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Hey all,

I've just bought a box of Chaos Space Marines and I was wondering why do the chaos back packs have those really long joints connecting the nodes to the backpack??

Is it some extension of the back pack, like regular marines have it too?? I'm pretty sure it's not mutation because they look pretty integral to the design of the pack itself??

And it wouldn't be armor patterns either, they are all different as well.

So just curious, thanks for any explanation.

Nobody really knows. So far as I'm aware, GW has never explained it.


The 'nodes' are stabiliser vents, according to a very old cutaway diagram of a marine backpack. So my theory is that they need to be spread further out to the sides, because Chaos Marines are more unstable than their Loyalist counterparts...




Yes, pun intended...

Chaos marines pretty much are all those people who turned to the dark side during the Horus heresy. They would likely have had an older mark of armour because since then the armour was re-designed/re-built.
Then you have make shift repairs and corruption, corrosion etc.

The packs specifically are most likely just older style and the marines had a newer power pack built to be more stable or something.

In reality they have the packs like that to differentiate them from regular marines as they look more sinister. Really chaos marines should look more like marines with just touches of chaos taint rather that sporting walrus tusks etc.

Boniface wrote:
The packs specifically are most likely just older style and the marines had a newer power pack built to be more stable or something.

Except that the older armour marks have never been shown with that sort of backpack.

The Chaos Marine backpacks have always looked like that, I guess to differentiate them more from the Loyalists. I wouldn't try and read too much into it other than an aesthetic choice by the early sculptors.

Some of the old RT pictures, in Slaves to Darkness I think, had the backpacks being used as rocket packs. So I guess that's why they were placed further out, so that the wearer wouldn't burn their ass. But I guess they stuck with the design and just dropped the rocket pack idea.

I think in the first FW horus heresy book it explains that it was a type of experimental cooling system being incorporated into some backpack powerpacks which were being deigned to be self sustaining. I think. Why every single heresy era/renegade would adopt this is beyond me. I guess it's kinda like covering your armor in spikes in a sense.

"Because it looks cool." Do we really need another reason?

It prolongs the glorious and delightful pain the users feel as the packs take just a tad longer to work than loyalist packs when it comes to filtering out the hazards of their battlefield surroundings and providing them with battle-trauma therapy.

Rule of cool doesn't apply here in my opinion, because I've always thought they look kind of goofy all stretched out like that. Loyalist packs are way more pleasing to the eye, sleek and economic.

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
It prolongs the glorious and delightful pain the users feel as the packs take just a tad longer to work than loyalist packs when it comes to filtering out the hazards of their battlefield surroundings and providing them with battle-trauma therapy.

More like prolonging the glorious and delightful pain the painters feel as the packs take just a tad longer to finish than loyalist packs when it comes to removing mould lines.

Maybe naive renegade chapters just want to fit in?

You stick skulls on them. Why?

Because it shows off the skulls better than on your knees, shoulders, elbows, etc.

thanks for the replies, I figured it would be a design aesthetic but sometimes there might be fluff behind them, just thought i'd ask.

Thanks again

The previous codex has a drawing that states the backpack has "expanded venting required for stacked cell power plant"...whatever that means. As said before, it's mainly aesthetic.

Rule of Cool.

 Flinty wrote:
The Chaos Marine backpacks have always looked like that, I guess to differentiate them more from the Loyalists. I wouldn't try and read too much into it other than an aesthetic choice by the early sculptors.

Bingo.

It's just an aesthetic. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Chaos backpacks have always looked more or less like that, even before the idea of the older armor marks even came about.

http://www.solegends.com/citcat19911/c2108chaosrenegades-00.jpg
http://www.solegends.com/citcat19911/c2106chaosrenegades-00.jpg
http://www.solegends.com/citcat19911/c2107chaosrenegades-00.htm


Pretty much, the original Chaos Marines were all wacky and mutated. When that sort of transitioned to the less mutatey, more spiky Chaos Marines later on, the backpacks changed, but the aesthetic stayed more or less the same.

http://www.solegends.com/citcat1997/1997p115-01.htm






Automatically Appended Next Post:

 PrehistoricUFO wrote:
It prolongs the glorious and delightful pain the users feel as the packs take just a tad longer to work than loyalist packs when it comes to filtering out the hazards of their battlefield surroundings and providing them with battle-trauma therapy.

Rule of cool doesn't apply here in my opinion, because I've always thought they look kind of goofy all stretched out like that. Loyalist packs are way more pleasing to the eye, sleek and economic.

Agreed. I've always chopped down mine when I made Chaos Marine models.

Because it adds to the spiky appeal.

I think I maybe possibly vaguely remember something in the previous CSM book about the older/worse power packs needing the exhausts to be further out. But that isn't really supported by the loyalist depictions of early power armour.

I personally prefer the "extended" style to the SM type, it helps balance out the horns on their helmets a bit IMO.

Rule of cool gets my vote. That and it helps to differentiate from normal space marines at a glace on the table.

Although funnily enough, the Dark Vengeance Chosen models get back packs which are more like normal Space Marine backpacks.