Red Ones Go Faster

Where to find the rules for every vehicle in 40K 1st edition, Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. The models were cool but the rules were unwieldy.

Rules ☠

Vehicle rules were amended a few times during Rogue Trader's lifetime but the rulesets can be roughly divided into profiles and datafaxes.

The Rulebook (1987) ☠

The speed and acceleration characteristics are self-explanatory. TRR stands for Turn Radius Ratio where you calculate the radius of your turn by multiplying the current speed per turn in inches by this value.

Cp is transport capacity. T is toughness. D is damage, equivalent to the creature wounds characteristic. Sv is the saving throw, the same as infantry armour. Eq and W stand for equipment and weapons respectively indicating what number can be affixed to the vehicle.

Robots and Dreadnoughts (piloted mechs) had their own special rules and profiles. Each vehicle type had special damage tables. If a vehicle suffered damage the player would need to roll on the damage table on a D6 result of 6. Vehicle crews could escape the destruction of their vehicle and be deployed as infantry.

Ordinarily, passenger embarkation & disembarking was limited by movement rate. This meant that Squats, with a movement value of 3", could board 3 models per hatch per turn. This could be changed at the GM's discretion which is just as well because unit coherency rules were more important to the game than disembarkation rate.

Robots required advanced orders where the controlling player had to write down instructions for the next turn. A robot's intelligence characteristic dictated its fire arc and the likelihood it would shoot at the wrong target.

Sample profiles were given for bikes, burrowing crawlers, flyers, hoverers, massive juggernauts, landing pods, road wheelers, tracked vehicles and walkers. There were also profiles for robots of various form of locomotion and Dreadnaught suits. The juggernauts described in the book were mobile battlefields unto themselves rather than the Khorne mounts that came later.

Citadel did not produce any vehicle kits prior to launch. The Orgus Flyer was converted from plastic spares and the Land Raider was scratch built.

Dreadnoughts (1988) ☠

White Dwarf 100 detailed specific classes of Eldar, Imperial and Ork Dreadnoughts. New rules included things like Power Fields that could protect nearby troops. WD101 included rules for Ghost-Warriors, a similar type of Eldar automata.

The Warhammer Siege supplement included additional rules for Siege Dreadnoughts of various stripes.

Clarifications & Revisions (1988) ☠

White Dwarf 103 clarified the turning rules with two pages of diagrams and rules for driving backwards. New damage tables replaced the ones in the main rulebook. These rules can also be found in the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium.

Robots (1988) ☠

8-bit microcomputers were ubiquitous in the UK in the 1980's. The UK had cheap domestic manufacturers, computer literacy drives, school computers, and Open University lectures on TV. It's unsurprising that Rick Priestly decided to get in on the action.

White Dwarf 104 introduced a paper-based programming system. The new system added another turn phase where robots would run their programs.

Datafaxes (1990) ☠

Vehicle rules were overhauled in White Dwarf 128. Instead of an Acc/dec value vehicles could move up and down their slow, combat and fast speeds. Instead of recording that a vehicle ended the turn going at a speed of twelve and a quarter inches they could record that the vehicle was travelling at combat speed. Each speed dictated a maximum turn angle and the number of times it could turn during its move.

Maneuvering became simpler while damage resolution became more drawn out. Every vehicle received a targeting diagram and a unique damage table.

Attackers would place the targeting grid over the diagram to determine if and where hits landed. A penetration score was determined by adding D6 to the weapon's strength and the weapon's damage dice. Damage dice were introduced when the weapon rules were revised around the same time.

All the vehicle rules would be aggregated in the Warhammer 40,000 Vehicle Manual. The book included ranged weapon armour penetration values. Graviton Guns, which no official models had, automatically penetrated their targets.

There were minor differences between the White Dwarf and Vehicle Manual targeting diagrams but the precision of the Targeting Grid wasn't very fine.

Orks! (1991) ☠

With the publication of 'Ere We Go Ork vehicles became an entire mini-game unto themselves. The Ork player's opponent drew malfunction cards which the Ork player could choose to counter with repair cards. The number of repair cards was limited by the number of Mekboyz the Ork player brought to the table.

Orks got their own, different robot rules for their Tinboyz and captured Imperial Robots. These rules were published in the 'Ere We Go rulebook. This was a simpler system where Orks could just issue orders to their machines.

White Dwarf previews of the Ork books overlapped with the introduction of datafaxes so some rules initially used the old vehicle profiles.

Models ☠

Most vehicle models were small cast metal kits because creating plastic kits was ruinously expensive. Metal bikes, trikes, jetbikes & light buggies proliferated. Still, four plastic vehicle kits made it to market. Build and conversion guides were sometimes published in White Dwarf.

I had it in my head that there weren't that many vehicles made for Rogue Trader but this list proves otherwise. Below is a table of Rogue Trader vehicles and where to find the rules under the two systems. Criteria for inclusion was existence of a model with published rules.

Some, like the Ork Nobz Bike and Squat Exo-Armour Trike, are easily represented under the profile system because rider and vehicle were considered separate entities.

2nd Edition ☠

While late period Rogue Trader and 40K 2nd edition shared a lot of rules and profiles the new game replaced Datafaxes with a novel Vehicle Card system.