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Every mini with power armor comes with a backpack, supposedly to carry the power supply. On the top end of that backpack are always two spheres, to the left and to the right. Now on loyalist backpacks, those spheres are always very close together, while traitor forces always seem to have them raised a bit and extended to the sides, like an antenna or something..
It is so consistent, that there has to be a fluff explanation for that somewhere. What are those spheres? Is there an advantage to raising and extending them, that has the disadvantage of making the wearer more susceptible to the ruinous powers or something? It doesn't seem to be related to the age or mark of the armour, either, at least from my observation.


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https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/mediawiki/images/6/63/Mk6corvuscompositiom.JPG

OK, I found this image, telling me, that these spheres are supposed to be stabilising jets. But why are they always extended on traitor backpacks? Does worship of ruinous powers lead to damage of the sense of balance?

I've seen them described as cooling vents, and they apparently do double-duty as maneuvering thrusters in vacuum, which would make the extended struts on the Mark V backpack put them further from the Marine's center of gravity and thus be a more efficient maneuvering thruster.

Thanks for mentioning Mark V armour, I googled a bit, but somehow... warhammer40k.fandom.com mentions Heresy Pattern Armour... having bonding studs as a distinctive feature.
No mention of extended stabilisers.
If I look at the GW/FW range of chaos minis OTOH, I see few chaos minis with studs (spikes, horns and claws a lot, but rarely studs), but pretty much always the extended stabilisers.

Yeah, cooling vents/maneuvering thrusters. Chaos marines power packs look different because they use older marks of armour than loyalists, they especially use way more mark Vs. Remember if a chaos marine has anything newer than a mark V he probably looted it from a dead loyalist, they almost always wear heresy era or earlier patterns.


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 AuntHerbert wrote:
Thanks for mentioning Mark V armour, I googled a bit, but somehow... warhammer40k.fandom.com mentions Heresy Pattern Armour... having bonding studs as a distinctive feature.
No mention of extended stabilisers.
If I look at the GW/FW range of chaos minis OTOH, I see few chaos minis with studs (spikes, horns and claws a lot, but rarely studs), but pretty much always the extended stabilisers.

Well, after 10,000 years they've obviously had to modify and repair their armour, so it won't 100% match up with heresy specs. Csm would have lots of mixed parts on their armour from different patterns.

The real question is, why CSM are stuck only with modified prime condition old Boltguns and generrally only 1 mark / unit.

Clearly Chaos backpacks are designed to make it much harder to fit through doors because Chaos is ultimately self-defeating.

The real reason the backpacks look as they do (both regular and Chaos) is because the sculptor thought it looked cool and for some reason Chaos got extended backpack vents as part of their core design concept, probably to give them a different silhouette to loyalist Marines. Any in-universe justification is probably pretty incoherent, TBH.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The real question is, why CSM are stuck only with modified prime condition old Boltguns and generrally only 1 mark / unit.

They're not. Look at the basic CSM kit, you'll find it's a hodgepodge of Mk.V and Mk.VI with a few chunks of Mk.IV thrown in. Thousand Sons are Mk.IV and Mk.V, Plague Marines are mostly Mk.III but have some variations in helmet and backpack.

 AnomanderRake wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
The real question is, why CSM are stuck only with modified prime condition old Boltguns and generrally only 1 mark / unit.

They're not. Look at the basic CSM kit, you'll find it's a hodgepodge of Mk.V and Mk.VI with a few chunks of Mk.IV thrown in. Thousand Sons are Mk.IV and Mk.V, Plague Marines are mostly Mk.III but have some variations in helmet and backpack.

the range is still a bit too small and imo not adhoc enough but that is style preference.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The real question is, why CSM are stuck only with modified prime condition old Boltguns and generrally only 1 mark / unit.

Yeah, what did they do with their volkites? And why do they use the newest mark of terminator armour instead of the old ones?

Must've thrown them all away along with their non-dreadclaw drop pods on their way into the Eye of Terror.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
The real question is, why CSM are stuck only with modified prime condition old Boltguns and generrally only 1 mark / unit.

