I'm curious, how come we don't see at least occasional elite powered armor guard/PDF companies. Certainly such things are expensive, yet they are not probably not more expensive than armored vehicles other worlds field. Going by Rogue Trader costs, a wealthy world can definitely afford to either build (if it's a Forge world) or trade for a company (or even regimental) strength set of powered armor and associated weaponry. Yet we don't really see that in the fluff (or at least not any that I read). Any pros or cons for including such a formation inside a Deathwatch or RT game?

Krater said:

Except in a few cases - such as the various designs of armour used by the Adepta Sororitas and the Adeptus Astartes - power armour isn't produced in large quantities but instead individually manufactured, with many suits being heirlooms that have endured for generations.

There isn't any reason why such a thing couldn't exist... but it would be extremely rare to the point of being essentially unheard of.

As for Forge Worlds... they do things differently anyway. Forge World armed forces aren't traditional PDF in the first place, but rather Skitarii, the nature of whom vary immensely from Guardsmen-equivalents with their emotions suppressed, to augmetically-boosted elite cyborg-soldiers, to massive and monstrous machine-warriors fitted with powerful weapon-limbs and implanted armour.

Although, there's Spiras. Not that I'm saying Necromunda should be a game-changer canon-wise.

I realize it's kind of a generic point, but the "quantity procurement" penalties on Power Armor acquisition still leave it quite manageable for worlds with sufficient degree of development and funding. Clearly, this is not something you get by waltzing into your neighborhood Forge-Mart, but on the thousand yearlong scale of Imperium, I'd expect more worlds to make provisions for such a party to be custom-made and delivered (in a decade or two) - for prestige if nothing else. Having your own personal "Astartes-lite" chapter on beck and call should give a decent bump to one's standing in one's sector. Of course, it may also attract adverse attention....

In the Gaunt's Ghosts books there's a definite impression that the wealth and quality of Guards Corps can vary immensely. Some places being stupidly wealthy and contributing much more well armed and armored regiments. Admittedly, these seems relegated to Hellguns and Carpace Armor plus tons of tanks.

But I'd guess the Skittari are the best bet for Power Armored regiments on any large scale. I really hope we get a Mechanicus book with Skittari rules. They're cool.

A tank is far cheaper than a set of power armour. Given the choice between a tank and power armour, it would be insane to buy power armour.

A planet, that is wealthy enough to buy power armour, would have dozens of PDF regiments to equip. So their is already huge amounts of money needed already to equip these. Power armour would most likely not be fiscally possible.

But a governor wealthy and/or paranoid enough might have a bodyguard that he equips with power armour.

Also if you give non bodyguard PDF power armour, the next time the Tithe comes, your expensive infantry will find themselves elite IG instead.

Traditionally in the background 10% of the planets best military units are collected as part of the Tithe.

Siranui said:

Source?

tygre said:

That was one of the things I was mulling over - when the tithe time comes, is it in form of demand for particular units, X of particular unit type or "X amount of men and associated equipment"?

Krater said:

I think the point is that nobody plans ahead on such a massive scale. In theory you could also plan to build an artificial moon with a Lance weapon capable of obliterating entire planets. Why does nobody do it? Because even in the Imperium with its massive red tape that is capable of delaying missives by decades or centuries, most Governors are more concerned with the here and now and do not really look past their own palace and bodyguard when it comes to distributing wealth, and when it comes to the Munitorum they'd rather have 100 Regiments of Cadian-style redshirts than a single Regiment of power armoured elite troops, as 100 Regiments means being able to fight at more places at once - and when things get tough you can always try to call in the Astartes. That's what the Emperor made them for, anyways.

Also, as has already been pointed out, tithe. If your planet is that rich you'd get a higher tithe grade assigned to it. And if you still manage to, somehow, over the course of decades or centuries, set aside enough wealth to commence the project, such a unit would not remain on its world for long.

