Depending on your dodge chance, your choice of armor is crucial for your party’s survival. High Agility characters will want Light or Medium options, while Heavy armor is excellent if you’re not investing in Agility. Either way, here are my top 10 best armor options in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader.
Best Armor Options in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader You Should Get First
10. Loyalist Garb (Light)
Let’s start with Light armor and move on to Medium and Heavy options. To begin with, the Loyalist Garb offers one of the best armor ratings for the Light category with 50%. You’ll also get 20% dodge chance against Ranged attacks and an increased cover efficiency if you don’t move. It’s found on Dargonus but you’ll have to complete the Tier 5 colony upgrade Scholar Progenium to get it.
9. Panoply of the Assassin (Light)
This is another great Light armor option that comes with 40% armor rating. In addition, it has an amazing special ability that increases your dodge chance by 10% each round until an enemy makes an attack on you. Then the bonus dodge chance resets but you’ll always have the passive +15% dodge against ranged attacks.
I recommend Panoply of the Assassin as one of my best Rogue Trader armor options because it’s easier to get compared to some other entries on this list. You can simply purchase it from Ryzza.
8. Reinforced Kabalite Armour (Light)
Both the base and Reinforced versions of the Kabalite Armour are great if you can wear Drukhari Equipment. That said, the Reinforced one is especially great on Assassins or other Agility-focused builds as you’ll get an additional +10% dodge chance if Agility is over 65. This is in addition to the impressive 40% armor rating. You can loot the Reinforce version from Drukhari in Chapter 3.
7. Enforcer Carapace (Medium)
The Enforcer Carapace is a common affordable option for your entire party when it comes to Medium armor. You get a 50% armor rating against human enemies (40% otherwise) and a 10% dodge bonus. Things get interesting with the War World version or the Daemon World version, which sports a drastically higher armor rating of 65% plus an additional 20% against daemons. That said, for the latter, you’ll have to reach the Follower rank in Hereticus. The base version is found on Janus.
6. Adaptive Flak Vest (Medium)
Another affordable Medium armor option is the Adaptive Flak Vest. It will grant you an additional 15% armor rating and +3 deflection at the beginning of combat which slowly tapers off over the course of three rounds. Still, that gives you plenty of time to take cover or advance into melee as that +3 deflection is quite strong. You’ll also get an additional +10% armor rating if your Intelligence is more than 55.
5. Carapace of Sorrows (Medium)
The Carapace of Sorrows is excellent on Strength builds. I can’t suggest this armor option enough. It not only grants a 50% armor rating but an additional 10% if your Strength is over 65. Furthermore, once per round, any damage from weapon attacks gives you +10% armor for the next round.
4. Kasrkin Armour (Medium)
Sporting an impressive Medium armor value of 60%, you can also get an additional 15% armor if your Weapon Skill is more than 70. I would highly recommend this option for any melee build that isn’t dumping Agility not just for the great defenses but also the special ability. Mainly, it restores 1 AP after killing an enemy. The effect can only trigger once but it’s rare for Armor pieces to grant additional AP and it’s quite a powerful feature.
3. Gladiator Mesh Armour (Heavy)
We’ve arrived to the Heavy armor category on my list of best armor choices in Rogue Trader, and we start with the Gladiator Mesh Armor. It’s not flashy but it’s an affordable option that gets you 65% armor rating. I would suggest it on melee builds as it provides you with 5 deflection plus an additional 3 against melee attacks.
2. Heavy Void Suit (Heavy)
Now this one has the highest base armor rating in the game. The Heavy Void Suit gives you a whopping 85% armor rating plus an additional 20% against human enemies. It gives you 7 deflection and you also suffer 30% less damage from area and burst attacks. Congratulations, you’re a walking tank.
1. Arbitrator Solomon Vhyr’s Armour (Heavy)
Lastly, we’re here for massive amounts of potential deflection, putting this as one of the very best armor options in Rogue Trader — dependent on build, of course. Solomon Vhyr’s Armour has a special ability that makes it so you get bonus deflection equal to your Coercion skill divided by 10. Even a base investment of 40 or 50 gets you +4/+5 which in addition to the base value of the armor is +10.
Therefore, I highly recommend investing in Coercion or respecing to boost it as much as you can. Combine this with the 85% armor rating and this is a heavy armor to strive for. You can get with the Foulstone Tier 5 colony upgrade Holy Defenders. But that’s not all, when the wearer hits a criminal enemy in combat, the enemy is debuffed by one stack of the Perplexed effect for 2 rounds. This is one of the best Heavy armor options in the game not counting Power Armor.
How to Remove Negative Armor Rating in WH40K: Rogue Trader
One final tip before we end our list. The dodge penalty on Medium armor options can be annoying for Agility builds centered around dodge. You can remove it if you have the Soldier Archetype and I would recommend you do so if you plan on wearing Medium armor to increase your survivability. It can be done by picking up the Second Skin talent which makes it so that Medium armor doesn’t reduce dodge chance.
This concludes my list of the top 10 best Armor options in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. Check out more of our WH40K RT guides like our top 10 best weapons or our Arch-Militant build.
