Hey folks, I'm looking to throw a murder servitor at my players next session and was looking for tips on construction or sourcebooks to look at. They're a group of Rank 1s: an RT, a Navigator, an Astropath, a Techpriest and a Dark Heresy Assassin (the assassin is a close-combat specialist). They've got some decent gear, but not as good as your normal rogue traders, as their starting profit factor was 10. They talked me into letting them buy a Battlecruiser with their ship points. God-Emperor help me.

I'd suggest starting with the battle servitor in the core rulebook.

I've ordered them after estimated threat potential:

• Servitor Drone (unarmed): Dark Heresy p. 344 + Rogue Trader core rulebook p. 375
• Combat Servitor (melee): Dark Heresy p. 338
• Gun Servitor (ranged): Dark Heresy p. 340
• Charron Battle Servitor (melee/ranged): Rogue Trader p. 374
• Praetorian Battle Servitor (melee/ranged): Inquisitor's Handbook p. 141
• Arco-Flagellant (melee): Blood of Martyrs p. 122

Given that your player characters are likely well equipped, I'd recommend a Praetorian. If you don't want to or cannot get your hands on the Inquisitor's Handbook (despite being meant for Dark Heresy, I would say it can also be extremely useful for Rogue Trader), then you may also opt for the Charron-type, which is included in the RT Core Rulebook.

Hope that helps!

Thanks! Any ideas what I can throw at a Battlecruiser to give the players a run for their money? It's fairly well-equipped. I'm not sure whether I should throwing another battlecruiser at it or a number of smaller ships.

Lynata said:

That's extremely helpful. Many, many thanks! I have Inquistor's Handbook. I gonna run and grab that right now.

Razorlight said:

Define well-equipped. Eldar make great opponents for cruiser-sized ship-to-ship combat, their incredible speed and maneuverability allows them to dart in, unleash all their weaponry, then be back in the cruiser's dead zone before it has a chance to respond. This tends to do a little worse if the cruiser's equipped with launch-bays or guided torpedoes, however.

Razorlight said:

Urrm, i suggest a taskforce of some kind. If you use RAW rules. (Where a frigate can kill a cruiser in 2 salvoes, but cant if its a NPC due to low stats)

If you "houserule" stuff to make capital ships last long enough to bring their capital firepower to bear, i suggest a Chaos Cruiser. Make it a Daemon ship or use CSM if your PCs use hit&run attacks all the time. Id prefer the Daemon ship, than PCs have been warned, and any fate point, dead char is their problem (they knew the risks).

Ork Freebooterz are always fun, if you use a few ramships. Not too many, i have heard bad tales about them. This is especially nice, if you want to stay away from Chaos for a little while yet. Although nothing like a nice foreshadowing of future things to come, if a daemonship shows up.

The bigger the ship? The bigger the need. Chances are, if the Imperial Navy gets in a scrap that they will call on the players and their Battlecruiser for help. Chances are even good that they could be commissioned to help out with the Crusade in the Jericho Reach.

Then you'd have them in vast battles against terrible threats.

Or...don't discount politics and subterfuge. Not all enemies need to use a starship to bring down one. Concerns sent to the right people could bring down Inquisition wrath, Imperial Navy, Space Marines, or even simple revocation of the Warrant along with a bounty.

Also, someone with a ship like this is bound to have duties of some sort built into the Warrant. Things the pcs must do just before they can go off on their own. There are measures to ensure such deeds get done. Examples are in the Rogue Trader core book. I'm fond of the one Rogue Trader that blew his mission off and was found circling a world. All hands dead because of a bio-toxin introduced into the ventilation system with one person escaping.

Or...similar to Ork Ram ships...use a Fire ship. A ship packed full of explosives with an expendable crew and zealot leadership out to prove a point for distant, uncaring leaders.

Do you have Battlefleet Koronus? Squadrons are a great way to challenge PCs with big ships. If a few small ships are in a squadron they can all combine their fire so they only have to overcome shields once.

Also, anything that ignores shields will probably scare the pants off your players. Torpedoes, bombers, attack craft, ramming, Yu'Vath warp weaponry, and more. That'll put the fear of the Emperor into groups that have shields to spare.

The best thing to scare a group with a BC and a really low profit factor? Repair bills...

