I originally picked up Rogue Trader on launch but got quickly distracted by other titles. Coming back to August in 1.2 I looked up some info on the game to try to get a jumping in point but I found that almost everything online was out of date, wrong or just poorly put together. So because of this I began deep diving the game, collecting what I learned to make for youtube videos and a spreadsheet of builds.

I am now typing up a how to play guide for people that do not feel like watching the videos and want more than raw spreadsheets. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1rskX4sYcNm6Wqt4rtm8EQqRR4__yrEuxCEzjwoKlHOY

Companion builds can be found here: https://test-steamproxy.haloskins.io/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3398861511

This was the edgy name I gave to my first run in 1.3. This build used dual weapon fighting with the chainaxe carnage and offhanded noble sword as at the time it was adding willpower to all source of damage. This Warrior Arch-Militant would set itself on fire, run in to cleave up the enemies, explode in storms of fire and fire off many sunbeams using bounty hunter's savour the kill interrupts to refresh abilities. Stacking dual weapon item damage increases with arch-militant versatility made this one of the strongest builds prior to the first DLC.

On later runs I discovered warp surge brooch could remove first round attack limits. Optimised talent ordering for the content and what items really stacked the highest. Then the DLC attacked and everything changed. We had chainsaws and executioners which completely changed the meta. When all looked lost, 1.3 dropped adding 12 more force swords and reworking alignment paths so you could easily get too rank 5 in one and rank 2 in the others. This has resurrected the OG powerhouse of the pre-dlc.

You will want to pick death world for your home world for survival instinct. You will want to be a psyker pyromancer as your origin. Taking 2 points in strength to get it to 45 for heavy armour. 2 Points into toughness for some suitability. Then 1 point into both agility and willpower to bring them to 40. We pick warrior as the base arch-type.

Essentially how this build works. At early levels you go in with charge and you melee then pop on endure to keep yourself alive. Sometimes swapping to your staff to cast an aoe or ignite but before you get some psy rating this wont be all that impressive. Once you have body of flames using the bonus armour from death world when you pop endure you ignite yourself then follow up with orchestrate flame. This will add your self burn to melee but give you resistance to the burning. Once you have relentless blaze this will also increase your psy rating and stop any negative momentum from burning. You then hit more things. With the 1.3 changes you will pick up blade of light to start using some of the new fancy force swords. We get heavy armour at level 13 intending to use psyker's breatplate in act 4 but until then you can still stick to light armour until you find better heavy armours. Daring breach is the heroic action that will allow you to spend all your AP on attacks and generate mp on kills.

Ideally you will voice of command from cassia, reveal the light with infusing staff then bring it down so you can ignite yourself and orchestrate flame. If you have medal of alacrity bring it down will give 3 ap which can be combined with pneumo boots to do a 1 ap charge whilst on fire.

Mid game Arch-militant is our advanced arch-type opens more attack economy via wildfire and reckless rush with the all out upgrade means we do not spend MP to attack with melee. By swapping between melee attacks and psyker powers or area attacks from single target attacks we gain versatility which increases weapon score and damage. Eventually it will also increase crit hit chance, damage and armour. Inflame will also up our burning dot damage. Steady Superiority will also give us another free attack a round which can be reset by enemy interupts for more free attacks.

During end game we are adding sanctic powers for some extra passive talents and opening up the possibility of using sanctified staff for range casts. Fire within can give us more free attack economy with a lot of other damage multipliers coming in during exemplar ranks.


There are a few options for gearing. Pick your favourite force swords. Potentially the warp burn ones or sacrifice. Then pair it with either carange/tearing vengence or the best chainsaw you find or even the sanctified staff if you want a ranged AoE.

This build really wants dogmatic 2+ to add burn on hit and for eyes of Joyeuse. It also likes Iconclast 2+ for malpain shroud as you can gain temp hp from allies but swashbuckler cloak is also very good. Heretic 2+ also helps generate some ap and attacks. What every you decide to rank 5 is really up to you.

The next edgy boi themed build is a Pyromancer Bio Bladedancer Executioner. The original run used Drukhari weapons to stack extra toxin and bleed which did insane amounts of damage however 1.3 nerfed the drukhari bleed swords by turning them into daggers. It did however add a bunch of new force swords to play with that can inflict warp burn making them very powerful on a psyker executioner.

Starting with death world we want to as with every build here pick origin psyker pyromancer then put 2 points into weapon score, 2 points into agility and 2 points into willpower whilst choosing blade dancer.

With this unique spin on it we will be taking balancing on the edge, wounded beast and facing the end which means we get a lot of gains from injuries and wounds. No we dont need to intentionally cause them, you will gain them regardless. Trust me. We use death from above to jump in on a group of enemies, blood oath the weakest to then blade dance then get two attack actions. Once we have body of flames and orchestrate flame we will be able to set ourselves on fire, orchestrate flame then dive in on enemies for extra damage. During act 1 and the start of act 2 holding the noble sword in the primary hand is very effective as death from above and blade dance will use its effects and gain willpower damage to disorientated foes. Death waltz will generate a lot of death from above charges and add agility modifier to all of our damage.

