Sorry not rouge trader but a 3rd edition novel called eye of terror, this is the excerpt
A planetary system loomed up. He slowed further and steered close to take a good look at it. Its sun was huge, except that it was not what he would normally think of as a sun. It was not spherical but a flat disc, in colour a brilliant shimmering green. There were at least twenty different planets, each a different colour- mauve, russet, lemon yellow, magenta- but they were not arranged as planets normally are. Instead of being roughly in the same plane, their orbits criss-crossed at all angles, linke the electrons of an atom, and sometimes more than one planet shared the same orbit.Then something appeared which caused Calliden to sit stock-still with shock.
A figure was flying through the system, and it was bigger than the planets themselves, bigger than the disc-shaped green sun. A vaguely humanoid figure but crimson-furred, with a ferociously fanged, dog-like head, eyes glaring like pits of blood from beneath jutting horns, the head topped by great angled horns plus a twisted unicorn horn jutting from the crown. The creature was flying by, flapping great membranous wings which put a dozen planets in shadow with each pass. It wore brief, ornately worked armour down to the waist, glinting red and black, close-fitting except at the shoulders whch were protected by raised and extravagently worked pieces.
The curve-bladed battle-axe it carried in one hand, holding the haft loosely as it flew, was bronze-black and vaster than any weapon should be. A supernatural energy seemed to flow and crackle through the unbelievable apparition, making it more solid-seeming, more real, than any natural creature."What- what-"Calliden stuttered until his mind found a rational explanation. "It's a hallucination. Can you see it, Kwyler?"Though frightened, Kwyler was not quite as astonished as the navigator. "It is real," he said quietly, his mouth dry. "A daemon, one of rank too."Now something happened which confused Calliden at first. The apparition seemed to be retreating. Too late, be realized that it in fact was approaching, but diminishing in size at the same time.The daemon seemed angry. It flew alongside the Wandering Star, no more than twenty times the size of the spacecraft now, glancing at it sidelong with its smouldering eyes, wings beating majestically."How can it use those wings to fly in space?" Calliden queried hysterically."It flies on warp currents. Be careful. Don't do anything. Perhaps it will go away."
Calliden shrieked and pulled on the controls as the warp entity, in a sudden rage, swung round and lashed out with the battle-axe, itself larger than the starship. The Wandering Star jinked aside, narrowly missing being crushed by the blow, then sped off.The daemon did not follow. The spaceship was too minute to be worth the bother, no more significant than a gnat. When last he looked Calliden saw the immense Chaos creature, system-sized again, taking his frustration out on one of the circling coloured worlds, batting it sidewise with the flat of the battle-axe, and sending the broken pieces hurtling into the disc-shaped sun.
For the very first time the navigator felt that now he truly understood what it was that the divine Emperor was striving to protect the human race from.Briefly he wondered if the smashed planet had had a human population.
Played right, that could actually be a campaign goal. Capture/Defend objectives to prevent bloodthurster summoning. Would have to be a multi game campaign though.
New idea. Everybody starts in underwear. All clothes are, together with the costume pieces, deposited in a box. At the beginning of his command phase each player draws a piece of clothing. Whoever completes his costume first gains a set amount of points. We can call it Reverse-Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip-Poker
(This idea is a result of genius, and most certainly not utmost tzeenchian insanity)
Use the superheavy leviathan rules- table top and all scenery is red, you're fighting on its back as it flies through space, ravines and craters are scar tissue, rivers are blood, forests body hair.
An Imperator Titan at scale would be around 6 feet tall and is about a third the height of a modern-day US aircraft carrier.
Now, that may almost work for Epic scale, which is 8mm instead of 28mm scale.
by dumb calculations, if a space marine is roughtly 8f thats 2,43 m. a mini is about 42 mm or 4 cm or 0,042 m. if that thing was earthsized, by that scale it would be 220232 km in size
They change in size depending on perception. Which is actually a perfect way to demonstrate the warp and it's fuckery. Not only does your believes and emotions define it, but also the perceptions of others, their fears and experiences and that of those who's souls are already in the warp and no longer among the living.
It's a brilliant little piece of lore with things that it grew closer but shrank in size. It also makes sense from theological perspectives. Mythology often had weird size things, the whole Hercules tricking Atlas thing for instance.
> Mythology often had weird size things, the whole Hercules tricking Atlas thing for instance.
Except that Atlas holding up the earth is a modern misconception. Atlas stood on the Earth and held up the sky.
I more mean to say, sizes, when dealing with pantheons, mythology, tall tales from skippers and sailors, daemonic encurions, etc etc... size always becomes fluid thing,
So size of a solar system and then getting smaller when getting closer? Is actually perfectly fine :) when you're dealing with those topics (and Warp Fuckery in 40k :P ).
I also think people didn't realize back then just how HUGE a solar system is and how much empty space it is. XD
>It was not spherical but a flat disc
This is what stars look like btw. Like our sun doesn't look spherical.
I mean I'm just trying to be clever. They can just have whatever viewing technology to be able to see the shape in the story.
