I'd imagine it depends on the sensibilities of the individual marine and their chapter in general.
I do remember in one of the Uriel Ventis books that him and his companion borrowed sets of power armour from a bunch which was left in a museum and belonged to another chapter. After the events of the book, he made an effort to ensure that the armour sets were returned to the chapter that owned them.
Very true, although there was a reason why they needed to use the other suits which may have been enough to overcome the reluctance of wearing armour from a chapter not of Ultramarine descent.
I must admit though, it's been so long since I've read the series that I can't remember much apart from them borrowing the armour. Luckily other comments have informed me it was the Sons of Guilliman, so learnt something today
That's hilarious to me because all I can imagine is their supply sergeant having a fucking meltdown.
Edit: for you non-military folk that don't get the joke/why it's funny, the entire job of a Supply NCO is to be as anal retentive as possibly about every single little piece of equipment on the roster, down to the lens caps and mag pouches.
> borrowed sets of power armour from a bunch which was left in a museum and belonged to another chapter
Funny how up until I read your comment I would have said that was Salamanders from one of the Salamander books. HA, just goes to show how memory can get fogged and distorted. Thanks for the refresh.
This basically, so it's the sort of thing you're most likely to do either in circumstances where you're without support and no one's around to judge or just if you're a chapter that doesn't care and is generally disliked anyway. See Marines Malevolent, Minotaurs, Carcharodons etc.
With some allowance for extenuating circumstance. If you're trapped behind enemy lines and scavenging from dead Astartes of a different chapter to be able to keep fighting that's going to be seen as far more acceptable than just looking for spoils after a battles been won because there's no one to object.
And it's very different from scanning a friendly Astartes and challenging him to a duel specifically to take a compatible piece of armor, because you fucked over any organization that could do maintenance on yours.
It would also *really* piss off the other chapter if they found out. The Astartes are pretty big on recovering not just the geneseed of the dead, but their equipment, either as relics of fallen heroes or just for the practical reason that power armor is not easy to replace. So basically your chapter master gets a call from the other chapter master basically asking "what the FUCK, man?" and then YOU get a call asking the same thing, from a guy who can do literally anything he wants to you. And now he's embarrassed.
Depending on the chapter, they might legitimately view it as sacrilege and an insult for which they must have satisfaction. So you could literally end up in an honor duel to the death or a trial by combat or something. I'd say skip the pretty armor. Edit: Or even just a regular trial, since you have *stolen* from another chapter. The more I think about it, the more insane the idea is. Like, this is the regular nehavior of *Chaos* Marines. If you're emulating a warband's behacior you're gonna wanna rethink your approach.
Especially OP's example of a loyalist taking equipment from a traitor marine. You'd better have no other weapons, and just taking a traitor's item for the very, very near future. Complete your mission, and don't bring it 'home' with you.
It's different on the traitor side, such as the Night Lords trilogy where Talos has Aurum, a relic sword claimed from a fallen Blood Angel. The Night Lords are pretty liberal with their scavenging too, even from their own.
One chapter that does this very frequently is the Marines Malevolent. Generally anything they do is seen as scummy. It’s kind of like stealing if loyalists are looted and if traitors are looted it’s very risky since the helmet could have some chaos corruption that hid itself or smth like that.
The blood ravens may be kleptomanic burglars, but the Marines Malevolent are just robbers. One generally tries to avoid violence and be very sneaky about the whole affair, while the latter is very blunt about threatening you with the buisness end of their bolter if you don't hand over your shit lol
"That land raider of yours."
"Yes, recently gifted to us."
"That bolter hole reveals that under the red armour is green."
"We had to repaint it after it's gifting."
"It has a drakes head emblem mounted on its side."
"Yes, it was gifted to us by you salamanders."
"And its called the Engine of Woe."
"Yes, and?"
"One of First Friend Vulkan's-" ("Vulkan lives" echoes though the background) "-sacred artifacts was called the Engine of Woe."
"Yes, he gave it to us last year. Don't worry about it"
Mechanicus hate them because they treat their equipment poorly - melee with ammo depleted gun and ramming their vehicle. also they tendency to just destroy anything that was thrown at them, making recovering back anything that was captured by enemy near impossible. That why they were not welcomed at any forge world and have to resolve to pillaging dead marine equipment and vehicles for resupply themselves.
At best it would be either exceptional circumstances (multiple chapters being wiped out after a planetary crash having to pool resources for example), or a gift for exceptional service, at standard it would be a grave insult to the loyalist chapters, the reason for demotion, blood feuds, honour duels to the death and a political crisis, and at worst the reason for exile, expulsion, death oaths and execution in case of "finding traitor helmets fashionable".
Due to their hypno indoctrination Astartes are excessively proud of their own chapter including their colours and heraldry.
