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A Rogue Trader and his retinue accidentally fall into a Warp portal and miraculously survive the passage and end up in the Warhammer Fantasy Empire with no way of coming back. How long can they last/can they cope with the cultural disparity?

depends on the trader and the challenges the trader must face.... traders must be more open minded than most to do their jobs but the levels vary( they are only human) but they would probably be pretty arrogant. If they ever got stuck in a straight up battle you can bet that they would at least make a spectacle of their deaths.

I doubt the trader and his men are stupid enough to go and pick fights in a brave new world where they have no connections and where his lineage is absolutely meaningless.

I Imagine a rogue trader would do pretty well, being versed in negotiation with other races, no stranger to combat and with a distinct technological advantage they most likely would be able to take over and rule some part of the WHFB world.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
I doubt the trader and his men are stupid enough to go and pick fights in a brave new world where they have no connections and where his lineage is absolutely meaningless.

never.......EVER...... doubt the sheer power of arrogance and stupidity

 Somedude593 wrote:

 Admiral Valerian wrote:
I doubt the trader and his men are stupid enough to go and pick fights in a brave new world where they have no connections and where his lineage is absolutely meaningless.

never.......EVER...... doubt the sheer power of arrogance and stupidity

Lol...true enough

Still, a trader usually has an Astropath or a Sanctioned Psyker with him/her, so they can just use mind tricks to excuse themselves of enraged locals (LMAO imagining the heroes fleeing from an angry mob complete with torches and pitchforks) or disgruntled customers and the likes.

Of course but as psychic ability is one of the main points of WHFB (from what i have seen) those psykers might find themselves outmatched by "dirtier" psykers. No tech brakes on a WHFB Psyker train.

 Somedude593 wrote:
Of course but as psychic ability is one of the main points of WHFB (from what i have seen) those psykers might find themselves outmatched by "dirtier" psykers. No tech brakes on a WHFB Psyker train.

Actually, it's less psychic powers and more of sorcery (as in the use of spells and stuff). And in any case, it's not that common either, seeing as common folk distrust magicians just as Imperial citizens distrust their own Sanctioned Psykers.

Entirely depends on where they end up. If they end up in the Empire, I'd imagine they'd become exceedingly rich and powerful.

The Empire is at an early industrial stage, and any trader's retinue would likely be able to massively boost their production levels and technology, at least to a 19th century standard, quite possibly beyond given enough time and investment, if the Empire recognized the value of what they were peddling.

Elsewhere, I'm not as confident that the other civilizations have the necessary pre-conditions for uplifting by a mere trader's crew. Of course, traders being who they are, they'd likely try to take over once they had secured enough power and wealth, by using the monopoly they'd retain on high-end technology. Even the finest swordsmen or knights of the Empire aren't much proof against a plasma gun. Hell, even the humble lasgun would be a nightmare in that setting, even if the trader had given the empire early conventional firearms; breech-loaders or the like.

However, when discussing Rogue Traders, one must always recall the first part of their name, they're hardly a predictable lot. What an IG regiment, Space Marine unit or Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator force would do is much more predictable.

 MajorStoffer wrote:


However, when discussing Rogue Traders, one must always recall the first part of their name, they're hardly a predictable lot. What an IG regiment, Space Marine unit or Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator force would do is much more predictable.

In that case, allow me to give specifications for the trader and his retinue:

1) The Rogue Trader is equipped with Power Armor and is armed with a Power Weapon, and a Bolt Pistol and a Plasma Pistol. He also possesses a personal teleporter. Personality-wise, on one hand he is a soft-spoken and mild-mannered intellectual, but on the other he is a cold, ruthless, and manipulative entrepreneur.

2) His bodyguards all have Carapace Armor and are armed with Hellguns.

3) He also has a Sanctioned Psyker and a veteran Tech Priest accompanying him.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 MajorStoffer wrote:


However, when discussing Rogue Traders, one must always recall the first part of their name, they're hardly a predictable lot. What an IG regiment, Space Marine unit or Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator force would do is much more predictable.

In that case, allow me to give specifications for the trader and his retinue:

1) The Rogue Trader is equipped with Power Armor and is armed with a Power Weapon, and a Bolt Pistol and a Plasma Pistol. He also possesses a personal teleporter. Personality-wise, on one hand he is a soft-spoken and mild-mannered intellectual, but on the other he is a cold, ruthless, and manipulative entrepreneur.

2) His bodyguards all have Carapace Armor and are armed with Hellguns.

3) He also has a Sanctioned Psyker and a veteran Tech Priest accompanying him.

The most powerful thing there is the tech priest. For the right price, such a man could remake empires, and make himself king, or Emperor, as it were. Such an individual could ingratiate themselves into the local society, build up wealth and power by innovating, providing new means of industry and warfare to the powers that be, and when his support is great enough, make a power-play, backed by the best equipped local units, his own enormously advanced bodyguards, and all those who stand something to gain by standing with him.

