Just got my book last night and, while I have most of Dark Heresy as well, I haven't noticed any mention of the two races in any of the books (not that I've read them all either). Considering they're supposed to be a HUGE threat to pretty much everything I'm kind of surprised.

Are they still in the setting?

The 2 systems are relatively far away from the Hive Fleets so I guess that any Tyrannid presence would be minimal. Creature Athanema (sp?) had Lictor and genestealer if I understood well (my copy has not arrived yet). so you could have a pre-invasion Tyranid Vanguard arc going. Beyond that PCs are screwed, it takes the full might of the Imperial Guards, Imperial Navy and the Space Marines to stop them, players can only flee.

Same for Necron, too tough to make a realistic defeatable threat.

Ah, yeah, that makes sense.

Boneguard is right about the "Nids" in the Creatures Anathema. ...and these beasties ARE tough. At least, for an Acolyth. Looking at what kind of stuff an RT has at hand, a group of Genestealers might just be the right thing for them...

Necrons has not been officials covered in DH or RT so far.

P.S: I strongly advise buying "Creatrues Anathema". While the Sections about Daemons (and "mook rules") might not be usefull for an RT GM, the creatures and Aliens featured/covered there will for sure.

Bear in mind too, the chronology of the Hive Fleets. Hive Fleet Behemoth struck on the Eastern Fringe, Spinward of Macragge. Behemoth was completely annihilated in the First Tyrannic war, 745.M41. 997.M41 saw the climax of the Second War - Hive Fleet Kraken, at Ichar IV and Craftworld Iyanden. Kraken split into splinter fleets that could concievably turn up anywhere from the galactic core to many places in the major Segmentae, I suppose, but it wouldn't be till 999.M41 at the climax of Leviathan's assault from below the galactic plane that the Tyranids would make thier presence known at large in Segmentum Obscuras

Indeed, it's all about timing, and that goes for the Necrons as well. They're still in the setting but they don't actually come onto the Imperium's radar for anouther eighty years or so, so, for now, they are very much a shadow in the background. Just look in RT pg 351 and give it a good read. They're not a threat yet (thus, no stats), but they will be.

As the Tyranids go, yes, you'll find their vanguard in CA. There's also mentionings in there of these vanguard units being encountered in the Calixus sector causing some alarm in several xenos Inquisitors as to what this might mean for the future of the Calixus sector and, by extension, the Kronus Expanse. No hive fleets have been spotted anywhere near this area of space, but those in the know fear it's just a matter of time now.

351? Really?

Gregorius21778 said:

Well Daemons can become relevant in case of warp travel mishap. If the shield fails it is a real concern in RT.

When you read trough the fluff about the Kronus Expanse, you find some interesting notes about dead stars and some other points, that make sense to speculate about Necron Tombworlds. Look forward to the next expansions for Rouge Trader, hopefully we will find them then.

Reason said:

Oops! My bad! I had that page earmarked, but for possible Slought activity (which in my conspiracy leaden mind are connected to the Necrons), not the Necrons themselves. It's pg 349, that's the one with possible necron influences.

Thanks for pointing out my mistake. I'll pay closer attention to my sticky-notes next time before posting :-X

IIRC the Necrontyr showed up as raiders for several decades before beginning massive purges of "living" worlds. I seem to remember reading how a Sisters of Battle covenant was destroyed by Necron like creatures.

T-800 said:

With the Necrons, unconfirmed sightings of them seem to pre-date their official first recorded contact with the Imperium by a few centuries, maybe more (certainly, I've seen speculation that some Necrons have been active for millennia, and that a being that resembles The Deceiver was described as the daemon that led Abaddon to the Daemon-Sword Drach'Nyen, only a few centuries after the Heresy)... however, the official first contact with the Necrons - the Sororitas convent destroyed by the Necrons that you mentioned (known as Sanctuary 101) - happened in 897.M41, some 82 years after the 'present day' for Rogue Trader.

As for the Tyranids... I've penned a rather substantial treatise on the Tyranids in 40kRP (the rules are compatible with both Rogue Trader and Dark Heresy), which can be found on my web-page, linked to in my signature, below. There'll be an updated version of those rules in about two and a half weeks, once I've gotten hold of the new Tyranid codex, which brings with it several new creatures...

I still say that the problem with them both is that they represent too much of a thread.

Individually a RT character might be able to deal with a Genestealer or a gaunt for the tyranids and a ripper for sure; or a scarab or maybe a warrior for the Necron, but the problem is that they are never alone. So both represent too high a thread to be viable in most case .

Boneguard said:

Well, that assumes that the purpose of a given encounter is to defeat the creatures. With the Necrons, humans disturbing and awakening a tomb complex isn't unheard of, at which point the Necrons become a steadily-increasing menace as the hapless explorers try to escape. With the Tyranids, an Inquisitor may have commandeered the Rogue Trader's ship to aid in the evacuation of a world in the path of a Tyranid invasion. In either case, the goal isn't to defeat or destroy the adversary, merely to survive them.

