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As the title says, does power armor have any weakness that, if you figured out, you could use to "reliably" (for lack of a better word) kill a space marine? Someone told me their eye lenses are a major weakness, but I don't know if that's just speculation or actual canon.

Eye lenses are armourglass (what they make spaceship windows with), so nothing short of a Tau Pulse Round to the face will penetrate that.

Joints are inherently weaker than the rest of the armour, so a knife or lasbolt to the joints will generally penetrate.

The windows are also much thicker, so I dont doubt you can penetrate the eyelense

Neck and groin areas are 'relatively' vulnerable. Back of the knees, wrist, elbow joints are less so.

As Kingman said, all the joints are vulnerable as part of them aren't covered in ceramite.

I'd also have to say that the eye lenses are thin and relatively weak as in some books that I've read they have broken before the rest of the helmet has.

The eye-lenses are, however, exceptionally small targets. Other than weapons designed for high armor-penetration capabilities (plasma, hellguns, lascannons, etc.) or something that is exceptionally-corrosive, power armor doesn't have much in the way of exploitable weaknesses.

As far as the joints go, that's been a problem with plate armors since the beginning, and the design of armor over the centuries has sought to mitigate that as much as possible. You can even see that in the various designs of power armor in the setting.

Of course, shooting a Space Marine in the elbow is not likely to cause immediate death, or much more than moderate inconvenience. They can fire a bolt-gun one handed, after all. There's also the fact that the weak part of the joint is generally not visible, being covered by the torso, the bolt-gun, or bent in such a way that the vambrace and the gauntlet cover it. The back of the elbow has a ceramite cap on it (possibly with a spike on it, for dropping Mega Atomic Elbows on fools), since the arm can only bend so far anyway.

 Bobthehero wrote:
The windows are also much thicker, so I dont doubt you can penetrate the eyelense

Obviously you can penetrate the eyelense, the point was that they aren't as easy to penetrate as, say, an elbow. You give me an example of a lasbolt penetrating an eyelense, and I'll hop on board. Otherwise...

I haven't come across much in books about the ye lenses being a weakness. More often than not, irs usually the gorget that is being targeted, granted it is a joint but a marine is more like to die from having their throat ripped out or blown open that they are an elbow or knee.

back in fourth edition I read that the 3+ armor save represented isn't a direct measure of the armor's durability, but also how effective it is at blocking shots. When you roll a 1 or a 2, it actually represents the shot hitting a "soft" area of the armor, like the joints and, like someone mentioned above, the eye. terminator Armor, likewise, has far more plates covering it and less "soft" areas.

Also the development of the newest type of armor (forgot which MK it was), the one with the huge collar, is actually because of the flaw with the neck. Since the helmet doesn't actually have an armored portion connecting it to the armor, shots aimed at the chest sometimes bounced upward into the marine's helmet, which is obviously a serious, if not fatal, injury. The new armor has the collar to prevent such ricochets.

Another one throughout a few of the iterations of the armor was the power cables at the front of the armor. Some older marks didn't have efficient cooling systems so instead just ran the cables on the outside and let the air cool it. This also means that they can be shot out. While not fatal, this does render the armor's power functions inert, so the marine would probably have to exert more effort to move and remove his helmet to see.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
back in fourth edition I read that the 3+ armor save represented isn't a direct measure of the armor's durability, but also how effective it is at blocking shots. When you roll a 1 or a 2, it actually represents the shot hitting a "soft" area of the armor, like the joints and, like someone mentioned above, the eye. terminator Armor, likewise, has far more plates covering it and less "soft" areas.

Also the development of the newest type of armor (forgot which MK it was), the one with the huge collar, is actually because of the flaw with the neck. Since the helmet doesn't actually have an armored portion connecting it to the armor, shots aimed at the chest sometimes bounced upward into the marine's helmet, which is obviously a serious, if not fatal, injury. The new armor has the collar to prevent such ricochets.

Another one throughout a few of the iterations of the armor was the power cables at the front of the armor. Some older marks didn't have efficient cooling systems so instead just ran the cables on the outside and let the air cool it. This also means that they can be shot out. While not fatal, this does render the armor's power functions inert, so the marine would probably have to exert more effort to move and remove his helmet to see.

I wonder if that could cause the POwer Armour to overheat and kill the wearer...

Possibly, I remember when GW had Black Gobbo doing modelling articles, one of them was "When Space Marine Armor failed", which I think included melty melties. Another one was if the "soft" parts got punctured, the marine's suit suffered decompression and the air rushed out, suffocating him.

A while ago in White Dwarf there was a short blurb from an Ork Kommando's point of view (I think he was a kommando anyway) about an assault on a Marine unit that had just deployed from a rhino.

He charged in, firing his slugga to stagger the target a bit, then used his choppa to target 'the weak points - knees, elbows, neck, armpits - and cut each Marine down to size one joint at a time until he could make a killing blow.

 dusara217 wrote:
Eye lenses are armourglass (what they make spaceship windows with), so nothing short of a Tau Pulse Round to the face will penetrate that.

Joints are inherently weaker than the rest of the armour, so a knife or lasbolt to the joints will generally penetrate.

The joints are made out of cybernetic steel muscle fibres. The only thing penetrating those are monomolecular combat knives.

Somehow I doubt a knife wielded by a human would penetrate less than lasgun, no matter how many scifi terms you add, and monomolecular stuff would require a ridiculous amount of ukeep for something that would need to be fixed after every uses.

The weakest part is the marine. Just dump a high explosive artillery round on him and he'll be turned into jelly even if the armor survives relatively intact.

