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I always thought they were human. Because I never read anywhere that they were selected from some space marine chapter. Yet, some inquisitors can wear power armor and use a thunderhammer. And somehow, I don't think a normal Human can wear power armor or swing a thunderhammer. Also, I was reading Siege of Vraks and that Inquisitor lord Hector Rex in Vraks was capable of some amazing feats. He literally beat one of the Khorne Daemon Lords. And that's after sad Daemon Lord killed all the grey knights attacking it. Somehow, I find it difficult to believe a human can stand toe to toe with a Bloodthirster.

Yeah, they're human.

See sisters of battle for humans wearing power armor.

Yes, humans can wear power armor and wield thunder hammers.
There's different models of power armor and weapons.
Marines have their own series of weapons and armor that takes their physiology into account.

Sisters are normal humans in Power Armour(Though not Terminator Armour) and I suspect there are some humans with Thunder hammers...
In the case of the Ordo Malleus, they may have Grey Knights that have joined the Inquisition, but otherwise Inquisitors are normal humans.


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Mrrhm... looks like Terminator Malleus are human too, so they all are.

Eldenfirefly wrote:
Inquisitor lord Hector Rex

Rex isn't perhaps the best example - he's a powerful psyker who has also been gene-enhanced for increased physical capabilities so that he's larger and stronger than your average space marine.

But a regular human can use power armor too, and it does enhance what weapons he can comfortably carry. Most normal humans use heavy bolters as a crew-served support weapon, Sisters of Battle carry them alone (just like marines). When you get to an Inquisitor in power armor he's likely to be well trained, heavily enhanced and ofc so well connected that he can get his hands on almost any weapon in the arsenal.

Inquisitors are exclusively human. They can wear power armor which gives them some enhancements though not to the same extent as a space marine since they lack the black carapace a marine has to fully integrate with the armor. That said, they have access to almost everything the IOM can forge, so an individual inquisitor with enough experience and influence can potentially have/use almost anything humanity has to offer.

Just to clarify, Inquisitors CAN be former Space Marines, but that is incredibly rare. Anyone who wishes to be an Inquisitor needs the recommendation of either 3 other Inquisitors or a Lord Inquisitor.
Marines generally don't have the best relations with the Inquisition, so it doesn't happen often.
But there is a Marine Inquisitor mentioned in some book somewhere, I just don't know which.

And as other have mentions, you don't have to be a Marine to wear Power armour and wield a Thunder Hammer.

-

 Galef wrote:
Just to clarify, Inquisitors CAN be former Space Marines, but that is incredibly rare. Anyone who wishes to be an Inquisitor needs the recommendation of either 3 other Inquisitors or a Lord Inquisitor.
Marines generally don't have the best relations with the Inquisition, so it doesn't happen often.
But there is a Marine Inquisitor mentioned in some book somewhere, I just don't know which.

And as other have mentions, you don't have to be a Marine to wear Power armour and wield a Thunder Hammer.

-

I'm gonna dispute the above. The closest an Astartes could get to being an Inquisitor is deciding to be a deathwatch lifer and linking up with an Inquisitor as part of his retinue. A quick google search came up with nothing about a marine being an inquisitor and no fluff that I know of has ever mentioned that. Inquisitors are investigators and watchers. Not really what a marine was made for.

Mental conditioning and being geared up for war tends to make AM/SM not a likely candidate.

I know when I read the Grey Knight series one Grey Knight was being recommended for becoming an Inquisitor.
It would be a good fit for Maleus, especially if he tends to think more outside of his protective dogma.

I honestly have not come across anything that specifically states they cannot be an Inquisitor and they do join the occasional Inquisitor's retinue.

Like how other people have mentioned I "know" I had read of a Space Marine Inquisitor somewhere but I cannot get my hands on it.

Yup, Alaric was that Grey Knight that was brought into the folds of the Inquisition.

Also, most of the predecessors to the Inquisition were space marines known as Knight Errants. We do not know for sure if any of them became inquisitors during its official inception, or if they ended up as part of the Grey Knights instead.

