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Your trusty chainsword will go a long way inWarhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, but sometimes you need a little more if you want to survive in the grim darkness of the far future. Whether driven by faith in the Emperor, the need to see a mission through, or simply the will to survive, your retinue is capable of heroism and desperation in equal measure.
Momentum measures how a battle is currently going, either in your favor or your enemy’s. When your party is doing well, they can surge forward in a final heroic push. When they’re up agaisnt the wall, a risky gamble could be the way out.
What Is Momentum?
Momentum is tracked by ameter on the right side of the HUD, above the current character’s Origin and Archetype abilities. By default, Momentum is set to 100 at the start of a battle, and youreceive a small amount of Momentum at the beginning of each character’s turn. It can rise and fall to aminimum of zeroand amaximum of 200.
Dealing damage to enemiesincreases your team’s Momentum, while taking damagereduces it.The gain or loss is increasedif the target is killed or incapacitated by the attack.
A character’sResolve, indicated by a winged skull icon on their character sheet, affects the rate at which they generate Momentum.
Heroic Acts And Desperate Measures
Once a character has gained sufficient ranks in an Archetype, they unlock that Archetype’sHeroic ActandDesperate Measure.Heroic Acts are extremely useful abilities that canonly be used if Momentum is 175 or higher.
Using a Heroic Act reduces your current Momentum by 75. This costincreases by 25each time you use a Heroic Act in the same battle.
Desperate Measures are identical to their associated Heroic Acts, butinflict a penalty on the userand can only be used if Momentum is low enough. If a character is badly wounded, they can use Desperate Measures earlier, as follows:
25 or less.
75 or less.
Less than one-fifth.
100 or less.
Using a Desperate Measuresets the character’s Resolve to zerountil the end of the combat.
Each Archetype, except the Exemplar, has adifferent pair of Heroic Acts and Desperate Measures. Certain Psyker Powers, notablyWarp Lightning, can be greatly amplified as a Heroic Act as well.Look for gold icons to appear when your Momentum is high.
Take And Hold
