When and why did space marines abandon their HH era gear?

[Magos Takatus]

I tried to play Skies of Arcadia on my Dreamcast recently and couldn't make any progress because the machine kept flickering off. I ended up with three Dreamcast consoles because my friends saw me as the "Dreamcast guy". The second one no longer appears able to read the disks and the third just appears to be bricked. I like to think my games consoles are well looked after so even if the other two Dreamcasts were duff the one I originally bought should be fine... but it is faulty. I've heard it's possible it might just be some corroded pins that can be cleaned up but this is just over 20 years and without emulation I would be unable to play a one of my favourite games of all time. Nowadays preservation of data is becoming a serious ongoing issue and not just for computer gaming but for general information. 

 

I seem to recall the part about Heresy tech being different in the past. Originally from what I remember in 2nd edition 40k after a plasma gun was fired it needed to spend a turn recharging before if could be used again. Chaos space marines were given a different type of plasma gun that could fire every turn but could harm the wielder. This carried through into 3rd edition and with the change from save modifiers to the ap system they became the new must-have item.

 

I think some space marine chapters can still product some of the rarer war materiel such as mk4 power armour but as for spears, I can't think of a reason why they wouldn't have them, it's just the lack of spear-armed models that spoiled that. I saw some awesome Spartan inspired marines with power spears and shields. They were a Gamesday entry back in the day. 

 

Edited April 23, 2021 by Magos Takatus

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

 

 

 

The general explanation for anything like that (Heresy-era tech going away) is that without the Emperor around the Martian priesthood became much more insular and secretive (much like the rest of the Imperium), with the result being lots of tech details and processes were lost during the Heresy/Scouring era.

thats an unfortunately lame and lazy excuse lol

Is it though? There was an article floating around the 40k communities earlier this year about the US military having to reverse engineer components for the B2 Bombers because they couldn't make replacement parts anymore!

 

In just a few decades the manufacturing processes were forgotten and the supply of spare parts was used up. Compound this with the Insular and backwards thinking of the various factions running the Imperium and a span of time measuring in the tens of centuries....

process wasn't forgotten the infrastructure just disappeared. Same thing happened to the battleships. We haven't the infrastructure to support them for decades despite them being in reserves until fairly recently.

How ever I don't see how power spears would have been too expensive to operate or would have been simply deemed technologically inferior to newer better technology.

[deathspectersgt7]

And in today's weird way we have turn tables again and record albums.

[Tyberos the Red Wake]

Look how hard it is to get 100+ year old guns and 70+ year old cars in good shape in our own world. Now imagine instead of 100 years you're trying to find something 10,000 years old, while being at war on the level of the Doom video games, for 10,000 years. It's a miracle they even have so much old tech in M41.

[MegaVolt87]

Combination of degraded technology base, newer tech close enough to the old stuff that was better + easier to maintain/ produce. Plus a lot of the cool legion stuff is very specialized and doesn't really fit in with the codex way of war, especially with SM numbers reduction. Keep in mind, most of the good stuff was likely destroyed by the time the loyalist legions were founded/ shortly after into chapters. The scouring would have knocked off enough equipment to give them the relic status they have in modern 40k for loyalists. If anything, I would like to see a return to legion era tech base for old marines in 40k, with primaris being their own thing separate from them as a point of difference- primaris with new developments, old marines with the old stuff only, no mixed chapters. 

Edited May 3, 2021 by MegaVolt87

[techsoldaten]

Stone tablets tossed in a mud pit are the ultimate form of storage. If you really need to remember something, carve it into stone (along with some kind of a tabula raza, in case the language gets lost too.)

 

The simplest explanation for the loss of tech is supply chains. As the Imperium needed to secure it's borders post-Heresy, the dynamics of resupply changed.

 

Is a Chapter (not a Legion) going to pay for power spears for a specialized melee unit? Maybe, but it's a small order. The cost for each individual component goes up when fewer Marines use it.

 

Eventually, the Imperium would have to look at the cost of manufacturing power spears for a specific chapter and question whether it's worth it. Over a long enough time period, any organization is going to move towards cheaper, standardized solutions that are generally useful. That organization will discard ones that are expensive to make and only have limited utility.

