Greetings fellows

Has anyone got any good rules for Slaught spacecraft? As far as i know they've not been covered by official publications.

I'm planning on introducing them in my game and would like some ideas for their vessels. I know they usually work as infiltrators but i'd like to explore a Slaught seat of power.

Should they have very powerful but small ships, using their advanced tech? Should their ships be imperial size? Should they have funky xenotech components to salvage? What other quirks could they have to make fighting them feel different to fighting imperial type vessels?

I've been pondering the same. The as they are a parasitic race (it seems), the obvious option would be to have the Slaugh infiltrators command Cold Guild ships. I haven't written anything down as of yet, but here's a few thoughs for a Slaugh-built vessel:

• ships as massive Slaught vassal constructs: too close to living Tyranid ships, perhaps?
• Slaught boarding parties; at least as deadly as Murder-Servitors, I'd wager
• disintegrator weapons as ship lances - perhaps extra crew lost if they damage a vessel?
• The Slaught have personal cloaking tech - could be a cloaking component on a starship?

Hmm. Disciples of the Dark Gods mentions their style of ship combat to be similar to that of the Dark Eldar; they avoid pitched battles, striking at defenceless planets or vessels that they can overwhelm with their superior technology.

Bonuses to Silent Running? Additional Population damage from Hit & Run?

I've always seen the Slaught as not risking anything when they don't have to, so having their fleet being mostly made up of vassals seems like a good idea. Cloaking devices and disintegrator weapons will prove fun for my players.

I might go for the following.

1. True Slaught vessels are invariably small, frigate sized at most, equipped with cloaks and powerful disintegration beam weapons.

2. They make extensive use of slave races, vassals and other races tech

3. Therefore a slaught battlefleet would be mostly slave races using lower tech ships, with a few true slaught vessels in support. Slave vessels would use xenotech like slaught weapons, warrior construct boarding pods, etc for a little extra nastiness.

Since i'm planning a setup where the Slaught openly rule a population of several billion humans, i think the fleet will consist of large human like vessels using advanced beam weapons, hordes of fanatically loyal (drugs, brain surgery, xenostech implanted) humans, led by warrior constructs and the occasional Slaught themselves. The human vessels will be roughly the same size as imperial vessels, with better weapons and worse defences (their general ship tech isn't too good, but they use weapons based on slaught disintegrators.

I'll knock up some rules and post them here when i'm done.

Gribble_the_Munchkin - I like your ideas and I'm looking forward to reading more.

In the Dead Stars adventure the Slaugth ships (called Slaugth Intruders) get a brief description:-

"An immense dark shape appears .... the blasted city around you vibrates with a deep discordant drone .... an obsidian-like disk, slowly revolving and flickering with a baleful crimson glow at its centre; a vessel of some kind more than a kilometre across and utterly alien"

Alas there are no stats; but I would expect it to be more than a match for any Imperial escort sized ship and capable of damaging a cruiser as long as it fights on its terms.

DW

The impression I had of the Intruders, is that these are the invasion ships that disgorge ground troops and forces. So yeah, that makes the Intruders like the Slaugth version of Mass Conveyers. So likely to be the largest ships they use, and likely to have more of a focus on transport, living quarters, construct construction/maintenance and terror/harvesting duties, rather then outright void-warfare. Or you could of course just make them uber vessels of doom too of course =P.

The Slaugth aren't really used as a mass invasion adversary...that niche is already pretty full with Tyranids and Orcs, and even Tau. Incredibly sinister, evil beyond human comprehension and personally very powerful. But more interested in domination and harvesting, rather then outright destruction and genocide.

That's why I really like your ideas of the slave ships for mass combat. It makes sense from a setting point of view. Currently the Slaugth are going to be one of the major factions in my DH campaign, and if things go the way I hope...they'll continue to be one of the major foes as the campaign goes into Ascension/RT. Definitely interested in hearing more about your ideas on this subject.

Taking the Dead Stars approach, I see them as small, well armoured, good manoeuvrability, relatively slow and otherwise very-high-tech ships. Classic UFO-like look to them, but obsidian, dark and 'forbidding'. High powered, short-ranged lance weapons seem like a good idea, as does cripple-tastic, short ranged macrobatteries.

Not immense, but fearsome for their size. The key to their use in Rogue Trader then lies heavily on the GM, to a large extent. Most Slaugth ships would be commanded by high-tech, unnaturally-intelligent aliens. They'll be doing their best to avoid fighting on anyone else's terms except their own, and they'd be very good at doing so.

But, given their high-tech nature, would they have need for big ships? For excellently endowed masses of crew to repel boarders, to resist such damage?

In that manner, the 'analogy' to Dark Eldar could be very apt. Powerful to the point of devastating, but hit them on your terms and they'll shatter.

Having said that: Unnatural Intelligence. It's less likely you'd be facing a Slaugth Intruder until it's too late and there's thousands of them. It's more likely you'd be tricked into fighting an haphazard squadron of varied Amarandine Syndicate-affiliated traders and suppliers. Possibly even system-defence ships and such.