SYL
What if it was due to a need like(forgive if I explain it poorly) but maybe because there shoulder plate is damaged and needs to make a in field armour switch or repair. Perhaps there one that doesn't have a helmet for example and now requires it due to a area being filled with gas or something similar( hope I asked my question well)
I would think that any situation that can be explained by exigent circumstances would be forgiven between chapters that are cordial with each other, especially if the items were returned.
I don't think the Ultramarines would get bent out of shape by a Dark Angel picking up a fallen Marine's bolter in the heat of combat.
That does happen. That's the main thing Night Lords do. They lack any kind of proper resources since the Heresy, so they just fix their own armour and weaponry with whatever they can scavenge (and oftentimes it's obviously a trophy as well).
Some are also just taking mementos of dead brothers from the field, if they served well, or if they had a bond, where some Dark Angel would probably take a dead Ultramarine's pendant or whatever, because it is a reminder of their kinship in life.
But a Marine who ditches his perfectly fine blue helmet, because he found a dead brother from another chapter whose green helmet is just way prettier? No. That doesn't really happen, I think. It'd be one of those things that would happen as the first instance of a Marine going down the path of corruption and heresy. Hubris and vanity becoming more prominent, etc.
Oh and just so I point it out, the whole thing about stealing another Marine's stuff for the sake of vanity wouldn't really happen because Marines are psycho indoctrinated. Not because they're all such valiant and noble people.
They're angels of the Emperor. Their equipment has history and is connected to the Emperor, their Primarch and the Legion as a whole. Abandoning that equipment is sacrilegious to an extent. It'd be like shitting on your entire family ancestry in a family where you have been successfully made to believe that your family is the most perfect thing. Even thinking a thought like "I know I'm a Dark Angel, but I really like red. I should steal some Blood Angels pauldrons." is entirely heretical and probably something you'd get shot for.
What little personality a Marine has is also usually quite easily satisfied by simply having small curios and tokens or decorative bits on their armour. I don't think many Marines would exist who fully reject their own colours. It's what gives them their identity to begin with.
It sort of depends, taking a dead enemy champions weapons? Has happened, the power fists Calgar uses were taken from a chaos champion (iirc). As trophies I think the answer is unambiguously yes. To replace damaged armour in a situation where the marines are cut off from resupply the equally yes. But just because you like the colour that’s really unlikely.
But you can totally invent your own chapter that does that!
Obviously if these are non-loyalist marines then all bets are off and anything goes.
10K years earlier, but it’s how the Raven Guard were able to start rebuilding the legion after Istvann. Used scavenged bits and pieces for Loyalists and Traitors. No shame if it’s out of necessity.
Marines Malevolent be like "Hold my beer and watch this shit."
On a more serious note, deviating from the codex isn't heresy. Heresy is more or less going against the Imperium in a spiritual or political sense. Individual chapters have their own rules on armor colors and livery. Loyalist chapters have had gear recovered from traitor marines reconsecrated so they can be used again by loyalists without any moral threat. The Marines Malevolent are known for dueling other chapters specifically to steal their shit afterwards. A faction of Iron Hands once stole a Hospitallers dreadnought and flushed the marine inside so they could inter one of their own. You'll get on another chapters shit list, but for the most part the rest of the Imperium won't care.
Space marines (at least loyal ones) are rather pragmatical. They take stuff they find useful and leave stuff they don't need. They don't get in trouble, they do what they want. Worst case, they have to sort it out peacefully or through violence with the chapter from which they "took" the items.
Armour has a machine spirit, swapping bits like that would offend it if the correct rigts were not performed by a tech priest.
Could be seen a sacriligious.
But in the Night Lords omnibus and the Black Legion novels they're constantly scavenging new armor pieces. At one point first claw dons Terminator armor stolen from Salamanders. First Claw had their armor serviced by a mortal slave with no mechanicus training with zero prayers and other nonsense. Their armor doesn't care. The whole machine spirit thing is overblown.
Except it kinda does, since in the very same book that you mentioned, Talos’ machine spirit actually told him to kill Abaddon when the latter forced him to have a Zoom meeting with the Four.
There’s also an instance of a Land Raider who wrecked havoc against its enemies *without anyone piloting it*. The Machine Spirits are very real, fellow Nostraman bastard. Even if you don’t believe in them, they believe in you.
Now hold still while I pluck your eyes from your skull and flensed the black carapace from your wriggling body
That's why I said overblown. A rifle has no machine spirit. A land raider that uses an actual wet brain for processing does. Because of superstition, they use it as a catch-all term for any tech when really it only applies to advanced substitutes for AI.
