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There was a note in Horus Rising that termie armor was very new and IIRC going to be the new standard battle armor pattern in the future. Then that whole heresy came along and mucked everything up...

Terrible inconvenience that.

Frazzled wrote:There was a note in Horus Rising that termie armor was very new and IIRC going to be the new standard battle armor pattern in the future. Then that whole heresy came along and mucked everything up...

I read that too in Index Astartes article about Terminator armor.It says that heresy sucked resources of the Imperium and that's why the armor is so precious.

If it can be fixed, surely it can be produced. I would chalk this discrepancy up to GW inability to ride out its own fluff......

In answer to the OP, it owuld probably cost alot in terms of time, but nothing in terms of money....especially as it would be Marines artificers making it. I don't suppose they charge their chapter by the hour.

Terminator armor is like plasma technology, very hard to reproduce, but it can be done. When only a handful of forgeworlds have the capacity to make something then often the fluff refers to it as "Lost" technology. Once whole regiments of Leman Russ Executioners were fielded, but now only Ryza makes them and the IG codex describes the technology as "lost" and the tanks as a relic.

Obviously skilled Masters of the Forge and Magos can make new Terminator armor as they make their own 2+ save artificer armor all the time, but as stated before it requires rare resources and large amounts of time so new suits are rarely produced.

Perhaps for lesser Chapters they can make a close enough approximation which is not reflected in the rules. As said above, not all Leman Russ tanks are made according to the template bit are lower quality replicas, but this isn't reflected in the rules.

Or they could just wear artificer armor and put a refractor field in their backpack.

how are you supposed to preserve and repair an inventory of terminator armor without the ability to manufacture parts. i think the fluff is silly in this respect. no amount of hugs and kisses from techmarines is going to patch a lascannon blast in the chestplate of a suit of termie armor. as anyone with a car knows, you need parts to keep your car running. if you have the ability to make parts to upkeep your chapter's 200 suits of armor, you have the ability to make more of them, even if it is prohibitively expensive. if they are simply scavenging pieces from suits of armor to maintain their inventory, there is no way any chapter could field terminators for more than a few battles given the amount of abuse dished out to them. without the ability to make parts, there is no way these suits could have lasted 10000 years or whatever, especially since there were so few to begin with.

TheVacahaha wrote:how are you supposed to preserve and repair an inventory of terminator armor without the ability to manufacture parts. i think the fluff is silly in this respect. no amount of hugs and kisses from techmarines is going to patch a lascannon blast in the chestplate of a suit of termie armor. as anyone with a car knows, you need parts to keep your car running. if you have the ability to make parts to upkeep your chapter's 200 suits of armor, you have the ability to make more of them, even if it is prohibitively expensive. if they are simply scavenging pieces from suits of armor to maintain their inventory, there is no way any chapter could field terminators for more than a few battles given the amount of abuse dished out to them. without the ability to make parts, there is no way these suits could have lasted 10000 years or whatever, especially since there were so few to begin with.

Again I assume the cobble together different suits and can make proxies to replace damaged parts, but there must be some stuff they can recreate by copying what they already have. Perhaps there's specific parts like the powerplant that cannot be recreated.

I read the first short story of the Deathwing book recently, and in that they all had Terminator armour but were stranded on a planet where they recruit new Marines after they cleansed it of a genstealer cult. After a number of years a ship from the main chapter came looking for them and decided to leave the marines to continue helping the societies recover but they took the Terminator suits with them, they were too valuable to lose. Incidentally the Marines involved in killing the 'stealers painted their armour white to honour their tribal roots on the planet, the chapter further honoured them by keeping the suits white and presumably painting all other suits of the Deathwing the same colour. I don't know whether this is accepted canon though, it is an old book.

And still rare and time consuming in production doesn't mean lost. tech...

Since "lost" isn't used in GW publications lately, and we could agree that TDA is available to space marines and inquisitors, is it really possible to calculate the cost?

Do inquisitors pay for their wargear?
Do space marines pay for wargear if external suppliers are involved?

Additionally, Sources like Index astartes/terminators state TDA as difficult to produce and repair.
So how much labour would a chapter take on to get their hands on TDA?


IMO, there is no common ground to guess the production cost from. But there is enough demand to make any effort
to produce it a viable action no matter the cost. Shouldn't our answer be "priceless" then?