 

Custodes still have power glaves, which are very similar. The tech probably wasn't lost, some greedy Manufactorum probably sold the Imperium on the superiority of Thunder Hammers as a weapons platform.

[WrathOfTheLion]

Technology loss is extremely common throughout history. Production of certain things requires a bit of momentum, so it is inevitable that in the aftermath of the Heresy, certain things will be lost. Technological capacity is not a linear trend up, and we can see regressions in contemporary times as well.

[Danosborne]

Religious fundamentalism would probably be a major problem by the time we get to the 41st too. Tech heresy is a thing for at least the mechanicum, so imagine if they see someone producing something which, in their eyes, isn’t sanctioned. Wars are regularly fought to recover relics of the past, what happens to these relics? Presumably they get stored away in some deep dark vault, meaning experimentation to work out how they work becomes another form of blasphemy. Standard Template Construct is the ordained path for producing technology, if it isn’t STC its blasphemy/heresy, and as we know a bunch of the STC files/dataslates/blueprints have been missing for millennia. This is one of the things which irks me about the lore surrounding Belisarius Cawl, he keeps inventing new stuff, but why isn’t he considered a blasphemer? Maybe he is, I’m not as well read on the lore as some of the frater on here, perhaps someone could point me toward some lore which gives a good account of it.

[Sarvis]

He is considered a heretek by a lot of the mechanicum I believe.

[SkimaskMohawk]

The power spear thing is a bit ridiculous; it's a combination of gw only making rules for models and the fact that their rules for "power spears" were so bad that no one wanted to take it over an axe/sword/powerfist for the years there was a difference and an option. It's like why sisters of battle don't have power axes or fists. It's not because they lost the tech, or the church can't supply the infrastructure. It's the model design.

[War Angel]

Religious fundamentalism would probably be a major problem by the time we get to the 41st too. Tech heresy is a thing for at least the mechanicum, so imagine if they see someone producing something which, in their eyes, isn’t sanctioned. Wars are regularly fought to recover relics of the past, what happens to these relics? Presumably they get stored away in some deep dark vault, meaning experimentation to work out how they work becomes another form of blasphemy. Standard Template Construct is the ordained path for producing technology, if it isn’t STC its blasphemy/heresy, and as we know a bunch of the STC files/dataslates/blueprints have been missing for millennia. This is one of the things which irks me about the lore surrounding Belisarius Cawl, he keeps inventing new stuff, but why isn’t he considered a blasphemer? Maybe he is, I’m not as well read on the lore as some of the frater on here, perhaps someone could point me toward some lore which gives a good account of it.

This is partially incorrect, but regardless, he is considered a tech heretic by some of his order.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Stone tablets tossed in a mud pit are the ultimate form of storage. If you really need to remember something, carve it into stone (along with some kind of a tabula raza, in case the language gets lost too.)

 

The simplest explanation for the loss of tech is supply chains. As the Imperium needed to secure it's borders post-Heresy, the dynamics of resupply changed.

 

Is a Chapter (not a Legion) going to pay for power spears for a specialized melee unit? Maybe, but it's a small order. The cost for each individual component goes up when fewer Marines use it.

 

Eventually, the Imperium would have to look at the cost of manufacturing power spears for a specific chapter and question whether it's worth it. Over a long enough time period, any organization is going to move towards cheaper, standardized solutions that are generally useful. That organization will discard ones that are expensive to make and only have limited utility.

 

Custodes still have power glaves, which are very similar. The tech probably wasn't lost, some greedy Manufactorum probably sold the Imperium on the superiority of Thunder Hammers as a weapons platform.

BA chapters pay for specialized power swords and axes for a specific specialized unit...just saying...

[Ragnar69]

Maybe BAs still have power spears lying around but they don't use them anymore because at some time they didn't want to continue to use this kind of unit? Or the Forgeworld that supplied the spears got destroyed and instead of finding a different supplier they simply used what other weapons they got? Or GW simply needed more snowflake units for 30k and we really don't need more in 40k? First and foremost this is a game, not everything can be 100% according to fluff else a single Marine could easily fight dozens of enemies.

