Guides

Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader: Heinrix Warrior & Assassin Build

Perfect for a quick moving character focused on damage.

Published

12 months ago

December 19, 2023

Jacob Barton

Heinrix is a companion that can be added to your team early on in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

He is an interrogator from the Imperial Homeworld with the Sanctioned Psyker (Biomancer) Origin. You have control over how you level up Heinrix past these core foundations.

By going down the Warrior and Assassin route, this makes the character well suited for close quarters combat and traversing the gameplay grid.

Heinrix Warrior & Assassin Build

The intention of this guide is to help you develop Heinrix into a powerful character using the Warrior and Assassin archetypes.

You can also use this guide to develop your playable character from scratch with Heinrix as your template.

We’ll be identifying the abilities and talents to pick up as well as the most optimised gear.

The character is great for getting in close and dealing loads of damage, and this build will support that!

Levelling up – Warrior Archetype

Of course, Heinrix will automatically start out under the warrior archetype, meaning he is tailored for combat by default. As such, you’ll immediately begin with the charge ability – great for traversing the grid and getting close to your enemies!

You’ll also want to focus on the following Characteristics for Heinrix/ your playable character:

Weapon Skill – For successful melee hits against opponents.
Strength – To incur more damage.
Agility – For racing across the grid.
Willpower – For improving the powers that come with the Psyker build.

Following that, you’ll start levelling up your archetype. This is the route we’d suggest when levelling Heinrix for this particular build:

Coercion
Endure – Great for improving toughness for durability.
Daring Breach – Allows for high damage attacks.
Defensive Manoeuvres – Supports his dodge abilities.
Desolation (Talent)
Agility (+Characteristic)
Enfeeble ability
Lore (warp) – Great for handling the ship.
Nimble
Rigorous Training
Daring Breach (Upgrade II)
Psy Rating 1
Weapon Skill (+Characteristic)
Invigorate
Blade of Light
Lore Xenos
Biophysical Distortion
Toughness (+Characteristic)
Edge of Dawn
Daring Breach (Upgrade I)

That’s it for the Warrior archetype. All of this alone will make you a truly fierce fighter in combat with a focus on taking down those enemies!

Levelling Up – Assassin

Once you have completed the first Warrior archetype, you’ll have the option of two advanced archetypes. For this build, you should take the Assassin option.

The assassin is great for elevating those melee skills and traversing even quicker! Heinrix is best used when darting around a perimeter of enemies, picking them off one by one. These skills will really enable that playstyle.

When levelling up, you’ll automatically start with the Seek the Opening skill, great for dealing with bosses. Following that, we’d recommend this pathway when selecting abilities and skills:

Elusive Shadow – Aids movement and stealth!
An Eye for the Unscathed – Dodge reductions.
Dispatch
AP Increase +1
Agility (+Characteristic)
Psy Rating 2
Lore (Warp)
Warp Speed
Sanguine Siphon
Weapon Skill (+Characteristic)

Deterioration
Killing Spree
Dispatch (Upgrade II)
Grenadier
Ambush
Toughness (+Characteristic)
Lore (Xenos)
Death Whisper
Psy Rating 3
Professional Acumen (Talent)
Carmine Whisper
It Will Not Die
Dispatch (Upgrade I)

That’s it for levelling up your Assassin archetype. As you’ll notice, most of this pathway really focuses on Agility and Weapon Skill.

You’ll be able to dart across the board and deal successful melee blows.

Levelling Up – Exemplar Archetype

The exemplar skill tree in Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader

By the time you’ve reached this point, most of the build is already complete. The Exemplar archetype is only unlocked once your second skill tree is totally filled.

It mainly works to boost a lot of the skills from previous archetypes. There’s no surefire pathway here, just make sure you’re emphasizing your Agility and Weapons Skill.

Tricky Defense is a great way to start since the difficulty at this stage of the game is increased, you’ll want to improve your defense.

Otherwise, if you’ve made it this far, then you’ll probably know what skills work for you!

Gear/Loadout Optimization

Having the most optimized archetypes won’t mean a thing if you gear isn’t complimenting it as well!

Not all of these will be available from the offset, so for the most part we’d recommend Light Armour and anything else that would Heinrix’s agility and combat effectiveness.

For the most optimized loadout though, we’d recommend trying to pick up the following items:

Psyker’s Footwear – Greats for stacking up your dodge.
Eyes of Joyeuse – Improves Psy Rating.
Charged Staff – For using lightning!

Now then, that’s it for this particular build. As mentioned, this applies to Heinrix’s levelling up once you have gained him as a companion but can also be reapplied to your main character too!

If you’ve followed along, then by now, you should have a version of Heinrix which is great for racing around a perimeter of enemies and taking them off one-by-one!

You might also be interested in our other Rogue Trader Build guides here: