MkIII Accoutrements, opinions wanted.

[Kinstryfe]

Hello brothers and she-brothers!

I'm putting together roughly a company of MkIII Astartes and thinking about some of my options. I have two things I'm wondering about.

 

1. Jump Packs. I'm trying to only use what I have on hand. I don't think it looks bad at all, but do you think there's an issue using the modern packs on MkIII? If not, I'll likely run them on foot, and I'm not sure which would look better.

 

2. Heavy Weapons. I'll have Heavy Bolters available in bulk from the MkIII sprues, and have enough Missile Launchers for a squad of Devastators and then some. Would contemporary Lascannons and Plasma Cannons look out of place, in your opinion?

 

It's mostly going to be part of a huge ongoing painting project, so probably won't be game optimised, but I want it to look good :) thanks.

[D3L]

I'm not sure if this a common consensus (it only is within my associates), so I'll chip in about point 1

MKIII is the "heavy" (extra frontal plates) version of the MKII, there's nothing particularly more special about it as a design mark, it's designed for boarding and slogging it 'full frontal', and while nothing stops you from using a jump pack with MKIII, (the components for with the MKII or the MKIV or the MK VII jump packs, do fit, and that's all that really matters with your dudes anyway) it just doesn't seem to fit thematically to me, at least

I has always appreciated the MKIII just a bit unwieldy to use with a Jump Pack, however, again, your dudes, your hobby, it has been said, and I kinda agree too, they look massively brutal with said JP, so go for it! make your own fluff!

Edited November 10, 2017 by D3L

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

The single turbine jump packs you can find on Sanguinary Guard and Mk IV has a variant called "Phaeton pattern heavy lift" so that's what I would use for the heavy Mk III armor.

[Major_Gilbear]

1) Jump Packs

 

Unless you happen to have a load of Mk6/7 packs already, I would consider getting some third-party ones that look nice and chunky (and retro). As Mk3 is pretty heavy armour (designed for assaults), fluffwise it tended not to be favoured by jump troops. That said, if the jump packs looked big and powerful, I think it'd be fine and nobody'd give you any hassle about it from a fluff point of view.

 

 

2) Heavy Weapons.

 

Assuming they fit (may need a little trimming here and there), I can't see any issue with using the Mk6/7 heavy weapons from the plastic Devastator kit.

 

If you want to go the extra mile, you could always use the mk3 heavy bolter as a base, and trim it back to accept the barrel and cabling of a lascannon (or perhaps replacing the cabling with a big battery pack). The plasma cannon you could use as-is, although I would consider swapping the muzzle out for one cut from the plastic Leman Russ sponsons (these are widely available and cheap to get from bits sellers) to give them a more rounded and retro feel.

[Brother Pheidias]

Bear in mind that the "modern" heavy weapons all come with attached arms in Mk. VI/VII style, and if you want them to fit the Mk. III aesthetics, you might want to look into the Forgeworld variants, there's underslung versions of all except Grav Cannons, and even there you can swap in a Volkite Culverin.

[Kinstryfe]

Thanks for the advice. There are definitely better alternatives out there (fw), but for budgetary reasons I think I'll be sticking to the modern heavy parts. They look decent enough it turns out, and a lil green stuff should let me get the arms looking decent enough.

 

I'm very torn on the packs. The modern packs look ok enough, but the MkIV packs or the MkII turbine packs look so much cooler. The downside is I've already build...25 various other jump packs with the MkIV packs, and I already have Sanguinary Guard bitz out the wazoo as a result. I did covert and cast a custom pack years ago that may work, which mostly never got used for the project I intended. Maybe I'll just use that as an "experimental heavy jump pack"...

 

Or maybe they'll just be assault marines on foot, though the packs are cheap enough in points that they seem like a no brainer.

 

Oh well, I still have about 50 terminators to paint and 70 MkIII to build before I really have to make a decision. Thanks for the advice everyone, I'm going to mull it all over :)

[Larkyn]

For jump packs, I've found these work really well with Mk3.

 

http://anvilindustry.co.uk/Exo-Lords/Torsos-and-Power-Plants/Jetpack

[Brother-Chaplain Kage]

Just use jump packs, whatever you have. Every time this question comes up people say MkIII is too heavy for them but no one can point to canon reference of it and for all the extra armor on the front and the weight increase it's supposed to have over other armor, there is no in-game benefit and/or penalty for MKIII so it can't be that much of a difference. 

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

Is there a canon reference to Mk III equipped with jump packs though? I feel like it should be a thing even if it wasn't favored by most Mk III wearers. Mk III is just the front-plated version of Mk II. Mk IV has a front-plated version too. Mk IV jump troops put on slabs of armor to cover the exposed cables on their jump pack models, so why can't Mk II do that?

Edited November 12, 2017 by Tyberos the Red Wake

[Kinstryfe]

Canonically, I'm fairly sure I've read that the Word Bearers had some mentions of it (ashen circle?).

 

Mostly I think I have 30 or 40 modern jump packs leftover from all my other conversions, and figured they'd be quite handy :)

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

Oh nice, I thought Ashen Circle was Mk II because their armor still has the overlapping scales on their thigh plate, but they have "Hardened Armour - Warriors of the Ashen Circle wore a variant Mark III Iron Pattern Power Armour unique to the Word Bearers Legion."

 

Looks like the Mk II and Mk V style packs can support the weight of Mk III.

[Brother Pheidias]

Considering Mk. III and jump-packs, I believe Argel Tal was jump-packing around during the cleansing of that human civilization that used glass robots, and that was before he switched to Mk. IV, as far as I recall.