In general though, Inquisitors are all human, but the extremely rare Astartes inquisitor is indeed a possibility.

Inquisitors are human, though they can sometimes be heavily modified. They can use power armour, thunder hammers and the like, since those are also made in normal human size. They could not use Space Marine power armour or weapons though, since those are much larger than normal.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Inquisitors are human, though they can sometimes be heavily modified. They can use power armour, thunder hammers and the like, since those are also made in normal human size. They could not use Space Marine power armour or weapons though, since those are much larger than normal.

Maybe it's a detail, but Space Marines aren't THAT big. They are seven foot tall (in power armor). A six foot tall human in power armor can probably use the exact same weapon. It's just going to be a bit large. After all, a six foot and a half and 5 foot and a half men can use the same tools without need for intense modification. The same would go between a Space Marine and a human. Plus, most Space Marines weapons are fairly compact. A thunder hammer is big but not enormous either.

I thought marines were 7 feet tall, 8 in powered armor?

epronovost wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Inquisitors are human, though they can sometimes be heavily modified. They can use power armour, thunder hammers and the like, since those are also made in normal human size. They could not use Space Marine power armour or weapons though, since those are much larger than normal.

Maybe it's a detail, but Space Marines aren't THAT big. They are seven foot tall (in power armor). A six foot tall human in power armor can probably use the exact same weapon. It's just going to be a bit large. After all, a six foot and a half and 5 foot and a half men can use the same tools without need for intense modification. The same would go between a Space Marine and a human. Plus, most Space Marines weapons are fairly compact. A thunder hammer is big but not enormous either.

It's not really about size of the body. Humans can't intergrate with power armour to the same degree as Space Marines and can't carry a reactor on their back, so they use a 'dumb' version of the armour.

Lammia wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Inquisitors are human, though they can sometimes be heavily modified. They can use power armour, thunder hammers and the like, since those are also made in normal human size. They could not use Space Marine power armour or weapons though, since those are much larger than normal.

Maybe it's a detail, but Space Marines aren't THAT big. They are seven foot tall (in power armor). A six foot tall human in power armor can probably use the exact same weapon. It's just going to be a bit large. After all, a six foot and a half and 5 foot and a half men can use the same tools without need for intense modification. The same would go between a Space Marine and a human. Plus, most Space Marines weapons are fairly compact. A thunder hammer is big but not enormous either.

It's not really about size of the body. Humans can't intergrate with power armour to the same degree as Space Marines and can't carry a reactor on their back, so they use a 'dumb' version of the armour.

They can't connect directly with it like the Space Marines, they have to use a special undersuit like those of hte SoB. Also, you will notice that Sisters of Battle armor do have a power pack too. They don't have quite the same kinks like autosense, magboots or other subfunctions thow.

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I thought marines were 7 feet tall, 8 in powered armor?

How would the armour add a full foot? Eight feet has always been BL exaggeration.

epronovost wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Inquisitors are human, though they can sometimes be heavily modified. They can use power armour, thunder hammers and the like, since those are also made in normal human size. They could not use Space Marine power armour or weapons though, since those are much larger than normal.

Maybe it's a detail, but Space Marines aren't THAT big. They are seven foot tall (in power armor). A six foot tall human in power armor can probably use the exact same weapon. It's just going to be a bit large. After all, a six foot and a half and 5 foot and a half men can use the same tools without need for intense modification. The same would go between a Space Marine and a human. Plus, most Space Marines weapons are fairly compact. A thunder hammer is big but not enormous either.

