I keep reading about camo bodygloves, although I am unable to find them in the books I own, which are IH, main rule book and DotDG. It is quite possible they are in the IH, as I can never find anything in there anyway, apart from guns in their handy tables at the back.

In my group, most of the party just invest in flack armour, then wear large coats over it. They justify this by claiming, quite rightly, that a number of models in the table top game wear flack armour, but have loose fitting clothing over the top.

My question is thus, up to what armour would you consider concealable. As it is, I allow mesh, basic guard flack and body gloves to be covered up, but other armour tends to be rather obvious. The same goes for low tech armour, but at least I know what that should look like, and it is therefore easier to determine what is visable and what is not.

I personally like the idea of bodygloves, although my group has never bought one, always taking the relatively cheap guard flack armour instead, and just removing the helmet if they need to go somewhere covert. Any ideas how I can encourage it? Perhaps give noise penalties for wearing anything heavy?

There is a difference between concealable and wearable, it would take pretty special circumstances to make guard flak concealable , its bulky and would have odd shapes, this would show through any clothing on top. Think of modern body armour, even if you could get a coat over the top of it most people would spot really easily that you are wearing it.

Well there is the camoline cloak from the main book.

In the IH crafting rules it gives an example of adding the camoline cloaks abilities to a normal suit of armor. So go with that as a determinator of what it would be to add it to a body glove. Either make them craft it themselves or rule that a "model" is avaialable (at an appropriate cost) with the abilities desired.

Remember what is shown in the books is only a small percentage of all the different gear available out there.

There already is a rule for bulky armour and stealth, it turned up in the errata: "any armour that offers 7 or more APs inflict a -30 penalty on the wearer's Concealment and Silent Move tests." What you could do is impose that on armour that offers 4 or more as well (with the obvious exception of mesh armour), unless the armour is of at least good quality. Or you could emphasize stealth in missions by placing them in more social situations where they are forced to be around and fit in with other people, think James Bond style of social undercover work.

Generally they are pretty good going into social situations, minus the heavy armour, but I am really talking about them being stealthy.

It really makes no sense not to wear full carapace armour as it has no downsides for sneaking. Now obviously you look like you should not be there, and someone in normal clothing with a bodyglove perhaps can offer some explanation for being there, but it doesn't really seem to work that way.

I am thinking perhaps that everyone will notice your wearing armour, even under loose clothing, perhaps will deter them. At least only allowing say mesh or bodygloves under normal clothing without being obvious to the extent people, especially combat aware people, would notice.

Pretty much what you said. Armour, apart from Mesh and anything body-glove-like will be noticed as soon as you interact with someone longer than a few seconds.

Cifer said:

Agreed as. As Dynodragon already said, especially Flak Armour will be bulky. If it is similiar to the Flak Vests issued to U.S Troups in the past, I assume this things won´t be covered by a long coat.

Only ballistic vests would, me assumes.

Speaking of body armor, you see it all over the art, but where are the stats for it?

What "body armour" are you referring to?

As for the OP's question- the camo bodyglove is the hardened bodyglove from the IH,which can be bought with an integral hull and stealth features, including thermal insulation and so on for three times the standard cost.

The key with guard flack armor is it's pretty common, and wouldn't be out place. My players all bought a set best qualty then paid even more to make it look poor quality. Their other favorite was the body glove out of the IH. page 125 includes desription of stealth version. The real issue is of course head armor. My players always dreaded the head shot.

>>What "body armour" are you referring to?<<

Sorry, meant to say Body Glove, must have had a little stroke there.

And it looks like I got something of an answer.

Concerning covering flak armour I would say that you can reasonably hide a flak vest under normal clothing (my interpertation of a flak vest is that its kind of like a modern day bullet-proof vest). A flak jacket could be disguised as being a heavy leather coat or menacing leather jacket of some kind (which is a pretty common sight on hive worlds).