TDA/Terminator armour is the catch all term for exo-armour that has been modified and upgraded for us by Space Marines so technically the 'terminator' armour worn by Inquisitors isn't quite the same thing; it is terminator armour in the sense of how it is more than just exo-armour but it is not just a suit of terminaotr armoru as worn by the Astartes. The blurring of the distinction can be blamed squarley on Games Workshop but it's an interesting point for anyone interested in the background.

TDA is still produced by the Adeptus Mechanicus but it can take many centuries to build a new suit. TDA doesn't really have a monetary value (exo-armour is used however by all sorts of ordinary humans, Imperial or otherwise) as it isn't available to purchase. A very good analogy would be Imperial Porphyry. It is incredibly expensive, and you can find examples of it in Rome that you might well think could be stolen, the only trouble is, becuase it is so rare you wouldn't be able to sell it to anyone so really it is worthless. Terminator armour is much the same but it is not just a thing but a holy relic as well, it would be like trying to buy the Kaaba. Termiantor armour cannot be bought as it is not sold. The Mechancius do make new suits for the Astartes but rarely.

The early construction of 'terminator' armour took place in parallel on the forge-worlds and the armouries of the Marines producing several designs which didn't often look much alike. Whilst Chapters do maintain suits of terminator armour they often have only a few examples and even then only use them when absolutely necessary; Space Hulks and Hives normally.

As far as making new suits goes, it is oncorrect logic to assert that because a thing can be maintained it can also be built. For example, we know how to maintain medieval Cathedrals, or we could make a modern Pyramid, but the original art of constructing these buildings is lost and all we really have is a best guess at how it was done. The original lifting devices are often still inside Cathedrals for example but it is often a mystery how they ended up remaing as part of the construction.

The same can be said for cars. Modern car bodies are usually stamped out in presses by machines. They used to be hand made by panel-beaters who possessed numerous hand-skills in order to use dozens of different tools to make all of the curves and crisp edges that you see in old cars from the fifties for example but which are not present in modern cars. A lot of these skills came from coach builders and have their roots not in metal work but in carpentry and these hand-skills only survive in men who built cars from decades ago. This doesn't mean people cannot or do not build car bodies in this way but the art of it is lost where it isn't completely obsolete and dead. Anyone who thinks that simpy by looking at an old car you can re-create the panels has clearly never worked on a body. You need to be taught these skills by someone from the trade, you can just teach yourself as so much of it is purely about technique and skill.

The Mechanicus face similar problems. They can maintain suits of armour using information passed down over the millennia but they don't know enough to build a new version from scratch, only on a single forge-world perhaps does such knowledge exist and so to all intents and purposes the knowledge is lost becuase it is no longer readily available and you might be dead before construction is completed even if.

The amount of stream-lining the rules have undergone and the sorts of armies people build have no real relationship to the background. So while it is possible to field almost an entire army of terminators it could not really happen in the background. The best example is quite an old one where the Grey Knights fielded six companies but were forced to requisition terminator armour from five other Chapters because they didn't have enough; and this was at a time when the Grey Knights were a Chapter that only fought in terminator armour and they still didn't have enough.

if the pinnacle in military technology suddenly became the 54 chevy, you had better believe that knowledge of how to bend sheet metal would be relearned.

TheVacahaha wrote:if the pinnacle in military technology suddenly became the 54 chevy, you had better believe that knowledge of how to bend sheet metal would be relearned.

War would be a lot prettier...

You guys are going to indepth on one part and not the others.

For one, let's think back to when TDA was first made. They were MASS PRODUCING these suits as they were stronger and sturdier than anything thus far. With the level of production that the forges on Mars were throwing around at the time (such as in Mechanicum where the Imperial Fists took roughly 3k suits of power armor from a single forge AREA, and this is all just a single productions worth) we can assume that the chaos legions alone have around 5000+ suits of armor each, and that's the First Founding, not counting renegades.

Now, going forward to around when they began crafting new armor, the ones with the Crux Terminatus. These suits alone hold a piece, a FRAGMENT, of the Emperor's Golden Armor of Emprahness, or so they say. Taking that beautiful golden armor, and putting it down to the tiniest fragment, we're talking half a needle of armor here, they have a pretty hefty supply for shoulder pads. Pushing that onwards, before Guilliman became an all-knowing slow, they were mass-producing suits again to give out to the Loyalists. The Loyalists have yet to demand only 1000 members per chapter and thus take as many suits. Now, when the whole Codex Asstardes is thrown out of Guilliman's bumb-hole, the legions split like crazy and no longer have a need for their TONS OF TDA. So, they simply dole it out among the new legions, of course keeping huge reserves themselves.

