Your Dirtiest, Old-school Rogue Trader tricks, cheats and exploits

[chamaeleo]

Not too sure how many can relate, but in 1987 a wonderful bluish-purple hardback appeared for the exhorbitant price of $35...none other than Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. The binding sucked, the rules were convoluted, the equipment was diverse, and the vehicle rules were crap...but the drawings, diagrams and figures were beautiful! I was hooked from day 1.

WH40K in its infancy was ripe for the crafty player to exploit. This thread is all about our favorite dirty tricks. I'll start with my favorite:

Infra-red visors: can see through smoke, fog, etc. NOT through Blind grenades, however. Standard issue to 1st gen space marines.
Smoke grenades: ineffective against space marines, but cheaper than Blind grenades.

Now, imagine the chagrine of my brother and his Ork boyz...the first time I laid down a blanket of smoke and shot his sorry ass to pieces (through the cloud)! Of course, our next bout he bought IR visors for his entire army (ouch, expensive!). Naturally, I had upgraded to blind grenades...couldn't shoot through em, but I could lay down some heat then hide behind a wall of Blind...move up some dudes w chainswords, and let the real fun begin.

OK...one more trick.

Squats: space dwarves. Slow as hell, great close combat skills.
Powerboards: flying surfboards. pretty cheap too.
Krak grenades, Plasma grenades: the perfect bomb.

Put em all together, and you've got a zippy close combat model which can fly over enemies and drop bombs on their heads before engaging the rear (support) ranks. I carved the ends of popsicle sticks into powerboards, mounted the squats atop them, and stuck everything on the old-style clear plastic "flight" base. Painted everyone up in 80's glam surfer duds...anybody remember "Ocean Pacific"?

Any other almost-forgotten tactics, from the dawn of 40K?

[knight of virtue and valor]

I did not even know about 40k until three years ago. so much that I missed it seems...

[Lt.Bradford]

I'm not 100% sure if it was RT or 2nd edition, but Virus grenades or whatever were fun against the Imperial Army

[chamaeleo]

Virus grenades were in Rogue trader AND 2nd edition. Our house rules banned them, since an Ork, Tyranid, I Guard, or Squat army might lose 60% of its men from one grenade!

Kamikaze Rhinos:
OK, cheap Rhinos didn't emerge until the early-mid 90's...25 or 50 points a piece, if I recall correctly. I used to buy one for every squad (max allowable), hide behind a wall of tinfoil tanks, run them full steam into the enemy lines...troops jumping left and right to avoid one, only to get smushed by its neighbor. Tough to do vs highly agile Harlequins (remember these?)! If each tank only killed 1-2 troops, it's paid for itself. If it hits another vehicle or dreadnought, bonus! And, talk about disrupting the enemy lines...no more lines of fire past the burning hulks, and at least one vehicle rules edition included 1 in 6 chance for secondary explosions (Strength 8, 1-6" radius!) for wrecked vehicles, every subsequent turn.

Orks and Genestealers could do similar damage w halftracks, bikes, warwagons and Coven Limousines...cram some genies in a Limo, run full-speed through the enemy, then pop em out amongst the support units!