Some Tau vessels are fitted with a prow deflector to raise their frontal armour to 6+. This is disabled if the ship suffers a Prow critical hit.

Kroot Warspheres use the following the special rules:

Movement

Because of their unique construction, Kroot Warspheres don’t move in the same way as normal ships. In their movement phase Warspheres travel 10 cm forward in a straight line, no more, no less. Warspheres may not turn or use Burn Retros or Come To New Heading orders.

On All Ahead Full orders Warspheres move an extra 2D6 cm in any direction at the end of their move. If this causes them to move 10 cm or more, the direction of this additional move becomes their new direction of travel. Due to their low speed and considerable momentum, Warspheres which are crippled or moving through Blast markers do not reduce their speed. Warspheres in the gravity well of a planet or moon may make free turns like an ordinary ship (45°) and/or place themselves in a stationary or low orbit.

Critical Hits

Warspheres lack the complex systems of true space craft, so critical hits are not rolled on the Critical table. Instead each critical hit inflicts +1 point of damage.

Catastrophic Damage

When a Warsphere is reduced to 0 damage it breaks up. Don’t roll for Catastrophic damage, instead the Warsphere is replaced by 4 blast markers.

Boarding and Planetary Assaults

The Warsphere has a boarding strength equal to double its remaining hit points. During planetary assaults, Kroot Warspheres cannot return to flight during a battle once they have landed. However, they are not destroyed and only count as disengaged for purposes of victory points.

In a planetary assault mission a warsphere will contribute 3 points for each turn it is actually landed on the target planet. It contributes nothing for being within 30 cm.

Demiurg Stronghold, Bastion and Citadel class vessels use the following the special rules:

Blast Markers

Any Blast marker which a Demiurg vessel moves over is removed immediately – this includes any in base contact with the vessel at the beginning of its turn. When this happens, ships in base contact with the Demiurg vessel and sharing blast markers with them lose these (along with their effects) as well.

Blast markers have no effect on the movement of the Demiurg ship, nor do they face any other negative effects of moving through blast markers, though any leadership checks they were required to make before the movement phase are still affected normally by blast markers.

Keep markers ‘hoovered up’ like this to one side so they can be used to fire a cutting beam from the prow in the shooting phase. Note that Blast markers moved over must be removed, the Demiurg player can’t choose to remove some markers and leave others in place.

Celestial phenomena

Demiurg ships are totally unaffected by solar flares, gas and dust clouds and radiation bursts. Do not place blast markers in contact with them for celestial phenomena of any kind

Deployment and Scenarios

Aside from the Tau, who appear to have the strongest known connection with the Demiurg, a number of races have on occasion been reported as having made contact with these aliens. Any fleet except Orks, Tyranids and Necrons can use Demiurg Bastion class vessels; they are purchased as cruisers but do not contribute to the number of ships required to gain access to battleships, grand cruisers, etc. Demiurg ships can never carry fleet commanders, use fleet commander re-rolls or be placed in squadrons with non-Demiurg vessels. Tau fleets (and other races whose fleet list specifically include the Demiurg) ignore these restrictions and should instead select Demiurg vessels using the entries given in their fleet list.

Mercenaries

Unless the fleet is entirely composed of Demiurg ships they are considered to be mercenaries and will not continue to fight if crippled. Crippled Demiurg ships will attempt to disengage every turn and run for the nearest point on the nearest table edge if they fail. However, if the Demiurg ship is part of a fleet fighting against Orks it will only disengage if first reduced to only having 1 or 2 Damage points remaining.

The cutting beam is a short ranged but devastating ionisation beam usually employed for gouging out recalcitrant moonlets. The cutting beam counts as a single lance but each Blast marker picked up by the Demiurg vessel in the Movement phase gives the beam the equivalent of one extra lance shot (up to a maximum of 8).

The cutting beam always starts with an effective strength of one before adding for blast markers, and it will never have less than this as long as it is operational.

Any Demiurg vessel may extend the range of its cutting beam to 30 cm by halving its effective strength, rounding down. For example, a Demiurg Bastion that gathers up four blast markers in the course of its immediately previous movement may in the shooting phase fire a Str-5, range 15 cm cutting beam or a Str-2, range 30 cm cutting beam. Blast markers cannot be held from turn to turn in order to power the cutting beam, any unused ones are lost.

Rogue Trader capital ships and escorts commonly bear refits of uncertain origin. To represent this each Rogue Trader cruiser and escort squadron may roll one random crew skill for +10% point value. In addition, each Rogue Trader vessel may roll randomly against the Xenotech System table below for +15 points per cruiser or +5 points per escort. For an additional +5 points per ship, the player can select the desired technology instead of rolling randomly for it. Auxiliary vessels in a Rogue Trader escort squadron can only use these refits if they are in a squadron that includes at least three Rogue Trader escorts.