Yeah, what did they do with their volkites? And why do they use the newest mark of terminator armour instead of the old ones?

Must've thrown them all away along with their non-dreadclaw drop pods on their way into the Eye of Terror.

Dude, wheres my landspeeder?
some csm pilot probably.

Not Online!!! wrote:
The real question is, why CSM are stuck only with modified prime condition old Boltguns and generrally only 1 mark / unit.

Because rules for Renegades and such is hard.

I remember reading somewhere that the vents were extended on Chaos armor marks because A) Warp Gak, and B) Because after years of taking damage, they're less effective, and needed to be extended away from the power supply whose exhaust they are helping to manage to avoid overheating.

The bonding studs on heresy armor were specifically to quickly remove and bolt on new armor plates since spare parts became in short supply.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Yeah, what did they do with their volkites? And why do they use the newest mark of terminator armour instead of the old ones?

Must've thrown them all away along with their non-dreadclaw drop pods on their way into the Eye of Terror.

Volkite was being phased out before the start of the Heresy (too difficult to repair away from forge worlds). 40k Death Guard Terminators are in Cataphractii and the Scarab Occult Terminators are in Tartaros. The fluff behind them not having drop pods was that as a raiding force they lacked the support units to recover them after a battle (and they had other options available to them).

Originally it was just a design choice to distinguish them from loyal space marines. That's all it is.

Not Online!!! wrote:
Dude, wheres my landspeeder?
some csm pilot probably.

The fluff was that prolonged exposure to the warp messed up the anti-grav systems.

beast_gts wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Yeah, what did they do with their volkites? And why do they use the newest mark of terminator armour instead of the old ones?

Must've thrown them all away along with their non-dreadclaw drop pods on their way into the Eye of Terror.

Volkite was being phased out before the start of the Heresy (too difficult to repair away from forge worlds). 40k Death Guard Terminators are in Cataphractii and the Scarab Occult Terminators are in Tartaros. The fluff behind them not having drop pods was that as a raiding force they lacked the support units to recover them after a battle (and they had other options available to them).

Ok, I don't care about drop pods, dreadclaws are more suited to the legions and I love the lore that says the loyalists can't use them because the dreadclaws will eat them because their machine spirits are just that evil, but why would every legion except the Death Guard and Thousand Sons throw away their superior Heresy pattern terminator armour and trade it in for the newer inferior indomutus pattern?

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

beast_gts wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
Yeah, what did they do with their volkites? And why do they use the newest mark of terminator armour instead of the old ones?

Must've thrown them all away along with their non-dreadclaw drop pods on their way into the Eye of Terror.

Volkite was being phased out before the start of the Heresy (too difficult to repair away from forge worlds). 40k Death Guard Terminators are in Cataphractii and the Scarab Occult Terminators are in Tartaros. The fluff behind them not having drop pods was that as a raiding force they lacked the support units to recover them after a battle (and they had other options available to them).

Ok, I don't care about drop pods, dreadclaws are more suited to the legions and I love the lore that says the loyalists can't use them because the dreadclaws will eat them because their machine spirits are just that evil, but why would every legion except the Death Guard and Thousand Sons throw away their superior Heresy pattern terminator armour and trade it in for the newer inferior indomutus pattern?

They wouldn't. The rules do a poor job of representing Chaos - they should have much more variety than they do. Ditto for Renegade Marines.

They're Anvilus pattern backpacks. Better for operating in a vacuum / microgravity environment (useful because most CSMs spend a lot of their time as space pirates attacking merchant shipping), but bleed radiation everywhere (which most CSMs don't care about). The forgeworld that produced them (Anvilus IX) was taken over by the pro-Horus faction of the Mechanicum early in the Heresy, so loyalist forces would have lost access to that pattern of backpack.

From 'Betrayal':

Yeah, they're a type of Heresy-era backpack after millennia of wear, tear and modifications. As was stated before, CSM might still like them due to the intimidation factor of their size, which through the emotion and intent-bound nature of the warp, often become even larger and develop characteristics like the spheres becoming skulls or even living mouths.

 JamesY wrote:
Originally it was just a design choice to distinguish them from loyal space marines. That's all it is.

