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 Manchu wrote:

 Ashiraya wrote:
Third picture from the left.

Thought you meant in terms of art - yep WHFB is listed there because the license is valuable.

So is the 40k IP. However, while there is art from both AoS/WHFB and 40k present, 40k is omitted from the information poster.

That is odd, isn't it? Sure, WHFB has TW:WH, but 40k has DoW3 on the move.

 Ashiraya wrote:
That is odd, isn't it?

Yep. Maybe to point out specifically that they are separate and/or both available?

EDIT: GW is listing them separately

http://licensing16.mapyourshow.com/7_0/exhibitor/exhibitor-details.cfm?ExhID=13748

... this part is getting a bit OT ...

Here's a pic of the complete set up:



Poor SM got covered up. Sister is front and center!

 JohnHwangDD wrote:
Leather corset and yoga pants = "Power Armor". Right.

Must be pretty hot underneath all that shaped ceramite plating

Outside of the torso and the very obtrusive breast plate, I think Sororitas Power Armour looks suitable for female soldiers who don't have Black Carapace enhancements or superhuman strength to carry regular Powered Armour. It's still using the same materials that goes into Astartes armour (and the same power source), so it's just as durable, but it cuts down on bulk by stripping out many of the support systems found in Space Marine Power Armour to make it light enough to carry, hence giving it its shape.

How did we even end up here anyways? Aren't we supposed to be talking about the feasibility of plastic SoB?

By definition, powered armor is... powered. Strength is a lot less of a factor for power armor wearers. And the black carapace doesn't increase strength while wearing power armor, it increases agility. I'm not arguing that Sisters need to look bulkier (rather, I think that they should go for more of a stylized medieval platemail look for the chestplate but otherwise it's perfectly okay), I'm just pointing out that your logic doesn't entirely work.

Sisters could also be employing a more sophisticated design of power armor, that is not as bulky as Astartes armor.

Melissia wrote:By definition, powered armor is... powered. Strength is a lot less of a factor for power armor wearers. And the black carapace doesn't increase strength while wearing power armor, it increases agility. I'm not arguing that Sisters need to look bulkier (rather, I think that they should go for more of a stylized medieval platemail look for the chestplate but otherwise it's perfectly okay), I'm just pointing out that your logic doesn't entirely work.

The armour does increase the strength of the Sister so that she can wield heavy weaponry more easily, however without the Black Carapace she cannot best capitalise on the suit's capabilities of enhancing her strength like a Space Marine can in his Power Armour. So in a sense, the Black Carapace does increase the user's strength when interfacing with Powered Armour, but not directly - it's function is primarily with operating other support systems that Sisters don't have access to.

I think a platemail chest piece would be pretty neat too - it just needs to reduce the obtrusion of the wearer's breasts, as even modern female soldiers wearing much more basic and "skintight" protection don't have their knockers on parade as a result of wearing body armour.

adamsouza wrote:Sisters could also be employing a more sophisticated design of power armor, that is not as bulky as Astartes armor.

Correct, to a degree - it's a much lighter suit than any of the regular marks of Adeptus Astartes Armour, but this is primarily because it sacrifices a lot of the auxiliary systems a Space Marine suit has since the Sisters can't use them without a Black Carapace implant.

G.A

 General Annoyance wrote:
The armour does increase the strength of the Sister so that she can wield heavy weaponry more easily, however without the Black Carapace she cannot best capitalise on the suit's capabilities of enhancing her strength like a Space Marine can in his Power Armour.

Black carapace still does not increase strength. Not even in conjunction with power armor. It simply does not do that. The sororitas power armor is not astartes power armor. Even if sororitas had black carapace, if they had sororitas power armor, they still would not have access to the strength enhancing capabilities of astartes power armor. Because sororitas power armor does not have that feature. Nor does black carapace.

You're grasping at straws here.