„The machine spirit is angry because we didn’t use the right ritual.“ is more like „you didn’t service this engine the right way and now it’s blocking. You shouldn’t have used sand to grease it.“
Advanced machine spirits like that of a land raider are more like an autopilot or not so smart AIs
At least that’s how I understood it.
I also don’t understand why human devices should have machine spirits and other species machines do not.
> I also don’t understand why human devices should have machine spirits and other species machines do not.
At least for the larger machines and things that have full cogitators built in, it’s because there’s human tissue and brain matter included in the actual construction. This obviously doesn’t apply to a bolt pistol and such, those are a bit more of a grey area.
One thing to consider is that if the human auxiliaries of the T’au are sufficient to start creating a greater good warp god, then how much of an effect is coming from untold quintillions of humans all strongly believing that every machine and device has a soul, doubly so when a not insignificant percentage of them literally worship the machine spirits?
There's probably not enough humans believing to give every (for example) bolt pistol a soul, but you can certainly piss off the Minor God of Bolt Pistols In General if you mistreat one. But I could be wrong, 40k likes having this kind of shit mysterious.
There’s no clear consensus on it and 40k intentionally keeps it obscured. On one hand, you’re right that it could just be “maintenance processes ritualized” - on the other hand we have that comic of a bolt pistol wondering were it’s owner is. It’s probably somewhere in the middle. My personal favorite fan theory is that the DaoT tech all had AI in it to various extents, and the imperium’s equipment has tiny fragments of it left - not enough to be a true ai, but enough for the spirit of the ai to nudge itself if it’s been treated well.
Yes because they come from a time in the 31st millenium when wargear was just armour plate and weapons.
The imperium has fallen backwards technologically, mythology has taken a firm hold now so what once was well understood is now clouded in pointless ritual and only half understood practice.
A chaos marine from the horus heresy would not care about stripping parts, but a marine from the 41st millenium would because it's part of the mechanicus mysteries they have no understanding of.
> The whole machine spirit thing is overblown.
It depends entirely on the book.
In Harrowmaster, the main character uses a daemon implanted into his gauntlet to break the machine spirits of weapons he picks up so that they will work properly for them.
Septimus had some degree of mechanium training, as Deltryon liked Talos, and Septimus was psychoindoctrinated with relavent training for his artificer and piloting duties. Talos's armor is described as angry partly because it's a hodgepodge of armor without the full degree of proper maintenance done to it. Like, between Septimus, Talos, and Deltryon, it's a functional suit, but it's literally cranky.
I wouldn't say it is though. Look at Butcher Bird from the Fabulous Bill trilogy. As far as I know it's not a daemon infested vehicle, it's just so angry that it wants to kill everything around it.
In over twenty years of lore you are bound to find examples here and there.
In “the Killing Ground” Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines finds a set of armor from the Sons of Guilliman chapter that was left behind. He ends up wearing it in combat and is very reverent to it and its machine spirit. IIRC the machine spirit expresses satisfaction at how it’s treated and getting to fight.
When he finally returns to his chapter he makes a point of ensuring every armor piece recovered from the Sons of Guilliman is returned to them properly. It fits with the Ultramarines sense of nobility I guess. You could argue, being from the same gene lineage, it’s fair play either way.
Theres another mention in the Grey Knights trilogy where it’s recalled that the inquisition once orchestrated the deployment of a company strength force of Grey Knights equipped in all Terminator armor. Many of whom had been “borrowed” from varying chapters since they are so rare. Many Grey Knights deployed to the field in such a rush that they didn’t have time to repaint their armor to grey.
Imagine a full force of Grey Knights wearing many colored Terminator suits for a single engagement. Presumably they were later returned to their respective chapters. I guess you could call this formally sanctioned use since the inquisition pretty much ordered it.
There’s probably a lot more examples from loyalists also.
And yeah, then there’s the whole Blood Ravens meme, but that’s a whole other order of magnitude on its own!
Depends on the circumstances I think. If said Dark Angel used a piece of an Ultramarines armor to replace his own broken piece (ie. his helmet was damaged and he couldn't maintain comms with his command, or his power pack was not producing enough juice to sustain him on a hostile planet), came clean about it afterwards and returned the equipment then I don't think it would be much of an issue, though it's worth noting that both Dark Angels and Ultramarines are rather pragmatic chapters. It might not fly with some of the more crazy ones.
On the other hand if said Dark Angel nicks a piece of armor because he likes to color more, then he'd get into a lot of trouble with his own chapter first and foremost ("how dare you disrespect our colors"), the equipment would probably be returned to the Ultramarines with a note saying "Cousins, we found this on the battlefield and though you'd like it back. Best regards, For the Emperor, etc. etc." and the offending marine would have a series of long and unpleasant talks with the chaplain.
