Mark VI availability during the HH?

[Roma]

Hi all, need clarification on how widespread mark VI (corvus/beakie) armor was during the heresy I.E up to the point the traitors fled Terra.

 

It seems undisputed the raven guard and alpha legion used it during the heresy. Now wikis claim things like it entered production 2 months before the heresy or the traitors developed it from what they found on mars. My fluff guru bud claims it was just the two legions though and mars was blockaded. 

 

Can anyone provide sources (ideally directly quoted for my sanity) to clarify how widespread the armor was or wasnt during the HH? Thanks! 

[Beren]

"The Legionary is clad in prototype Astarte's battle plate, later post-designated as Mark IV, itself a mystery as the only Legion listed as having any suits of this trial mark was the Raven Guard"

From the blurb of a Corvus equipped Alpha Legionary is extermination.

 

"A case in point is the Alpha Legions access to Corvus pattern power armour, not yet in general circulation, as early as the Drop site Massacre and the 1st battle of Paramar. Later battlefield recovery and analysis of this 'corvus-alpha' armour shows it to be in fact a unique variant likely developed from an early prototype of unknown manufacture. This suggests the Alpha Legion may have acquired incomplete schematics early in the project's life and chosen to develop it by themselves without recourse to the Mechanicum" Alpha Legion fluff chapter.

 

"The Scalland campaign was to serve as the first prototype field test for the first thousand sets of prototype armour that would later come to be designated as MVI... Small numbers of the Mark V[original designation] had already been submitted to the Iron Warriors and Salamanders Legions... placed into full scale production only a few months before the outbreak of Horus' rebellion..."

The Scouring of the Scalland Sector box, Raven Guard fluff chapter.

[Darkwrath121]

Well, with the blockade of Mars preventing any shipments out, any export of MkVI to the soon-to-be-traitors would have had to be made in the period of time before the Schism. Though as Noriz says in Deliverance Lost, the 2000 suits received by the RG were the pre-production models.

 

Alternatively, the traitors got their hands on it by scavenging it from the RG or perhaps even dealing with the AL for it.

[Brother Lunkhead]

Malchador's Knight-Errants are clad in Corvus armour as well. You'll find this described in the Garro audio dramas (also the novelization of the series, Garro: Weapon of Fate). At this point in the HH Mk VI was the most advanced armor available, so it's use was not that wide spread.

[Roma]

Alright so people are agreed that pretty much the only people outside the AL and RV using corvus armor dyring the HH would have been at most some individual traitors scavenging off raven guard casualties? Thanks all! 

[Beren]

Well it was in production, so some of the elite recon units from other Legions could have been equipped to a limited degree.

[Darkwrath121]

Well it was in production, so some of the elite recon units from other Legions could have been equipped to a limited degree.

Possibly. But the RG and the legions that were on Terra were the only ones which had the necessary contact I suppose. Since no other legions were around to receive any (Knights Errant excluded obviously)

[The Nephilim]

From what I could gather on the web.

 

The Mark VI prototype design (which bore the provisional designation of Mk V at the time) was field-tested during the Scalland Campaign by Legionaries of the Raven Guard, whose experiences and comments resulted in improved design features in the finalised armour mark. Mark VI armour offered no better protection-levels than the Mark IV, but incorporated more efficient internal systems where power-routing and auto-sense were concerned. Power systems were given back-up redundancies with no increase in weight, while both olfactory and auditory sensors were improved. Additionally, the armour featured the best stealth capabilities of all power armour marks so far designed,[6] as well as a new method of compartmentalising components that allowed them to be swapped out with pieces from previous marks with ease.[1] It is the lightest variant of power armour and featured dual technology circuits that allowed the replacement of rare or sophisticated parts with common or basic alternatives. It also included fail-safes such as duplicate power cabling.[8] It also distinctive for its conical nose – designed to house additional systems including advanced auto-senses. The studded left shoulder pad, taken from the previous MkV pattern, commemorates the glory of those heroes who stood at the Eternity Gate alongside the Emperor himself.[17]

The Alpha Legion was able to acquire small numbers of Corvus Armour and modified it according to their Legion's own needs. Built in secret, the "Corvus-Alpha" pattern of Corvus Armour saw use openly during the Horus Heresy.[19]

Chaos Space Marines can be seen in this armour despite its association with Imperial Space Marines; they captured a significant quantity of the suits on Mars during the Heresy, as well as Mechanicum production facilities, and were therefore able to produce their own Mark VI suits.[1]

 

 

Deliverance Lost mentions that the Raven Guard had access to it upon their extraction from the Dropsite Massacre.

