There are few universes as brutal and unforgiving as Warhammer 40,000. Between the demonic forces, the Imperial army, and space itself, your character in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is up against tough odds. Before you begin your adventure through the Koronus Expanse and pick up allies, you need to design your own character. You could pick one of the premade options, but where’s the fun in that? Among the cosmetic options available, arguably the most important aspect you need to deduce is your Archetype. This will ascertain how your character grows during the game, including what roles they will be suited for and which skills they will learn. You will pick the first tier in creation, which ultimately determines what is available in the second and third tiers later on, so it is important to select wisely.
Which Archetype to select
The first tier of Archetypes has four possible options for you to select, including Warrior, Officer, Operative, and Soldier. Each one will give you different abilities and ultimates that shape the type of character you will be. Once selected, you cannot change which Archetype your main character is.
Warrior
If you want to slash and bash your way through your foes, the Warrior is the best melee class of the bunch. You will be just as strong as you are resilient, and be in charge of dishing out damage, as well as drawing aggro to keep focus on you instead of your teammates. Warriors are buffed in dodge chance, high armor, parries, and using taunts.
Your only Keystone Feature for this class is Charge. This is a, well, charge attack that moves in a straight line and strikes any enemy in that path, but without counting toward your attack limit. You need to be at least two tiles away from your target to have enough space to speed up to use this advance.
Your Ultimate is Daring Breach. Using this restores all your armour penetration (AP) and MP (movement points), plus gives you +AGI bonus MP until the end of the turn. You also won’t lose any MP when attacking and are free to attack as many times as you want that turn, so long as they are all melee strikes.
Officer
For those who want to command the front lines rather than fight on them, the Officer is an ideal uphold class. They specialize in Willpower and Fellowship stats to buff their teammates so they can do all the heavy lifting. This class is very tactical, applying buffs, rescuing allies, and granting extra turns.
The Officer gets two Keystone Features, starting with Bring It Down! This skill gives one target teammate an extra turn and two additional AP, but no MP. If the ally also has Voice of Command (more on that in a second) and also kills an enemy during this time, they also get +(2x resolve) momentum.
Voice of Command is a huge buff that gives the target +(5+2x Officer’s FEL bonus) for a single round. It also makes that ally able to be hit by any other of your abilities regardless of distance, but you can only use it on one unit every two rounds.
For Ultimates, the Officer brings Finest Hour! This gives an ally one extra turn with full AP and MP, plus removes their attack limit. If done as a Desperate Measure, your Officer’s FEL stat will be cut in half until the end of battle.
Operative
Do you admire hitting hard and exploiting weaknesses? The Operative uses their high Intelligence and Perception stats to target an enemy’s weak point to bring them down fast. They are single-target units that can breach any defense and debuff enemies.
Analyse Enemies will be your starting Ability and it has a 10-cell range. Whatever enemy you target with it gets a +(1+INT bonus) exploit. Exploit stacks make attacks deal +(5xPerception bonus)% more damage.
The Operative gets two Ultimates, one for their main and the other for a second weapon, but both haae the same effect. This advance applies exploit on all enemies on the field, plus grants one free guaranteed hit on a single target. That hit unit will also suffer a -30% penalty to dodge and armor. If this is a Desperate Measure, then your Operative’s attacks will cost one additional AP until the end of the fight.
Soldier
Finally, the soldier is your most traditional ranged unit. They focus on using positioning and cover with their firearms to lay down death from relative safety. They are not so great at taking a hit, or dishing one out in melee combat, but they get additional movement options to stay at an ideal range most of the time. You will also get bonuses for being in cover and to your ability to dodge, as well as better burst and area of effect attacks. As far as Keystone Features, you get Run and Gun and Revel In Slaughter. Run and Gun grants you +(2+AGI bonus) Movement Points, plus reduces your next attack cost by 1 AP and doesn’t make it count toward the attack limit so you can shoot and then advance if you wish. However, you will become Winded afterwards, which gives you a -10 to Ballistic Skills until the end of the turn. Revel in Slaughter pairs great as it removes Winded, plus gives you +10 Ballistic Skill, +(5+2xAGI bonus)% Crit damage, and +(AGI bonus) Crit chance. The downside is that you can’t activate this skill until you have killed three enemies in combat.
For Ultimate, you get Firearm Mastery Heroic Act and Desperate Measures. Heroic Act lets you perform as many extra attacks as your weapon’s fire rate will allow without spending AP. Each first shot you land on an enemy will be a crit, and you will automatically reload when this is triggered. Desperate Measures is the same, but the following round, you have -1 AP until the end of combat.
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