During act 2 whilst we are progressing through the advantage arch-type executioner we will start using our medicae stat for HP instead of toughness. We also use weapon score instead of intelligence for toughness thanks to death warden which also adds medicae to critical damage. At level 24 we take blade of light to swap to force swords and at level 30 we take biomancy to open the path to biophysical distortion at level 31. This is when damage will explode. Getting the carnival of misery upgrades allows dot to heal allies and applies damaging dots to all enemies. Clicking inflame from level 27 is just a win button.

There is not much to talk about in exemplar as everything just makes what you already do that much more powerful. Corpus conversion will cause iron arm and orchestrate flame to each give you +2 psy rating until you use an offensive psyker power.


Gearwise you will want to use the strongest two swords you have then from level 24 onwards the best force swords you have. Try to keep the best offensive ability in the primary hand. This is a light armour build that benefits from medicae increases as well as psy rating. Warp surge brooch will remove attack cap for the first round of combat equal to your psy rating.


Yes this build can solo clear unfair difficulty

This was one of my first big youtube hits. A staff based ranged caster. By dipping into telepath you can grab pain channelling which sends excess damage on your casts to a fresh target. Unfortunately it only passes the original source of damage forward once but that is still pretty damn good on aoes. This build also does a lot with fire staffs and the sanctic staff. Early game you will be a staff and rifle enjoyer eventually transitioning into a double staffer.

We pick fortress world (my original choice was death but this is better), we then take sanctioned psyker pryromancer as it makes brain happy then we put 2 points into Ballistic score. 2 points into strength, one point into agility and one point into willpower. You might be wondering about the ballistic score and strength but we will cover that.

Early game you will use a rifle for burst shots as the damage is fairly good till we get our first psy rating increase and your secondary will be the psyker staff. Early levels you will use the psyker staff power to hit groups which backdraft will cause secondary damage to nearby enemies. Psychic barrage will add your ballistic score bonus to your power damage. Eventually we will pick up pain channelling to send excess damage to other enemies. Enough bullets for everyone will up damage and revel in slaughter will up ballistic score, critical damage and critical chance as we get kills which will enhance our pyromancy staffs as we pick them up.

Mid game we move over to master tactician and pick up sanctic powers so we can use the sanctified staff. We will now use the pyromancer staff for spray damage and sanctified for aoe. The pyromancy staff will also be how we build up hits for linchpin to take advantage of inspire then drop some bombs with press the advantage. We use linchpin -> Inspire -> pyromancy staff cast -> press the advantage -> run and gun -> pyro staff / sanctified staff.

Going into exemplar we get a lot of damage increases, grenadier to throw out some support nades, molten beam for some big damage then at level 42 we can take shield of the emperor with the intention of grabbing hammer of the emperor to really juice those press the advantage casts or we can take fervour and incinerate. the choice is yours.


Gearwise you will start in light/medium armour. You will use las rifles and a psyker staff until you get upgrades. You will have a choice of mysterious sliver if you want to do more damage or spirit drape if you want to reduce the cost of your psyker buffs round 1. You will also need to choose between chains of domination for willpower stacking on kill or warp surge brooch to remove your attack limit. Abyssal conduit will up your staff damage and psyker's footware will do you good until you go into heavy armour then you will want to swap up your boots. Solar Staff and sanctified staff are solid option. Staff of the rightous pyre is not a bad alternative.

This was inspired by how good the Heinrix chainsaw executioner build was but I wanted to get away from the annoyance of being imperial world.

Deathworld, Pyromancer, Warrior, taking 2 strength, 2 weapon score, 1 agility and 1 willpower.

This build levels 1-15 play almost the same as the walking tacticial nuke. So check what is wrriten there for the early game. The only difference is we pick up biomancy to use iron arm to buff our strength and toughness.

The fun starts when we go into executioner for the advanced arch-type. You will want dogmatic 2 so your criticals set enemies on fire to instantly proc burning damage via forced repentance. Iconclast 2 for malpain shroud is optional. Every hit will stack bleeding which instantly procs. Every crit will set enemies on fire round 1 which will then instantly proc. From level 30 every hit will also add toxin which will also instantly proc. For this build we will use chain saws which have a 3-4 hit burst and can be enhanced by later game items such as Temperus carapace elite backpack. You can also where it hurts to then hit and explode enemies once you have built up stacks of dots or when you cast ignite or firestorm.

By end game you buff up, use charge, get a kill then void veteran boots give you a free 0 AP melee charge per kill which can also proc of itself. So infinite 0 AP charges to clear encounters. If you get heroic action you can use daring breach to generate mp to burst melee everything or carnival to inflame and explode things.


