I'm trying to mentally build a Rogue Trader that will be a close combat monster. I have a few ideas but i could use an outside opinion.

First of all I'm planning on taking two weapon wielder( melee) and Nerves Of Steel from the Calixian Privateer selection. I have the dodge skill and an agility bonus of 40. He has a weapon skill of 45 and took the power sword as one of his starting weapons. Will plan on getting a power fist or second power sword.

Might also plan on getting a suit of best craftsmanship Storm trooper carapace with either a built in holo-field or personal shield.

any other recommendations would be nice, i know the talents that will work. Just need some pointers as far as equipment goes.

Powerfists are silly. Blademaster makes them obsolete, because with Ambidexterity and Two Weapon Wielder (Melee) you take what, no penalties? Maybe -10? So take two powerswords, at least one Moridian for the parry bonus, maybe the second being a power Axe for the extra damage. Combine with a Refractor Field, Power Armour and Furious Assault (with such stalwart defenses, who needs dodge?) you can rock up to 5 attacks (swift and lightning) with a re-roll and +20 to hit.

The reason i say Powerfists are silly is simple: while they do massively more damage, it doesn't matter if you don't hit, and a re-roll may be that extra push to ensure that you do.

BangBangTequila said:

Minor point - Furious Assault only benefits you if you make an All-Out Attack, and consequently cannot be combined with Lightning Attack (which uses a distinct Full-Round Action from All-Out Attack).

Personally, I'd go with the Eldar Power Sword rather than the Mordian for defence; less damage, better Pen and a better bonus to Parry.

It really depends on GM houserules: If Pen affects toughness, then i agree 100%, if not then that extra pen only affects armour, and so the pen is only worthwhile on items greater then enforcer carapace at 5 ap. A pen of 5 is respectable, especially when combined with Best quality and the base 1d10+5 damage-any greater and you're already looking at power armour, which (hopefully!) is beyond most of your opponents.

Of course your mileage may vary, but my 2 cents is optimized for non-optimized opponents. Against such non-boss-quality baddies, it's guaranteed to rock.

get the pilot personal skill and have one of your tech-priests work a flip-belt into that carapace. I find that works wonders.

Personally i prefer a thunder hammer as it does a very nice amount of damage and our gm lets me use blademaster with it. However, if yours doesn't i'd go for the equivalent of the omnissian poweraxe or a burning blade.

For close combat i also prefer to use a melta pistol (or plasma pistol) in one hand and a blade in the other if at all possible. If you get independent targetting that means you can usually get the +30 bonus for point-blank by firing on another target then the one you're fighting with the blade. It also gives you the option to do massive amounts of damage against any opponent that turns out to be freakishly tough or armoured.

Instead of the Power Fist consider a thunder hammer, it's got four more damage, one more penetration, shocking and you can put the **** thing down (the groups I usually play with go with that a power fist takes two or three rounds to take off). It does have the double SB to damage if you check the errata. It doesn't look quite as cool but you're going for squishy death it's **** good.

If you want to think a bit long term you could go a slightly different way than dodging and depend entirely on your parry and refractor shield to keep you alive as well as tons of armour. Get yourself a BQ Heavy Power Armour suit, BQ Muscle Grafts and an eldar power sword to help parrying. You wont be able to dodge, you'll have AP of ten everywhere and take -30 or so to all agility checks.... however you get your SB again +1 to damage and +2 from the power armours bonus to strength. You don't really need the heavy power armour but if you are taking the hit to agility you could just go all the way with it. BQ power armour will work almost as well for protection but wont do a hit to your dodge.

If you had a SB of say five with a BQ thunder hammer, muscle graft and heavy power armour it'd do 2d10+23.

What might be fun too if your GM allows stuff from dark heresy consider putting the shocking armour upgrade on your armour from the radicals handbook, every enemy that hits you in close combat would end up with a chance of being stunned... though all the extra dice rolling could get annoying.

I checked the skill listings for the Rogue Trader and he can't take pilot(personal), just space craft and flyers. The hammer looks brutal, then again why would i need a bulky suit of heavy power armor when i have a high quality personal shield device. a suit of best quality light power armor will provide decent protection while not increasing my size.

it's called an elite advance ;-)

N0-1_H3r3 said:

Will the better parry chance increase your defences by enough to make up for the Eldar coming to take the sword back ?

how come the original Eldar power sword that was pen 6 didn't have that complication?

Void_onion213 said:

Probably an omission. The Eldar do not take kindly to Mon'Keigh using their weaponry regardless of what specific type of sword they have.

In fact, I would extend this (to a lesser degree) to all Eldar weaponry, especially the Aspect weapons. I cannot recall a single instance in which the Eldar traded with the primitive Mon'Keigh. It therefore stands to reason whatever weaponry is found, is found on the corpses of Eldar - something that does not lend well to a positive first impression.

BangBangTequila said:

Eldar trade with humans has been in the background intermittently over the years, though I imagine it's on a fairly small scale.

numb3rc said:

Aoife Armengarde has an Eldar Powersword that has been gifted to her. If i recall correctly.

I prefer a good power claw or a power fist though for RTs though . Omnissian Axe in the case of Techpriests of any kind.

Voronesh said:

No, she got hers from winning a duel with an Eldar corsair lieutenant. She took the sword from his body and kept it as a trophy. The corsairs weren't really happy about that.

For weapons I'd recommand flaming powerswords. Nothing finishes and opponent faster then lighting them on fire as well as slashing at them with two swords.

Trooperist said:

Just hope that your opponent doesn't decide to give you a tight hug.

hmmm...houserule anyone? Successful grapple = setting them alight as well?

Trooperist said:

Awwww crap.

So much for my theory. Just shows how weak the Eldar really are . So go ahead, take an Eldar Powersword, if you have a cruiser at your back .

The RT in my group is a monster in hand to hand. Best quality powersword + good quality powerfist, though he made that selection before getting a look at Into the Storm. He is now making serious efforts to acquire a good quality Thunder Hammer to replace the powerfist. With the errata, the 'Hammer is strictly better.

Cheers,

- V.