Rogue Trader Fleet /Compendium 2010

[Sigoroth]

Yeah, Fra'al would be a good inclusion. Also, in a 1500 pt list you can use up to 150 pts of escorts from any list, including Eldar or Dark Eldar. I myself would also throw a RTCV into the escort carrier squadron. This will not only counter the -1 Ld but also serve as a meat shield to the more valuable carriers.

By the by, you don't have to take that many Swords. You only need 1 more pure battery escort than lance/ordnance escort, so you'd only need 7 here. Also, the Demiurg rules allow for an allied Bastion in any fleet list apart from Nids, Necrons & Orks, so even though it doesn't say so here, you could probably get away with taking one. The 185 point cap on pirate cruisers applies to Imperial or Chaos vessels only (in effect limiting your choices rather than the maximum cost of a cruiser) though I'd recommend trying to get your opponent to agree to a 235 pt price tag rather than the overly inflated original price.

So a sample list might look like:

Pirate Captain - 50 pts
Fra'al Battleship - 250 pts
Fra'al Battleship - 250 pts
Demiurg Bastion - 255 pts
3 Fra'al Raiders - 150 pts
3 Dark Eldar Raiders - 150 pts (WBs)
3 Swords - 105 pts
3 Escort Carriers + 1 RTCV - 200 pts
3 Iconoclasts - 90 pts

1500 pts

Since none of the capital ships in this fleet will accept the Pirate Captain then you can safely place him aboard an Escort Carrier. If you can convince your opponent to play reasonable points values then this will give you an extra 55 pts to play with: 3 x 5 = 15 (Iconoclasts) + 3 x 5 = 15 (Xenos Vessels) + 20 pts (Bastion) + 5 (RTCV) = 55 pts. You could grab a re-roll and another Iconoclast with that much, allowing you to change a couple of the Dark Eldar raiders to Impaler variants instead of WB variants.

[horizon]

Freck,  I started the list with the 10% allies in mind,... The Dark Eldar are a good idea, tad cheaper then the mms Aconite.
If it was for ordnace it would be Nightshades all the way.

As for the fra'al -> first need to build it.

Your pirate list looks more like a xenos pirate where as mine more looked like a rogue Marine.

[Sigoroth]

Yeah, I figure that since you're limited in the number of capital ships you can field you may as well go for the biggest possible. If the Demiurg rules allowed for a Stronghold to be taken in non-Demiurg/Tau fleets then I'd have put that in instead. I'd not mind throwing in a Carnage if you could buy a Xenotech system for it as if it were a RT vessel (targeting system).