So, has anyone found a legit way to begin play with Termie armor?

Forsaken bonus doesn't count because it's not "Rare" or lower.

Ancient Warrior bonus doesn't count because it's not a Legion *weapon*.

Any ideas?

It's not possible afaik.

I believe that Ancient Warrior's bonus should apply to any GEAR with Legion in the title, not just weapons. We'll have to wait for the errata to come out to be sure, but if you go for poor quality Legion Terminator armour with Ancient Warrior it might just be do-able.

The Wealth Pride gives you an extra Aquisition at +20.

So you could stack that with Ancient Warrior and it'd be doable.

Lecram said:

The Wealth pride is a roll at +20. So the chances of actually getting the armor is extremely small. You're probably just rolling on base Infamy.

I would never give such armour out at creation.
it is too powerful for someting not earned. You can take on squads of Space Marines in one - never mind the avearge trash starting players will generally be facing.

Give the player a goal to get it, and feed the acquisition of it into the campaign.
players should finally get such items when they are starting to really need it.

At creation it is too much of an 'I win button' for the player concerned, and a 'why can't I have a I win button' like him from the other players.
It may seem cool at first, but will reduce the campaign to a 'meh - boring easy' for the player with the armour.

Too much too soon.

Spehktre said:

Personally, I don't like that if you take Wealth you have to roll. It means you take a -4 WP and still could end up with nothing. I prefer that you just get a +20 bonus on the table for one item. This let's you get a good quality Extremely Rare item or poor quality Near Unique item....but I digress...

OP just wants to know if it's POSSIBLE:

If you roll well for Infamy, you can start with 25, + 2 for one of the "disgraces", +5 for Perfection. So you start with 32 infamy. put all your experience into it; +5 for space Marine, +10 for human.

That's 37 or 42 infamy respectively. +20 for Wealth: total = 57 or 62

Terminator Armour is -50, so your chance is 7 or 12 %. If you go with poor quality, your chances go up by 10% and if your GM allows Ancient warrior, then your chance goes up another 20% (near unique to Extremely rare). So you can be rolling with a 42% chance...but still fail, of course.

@ Stuntie: I don't disagree that Terminator Armour to start would be over-powered, but if a player is going to go through all that and risk failing his role, a GM should let him have it if he succeeds.

people alsoforget the +10% for a single item

Rules aside, I would give a player a Terminator Armour if there is a really good reason to have it - besides 'I can kill everything with it'. But I would give one that is partially destroyed/unfunctional, hindering the CSM wearing it more than giving benefits like -20 to all movement, reducing speed/movement drastically, make it screaming loud and spewing fumes and crap all over.

But if the player wants it have the PC work for it and it's reconstruction, make it an achiveable goal.

The termi-armour could be a unholy relic from the HH or just the fixture of the CSMs devotion/obsession, then one thing he treasures above all else and the ONE thing he wants like nothing else.

And while the other players/PCs are moving towards whatever they want, give the termi-guy repairs or hints how to restore the thing.

You can drop it another degree if you just roll for components, giving you a more than 50% chance to get it. Just get a Heretek with a high Tech-use and Master Enginseer and you're golden.

I believe it goes: poor quality, Single item, and take a defect ie. cursed material or what not. And with a poor quality suit only allow only one system working at the start.

In my game one of my players did without my permission but it was no big deal. He didnt get to use it and all the other players said "sure let him have it so it makes him the target and not me".

Again all flavor. All the equipment is in there so you will have to deal with it at some point. And none of it is game breaking.

ApocolypseNow said:

The downgrades, like "Cursed Material" are only for weapons. They don't apply to armor.

I'm not sure starting off with Termie armour is all that big a plus, I mean at most they'll be armed with a power sword (Champion) or force weapon (Sorcerer), otherwise, they're pretty much empty handed until they can acquire some Terminator-compatible weapons.

I think the list of "compatible" weapons for Terminator armour is strange. How is it possible to fire a combibolter (basically two bolters welded together) and not an ordinary bolter when you're wearing Terminator armour? I rule that any weapon that can be fire one-handed can be used with terminator armour. For other weapons, I judge it on a case by case basis.

OK i can get termi armor to a -10 infamy mod needed to take it at start for free as a marine. near-unique(-50), single item(+10), common craftsmanship(+0), Trade in on Extremely Rare Legion Power Armor(+30) equals a -10 mod(-50+10+30=-10). That equals add terminator armor to character sheet at cost of the flexible standard powered armor. What this means for my character is that I would only be viable for frontal assaults. On missions requiring stealth or subtlety I would be forced to sit out or go without any armor other then what I can salvage along the way, I would also have to trade in my legion bolter for a combi-bolter in the same way to have a ranged weapon to use with it. that being said not a good move in general, imho.

Spehktre said:

Erm, not that I advocate handing out Termie Armour at the beginning, but according to my understanding Availability "Rare" or lower means Rare or even less Available. The Forsken doesn´t get his bonus for abundantly Available stuff (as in stuff that is highly Available) but for the rare treasures.