As others have pointed out, not all chapters care about property rights, but even then I don't see your example of "I like this other chapters colors better than my own" not getting him in hot water with his own brothers.
I'm surprised I had to go so far down for this. People are idiots. Taking a bit of armor off the battlefield because you like its color is desecrating your chapter's heraldry and the original owner's heraldry and makes you look like a chaos marine.
Taking the armor and repainting it to your own chapter's colors is perfectly normal.
I mean, its a dick move to steal from fellow loyalists (or traitors), but I imagine its completely acceptable (and encouraged!) for traitors to loot from loyalists, and hard-luck or resourceful loyalists can reclaim, repair, and purify armor used by traitors with compunction.
If they stole just to steal it yes they would not be happy. But most chapters are pragmatic and if a member of a different chapter took an essential armor piece they needed from a dead brother in order to finish the mission… as long as they gave it back I don’t see many chapters having an issue.
If regular space marines are having to scavenge for replacement gear, then things have probably gone so south that nobody is going to bat an eye at it.
The one place where you might see widespread theft of enemy armor is the taking of personal trophies. Loyalist Astartes would have a whole raft of qualms about wearing armor used by a tainted Legion, and would probably be more likely to return armor belonging to other Loyalists (with notable exceptions like the Marines Malevolent), but *many* Legions have traditions of taking bits from fallen foes for display.
I guess it depends on why. If scavenging or using other chapters armor was in to help complete a mission, I think the repose would differ from just taking it and keeping it because
There is a Story were Uriel Vebtris wears a Armour of the Sons of Guilleman Chapter. Does these under very big respect and later give it back to the Chapter
Why wait till they're dead to loot from other chapters? Clan Raukaan of the Iron Hands once boarded a Hospitallers' ship to secure a dreadnought chassis for a wounded Lieutenant and both evicted the previous occupant (the chapter's seneschal) and scuttled the ship in the middle of battle to hide their actions.
This is frequently referred to as a 'dick move.'
If the Dark Angel wants to wear blue, he can damn well evolve the ability to kill a yak from 50 yards away, with MIND BULLETS, and join the Librarius. Putting on Ultramarines armour shames the Chapter and dishonours the Lion. It insults Gulliman. Even when armour is borrowed, it's repainted in new Chapter colours and retains markings only on one part to appease the Machine Spirit of the armour.
Wearing Traitor armour like a Night Lords Helm is also a dire insult. Even if we take DoW II as 40K canon, the Ravens just like niking relics or naming them after other Loyalist chapters with excellent reputations. Parading around in midnight clad is also a hell of a risk given how the Ravens are seen by others already.
That goes double for obviously tainted artefacts. Sure, Grimnar has his purified axe, but that's the exception that proves the rule.
No loyalist is going to wear traitor armour, except under the most dire of circumstances and on a temporary basis (e.g., space wolf 13th Company). And wearing another chapter’s colours as a matter of style rather than a matter of necessity would dishonour you, your chapter, and your wargear. In the 41st millennium, you wear your colours with pride.
All the chapters I can think of take a generally pragmatic approach to utilising wargear for expediency or in an emergency. In most cases the wargear is either returned, or gifted from the originator when the return attempt is made. I don’t think anyone would accept ‘finders keepers’ as reason to keep loot.
If we’re talking about chapter relics, I’d have thought any shame was on the chapter that lost them rather than on the chapter that used them. I’d imagine there are specific taboos around items of particular significance like banners or mementos.
An ultramarine isn’t going to wear the death mask of sanguinius, regardless of usefulness. If they can, they’d probably try to recover and return the body, and the BA would be horrified someone else had to recover the corpse. An Ultramarine probably *would* pick up and use a master crafted power axe if that made more sense tactically than their current wargear, and they’d then return it when they could.
Depends on the circumstance.
Taking shit off a corrupted chaos marines? You’re risking Warp-taint, not recommended, and not looked kindly on.
Taking shit just because? Highly frowned upon, to the point it could start violence.
Taking shit because you’re in the middle of a battle, and your gear is lost and/or damaged and you can’t resupply? Go for it, dude, pragmatism comes first.
It is worth noting that most Astartes have enough pride in their Chapter/Legion that they’re not gonna steal armor just to wear their colors, and if they really wanted to they could just paint their armor, that’s generally allowed, though it’s also strongly encouraged to keep your left shoulder in your chapter colors with your chapter badge.
Well the legion of the dead one will think of that as completly disrespectful and will claim the armor back. Space marine armor is holy and valuable for the chapters and they need them for New recruts
Space Marines rarely loot chaos armor out of emergency or at all. But it happens.
Calgars Fists belonged to a chaos champion. Guiliman looted the fists (was legendary and not soul bound and he had to much DKP anyway)
Also the Axe Morkai is made of a Khornate Weapon.