Now, since around this time the adepts of Mars still had some brains, they still produced, still replinished supplies, and still were able to create a surplus. This surplus can be doled out as they please, until of course every STC around, from the TDA STC to the Titan STC. Since this occured, they no longer can replace lost suits beyond the surplus among the Legions.

Now, this is all speculation and I could and probably am horribly wrong, especially since none of this has been written down by the Games Workshop lords reigning over all of their Warhammers, 40k or otherwise, and is simply left for us to speculate. All the same, I like my idea.

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:You guys are going to indepth on one part and not the others.

Now, since around this time the adepts of Mars still had some brains, they still produced, still replinished supplies, and still were able to create a surplus. This surplus can be doled out as they please, until of course every STC around, from the TDA STC to the Titan STC. Since this occured, they no longer can replace lost suits beyond the surplus among the Legions.

I am somehow confused about your point there.

Explain the underlined, maybe?

PS: no indepth is to deep in the realm of fluffness...

yes you are correct at the time of the heresy they were mass producing a lot of TDA and power armor back then but clearly some legions had better access to it then others. The emperors children only had one units worth of termainator armor. Now I dont know how many marines in that company actually had that armor but we can assume that it probably wasnt that many. On the other had you had the iron hands and the impression they gave in the book had a ton of TDA. Luna wolves it only had one specialized unit that was allowed to where it. So exactily what quantities each legion had can only be speculated on.

Why bother to produce TDA,just put some forcefield on the power armor's backpack.

Lorgar's_Blessed wrote:This surplus can be doled out as they please, until of course every STC around, from the TDA STC to the Titan STC. Since this occured, they no longer can replace lost suits beyond the surplus among the Legions.

Functioning STC databases have not been known since well before the Great Crusade. Terminator armour, as well as Space Marine Power Armour was all developed from new based on extant suits of powered and exo armour. Marine Power Armour was still being developed right up until the moment the Traitor Forces took control of Mars which is the only reason why the Traitor Legions gained access to MKVII Armour. It isn't unreasonable to assume that the production facilities were either captured, damaged or sabotaged by the remaining Loyalists on Mars which would explain why advancements have almost halted since and why TDA is so difficult to produce.

TheVacahaha wrote:if the pinnacle in military technology suddenly became the 54 chevy, you had better believe that knowledge of how to bend sheet metal would be relearned.

What my point was is that even in the last century, what was commonly practiced in manufacturing has become a dead art, retained by a minority. Knowledge from the Medieval period has been completely lost. We know how we today would produce these things but we do not know how our ancestors did it at the time.

The 41st Millennium is really a post-post-post-post-apocalyptic age. If we today can have forgotten or lost the knowledge we had from less than one thousand years ago (on one planet, with only the passage of time to erode knowledge) is it so incomprehensible to say that accross an entire galaxy, devastated by monumentally destructive wars (the Horus Heresy was nothing compared to the Age of Strife and since then there has been The Age of Apostasy and The Plague of Unbelief which were as bad if not worse than the Horus Heresy) as well as ten thousand years, that knowledge of how to make what is said to be the greatest personal armour in the galaxy, might have been all but forgotten? It would be like asking a medieval priest to strip apart a plasma screen TV and then reproduce a new one from scratch.

Gog-

I definetly see your point. The flaw I find with your reasoning is that the reason why a priest from the dark ages wouldnt be able to take apart a plasma screen TV is because of the tremendous leap in technology between then and now. The comparison doesnt fit becuase in the universe of warhammer 40k technology hasnt changed much in the course of 10,000-15,000 years.

For example a bolter was around durring the great crusade......A bolter was around durring the horus heresy....A bolter was around in the year 40,000 and so on. The point is a bolter is a bolter it still functions and works the same way for 10,000+ years. Now obviously changes and modifications have taken place but it is still fundementally the same weapon. The problem with the plasma screen TV theory is that a priest has no idea what a TV is becuase it hasnt been invented yet. Obsolete technology durring the course of history has been phased out (wooden ships to iron-clads). However a we can assume that a tech-priest from the time of the great crusade until now knows how to build and operate a bolter. The key difference between our world and the 40k world is that the technology hasnt changed the people who use the technology have.