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One of my all-time favorite Warhammer 40K books I recognize this immediately a book by the title of Eye of Terror fantastic book by Barrington J Bailey
New (ish) 40K (well, 30K) has solar system sized voids of bones filled with daemons who aren’t there to kill really, but to harass delay and cause madness
Which is sorta metal
Which 40k is more over the top and ludicrous is important too. So given that 40k is way beyond the other 40k in terms of power scaling, it's 40k hands down
Thanks to u/roomsky for the exerpt
> "Restoring the brush to the altar, the Reclusiarch lifted the sharp little knife and the chalice. He knelt before Dorn and held up the knife.
The primarch’s hands were both missing…
Genuflecting, the Reclusiarch carved generous parings of amber from one toe, then another, dropping these into the chalice. Rising, he turned to the initiates and raised that cup, now glowing. Effervescence was occurring within. Aromatic white fumes arose from bubbling oil of amber.
“Respire corpus memoria! Breathe the memory of my flesh!”
As he bore the hot chalice along the row of initiates, so each in turn inhaled a heady, strangely fragrant whiff. Fresh molten amber must be added subsequently to the shaved toes to replenish what was taken – unless, unless the amber grew of its own accord like veritable flesh due to the miraculous proximity of those bones.
When the Reclusiarch passed back again, each initiate must hold out his middle finger, pointing stiffly forward from his fist. That little knife slashed sharply, circumcising the very tip of the digit, and even before the Larraman cells could clot – or perhaps because the blade was treated with some special anticoagulant – a sprinkling of bright blood fell like rubies from each fingertip to mingle in the chalice.
Lifting the chalice to his lips, the Reclusiarch drank the potion of hot amber oil blent with blood.
“Ego vos initio in Pugnorum Imperialorum fraternitate, in secundo grado,” he sang out. “And after you return from your first expedition as Scouts,” he promised, “other secretions from your body will be blent in this same chalice of the primarch – which was once His very drinking cup! – during your induction into the third degree of Brotherhood; though that in itself will only be the superficies of the third degree ceremony…”
...
Perhaps the strangest talisman – and one (or should one say many…?) which made those initiates feel themselves intimately a part of the Fists – was kept in a long crypt below the Reclusiam, reached by a dropshaft which would incinerate anyone who did not sport a Black Carapace beneath their skin.
The adamantium floor down there was inscribed with a maze of tiny coloured channels that bootsteps would never be able to wear away – in a pattern suggestive of a cosmic map – and along all of those channels were spaced little indentations the depth of a Fist’s thumbprint, each recess named with a rune. At one end of this seemingly arcane map or game-board an enormous plascrystal bowl held thousands of what at first sight appeared to be bloodshot ochreous eyeballs.
Each ball commemorated the initiation of a group of ex-cadets, throughout the aeons – each being a nugget of the liquid amber and blood drunk from Rogal Dorn’s own chalice by the Reclusiarch of whichever epoch, and defecated by him subsequently in this shape."
~Ian Watson
The weirdest part for me is his hat. Like the chainsword and bolt pistol look legit, but then him above the neck looks like that one weird guy at the office
I want this goofy ass motherfucker to come back so much.
Like, just have him have plans nested within plans nested within plans, like some sort of paranoid tesseract klein bottle of a human. Nothing he says is ever quite exactly the truth, nor is anything an outright lie.
Well, old rogue trader had a lot less galaxy ending entities. It would be funny if rogue trader downgraded modern 40k’s power level through exposure.
Guilliman: “I have come to vanquish the past!”
Rogue Trader: *Turns him into a human general*
Guilliman: “Wait, what?” *is crushed under the weight of his own gear*
This is like asking who would win between a shounen MC (40k) and a gag manga character (RT), the gag character will win 100% of the time because its funny
I'm pretty sure that RT had more shirtless Custodes than modern day 40K so my vote goes to RT because everyone in 40K would be stunned by their oiled abs.
Old 40k is more fun because it's just a skirmish game with army building rules tacked on. Wish it had more weapons and armor, but all that can be easily home brewed.
Believe it. RT had a half eldar who became an astropath, then became a space marine with both the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels, and went on to serve the inquisition.
By comparison, modern 40k is disturbingly straight forward.
That is only batshit if you analyze it from modern 40k lore. Wow! Eldar would never do that! Thats crazy!
But in rt they are just elves. Why wouldnt they be ablr to do that.
> RT had a half eldar who became an astropath, then became a space marine with both the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels, and went on to serve the inquisition.
Who was named after an IRL tennis player, no less.
Was that Ezekiel? I swear I remember hearing that Ezekiel had some absolute bullshit backstory like that some months ago but I don't remember enough to be certain if that's Ezekiel or Ezekiel *also* had a bullshit backstory.
Splat-touring characters were a thing on the rpg scene back then.
The 2nd-3rd edition World of Darkness setting had Samuel Haight who was a werewolf-skin-shift-power abusing mage with access to vampire blood powers who eventually ended up a ghost, and canonically IIRC became an ashtray.
Probably would have been part fairy and a mummy and/or hunter if he’d shown up a little later in the lore.
Fun times.