Yes, but that is because normal human tools are designed with a certain variety of size in mind. Space Marine equipment is purposely designed for people who are three metres tall while wearing bulky power armour. Even if you are a very tall human at two metres, you are still going to struggle with comfortably getting your hand comfortably around the massive grip of that bolter and reaching the trigger. It would be very awkward to hold. And that is before the recoil tears your arm off, since the weapon was designed for the superhuman strength of a Space Marine. Same thing with thunder hammers. Yeah, you could pick one up and swing it, but it would be so heavy you'd hurt yourself.
So it depends on your definition of "use". If by "use" you mean "I can carry it around and do something with it", then you could use Space Marine weapons. If by "use" you mean "I could actually fight effectively with this weapon", then no, you can't use Space Marine weapons.

edit: got unit conversions messed up in my head. The size difference is not that big, so a tall Human could probably hold a Space Marine bolter (or hammer) just fine (though probably still not very comfortably). The recoil and weight of the weapons would still be an issue though.

 Crimson wrote:

 CthuluIsSpy wrote:
I thought marines were 7 feet tall, 8 in powered armor?

How would the armour add a full feet? Eight feet has always been BL exaggeration.

Space Marines seem vary in height from 7 to 8 feet, which are the two most common heights given in the fluff. I don't think the armour makes them much taller than that, especially since they are rarely encountered outside of it so most of those given heights are for Marines in full armour.

 Galef wrote:
Just to clarify, Inquisitors CAN be former Space Marines, but that is incredibly rare. Anyone who wishes to be an Inquisitor needs the recommendation of either 3 other Inquisitors or a Lord Inquisitor.
Marines generally don't have the best relations with the Inquisition, so it doesn't happen often.
But there is a Marine Inquisitor mentioned in some book somewhere, I just don't know which.

And as other have mentions, you don't have to be a Marine to wear Power armour and wield a Thunder Hammer.

-

Addendum: Given the initiation requirements the most likely path if you're writing a Marine Inquisitor is through the Deathwatch, Grey Knights, or through a Chapter like the Exorcists that works closely with the Inquisition already, and in any of those cases the Inquisitor you end up with is probably going to be of the brute-force wave-the-sigil-around march-in-and-purge-things school rather than any kind of covert plotter or subtle operative.

(I don't recall any names off the top of my head but I know there's reference in the Deathwatch RPG book to Inquisitors that are "retired" Deathwatch Marines.)


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 Iron_Captain wrote:

epronovost wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Inquisitors are human, though they can sometimes be heavily modified. They can use power armour, thunder hammers and the like, since those are also made in normal human size. They could not use Space Marine power armour or weapons though, since those are much larger than normal.

Maybe it's a detail, but Space Marines aren't THAT big. They are seven foot tall (in power armor). A six foot tall human in power armor can probably use the exact same weapon. It's just going to be a bit large. After all, a six foot and a half and 5 foot and a half men can use the same tools without need for intense modification. The same would go between a Space Marine and a human. Plus, most Space Marines weapons are fairly compact. A thunder hammer is big but not enormous either.

Yes, but that is because normal human tools are designed with a certain variety of size in mind. Space Marine equipment is purposely designed for people who are three metres tall while wearing bulky power armour. Even if you are a very tall human at two metres, you are still going to struggle with comfortably getting your hand comfortably around the massive grip of that bolter and reaching the trigger. It would be very awkward to hold. And that is before the recoil tears your arm off, since the weapon was designed for the superhuman strength of a Space Marine. Same thing with thunder hammers. Yeah, you could pick one up and swing it, but it would be so heavy you'd hurt yourself.
So it depends on your definition of "use". If by "use" you mean "I can carry it around and do something with it", then you could use Space Marine weapons. If by "use" you mean "I could actually fight effectively with this weapon", then no, you can't use Space Marine weapons.

Addendum: I will note that "power armour" or "a boltgun" aren't things that have an absolutely defined size; Battle Sisters and normal humans both have smaller patterns of both from the Marine ones that are indistinguishable at the granularity level of the 40k statline but have different stats in the RPGs. Human-sized boltguns don't even require power armour to make use of, as seen in Necromunda and the Guard book.

It's also worth noting that the reactor is a question of the quality of the armour rather than one of weight; Battle Sisters' armour in the RPG books does have the onboard reactor while lower-quality human power armour has a battery with limited duration instead.