1hadhq wrote:And still rare and time consuming in production doesn't mean lost. tech...

Since "lost" isn't used in GW publications lately, and we could agree that TDA is available to space marines and inquisitors, is it really possible to calculate the cost?

Do inquisitors pay for their wargear?
Do space marines pay for wargear if external suppliers are involved?

Additionally, Sources like Index astartes/terminators state TDA as difficult to produce and repair.
So how much labour would a chapter take on to get their hands on TDA?


IMO, there is no common ground to guess the production cost from. But there is enough demand to make any effort
to produce it a viable action no matter the cost. Shouldn't our answer be "priceless" then?

From the understanding I've had in regards to the whole issue:

1)The Terminator armor available to Inquisitors is not the same as the Terminator armor available to the Astartes. Just like the Inquisitor's version of "Power Armor" is not technically the same.
They fall under the same general idea, but due to the lack of genetic enhancements--the suits have to have their capabilities somewhat scaled back, but it isn't enough that it really affects gameplay.

2)Inquisition wouldn't pay for their wargear, unless it was possibly for their retinue--and even then it's likely they'd just coopt what they need in the name of the Emperor. The same really goes for the Astartes, but since they're fairly self-sufficient it never has really been an issue in the fluff.

3) Part of the complexity and labor for the 'cost' of maintaining and creating set of Terminator armor is the Codex Astartes. If I had to guess, it laid down the number of Terminator equipped Veterans there were to be in a Chapter. I'd also say that another potential factor is the fact that even something as simple as reloading a gun requires a lengthy prayer and supplication.
Can you imagine the kind of ritualism that goes into crafting a set of armor that turns even the mighty Astartes into demi-gods?

Kanluwen wrote:
3) Part of the complexity and labor for the 'cost' of maintaining and creating set of Terminator armor is the Codex Astartes. If I had to guess, it laid down the number of Terminator equipped Veterans there were to be in a Chapter. I'd also say that another potential factor is the fact that even something as simple as reloading a gun requires a lengthy prayer and supplication.
Can you imagine the kind of ritualism that goes into crafting a set of armor that turns even the mighty Astartes into demi-gods?

I, sadly, can.

Agreed, TIME is the price tag of TDA.

My belief is that the Imperium Out sources to different Forge worlds( parts and pieces of the armour) the thigh armour come from one place , the chest/back pieces comes from other places.. and its get put to gether by the chapter,
There Not just one forge world that knows how to make the armour, Hence its a lost art of making a entire suit of armour.... Kinda of like How the USA did in WWII, when building tanks and planes, Parts were shipped to a factory were they were assembled and rolled out.

Doesnt that make more sense then, anything else.

Enron wrote:For example...

This doesn't address the fact that the Adeptus Mechanicus are priests who venerate technology as holy relics and think of them as possessing souls and a personality. Yes they are familiar with the function of technology, they know that a bolter is a weapon and they know how to appease the machine which builds the bolter but they do not understand that a machine is just lumps of metal and plastic fitted together, you don't have to strike the three runes of activation before pressing the magical 'ON' button. In this sense techpriests have no real understanding of what technology is, they know what it does but not what it is.

I think a good example of the mentality they probably have is that of Sheldon's mother in the first episode of the third season of The Big Bang Theory, "The Electric Can Opener Fluctuation". Sheldon argues that the Theory of Evolution is a fact and his mother replies and that's your opinion. If you were to tell a techpriest that a drill press was 'just' a machine with no soul and anyway, the Omnisiah isn't real so who cares, and you turned it on without the proper rituals or respect he would consider it blasphemy, utter heresy, and you'd live out your days as a servitor with a brass plaque riveted to your forehead proclaiming your heinous crime.

My use of a medieval character is that the mentality is the same, the cluelessness about technology and the physics of how the world works. I've stripped down SA80, I know what it is, how it works and how it is made and I know in my mind how I would make most of the components and more than that, how to simply make something to shoot a bullet. A techpriest is blinkered to that way of thinking, everything they do is part of proscribed rituals and they follow them to the letter. "The universe is not llke a puzzle-box that you can take apart and put back together again and so solve its secrets."