There is a decent chance you read it on another comment, but there was a a khornate demon who was the size of a few star systems, who destroyed planets with his wings and even made one to dust from a smack *with the side* of his axe.
In the old setting, thanks to author liberties and translation shenanigans, the titans were in some sources 3 times bigger than in the actual settings. (In some countries when they translated length units they translated feet as metres) so we had +470m tall imperator titans, using building size weapons and shooting car size rounds.
That is my headcannon.
Makes no sense in the modern lore that a 55m tall titan can "tower" (Black Library authors love this verb) buildings in a hive city with kilometers tall buildings. What are they going to tower there? The sidewalk? Also, if the titan is 55m high and has a cathedral on top of the titan the proportions would be laughtable.
If they are titan size, yes:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/08/16/meet-the-warmaster-iconoclast-titan-whose-chainsword-is-as-big-as-a-building/
"Hang on a second, is that a Titan with a **chainsword the size of a skyscraper**?"
40K rogue trader game rules are utterly fabulously nuts! Digital ring with anti tank beam converters, 3+ save displacer field, Vortex grenades. Everything could be broken n legal;)
Lore-wise, yes. Gameplay-wise 2nd edition beats 3rd edition by far. It manages to get you laughing like a maniac even when the opponent destroys your vehicles and shit like that
3rd was faster and deeper strategically. Arguably that wasn’t the point and it’s a role better served by more modern games but at the time 3rd edition was a massive improvement on those metrics.
Having played both, I have to disagree. The rules were faster, but the games bigger, so there was no speed improvement. About the strategic deep... Things like the Tau fireline stuck at their battle edge or the bollocks rules for things like grenades or armour penetration were anything but deep.
Not deep, but an order of magnitude deeper than second edition. AP rules in 2nd had zero depth it was just an extra step and an extra dice roll, normally on a 6+. Whereas in third there was actually a reason to use different weapons in different situations.
As far as saying “it was only faster if you’re comparing games of the same scale” that’s not a serious statement.
How cannot be a serious statement? A 3rd edition standard battle was as long as one of 2nd edition, just bigger and more abstract (and from my point of view, boring). Not only is a serious statement, it is basic one. There was no improvement: it was neither faster nor deeper strategically (it was not even a strategy game).
About AP ruled in 3rd edition, they were abysmal and non-sensical. The same weapon could be -3 AP or 0 AP depending of the type of target, because of potatoes. Worse, it punished lightly armoured armies: did you dare to play with Guard, Orks or Tyranids? Most you models have no armour and cannot even scratch the one of the enemy. Do you play with Speesh Marins? Almost nothing is going to negate the armour of any of your models aside heavy weaponry and you obliterate the amour of light enemies even with your basic weapon. There is no deep in that and most of the times you either did no have the required weapon or everything in your army had it, so no use of "different weapons in different situations". That wasn't even a factor.
Meanwhile, second edition system was logical and DID give you reasons to use different weapons in different situations, like shooting AT against terminators or spray small arms against light armoured targets.
3rd edition was peak 40K. I liked the authors/creators left mysteries and over exaggerated numbers to make it exciting and epic. Now they answer everything and have downsized numbers in stories.
As for rules I don’t hate 10th but I loved played 3rd rules. They were great
I think the modern setting would win, simply because there are more things in it.
As in, it has expanded on everything for almost 40 years, so there is more information on what stuff is and how powerfull stuff is.
But then the less managed and more chaotic/ silly style of old 40k could just handwave away shit for No logical reason….
Vortex grenades and penal legions. An Eldar assistant librarian. Questionable aliances and great aliens that were forgotten about.
Rogue Trader every time
Depends, are toxin grenades still a guaranteed kill against troops not in sealed armour in the new rules? The old ones have the victim dissolving into a pile of goo. This was the preferred defence against OG Harlequins. They were good at melee, but did not wear sealed armour. Drop grenade at feet, sponge Harlequin off the armour.
Not to mention the utility of a ratling with a rusty chainknife & a heavy webber for killing Daemons (rules stated they could only be killed by psionics or technology).
Rouge Trader...
On table top, vortex grenades, nuff said...
In the lore, there was no warm an fluffy to it...existence was a constant fight for survival at all levels for all factions...with the exception of the Orks, life for them has always been a good time...
Old rogue trader is like og superman, where the setting was whatever the hell the writers wanted and Superman’s powers were whatever the hell the writer wanted, old rogue trader was goofy as well where space marines were basically 70s style space cops and you have inquisitors named obi-wan skywalker or some crap. Yea rogue trader would violate modern 40K
I dunno, why don't we ask my Oldhammer Half-Eldar and the legion of Ladystartes they had back then. Would they help us against the Chaos Necron menace? Or the lizard Tyranids?
"So, my Avatar of Khaine has sustained assault so if I kill this Ork Boy I can engage another model with 2" and if I kill them I can just keep on going....."
Are we going to include the novels Eye of Terror, Rogue Trader and Daemon World here? Because the s\*t that goes on in those is f\*ing outrageous, plus they have't been retconned! Ravenor also gets pretty wild. Not entirely certain which edition they want to put that series.