As quoted from Lexicanum:

Though Sororitas Power Armour provides the same level of protection as suits worn by the Space Marines, the lack of a Black Carapace means the Battle Sister cannot fully interface with the armour and so lacks the same strength enhancement and other advanced life-support features found in Astartes power armour. Still, Sororitas Power Armour does improve the user's strength and allows them to better handle heavy weapons more easily

Emphasis mine

The RPGs give different stats for 'powered armour' and 'Astartes powered armour'. Armour worn by Inquisitors, Battle Sisters, and other people who aren't cybered-up eight-foot transhuman killing machines is smaller.

Like the quote you gave said, the armor itself lacks the strength enhancements.

The armor doesn't have them. If an an astartes somehow fit in sororitas power armor they would not be as strong as they are in astartes power armor.

Read your own quotes before throwing them in my face

Not sure how it is relevant to anything but the quotation as presented indicates that SoB PA does not enhance the wearer's strength to the same degree as SM PA because the Sister lacks a black carapace; not because the SoB PA itself is inferior to SM PA. (FYI - Lexicanum cites Dark Heresy: Blood of Martyrs for this point)

It clearly says sororitas power armor "lacks the same strength enhancement and other advanced life-support features found in Astartes power armour."

You know, exactly what I've been saying this entire time. The preceding bit about black carapace explains why it lacks some of the featurescommonly found in Astartes armor. But the core idea is that, since sororitas do not have black carapace, they don't have the features that require it in the armor. It's be wasteful to.

You have left out the clause explaining why:

"the lack of a Black Carapace means the Battle Sister cannot fully interface with the armour and so"

Whether the two suits of PA provide the same amount of strength enhancement, all other things being equal, is not discussed one way or the other. But the quotation explicitly attributes the inferior strength enhancement of SoB PA to the Sisters' lack of Black Carapace. Probably not too well thought out (and grammatically problematic) but that's what it says. The best interpretation is probably: "this PA was designed for humans who do not have a black carapace so it was not designed to include the strength-enhancement capabilities that a human with a black carapace could use with different PA design."

 Melissia wrote:
Like the quote you gave said, the armor itself lacks the strength enhancements.

Does it?

"the lack of a Black Carapace means the Battle Sister cannot fully interface with the[as in her suit of Adeptus Sororitas] armour"

The only things that are lacking from Sororitas armour are the life support systems they cannot operate; it still has the same power source and I assume the same servos as Astartes armour.

So yes, I did read it. As for the throwing part well, my throwing arm has never been so good when it comes to these things

Could we perhaps go back to plastic Sisters and respect rule no.2? You made a good point about platemail chest pieces - GW would certainly need to reconsider a few design features of the old models if they were going to remake them, such as the aforementioned torso, as well as their heads, hairstyles and faces - the age of the cast is pretty obvious in that regard as the faces of the Battle Sisters can only be described as nightmare fuel. The question is, is all that effort worth any possible market for them?

 Manchu wrote:
You have left out the clause explaining why:

"the lack of a Black Carapace means the Battle Sister cannot fully interface with the armour and so"

Whether the two suits of PA provide the same amount of strength enhancement, all other things being equal, is not discussed one way or the other.

But the quotation explicitly attributes the inferior strength enhancement of SoB PA to the Sisters' lack of Black Carapace.

Probably not too well thought out (and grammatically problematic) but that's what it says.

I don't know about you but 40k canon is contradictory and problematic enough I prefer to patch the as-written answer with the sensible answer instead of debating the specific wording in the book.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I prefer to patch the as-written answer with the sensible answer instead of debating the specific wording in the book.

Exactly what I am doing: The quoted source indicates SoB PA does not provide the same strength enhancement as SM PA because SoB lack the Black Carapace. Exactly why is a matter of speculation - from my POV, it is probably because the SoB PA was not designed for someone with a Black Carapace, who could obviously "get more" out of their PA. It would be useless to design PA with enhancements that only someone with Black Carapace could use if the actual intended wearer does not have a Black Carapace.