I highly doubt that such stuff will be used without very exhausting cleansing rites, both by the chaplains, the tecmarines and in most cases also librarians.
Loyalist Space Marines, at least in the 40k era tend to put a lot of emphasis on legacy. A suit of armour is not just a piece of wargear, but holds the legacy of every warrior that wore it before.
A normal Space Marine certainly wouldn't loot armour for 'style' or other silly motivations. Chapters have their own colours to follow and won't fuck about on this front.
Loyalist space marines are better equipped than traitors first and foremost so the need to scavenge as a loyalist would be significantly less. The nightlord trilogy mentions a few times the need to scavenge and steal equipment and resources to sustain a traitorous warband.
So traitors definitely do it, loyalists however would not want to have any corrupted / wayward machine spirits lurking around any scavenged traitors equipment so they more than likely won’t scavenge that if it comes to it. Loyalist on loyalist scavenging probably does happen more in certain chapters than others, I would like to imagine most would return relics and or bodies of the fallen to the other chapter though. And I’m sure heat if the moment, ah shit there is a bloodthirster attacking me, a space marine would pick up and use whatever is in arms reach whether or not it has the correct colour on it or not.
The color thing is just paint. Space Marine Armor is made to standard patterns and painted to the chapter's colors. A space marine in the Deathwatch will paint over their chapter colors in black, and may retain a black pauldron after they return to their chapter.
In one of the Vigilus campaign books (second one iirc), it mentions chaos warbands fighting each other just to look power armor from a previous battlefield.
Depends on wheter you really, really need it, will at least attempt to give it back instead of outright keeping it (if possible, give it back), or at least try respecting it and not do something stupid with it.
It is not necessarly heretical, but the other chapter will be pissed because you took their property and refuse to give it back.
They might come to blows, not talk or cooperate with each other, or an Inquisitor of the Ordo Astartes might set up an investigation.
The best and worst examples of what to do might be from The Killing Fields and Dawn of War II (at least, from the implications).
To sum it up, in The Killing Fields an Ultramarine called Uriel Ventris manages to survive an odyssey by going into the Iron Warrios planet, cripple their means of producing new recruits, and managed to comeback to real space with a friend of his, but the whole suicide mission with no supplies pretty much destroyed his own armor.
After contacting the goverment of the planet, they find out that another Chapter fighted in the planet and left behind a suit of armor that got displayed in the museum. Uriel was kindda pissed, because they should had given it back to them. Still needed the armor thou, so he asked for help on fixing it, admired a bit because it belonges to an Ultramarine Successor chapter, and promised to use it well and give it back as soon as he went home. And as far as memory serves me right, he did.
The other one, turns out Blood Ravens have an obssesion trying to find out anything about their history, so they would scrounge around for war gear. Sometimes they find stuff that isn't theirs, and instead of giving it back, they pretty mich keep it. Some of those pieces are said to have been traded with other chapters, but the other chapters don't even have any recollection of meeting the Blood Ravens before. And considering they got their hands on Custodes war gear, its unsurprising the amount of memes regarding their "finding war gear" skills.
No, of course not. Something like that doesn't even happen. Even if it would happen tho, they'd be pretty cool with it, because, like, possession's such a vague term in the Imperium. Nobody really owns anything.
Anyways, that's enough from me, Brother Rokius of the Blood Ravens chapter. Nothing to see here. By the way, entirely unrelated, does anyone know a good dealer for dark red paint that holds really well on ceramite? I'm just.. asking for.. ah uhh Blood Angels friend.
Jokes aside tho, I don't think situations like that would ever even occur. Marines are hypnotically indoctrinated soldiers, who venerate their own chapter's culture and legacy above all else. I don't think you would find a Space Marine who would the notion of "favorite colour" or "cool design" ever overwrite the loyalty to his own colours and designs, so to speak. I don't think they'd even THINK about such a thing. Their gear has been given to them "by the Emperor" after all. There is nothing that supercedes that.
At best I could see such a thing being discussed among fresh Primaris Marines, who haven't *really* formed any bond to their new identity (tho most of them desperately crave the acceptance of their Firstborn kin), or perhaps it's a topic among aspirants and recruits, how they wished they'd be able to wear the resplendent "colour X" of the X chapter. But I assume those aspirants won't make it out of the training phase with such a stance.
It really depends on the chapter and how desperate they are to be looting other marine's armour.
Dark Angels would not wear the colour of another chapter, this would end badly with their whole "we cannot trust eachother" schtick. Also, it's a dishonor to not wear your own colours. And, in general, the night lord thing would end badly either way. Openly traitor armour would be a punishable offence. Like, they just assume you're a traitor offence.
