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World Eaters armour


bluntblade

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Out-of-universe explanation; it's a back formation from Jes Goodwin's iconic 'group of four', still available as the Traitors of Chaos. While updating the Chaos renegade range, Jes sketched one of each of the Legions dedicated to a Chaos power (i.e. World Eaters, Death Guard, Thousand Sons and Emperor's Children). Building on the famous Space Marine Armour Marks article and developing Horus Heresy mythology from Adeptus Titanicus/Epic Space Marine, Jes decided each legion would favour a particular armour mark. III for the Death Guard, IV for the Thousand Sons, VI for the Emperor's Children and V for the World Eaters. Have a look through the link above and you'll see the specific identifying markers, like the Thousand Sons' kneepads, the Death Guard helmet or the World Eaters' exposed piping.

 

In the case of the World Eaters, I believe Jes' sketches include notes that they favour Mark V for its brutal appearance and reliability. I'll have a dig around and see if I can find some evidence for that beyond my faulty mem-banks.

 

+Edit+

Pseudo-success. This link shows the Emperor's Children sketch, which lists the reason the IIIrd favour Mark VI. I'm sure there's an accompanying World Eater sketch that has a similar explanation.

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In-universe, I don't think it's been specifically addressed, though there are lots of potential explanations offered by looking at the background as a whole:

 

1) World Eaters suffer huge amounts of damage from assaults, and want to get back into the fight as soon as possible. As a result, they are forced to use patchwork suits.

2) World Eaters have comparatively little interest in keeping things uniform and/or take pride in a semi-barbaric and intimidating appearance, and so favour the brutalist aesthetic of 'Mark V'.

3) The World Eaters are noted to have a large and far-flung recruitment base – including accelerated recruitment – and so their supply lines struggle to keep up with demand for suits of armour. Mark V is the perfect solution: easy to repair and maintain.

4) In terms of Isstvan specifically, I think it's fair to say that Angron is not Horus' favourite. It's possible that the other traitor legions received comparatively more of the advanced Mark IV armour shipments.

I believe it was mentioned in one of the earlier Forge World books that the World Eaters have a handful of vassal forgeworlds that supply them with unique armour variants, as do other legions.

 

Keep in mind, Mark V (as it is now) wasn't an official model; the term has become with synonymous with the cobbled together armours, bonding studs and so on of the Horus Heresy. Considering the three month battle waged at Istvaan III and the manner in which the World Eaters wage war it isn't that surprising that they've cobbled together that sort of thing.

 

That and the armour fluff is generally all over the place.

Yeah I'd primarily put it up to them combining patterns more due to the constant need for replacement components as a result of their style of war - the 'Mk V' helmets are Sarum pattern - basically the XIIth Legion's pet Forge World

 

It's never been explained why they favour these helmets so much, but it may be something to do with durability or ease of maintenance compared to other marks - I'd imagine the World Eaters would prefer more 'basic' gear that can easily be maintained after sustaining damage rather than wargear which needs delicate sensory apparatus to be painstakingly replaced after each battle

 

On a side note, with so much artwork showing WEs with partially stripped battle plate, I really hope they get a chance to swap out their power armour for the pariah equivalent as it'd be super fluffy and works well with their style of play

  • 4 weeks later...

If you read Betrayer you get an idea of how short the world eaters attention span is for ideas that are not fighting.

 

The 'butchers Nails' would push them towards a more simplier armour model as they would physically struggle to focus on a mundain task like routine maintance.

I never found an explanation for why the World Eaters were rocking Mk V on Istvan III while the Death Guard, Sons of Horus and Emperor's Children got Mk IV - and when Mk V was meant to be cobbled together during the Heresy.

 

So, does anyone know why?

Mk V is cobbled together - period. It gained recognition as being an actual mark that ironically had no set pattern during the Heresy, because of the introduction of the Mk VI shortly following the Massacre.

 

The thing people should consider is that the Mk V didn't just happen because one day a Techmarine woke up and had the sudden inspiration to suddenly bolt armor plates together with studs so it can replace an actual but damaged plate of armor. They had been doing it all throughout the Great Crusade. Heck, the Mk III is literally the Mk II with extra armor bolted on.

 

All that happened during the Heresy was that the ad hoc repairs became so widespread that some ocd dude who needed to classify everything started labeling it as an entire Mark of armor.

MK V was never an approved armour pattern. The MKVI "Corvus" armour was supposed to be the new MKV but was not widely accepted until after the heresy, only the Raven Guard and Alpha Legion made extensive use of it and after the Heresy the Adeptus Astartes where taking whatever they could get until the Imperium got itself together and supply lines where stabilised.

 

MKV was a designation given to the large variations that arose during the Heresy as supply lines and battle attrition led to the Legions being forced to be creative in repairing and replacing losses. During this period several legions (mostly traitors) began to show legion-specific armour variations and they all got pigeon-holed into the MKV designation.


 

I never found an explanation for why the World Eaters were rocking Mk V on Istvan III while the Death Guard, Sons of Horus and Emperor's Children got Mk IV - and when Mk V was meant to be cobbled together during the Heresy.

So, does anyone know why?

Mk V is cobbled together - period. It gained recognition as being an actual mark that ironically had no set pattern during the Heresy, because of the introduction of the Mk VI shortly following the Massacre.

The thing people should consider is that the Mk V didn't just happen because one day a Techmarine woke up and had the sudden inspiration to suddenly bolt armor plates together with studs so it can replace an actual but damaged plate of armor. They had been doing it all throughout the Great Crusade. Heck, the Mk III is literally the Mk II with extra armor bolted on.

All that happened during the Heresy was that the ad hoc repairs became so widespread that some ocd dude who needed to classify everything started labeling it as an entire Mark of armor.

 

 

Meh, you got there first

Sarum doesn't look like a variant of mk2, but more a variant of mk4. The 'typical' mk5 is Sarum with bonding studs, so presumably it was a very common helmet type (having seen use pre-Heresy with WE and SoH) and easily manufactured and repaired (hence its popularity during the Heresy).

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