What You Need to Know Before Playing Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Sometimes described as “The Final Boss of Nerd Culture,” Warhammer 40,000 can seem impenetrable to newcomers due to hundreds of books, games, and Proper Nouns to chew through. But with the arrival of Owlcat Game’s new CRPG Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, many brave souls will once again attempt to delve into that grim, dark future. Luckily, this guide will set out the most important things you need to know before playing Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

The Imperium of Man

It’s a common refrain that Warhammer has “no good guys,” but there’s a good argument to be made that there is at least a protagonist faction. The Imperium of Man, as the name implies, is the primary human faction in the setting and likely the one you’ll be interacting with most in Rogue Trader. The Imperium is a vast interstellar empire, able to muster billions of soldiers and crack planets in half on a whim. But it’s also massively overstretched, incredibly corrupt and violently xenophobic. It’s also just a very unpleasant place to live, which makes it a fertile seedbed for all manner of cults and insurrections.

This dire situation isn’t helped by the friction between the Imperium’s several subfactions, each with their own goals and motives. As you travel the stars in Rogue Trader it’ll be up to you to decide which factions you align with and whose objectives you prioritize. The Astra Militarum are the common soldiery, who will provide muscle and ordinance if you can help them maintain their supplies, while the Ecclesiarchy are unreasonable religious zealots, but their political influence and armored battle-nuns make powerful allies and deadly foes.

Then there’s the Mechanicus, a machine-worshipping cult who can offer arcane technology, but look at any kind of innovation or experimentation as heresy. Finally, the Space Marines are barely-human killing machines given the best weapons and armor, but they’re also incredibly rare despite being the face of the franchise and rarely answer to anyone but themselves.

These factions all fight under the same banner, but despite that it’s not uncommon for them to come into bloody, armed conflict with each other. A side effect of giving your church, logistics and tech support departments their own private armies.

Aliens and Other Factions in Rogue Trader

With friends like those, the Imperium hardly needs enemies. And yet, its openly xenocidal policies haven’t exactly made them popular abroad either. As a Rogue Trader, however, you have more leeway than most Imperials for interacting with them. Some may even listen to you.

The Aeldari and Drukhari can be broadly understood as High and Dark flavors of “Elves in Space”. Their own galactic civilisation accidentally birthed a malevolent god, and now the survivors are in disagreement on whether studied ascetism or torture and slavery are the correct way to deal with it.

Both are ancient enemies of the Necrons, beings that exchanged their flesh for metal and have since been sleeping underground for millions of years. Only just waking up, their anger is that of an old man seeing children playing on his lawn. Except the lawn is an ancient Egyptian space pyramid and the old man is a robot skeleton.

There are also several factions that worship Chaos, an unstable force that unfortunately underpins all psychic powers and the most widely used of FTL technologies. Chaos followers include the power hungry and cartoonishly evil, but also those with a genuine, even justified, grudge against the Imperium. Even your Rogue Trader may find themselves falling if they’re not careful.

There are many more factions inhabiting the Warhammer universe, from capitalist clones to devouring swarms, but these are the ones you’re most likely to interact with in Rogue Trader.

What is a Rogue Trader?

So where does your player character to fit into all this? Well, as big as the Imperium is there’s still plenty of unexplored or at least uncontrolled territories in the Warhammer universe, and thats where the Rogue Traders come in. Think of Francis Drake or Ferdinand Magellan, powerful aristocrats with their own ships sent to further their nation’s goals overseas with few oversights. They act as explorers, merchants, diplomats and mercenaries all at once, anything they want as long as it benefits the Imperium. Even highly illegal things like fraternizing with aliens or being slightly nice to people may be overlooked. This is what gives you the freedom to make the choices you expect in these kinds of RPG’s, in a setting where ‘freedom’ and ‘personal choice’ are forgotten or even outlawed concepts.

Further Reading, Watching, or Playing

If this article or Rogue Trader itself intrigues you in any way, then there’s a wealth of other ways to find out more about the Warhammer setting. For starters, there are countless Youtube channels devoted to both the story and the tabletop game itself. My personal reccommendation being Arbitor Ian, who not only covers both but also how they’ve changed over the years.

For games, Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus is an excellent tactics game that twists the usual mechanics in small but impactful ways, and has an excellent soundtrack to boot. Or for those craving something with more action, Space Marine by Relic Entertainment and Boltgun by Auroch Digital are power-armored romps with less of a focus on story, or try Darktide by Fatshark for a multiplayer experience.

As for books, there’s no real fixed “jumping off” point, the best strategy is just try something and follow what interests you. Books like the Ciaphas Cain series are a good because they strike a lighter tone than others, while still showing a good slice of the setting. Just don’t start with the Horus Heresy series because, while they are chronologically early and important overall, they require a lot of wider context to get the most out of.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is available now for the PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.