As it stands, anything could be deemed too great a threat by merit of numbers; there are few things that can stop an Ork WAAAGH!, and the wrath of a Craftworld is a terrible thing to behold, while the forces of Chaos are numerous, deadly and insidious. In that regard, scale isn't the problem; it's context.

Furthermore, it also assumes that you're playing a standard game, with a Rogue Trader and his crew sailing the void in search of glory and wealth, or a group of Inquisitorial Acolytes uncovering conspiracies and cults... that isn't necessarily the case. I'm playing in an intermittent campaign where all the characters are Guardsmen, part of a massive force liberating a world from chaos-worshipping traitors. Same rules, different context. I've run a one-shot game where the PCs are Space Marines, members of a Deathwatch Killteam charged with ripping the heart from a Xenos menace on an isolated world, and I plan to resume my campaign with the players controlling Grey Knights for the first session, scouring a ruined Hive World (the same hive world that the PCs were on when the campaign stopped, the place they were last seen, as the players will all have new PCs this time round) of Daemonic taint.

It's all about context; the creatures that haunt the darkness between the stars are tools for a GM, appropriate for some stories and inappropriate for others.

I understood Page 360 to be the one holding another key to the inclusion of the Necrons (or necron-inspired events) in games of RT (or DH too). Intriguing stuff, but it's nice to spot 349 as a proper earmark for that matter too. Knew I'd noticed some of it in the book.

What about the Tau? I am not intimately familiar with 40k timelines and such, but are they mentioned in any book yet?

NulSyn said:

The Tau themselves are on the other side of the galaxy from Calixis Sector. As it stands I think it would be more likely that their weapons would be found in sector. Now IIRC the Kroot are in the RT core book as are their basic rifles, a few Tau may have been on board a Kroot ship to observe them but that may be rather unlikely.

NulSyn said:

The Koronus Expanse and the Calixis Sector - the parts of the galaxy where the 40kRPGs are set - is in Segmentum Obscuras, within a few months travel of the Eye of Terror. The Tau Empire sits in Ultima Segmentum, on the other side of the galaxy from the Eye of Terror, and the Tau themselves lack true warp travel, limiting their ability to reach worlds more than a short distance (relatively speaking) away from existing colonies. The fact that they lack anything comparable to astrotelepathy for interstellar communication further restricts the reach of the Tau. In short, the Tau are too far away to be involved in the default setting for Rogue Trader, at least without some means of bridging that vast distance (a distance of 50,000 light years or more - half the galaxy away, and a journey likely to take several years even with true warp travel).

T-800 said:

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Ah thanks guys. I guess that's a really good reason they are not in the game

T-800 said:

I would say very unlikely.

Fluffwise, the Tau is trying to purge the kroot nasty habit of eating the dead and bring all of them into the fold and IIRC the forbade the Kroot to Merc out. So Kroot mercenaries are on the fringe of Kroot society...a necessary aspect of the biology but frown upon by the Tau. So although the occasional pulse rifle/carbine could be found amoungst the Kroot mercs, there would be No Tau present.

Now a Tau Water Caste merchant on a Demiurg ship would be more likely...although rare.

That's just my 2 copper bits though,.

I find it interesting though that Kroot can be found in the Calixis sector. I wonder how they came to this place. They are far away from home as well after all. Even after reading what the book says about them I can't help wondering.

Where do they get their ability to create those warspheres from? They prefer to live feral, not to best environment to preserve knowledge. What exactly do they gain by eating the dead?

Sister Callidia said:

Nothing. Until you eat an Ork Mekboy and start passing on some of the instinctive knowledge of science and technology encoded in its genes to their descendants.

That's what happened to the Kroot during the Ork invasion of Pech.

The Kroot can, iirc direct their warspheres unconsciously towards planets with rich ecosystems so they can end up anywhere in the galaxy if there is a planet with a good feed on it. Very eerily similiar to the tyranids.

Hellebore

Sister Callidia said:

Genetic material. That's how kroot evolves, by eating stuff.

Kroot hounds are degenerate evolution dead-end from eating too many carnivorous animal.

Krootoxen similar dead-end for eating too many herbivore.

Some master shaper have minor psyker power from eating psyker race, some kroot hasve poisonous gland from eating poisonous creature etc. Kroot shaper will shape the evolution of the race by encouraging his troop to each such fallen foe, but not the other one.

That's why the merc out despite de tau interdiction. If they stop eating the dead the race stop evolving. The were a couple great White Dwarf article on that in the 250s-260s IIRC.

And Note, often Kroot work as mercenarys, so its not impossible to find them anywhere in the known and perhaps unknown Galaxy .