After finding out the hard way that our Rogue Trader group needs some replaceable minions, our group has gone to a Hive World for some gangers who want to make some coin.

However, what should I equip them with? I know that gangers would have their own weapons, but assuming that their weapons are discarded due to poor-quality, what should these new minions wield to defend our valuable persons?

Edit: Note that our name for these minions are "Jägers", like the light-infantry divisions in the Napoleonic era. Any weapons or armor that fit into the theme get bonus points.

Couple of points we need to decide on first here.

1) What is the Size and Availability of gear you're prepared to outfit for these Redshirts? Are we talking realistic budget and time constraints, or are we going to have power armoued, best-quality force fielded lascannon-toting armies marching across the field of battle?

2) What kind of Redshirts do you plan on these being?

a) Star Trek Redshirts - They have names, and generally show up to provide logistical support, explain how certain plot elements happen, and tend to get killed off fairly easily, though sometimes they put up a fight.

b) Paranoia Redshirts - Completely and utterly expendable. You send them in to die, and then someone more competent learns from their mistakes.

c) Final Fantasy Redshirts - Theoretically able to fight off other Redshirts, they nonetheless get curbstomped by named characters. Occasionally produces one lone soldier who survives against all odds to become a force to be reckoned with.

Couple of points we need to decide on first here.

1) What is the Size and Availability of gear you're prepared to outfit for these Redshirts? Are we talking realistic budget and time constraints, or are we going to have power armoued, best-quality force fielded lascannon-toting armies marching across the field of battle?

Preferably the first choice. Size should be in the "Squad" range. Items with "Scarce" availability would probably be the limit.

2) What kind of Redshirts do you plan on these being?

a) Star Trek Redshirts - They have names, and generally show up to provide logistical support, explain how certain plot elements happen, and tend to get killed off fairly easily, though sometimes they put up a fight.

b) Paranoia Redshirts - Completely and utterly expendable. You send them in to die, and then someone more competent learns from their mistakes.

c) Final Fantasy Redshirts - Theoretically able to fight off other Redshirts, they nonetheless get curbstomped by named characters. Occasionally produces one lone soldier who survives against all odds to become a force to be reckoned with.

I would prefer the Jägers to be able to theoretically resupply men or ammunition on any world in the Calixis sector. However, if a few of them actually survived long enough to become officers, the force could eventually expand into Jäger Company, which is a long term goal for me.

It looks good. I was concerned that if I gave the Jägers lasguns they wouldn't be able to have full automatic fire. I had forgotten about the assault lasgun from Into the Storm .

In your game, since your players used them, how was their survivability?

Early on (and still now) not great. I broke them up into platoons of 30, and then allowed them to level up the more missions each platoon was sent on where they'd gain stats and skills slowly. They're still pretty good troops, but really they exist because they should exist for Rogue Traders.

They can handily dispatch other humans in a straight fight, and the captain's elite honour guard and our shock troops for boarding missions are quite a bit better, but they're still not quite at PC level. They are however excellent at providing suppressing fire. The Merovech is a good weapon, but as PCs face higher level threats, 1d10 + 2 isn't going to get through anything. They do have a fire selector and a hot shot pack, a good volley from which will bring a lot of things down however.

Edit: In our last session though, a group of Shadow Spectres ambushed the party and were laying down devastating fire while flying. I don't allow the platoons to have critical hits, so a platoon of 30 firing full auto at a flying target took 3 rounds to bring one down (though admittedly I treated all shots as one massive swarm and let the Eldar dodge as appropriate). There's always SOME survivors from every mission, and if PCs ever get downed I usually let one or two platoon members drag the unconscious fool away while the rest get destroyed by Crystal Wisps.

You can find my homebrew rules for platoons here

In my own campaign. Ship's crew are automatically kitted out according to their quality level. I actually have a fairly substantial article on shipboard life I give to my players. It's probably too much to deal with here but PM me an E-mail address and I'll send it to you if you're interested.

In my own campaign. Ship's crew are automatically kitted out according to their quality level. I actually have a fairly substantial article on shipboard life I give to my players. It's probably too much to deal with here but PM me an E-mail address and I'll send it to you if you're interested.

I'd actually be interested in seeing a post about that, if you don't mind showing it to a wider audience. Of course, I may be weird in liking larger posts when they're good info...

On topic, I'm surprised that people are willing to let house troops go out without missile and grenade launchers (scarce, along with their krak and frag missiles/grenades). Lasguns are excellent for suppression, but I wouldn't go out into the Expanse without heavier guns in support. Typically, I've kitted squads out like Imperial Guard platoons, 1 heavy and one special weapon per 10 soldiers.

If you have the profit to acquire them, I've found that mooks with melta guns, lascannon, and heavy bolters are brutal in supporting roles as the player characters take on the most critical parts of the fight.

what skills/talents do they have?

I use the Battlefleet Koronus rules, so you can buy military units fully kitted out that way. A company of Imperial Guard is a -10 aquisition (0 for infantry, +0 for Volunteer, -10 for Medium Infantry, +0 for Tech world, +0 for 100 men). Imperial Guard come with a decent kit, and you are making one aquisition roll. If you have Only War, you can use the regiment generation system for your infantry to customize it.

On speicific equipment, it depends on their use. If they are going to be general purpose infantry I prefer the Armagedon Rifles (full auto, more damage, can use specialized ammo) or the Vanaheim Shotguns (full auto, red dot, bayonette, solid slugs are Common and make the weapons 1d10+5 Pen 2). Both are from Inquisitors handbook but by fluff pretty common in parts of the Calaxis sector. Each squad should have a grenade launcher, with Krak and Frag grenades as well.