Just as scientists throughout history have made secret research, anatomists for example, working out how the human body functioned when it was forbidden to tamper with the sacred human form, so to do techpriests, brave forward thinkers, secretly researching into how a machine actually functions. When the machines you have are millennia old and you rely on them daily but you don't know the ins and outs of their every working what are the odds you will dismantle it just to satisfy curiosity? You have something that works, no-one would dare think to take it apart for fear of divine retribution, annoying the machine-spirit so that it wouldn't work out of spite (break it in other words) or get caught and severely punished. You'd simply quash any inquisitive thoughts and carry on praying to it and applying the holy unguents as you had been taught.

For a techpriest, dismantling a machine to try and find out how it works (even if it was the last of its type and it was imperative to have more) would be like an anatomist dissecting a human body in the medieval period, or more acurately, kidnapping someone to perform vivisection. In a time when people fervently believed that God made humans and that to cut them apart was blasphemous imagine the sort of person who would willingly perform a dissection knowing they might be burnt at the stake if caught. The attitude of techpriests to machines is no different and would take someone truly mad or brave to break with common practice.

Kanluwen wrote:
1)The Terminator armor available to Inquisitors...

2)Inquisition wouldn't pay for their wargear...

3) Part of the complexity...

1. Many people claim that Power Armour, as worn by Space Marines is the same exact thing as Power Armour worn by anyone else, just a bit fancier. They are wrong. Is a Formula One racing car the same as a Robin Reliant? Clearly not. Similar technology yes but they are not the same.

Exo-Armour exists as something that ordinary people have access to, but in this respect it is not truly armour but protective equipment. Altered by the Adeptus Mechanicus and suitably enhanced it becomes Terminator armour or TDA since it is supposed to be a combination the best elements of Power Armour and a Dreadnought.

Just as Space Marine Power Armour is designed for use by the Astartes so to can the basic principles of Powered Armour be used to make a version for non-Astartes and hence why 'Terminator' armour can be worn by the odd Inquisitor.

2. Inquisitiors have absolute authority, they can demand use of anything. Since PA and TDA are often ancient relics as well as symbols of great honour only an exceptional Inquisitor will have earnt the boon of being able to wear them and then only when the situation demands their use; just as you wouldn't use a great sword to carve your sunday roast an Inquisitor will not wear such armour every time he goes out. Inquisitors working undercover will either bring dependable weapons with them or will purchase them as needed just like anyone else to keep up the pretense of being an ordinary citizen et cetera.

3. I don't quite see your logic here, how would limiting the numbers affect cost? In any case there is no limit other than how many suits a Chapter can get their hands on and how many Brothers proove their worthiness to wear TDA. The Codex is not a complete tome, it comprises many volumes, and interpretations (even if you believe the modern lie that Guilliman wrote the original) so no doubt there are various tracts which say how many of what unit should be available.

StarGate wrote:My belief is that the Imperium Out sources to different Forge worlds...

My own personal take is that the truly difficult components to produce are the armour's on-board computer and interface systems. I would say it seems reasonable to assert that a Forge World might produce one of these components and others produce the rest. After all the deals and pacts and trading that would need to be done to secure each component it would be little wonder that rarely do full sets of componens end up in the same place at the same time; it be like when the Soviets built thousands of television frames but no insides, or left boots but no right ones.

It seems you're just arguing for argument's sake. Let me oblige:
1) The Power Armor worn by the Astartes IS a bit fancier, due to the fact that the Black Carapace fuses them directly into the suit.
The best example I've seen is to think of the same difference that exists in Halo's background with the 'average' Spartan's Mjolnir armor and Spartan 117's Cortana enhanced Mjolnir.
The suit goes from being still effective and still a step ahead of the average grunt...to being a full-on extension of the Astartes proper.
So yeah. Sure, there's the fact that your average grunt can wear a suit of Power Armor or Terminator Armor. But then there's also the fact that it loses its effectiveness without the Astartes' enhancements.
Your car analogy is garbage. If you were to say a F1 racing car in the hands of a professional driver versus an amateur it might've held water. But once again:
The suits are essentially the same thing, either way. The difference is in the wearer.
2) I'm lumping in your reply about Exo-Armor with the Inquisition reply.
2a)The short and simple of it is: following the original adaptations of Exo->TDA suits, they actually started building the stuff from the ground up as TDA.
2b)Yes. We know how the Inquisition works, thanks. However, the Inquisition cannot DEMAND anything of the Astartes and the Inquisition damned well knows it.