As far as I recall the biggest formation of power armour somewhat close to PDF are Scintilla's Magistratum Corps Enforcers.

@tygre: If you go by the letter of the word it's in men. The Munitorum would simply pick the best ones you have, including their equipment. It may well be possible that they factor in the equipment, but the documentation isn't as detailed on this. Maybe we will read more about it in "Only War".

Regarding price of vehicles: the only thing I was able to find which is even close is Rhino APC from "Into the Storm". It's described as "Rare" availability, but all vehicles have an additional -10 modifier on the Acquisition test, so it's effectively "Very Rare" - which puts it on the same level as Power Armor. So price wise, a Cadian mechanized infantry company in Rhinos should be fairly close to a power armored infantry company.

Which just means that you're basing your judgement off of horrible information, rather than a suit of power armour is only worth as much as a Rhino.

Especially since the system in question isn't really designed to accurately represent how easy (or rather how HARD) it is to get yourself a battalion's worth of power armour.

And the 'low quality' power armour that is most easily available is hardly the ultimate weapon on the battlefield.

Blood Pact said:

Neither is the low quality Rhino from Into the Storm anything like an ultimate weapon.

A Rhino is probably more expensive, given that - at least according to DH - you can get power armour at around 8.500 (Light) to 15.000 (Normal) and more. That said, given that you can put 10 PDF troopers with lasguns into the Rhino, outfitting a battalion with Rhinos would surely be less expensive than giving everyone power armour. Not to mention that you likely won't stop at power armour, too, but also want to equip them with better weapons? And you'd still need something with which to transport the men. Of which fewer will fit into a Rhino now, given that they wear hulking armour now. As you can see, the price is racking up fast.

Generally, for the price of one suit of power armour alone you can equip an entire company of men with standard PDF gear, armour and weapons included. And 100 men with lasguns will still pwn a single guy wearing power armour. Its usefulness is thus rather specialized and limited to small scale tactical operations and surgical strikes. The kind of stuff Inquisitors, Marines and Sisters do.

Of course it would be nice to have everyone in your PDF equipped with power armour, but wouldn't you rather have a couple Baneblades and Marauder bombers?

Generally you can say that things like power armour are rare in the Imperium. Men are not. -> Grimdark.

And yes, I wouldn't compare acquisition difficulties with actual prices. The system wasn't designed that way. It assumes you have the money anyways - but that doesn't mean a Rhino is as valuable as, say, a krak grenade just because they both share the same Availability rating.

I really see power armour as being more useful in boarding parties aboard starships. Of course, that's where Space Marines shine, but the Imperial Navy could probably have some elite forces of their own.

HappyDaze said:

Common sense and basic economics. Imperial tanks are made to a standard pattern, require only basic mechanical engineering (low range on main guns is indicative of mechanical sights), mass produced and require no miniaturisation [cf: The Russian T-34 tank. They more than halved the cost of production in just a hand-full of years].

Conversely, power armour requires extensive miniaturisation, uses barely understood technology, is low-volume production, custom-fitted, heavily reliant on electronics... and requires someone to undergo fairly major surgery as well. I'd expect to buy a few tanks for the cost of the production, training and maintenance of a single P-A equipped grunt. It's just poor economic sense.

Yeah I have to agree with the nay part of this except in exceptional circumstances like forge worlds. but the main industrial worlds other than forge worlds are hive worlds and they have massive populations, and thus massive standing pdf's, much larger than an agri world or similar. When you are outfitting an army that size and you can outfit a whole squad with lasguns and carapace armour or one guy with power armour or a bolter you go with the whole squad.