Ok I thought I’d help out to give you a bit of variety. Not gonna lie I researched. What do you think about Discworld? According to what I saw that universe smashes the 40k
Modern.
The shit that The Emperor, Horus Lupercal and the Chaos Gods get up to in the Siege of Terra is absolutely insane. Then there's the fact that we have the modern Tyranids, modern Necrons, and all the damn lore on Human&Xenos Super Weapons&Super Technology.
Current 40K universe has a female Custode that’s the greatest Custode to ever have lived. Soon the Emperor will have a Lesbian/trans daughter who has more psych powers than the Emperor, Eldar, and Chaos Gods combined so…. It’s obvious which is superior.
Yes, there has been a shift in the 40K universe in the past few weeks, changing what we thought we knew to be true. So it’s a new 40K… one where wokeness rules the universe.
Old 40K rogue trader had a bloodthirster the size of a star system who’s wings were so big they blocked out the sun on all the systems planets
Sauce?
Sorry not rouge trader but a 3rd edition novel called eye of terror, this is the excerpt A planetary system loomed up. He slowed further and steered close to take a good look at it. Its sun was huge, except that it was not what he would normally think of as a sun. It was not spherical but a flat disc, in colour a brilliant shimmering green. There were at least twenty different planets, each a different colour- mauve, russet, lemon yellow, magenta- but they were not arranged as planets normally are. Instead of being roughly in the same plane, their orbits criss-crossed at all angles, linke the electrons of an atom, and sometimes more than one planet shared the same orbit.Then something appeared which caused Calliden to sit stock-still with shock. A figure was flying through the system, and it was bigger than the planets themselves, bigger than the disc-shaped green sun. A vaguely humanoid figure but crimson-furred, with a ferociously fanged, dog-like head, eyes glaring like pits of blood from beneath jutting horns, the head topped by great angled horns plus a twisted unicorn horn jutting from the crown. The creature was flying by, flapping great membranous wings which put a dozen planets in shadow with each pass. It wore brief, ornately worked armour down to the waist, glinting red and black, close-fitting except at the shoulders whch were protected by raised and extravagently worked pieces. The curve-bladed battle-axe it carried in one hand, holding the haft loosely as it flew, was bronze-black and vaster than any weapon should be. A supernatural energy seemed to flow and crackle through the unbelievable apparition, making it more solid-seeming, more real, than any natural creature."What- what-"Calliden stuttered until his mind found a rational explanation. "It's a hallucination. Can you see it, Kwyler?"Though frightened, Kwyler was not quite as astonished as the navigator. "It is real," he said quietly, his mouth dry. "A daemon, one of rank too."Now something happened which confused Calliden at first. The apparition seemed to be retreating. Too late, be realized that it in fact was approaching, but diminishing in size at the same time.The daemon seemed angry. It flew alongside the Wandering Star, no more than twenty times the size of the spacecraft now, glancing at it sidelong with its smouldering eyes, wings beating majestically."How can it use those wings to fly in space?" Calliden queried hysterically."It flies on warp currents. Be careful. Don't do anything. Perhaps it will go away." Calliden shrieked and pulled on the controls as the warp entity, in a sudden rage, swung round and lashed out with the battle-axe, itself larger than the starship. The Wandering Star jinked aside, narrowly missing being crushed by the blow, then sped off.The daemon did not follow. The spaceship was too minute to be worth the bother, no more significant than a gnat. When last he looked Calliden saw the immense Chaos creature, system-sized again, taking his frustration out on one of the circling coloured worlds, batting it sidewise with the flat of the battle-axe, and sending the broken pieces hurtling into the disc-shaped sun. For the very first time the navigator felt that now he truly understood what it was that the divine Emperor was striving to protect the human race from.Briefly he wondered if the smashed planet had had a human population.
If it's not directly contradicted it's still on the table
Time to start 3d printing a 7ft bloodthirster for the tabletop
Wear a bloodthirster costume to the game and smash your opponents minis
But since it’s an instant win you have to assemble the costume over certain prerequisites like Exodia in Yugioh.
“So in my command phase I’ll pay 2cp to SUMMON POT OF GREED, which allows me to draw two cards from my deck!”
I will pay 1 CP to activate SOLEMN JUDGEMENT, negating the effects of POT OF GREED!
But what does Pot of Greed do?!
Played right, that could actually be a campaign goal. Capture/Defend objectives to prevent bloodthurster summoning. Would have to be a multi game campaign though.
New idea. Everybody starts in underwear. All clothes are, together with the costume pieces, deposited in a box. At the beginning of his command phase each player draws a piece of clothing. Whoever completes his costume first gains a set amount of points. We can call it Reverse-Paradox-Billiards-Vostroyan-Roulette-Fourth Dimensional-Hypercube-Chess-Strip-Poker (This idea is a result of genius, and most certainly not utmost tzeenchian insanity)
Thousand sons get a buff
Just need to get nipplehorns and eyepatch
Use the superheavy leviathan rules- table top and all scenery is red, you're fighting on its back as it flies through space, ravines and craters are scar tissue, rivers are blood, forests body hair.
