Recruiting and outfitting your companions is essential to surviving the perilous planets of the Koronus Expanse inWarhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Heinrix van Calox, an Interrogator of the Imperium, joins your crew after you find him at theElectrodynamic Cenobiumon Rykad Minoris.
Heinrix is a Biomancer Sanctioned Psyker with the Warrior Archetype, making him an incredibly versatile companion who can excel at dealing damage, tanking, or healing. Below, we’ll take a look at a few of the best talents to get for Heinrix as you level him up.
7Sanguine Siphon
Every time the psyker deals damage, they gain +1 stack of the sanguine siphon effect. If that damage was dealt to a target adjacent to the psyker, they gain +2 stacks instead. When the psyker suffers lethal damage, the stacks of sanguine siphon are removed to reduce this damage by -1 for each stack, until either all stacks are removed or the damage is no longer lethal.
Sanguine Siphon is a Biomancy Talent that goes perfectly with Heinrix’s modus operandi. By dealing damage by any means, whether that’s through melee attacks, guns, or other psyker abilities, Heinrix will gain Sanguine Siphon stacks. Then, if Heinrix takes lethal damage from an attack, the stacks will be spent to reduce the damage of the attack.
While this means that Heinrix will be left with one wound, with enough stacks you can essentially have Heinrix avoid multiple attacks in a row. This is especially useful when Heinrix is tanking a boss’s heavy damage attacks, allowing him to absorb the blows in place of your team.
6Pulse of Life
Whenever the psyker heals themselves or another character with a psychic power or an effect applied by a psychic power, this healing can critically heal with a chance of (5 + 2 x WP bonus)%. This critical heal chance is increased by all the effects that increase critical hit chance, and the amount healed is increased by the same value as critical damage.
The Pulse of Life talent grants Heinrix’s healing skills the ability to critically heal, greatly increasing the strength of the heal. When paired with other talents or equipment that boost critical hit chance, Pulse of Life will make Heinrix a very strong healer with the potential to restore tons of wounds with each heal.
Because healing is so scarce in Rogue Trader, any extra bit of wound restoring is useful, and Pulse of Life makes these abilities even stronger.
5Stabilising Factor
The first psychic power used each turn increases veil degradation by 2 points less. If this talent reduces the effect on veil degradation to less than 0, veil degradation is instead decreased by 1.
Stabilising Factor is one of the strongest overall talents for any Psyker in Rouge Trader, thanks to its effect of lessening the build-up of veil degradation. Letting veil degradation build up with no way to decrease it can be dangerous, as it can lead to psychic phenomena that reduce your party’s momentum, or even dangerousPerils of the Warpthat drastically alter the battle.
Stabilising Factor lets you reduce veil degradation if used with a single minor psychic ability per turn, ensuring that the veil never degrades to the point where Perils of the Warp occur. If you have multiple Psykers on your team, Stabilising Factor becomes even stronger, greatly reducing the chances of psychic phenomena and Perils of the Warp occurring.
4Thick Skin
The Warrior gains +1 damage deflection. Their parry chance is increased by +25% of the Warrior’s total armour.
Damage deflection is a great effect that essentially reduces all damage you take by one. Thick Skin grants one damage deflection while also increasing your parry chance according to your total armour. If you build Heinrix as a tank, giving him as much armour as you’re able to, then his parry chance will be even higher, allowing him to negate enemy attacks with a melee weapon.
Thick Skin pairs well with Heavy Armour Proficiency, further increasing Heinrix’s armour by equipping stronger gear.
3Destined
The psyker’s armour increases by +5%. This bonus increases by +5% at the start of every turn of combat except the first.
Destined is one of the best talents for longer fights in Rogue Trader. On every turn except the first, Heinrix will gain a stacking five percent increase to his armour for the duration of the encounter. This means that Heinrix will get exponentially stronger as the encounter continues.
Armour is the best way to mitigate damage in the game, providing a flat damage reduction to all sources. Destined also pairs well with Thick Skin, further increasing Heinrix’s parry chance as the fight progresses.
2Ramming Speed
Increases Charge distance by +3 cells.
This simple talent may not seem like much at first glance, but the utility of increasing the distance you can charge is great for Heinrix. Ramming Speed allows you to get around the battlefield more easily, letting you quickly rush to the next enemy.
Charge does not cost Movement Points to use, and doesn’t count as an attack, making it a great skill to use as free damage whenever possible. Adding Ramming Speed gives Charge much more versatility and options during combat.
1Blade of Light
Force weapon attacks deal +(1 + psy rating) more damage and have +(5 + 5 x psy rating)% more armour penetration.
Heinrix primarily uses melee weapons to deal damage, making Blade of Light an overall great talent to have for increasing Heinrix’s damage. Blade of Light only works with Force weapons, but this is already the best type of weapon to use with Heinrix thanks to their innate ability to scale based on a psyker’s power.
The damage bonus provided by Blade of Light will increase as you upgrade Heinrix’s Psy Rating, making this a great talent to pick up at any point in the game.