Guard flak armour on the other hand should be almost impossible to hide under normal clothes (except maybe voluminous robes a few sizes too big for the wearer, and even then an observer would probably have a pretty easy Awareness test to detect that the robeclad is wearing a full set of Guard Flak Armour). If you look at the miniatures of Imperial Guardsmen, Cadians (being the standard Guardsmen you can buy miniatures for) wear full Guard Flak armour and they have to wear it outside of their fatigues because its quite bulky. Valhallans and other coat wearing Guardsmen probably wears Flak Coats instead of normal armour. And lighter regiments (like Savlar Chem-Dogs or Tanith first and only) probably only wears flak jackets and a helmet.

The only reason their armour save value is the same is because of game balance, and the table-top game have more abstracts than Dark Heresy (an RPG going understandably more in detail than a table-top wargame). So in Dark Heresy terms there is quite a difference wearing Guard Flak Armour and a Flak vest Armour Points wise.

Nevertheless, a full set of guard flak armour should not be easy to conceal under just a large coat, in fact I would rule it as a dead give-away, simply because its too bulky (although a more expensive and custom designed version could be specially made for easy concealment, but in that case the PCs have to cough up the dough for it). Carpace armour is out of the question of trying to hide, and hiding power armour would just be down right ridiculous.

Mesh armour on the other hand would be a lot more easy to conceal since its already made of a fabric like material (in fact, several tiny cells interlinked armaplas), one could easily cover it with a more neutral looking fabric in order to disguise it.. Also different kinds of armoured body gloves are equally easy to conceal.

My philosopjhy being that if you want a high armour value you will simply have to trade it for stealth and infiltration-aspects, and vice versa.

The camo-bodyglove you refer to is probably synskin (described on page 147 in the core rules).

According to the old Rogur Trader book flack armor can be woven into clothing.

Any body got a take on regular mesh versus Xeno mesh?

Mesh = very easy to conceal.

Xeno Mesh = even more easy to conceal.

That's how I would rule it...

Sounds good.

How do people handle seeing someone in xeno mesh versus regular, or is there really any noticeable difference?

Action_Carl said:

yes, but according to the original Rogue Trader book, you could get skin-tight power armour that wouldn't show under a T-shirt.

And @ Dalnor: you do know the stealth version of the hardened bodyglove comes with a sealable hood, and hence can cover all locations?

On a similar note, The Moritat starting package for the Assassin (from IH) comes with a "Protective Bodyglove" (2 points to Body/Arms/Legs). However this armour does not seem to be purchasable, I cannot find any mention of it outside of The Moritat entry.

yes, but according to the original Rogue Trader book, you could get skin-tight power armour that wouldn't show under a T-shirt.

The obvious answer is: You still can - if you can live with every representative of the Mechanicus looking at you either as a new saint for finding STC tech or wanting to burn you for using extreme amounts of heretek. After all, modern power amour (well, the prototypes already in existence) are about as bulky as the ones in 40k. Give it a few thousand years of development into the DAoT and you get your t-shirt.

Sorry, meant to say Body Glove, must have had a little stroke there.

Take a look at all those assassin pictures that look like they came straight from a fetish party.

On a similar note, The Moritat starting package for the Assassin (from IH) comes with a "Protective Bodyglove" (2 points to Body/Arms/Legs). However this armour does not seem to be purchasable, I cannot find any mention of it outside of The Moritat entry.

If it's any help, page 125 (Hive World Armour) has a Hardened Body Glove with (3/arms,body,legs) for 300. I'd go down to 150 thrones (implementing more armour while still having freedom of movement and non-detectability would be the main price factor) and lower the weight to 3kg.

There IS reference to "armored chameleoline bodyglove(3 ap all locations)" that is worn by Ashen Tear Assasins on page 51 of DOTDG. No price is listed unfortunately.

That would be the one from the IH- it's 900TG, iirc

That would be the one from the IH- it's 900TG, iirc

That's not full cameleoline, as it only makes sensing the wearer more difficult. I'd allow stacking Cameleoline on top of that as it grants bonuses different from those granted by the camouflage glove - of course, the hybrid version would also cost at least 1400 thrones, so...