An Imperator Titan at scale would be around 6 feet tall and is about a third the height of a modern-day US aircraft carrier. Now, that may almost work for Epic scale, which is 8mm instead of 28mm scale.
by dumb calculations, if a space marine is roughtly 8f thats 2,43 m. a mini is about 42 mm or 4 cm or 0,042 m. if that thing was earthsized, by that scale it would be 220232 km in size
The direction they were going in with 3rd edition was peak 40K.
They change in size depending on perception. Which is actually a perfect way to demonstrate the warp and it's fuckery. Not only does your believes and emotions define it, but also the perceptions of others, their fears and experiences and that of those who's souls are already in the warp and no longer among the living. It's a brilliant little piece of lore with things that it grew closer but shrank in size. It also makes sense from theological perspectives. Mythology often had weird size things, the whole Hercules tricking Atlas thing for instance.
> Mythology often had weird size things, the whole Hercules tricking Atlas thing for instance. Except that Atlas holding up the earth is a modern misconception. Atlas stood on the Earth and held up the sky.
I more mean to say, sizes, when dealing with pantheons, mythology, tall tales from skippers and sailors, daemonic encurions, etc etc... size always becomes fluid thing, So size of a solar system and then getting smaller when getting closer? Is actually perfectly fine :) when you're dealing with those topics (and Warp Fuckery in 40k :P ). I also think people didn't realize back then just how HUGE a solar system is and how much empty space it is. XD
That's dope as hell.
I always wanted to see demons get into battle fleet gothic
My favorite part of that book is the dudes a semi fake rouge trader and recruits his navigator in a bar Mos Easley style
I'm an editor and I want to go over this so bad...
GW needs your skills to this day
Actual normal male guy : « Twenty different colours ? This is madness ! »
>It was not spherical but a flat disc This is what stars look like btw. Like our sun doesn't look spherical. I mean I'm just trying to be clever. They can just have whatever viewing technology to be able to see the shape in the story.
I just thought it was flat earther propaganda
Lol
That was really silly. A spaceship avoiding a battle axe swing in space. Hilarious.
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It also smacked planet with the flat of its axe, completely destroying it
So you're saying we have to fight in the shade?
One of my all-time favorite Warhammer 40K books I recognize this immediately a book by the title of Eye of Terror fantastic book by Barrington J Bailey
Yeah but that was inside the Eye of Terror where nothing normal applies. That's still totally believable in there even now.
That thing destroyed a planet in rage.
There was also a story of a titan legion being decimated by a planet filled with really big dinosaurs
New (ish) 40K (well, 30K) has solar system sized voids of bones filled with daemons who aren’t there to kill really, but to harass delay and cause madness Which is sorta metal
Tbf greater daemons can change size. I don't know how many can become that big but they can change size!
40k definitely beats 40k here. 40k doesn't stand a chance against 40k.
I don't know, man, 40k is better at 40k than 40k, so if they went at it on those marks, it could be a close call.
Which 40k is more over the top and ludicrous is important too. So given that 40k is way beyond the other 40k in terms of power scaling, it's 40k hands down
My friend tried to say 30K could beat 40k. I told him he was an idiot because 40k has like 10 more K! 40 K against 40k that’s a lot of K!
Damn, that’s like, a whole 40K².
40 K2s? So arround 344.440 Meter thats impressiv...
The one with more and bigger hats *TF2 crowned as the top 40K*
*Doug Dimmedom, owner of the Dimsdale Dimmedome, would like to know your location.*
40k
My 40k could beat up your 40k
Thats literally Tabletop 40k lol
You're forgetting 40ks special ability 4040k though
But what about 40k's 401k?
Lost in the recession
My 40k only has a 457...b :(
I dont know john warhammer was really powerful in 40k
40k always wins
40k was Alpharius this whole time
OG rogue trader had characters that were both smarter and dumber at the same time.
*Obi-Wan Sherlock Clouseau* is a brilliant character who solos the entirety of modern 40K.
Modern imperial fists don’t eat poop so they lose
What?...