I'd give it 5 years, at the most, before Emperor Karl Franz would end up in an unmarked grave. Or, given the mercantile nature of a RT, he might prefer to make the Emperor and his electorates his puppets, and controlling the strings from behind the curtain, lest the common people take umbrage at being ruled by a foreigner, and creating more problems than is necessary.

Furthermore, the presence of a techpriest would radically alter the balance of power in the Fantasy setting. A techpriest could likely get the Empire churning out WW1-era tanks, bolt-action or semi-auto rifles and indirect artillery inside of one generation. They aren't much for innovating on the designs of the 41st millennium, but could likely do smashing good job of bringing a given society up to their level. And with that, the Empire would likely rise to dominance. They already stand good odds of becoming the top dog in the fantasy setting in 2 centuries or so, given their current rate of development. Given the fantasy timeline, they're basically right on track for a full blown industrial revolution. A techpriest would enable all manner of silliness.

Also, this allows me to imagine a scene right of Suckerpunch, with a B-24 Liberator fighting a dragon.

Technology-aside, the Rogue Trader's own intellect should be useful in defusing the political and economic stresses brought about by an Industrial Revolution taking place in the Empire.

Apart from those though, another problem they'd have to face would be foreign relations, seeing as increased industrialization results in increased need for raw materials, such as coal, oil, rubber, and iron ore among other things. As history shows, imperialist expansionism is more often than not the easiest and most common response to such problems.

Well, if they plopped out in the middle of the Skaven Under-Empire they'd quickly find themselves enslaved labourers in the mining of the ever expanding tunnel network.

The End.

 Purifier wrote:
Well, if they plopped out in the middle of the Skaven Under-Empire they'd quickly find themselves enslaved labourers in the mining of the ever expanding tunnel network.

The End.

I said they emerged in the Empire.

 Admiral Valerian wrote:

 MajorStoffer wrote:


However, when discussing Rogue Traders, one must always recall the first part of their name, they're hardly a predictable lot. What an IG regiment, Space Marine unit or Adeptus Mechanicus Explorator force would do is much more predictable.

In that case, allow me to give specifications for the trader and his retinue:

1) The Rogue Trader is equipped with Power Armor and is armed with a Power Weapon, and a Bolt Pistol and a Plasma Pistol. He also possesses a personal teleporter. Personality-wise, on one hand he is a soft-spoken and mild-mannered intellectual, but on the other he is a cold, ruthless, and manipulative entrepreneur.

2) His bodyguards all have Carapace Armor and are armed with Hellguns.

3) He also has a Sanctioned Psyker and a veteran Tech Priest accompanying him.

Then he becomes a god. No weapon from the Fantasy setting (a mithril sword? Please.) has a hope in hell of penetrating his armor. No armor from the setting has a hope in hell of stopping a power weapon. With the boosted strength from his PA, he cuts horses in half at a stroke, and can tear pretty much anything short of an Ogre (and maybe even an Ogre) apart with his bare hands. His plasma pistol is a truly terrifying weapon, blasting people apart into steaming, protoplasmic goo. The thought of such a weapon being turned against you, against which no armor is effective, will stop entire armies from attacking. Out of all proportion to its actual effects, the fear and awe such a weapon would inspire makes it a fearsome device indeed.

His bodyguards carry weapons capable of shooting through a tank. A single volley of hellgun fire will end, permanently, a massed cavalry charge, as each beam is killing 3, 4, 5 dudes at a go. Their carapace is also impervious to medieval metallurgy, so unless every person in the legions of archers trying to kill them has magic bows and arrows... they'll just allow these steel and iron-tipped annoyances to rain down on them, while their hellguns scythe through the ranks of archers like wheat before a scythe.

The Psyker, depending on what powers he has, might be able to end battles before they begin. Does he have Holocaust? Game over. If he's multi-disciplined, say a Telekine/Pyrokine, he can make himself immune to any form of ranged attack anyone can bring to bear (all these primitive archers, and blackpowder weapons are so much dust to be swept aside), and he can set anyone else who gets close to him on fire with a thought. Oh, and he doesn't have a limit to the number of times he can do this. He doesn't run out of "magic points".

The Tech-Priest? If he's fully augmetic, he's also impervious to any means arrayed against him (immune to poison, doesn't sleep, doesn't eat, can't get sick, has no worry of computer viruses, scrap-code or maltek) and possesses the knowledge of science and technology that would seem like magic to these primitive screw-heads.

In the Fantasy setting, the only creatures that would be actual threats are the truly monstrous ones. Dragons, Lich-kings, the Greater Daemons and such that have 40K equivalents. Nothing else has a sufficient technological edge to pose any serious threat to the Rogue Trader and his retinue.

Hell guns have replenish-able ammo like las guns right?

Then they can straight up take over as they dont need to worry about ammunition. give them auto guns or bolters and it would be a different story as eventually they will run out and will need to suffice with whatever they can create.

Yep. Given enough time, they can recharge the backpack ammo supply through the solar cells. It'd probably take forever... days, at least, from completely-dead to fully-charged... but it packs several hundred shots at a go, so is worth the wait.