Hey folks,

Was reading through the different power armour marks to try to discern the different bonuses and qualities of each, and I'm slightly confused. The Rites of Battle book states that the Mark VII uses the rules presented in the Deathwatch Rulebook, which leaves me wondering whether the other armour marks lack certain rules.

The "called shots are half actions" and recoil suppression bonuses mentioned in the core rulebook - do these apply to all armour marks? If so, does Mark VII have any individual rules or bonuses?

Thanks!

First of all, welcome aboard!

Was reading through the different power armour marks to try to discern the different bonuses and qualities of each, and I'm slightly confused. The Rites of Battle book states that the Mark VII uses the rules presented in the Deathwatch Rulebook, which leaves me wondering whether the other armour marks lack certain rules.

...If so, does Mark VII have any individual rules or bonuses?

Mk7, as the most common type in use, is representing the benchmark Astartes Power Armour in Core. It grants a number of bonuses listed on p. 161, but those are included in the general description. The special rules of all other Marks found in Rites of Battle are used to highlight the differences when compared to the baseline stats and attributes of Mk7. This in turn means that basically all Mk7 attributes and bonuses apply unless specifically noted otherwise, although as a GM I'd exercise extreme caution with very old (pre-Mk4) models for various reasons, the main one being common sense.

The "called shots are half actions" and recoil suppression bonuses mentioned in the core rulebook - do these apply to all armour marks?

If we want to keep to a very pedantic Rules As Written interpretation, Core lists "Called Shots are Half Actions" as an ability granted by the armour's Autosenses. Table 3-7 on page 151 in ROB lists all Marks except Mk1 as including Autosenses, so yes, they do. If not, and you want to differentiate a bit more between marks, you may also remove or nerf the ability for Mk2, 3 and 5 as the Autosenses of these Marks appear to be less powerful (as it gives only +5 to the relevant Heightened Senses test, instead of the normal +10). As for recoil suppression, see Table 3-8 (also RoB, p. 151) - all Marks except Mk1 possess the feature.