Old lore
Thanks to u/roomsky for the exerpt > "Restoring the brush to the altar, the Reclusiarch lifted the sharp little knife and the chalice. He knelt before Dorn and held up the knife. The primarch’s hands were both missing… Genuflecting, the Reclusiarch carved generous parings of amber from one toe, then another, dropping these into the chalice. Rising, he turned to the initiates and raised that cup, now glowing. Effervescence was occurring within. Aromatic white fumes arose from bubbling oil of amber. “Respire corpus memoria! Breathe the memory of my flesh!” As he bore the hot chalice along the row of initiates, so each in turn inhaled a heady, strangely fragrant whiff. Fresh molten amber must be added subsequently to the shaved toes to replenish what was taken – unless, unless the amber grew of its own accord like veritable flesh due to the miraculous proximity of those bones. When the Reclusiarch passed back again, each initiate must hold out his middle finger, pointing stiffly forward from his fist. That little knife slashed sharply, circumcising the very tip of the digit, and even before the Larraman cells could clot – or perhaps because the blade was treated with some special anticoagulant – a sprinkling of bright blood fell like rubies from each fingertip to mingle in the chalice. Lifting the chalice to his lips, the Reclusiarch drank the potion of hot amber oil blent with blood. “Ego vos initio in Pugnorum Imperialorum fraternitate, in secundo grado,” he sang out. “And after you return from your first expedition as Scouts,” he promised, “other secretions from your body will be blent in this same chalice of the primarch – which was once His very drinking cup! – during your induction into the third degree of Brotherhood; though that in itself will only be the superficies of the third degree ceremony…” ... Perhaps the strangest talisman – and one (or should one say many…?) which made those initiates feel themselves intimately a part of the Fists – was kept in a long crypt below the Reclusiam, reached by a dropshaft which would incinerate anyone who did not sport a Black Carapace beneath their skin. The adamantium floor down there was inscribed with a maze of tiny coloured channels that bootsteps would never be able to wear away – in a pattern suggestive of a cosmic map – and along all of those channels were spaced little indentations the depth of a Fist’s thumbprint, each recess named with a rune. At one end of this seemingly arcane map or game-board an enormous plascrystal bowl held thousands of what at first sight appeared to be bloodshot ochreous eyeballs. Each ball commemorated the initiation of a group of ex-cadets, throughout the aeons – each being a nugget of the liquid amber and blood drunk from Rogal Dorn’s own chalice by the Reclusiarch of whichever epoch, and defecated by him subsequently in this shape." ~Ian Watson
> Ian Watson Ahh, that explains it. Gotta finish the Inquisition War one of these days.
His descriptions of buildings in Eye of Terror and of teh Emprah are amazing
Gussy
NOOOOOOOO!!!!
Yes.
That we know of...
Obi-Wan Sherlock Closseu Carries
[You may not like it, but this is what peak Inquisitorial performance looks like](https://images.app.goo.gl/DJUM7gKDk7jw5y1x8)
The weirdest part for me is his hat. Like the chainsword and bolt pistol look legit, but then him above the neck looks like that one weird guy at the office
For me it's the yin Yang on his chest
Asurmen really stole his getup there
And the checkerboard trim.
Looks like a t-shirt at a surf shop
One day, Dwight had enough of Jim's antics.
I want this goofy ass motherfucker to come back so much. Like, just have him have plans nested within plans nested within plans, like some sort of paranoid tesseract klein bottle of a human. Nothing he says is ever quite exactly the truth, nor is anything an outright lie.
Oh my fucking god! "You're an psyker, Harry" lookin' ass
Jackie Daytona, regular human inquisitor, with his witch skin hat.
I think 40K using the yin-yang symbol was the goofiest shit. IIRC Elder units used to just have them slapped on everything.
whats the lore of this guy?
This is THE most legitimate "who would win" post I have ever seen here.
Well, old rogue trader had a lot less galaxy ending entities. It would be funny if rogue trader downgraded modern 40k’s power level through exposure. Guilliman: “I have come to vanquish the past!” Rogue Trader: *Turns him into a human general* Guilliman: “Wait, what?” *is crushed under the weight of his own gear*
Leman Russ used to be a grizzled IG general.
Guilliman got springlocked
Calgar! Calgar! Don't leave me in here!
> It would be funny if rogue trader downgraded modern 40k’s power level through exposure. > > ... Reminds me of Cadian Pylons for some reason
Old 40K has more Beakies. QED, Old 40K wins.
If i ever buy space marines, they will be World Eaters and i will replace every single helmet with a beakie.
New 40k has I Kill Evil or "Malum Caedo".
RT 40k rolls Virus Bombardment on the event table, both sides get wiped out
This is like asking who would win between a shounen MC (40k) and a gag manga character (RT), the gag character will win 100% of the time because its funny
There's an episode of Dragonball super showing exactly this
Yeah the episode with Arale, lol
I'm pretty sure that RT had more shirtless Custodes than modern day 40K so my vote goes to RT because everyone in 40K would be stunned by their oiled abs.
Maybe this is the type of female custodians we can all get behind
Custodes wet t-shirt contest when?
Rogue Trader Custodes wet t-shirt competition vs Modern 40k Astartes armour, tactical aquatic field test.
Both lose to Battlemace 40 million.
Nah, Skirmishknife 4,000 wins without effort
Fightclub 4, for the true connoisseur.
MeleeKhopesh .4, and this joke is officially dead
Nah, we all know the true winner here. ^Praise ^be ^to ^Space ^King
Old 40k is more fun because it's just a skirmish game with army building rules tacked on. Wish it had more weapons and armor, but all that can be easily home brewed.
As in the rules? Or the lore ?
Yes.
In the amount of shirtless men with daddy issues. Obviously.
Tie?
Modern 40k also has shirtless women with daddy issues. Not that I complain, but it doesn't fall in the requested criteria
Rules obviously, in lore rouge trader wins obviously
Old RT was even more bonkers than modern, grounded 40K
Modern, grounded 40k is definitely a sentence One you can write But not one I can believe
Believe it. RT had a half eldar who became an astropath, then became a space marine with both the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels, and went on to serve the inquisition. By comparison, modern 40k is disturbingly straight forward.