[jaxom]

We shouldn’t forget when power weapon was a catch-all term to allow all sorts of modeling opportunities. There’s always going to be give and take between rules and hobby. The pendulum is swinging heavy one way at the moment, but it’s never 100%.

[MegaVolt87]

We shouldn’t forget when power weapon was a catch-all term to allow all sorts of modeling opportunities. There’s always going to be give and take between rules and hobby. The pendulum is swinging heavy one way at the moment, but it’s never 100%.

Just an FYI for newer players, power weapons used to work in 40k main like they do in HH ruleset, there used to be power spears etc. Its a rules design change more than a lore based one.

[SkimaskMohawk]

 

We shouldn’t forget when power weapon was a catch-all term to allow all sorts of modeling opportunities. There’s always going to be give and take between rules and hobby. The pendulum is swinging heavy one way at the moment, but it’s never 100%.

Just an FYI for newer players, power weapons used to work in 40k main like they do in HH ruleset, there used to be power spears etc. Its a rules design change more than a lore based one.

They actually all used to work in the same way during 3rd to 5th (which 30k was developed during). They all just ignored armour saves. True creative freedom for what your chapter was equipped with; after they gave the different types bespoke stats you basically never anything but axes if you could avoid it.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

We shouldn’t forget when power weapon was a catch-all term to allow all sorts of modeling opportunities. There’s always going to be give and take between rules and hobby. The pendulum is swinging heavy one way at the moment, but it’s never 100%.

i miss those days. I believe it was the same for force weapons as well right?

Having to treat my Libby's trident as a force staff is annoying rather than just saying 'it's a force weapon' and being done with it.

[MegaVolt87]

The interesting thing with Cawl is, he has made a standardized technology base for primaris removing a lot of the mysticism with Imperial tech as a knock on effect. The armour is modular, a bit is busted? Bin it, build a new one.Unlike pressure to re-furb that 10k year old Mk II shoulder pad that Sergant X wore in the presence of Primarch Y at the cataclysmic battle of blah blah blah.  Who gets the honour of a primaris dread? doesn't matter, because they will die eventually anyways just like the old levi dread degrading its pilots. Primaris equipment are very much utility, like the OG legion equipment was back in the day. Its not necessarily an upgrade with Imperial tech on the whole, it can also be a side grade or down grade most of the time. 

Edited May 18, 2021 by MegaVolt87

[Elzender]

As a bit of a tangent, and focussing on the spear issue, well, I have an idea: they didn't disappear, they are just considered glaives encarmine. I mean, none of the weapons of the Sanguinary Guard really fit the description of a glaive to my knowledge (which, if I recall correctly, is a form of polearm). It just happens that none of the glaives encarmine GW did for the kit was shaped as a spear. Or maybe thy are relic blades; if they are inconsistent when calling swords glaives, I could also see them calling spears a kind of blade (see some GW-produced spears, they are pretty much a sword attached to a pole, so they do have a blade edge).

[Gederas]

As a bit of a tangent, and focussing on the spear issue, well, I have an idea: they didn't disappear, they are just considered glaives encarmine. I mean, none of the weapons of the Sanguinary Guard really fit the description of a glaive to my knowledge (which, if I recall correctly, is a form of polearm). It just happens that none of the glaives encarmine GW did for the kit was shaped as a spear. Or maybe thy are relic blades; if they are inconsistent when calling swords glaives, I could also see them calling spears a kind of blade (see some GW-produced spears, they are pretty much a sword attached to a pole, so they do have a blade edge).

Very likely this. Even in 30k a "Paragon Blade" could be a sword, axe or spear.

 

Also, yes. The "Glaives Encarmine" aren't glaives, these are glaives:

A glaive is a polearm, consisting of a single-edged blade on the end of a pole. It is similar to the Japanese naginata, the Chinese guandao and pudao, the Korean woldo, the Russian sovnya, and the Siberian palma.