So, yeah, if a human tried to use an Astartes boltgun they'd definitely blow their own arm off, so they use boltguns sized for humans instead.

If you want an idea of what happens when a normal human tries to use a Marine's power weapon (a Crozius Arcanum in this case) have a read of the short story 'Argent'.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
edit: got unit conversions messed up in my head. The size difference is not that big, so a tall Human could probably hold a Space Marine bolter (or hammer) just fine (though probably still not very comfortably). The recoil and weight of the weapons would still be an issue though.

That's probably not a big issue since bolters are rather compact weapons and considering that everything in 40K seems to be made of plasteel (thus extremely light) it's probably not that heavy. Recoil on a bolter isn't all that great since some space marines can fire stormbolters with one hand (Grey Knights) or old school space wolf. It probably require a very strong human thow or possess a power armor to absorb recoil. Sisters of Battle and most Inquisitors are both very stron humans and have access to power armors so they are probaly just fine with their bolters.

The RL tech that bolters are based on don't have much recoil for there size initially since it's going to gain speed on the way to it's target. Granted a Bolt round is much larger than what we ever produced in real life so that would probably be a factor.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
The RL tech that bolters are based on don't have much recoil for there size initially since it's going to gain speed on the way to it's target. Granted a Bolt round is much larger than what we ever produced in real life so that would probably be a factor.

Bolters aren't directly based on any real-life tech. They fire a armour-piercing high-explosive round like a normal bullet (to give it a very high initial speed) which then starts to behave as a gyrojet and accelerates to gain even more speed. There isn't anything like that in real life. The idea was probably inspired by gyrojets and rocket/grenade launchers though.

epronovost wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
edit: got unit conversions messed up in my head. The size difference is not that big, so a tall Human could probably hold a Space Marine bolter (or hammer) just fine (though probably still not very comfortably). The recoil and weight of the weapons would still be an issue though.

That's probably not a big issue since bolters are rather compact weapons and considering that everything in 40K seems to be made of plasteel (thus extremely light) it's probably not that heavy. Recoil on a bolter isn't all that great since some space marines can fire stormbolters with one hand (Grey Knights) or old school space wolf. It probably require a very strong human thow or possess a power armor to absorb recoil. Sisters of Battle and most Inquisitors are both very stron humans and have access to power armors so they are probaly just fine with their bolters.

Fluff has unaugmented humans risking severe injury or death firing an Astartes pattern bolter. Sororitas / Inquisitorial bolters are specially designed to not maim their users.

Sounds like nonsense. They're the same bolters (outside the Primaris Bolt rifles.)

 Crimson wrote:
Sounds like nonsense. They're the same bolters (outside the Primaris Bolt rifles.)

Maybe they have different internal mechanisms and use a different sized explosive charge? That's how real guns work.
An M16 and an AR15 are related and look similar, but they have different internal mechanisms and performance.

My memory could be wrong but I do recall that human sized bolters were weaker in the FFG RPGs compared to marine ones to represent that human sized ones used a smaller round. 40k doesn't have enough granularity to represent that though.

Also to be fair that's a catachan, whose average soldier is the size of a body builder.

Well if Gun Jesus can fire a semi auto 20mm (a bit bigger than a bolt round) grenade launcher without breaking his shoulder, firing a boltgun shouldn't be that much of an issue.

HoundsofDemos wrote:
My memory could be wrong but I do recall that human sized bolters were weaker in the FFG RPGs compared to marine ones to represent that human sized ones used a smaller round. 40k doesn't have enough granularity to represent that though.

That's just FFG being silly though. Their version of the setting is even less comparable with the studio fluff than BL's and it is licenced material, not GW stuff so can be safely ignored. Of course now it is the case that marines use bigger bolters, but that's only a primaris thing.

In my party we had 2 Guardsmen who could survive a maxed damage multi melta shot to the face.

 Crimson wrote:
Sounds like nonsense. They're the same bolters (outside the Primaris Bolt rifles.)...

Guardsmen models aren't to scale with Marine models.