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At first I thought that Chaos Terminators were wearing the Indomitus Terminator armour like Space Marine Terminators but a look at this page:

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Terminator_Armour

made me doubt it because the Gorgon Terminator armour looks very much like the Chaos Terminator models, mostly because of the armour on the shoulder and torso.

What do you think? Or are Chaos Terminator models a completely different Terminator armour? I'm mostly interested in the exact Chaos Terminator models but if you have some background readings, I'm interested in that as well.

They should be cataprhactii but they are not, nor are they tartoros.

It's Indomitus. Gorgon armour is basically an Indomitus prototype anyway I think.

Chaos Terminator armor is literally just indomitus armor with tusks and spikes, that's all. Gorgon Pattern was a prototype exclusive to the Iron Hands.

Chaos armor will have been so warped at this point that identifying the original pattern will be difficult.

Not to mention they'll likely have stolen/made some new suits over the millennia. The a lot of chaos marines will be marines who turned traitor after the Heresy.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Chaos armor will have been so warped at this point that identifying the original pattern will be difficult.

Not to mention they'll likely have stolen/made some new suits over the millennia. The a lot of chaos marines will be marines who turned traitor after the Heresy.

This.

It's also possible that the dark mechanicum has produced a new mark of armour.

If its a heresy era marine in heresy era armour though.
That is one dangerous traitor...

Indomitus. GW only makes the Indomitus and Mk 7 armours, with small exceptions such as a handful of Mk6 head, shoulders and legs, Mk4 heads in even few kits and legs in the tactical box. But as far as Terminators go, GW main is Indomitus, FW covers cataphractii, Tartoros and Gorgon and all their offshoots like Justaerin Cataphractii and Deathshroud Tatarus.

It also should be noted that what armor the Chaos Terminators wear is pretty obvious, they're the exact same models as the loyalist ones. The only difference between the two are horns, mammoth tusks, and mastadon tusks.

Yes I thought so too. But as I wrote, the Gorgon Terminator armour looks very much like the Chaos Terminators as well. I haven't found the background where it says that Gorgon Terminator armour were Iron Hands exclusive, though I know of course that it was the Gorgon who made it.

They are a product of GW inconsistency.

It should be either Cataphractii- or Tartaros Pattern, but it's Indomitus Pattern for some reason.

It's Indomitus because that's the only suit that existed when the plastics were made. GW didn't invent Cataphracts and Tartaros suits until afterwards - and both were new designs, they bear little resemblance to the old RT era variant Terminators.

And fluffwise there is nothing wrong with it being Indomitus, according to the Horus Heresy books Indomitus, Tartaros and Saturnine were introduced at roughly the same time, and Cataphract armour was already in decline before the Heresy.

As for Gorgon armour being Iron Hand only, well, it doesn't EXPLICITLY say it was only used by them in the fluff, but the fact the only source for its existence is the Iron Hands only Gorgon Terminator Squad - whose point of uniqueness is that they wear Gorgon armour - in the Iron Hands section of Massacre kinda hints at it. Also note that the wearer needs to be cybernetically bonded into his suit ala Darth Vader, so it's not going to be overly common in other legions even if they did have access to the design.

Seriously, the only structural difference between the Chaos Terminator plastics and the Imperials is the lack of separate kneepads, and we know from canon that that isn't enough to constitute a separate pattern because WD129 stated that the Mk7's articulated knees had already been incorporated into later Mk6 suits.

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
They are a product of GW inconsistency.

It should be either Cataphractii- or Tartaros Pattern, but it's Indomitus Pattern for some reason.

It's not really "inconsistency".

The Chaos terminator models predate the Forgeworld stuff. Forgeworld invents new versions of Terminator armor because you don't have one of those yet and you'll buy the new shiny.

It's the same reason the Mk IV Power Armor fluff was adjusted to be "the best" in IA4. Because they happened to be selling Mk IV armor upgrades and you didn't have that yet.

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
They are a product of GW inconsistency.

It should be either Cataphractii- or Tartaros Pattern, but it's Indomitus Pattern for some reason.

It's not really "inconsistency".

The Chaos terminator models predate the Forgeworld stuff. Forgeworld invents new versions of Terminator armor because you don't have one of those yet and you'll buy the new shiny.

It's the same reason the Mk IV Power Armor fluff was adjusted to be "the best" in IA4. Because they happened to be selling Mk IV armor upgrades and you didn't have that yet.

