You got Rogue Trooper in my Rogue Trader!

I've never been too keen on the use of special characters in smaller games of 40k, defined to me as anything less than 4000 points. I will admit however that stems from years of playing 2nd edition a.k.a. Herohammer, wherein it seemed an entire army could be wiped from the table by virtue of a handful of characters (don't even get me started on the Fantasy rules from that era. There's a reason I don't play WFB anymore).

However, I will also admit that the recent trend of characters allowing certain tactics or alternate force organization charts for an army is, at its heart, an equitable way to allow players to inject a little uniqueness to their armies that is otherwise lacking in the 'vanilla' lists. That said, I personally see the characters as presented in the codex's to be mere 'examples' and I enjoy coming up with my own fluff to justify the game mechanics associated with a given character, rather than just telling my opponent "oh yeah, and Lord Castellan Creed, leader of the entire Cadian 8th decided to show up for our skirmish".

To that end, I intend to create a few of my own versions of the special characters in the Imperial Guard codex more suited to the fluff for the Mordian 7th Regiment. I decided to start with a relatively simple project first - everyone's favorite pseudo-Callidus action hero extraordinaire, Sly Marbo. Of course, I wanted to go in an entirely different direction style-wise, and I cast back to the old 2nd edition days for inspiration. I really had no choice in the matter though, there was only one solitary killer from days of old who would do...

The Rogue Trooper. A genetic soldier from the darker days of Nu-Earth, betrayed by the Traitor General, and sworn to revenge for his fallen comrades. Swift, silent, and deadly, the Rogue Trooper carried with him the memory chips of three of his dead squadmates, each capable of offering advice, warnings, and the occasional bit of comedy.

The model is predominantly Catachan bits and a Cadian head, though in retrospect he ended up being a bit more 'burly' than the Rogue Trooper is generally portrayed.

As there was just two models to paint (see below) I was able to bang them both out after work today. Fairly straightforward paintjob really - green fatigues, leather boots, pouches and helmet, and the trademark blue skin and yellow eyes. From a gameplay perspective he has all the special rules that Marbo does, I simply justify them differently - for example, he's not armed with a ripper pistol, but rather Gunnar his trusty rifle (bearing the chip of one of his old squadmates). However, in game it has the exact same statline.

Of course, if I'm going to make a Rogue Trooper, I'm more or less obligated to make the Traitor General. My intention is that any time I take the Rogue Trooper, my opponent would be given (at no additional points cost) a Company Commander (armed with a plasma pistol and powerfist, but without a supporting command squad) to represent the Traitor General. If the Rogue Trooper manages to kill him however, he counts as double the associated victory point/kill points/whatever we're using to keep score in a given game.

In order to keep things sporting, the Rogue Trooper may not deploy within 12" of the Traitor General when using his "He's behind you!" rule. The Rogue Trooper may enter play within 1" of any other enemy model as normal.

Now I realize that I'm mixing my universes here, but for a short period, GW was liscened to distribute a Rogue Trooper game, so it's ever-so-slightly canon! The other special characters I'm working on are much more true to the fluff of the Mordian 7th Regiment - but as Marbo is so over the top, I felt his proxy model needs a bit of 'flair' as well!