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So Dakka with the recent "what do your want more of in W40K" thread and the talk of more Science Fiction, I was curious, in which direction do you want PA for the Adeptus Astartes and Sister of Battle to veer in both art design or even possible future model design? For those that don't know, pushing for the Sci Fi direction would mean hammering home that power armor is an exoskeleton powered carapace with numerous special functions, is an actual piece of technology with a fusion power source and boosts the strength of the wearer via hydraulics and nanomuscle tissue, similar to the nanosuit from Crysis. Some suit functions are directly visible, such as various dials and meters on location like the wrist/forearm for ease of use for the wearer to provide more information that would normally clutter the HUD of the wearer. Not to mention give it a noticeable "sheen" appearance that goes hand in hand with "futuristic technology"". For Sisters this would also likely mean getting rid of the space corsets appearance and replacing it with reinforced torso armor, like a smaller version of the astartes' plate. Also this would mean chucking the "inner tube" appearance of Astartes soft armor for a more cybernetic muscle feel. Good examples of this are-


For low tech, Eurofantasy. Focusing more on the armor aspect above all, the power part is largely forgotten as it largely is just rendered as plate armor with mechanical powering, but barely noted and not nearly as emphasized as the futuristic take. The current art design is between the two, but it's dipping more to here than it is futuristic.

Man I might have actually chosen to play space marines if they had looked like that Templar in the first picture.

I quite like that Imperial Fists layout. Don't see how the Black Templar shown could bend over with the cuirass extending down in the front like that. I like that the Imperial fists one preserves the overall outline and bulk, which I see no problem with. Admittedly, my wife (biologist to my physicist) has done the lion's share of the work on the Space Marine part of our rationalization program, so I'll have to show it to her when her flight gets in.

I like Space Marines looking dark but to be honest they should probably be high tech.

 purplefood wrote:
I like Space Marines looking dark but to be honest they should probably be high tech.

It's one of the big divergences, typically, between the way fluff is written and how they are portrayed in art. The fluff presents them more or less as we would expect them to be: high tech gene-enhanced super warriors (such that 1,500,000 or so can make a difference to the course of events in the Imperium as a whole). The art has a much more Medieval, stylized approach.

 Wyzilla wrote:
... Some suit functions are directly visible, such as various dials and meters on location like the wrist/forearm for ease of use for the wearer to provide more information that would normally clutter the HUD of the wearer.

I'm not really seeing how putting information systems on the forearm of a suit of combat armour where they would be immediately vulnerable to impact damage or environmental damage is a more high-tech solution than having a functional HUD...


And I have no idea what you mean by this...

... Not to mention give it a noticeable "sheen" appearance that goes hand in hand with "futuristic technology"".

 insaniak wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:
... Some suit functions are directly visible, such as various dials and meters on location like the wrist/forearm for ease of use for the wearer to provide more information that would normally clutter the HUD of the wearer.

I'm not really seeing how putting information systems on the forearm of a suit of combat armour where they would be immediately vulnerable to impact damage or environmental damage is a more high-tech solution than having a functional HUD...


And I have no idea what you mean by this...

... Not to mention give it a noticeable "sheen" appearance that goes hand in hand with "futuristic technology"".

Yeah, I didn't get those two either. Having done work on semiotics for head-mounted displays, just making it easily selectable is better than putting it on another display. Also, there are vastly more efficient ways to make information accessible than we take advantage of today. After 10,000 years of continual experience one would imagine the Imperium's semiotics and interface theory have all the rough edges smoothed off and do take advantage of all those tricks.

With regards to the second point, matte surfaces are generally desired for military equipment for a variety of reasons.

Power armor has always been described as a self contained suit with many functions, that also increases the strength of the wearer. I think this is always been represented fairly well in the space marine models. Although in contrast I have never been too fond of the sisters power armor only because it doesn't get that same "powered suit" feeling across to me, being much more form fitting. I wouldn't mind as much if maybe space marines were slimmed down a bit and sisters filled lut a little more, creating a more standardized vision of power armor as a whole.