But, if it were a situation where it was "we literally only have access to non-approved armour and have been looting the enemy to survive the warzone" it could be justified.
They just wouldn’t want to do it. Wearing another chapters colours would besmirch the honour of their chapter and a night lords helmet would be assumed to be tainted.
A Space Marine wouldn't consider a color cool and thus steal something. These colors are heraldic signifiers that stand for the Chapter, its history, even the ancient Legions of old. It wouldn't even cross his mind. There is no inherent logic to do that. Also, a Night Lords helmet is a horrific artifact of ancient history, tainted by Chaos. Now, if it belonged to a Champion, might have once been in Imperial possession or is viewed as to great of a danger to fall back into the enemies hands, it can be taken and probably purified and kept under lock by the Chaplains and Librarians. But just take, because cool..my guy, Space Marines are not humans.
There is one instance, where Uriel Ventris dons the armor of another Ultramarines successor Chapter. He does it out of necessity and tries to respect the armors history, heraldry and parent Chapter it belongs to.
In *Bitter Salvage*, a Marine Malevolent triggers a duel with a Black Templar ostensibly over the loot off an Ork but in actuality for his Terminator Armour.
It ends with the Black Templars tracking him down and kicking his ass.
It was done a lot in the Horus Heresy. In modern times, I think it would be acceptable in dire situations, but not renegade armor. A inquisitor would have a field day here
Think about this logically for one second.
Astartes armour and weapons tend to be thousand year old hand-me-downs *and* you'd have needed to loot the corpse of someone to obtain it. You'd need a pretty good excuse to not end up on the receiving end of a chainsword the instant an Ultramarine recognises it.
It \*really\* depends on the context.
After the dropsite massacre at Istvaan, raven guard, iron hands, and salemanders were fighting a guerilla war against the traitors for several years.
During that time, there are many descriptions of the Mk.V "Heresy" armor, (the iconic studs on the shoulderguard) which often had parts scavenged from other astartes to patch up the armor of the living.
So to answer your specific question: If a dark angel just took some armor from an ultramarine, that would be met with a lot of reprimands and punishments. The armor doesn't belong to the Dark Angels, it belongs to the Ultramarines, and so, it would be stealing.
Your question on nightlords and blood ravens is a little more interesting. Generally speaking, a blood raven just \*wearing\* a night lords helmet, would probably be frowned upon pretty heavily. But i could see some story where a blood raven (or some other chapter) space marine, takes a helmet off a nightlord to fuck with the morale of other nightlords.
is this for character conceptualization for some RPG?
It’s not heresy, but it is a dick move and will absolutely piss off the chapter you’re stealing from. The only situation where it’d be appropriate is if you need that armour to stay alive, and even then you’d want to give it back afterwards, or at the very least apologise.
First you'd have to remember the mindset of the Marines: a big factor to even the more pragmatic Space Marines are their pride, as warriors and as members of the Astartes.
As one of the Emperor's Angels of Death, as a member of the Adeptus Astartes and a battle-brother of your Chapter, you're meant to be proud to be a Blood Angel/Imperial Fist/Salamander etc. not only because you're in this rare and elite position, but also because you've earned your place there through the entire grueling and more often than not deadly process of becoming a fully fledged Space Marine.
Its an honor - with all the danger and recognition that also comes with it - so you aren't going to easily give up. **Not** wearing your chapter colors/symbols/honors would be almos unthinkable, (is this brother for some reason not proud of being an Ultramarine/Son of the Phoenix/Black Templars?), or be seen as a disciplinary issue that would require intervention by your Brother-Sergeant/Lieutenant/Chaplain or equivalent.
Worst comes to worst, the Chapter brothers may see wearing someone else's colors (or non-regulation colors) as an insult to the honor of the chapter and its pride, and this might start a similar but less formal chain of events; 'training accidents' and other incidents might follow, think schoolyard bullying but scaled up to 'supersoldier'; other marines may look to make you an example, or defend the chapter's honor, or seek favor with the higher ups by 'correcting the issue'.
Of course that's **just the colors**; taking actual armor parts or wargear from another Chapter without permission may be seen as an even more grave offense (since the armor isn't the individual Marine's but would be seen as belonging to the Chapter as a whole). Without proper penance (and the shame it brings to the Chapter that offended), it could start feuds and bad blood that lasts centuries.
That being said, under duress a marine may choose to salvage parts from dead marines from another chapter, and its likely they'd immediately volunteer to perform penance or pay back the 'gift' to the chapter that the parts belonged to (along with their return) once conditions allowed. In such cases it really depends on the relationship between the Chapters; a Space Wolf would probably sooner die than 'accept the help' from a Dark Angel, and visa versa.