 Bobthehero wrote:
Somehow I doubt a knife wielded by a human would penetrate less than lasgun, no matter how many scifi terms you add, and monomolecular stuff would require a ridiculous amount of ukeep for something that would need to be fixed after every uses.

Depends on whether you're slashing or stabbing, since the two motions require different types of strength. The point of a tiny edge is so that the force you put into it is magnified to the point of contact, so stabbing someone with a monomolecular edge might be more effective than trying to cut through them (since the point of contact is much smaller). Whether or not stabbing them would work is an entirely different matter.

leivve wrote:
As the title says, does power armor have any weakness that, if you figured out, you could use to "reliably" (for lack of a better word) kill a space marine? Someone told me their eye lenses are a major weakness, but I don't know if that's just speculation or actual canon.

Powersource.

If the powersource of power armour is destroyed you are essentially dealing with an enhanced human lugging +1 ton of armour around.

Still dangerous but greatly reduced in effectiveness.

Its possible PA would be susceptible to forms of EMP attack. Whilst not represented on the tabletop via haywire grenades, in terms of fluff its possible haywire or other "interference" weapons could damage or shut down the actual suit itself.

 dusara217 wrote:

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
back in fourth edition I read that the 3+ armor save represented isn't a direct measure of the armor's durability, but also how effective it is at blocking shots. When you roll a 1 or a 2, it actually represents the shot hitting a "soft" area of the armor, like the joints and, like someone mentioned above, the eye. terminator Armor, likewise, has far more plates covering it and less "soft" areas.

Also the development of the newest type of armor (forgot which MK it was), the one with the huge collar, is actually because of the flaw with the neck. Since the helmet doesn't actually have an armored portion connecting it to the armor, shots aimed at the chest sometimes bounced upward into the marine's helmet, which is obviously a serious, if not fatal, injury. The new armor has the collar to prevent such ricochets.

Another one throughout a few of the iterations of the armor was the power cables at the front of the armor. Some older marks didn't have efficient cooling systems so instead just ran the cables on the outside and let the air cool it. This also means that they can be shot out. While not fatal, this does render the armor's power functions inert, so the marine would probably have to exert more effort to move and remove his helmet to see.

I wonder if that could cause the POwer Armour to overheat and kill the wearer...

Mk V armour has an issue like this. Mk V runs additional ablative plates ontop of the ceramite to make it better at standing up to bolters of traitors (because in the HH bolters are like small artillery shells apparently), and the extra weight of the plasteel means the suit can't cope, resulting in either overencumberance or unbearable heat as the suit can't power both the coolant systems and the weight bearer system at the same time.

 Ratius wrote:
Its possible PA would be susceptible to forms of EMP attack. Whilst not represented on the tabletop via haywire grenades, in terms of fluff its possible haywire or other "interference" weapons could damage or shut down the actual suit itself.

EMP resistance was something they covered in the second or third iteration of Power Armour. In several books, you have Space Marines being "close" to Nukes going off, and not having any issue with their armour.

Much as I hate acknowledging their existence, the Orks shoot something to disable PA in Helsreach

The weakest part of power armor is helmets. They always tend to forget puting them on.

Power Armour has the same fundamental weakness of all body armour, anywhere there is a connection or joint is inherently weaker as it needs to be more flexible.

underarm, elbow, behind the knee. I would have also said neck but looking at the way it seems to be recessed I am thinking its better protected.

The powered nature of the armour would leave me thinking the power pack would be a weakness but that is so obvious that you would assume that the design would incorporate significant protection to counter it.

I think the "reality" of PA would be that its pretty damn tough. There is not really going to be any harm taken from a lot of what we currently see as conventional weapons.

Does weight count as a weakness? It might not be a hazardous one, but it certainly limits mobility.

I head power armour is weak against lascannons.

and terminator armour is weak against multiple lasgun shots

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Does weight count as a weakness? It might not be a hazardous one, but it certainly limits mobility.

It doesn't really limit mobility, due to the way the Black Carapace and synthetic muscles interact with the metal. Unless, of course, you fall through the floor of hab unit, then it's just a pain in the ass.

The biggest drawback of wearing PA is if you might have BobtheHero writing you.

Then it won't end well.

Power cell "malfunction"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The non astartes grades has only a hew hours of battery life after that you are locked in. Rogue trader has rules about moving in those. You require extreme high Str checks in order to move.

I don't know any of the marine grade power cell fluff. Marines should have better power cells but they are quite easy to spot. My guess would be that it would not be that hard to generate a "malfunction"


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mr Nobody wrote:
Does weight count as a weakness? It might not be a hazardous one, but it certainly limits mobility.

Jup this might be a huge weakness i have never seen it mentioned in the fluff but I imagine that lots of surfaces can't support the weight of a marine. Especially since their favourite battlefield seems to be ruined Gothic cities :_P

 Ashiraya wrote:
The biggest drawback of wearing PA is if you might have BobtheHero writing you.

Then it won't end well.

.

''The Space Marine exploded in thousand of tiny bits as the guardsman unstoppable punch tore through its armor and being like they were made of paper''

 oldzoggy wrote:
Power cell "malfunction"


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The non astartes grades has only a hew hours of battery life after that you are locked in. Rogue trader has rules about moving in those. You require extreme high Str checks in order to move.

I don't know any of the marine grade power cell fluff. Marines should have better power cells but they are quite easy to spot. My guess would be that it would not be that hard to generate a "malfunction"
:_P

Astartes power armour has a fusion generator in the backpack, because they're special like that.