Most of Astartes' armor's systems are controlled by thought, removing the need to have an analog controls on your machine-suit.

It should also be noted that Sororitas PA does not contain the same number of functions that SM PA does... it just stops bullets equally as well.

I would probably say low tech, but more archaic and cathedral like than the pictures. I love the whole intimidating feel of churches and medieval/renaissance christianity. I defiantly like to see more thorns and religious icons on armour too, with the grey knights as a example.
What I'm trying to say, is that…you know the feeling when you walk into old cathedrals, such as Notre Damme and you get intimidated or feel a bit uneasy?…and you see all the religious scriptures and art, with bloody deaths…and hell…and sharp things (i know, i sound weird) and angels and all the other shizz nizz…or thats just me. Thats the way i like to see 40k, but even more grim dark.

But hey, thats just me…its the way i like to see 40k.

TBH I don't see that much difference between the two versions in the pictures.

 Archie The Death Rider wrote:
I would probably say low tech, but more archaic and cathedral like than the pictures. I love the whole intimidating feel of churches and medieval/renaissance christianity. I defiantly like to see more thorns and religious in cons on armour too.


But hey, thats just me…its the way i like to see 40k.

I like those things too, but think that they're orthogonal axes: high-tech/low-tech, slick-futuristic/ornate-medieval. We can have our ornate medievalism (better suited to the Imperium's sociology/history anyway) and our high tech. That's one of the reasons why the 40K Universe is so much fun!

I prefer balance.

Rugged exterior like in the game Space Marine, but with full high-tech HUD and everything.

More gothic and medieval please. If we make the SM more high-tech, they will just be futuristic space warrior #1001.
They will look like all those other power armoured guys in all those other sci-fi settings. No, 40k is Sci-Fantasy, and it has to stay that way. The whole gothic, religious look of the IoM is what makes the 40k aesthethic so special.

One pic seems to be broken, it's by the same artist of the Imperial Fist, but with a more advanced appearing Astartes armor while still bearing the basic appearance.

http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2013/134/7/6/space_marine_by_fonteart-d659qdy.jpg

As for what I prefer, I really do like to lean to the advanced, high tech-looking astartes armor over the pure Eurofantasy plate with the armor appearing to be actual ceramic metal plates you might see on an MBT, or in this case, a walking MBT. However, I wouldn't want to sacrifice all fantasy elements- I do like the theme of crusading "angelic" superhuman knights, but that doesn't mean they need to be wearing something that just looks like plate armor. I also think it really just comes down to not just the thickness of the plate, but what you also see under the plate in the joints, tiny digital displays on the wrist/forearm, visible energy fields from iron halos and rosarius ornaments, and the tiny rivets, small slots, and grooves in the plate that make it look like it was actually assembled industrially. What I really want though, is for GW to emphasize that this.



Is what Astartes actually wear under their armor. Not only does it make sense why it makes PA feel like a "second skin" with the black carapace, or how Chaos Space Marines can actually be fused to their armor with no adverse affects to movement.

But don't get wrong, I do like Chaos Warrior heads being used for CSM models, but PA should definitely lean a lot more the POWER armor side of things for aesthetic design. Not so much to leave fantasy behind in the dust, but to give it a really distinct feel.

I think GW's own fluff of there being so many patterns of armour that are passed on bit by bit from brother to brother lends itself to a mixture of armour types.

I personally prefer the modern look but I do like giving my sgts the older style chests, the 'spotty' shoulders etc that are meant to be from ancient patterns that their rank would allow them access to.

I have to admit I like the high tech look a lot more than the ornate medieval look, and this is coming from someone with a small BT army. This is my favorite picture of a space marine

With the exception of the Black Templar's 'yeah yeah on the catwalk' hips, all the pics up above look pretty much the same to me.