Extermination says that the Raven Guard were the Legion that tested that armor variant well before the Dropsite Massacre.

From the Warhammer Community page, they say that it was primarily distributed to loyalist Legions during the Horus Heresy.

 

 

This new mark of armour was Artificer-made and the first sets were shipped to the Raven Guard Legion ahead of all the other Loyalist Legions during the Horus Heresy, in recognition of not only their role in the technology's development process, but of the valiant sacrifice made by the XIX Legion during the Drop Site Massacre of Istvaan V. Traitor present at Istvaan V may have captured [sets of mk vi armor] in LIMITED quantities.

 

 

1: White Dwarf 129 (UK), Space Marine Armour by Rick Priestley, reprinted in Warhammer 40,000: Compilation

6: Deliverance Lost (Novel) by Gav Thorpe, pgs. 328-30

8: Deathwatch: Rites of Battle, pgs. 149-152

17: Forge World

19: The Horus Heresy Book Three, pg.90

[bluntblade]

Alright so people are agreed that pretty much the only people outside the AL and RV using corvus armor dyring the HH would have been at most some individual traitors scavenging off raven guard casualties? Thanks all!

Not sure. Hibou Khan's kill-team on Dwell were all in Mk VI, though given the context that might have been given to them by Meduson.

[Hyperion]

If you regard the HH covers as canon, then EC and DG were prototyping mk6 armour on I3 and I5, but not in large numbers. TS also had access to a few early suits on Prospero. Lots of easy fluff-justifications, for example those marines had been deployed to Terra at some point, and had been issued the equipment to test.

[Supe robot gangster #1]

With the black books as well, in my eyes they’ve been written from an historical viewpoint, being facts and opinions uncovered by an un-named author. Just because it says that the RG were the only legion to be issued the suits doesn’t necessarily make it true. There is nothing to say other legions weren’t issued small amounts of Mk VI. Particularly those who were close allies of the warmaster, and the wider galaxy just wasn’t aware, or cared.

[bluntblade]

Come to think of it, Little Horus recognising it as "the Corvus pattern" suggests that by that stage it was reasonably established, probably beyond the Raven Guard.

[carlisimo]

Alright so people are agreed that pretty much the only people outside the AL and RV using corvus armor dyring the HH would have been at most some individual traitors scavenging off raven guard casualties? Thanks all!

Not really. We know the Iron Warriors and Salamanders received some for trials - they didn't like the armor and probably mothballed it, but it's easy to imagine them finding a use for the suits once the Heresy got going. A few dozen suits would be enough to field a 30k army.

 

FW probably wrote that sentence about the Iron Warriors and Salamanders because Visions of Heresy has an image that people like to make fun of: an Iron Warriors beakie with a shoulder-mounted missile launcher or lascannon. Of course, that set of art is all over the place when it comes to armor types, since it predates Forge World's efforts to rationalize everything.

 

Also, scavenging can be done on a wider scale. You can raid a warehouse or freighter and take a whole shipment's worth of them, or steal a design and have your local forge world build a bunch. Use it if you want, just come up with a story.

[Marshal Loss]

Come to think of it, Little Horus recognising it as "the Corvus pattern" suggests that by that stage it was reasonably established, probably beyond the Raven Guard.

 

Speaking of the Sons, in Book IV: Conquest (P152) there is a picture of a Sons of Horus marine in Mark VI. The full one can be found here. I've always intended to do a Sons of Horus Mark VI Seeker Squad as a result.

[Charlo]

Isn't there a blackshield in MkVI too?

[Marshal Loss]

Isn't there a blackshield in MkVI too?

 

Some elements of Mark VI, but it's a scavenged (Mark V) suit.

 

 

 

Legiones Astartes armour marks, including some elements of Mark VI, which at that time was only just entering service across the Legions.