Its like in batman begins, no imperial governor will spend that much to save the life of a pdf trooper when there are plenty more where he came from.

and re: the rhino conversation, I don't think a rhino is that good an example, I would say it is very likely that if you have the materials leman russ's and chimeras are probably easier to build than rhinos as they are always described as being simple and rugged and standard pattern.

while I was writing that another thing came to mind. looking after the machine spirit of a suit of power armour requires prayers and rituals and stuff or it starts to malfunction, wheras carapace armour has no moving parts, and a lasgun can be set on fire to recharge it the old ak-47 vs m16 argument

Narkasis Broon said:

Even in the RT requisition rules, for each squad you need 1 Rhino but a squads worth of power armour. Even if the PA is cheaper money wise it's more and more difficult to get in decent quantities.

And cost aside, even Space Marines need to get pretty daring to take on enemy armour. Unless your PDF squad is going to charge through enemy fire, fight brutal close range battles with enemy soldier and crawl over a tank to clip drap a Krak grenade on it then you're better off getting the tanks.

Yes, that's a good catch - a squad of power armor would be more expensive then then a Rhino, just due to having to buy a squad's worth vs 1. It would be partially offset due to not having to buy flak armor for the guardsmen, but still - definitely more expensive. I don't think that totally undermines my point - which by no means was that "Every PDF trooper would be given power armor". Rather, I'd say it's an expensive (but still relatively affordable) specialty item for specialty occasions - like tanks, Valkyrie gunships and Space Marines themselves, for those occasions where a regiment of troops or a company of tanks is not suitable.

Surely the fact that it's not already standard practice for elite units other than the Astartes and the SoBs to use powered armour is pretty indicative that it's not viable. If it really was just an expensive but viable option, then Cadian Stormtroopers (whose cost of training and deployment far outmatched the cost of their equipment) would be wearing it, instead of Carapace.

Instead, there are less than a few million troops so equipped in the galaxy. I'm not saying that it's completely twenty hand-picked bodyguards on a rich planet couldn't be so armed, but the fact that it's never been mentioned in any fiction or fluff is kinda defining.

It's also entirely viable - and highly likely - that there are edicts and laws against such things. After all: If I was a High Lord of Terra, I would NOT want the body-guards and private armies of a few rich individuals to start tooling up with power armour, just in case they get any clever ideas about independence.

Power Armour on company level is just waste of resources (2 more armour points aren't worth such costs) as many people above have pointed tank is cheaper solution and much more powerful.

but...

Power Armour equiped elite force, like governor personal guard, should not be so uncommon on richer planets, and nothing says as much "Don't F*** with me" as 20 or so guys in Power Armour with big shiny guns around your throne room. (tanks take to much room in such places and don't look that cool)

Krater said:

i don't see any problem with that in a PDF company as they can easily resupply since they're on the same planet as the manufacturing facilities of their armor. the older IG codicies (i'm not sure if the current one says it) specifically stated that some planets are rich/advanced enough to outfit their pdf units with weapons the IG wished they had; they can NOT do that with the IG regiments that are raised on the same planet however. Most regiments don't recieve any reinforcements from their home planet (be they people or equipment) once they leave and usually NEVER see their planet again. They're supplied by the departmento munitorum with relatively standardized equipment for their 20 or so year tour of duty so what they leave the planet with has to work with what the 1,000's of other guard regiments use. Fluff wise, i see no problem outfitting an elite guard of a planetary force but i'd stay away from doing that with IG units.

I agree with Sanguinary Priest's last post. OK for elite units that can draw upon local support and a home built supply of power armour. Not OK for bulk processed groups that have to be deployed with extended supply lines.

Yes, even the Cadians are produced in bulk and don't use PA because they are deployed away from Cadia (like in the Jericho Reach). It's also because Cadia doesn't produce power armour.

HappyDaze said:

Any world can do tanks or cheaper version of the Leman russ battle tank, it is widely know in the fluff, Power armor are not the same. They are a closely guarded secret.

Rhinos are a closely guarded secret too, most PDF used Chimeras and other more STC builds.

Rhinos are restricted in production and very well designed (on a roll they repair). Where a chimera may be replaced a rhino will be salvaged and fixed.

Rhinos are reserved for arbites and astartes usually.