DuskRaider Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 This might be an odd topic, but it's been bugging me for over a year. As everyone notices but I'm sure not many question, Chaos Marines have expanded vents on their power cells, and as far as I know GW has never come up with an explanation for this. If you've seen my Death Guard and World Eater armies, you can see I've cut the CSM vents down to resemble Pre-Heresy cells. Does anyone know an actual fluff-based reason for the difference, or is it just GW's way of making the Chaos Marines look different? -DR Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rain Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I too have wondered about this and posted this same question in Amicus and the best anyone can do is "they have them because they do" really makes no sense as all PH images we see have the smaller vents and even the models GW shows of recent renegades have extended vents! For me it's just a suspension of disbelief thing, once you turn evil you trade in your small good guy backpack for a big evil backpack. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059302 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hellios Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I too have wondered about this and posted this same question in Amicus and the best anyone can do is "they have them because they do" really makes no sense as all PH images we see have the smaller vents and even the models GW shows of recent renegades have extended vents! For me it's just a suspension of disbelief thing, once you turn evil you trade in your small good guy backpack for a big evil backpack. QFT, I think its so Chaos marines don't look just like normal ones :'( Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059327 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Nihm Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...t&p=1520690 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...t&p=1364063 http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.p...t&p=1282493 :) Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059372 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Amarel Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Yup, first sign of someone turning to Chaos is a need to get flamboyant with their body armour. I don't know why the =][= are so slow at picking it up... Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059391 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kadaeux Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 I think its the simplest reason. The extended vents "look" more "evil" than the normal packs do. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059393 Share on other sites More sharing options...
AekoldHelbrass Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Just read all that links 2 posts below... It's strange, I always thought that BL artworks are just artworks, nothing to do with real fluff. And when I read history of Power Armour - it was mentioned that in MK7 they reworked power station in backpack. It states that this model was released somewhere near Siege of Terra, so MK6 and MK7 coexisted in Chaos forces and they are replacable between each other, that's why Iron Warriors on wallpapers have new vents, while all other legions including Black Legion and 1000Sons have old models. Honestly I don't know the original source of that articles, but it was logical enought for me. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059564 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apothete Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Does anyone know an actual fluff-based reason for the difference, or is it just GW's way of making the Chaos Marines look different? There are two places in the current Codex: Chaos Space Marines that I would cite as providing some reasoning for the difference between the two, one direct and the other suggestive. If you flip back to the wargear section on page 86, the aggravatingly amateur-looking pencil drawings have a label pointing to the backpack's extended venting. There, you can see that their claim is that the more elaborate cooling system is a consequence of having a "stacked cell power plant." I'll come back to this in a minute. You can then move to the sidebar on page 27, where the Codex authors have very kindly laid out what we all would have suspected anyways, which is to say that the majority of Chaos Marines who came from the original Legions were in the process of switching over from Crusade armor to the more recent Codex pattern. They then spend a lot of time suffused in warp energy and scavenging parts from their Loyalist counterparts for several millennia, creating bastardized hybrid suits that wouldn't be so different from the ones on pages 18-19 of Codex: Space Marines were it not for their immaterium-spawned alterations. You can see in the illustration plate from the Loyalist book that even the Ultramarines are likely to have piecemeal suits composed of multiple marks, combining a multitude of different designations into a single whole. When you combine that practice with a lessened regard for tradition and the influence of the Dark Mechanicus, I think that it's probable that something like a new powerpack design isn't all that farfetched. Now, to return to the topic of stacked cells... The powerplants in use at the time of the Heresy were either Mk 2 "Crusade" pattern, which were low-capacity and didn't provide nearly the output of a more current model, or possibly Mk 4 or Mk 5 units, which were highly prized by the Traitors and often looted from battlefields. The fluff on the revisions made in the three generations of powerplant show that the early marks were using something other than the revised packs that started appearing at Mk 4, which are "sub-atomic cores" that have "essentially unlimited fuel." However, that means that there is a circumstance imaginable where the pack can run out of juice and therefore become useless, so it seems likely to me that the Dark Mechanicus would be interested in either hybridizing or creating a new system by which the long deployments and low logistical likelihood of a Traitor deployment could be sustained. Whether "stacked cells" are entire mini-reactors placed in tandem or merely additional fuel cells, it would allow Chaos commanders to keep their forces in the field without additional support for longer, which could be the difference between success and defeat when operating behind enemy lines or far from one of the Chaos bastions. Thoughts? Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059607 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuskRaider Posted July 24, 2009 Author Share Posted July 24, 2009 Wow, Apo... I think you just hit the nail on the head! That's the kind of answer I was looking for, and I appreciate it greatly. Consider me officially unbugged at this point, haha Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059766 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Megalodon Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Besides they look fanfrakin'tastic with the extended vents! Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059843 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonsword Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Yup, first sign of someone turning to Chaos is a need to get flamboyant with their body armour. I don't know why the =][= are so slow at picking it up... http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6025/evilhat.jpg On a more serious note, I like Apothete's explanation. Makes more sense than anything else we've heard. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059892 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apothete Posted July 24, 2009 Share Posted July 24, 2009 Thanks to everyone who had something nice to say, but I only collated together information from available sources. Between the codices and the Librarium article on Astartes armor, it was a matter of putting together the pieces. Link to comment https://bolterandchainsword.com/topic/174200-vented-power-cells-and-csms/#findComment-2059968 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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