I’ve realized, belatedly, that the animated Warhammer 40,000 short in Amazon’s adver-tainment anthology Secret Level did me irreparable harm, the full effects of which are finally bearing fruit. That short, the only one I remember for actually being good, burrowed into my brain like Butcher’s Nails where it remained dormant until now, activating like an unexploded virus bomb. Almost overnight I became obsessed with all things Warhammer. I’ve plowed through the first three Horus Heresy novels and a couple of the collected short story anthologies, and totally rearranged my YouTube and Instagram habits to feed me more lore videos. But it wasn’t enough. And since I categorically refuse to actually take up the miniature-painting, IRL wargaming aspect of the hobby because I know that’s a sure path to bankruptcy, I picked up Owlcat Games’ Rogue Trader just to see if it can satisfy my desire to see every traitor and heretic ground into dust and cast into the Warp.
Rogue Trader is a top-down CRPG that feels like a less dense version of Baldur’s Gate III. In combat, characters are alloted movement points and action points, and once they’re all spent, the turn is over. I chose the Commissar class, deciding immediately that any job with a perk called “One for the enemies, two for the traitors” was one I wanted to put into practice. At first blush, I really didn’t think a game that casts me as a measly human would provide the Warhammer fix I was looking for. The Secret Level short and my journey through The Horus Heresy have put me firmly in camp Adeptus Astartes. Playing as a scion of house Von Valancius, recently and violently elevated to the title of Rogue Trader, didn’t sound like something I could connect with. There wasn’t even a Space Marine origin to choose from. But I gave it a chance. It was on sale and I’d heard good things from all of my new Warhammer friends, who were actually my just my regular friends who had apparently been waiting for me to finally get into the fandom so they could reveal themselves like some kind of secret club I’ve been a part of this entire time.
I got my first inkling that Rogue Trader was going to be my shit very early in the game’s prologue. You start the game summoned to the voidship of Theodora von Valancius, a distant relative looking to train up a successor, and you’re one of her candidates. Her ship is attacked by heretics and you are betrayed by one of Theodora’s operatives who knocks you out and infests you with a nascent entity of chaos who resides in your brain and acts up whenever the Warp is nearby. In the chaos, Theodora goes missing, and as you search the ship for her, your way is blocked by jets of flame and an apparition promising you untold power. You’re presented with a choice: accept the apparition’s help to pass through the flame, believe in the power of the Emperor to pass through the flame, or turn back to help the besieged crew.
I really enjoyed how Rogue Trader lined up perfectly with my existing Warhammer knowledge base. I had just finished Galaxy in Flames, the third book in The Horus Heresy, so I saw that “believe in the power of the Emperor” prompt and started pointing like that Leo DiCaprio meme. I chose to walk through the flame, despite having no real affinity for the God Emperor religion, because I’d seen something like that before. And like Mersadie Oliton before me, I passed through the flame unscathed with the added bonus of getting the warp creature burned out of me. It was a real neat nod to the source material that was effective at drawing me in.
I also like how the game gives me permission to be mean and not feel bad about it. Not evil, but just kind of a dick. I’m typically an RPG choice-maker who prefers the Paragon / goody two-shoes options. But being soft-hearted in the grim dark future will get you and everyone around you killed. There’s a moment where you’re summoned to the lower decks of your ship to address the orphans of workers killed when the voidship was attacked. You can choose to give the orphans some encouraging words, something a good and decent person would do to comfort grieving children; you can ignore them outright by throwing candy in their face; or you can give them some tough love. Another me would have chosen the kind option, but the Warhammer me chose tough love, essentially telling them “shit sucks, and if you don’t like it, get stronger so you can do something about it.” That felt more like the “right” thing to say. It also helps my “not quite a villain” era that I chose the class that lets me shoot my allies in the back to make them stronger.
A few major quests in and I’m having a blast. I’m finding that the Warhammer universe is incredibly engrossing even without the high drama of the Adeptus Astartes civil war that initially hooked me. That said, you’re next, Space Marine II.