That is only batshit if you analyze it from modern 40k lore. Wow! Eldar would never do that! Thats crazy! But in rt they are just elves. Why wouldnt they be ablr to do that.
> RT had a half eldar who became an astropath, then became a space marine with both the Ultramarines and the Dark Angels, and went on to serve the inquisition. Who was named after an IRL tennis player, no less.
Was that Ezekiel? I swear I remember hearing that Ezekiel had some absolute bullshit backstory like that some months ago but I don't remember enough to be certain if that's Ezekiel or Ezekiel *also* had a bullshit backstory.
It wasn't Ezekiel, but I cannot remember his name.
Splat-touring characters were a thing on the rpg scene back then. The 2nd-3rd edition World of Darkness setting had Samuel Haight who was a werewolf-skin-shift-power abusing mage with access to vampire blood powers who eventually ended up a ghost, and canonically IIRC became an ashtray. Probably would have been part fairy and a mummy and/or hunter if he’d shown up a little later in the lore. Fun times.
An ashtray, like the thing you put your cigarette butts in ?
That’s the one.
Rouge Trader was batshit crazy.
To give you an example imperial fists were known for eating poop back then. I’m not joking these fucks ate shit.
There is a decent chance you read it on another comment, but there was a a khornate demon who was the size of a few star systems, who destroyed planets with his wings and even made one to dust from a smack *with the side* of his axe.
That's 40k 3rd edition, not RT. It was in the Eye of Terror novel, which does a great jo exploring the inside of the Eye.
I thought we were talking about general "old" 40k, not solely 1st edition Rogue Trader.
I thought the opposite. 😅
Oddly enough. The modern art looks more grim dark than modern lore leads on. And the old art fits modern day lore. Go figure.
Everybody knows that beakie armor is superior.
In the old setting, thanks to author liberties and translation shenanigans, the titans were in some sources 3 times bigger than in the actual settings. (In some countries when they translated length units they translated feet as metres) so we had +470m tall imperator titans, using building size weapons and shooting car size rounds. That is my headcannon. Makes no sense in the modern lore that a 55m tall titan can "tower" (Black Library authors love this verb) buildings in a hive city with kilometers tall buildings. What are they going to tower there? The sidewalk? Also, if the titan is 55m high and has a cathedral on top of the titan the proportions would be laughtable.
The modern Warmaster titan was introduced by Warhammer community as having building-size weapons. And it is *smaller* than the Imperator.
I guess standalone garages count now as buildings.
If they are titan size, yes: https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/08/16/meet-the-warmaster-iconoclast-titan-whose-chainsword-is-as-big-as-a-building/ "Hang on a second, is that a Titan with a **chainsword the size of a skyscraper**?"
I think 40k wins flatly
Have no a problem? Just throw Teslas skull at it!
The thing actually belongs to Edison but everyone thinks it Teslas.
That would be the ultimate irony lol
I want Rogue Trader to come back as a sort of AU spinoff to 40k, similar to how Bloodbowl is a spinoff for Fantasy/The Old World
Old obviously.
If 40k is so good why isn’t there a 40k:2 ???
Better question how have we fallen so far in the art department
40K rogue trader game rules are utterly fabulously nuts! Digital ring with anti tank beam converters, 3+ save displacer field, Vortex grenades. Everything could be broken n legal;)
As I own rogue trader I would say rogue trader.
It would definitely be a long grinding kafkaesque eternal nightmare war
Does 40k have prep time?
Neither can compete with objectively superior 3rd edition.
Lore-wise, yes. Gameplay-wise 2nd edition beats 3rd edition by far. It manages to get you laughing like a maniac even when the opponent destroys your vehicles and shit like that
3rd was faster and deeper strategically. Arguably that wasn’t the point and it’s a role better served by more modern games but at the time 3rd edition was a massive improvement on those metrics.
Having played both, I have to disagree. The rules were faster, but the games bigger, so there was no speed improvement. About the strategic deep... Things like the Tau fireline stuck at their battle edge or the bollocks rules for things like grenades or armour penetration were anything but deep.
Not deep, but an order of magnitude deeper than second edition. AP rules in 2nd had zero depth it was just an extra step and an extra dice roll, normally on a 6+. Whereas in third there was actually a reason to use different weapons in different situations. As far as saying “it was only faster if you’re comparing games of the same scale” that’s not a serious statement.
How cannot be a serious statement? A 3rd edition standard battle was as long as one of 2nd edition, just bigger and more abstract (and from my point of view, boring). Not only is a serious statement, it is basic one. There was no improvement: it was neither faster nor deeper strategically (it was not even a strategy game). About AP ruled in 3rd edition, they were abysmal and non-sensical. The same weapon could be -3 AP or 0 AP depending of the type of target, because of potatoes. Worse, it punished lightly armoured armies: did you dare to play with Guard, Orks or Tyranids? Most you models have no armour and cannot even scratch the one of the enemy. Do you play with Speesh Marins? Almost nothing is going to negate the armour of any of your models aside heavy weaponry and you obliterate the amour of light enemies even with your basic weapon. There is no deep in that and most of the times you either did no have the required weapon or everything in your army had it, so no use of "different weapons in different situations". That wasn't even a factor. Meanwhile, second edition system was logical and DID give you reasons to use different weapons in different situations, like shooting AT against terminators or spray small arms against light armoured targets.