[bluntblade]

 

 

Come to think of it, Little Horus recognising it as "the Corvus pattern" suggests that by that stage it was reasonably established, probably beyond the Raven Guard.

Speaking of the Sons, in Book IV: Conquest (P152) there is a picture of a Sons of Horus marine in Mark VI. The full one can be found here. I've always intended to do a Sons of Horus Mark VI Seeker Squad as a result.

I've never noticed that, and I've persued Conquest more than any other Black Book.

[Lord_Caerolion]

Yeah, the timeline of the MkV and MkVI has always been a little wonky. At first, the MkV "Heresy" Armour was called that because it was essentially a coverall term for the hodge-podge armour thrown together when supplylines for the MkIV proved too hard to maintain. Now though, we've got the MkVI appearing before the Heresy even begins.

 

In short, nobody really knows.

[Master Sheol]

MkVI was intended to be MKV (as the MKVI was an evolution of the MkIV the two marks has interchangeable parts) but was postponed and used ad experimental type only by the RG

When HH exploded the AdMech pur together all the leftover parts they had from other marks projects and with a torso designed to be able to connect to all kind of PA marks they made the MkV

Then in the late part of HH with RG testing the MkVI intensively and overcoming the issues It had Mars decided to put the armour in Mass production to give to the defenders of the Terran system a modern type of armour being the MkIV production worlds in the hands of the traitors

The name was MkV in origin but as the name MkV was labelled to the stopgap armour the Corvus get the official designation MkVI

 

This is the last fluff i know about MkV and MkVI

[klisof]

This is a quote from one of my favourite SM fluff sources (the 2 volume Badab War series, Vol 2 pg 169) -

 

Mark IV

"Produced alongside the MKVII by the forces of mars during the heresy as more long term solution to the space marines needs, the corvus design was soon rapidly was soon rapidly disseminated and saw widespread use, and in particular is associated with the defence if terra by the loyalists."

 

It's been a while since i read it, but there was a book in the series where Sigismund lead a force to retrieve MKVI suits and the tech priest making them from mars before thry were destroyed in the civil war.

The Fists shipped the inital batch they liberated to the Raven guard but would have had the tech priests and designs to replicate the armour in factories elsewhere in the sol system.

 

So my take is that the MKVI would be available during the later heresy in some amounts to any loyalist legion in the Sol System as well as the RG.

That would include IF, WS, SW and by the time of the siege BA aa well. I am planning on including a couple of squads in MKVI in my IF and WS. Personally i would not include MKVI in a DA or UM army as they did not reach terra in the heresy or have supply lines to it but i f someone else did i would not have an issue with it.

 

But that is just my opinion, one of the first GW games I played was Space Marine which along with the original adaptus titanicus was the origins of the heresy fluff and was all marines in MKVI Vs other marines the same. It's an iconic suit for the heresy and my favourite armour mark.

[Master Sheol]

SW were not in the solar system

They were arriving late in terra alongside the DA

[klisof]

The SW were not in the solar system for the siege, but they were there before it during the Heresy fairly late in the timeline.

 

Based on the book 'Wolf King' and the epilogue of 'The Path of Heaven'

 

After Alaxxes, Russ went to terra along with his fleet to talk to Malcador before going to confront Horus. The SW were still close to the Solar system when the WS arrived (the SW were the first to detect and intercept the WS).

 

After that the SW left to to try and stop Horus from reaching the Solar system, so missed the siege and returned later with the DA.

 

It's possible the SW may have received some MKVI suits to resupply after they got to Terra.

[Dantay VI]

Also confirmed in Wolfsbane he was on Terra to meet Sanguinius along with Jaghtai and Dorn.

 

It was at this point that Russ quit Terra for Fenris to find a way to fight and kill Horus. Russ then atracked the SoH fleet and grievously wounded Horus before being beaten. At this point the Wolves under Ogvai went to Yarant to make their stand.

 

Therefore Wolves could have had limited access to mark 6 from their time on Terra.

[Master Sheol]

Yes but considering that the Mass production of MkVI began when the Horus fleet was at the doors of the solar system and before that MkVI was RG only with MkV being the main production line i doubts that SW had some MkVI before the HH end

[bluntblade]

I believe you're thinking Mk VII there