Alternate Races
Perhaps you don’t really want to
play a human. Perhaps you want to play a squad of Space Wolves guided by
nothing but your keen sense of smell and a cunning ferocity. Perhaps you want
to play as the enigmatic Eldar or the technological Tau. Perhaps you were
captivated by the sagas of Ork Fighta-Bommer squadrons and your party consists
of an Ork Tough Hero (8 feet tall and counting), an Ork Weirdboy (charismatic
hero with psychic abilities), a maniacal Storm Boy (fast hero) and an unhinged
Mad Doc extraordinaire (intelligent/dedicated hero, with maybe some levels of
Medic). Any race can become a standard for exciting adventure, and all have the
range for the full array of hero archetypes. Perhaps if you are a particularly
advanced group of players you could even attempt a mixed bag. Perhaps a Fallen
Dark Angel who has long since lost his armour and rank is trying to regain some
former sense of purpose by hiring out a crew of misfit bounty hunters and
hiring out his services to the highest bidder. A crew that might consist of a
renegade Eldar warlock, a strong Kroot mercenary and a stout Squat Engineer.
However that being said, I recommend personally that all players are of the
same race. (But why? I want to play a Great Unclean One! Please!) Simply put
it’s a question of balance. If everyone’s an ork, a tau, a space marine or an
eldar then every player starts on the same footing. If we take the example of
the mercenaries above Space Marines are simply superior to Squats, Eldar and
Kroot. You could potentially make him 1 or 2 levels lower for balance purposes
but it will never be perfectly balanced. That being said, an advanced party
might that their DM is perfectly capable of handling unabalanced parties. Or
perhaps your game focuses on role-playing rather than combat and you have less
concerns about inequities statistically speaking. In any case I have included a
Level Adjustment value for all races however I strongly urge you to play from the same race or use the ECL 0
races. These alternate races come without any guarantee of balance – the
statistics have been chosen to reflect their powers in the Warhammer 40,000
game, not to balance out party-wise. Without further ado here are the list of
races.