 Manchu wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
I prefer to patch the as-written answer with the sensible answer instead of debating the specific wording in the book.

Exactly what I am doing: The quoted source indicates SoB PA does not provide the same strength enhancement as SM PA because SoB lack the Black Carapace. Exactly why is a matter of speculation - from my POV, it is probably because the SoB PA was not designed for someone with a Black Carapace, who could obviously "get more" out of their PA. It would be useless to design PA with enhancements that only someone with Black Carapace could use if the actual intended wearer does not have a Black Carapace.

We're arguing semantics back and forth from different angles. Melissa and I are saying that the armour is a distinct, lighter design because Sisters are smaller and less cybered. You and General Annoyance are saying that because the Sisters are smaller and less cybered the armour is a distinct, lighter design.

I always assumed that the Black Carapace made more efficient use of the servos in the armour as well as accessing the extra support systems rather than powering some kind of strength enhancer, with the latter function being the more important one to the Space Marine. I could be wrong in that regard, but while it makes sense to ditch the support systems, to reinvent the servos that power the armour in the first place sounds a little impractical, especially considering Sororitas armour shares the same materials and power source as Astartes armour.

G.A

 AnomanderRake wrote:
We're arguing semantics back and forth from different angles.

Sorry no - the claim was that the Black Carapace has nothing to do with strength enhancement of PA. Based on the quoted source, that is false.

 General Annoyance wrote:
to reinvent the servos that power the armour in the first place sounds a little impractical

What do you mean, reinvent them? I imagine the servos in each set of PA are distinct examples of the same technology, one is just higher performance (apparently allowed by the Black Carapace).

 Manchu wrote:

 General Annoyance wrote:
to reinvent the servos that power the armour in the first place sounds a little impractical

What do you mean, reinvent them?

As in making a completely different design for the functioning of the servos when they are activated with the power source. I always assumed that Power Armour consists of a frame that fits the wearer with all the servos that power the armour, with the actual armour panels layered over the top of it, kinda like Power Armour in the Fallout series. I'd assume Sororitas armour has the same inner workings as Space Marine Power Armour, just fitted better to a regular human shape, instead of a completely different system by which the armour becomes Power Armour.

I know there is an old diagram regarding Space Marine Power Armour - can anyone here source it? If there is some kind of strength enhancement built into the armour, then that will settle the argument here pretty fairly by supporting Mellisia and Rake's argument of its functioning.

It very, VERY clearly states the armor lacks certain features found in Astartes armor. Because having them would be pointless as sisters don't have black carapace.

I did not ignore the bit about the black carapace. I'm pointing out that it's probably not as bulky simply because it has fewer features. And the lore supports this. There's no other grammatically correct way to interpret that sentence.

This does sort of relate to the discussion about minis in the sense that honestly the more slender armor us perfectly okay
I don't want to see sisters gaining astartes style bulk. They need to keep their own style.

Regarding the chestplate idea I mentioned, look at their armor-- the legs, and arms especially. It gives a knightly feel. Feet look like plated boots, gloves look like brigantine gauntlets. Thus I think they should go with that sort of theme for updated minis. You could even say it's a new model of armor and the other one comes from the vandire era, keeping the old models legit.

I went digging through 1e Dark Heresy and that backs up General Annoyance's point, all 'power armour' provides basically the same strength benefit (most are +20 Strength, Sisters have a more specialized design that only provides +10 Strength for most uses but allows heavy weapons to always count as braced). The armouring, power supply, and secondary systems vary more widely (and Sororitas armour does have an infinite power supply, unlike most non-Astartes power armour).

(Amusingly based on the difference in stats and abilities between Astartes power armour (which doesn't auto-brace weapons) and Terminator armour (which does) that's an argument for Sisters all getting Relentless)

I certainly agree that SoB PA has fewer built-in features/systems than SM PA and that the bulkiness of SM PA is irrelevant to the size/shape of SoB PA. The comparison to SM PA has always been a red herring in these threads, IMO.