For personal guard my players use much higher grade troops. They have three squads of Veteran (-20), Heavy Infantry (-20) with a final aquisition of -30. The personal guard are in Vacuum Carapace armor with hellguns and plasma flamers (made by the Arch Heretek). They then bought poor quality Repuslor? Fields (R x 30 = +0 Aquisition check) to increase their survivability. Those troops tend to last a lot longer and can actually be useful in a fight.

Are Flamers not worth it? I figure the throwaways...err, redshirts could use all the help they can get and since Flamers auto-hit, they might be a boon.

Flamers are useful situationally. They are not auto-hit, as the opponent can make an agility test to avoid it. The higher an opponents agility, the worse they are. If you do not have the Talent to use them, your opponent gets a +20 to the check as well. So they are great against Orks and Slow moving opponents, but not against Dark Eldar.

There are ways to help that. Our RT has the Talent and the Cleanse and Purify talent (Which gives a -20 penalty to the Agility test). He also uses Nephalim laced fuel (which gives another -20 and raises the damage). Both of those are not something you are going to be able to do cheaply for all your troops though.

Also flamers are very close range, and against decent opponents they're going to be picked off at a distance. They are handy for dealing with Psykers who insist on Pushing TK Shield to gain ridiculous armour.

In general, although my house troops have one or two members with heavy weapons, I've discouraged them becoming an elite, well-armed fighting force because I still want the focus of the game to be my PCs, not their army.

I was going to post a long-winded post, but everything I wanted to write has already been done.

Except: we kitted out a platoon of 30 with Poor Quality Plasma Guns.

And great fun was had by all.

If we're still talking about the gangers, I'd keep in mind augs. Hive gangs tend to view augmetics and implants almost as a status symbol.

Although any augs they'd have would most likely be fairly cheap. Still, one in ten guys or so would likely have some minor augmentations. It's something to keep in mind when handbuilding squads and creating named minion officers.

For those who've asked, I would be happy to share my "Voidship operations" Article but being an old Grognard I'm not sure how to upload it here. Any Ideas would be welcome! The problem is the whole thing is a 12 pg article in MS word. A little more than fits on the forum.

If you have a gmail account you have access to Google Docs (docs.google.com) and you can upload a file there or copy/paste into a new document.

Ok, I think I've got it. Try this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Z5Z_9GK7bCRGNJUmZYcG9LN28/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know what you guys think.

Ok, I think I've got it. Try this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B-Z5Z_9GK7bCRGNJUmZYcG9LN28/edit?usp=sharing

Let me know what you guys think.

Interesting very well thought out

Thanks! Hope it helps!

Your basic NPC crewmen should be fairly simply equipped unless you're purposely providing them special gear, which you probably wouldn't have enough of to do for multiple-10's of thousands of crewmen.

In my games, the basic loadout is as thus:

Voidsmen: Laspistol or Lascarbine or Pump-Action Shotgun + Flak Vest

Armsmen: Laspistol + Lasgun or Flamer or Combat Shotgun + Flak Vest and Helmet

Soldiers: Similar to Armsmen, except they get Guard Flak and 2x Flag Grendes. They also have access to heavy weapons.

Always grab them some flak armour - the stuff is cheap and even a down on their luck Rogue Trader can afford tonnes of the stuff.

As for weapons - bear in mind the skill level of the redshirts. If you're equipping unskilled or poorly skilled troops then flamers, lasguns or shotguns with a burst or auto firing option are amazingly effective. Autoguns can get pricey when you factor in all those nice attachments and ammo you can get, so i generally reserve these for more elite troops. Don't bother with bolters, plasma, melta or any heavy weapons for your redshirts - too expensive and good value for money. More troops with more basic gear will always get the job done!

I followed Erathia's suggestion with the Merovech Assault Lasgun from Into the Storm. The thing's a beaute for barely trained redshirts. I paired it with a cheap shield with lock-grips for my "Drusian Faithful" and it's a wicked combo: good armour protection, good rate of fire, and somewhat conflicting ideas of how close combat is going to be handled.

I do suggest, if you have it, to use Only War and build a Regiment from the rules. We're planning on playing OW ourselves, but playing as the soldiers under our other characters' commands.

I do suggest, if you have it, to use Only War and build a Regiment from the rules. We're planning on playing OW ourselves, but playing as the soldiers under our other characters' commands.

If the dynasty has "raised" a regiment (or portion thereof) from some population (or is simply carrying around parts of an established one), then perhaps using OW rules to create it could work very well. The problem using OW to create/play basic redshirt armsmen/voidsmen is that the average starting guardsman from OW is going to be WAY better than the mooks on your ship "should" be.

In my current campaign, the dynasty is preparing for a colonial endeavor that will include needing to clear the chosen world of some Feral Orks. They've already secured the assistance of some I.G. Regiments (the remnants of a failed crusade into the 'Undred 'Undred Teef) for that aspect of the job. Down the line, it seems they want to raise a regiment from the population of their colony world. When that comes to pass, we will use the OW rules.

If the dynasty has "raised" a regiment (or portion thereof) from some population (or is simply carrying around parts of an established one), then perhaps using OW rules to create it could work very well. The problem using OW to create/play basic redshirt armsmen/voidsmen is that the average starting guardsman from OW is going to be WAY better than the mooks on your ship "should" be.

The average starting guardsman PLAYER CHARACTER is WAY better than the mooks in the regiment.

The player characters are all exceptional people, wether in DH, RT, DW, BC or OW. They are "touched by the fates" and their stats are better than average in their own group.

They aren't immortal, not even the Space marine characters, but they are much better than the average mooks.

So if you are just looking at making NPC mooks for the RT then reduce the stats, if on the other hand you are going to have people play as the members of RT's private army then just remember that they are not average soldiers.