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I am looking to use MKIII power armor to make a small Sons of Horus/Blackshields force with which to play kill team.(And maybe later include in a full 30k list)
I chose MKIII for aesthetic reasons only however I want to keep consistency in the armament of my force.

So when it came to building heavy weapons specialists I was annoyed to find that ForgeWorld only sells heavy weapons with MK IV Jump-Packs.

https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Mars-Pattern-Heavy-Bolters-Set https://www.forgeworld.co.uk/en-GB/Phaistos-Pattern-Heavy-Flamers-Set

I watch a lot of TheOuterCircle's content on Youtube and from it I have generally gotten the impression that mixing power armour variants is (amongst the 30k community) equivalent to gluing sororitas heads to space marines i.e heavily frowned upon.

So to get to the point - Should I convert them to MK III or is it alright to mix them?

(annoyingly I have found pictures of MKIII variant but forge world seems to have taken them out of production http://apocalypse40k.blogspot.com/2015/12/forge-world-new-releases-and-new-bundles.html )

Mixing armour types is perfectly fine if you're a force with disorganized supply chains like a Blackshield force that's got to use whatever it can lay its hands on.

I would note, however, that the exhaust vents on the heavy weapon backpacks don't look any more like Mk.IV vents than Mk.III vents, and that there have never been II, V, or VI-specific heavy weapon backpacks, so while you could do some planing you could also conclude that the heavy weapon backpack is a thing that didn't change much over the development of different patterns of power armour and that those packs work fine with Mk.III.

Your other option beyond using those or converting them onto Mk.III backpacks would be to find heavy weapons without backpack ammo feeds; the heavy bolters on the plastic infantry sprues have separate drum magazines, and Forge World still sells the Kalibrax autocannons and Proteus missile launchers which come with backpacks but have in-built magazines and don't have a feed connecting to the backpack so you could just use those weapons with the normal Mk.III backpacks.

There is nothing wrong with mixing marks, if anything that’d be the norm by the end of the crusade and during the heresy due to the nature of logistics if you think about it logically.

Now fluff wise there’s a bit of a conflict, one of the black books says only the Iron Hands have the ability to combine marks with Mk III. Personally I think this is referíng to his chest piece and not the idea Mk III as a whole piece can’t be mixed with other marks, as there is precedence for this. First we have Mk II/iii with prototype Mk vii helmets (mantilla pattern I think) in the first book. Then we have the legion champion, which clearly has Mk iii and IV and is painted as EC on FW and isn’t restricted to the IH. Then the Sons of Horus reaver squad has Mk II/iii with Mk IV armor. Thus there is precedence and as a Sons of Horus it is even fluffy to have that mix.

Hope that helps!

mixing marks of armour is what MKV is, so go nuts

Thanks for the responses,I have resolved to use the weapons as is and use the fluff that a traitor war band needs all that it can get/ The late heresy logistics issue.
Might post a picture when i am done.

Mks II and III can be intermixed, as can Mks IV and VI. Mk V is a weird one and there isn’t much agreement over whether it’s an actual design (a simplified version of MK IV/VI) or a catch-all phrase for jury-rigged armor. Most of us say go ahead and mix Mk V bits with any other type. But as R0bcrt says, mixing armor marks also depends on how complicated the pieces are (the torso being the worst) and what you’re willing to put up with. It may take an Iron Hand to make Mk III + IV work seamlessly, but cobbled armor that barely works is sometimes better than nothing.

None of that matters here because nobody associates the heavy weapon kits with Mk IV armor. You can use them with any power armor mark.

R0bcrt wrote:
There is nothing wrong with mixing marks, if anything that’d be the norm by the end of the crusade and during the heresy due to the nature of logistics if you think about it logically.

Now fluff wise there’s a bit of a conflict, one of the black books says only the Iron Hands have the ability to combine marks with Mk III. Personally I think this is referíng to his chest piece and not the idea Mk III as a whole piece can’t be mixed with other marks, as there is precedence for this. First we have Mk II/iii with prototype Mk vii helmets (mantilla pattern I think) in the first book. Then we have the legion champion, which clearly has Mk iii and IV and is painted as EC on FW and isn’t restricted to the IH. Then the Sons of Horus reaver squad has Mk II/iii with Mk IV armor. Thus there is precedence and as a Sons of Horus it is even fluffy to have that mix.

Hope that helps!

Im fairly certain that the ability to combine Mark III and IV being limited to the Iron Hands is like you mentioned in reference to the Torsos as the Marine in the example is specifically wearing a chest peice that is half Mk III and Half-Mk IV.

 Big_Nuggs wrote:
I watch a lot of TheOuterCircle's content on Youtube and from it I have generally gotten the impression that mixing power armour variants is (amongst the 30k community) equivalent to gluing sororitas heads to space marines i.e heavily frowned upon.

To put it bluntly - TOC is idiot who gets something (or everything) wrong in 95% of his videos, and also at the same time master of mental gymnastics who thinks the only ""pure"" HH armies are these from FW resin (plastic is strictly forbidden because it's evul GW product, yuck), but at the same time advocates full time theft and fielding armies full of chinese knockoff minis. Go figure. Anyway, the point is, he is one of the last people who would be in any way or shape authority of any sort on HH (or frankly 40K in general).

I personally have zero problems with what you propose (and I like strict adherence to lore) - not only Blackshields would take anything they can find, their chimeric armour marks are not only 100% canon, they explicitly have extra rules for it in the game, so go nuts. Ditto for Sons of Horus, not only there are dozens of (FW and BL) examples of them having armour being put from multiple sources (especially Istvaan plunder), the fact they prefer close range assault means lots of opportunities of armour damage and replacement. Nothing wrong with that either.

Then there is the fact backpacks, helmets, and gloves are among the easiest parts to swap between any mark of armour, period, so even without finding fluff justification there would be little wrong with such a conversion anyway. Not that you can even really see the backpack from under the ammunition supply, only a last dick would look at Mk III mini under a microscope to see if that fraction of millimeter poking out is really of 'proper' mark...