I like Space Marine armor the way it is.

Well the BT picture is actually not a high-tech extreme but a pretty decent middle ground in my opinion. There is plenty of knightly features but its clearly futuristic. As the Imperium should always be. You can easily create a sleeker look for SMs while retaining or adding gothic elements to make them distinct.

Externally, SM PA should be big, bulky and archaic-looking. It should have pauldrons and tabards and ornate knee-caps and elbows, with Chapter iconography on its shoulders and legs, and basically give the viewer the feel that this suit of armor is Old As Hell and that the designs on it were carved or painted by hand.

Inside, the suit should be high-tech as hell, with commo systems, radiation detectors, targeting reticules, time-displays, HUD data-feeds and a million and one different overlays of tactical data and doctrine... done in that High Gothic font that makes it look like an illuminated text from the 13th century.

I think Relic nailed the aesthetic of PA in Space Marine, it looks rugged, but looks high tech and seems both fitting of a second skin while still being bulky. The Imperial Fist in the OP is also good IMO as well.

I like the ornate slightly knightly, with a gothic high tech version. Is this a trend I have black templers too, abet unfluffy as can be.

In any other setting I prefer the more sleek-high tech look. In 40k however we have 8km long battle cathedrals and giant church tanks, so I prefer the more medieval look. Not to say that I dont think the more sleek look has no place in 40K, every chapter is different. I can fully imagine some of the more newly founded chapters to have much more futuristic looking mark XIII style armour.

I like the high tech look but the main problems with most marine armor is it has to much decoration. IMHO marine armor needs to go for functionality over decoration.

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
I prefer balance.

Rugged exterior like in the game Space Marine, but with full high-tech HUD and everything.

So basically the Imperium aesthetic as a whole? Like how a Leman Russ is a flipping box with treads, but it's the best damn box with treads you could ask for.

 Arcsquad12 wrote:

 BrotherHaraldus wrote:
I prefer balance.

Rugged exterior like in the game Space Marine, but with full high-tech HUD and everything.

So basically the Imperium aesthetic as a whole? Like how a Leman Russ is a flipping box with treads, but it's the best damn box with treads you could ask for.

Correction, the Leman Russ is logistically the best tank you could ever ask for. In actual practice, it's horribly designed and makes some of the more zany "those crazy Nazis" projects from WWII look sane and practical in design.

Hello Wyzilla, I think this premise is, for lack of a better word, "wrong".

40,000 is a fantasy setting thrust into the future. Things should be medieval/roman infused with futuristic technological elements.
In this regard, GW have performed quite well.

If things are too futuristic, it may as well be another boring generic sci-fi world.
If things are too "fantasy", we might as we'll be playing WHFB.

It's the combination of fantasy and futuristic themes that makes 40,000 unique.
So perhaps the discussion we should be having is how best to amalgamate fantasy and futuristic elements. They should blend well and not clash.


EDIT: interestingly, Rick Priestly originally intended 40,000 to be a dystopic post apocalyptic world. The dystopic and industrial elements remained, but GW started adding more fantasy and medieval elements over time, contrary to Priestly's intentions. I think their decision was right.

High tech.

You can get some cool models by taking high tech and adding in a bit of gothic fantasy, but starting with plate mail and trying to spruce it up with bullets doesn't really work all that well. At best, the models that are exceptions to this (like some of the inquisition stuff) only works in the context of being the exception.

It's got to be sci-fi with retro throwback. Retro work with bits of futuristicness tend to look hackneyed, and B-movie.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
TBH I don't see that much difference between the two versions in the pictures.

Thank the Allfather, I was worried I was the only one sitting here thinking that.

It might just be my Wolves but personally I kind of feel like my power armour already looks like a mixture between the two. All the high-tech fancy bits but the various pelts, runes and trinkets give it that old school feel. Guess I'm just lucky that way.

I agree with Killkrazy both look low tech, this looks high tech.