That´s how I got it, correct me if I´m wrong.

@Jackal Strain: Not sure but I think this goes back to old established Terminator gear loadouts. Dunno how it´s now but last time I checked terminators couldn´t reload their guns, because their armour has no pockets to store ammo and doesn´t allow for the necessary freedom of movement, to reload a gun in any smooth fashion. So they favoured weapons with a large clip size. The weapon also needs to be interfaced with the armour as terminators don´t aim conventionally (iron sights). Maybe terminator armours can´t interface with normal bolters because they aren´t designed to, or the fingers are too big to fit beneath the trigger guard, or whatever.

Most heavy weapons are also fired in a posture a Terminator Armour can´t perform. Put it how you want, all in all I´d say Terminator Armours are incompatible with most weapons simply because due to ancient and traditional Space Marine combat doctrines with them, they´re not designed to make efficient use of them. Maybe they could technically use other weapons somehow, but can´t operate them in any smooth and efficient manner, so they simply don´t.

@moepp

Erm, not that I advocate handing out Termie Armour at the beginning, but according to my understanding Availability "Rare" or lower means Rare or even less Available. The Forsken doesn´t get his bonus for abundantly Available stuff (as in stuff that is highly Available) but for the rare treasures.

No, it's the other way round. Forsaken are adept at scavenging for supplies, but not even their abilities can suddenly conjure a suit of power armour.

Cifer said:

Well no availability roll can conjure anything if it isn´t there. I just thought that the Forsaken would find such things more easily if they are there. But if "lower" means more available in that context in english grammar (it isn´t my native language) that that´s how it is. I was just assuming that lower availability means less available.

moepp said:

Then how come someone in terminator armour can swing a powerswrod just fine, but somehow can't swing a chainsword? I suspect ffg of just being lazy and looking at the various codex entries instead of being creative and reasonable. I agree that most heavy weapons would be incompatible with a teminator armour unless they were heavily modified somehow. The limited list of weapons makes sense for loyal space marine, since the codex probably says something about what's allowed and not, but for chaos marines it's just forced and felles unnatural. They don't care what the codex says, and use whatever they want.

@moepp

The wording is ambiguous. However, I think it's more reasonable to assume that a lonely CSM can scavenge for food, ammunition and grenades than that he has better access to force fields and terminator suits...

actually, according to the fluff on the terminator armor, weapon systems had to be designed for it, i would allow the use of a bolter but not much else unless someone went through the toruble to have it built in game and that would take a lot of time. the armor has restrictions in what can be carried because of the limitations of range of movementmost man portable weapons can not interface with the terminator armors internal bracing mounts and are not compatible with the internal "cogitator" and targeting systems...the reason i would allow a basic bolter to be used is according to the fluff when the armor was first developed the bolter was the first weapon that was adapted to use with it and some of that modified bolters could still be floating around and still in use by the traitor legions. however i do see that as a waist of the capabilities of the armor.

How about all those melee weapons that aren't allowed. How do you explain that? Besides, there are planty of examples of characters in terminator armour aiming down the sight of the gun (models and pictures), so havin trouble aiming with them is just not true.

People are of course free to follow the ruling in the book, but I'm judging each weapon on a case by case basis, simply because it amkes more sense. like I've said earlier, followers of chaos are not bound by the traditions of Imperial doctrine.

the limtiations on weapons fluff wise is from the weapons being able to interface with the users armour and the grip size needing larger grip to stop dammaging if i recal correctly which is why there has alays been a limit plus why stick to a single boltgun when you can ahve a combi and still fire it one handed

I'm sorry, but that just doesnt make sense at all. That just feels like an excuse, pulled from thin air, to justify the narrow choice of weapons available to someone in terminator armour. If you look at the list of weapons allowed, compared to the ones who aren't it's pretty obvious that there's no real thought behind the choices, other than what is most commonly seen on tabletop miniatures, and the rpg should not be limited by that imo.

Can someone explain why a power sword is allowed and a chainsword isn't? Don't tell me that the grip on a powersword i bigger than the one on a chainsword, because there's nothing to prove that it is. If the rules ahd said that weapons needs to be specially crafted for terminator armour, I'd buy it... reluctantly, but they dont.

This has allways been something that has bugged me.

Jackal_Strain said:

In case of the melee weapons, I think this is a classic case of the sleak rules set biting itself. If you fight a heavily armoured opponent, weapons that aren´t designed to cut through everything (such as chain or primary) require more finesse. They need to aim at joints and other weaker spots to overcome such foes. Terminator armour doesn´t support the required freedom of movement to do this effectively.

And since agility has no impact on melee performance, and the rules system doesn´t differ between fighting heavy armour with light gear or the other way around (other than handling armour as fixed values which are abstracted), it can´t really simulate the drawback of such a configuration and prohibits it entirely.