The Power Armor and TDA suits you're referring to that the Inquisitor "earns the boon of being able to wear them", while relics, also tend to very specifically be considered more religious artifacts or even saintly icons than relics for battle. Very rarely do these items get brought out, given that once again they're considered icons of faith at times.
And you also fail to take note that not every Inquisitor operates the same. Take Coteaz and compare him to Eisenhorn or Lok, and you get a very different picture in the way the overall Inquisition works.
Inquisitors of the different Ordos operate differently, crazy enough an idea it is to consider. The Ordos Xenos tends towards being more roving and getting involved wherever needed, while the Ordos Hereticus tends towards staying in the shadows and rooting heretics out from there.
And then you get that third beast of the major Ordos, Malleus. Malleus' Inquisitors seem to tend towards more open and brazen conflict, but that might just be a result of what they're facing. By the time Malleus is getting involved, it's full warfare anyways so eh. Why bother with the slinking about of Xenos/Hereticus there?

3) If you're not seeing how the Codex Astartes affects the construction cost of TDA, I don't know how to help you.
And actually, yes. There is a limit on how many suits a Chapter can get their hands on and the training required to operate them. And yes, again, there is a difference in the Codex. Oddly enough, however, it's been noted that if a non-Codex Chapter scavenges a set of armor--that it can be considered grounds for a conflict between Chapters.
Because y'know, 'stealing' a suit of relic armor is a great idea.

And once again--Terminator Armor is not something that can be mass-produced. Part of the issue is the on-board systems, sure. However another part is the complexity of the force field generators employed in the design, alongside of the fact that the suits are essentially built for ONE wearer, and then handed down through the ages. The Terminator suits are effectively considered, once again, holy relics. Chapters have gone to war to recover a lost suit to repair and refit, and the previous owners are part of what makes the suits so precious.

Also, since it was asked earlier on:
The invulnerable save on Chaos Terminators is explained as being the Blessings of the Dark Gods, given that most wearers of the corrupted suits are considered Champions or Chosen.

Gogsnik wrote:
The Codex is not a complete tome, it comprises many volumes, and interpretations (even if you believe the modern lie that Guilliman wrote the original) so no doubt there are various tracts which say how many of what unit should be available.

lie?

Holy st. G-man not writing it?
I can hear the outrage from macragge......

Isn't a lot of "tomes" comprised of different sources and the author was sure some good tactics would be ignored
if their inventor's would be mentioned?

Come on, which smurf would apply a tactic coming right from a traitor primarchs mind?

So ignorance protects knowledge.

BOT:

The amount of relics like TDA in a chapter isn't restricted in any new codex.
If we apply fluff ( "salamanders" / BL ), some chapters run low on wargear whilst others are able replace worn stuff.
Example:
- salamanders forge a new suit of artificer armor for a newly promoted captain, whilst melting the old PA with its
wearer in a burial ceremony.
- marines malevolent scavenge a ad mech ship for wargear. Their actual wargear seems outdated and worn.

- ad mech forgeship transports storeys full of new power-armor and weapons.

So, some chapters may just patch their wargear. Others can repair and replace pieces to keep it fully functional.

Would be the same for TDA.
Some chapters may know either how to repair or where to get replacements, other chapters may only field what is actually still working.

Wow, just, wow. Don't get your panties in a bunch fella.

It seems you're just arguing for argument's sake.

I don't know how familiar you are with the background, I was only adding to your points to give you more information to enhance your conclusions.

1) The Power Armor worn by the Astartes IS a bit fancier, due to the fact that the Black Carapace fuses them directly into the suit.
The best example I've seen is to think of the same difference that exists in Halo's background with the 'average' Spartan's Mjolnir armor and Spartan 117's Cortana enhanced Mjolnir.
The suit goes from being still effective and still a step ahead of the average grunt...to being a full-on extension of the Astartes proper.
So yeah. Sure, there's the fact that your average grunt can wear a suit of Power Armor or Terminator Armor. But then there's also the fact that it loses its effectiveness without the Astartes' enhancements.