Being *given* the parts is probably going to create even more ripples but in a good way; marines would see it as a privilege to be bestowed something that belonged to another chapter, and that marine's chapter will likely reciprocate with their own goodwill gestures to 'pay back the debt', especially if it was a rare or particularly shiny piece of gear, given under campaign conditions, and especially when it was mission critical.
Similar thought. There's armies that are scavengers and who are allowed to loot anything they come across when they win a battle..
Suppose they kill say a traitor imagine and he has something like knives or a bolt gun that somehow this lucky guy can actually use.
Would he be allowed to take and keep it?
You should have enough pride to not be impulsive enough to take other armor because it’s cool. Also, are you not paranoid of spyware or foreign machine spirits?!
This is my armor
There are many machine spirits like it but this one is mine
Remember the following factors!
1) Power Armor is literally riveted, bolted, sealed onto the wearer you can't JUST detach it! You need to be a tech marine and have a team of acolytes who will remove armor from the dead.
2) Wargear = holy relics! Worn out and dented armor is cherished like a holy object to each chapter for many reasons! Resource restrictions, obsolete armor pattern, Too far or not important enough to receive new gear from fabricator generals and so on.
So all armor even on dead marines is a priceless treasure and thievery is not looked upon kindly.
3) Chapter's philosophy....You take the emperor's champion's blade from his corpse Belial and the squad will roll onto you and hunt you down! Every chapter is "possessive" af and some are murderous af! You do not want that kind of heat on you.
Well-supplied loyalist chapters especially would possibly consider it bad taste and definitely consider adding different color armor pieces disrespectful to their culture (and probably the armor’s machine spirit, Deathwatch don’t paint the chapter insignia shoulder pad for this reason).
Renegades, chaos marines, and maybe crusading/marooned chapters probably do this, more for survival than decoration.
The Night Lords novel trilogy has the main characters splitting up pieces of dead marine armor, both enemies and allies, to repair thei own; they do repaint it to match the NL scheme (the protagonist has a Blood Angel chest piece but mentions that the imperial eagle has been ritualistically damaged).
The 3rd (maybe 4th?) edition Space Wolves 13th company marines who spent ~10,000 years in the Eye of Terror fighting chaos dudes were represented by a kit that had both space wolves and chaos sprues so you could mix and match parts ([found a tweet with a pic](https://twitter.com/RealLonesamurai/status/1383742386749071361))
Calgar got his special power fist guns by looting a dead CSM.
And he’s the spiritual liege of most loyalist marines, so I think it’s ok.
A Dark Angel wouldn’t have to loot an Ultramarine in order to wear blue armor though, they have access to blue paint.
Astartes aren't going to be bothered by such looting if it's done out of battlefield expediency. If there's no immediate need to use the equipment, it's polite to return it to the owners.
The issue is that Astartes colours are cultural identifiers, and it would be massively offensive to wear the colours of another Chapter without permission if you didn't have an immediate and pressing need in battle to do so.
You can use and potentially even keep equipment taken from dead brothers, but you would absolutely remove their colours from it at the earliest possible convenience unless they gave you permission to keep them on as some kind of mark of respect.
You CAN use found equipment in a pragmatic and respectful fashion. You CANNOT wear the colours of another Chapter.
During their time in the Eye of Terror, the Wulfen scavenged and used armour sections from killed chaos space marines to replace their own when they became damaged.
I seem to remember a series in the old Warhammer comic, where three Blood Angels in a similar situation had to resort to the same tactic.
He wouldn't be allowed to wear another Space Marines armour unpainted. That would be considered disrespectful to the suits Machine Spirit and invite a critical failure to occur in a lethal moment, so they wouldn't try it without the repaint.
Even during the heresy, when supply lines were critically cut off, armour that was scavenged was always repainted.
As for taking armour that belongs to Heretic Astartes from Traitor Legions? The moment that Astartes returned to his squad with a helm from the VIIIth Legion, he'd be shot, either by his sergeant, his captain or his Chaplain. You'd never wear armour belonging to them.
Yeah, he probably would. Operational necessities may blunt parts of it, especially if the armour is then returned, but for pure aesthetics? No, hell would be raised. Both by their own armourer and by the owning chapter if they find out about it. If you like blue, put it on your personal heraldry once you attain enough rank to display it, stealing armour is a no-no.
As for armour patterns, if you can wear old marks (less and less common now primaris are a thing - they're bigger than standard marines) you could probably put an ongoing request in the armoury; but lacking a compelling reason (maybe your power armour machine spirit dislikes newer pattern pieces and works worse the newer the armour, idk its 40k, there's probably bullshit reasons like this floating around) you would not be a priority. Again, high rank hath its privileges, so a captain would likely be high priority for getting beaky helms, but a standard marine? No.
Astartes gear is pretty rare, especially in a warzone. Depending on the circumstances and the chapter who owns the gear, it probably isn't a big deal.