Except that MK 6, 7 and 8 are all superior. Go look at Lexicanum. The Mk 6 has more efficient power and autosenses, redundancies, compartmentalised sections for ease of repair, systems that allow rare parts to be replace by more common versions, is stealthy and much lighter for no loss of protection. And Mk 7 is pretty much the same with a solid breastplate for added protection, and the Mk8 is the Mk7 with a collar to prevent rounds bouncing off the chest into the chin and out the skull. I understand what you are saying is that "They were said to be the best because they were selling new shiny" but this is a general message to those who want to say that Heresy armour was better. The Mk 6 was already in development to replace the Mk4 when HH broke out. And in regards to TDA, Indomitus and Cataphractii are pretty much on level terms. Cataphractii was obviously much heavier and therefore better protection, but Indomitus was lighter and it gave already unprecedented levels of protection already. Tartaurus is the only one strictly superior to them, being much lighter and lither than them, while losing no resilience compared to Indomitus.

Ooops, Mea Culpa.

The chaos terminators sprues are dated 2006, the Cataphract design dates from the Horus Heresy CCG in 2003, although since it was produced by a different division it's possible the miniature department may have been unaware of it, although it was John Blanche who came up with the Cataphract design.

 Deadshot wrote:

It's the same reason the Mk IV Power Armor fluff was adjusted to be "the best" in IA4. Because they happened to be selling Mk IV armor upgrades and you didn't have that yet.

Except that MK 6, 7 and 8 are all superior. Go look at Lexicanum.

Bloody hell this quote is screwed up. Reposting.

No, by FFG at least MK IV armor is not the best power armor, MK VII and MK VIII have higher armor ratings. Maximus armor had better sensors, but for obvious reasons Aquila and Errant should have better armor, especially Errant Armor. Corvus meanwhile is the best armor for stealth and general sneakiness.

 Deadshot wrote:

 Veteran Sergeant wrote:

 Finlandiaperkele wrote:
They are a product of GW inconsistency.

It should be either Cataphractii- or Tartaros Pattern, but it's Indomitus Pattern for some reason.

It's not really "inconsistency".

The Chaos terminator models predate the Forgeworld stuff. Forgeworld invents new versions of Terminator armor because you don't have one of those yet and you'll buy the new shiny.

It's the same reason the Mk IV Power Armor fluff was adjusted to be "the best" in IA4. Because they happened to be selling Mk IV armor upgrades and you didn't have that yet.

Except that MK 6, 7 and 8 are all superior. Go look at Lexicanum. The Mk 6 has more efficient power and autosenses, redundancies, compartmentalised sections for ease of repair, systems that allow rare parts to be replace by more common versions, is stealthy and much lighter for no loss of protection. And Mk 7 is pretty much the same with a solid breastplate for added protection, and the Mk8 is the Mk7 with a collar to prevent rounds bouncing off the chest into the chin and out the skull. I understand what you are saying is that "They were said to be the best because they were selling new shiny" but this is a general message to those who want to say that Heresy armour was better. The Mk 6 was already in development to replace the Mk4 when HH broke out. And in regards to TDA, Indomitus and Cataphractii are pretty much on level terms. Cataphractii was obviously much heavier and therefore better protection, but Indomitus was lighter and it gave already unprecedented levels of protection already. Tartaurus is the only one strictly superior to them, being much lighter and lither than them, while losing no resilience compared to Indomitus.

Hence why I said "fluff was adjusted" in IA4 to suggest MkIV was better, so people would buy the new shiny.

When in reality, Mk IV was a huge upgrade from the predecessors and was intended to be the final Mark, but turned out to be too difficult to repair and lacked redundancy in its systems. Which tends to happen with first-run military projects.

Edit: "In reality" is probably the wrong word to use for a fictional setting, lol. More in how the original article on "historical" power armors by Rick Priestley was written. Yes, everything about Mk VII was supposed to be superior to MK IV. In fact, it refers to the MK VI beakie helmet specifically as an "improved version of the Mark 4" and the Mk VII as "the final development of Mark 6" Other text in the article referred to "improvements were made to the knee joint articulation" and the chest plastron also being an "improvement". It doesn't really mince words, calling Mark 7 the "fulfillment of the new design program."

The wording used on Mark 4 is far less complementary. "Unable to maintain it properly", "replace Mark 4 with a more durable type". Basically Mark 4 had lofty expectations for being amazing, but instead turned out to be hard to repair and other ways to improve it were found.

But then again, that article was written when Mark VII was the new shiny, so we can't really fault Forgeworld for changing history to suit their new sales targets.