As for the murder-servitor, given that they have a DH assasin close-combat monster, I would suggest that an arco-flagellant may not be too extreme as a foe.

Razorlight said:

If you still need inspiration or stats Broken Chains contains statistics for Murder Servitors on p.31. They are a bit simplified as it is a demo product, but quite useable. The Murder Servitors would fall between Servitor and Combat Servitor in Lynata's list.

If you're still interested in murder servitors, I provisionally statted them using the Battle Servitor from RT as a base. Bumped WS and Ag to 50 and non-primitive claws (D10+8), possibly with hell-pistols/flame pistols shoulder mounted for some ranged ability. I saw them as rare and extremely deadly.

Use a dozen servo-skulls with modified autoguns and some heretek wetware.

In the Dark Heresy Supplement Inquisitor's Handbook you can get the following setup right off the paper:

• 35WS 35BS 10S 20T 40AG 15INT 35PER 20WP --FEL
• Skills: Awareness Per +20, Concealment Ag +10, Dodge Ag +10, Silent Move Ag +20
• Talents: Fearless, Weapon Training per its own Weapon
• Traits: Dark Sight, Flier 6, Machine (3, thats 3 armour), programmed Instinct, Size (Puny, -20 to hit by larger creatures, +20 concealment)
• Weapons: Unarmed 1d10-3 I Primitive OR Installed Weapon; Ranged Weapons come with a Red Dot Sight (+10)

A note about weapons: It can have a single ranged weapon, like an autocarbine or lascarbine, though any Pistol or compact BASIC weapon can be fitted.

A few Possible Weapon Load Outs:

• LongLas (BASIC 75m (range halved for Compact), single shot, 1d10+3 E, Pen 1, Clip 40 (20, halved for Compact), Accurate, Reliable, Compact)
• Stormbolter (BASIC 45m (range halved for Compact), S/2/4, 1d10+5 X, Pen 4, Clip 60 (30, halved for Compact), Storm , Tearing, Compact)
• Ceres Pattern Bolt Pistol (Pistol, 30m range, S/2/-, 1d10+5 Pen 4, Clip 8x3 (Fire Selector, 3 8 round clips), Tearing, Fire Selector)

Use terrain to your advantage. have them spread out to prevent close combat monsters from using all their attacks against different opponents.

Use smaller servitor-lites to keep track fo the players:

• Vox-Bug (Scarce) Coin Sized DH:RH p158
• A tiny servitor with a roach brain which will broadcast on pre-set Vox Channel what is said or done around it. Range 1 km, Ag 40 Concealment Skill. Can scuttle to its target and conceal itself among their clothing and/or possessions. May NOT have any upgrades.
• Pict-Fly (Rare) DH:RH p157
• As the Vox-Bug the Pict-Fly transmits pictures and sounds (poor quality, -20 on Hearing based Tests). Ag 50 Concealment Skill. limited intelligence to follow basic commands.

.....So you can have the skulls attack at the right moment.

So, not only do you have a well armed force, they are mobile (flight), heavily armed and hard to hit. Attack in packs with a few sniper skulls supporting a few storm and Ceres bolt skulls on the close attack spread out to lessen the advantage of area effect weapons on the part of the players. And they're fearless.

If you want better than 35BS +10 red dot sight and whatever firing mode bonus use twin linked bolt pistols or compact las rifles to get the +20%.

Actually, the stats for a murder-servitor are in the Free RPG Day adventure that was made for Black Crusade. I imagine it's available for download on the product's support page.

As for challenging the ship, I'd use a common house rule and up the skill of any enemy by 15 to 20 points above what it should be, this puts enemy ships on a similar level to PCs, other wise they can't hit jack.

As for enemy ships, using the squadron rules from Battlefleet Koronus cna make even raiders quite nasty. 3 Raiders with 1 plasma, 1 macrocannon each can really do a number of most ships with the squadon firing rules.

Failing that, Torpedoes are great fun, especially if your players haven't faced them before. Give my players the willies.

If they have more than one ship, then make an enemy vessel designed for boarding (murder servitors, barracks) and board it. If they only have one ship, then have the enemy boarding ship equipped with a teleportarium and hit and run them. Putting enemy troops onto the players vessel really messes with their sense of security.

My players got boarded by an Ork Rok once, had to pull out all the stops to fight the damnable greenskins off (fate points spent, etc).