HappyDaze said:

PA are closely guarded secrets by forge worlds. It would mean your world would need to have a forge world as either a fiefdom or somethign akin as to a complete multi protection agreement.

But then again Skitarii are much more effective and cheaper then PA PDF... PDF are made to die by the billions, so no right minded officer woudl sacrifice hard to come by PA but man power is very cheap.

PDF are easy to corrupt alos you would not give a PA to anything less then a fanatic, astartes, SoB, Ordos, etc.

crisaron said:

Agreed, you wouldn't give it to random John Q. PDF. They would be issued only after a period of intense indoctrination and training - like what Kasrkin receive for example.

Krater said:

That would mean the Imperium is actually efficient, you should read Gaunt's Ghost. The very best are always the 1srt ones to be at the front and the one with the most deaths.

PDF are canon food, even IP are canon food. PDF are usually very bad IG (those not worthy enough for the levy).

Also making PA common is removing a lot of the techno-secret atmosphere. PA are a cuttign edge technologie makign them common is like saying why aren't all male made into SM, with the life spawn the attrition rate would be overdone by the stamina at making baby etc...

crisaron said:

Oh, I don't think what I'm describing would make PA common. Even taking absolute best scenario, they would be less common then Rhinos on the battlefield - and Rhinos are fairly rare for most Imperial armies (at least that's my understanding). My guess would be that the richest worlds in Imperium would field at most a PA armor battalion, which would be used only for very high-importance missions upon which the course of campaign would hinge.

In other words, the very thing players like.

remember low grade PA without the SM glands and capacity, have a very limited power supply and are hard to usefor standard strength humans and impossible when out of power.

else have fun! In horus heresy they say there was a advanced human society with very light advanced power armors.

crisaron said:

The point is that world was never part of the Imperium as it was the world where they tried to assassinate Horus, but nothing prevents it to be found again too.

crisaron said:

Speaking of - I've read somewhere on the Internets that Kasrkin are actually augmented in some fashion (genetically/biologically). Is that so, or not really?

crisaron said:

Oh, true - that said, such technology would be grabbed by the Missionarius Galaxia and Adeptus Mechanicus the moment it gets discovered, and both the Ecclesiarchy as well as the Mechanicus would be very careful regarding its properties and who else would lay a hand on these.

Not saying that it's impossible that such a discovery could not mean wide-scale distribution as a new armour pattern (though this would, in my opinion, change a lot about the setting), but the Imperium is well known for gimping itself - be it because its organizations work against each other just as much as they co-operate, be it because of paranoia and fear of the unknown, or because the AdMech deems it more profitable to keep this design a secret and sell the suits for 10 times their actual production cost. For all we know, "Light Power Armour" might already cover exactly this.

@Krater

Speaking of - I've read somewhere on the Internets that Kasrkin are actually augmented in some fashion (genetically/biologically). Is that so, or not really?

I'd assume many of them receive some cybernetic implants at some point in their career, either replacing parts lost in combat or augmenting natural capabilities.

@Topic

Oh, I don't think what I'm describing would make PA common. Even taking absolute best scenario, they would be less common then Rhinos on the battlefield - and Rhinos are fairly rare for most Imperial armies (at least that's my understanding). My guess would be that the richest worlds in Imperium would field at most a PA armor battalion, which would be used only for very high-importance missions upon which the course of campaign would hinge.

Very high-importance missions upon which the course of campaigns hinge do get power-armoured soldiers - they're called Space Marines.

Other than that, I don't think anyone would field more than possibly a squad of PA wearers as the logistics involved are a nightmare. The Sororitas can do it because the Ecclesiarchy fields the bill, but any Departmento Munitorum drone would likely choke on their quill when taking a look at them. Take a Leman Russ - it's probably cheaper, the parts can be manufactured on any imperial world (while the delicate electronics of a PA would probably require a Forge World) and they're interchangeable with those of any other of the millions of Leman Russ tanks in the galaxy. Also, that Leman Russ will stand up better against anti-tank weaponry, considering a normal power armour imposes a -10 penalty to dodge and grants a +10 bonus for enemy shooters since they make the bearer Hulking.

Krater said:

I've read some fluff that says they're given a little bit of a biological boost in order to allow them to work with their unusually heavy loadout without being encumbered. I equated it to sterioids, personally. Though I think that speaks to the fact that Cadia is in kind of a unique spot, being so close to the Eye, it would be (I would assume) easier to justify their creation and their theater of deployment. Though when you create one exception to a rule you open the door to creating other exceptions; a clever and persuasive governor could argue for a group of 'special' PDF to stick around due to some greater threat in the area.

Siranui said:

Spyrers are the elite of Hive Primus, the spoiled teens of the upper classes. Imagine one of the contestestants of My Super Sweet 16 after 10'000 years of breeding for spoiled excess and that is the person who is in the suit. They arent nice people and most are incredibly rich

I wonder why no one has posted this, but in the 5th edition BRB, specifically page 145 there is an image of Power Armor guardsmen.

Yes they exist, but who knows how rare they are (and from the banner they might be a terran regiment).

