Codex - Rogue Traders: /tg/'s 8th Edition
What's All This Then?
Someone on reddit asked if there were rules for playing a Rogue Trader's army. There were not. (Unless the Rogue Trader was Elucia Vhane and you were willing to exclusively make the army from a subset of the units from the Kill Team: Rogue Trader boxed set, in which case you could put together a Kill Team, but still not anything bigger.) Somebody decided to remedy this.
What Does This Codex Include?
Right now? Just some special rules and units which are copypasta'd here from other codices with faction keywords changed. Eventually, some new units (like 8E rules for those HH Navigators), rules for different dynasties, Stratagems, and other good stuff. Several dynasties have canonical tight ties to one or the other Imperial faction and so can partially get around the restrictions of Independent Dynasty. (House Ecale can bring some SPESS MEHREENS as long as they're from their buddies in the Marines Errant.)
Alright, Show me the Goods
Rogue Traders are the independent mavericks of the Imperium, granted the freedom to travel as they please and exemptions from many laws that bind the common citizenry and even nobility of the Imperium by the holy Warrants of Trade granted to their ancestors many centuries ago. They have the authority and power to recruit or even press-gang their retinue from anywhere within the Imperium; only the Officio Assassinorum, the Adeptus Astartes, and and the Holy Ordos of the Inquisition are truly beyond their reach. Even xenos mercenaries are a gray area, not expressly permitted to them but not, as they are for all others, expressly forbidden either.
However, while their independence is strong, a prince of a Rogue Trader dynasty must take care to avoid entangling his family in a web of obligations which would render them subject to other forces. Accordingly, while a rogue trader may recruit from any organization, be it the Adeptus Mechanicus or the Adepta Sororitas, they must take care not to draw too deeply from one well. An enthusiastic explorator of archeotech who recruits most of his retinue from the Machine Cult may benefit from the association in the short term, but is likely to incur substantial favors owed that will bind his family in the future and risks demoting themselves, in effect, to the status of Mechanicus vassals similar to a Knightly House. Similar problems exist with recruiting overmuch from the Imperial Cult, the Navis Nobilite, the Adeptus Arbites, the Astra Militarum, or the Navis Imperialis, though discharged veterans of the latter three pose significantly fewer problems and are common inclusions in the crews and households of the Astra Cartographica.
Special Rules:
Warrant of Trade The single most important item in the possession of any Rogue Trader, the Warrant of Trade grants great authority to its bearer throughout the Imperium, and even gives license to travel beyond its boundaries.
A model with this ability can embark onto any IMPERIUM TRANSPORT, even though the transport in question might normally only permit models with other Faction keywords to do so. All other restrictions apply normally.
Comitatus Negotiatis Rogue Traders are often singularly potent individuals, but even those cannot operate alone. Their retinues include other remarkable individuals from diverse backgrounds and skillsets.
A CHARACTER unit with this rule does not take up a slot in a Detachment which contains a ROGUE TRADER. However, a unit with this rule may only be set up at the same time as a ROGUE TRADER from its Detachment (or, if not in a Battle-Forged army, a ROGUE TRADER from its army). When you set up a ROGUE TRADER, you may set up any number of units with this rule in unit coherency with that ROGUE TRADER, subject to the restrictions of Independent Dynasty. If you have units with this rule still in reserve when all ROGUE TRADERS in your army have been deployed, those units (which cannot now legally be set up) are considered slain. Additionally, any unit with this rule gains the Warrant of Trade ability as long as it is wholly within 6" of a ROGUE TRADER with that ability or wholly within 6" of a TRANSPORT in which a ROGUE TRADER with that ability is embarked.
Independent Dynasty Rogue Traders have a highly privileged status outside the normal power structures of the Imperium, and their dynasties take care to avoid becoming tied tightly to any of those power structures.
An army whose Warlord is a ROGUE TRADER may grant that warlord's <DYNASTY> keyword to any number of IMPERIUM units in the army, including for the purposes of determining whether the Detachments in the army are legal. However, if this ability is used, it imposes restrictions on the composition of your army: - Each Detachment in your army (if it is Battle-Forged) must contain a ROGUE TRADER, unless it is a Fortification Network. - All ROGUE TRADERs in your army must share the same DYNASTY. - No ADEPTUS ASTARTES, ADEPTUS CUSTODES, INQUISITION, OFFICIO ASSASSINORUM, or SISTERS OF SILENCE units may benefit from this rule. - No faction keyword other than <DYNASTY>, ROGUE TRADER, or IMPERIUM may appear on the datasheets of units comprising more than 20% of the total points cost (if using Matched Play rules) or Power Rating (if not) of the army. - No unit in the army may be TITANIC unless it also has FLY. (As Rogue Trader's remit inherently involves travel, their forces must remain agile, at least by a fairly expansive definition of 'agile' which admits Leman Russ battle tanks and towable artillery batteries.) - The Comitatus Negotiatis (retinue) set up with any individual ROGUE TRADER unit may not include more than one unit with any faction keyword other than IMPERIUM or <DYNASTY>. However, if at least five Comitatus Negotiatus units were set up with that ROGUE TRADER unit, this limit increases to two units which share a faction keyword. Example: A Trader's retinue could be one Enginseer (ADEPTUS MECHANICUS, CULT MECHANICUS), a Jokaero Weaponsmith (JOKAERO), and a Missionary (ADEPTUS MINISTORUM), or could be two of each (six units, which increases the limit to two), but could not be those three plus a Sister Dialogus (ADEPTUS MINISTORUM, ADEPTA SORORITAS) because that would include two units with ADEPTUS MINISTORUM in a retinue of four. Similarly, no retinue could ever include a Missionary, a Sister Dialogus, and a Ministorum Priest (ADEPTUS MINISTORUM, ASTRA MILITARUM), because those three share the ADEPTUS MINISTORUM faction keyword. Note: Several units which appear in Codex Astra Militarum as specialists on secondment to the Imperial Guard, such as the Astropath and Master of the Fleet, appear in this codex without the ASTRA MILITARUM keyword to make it easier to include them in Rogue Trader armies. - Each Detachment which contains more than one ROGUE TRADER must be made up exclusively of ROGUE TRADER units, units with Comitatus Negotiatis, and ASTRA CARTOGRAPHICA units.