There is no way to deny that the shape of Sororitas armour is down to the fact that the systems from Astartes armour that they cannot operate have been trashed when the suit was first designed. The question was with whether the strength enhancement that Space Marines get from wearing their armour is down to an actual strength enhancement module in their design of armour, or whether the Black Carapace interfaces more effectively with the servos that are present in all the suit designs, which seems to be the case judging by what Rake managed to dig up.

Mel is right though, this does link into the design of the Adeptus Sororitas models the more I think about it. If they were going to be properly reintroduced into the production lines again, they'd need to keep their hails to their original designs close while also improving on the foibles of the original stuff. I think the Knightly theme would be perfect for them, perhaps combined with angelic themes, since it would both distinguish them from the Space Marines in an interesting way while also remaining close to the original concepts. Definitely improve on the chest piece, and also add plenty of trinkets and seals to their armour to reinforce their zealous nature.

Some new kinds of flamers would be cool too, or at the very least, a unique pattern of the standard flamer that would make you go "that's a Sororitas flamer" just like with their Bolters.

Definitely new units of course - I think the greatest potential for Sisters lies in their HQs; imagine something along the lines of this in terms of posture, only with a Canoness with a Power Sword and Inferno/Plasma Pistol. Holy hell that'd be an amazing model!



You could pass off the wings as some kind of Jump Pack. I dunno, forge the narrative in a good way for once!

Just something creative that makes the Sisters more badass than they already are. If, like Melissia said, they end up as female Space Marines, their whole point in terms of both the universe and as a collection that you paint and play with is totally lost.

 Melissia wrote:
It very, VERY clearly states the armor lacks certain features found in Astartes armor.

To backup this point, the Warhammer 40,000 Compilation gave Space Marines a +1 to hit in hand-to-hand combat but only for Space Marine Power Armour when it was worn by a Space Marine and not to other types of Power Armour or troops. This was to reflect "the rather special way" that Space Marine Power Armour is constructed to interact with the enhanced Space Marine body. It is also went on to say that Space Marine Power Armour is fitted with an automatic weight-compensator to off-set heavy weights by selectively boosting power to the arms as required. So yeah, basically Melissia is right, Marine Power Armour has all sorts of extra gadgets in and of itself, and it also works better because of the Black Carapace.

Naturally this would mean that Sororitas Power Armour wouldn't/doesn't need to be overly bulky; and the power of Powered Armour comes from muscle fibre bundles, something people often overlook, not great big clunky pistons and the like even when 'servos' are also present in the armour. I always imagine this would mean the 'powered' part of the armour would look like a nano-suit, quite form fitting, with the ceramite armour plates and other gadgets over the top. In Sororitas armour they could basically be fitted with the equivalent of nano-suit shorts and sleeves, enough to carry the weight of the armour plates but not much else, hence the corsets, gloves et cetera.

 Manchu wrote:
Both "options" are unnecessary. Whether you believe a Thunderhawk can actually fly, Space Marines can fit in a Rhino, or SoB power armor grants 3+ saves, here's what Sisters look like:

Spoiler:

That's a nice pic, I also like this one.

Yeah, that is one of my favorites. It's probably a good thing for me that GW doesn't seem to have any plans to release plastic Sisters soon - it's gonna be wallet killer.

can't go wrong with Kopinski art

cheers
jah

 Cheesecat wrote:

That's a nice pic, I also like this one.

This is what I'm talking about. Armor that doesn't look like form fitting leather, but has actual plates, and a bit of bulk to it. Note that the non-space marine power armor models (mostly inquisitors?) have some satisfying bulk to them while still looking remotely wearable.

@John Prins: don't Sisters already look just like that???
aside from the drawing having a much nicer face than the actual sculpts, of course
hopefully, that would be an improvement that new sculpts would bring...
i really like the one pulling the pin on the grenade with her teeth, and the gas mask head on the heavy flamer, but some really need help, like the Superior with power sword...

cheers
jah