Gearwise early game you will use whatever two hander you find. By end game you want to be rip and tearing with a chainsaw, possibly using bloody pact to generate infinite AP as your melee attacks will heal you. During a daring breach you can use all AP for attacks so you are guarenteed to have never ending range fuelled by death.

This is probably the most interesting pyromancer build on the list as it takes no psy rating increases and only takes two pyromancy talents being melting armour and fire within. This build is going to aim to get a lot of 1 ap attacks with heavy weapons and mow down everything in your path with no risk of exploding.

We pick fortress world, psyker pyromancer and soldier. Taking 2 ballistic score, 2 strength and 2 agility.

Early game this build plays as a las rifle and shotgun soldier. Using burst fires and shotgun rounds to get enemies off you when they get too close. At level 13 you can take neversotp believing to increase chances of proccing never stop shooting from fortress world or you take one of two weapon proficiencies then taking the other at level 14. Bolter and Flamer. Firearm mastery allows for a lot of free single shot attacks.

Mid game you move into arch-militant. Swapping between area, burst and single fire to increase stacks of versatility which enhances damage. Reckless rush enables you to effectively move and shoot with the allout upgrade and wild fire increases your attack economy. Kick gives you a way to get enemies off you if you take both bolters and flamers, no longer having shotguns for close range. Around level 28 we start taking heavy weapon talents completing the swap over by level 38. At level 43 we get power armour to really reduce the cost of attacks but you dont need to wait till then. From level 34 you should be good to be upgrade from bolt rifler and flamer to heavy bolter and heavy flamer. Or whichever of the proficiencies you have taken. Steady superiority and fire within are now two sources of free AP attacks with wildfire also being able to be reset by enemy interupts and sometimes bounty hunter savour the kill resetting their free use.

End game is when the build starts becoming alarmingly strong. Artificer power armour allows flame attacks and burst fires to cost 1 ap. Wild fire, steady superiority, fire within and never stop shooting are now sources of free attacks. When given turns from finest hour you are an absolute monster but as we have not invested in psy rating we cannot abuse the warp surge brooch. You will however gain AP thhanks to the caligae of saint keefe boots. If you manage your versatility correctly it is possible to do 60 round salvo burst fires for 1 ap with the improved heavy bolter.


The gearing for this build has a very natural progression. Practically an imperial guard with a las rifle and shotgun that eventually becomes a power armoured agent of death with heavy guns.

The veilmaster is a blade dancer designed to be an arch-militant with a different take on the style of build which does not focus on wounds and instead focuses on some of the new force swords we had drop in 1.3.

The build starts with Forge Sword to pick up locomotion systems to boost our movement and dodge. Alternatively you can take Fortress world for more attack economy but you will need to think where to slot in never stop believing upgrade. From here we go into sanctioned psyker pyromancer. As a non executioner orchestrate flame will not stack the same kind of damage so alternatively you can go into sanctic psyker but I still prefer pyromancer to get fire within which we take earlier on this build.

We pick up dance partners, body of flames and relentless blaze earlier. Still taking blood oath and blood rush for MP generation but in this version of the build that focuses on dodge we take escape artist to increase the uses of death from above. At level 14 we can decided between sweeping motions for 1 ap area attacks which will be very useful with the force swords we plan on using or you can take guillotine to finish off targets with death from above.

When the build advances into arch-militant we will need to start managing between area attacks and single targets attacks to build versatility to increase damage. Luckily blade dancer has easy access to area and burst attacks even as a melee build. You can choose between taking reckless rush and wildfire early but I prefer reckless rush so our attacks do not end our movement making this build much more able to map clear. Once you have reckless rush you can target the whole map with blood oath to gain mp from blood rush.

The rest of the arch-militant build is farily standard. We get blood haze and fire within earlier than my other builds which might reflect how I re-optimise other builds when 1.4 drops. I have also found sparks of the greater flame is not needed on non executioner builds for pyromancer.

Exemplar levels is when we start to push for a lot of the damage upgrades from blade dancer and arch-militant seeing a big boost in damage. With the veil swords you can easily hit for 2k per melee. Not quite as impressive these days thanks to executioner but still good.


Gearing will be very similar to most psyker pyromancer builds. Going dogmatic benefits this build a lot as you can get a +5 psy rating from eyes of Joyeuse which helps with psychic blodyglove dodge stacking, blade of light plus hand of offence damage and procs for veil stacking force swords. Warp surge brooch is another fantastic item for this build which if you have elsewhere you will probably want to consider adding dual weapon combat to this build.

These builds feature in a wide variety of youtube videos over at my channel found here: https://www.youtube.com/c/revan619

These following videos are slightly out of date for 1.3 but should give a decent idea on how to play the classes.