ak-73 said:

what about the sentence on P.164 DW Core : " Since this is purly due to the chance of the hit glancing off thr armour´s strongest surfaces, there is no possibility of Overload." Doesn´t look ike liek a forcefield.

And the 5+ save in the TT was introduced in the middel between 3rd to 4th edition to bring the Armour back to status it had in 2nd edition where it had a modified 3+ on 2D6 Save which gave it a good chance to deflect even a lascannon shoot.

with just a 2+ armor save an the introdution of the AP-Mechanic at the beginning of 3rd edition Terminators had turned into gunfooder and where simply no more played.

From what I remember from the table top - and it has been a while since I played with termies and nor do I have the rule books rigth here with me right now but....

The termies had a armor save of 4 (or 5) but they also had a 2 armor save vs attacks that don't normally grant armor save. The fluff was something about the extra-durability of the armor and having a minor field around them... can't remember to be sure.

But note that, like I said, it has been a bit since I played with termies on the table top.

Vendettar said:

I think I mentioned further above that in the 1st Edition on the first apperance of the Tactical Dreadnought Armour there was an option for a refractor force field. And a mention of the shard of the Emperor's armour

As for page 164, let's agree that the description isn't unambiguous.

Alex

The original WD (sorry, don't have the number to hand at the moment) article that introduced Terminators into the TT (about the time of the original Space Hulk) specifically mentioned a forcefield that protected the armour. Of course that article also added a grenade harness as well. Both seem to have been forgotten over the years

DW

Re: Terminator Captains having better fields, or having fields as opposed to normal Termies...

They have Iron Halos. If the Terminator Armour/Emperor's armour provided force field qualities (unlikely, it's a shard of broken artificer armour), why bother with an Iron Halo?

bluntpencil2001 said:

Captains in the tabletop codex have only recently been issued iron halos as standard wargear. Like I've said erlier in this thres, GW are masters at contradicting themselves, so each GM will have to decide what era of the fluff he decides to adhere to.

I would say that the Terminator suits DW Brothers with Terminator Honors wear generally belongs to the Deathwatch itself, and is being given to them during their service, along with the Terminator Honor itself. So yeah, one pauldron, all silver, with the Deathwatch symbol and the skull and crossbones of the Crux Terminatus on the other.

As far as I know, Terminator Honors are a part of the suit. I don't know of any Marine who has the honors and wears the badge without wearing the armor. It would be more important for a Terminator Deathwatch member to wear his Crux and DW silver than show his chapter pauldron. This makes more sense to me because when a Marine joins the Deathwatch, he brings his armor with him, since few would countenance being seperated from their armor. They basically live in it, and it is ancient and passed down to each brother. They have their armor painted black when they come into the watch, but one pauldron is left unpainted with the brother's Chapter heraldry on it to not dishonor the machine spirit of the armor. If the Terminator armor belongs to the Deathwatch, it would dishonor the armor's spirit to have another Chapter's iconography replacing its Deathwatch one. And, as I said, as far as I know the Crux Terminatus is part of the suit, so it doesn't come off.

As to whether the Crux is a forcefield, merely indicative of the armor's insane toughness, or some kind of magic charm of the Emperor is really wide open to debate. There apparantly is evidence from GW's fluff to say at least some Terminator armors have forcefields, or commonly have accessories that provide one. The DW book specifically does say the Crux acts LIKE a forcefield, but is actually the hugely redundant armor. The DW book also says each Crux holds a piece of the Emperor's armor, though as others have pointed out, old GW fluff says only Captain's do. Given the age of all Terminator suits and their nigh mythical status, even among the legendary Space Marines, perhaps there is some synthesis of the truth in all of it. Maybe the Crux, or at least those of Terminator Captains DO contain fragments of the Emperor's own armor. Maybe the Emperor's armor contained arcane archeotech that survives in those fragments, and posseses a subtle forcefield that protects the bearer. Archeotech so subtle it cannot be readily detected, and the attacks it protects against appear to simply be deflected by the armor's hallowed ceramite, rather than the field. Maybe only the Captains' truly have this power, but the myth making and reverence paid to the Terminator suits by the Marines and the greater Imperium have worked some faith-magic, so now all the Crux provide some similar puissance, though theirs is more magical rather than technological. That's the fun thing about psykers, faith and archeotech; in the crazy future of the 41st millenia, you often cannot tell the difference between sufficiently advanced technology and magic! And sometimes, they're both at work in the same artifact!

As to GW's discontinuity, retcons and errors, those are pretty well known. The causes are broad and far reaching; the Imperium used to have jetbikes and speeders in early editions, now they are rare and exclusive to Space Marines. The Guard used to have Dreadnoughts I'm told, and lets not forget everyone's favorite little guys, the Sq-[+++This message deleted and purged with Extremis Response Omega as a Moral Threat by His Most Holy Ordos+++]

Da Warboss said:

A few points, starting with a quote from Codex: Ultramarines

"[The Crux Terminatus] is one of the most famous of all Space Marine icons. Only the honoured veterans of a Space Marine Chapter fight in suits of Terminator armour and wear this badge. The symbol has many forms and designs but all versions are carved from great chunks of stone. Within each badge is bound a tiny fragment of the suit of armour worn by the Emperor during his climactic battle with the arch-traitor Horus over 10,000 years ago. Sergeants and captains bear modified versions of the design to signify their rank and authority. Smaller representations of the crux are frequently worn by the veterans when they fight in power armour. These small, metallic icons are hung from banner tops, weapons and belts."

Key elements here:

• The Crux Terminatus is a collection of similar designs all representing the same thing, modified to account for the wearer's rank and status.
• The matter of the Emperor's armour goes all over the place, so while it is part of that quote, I'll leave the matter almost untouched. However, assuming that the Emperor's armour was equivalent to Master-Crafted Terminator Armour, it masses 200kg. Assuming that each of the 1,000 Chapters (approximate) has roughly 66 suits of Terminator Armour (accounting both for Chapters like the Dark Angels, who have enough for all their veterans, and those who have only a few), each suit would only need a piece of armour massing a little over three grams. That's a tiny piece, but still large enough to be potentially significant.
• Representations of the Crux Terminatus are worn by Astartes veterans when they fight in power armour.

Based on the first point, it seems entirely possible that Deathwatch-owned suits of Terminator armour have a modified Crux Terminatus design that incorporates the emblem of the Deathwatch. Consider that the old metal Deathwing Terminator Sergeant had a Crux Terminatus with crossed bones and the emblem of a broken sword running behind the skull, while the Space Wolves add the crossed bones and alter the skull to depict the skull of a wolf; a similar variation, adding the Deathwatch symbol over the top of the cross seems possible and appropriate. It then allows the other Pauldron to be painted with the intended wearer's Chapter or personal Heraldry (sometimes there's an overlap between the two, incorporating devices that represent particular honours, such as the Ultramarines symbol with a red skull inside it representing a sergeant or other warrior who has earned the Iron Skull, or the combination of pack markings and the symbol of a specific Great Company for Space Wolves)