From that banner and the insignia/designs on those Chaos Terminators, it looks like the assault on the Imperial Palace on Terra during the Horus Heresy. Still a nice find.

Unless I'm looking at a different image, that looks like flak/carapace with environmental seals and a rebreather to me.

Siranui said:

Its not so much a question of cost but actual production capability. A world with technological development equal to Earth in 1920 can build a tank. A world with technological development equal to Earth in 2010 can build millions of tanks and still not a single power armor.

Besides the questions of access to the technology, production capability and sheer resources needed to build and maintain the armour, there is the question of how useful it is in standing forces. The "mortal" power armour in DH and RT has a power pack that runs for 1D5 *hours*. Useful only for quick missions or last stands in the governor's palace. Even the Inqusition's Ignatus armour from the ascension book is only good for five days of non-combat operations, near useless on an extended deployment without incredible logistical support. The quality power armour is reserved for Astartes, Sororitas and Inquisition. All groups who have the logistical backup and trust to be handed the military power packs that make the armour viable on long deployments.

a Sentinel regiment with scatter lazer, lascanons and all those nice gizemo should be more effective and more dangerous IMO for PDF especially, they would know they layout of their world, makes more sens to me and you can have tons of thgose sentinel as they are not high tech but STC stuff...

On top of the above, in the true setting outside of the Astartes, Soriatas, ad mech, and =][= there are only a handfull of suits of power armor. Sure in RT and DH you can fudge the fluff by making really good dice rolls and all of a sudden the world you're on has a suit of PA, and the current owner would risk his life by blindly selling it to whoever has the money for it (ad mech don't look to kindly to disrespecting high tech).

In truth the secrets to manufacturing PA are closely guarded by the ad mech. Not many are made, those that are take a long time to be made due to the ad mech's way of doing things. Additionally every suit of PA must be tailor made or modified for the wearer. You can't walk into The Gap: Future Armor Line and pick up PA off the shelf. When a space marine dies his armor is collected (since new suits are hard to come by even for Astartes) and the chapters tech marine then modifies the suit to fit the new marine who will soon be wearing it.

Even more restricting than the nearly infintesimal chance of finding one suit of PA (much less enough for an entire regiment) is getting the ad mech to give up their secrets. Every space marine knows and is capable of making most repairs to his own armor out of necesity, chapters have a limited number of tech marines they can't be bothered to repair every busted seal or power line among a thousand plus marines. You think a planets tech adepts would willy nilly pass on the secrets of power armor to every joe schmo PDF recruit on the planet (that is if even a single adept or magos on the planet knew any secrets to PA anyways)?

Then you have to look at the quality of troops. Even if all the other obstacles are overcame and PDF forces have PA, they still only got lasguns... Or should these guys also have conversion beamers and vortex grenades to go with their Power armor? What about readiness levels? "Oh no our base is under attack, well tell the bad guys to hold on, it'll take me an hour to put on my armor!!!"

No, PDF forces will never be armored with PA, it just can't be done.

As for Rhinos. By the decree of the Emperor himself, only the Astartes Sortiatas, and other truely elite forces like the =][= (not say, a munchkin squad or stormtroopers you created for your own planet or story) are allowed to use them. The =][= itself doesn't use it very often either, generally prefering the chimera. It is against the Emperor's will, and therefore heresy, for any other force or organization to use them.

Polaria said:

Do we know how much a tank costs or is that just a guess? So far the only real statement on the relative costs has been regarding the Rhino, and those costs are the same. Is Rhino so much more expensive then, for example, Leman Russ tank? I don't see any particular reason to suppose so.

Regarding actual production capacity - it would be strange if high levels or low levels of production capacity did not impact acquisition price of the item. And we're not talking about an item being issued to the army (a tanker does not have to buy his own tank, after all) but in context of RT/DH a more or less commercial transaction.

crisaron said:

Depends - do you want to take that Sentinel regiment into the twisty streets of a hive undercity to capture a key building? Or defend/capture a key building complex which stretches several city blocks? Or make it climb across mountainous terrain to capture a pass in the hills? Or deliver it via Vulture to a position behind enemy lines? For all those tasks, a PA force is much more suitable then a Sentinel or tank regiment.

Krater said:

They can do all of the above indeed, sentinels are the very versatile. Fats, agile, sturdy for it's relative armor size, it can pack a lot of punch, from the close combat blade and flamer to a autocanon/lascanon tank hunting squadron. They can infiltrate, etc. Threat them as a very light mech.

Indeed Adaptus Arbites will go with a rhino directly ion the underhive, since it can take it.

Krater said:

I actually wanted to correct something here. Rhinos are not expensive, and they are actually quite common. They are one of the easier STC tanks to manufacture and are often modified to do hundreds of different jobs within the Imperium. The reason the Guard and PDF regiments don't use them a lot is general tactical doctrine and squad sizes. Guard tend towards static positions, firing lines and large (i.e bigger than 10 men) squads. The Astartes really just needed a battle bus. As such, Rhinos on the battlefield are going to be much more useful to Marines than Guard.

Artaxerxes said:

It's worth pointing out that it is strongly hinted in the original Tau Codex that the Spyrer suits were provided to the nobles of Necromunda by the Tau...