Best Marksman Build in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader (Beta)

The beta for Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader has been out for some time now and that’s given us enough time to craft a powerful build – especially one for the Marksman!

Although with significantly fewer classes than previous Owlcat games, Rogue Trader contains some Doctrines with some pretty in-depth progression. Luckily, players can end up feeling just as powerful as they did by the end of Pathfinder: Kingmaker or Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous.

The Doctrine we’ll be going over in this guide is the Marksman. As the long-range option for players, this Doctrine will make you an angel of death – dealing out crits and taking out bosses while being nowhere near your enemies. If that interests you then keep reading as we go over the best Marksman build in the Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader beta.

Preface

Before we get started it’s important to preface this build with the fact that the game is still in beta. That means that all of the following information is subject to change, and some aspects of the build may not function as intended in the final release of the game.

Regardless, we have used this build in some of our playthroughs of the beta and have not noticed anything wrong yet. We were able to get through all the available content without issue and so will you! With that said, let’s get on with the build.

The Crit Marksman Build

This is a range-focused build that focuses on heavy damage, lots of criticals, and a sprinkling of buffs for your allies. This Marksman build allows your character to position themselves anywhere on the battlefield and take out whoever they want in Rogue Trader, with a little extra target focus on those clashing in melee.

Homeworld: Imperial World – Military Traditions

Starting with our first option during character creation, we’ll begin by choosing Imperial World – Military Traditions. While it’s not as exciting as some other choices, the attribute bonus to Ballistic Skill and Perception will be very useful when we’re allocating stats.

Hopefully, once the game is finalized and released, it’ll have a few more viable options to spice up your Homeworld choice for the Marksman.

Origin: Astra Militarum Commander

After Homeworld, we’re choosing Astra Militarum Commander for our Origin. This Origin has a lot of goodies that boost this build a lot. First and foremost is another boost to our Ballistic Skill and Perception. The real big one however is the unlocked feature Combined Arms.

This ability is going to allow us to buff our character and companions’ damage, based on our Perception, if the enemy is adjacent to anyone. This is a nice buff once we start picking off enemies locked in melee with our companions.

Furthermore, this class gives us access to some talents that boost the capabilities of Combined Arms. We’ll be taking some of these while leveling up, so stay tuned for when we break down the levels.

Doctrine: Marksman

Next down the list, since Triumph and Darkest Hour aren’t implemented, is our Doctrine. Since this is a Marksman build, choose Marksman.

Stats

Before we go over the stats, we should go over how stat bonuses work. From our understanding, when the game speaks about a stat bonus, it’s talking about the tens place in that stat.

For example, if you have a Strength score of 30, then your Strength bonus will be 3. If you have a Willpower score of 45, then your Willpower bonus will be 4.

With that out of the way, we can talk about the stats we’re going to focus on. While the stats can be tweaked based on how you plan on playing, you want to ensure you get your Ballistic Skill and Perception as high as possible in character creation. Ballistic Skill governs your to-hit with ranged weapons, and Perception reduces an enemy’s dodge chance while also giving you an initiative bonus. These stats are key to being the effective sniper we want to be.

You can look at our stat breakdown below:

Stat	Amount
Weapon Skill	30
Ballistic Skill	50
Strength	30
Toughness	30
Agility	40
Intelligence	30
Perception	50
Willpower	30
Fellowship	30

Marksman Leveling

And now the actual build for Marksman. As we go through the Doctrine, we’ll continually upgrade Ballistic Skill when we can, switching to Perception when we can’t. We’ll be doing the same thing with Awareness (which acts as our perception skill) and Demolition. By the end of this Doctrine, we’ll be hitting enemies incredibly hard and will be able to find any hidden items throughout the Koronus Expanse.

We will also be choosing a weapon proficiency at level 13. We chose Bolter proficiency, as it’s a handy and powerful weapon to have when sniping is an option, but we recommend you ultimately choose a proficiency for a weapon you find yourself using a lot or gravitating towards. This is a ranged build, however, so I recommend you choose a proficiency for a ranged weapon.

With that said, here’s the level breakdown for Marksman:

Level	What To Take
1	Shot on the Run
2	Awareness/Dash
3	Unpredictable/Awareness
4	Demolition
5	Ballistic Skill/Fired Up
6	Ballistic Skill/Revel in Slaughter
7	Perception/Awareness
8	Distraction/Demolition
9	Military Excellence Upgrade II
10	Friend in Need/Perception
11	Rapid Fire/Ballistic Skill
12	Perception/Awareness
13	Bolter Weapon Proficiency*
14	Agility/Demolition
15	Military Excellence Upgrade III

We mostly take abilities to up our crit damage, Our upgrades to Military Excellence are to give us more shots when activating the ability while also making those shots harder to dodge. 

Advanced Doctrine: Hunter

Once we max out our basic Doctrine, we are given access to an advanced one. For this choice, we are taking Hunter. The Hunter Doctrine is going to give us some decent team buffs, enemy debuffs, and a straight-up power boost. The Prey mechanic you get is also incredibly interesting and opens up new strategies in a fight.

We’ll also be changing our skill focus a bit at this point, as Awareness and Demolition (after a few levels) will be as high as we need it. We’ll be replacing these skills with Medicae, which will allow us to effectively use medkits. However, the skill you choose is entirely up to you, as you may already be running a party that has high Medicae.

Hunter Leveling

A quick note, the upgrades given to you at levels 12 and 20 are not implemented yet, so we have to do without them. Fortunately, our character still ends up being incredibly powerful, so it’s not too great a loss.

With that said, here’s our breakdown for Hunter:

Level	What To Take
1	Hunt Down the Prey
2	Cull The Bold/Demolition
3	Demolition/Tide of Focus
4	Demolition
5	Ballistic Skill/Medicae
6	Ballistic Skill/Good Hunting
7	Hot on the Trail/Medicae
8	Trail and Shatter/Medicae
9	Ballistic Skill/Medicae
10	Pierce the Armour/Medicae
11	Medicae/Ballistic Skill
12	N/A
13	Seize the Advantage/Medicae
14	Medicae/Ballistic Skill
15	Lore Xenos/Piercing Shot
16	Trembling Flock/Lore Xenos
17	Ballistic Skill/Lore Xenos
18	Ballistic Skill/Alpha Guide
19	Ballistic Skill/ Lore Xenos
20	N/A

With Hunter, we are mostly taking abilities to buff our allies against anyone we mark as Prey. We also round out our skills, since we can get a couple of them incredibly high by the end of the Hunter Doctrine.

Join the High Ground!

And that’s our guide for the best Marksman build in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader beta1 Have you played the beta yet? What Marksman build are you rocking in the Koronus Expanse? Tell us in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe for more content in the future.

Happy gaming!