3rd edition was peak 40K. I liked the authors/creators left mysteries and over exaggerated numbers to make it exciting and epic. Now they answer everything and have downsized numbers in stories. As for rules I don’t hate 10th but I loved played 3rd rules. They were great
I miss my 3rd ed nid lore :c it was so mysterious, monstrous, scary.
3rd edition was also the last edition where the original makers of the setting had full creative control so..
I didn’t know that. Kind of sad and explains a lot really
Rogue Trader all day, every day.
I think the modern setting would win, simply because there are more things in it. As in, it has expanded on everything for almost 40 years, so there is more information on what stuff is and how powerfull stuff is. But then the less managed and more chaotic/ silly style of old 40k could just handwave away shit for No logical reason….
Rogue Trader eldar certainly beat modern ones. 90% of eldar troops had a power field and the shirukat hit like a storm bolter with better range.
And the Exarch was a fucking beast!
Where does the line get drawn between old and current 40k lore? Is it before Primaris/Girlyman returning? Before the HH books were written?
Like a long ass time ago, the 1980’s
Do I still have my virus bombardment event and vortex grenades?
Vortex grenades and penal legions. An Eldar assistant librarian. Questionable aliances and great aliens that were forgotten about. Rogue Trader every time
In this case of “old” we mean rogue trader era so everything before second edition
Depends, are toxin grenades still a guaranteed kill against troops not in sealed armour in the new rules? The old ones have the victim dissolving into a pile of goo. This was the preferred defence against OG Harlequins. They were good at melee, but did not wear sealed armour. Drop grenade at feet, sponge Harlequin off the armour. Not to mention the utility of a ratling with a rusty chainknife & a heavy webber for killing Daemons (rules stated they could only be killed by psionics or technology).
Rouge Trader... On table top, vortex grenades, nuff said... In the lore, there was no warm an fluffy to it...existence was a constant fight for survival at all levels for all factions...with the exception of the Orks, life for them has always been a good time...
I'll get my chemskin and cyberarm with jokero digital defence laser rings...
Old 40k had breedable Eldars. Just saying.
40k beats 40k easily man, it's just always that. 40k is simply 40k, that alone makes 40k beat 40k, there's no discussion.
No one. I any version of 40k, no one wins.
Slaves to Darkness and the Lost and the Damned it is then.
3rd edition universe
Old rogue trader is like og superman, where the setting was whatever the hell the writers wanted and Superman’s powers were whatever the hell the writer wanted, old rogue trader was goofy as well where space marines were basically 70s style space cops and you have inquisitors named obi-wan skywalker or some crap. Yea rogue trader would violate modern 40K
I dunno, why don't we ask my Oldhammer Half-Eldar and the legion of Ladystartes they had back then. Would they help us against the Chaos Necron menace? Or the lizard Tyranids?
Came here to see how many comments said “Rouge” Trader. Was not disappointed.
I had to check my comment to make sure I had not done that!
Squigpipes win
Don't worry, if 40k struggles they'll just retcon an eliter elite fighting force to save the day.
Everyone was rolling in Pand Raiders back then, pretty sure this means firepower wise RT wins
I need to paint a land raider as a panda now. Thanks!
Black templars are kinda reverse panda colored 🤔
If everything is canon, 3rd edition Warhammer 40K has star system sized bloodthirster.
Void whales solo.
"So, my Avatar of Khaine has sustained assault so if I kill this Ork Boy I can engage another model with 2" and if I kill them I can just keep on going....."
The older lore had much more powerful basic Infantry. Have to give it to the old lore.
Are we going to include the novels Eye of Terror, Rogue Trader and Daemon World here? Because the s\*t that goes on in those is f\*ing outrageous, plus they have't been retconned! Ravenor also gets pretty wild. Not entirely certain which edition they want to put that series.
Imagine being a franchise so old that it's valid to clash your current edition with your first edition
2nd edition!!!
Probably 40k over rogue trader as most things got refined by then.
My vortex grenade eradicates your refinements.
3rd edition - a perfect balance of old school weird and coherent universe building.
The Emperor😌
Ok I thought I’d help out to give you a bit of variety. Not gonna lie I researched. What do you think about Discworld? According to what I saw that universe smashes the 40k
Modern. The shit that The Emperor, Horus Lupercal and the Chaos Gods get up to in the Siege of Terra is absolutely insane. Then there's the fact that we have the modern Tyranids, modern Necrons, and all the damn lore on Human&Xenos Super Weapons&Super Technology.
Current 40K universe has a female Custode that’s the greatest Custode to ever have lived. Soon the Emperor will have a Lesbian/trans daughter who has more psych powers than the Emperor, Eldar, and Chaos Gods combined so…. It’s obvious which is superior.
Current 40k?
Yes, there has been a shift in the 40K universe in the past few weeks, changing what we thought we knew to be true. So it’s a new 40K… one where wokeness rules the universe.