Guides

Abelard Warrior & Vanguard Build Guide in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader

One of the best tanks in the game.

Published

10 months ago

December 28, 2023

Jacob Barton

Abelard is perhaps one of the most powerful companions in the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. If you love giving your character the biggest weapon and chunkiest piece of armor – this build will be perfect!

As a Warrior Vanguard, this build will prioritize your melee capabilities and health. You’ll be a total tank, capable of dishing out huge amounts of damage whilst soaking up hits from your enemies.

Abelard Warrior & Vanguard Build Guide

As mentioned, we will be focusing on the Abelard companion, but of course you can also create your own character inspired by this build.

Always use this as a blueprint and feel free to experiment with the abilities to make the build tailored to your playstyle.

As a warrior, you’ll start off with the Melta Weapon Proficiency granting you powerful melta weapons, as well as the Field Medic which lets you use medkits without the Medicae skill.

For those creating their own character, Abelard is from the Imperial World giving him a Humanity’s Finest bonus to Toughness.

You also have the Brace for Impact talent, which greatly leans into a tank gameplay style.

Warrior Archetype

The first archetype you’ll be levelling up is your Warrior class. Here the focus is on your close quarter combat, making Abelard the perfect companion for getting close to enemies and taking on multiple at once.

You’ll begin your skill tree with the Charge talent already available. This lets you move in a straight line and use a melee attack against an enemy, before taking another attack turn!

Following that, this is the order you’ll want to level up each point:

Level 1 – Fighter/Charge
Level 2 – Athletics
Level 3 – Endure
Level 4 – Daring Breach/Clenched Teeth
Level 5 – Contempt/Toughness
Level 6 – Taunting Scream/Athletics
Level 7 – Toughness/Combat Master
Level 8 – Medicae/Thick Skin
Level 9 – Upgrade2
Level 10 – Disarm/Weapon Skill
Level 11 – Sworn Enemy/It Will Not Die
Level 12 – Weapon Skill/Medicae
Level 13- Defensive Stance/Carouse
Level 14 – Strength/Heavy Armor Proficiency
Level 15 – Upgrade 1

You’ll find following this build will have an emphasis on your Toughness and Agility, really letting you soak up tons of damage for your teammates!

Vanguard Archetype

After completing your Warrior archetype, you’ll be given a pick of two advanced archetypes: Vanguard or Assassin.

The Vanguard is a highly defensive class type, with an even higher emphasis on absorbing damage and protecting allies.

Unyielding beacon in Warhammer 40000 Rogue Trader

Again, you’ll automatically start out with the Unyielding Beacon talent. This will stack +1 to your resolve with each hit against you and since you’ll be taking a lot of hits with this build, that will stack up a lot!

Following this, we recommend the following pathway for levelling up your Vanguard archetype:

Level 16 – Vanguard/Unyielding Beacon
Level 17 – Defensive Stance/Duelling Mastery
Level 18 – Taunting Defence
Level 19 – Unyielding Guard
Level 20 – Increase AP/Toughness
Level 21 – Toughness/Counter-Attack Stance
Level 22 – Bulwark/Athletics
Level 23 – Punish the Imprudent/Doing My Part
Level 24 – Weapon Skill/Power Weapon Expert
Level 25 – Centre of Attention
Level 26 – Athletics/Weapon Skill
Level 27 – Upgrade 1
Level 28 – Unyielding Resolve
Level 29 – Medicae/Strength
Level 30 – Wall of Rockcrete
Level 31 – Enduring Shield
Level 32 – Strength/Medicae
Level 33 – Renitent Beacon
Level 34 – Grenadier
Level 35 – Upgrade 2

As before, your emphasis here is on Toughness Agility and Strength characteristics. These are what will really serve the tank gameplay, dealing and soaking up that damage.

Exemplar Archetype

Your final Archetype for Abelard is the Exemplar, which can only be reached upon filling up the Vanguard archetype at level 36. The exemplar archetype allows for fine tuning of your previous two classes.

By this point you’ll know how you play the companion and the talents you want to advance. That said, we recommend the follow:

Level 36 – Exemplar/Martyrdom/Interception
Level 37 – Athletics/Resilient Beacon
Level 38 – Toughness/Swift Movements
Level 39 – PC/Athletics
Level 40 – Eager for Battle/Know no Heresy
Level 41 – Toughness/Living Shield
Level 42 – PC/Toughness
Level 43 – PC/Power Armour Proficiency
Level 44 – Athletics/Peak Condition
Level 45 – Increase AP
Level 46 – PC/Athletics
Level 47 – PC/Athletics
Level 48 – PC/Toughness
Level 49 – Toughness/Athletics
Level 50 – Destroyer/PC
Level 51 – PC/Athletics
Level 52 – PC/PC
Level 53 – PC/Toughness
Level 54 – Cataclysm/PC
Level 55 – Increase AP

Gear Recommendations

Of course, levelling up your character means nothing if you aren’t swapping out the most overpowered gear to compliment your playstyle.

Since Abelard is a tank, we’ll be looking mainly at high damage weapons and high armour proficiency chest plates. Anything that leans into the Tankiness!

For the gear, we’d recommend the following:

Helmet – Helm of Determination
Necklace – Grace of Oblivious
Armour – Gladiator Mesh Armour
Ring – Improved injector
Amulet – Heart of the Nameless
Gloves – Radiant Gloves
Cape – Malpian Shroud
Boots – Ergo Boots
Primary Weapon – Roading Thunder
Secondary Weapon – Arc Rifle

Now then, that’s it for this build! As mentioned, please use these builds as a blueprint, your gameplay is subjective and you might wish to adjust certain properties to fit you!

You can check out our other guides here: