I am playing a Black Legion Dark Apostle hungering to be the next Chaos Lord in the sub-sector my game functions in, and what BL Chaos Lord would be caught without the impressive, classical Cataphractii armour made famous by the First Captain? I know it's rather similar to the Indomitus Pattern, but I was thinking that since it was the original(and prototype) there might be some differences between the two sets. What are some of the ideas you guys can come up with for a stat line? Bonus head armour from the jumbo-huge pauldrons and boxy design? Higher Agility penalty from so early a design? A bonus Fellowship to Veterans of the Long War?

Even more ridiculous agility loss

Better frontal protection, but weaker back armor plates

Built-in power field in addition to normal 35% resist

Huge penalties for repairing and day-to-day maintenance for a pattern which was in decline 100 centuries ago. And good luck finding spare parts for this baby if when you take a few solid hits.

Sounds pretty solid. I wanted something a bit different for him since Black Crusade always talks about the lost grandure of the Legiones Astartes and the skill of Dark Mechanicus, figure maintaining a suit of armour shouldn't be too incredibly difficult.

Well, if you're willing to use the tabletop game as a reference... The Cataphractii has a built-in shield generator that gives it a better invulnerable save but it's also Slow and Purposeful because PAULDRONS. (Per the fluff, it has shield generators in the pauldrons, which is why they're oversized...) That definitely sounds like its got a speed and agility penalty to me. Add a force field, 50% sounds right, and knock an extra 20 points or so off the agility and forget running or dodging in your new walking, clanking, tank. Might be justified in upping the armor a point or two as well.

Cheers,

- V.