My point is that an ordinary human does not wear Powered Armour which is the same as Space Marine Power Armour, it isn't that it just isn't as effective because they lack the Black Carapace, it is less effective because the armour is not the same and not as good. The Warhammer 40,000 Compilation clearly differentiates between Space Marine Power Armour and other forms of Powered Armour.

Hence my car analogy where an F1 racing car has a precision of construction, a material cost and required skill to drive that is markedly different to that of and needed for the driving of a Robin Reliant. Space Marine Powered Armour could potentially be worn by a non-Astartes but would be worse than useless since it requires the Black Carapace to operate. A suit of Powered Armour can be worn by non-Astartes but it is no-where near as good nor as sophisticated in ability or design.

And you also fail to take note that not every Inquisitor operates the same.

No I didn't.

Inquisitors of the different Ordos operate differently, crazy enough an idea it is to consider.

The Ordos Xenos tends towards being more roving and getting involved wherever needed, while the Ordos Hereticus tends towards staying in the shadows and rooting heretics out from there.

And then you get that third beast of the major Ordos, Malleus.

Malleus' Inquisitors seem to tend towards more open and brazen conflict, but that might just be a result of what they're facing. By the time Malleus is getting involved, it's full warfare anyways so eh. Why bother with the slinking about of Xenos/Hereticus there?

I find your over-simplification of the Inquisitorial Ordos to be quite ammusing considering your earlier comment.

There is no pre-requisite that an Inquisitor from one Ordo will operate any differently to an Inquisitor of another Ordo. Each Inquisitor works based on their personal way of thinking, how their mentor/s trained them, their philosophy, faction, their contacts, their access to men and materiel, the specific nature of the enemies they face, their goals, the world they are on and countless other considerations. Do you truly think that the Ordo Malleus waits until all out war is the only option or that that is their preferred method of fighting? Would a Monodominant Inquisitor Ordinary of the Ordo Malleus go charging in, probably, would an Amalathian Inquisitor Lord of the Ordo prefer to be more subtle, maybe, would a Horusian searching for a vessel for the Emperor, even care if an Imperial world was lost to daemons so long as his research was advanced, doubtful.

I mean, Hereticus, staying in the shadows? Really? Do you see Tyrus or Karamazov sneaking about in the shadows? lol

Instead of making a fool of yourself slamming someone else, you might like to brush up on the background first, then maybe you'll know what you're talking about.

3) If you're not seeing how the Codex Astartes affects the construction cost of TDA, I don't know how to help you.
And actually, yes. There is a limit on how many suits a Chapter can get their hands on and the training required to operate them. And yes, again, there is a difference in the Codex. Oddly enough, however, it's been noted that if a non-Codex Chapter scavenges a set of armor--that it can be considered grounds for a conflict between Chapters.
Because y'know, 'stealing' a suit of relic armor is a great idea.

Your assertion, no, not even that, your guess, is that the Codex limits how many suits a Chapter is allowed to have. It doesn't. A Chapter can have as many suits as it likes they just can't because they are so rare.

In any case that would not have any effect on how much it costs the Adeptus Mechanicus to produce a suit of terminator armour. The Codex has no say, of any kind, at what rate the Mechanicus can produce anything. Your statement is worded such that even if there were millions of suits of terminator armour the Codex would limit how many each Chapter could have, nonsense. If that is not what you were trying to say you need to reword your statement.

I find it amusing how much has gone into this thread, when there will never be a clear answer since GW doesnt give one and this is fantasy land where they rule not the gamers..

short easy answer since im already here.

Does out Government really care how much things cost? no its awesome they buy it nuff said.

The people able to get termi armor are far more powerful (obviously) do they really care how much it costs? nope they just need it/want it/get it.

IvanTih wrote:Why bother to produce TDA,just put some forcefield on the power armor's backpack.

Thought I said that already...

Frazzled wrote:

IvanTih wrote:Why bother to produce TDA,just put some forcefield on the power armor's backpack.

Thought I said that already...

Sorry for that.

Given the general warp-sensitivity of humans in 40k, it might not actually be such a bad idea to essentially read the Bible to every single cog of TDA suit before installing it. Those prayers can actually have a practical application in protecting the wearer, by purging any latent possiblility of corruption from the armor itself, and allowing the Emperor to keep an eye on it.

The fact that it might take years to do all that isn't that much of a problem. The SM are so few, and the production capacity of the AM so huge that assigning a few techpriests to do all that reading wouldn't be a problem.