My 40k Roleplay collection is limited to the Black Crusade releases. From those Black Crusade releases, all I really get for unit stats are a good selection of Daemons and Necrons…Now, I want to find out some rules for all the other unit types out there in the 40k universe. My understanding is that FFG has a spectrum of unit rules available throughout the 4 (and soon 5). But, where do I start? For example, where would I find something as simple as a Rhino? How about a Dreadnought? How about vehicle rules in general?

If I were to collect a small handful of books from the other systems, in order to access unit rules for things I can use in Black Crusade, what books would that list consist of? Basically, what is the essential collection of FFG 40k Roleplay books so that someone could have access to a wide variety of common unit types?

Thanks.

Well if you're looking for war and combat rules then Rites of Battle might be a good buy. Disciples of the Dark gods gives rules for non-psyker sorcery and creating daemonhosts as well as alot of useful fluff while Radical's Handbook and the Blood of Martyrs together with the Dark Heresy prime gives plenty of states together with the possobility of creating a wide range of Imperial antagonists for your game.

Mark of Xenos for varity of enemies - tau, tyranids, chaos and orks i think.

You can probably add Creatures Anathema as well.

and soon Koronus Bestiary

Creatures Anathema probably isn't so great for you. The generic useful ones (Genestealers and Orks) are present in Mark of Xenos, and the rest are very specific things for the Calixis sector. It might give you some inspiration, and you could use the things (just renamed) but I would say Mark of Xenos is more important for the general stuff.

Same would probably go for the Koronus Bestiary, but it is possible it will have more eldar stuff (and I have just remembered that the Creatures Anathema has a Dire Avenger and a Ranger write up, which may be useful), which is fairly limited at the moment.

The main issue is that some of the talents have changed what they do across the different lines, so the different creatures will work slightly differently in Black Crusade than in their "home" lines. Oh, and the bigger beasties from the Mark of Xenos are built presuming the inflated damage stats of original Deathwatch weapons, so may be quite a prospect for a Black Crusade groups to deal with.

All of the Core Rulebooks have an Adversary section that includes generic opponents. In the Dark Heresy one, these are mainly Imperial archetypes- everything from Enforcers (i.e. police) to merchants. Rogue Trader has some overlap, plus odds and ends like Pirates and Kroot. The Deathwatch RB has a fair amount of Tyranids and Tau, plus some generic Imperial military stuff. If you don't want to buy a whole $60 rulebook just to get stats for some NPCs, you could probably find someone who has the books in question who can copy them for you. Vehicles are covered in the RT supplement Into The Storm and the DW supplement Rites of Battle .

Adeptus-B said:

Ah, that's something I was looking for. Thanks.

In the Hand of Corruption book, there is a page that describes how many Structural Integrity points Chimeras and Hellhounds have, but nothing about how to play them…

If you want "classic" TT races as enemies, Mark of the Xenos is your best bet. It has the Tyranids, Tau and Orks, as well as lots of Chaos stuff if you want quick stats for competing warbands. Between this and BC line, all that's left are the Eldar. Fortunately, N01-H3R3 made a fan supplement for DW covering them in detail. You can get it here .