This.

JohnnyHell wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
Originally it was just a design choice to distinguish them from loyal space marines. That's all it is.

This.

Yeah. Sure. But that's completely irrelevant for the question, what the FLUFF explantion is. You kinda missed the point by approximately a mile.

 AuntHerbert wrote:

JohnnyHell wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
Originally it was just a design choice to distinguish them from loyal space marines. That's all it is.

This.

Yeah. Sure. But that's completely irrelevant for the question, what the FLUFF explantion is. You kinda missed the point by approximately a mile.

Not particularly. The fluff is all over serious retrofitting of a sculpting decision made thirty years ago.

And stabilising jets as others have said, there you go.

Yeah, exactly. The stuff is nothing but a collection of design decisions from almost 30 years. So answering a fluff question with "that was a design decision" sounds smart, but is 100% pointless.

 AuntHerbert wrote:
Yeah, exactly. The stuff is nothing but a collection of design decisions from almost 30 years. So answering a fluff question with "that was a design decision" sounds smart, but is 100% pointless.

Unless there is no canonical reason for the difference to exist. It looked cool and distinguished the models 30 years ago doesn't need a fluff reason.

Kayback wrote:
Unless there is no canonical reason for the difference to exist. It looked cool and distinguished the models 30 years ago doesn't need a fluff reason.

There is a canonical fluff reason, though. It's a post-hoc justification for a pre-existing design difference, but that's not actually relevant to the OP's question.

If someone starts a thread asking "What's the official in-lore explanation for X?" and your response is "The lore doesn't matter because X wasn't originally done for lore reasons", then that's really just threadcrapping.

It's really weird reading this thread after living through the CSM backpack revisions.

Because there's been (I'm trying to avoid missing any):
* The original Realm of Chaos backpacks with the fancy curving bits
* The "down and low to the side" backpacks (on the current Khorne Berzerkers. )
* The backpack sprue that two slightly different backpacks on it for the metal figures

* The "split up high" CSM backpacks that date back to 3rd edition
* The "regular T" CSM backpacks in the most recent CSM box
* The Rubric Marines variant of the CSM backpacks
* The various blighted variants of the current Plague Marine CSM backpacks.
* The 'big noise' Noise Marine backpacks (when Noise Marines were spikey)

The original differences were basically self-explanatory: Either the CSM messed with their armor, or the Warp did.

If the various authors have been trying to retcon all of that into a coherent time line, that's surely an impressive house of cards that I wouldn't want to undermine.

I still think the old RT-era Gigeresque backpacks are the best.

 AuntHerbert wrote:

JohnnyHell wrote:

 JamesY wrote:
Originally it was just a design choice to distinguish them from loyal space marines. That's all it is.

This.

Yeah. Sure. But that's completely irrelevant for the question, what the FLUFF explantion is. You kinda missed the point by approximately a mile.

No we haven't, there just isn't a valid explain in the fluff to justify why all CSMs in 40k have anvillus pattern back packs, despite them not all having them before the heresy, or after whilst pillaging mkvii+ suits to repair armour, or for renegades later on.

So the fluff really supports using any model of backpack on your minis but does answer the question with the anvilus pattern.

I think CSM are the ultimate kit bash army as you can use any CSM or SM mini to represent a codex unit because they have soldiers and tech gathered from over 10 millennium. Some stuff would even be pre heresy plus you get to warp and posses the units

In the RT era, they were used as jump packs, I think. I remember seeing an RT era pic with Chaos Marines in the air, with the turbines "blasting off" the way a jump pack would


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Slipspace wrote:
Clearly Chaos backpacks are designed to make it much harder to fit through doors because Chaos is ultimately self-defeating.

The real reason the backpacks look as they do (both regular and Chaos) is because the sculptor thought it looked cool and for some reason Chaos got extended backpack vents as part of their core design concept, probably to give them a different silhouette to loyalist Marines. Any in-universe justification is probably pretty incoherent, TBH.

That is true. The loyalist backpacks look more rigid and "disciplined" while the chaos backpacks have less of a military feel and are more eccentric and chaotic