus I mix and match, I have traveller miniatures, chronoscope, horroclix, etc as needed.

I use 40k models; honestly I assumed that everyone did.

Thanks for the awesome responses folks; I really do feel that if tiem allows, I'll make some headway on this front. Maybe do some cool new kinds of methods to rapidly develop decent terrain, in good quality...(one can hope, can't they?)

If I can just add a specific question to this, what about Inquisitor28? https://eternalhunt.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/totally-worth-it-the-inquisitor-rulebook/ I can't help but get the impression from how people talk about it around the web that it somehow lends itself to battles between characters/models better? Does it reach a better balance for this than FFG RPG's, in some way?