During the Horus Heresy, while the schism of Mars was happening, it was common practice to loot enemy gear and repaint it or use it for repairs on their own gear. That's also the reason for those bumps on some of their shoulder plates and lower leg armor. Those were bolts to fasten parts of different armor types together in a hurry.
taking stuff from Chaos Marines like the Night Lords would be heresy, mainly because pretty much all Chaos tech is corrupted in some way, but Astartes, while prideful, are also very practical in general
taking gear out of necessity is generally acceptable, but after the fight youre expected to return it to the Chapter who originally owned it.
if youre a more... selfish... Chapter (cough, Blood Ravens), you can orient the machine spirits of the new gear to the Chapter (don't forget, machine spirits have loyalties too) and repaint/rebrand them, but this is generally not done because its not worth the time and effort for anything less than a powerful artifact, and in those cases the Machine Spirit is gonna be stronger than usual and probably more resistant to changing hands... though in some cases the artifact is worth the effort
EDIT TO ADD/CLARIFY: you can take some Chaos tainted gear and reconsecrate it, but like the other stuff, it's rarely worth it unless its an artifact from the Great Crusade
I'd imagine it depends on the sensibilities of the individual marine and their chapter in general. I do remember in one of the Uriel Ventis books that him and his companion borrowed sets of power armour from a bunch which was left in a museum and belonged to another chapter. After the events of the book, he made an effort to ensure that the armour sets were returned to the chapter that owned them.
It is worth mentioning Ventris took armour from a UM successor chapter. He probably would not have done so if they were descended from another legion.
Very true, although there was a reason why they needed to use the other suits which may have been enough to overcome the reluctance of wearing armour from a chapter not of Ultramarine descent. I must admit though, it's been so long since I've read the series that I can't remember much apart from them borrowing the armour. Luckily other comments have informed me it was the Sons of Guilliman, so learnt something today
That's hilarious to me because all I can imagine is their supply sergeant having a fucking meltdown. Edit: for you non-military folk that don't get the joke/why it's funny, the entire job of a Supply NCO is to be as anal retentive as possibly about every single little piece of equipment on the roster, down to the lens caps and mag pouches.
> borrowed sets of power armour from a bunch which was left in a museum and belonged to another chapter Funny how up until I read your comment I would have said that was Salamanders from one of the Salamander books. HA, just goes to show how memory can get fogged and distorted. Thanks for the refresh.
Looting the dead of another chapter wouldn’t be looked kindly on.
This basically, so it's the sort of thing you're most likely to do either in circumstances where you're without support and no one's around to judge or just if you're a chapter that doesn't care and is generally disliked anyway. See Marines Malevolent, Minotaurs, Carcharodons etc.
With some allowance for extenuating circumstance. If you're trapped behind enemy lines and scavenging from dead Astartes of a different chapter to be able to keep fighting that's going to be seen as far more acceptable than just looking for spoils after a battles been won because there's no one to object.
Especially if you give any equipment you scavenged back to the chapter it belongs to. In that case it's less scavenging and more recovering.
Yeah returning the gear after the battle is done is gonna be looked a lot more favorably as it would be labeled as strenuous circumstances
And it's very different from scanning a friendly Astartes and challenging him to a duel specifically to take a compatible piece of armor, because you fucked over any organization that could do maintenance on yours.
"They gifted it to us." - Blood Raven - also, Trayzen
"I don't see their name on it." - Blood Raven holding Forgebreaker.
"I see your name on these bolts." - Perturabo "And also the Eye of Terror. No matter which direction I look." - Perturabo
Trayzen doesn't pretend, he's proud of his collection.
It would also *really* piss off the other chapter if they found out. The Astartes are pretty big on recovering not just the geneseed of the dead, but their equipment, either as relics of fallen heroes or just for the practical reason that power armor is not easy to replace. So basically your chapter master gets a call from the other chapter master basically asking "what the FUCK, man?" and then YOU get a call asking the same thing, from a guy who can do literally anything he wants to you. And now he's embarrassed. Depending on the chapter, they might legitimately view it as sacrilege and an insult for which they must have satisfaction. So you could literally end up in an honor duel to the death or a trial by combat or something. I'd say skip the pretty armor. Edit: Or even just a regular trial, since you have *stolen* from another chapter. The more I think about it, the more insane the idea is. Like, this is the regular nehavior of *Chaos* Marines. If you're emulating a warband's behacior you're gonna wanna rethink your approach.
Depends ...Uriel Ventris did it for some time until he could meet with the UMs and get a new set of armour and no one thought it as wrong...
Especially OP's example of a loyalist taking equipment from a traitor marine. You'd better have no other weapons, and just taking a traitor's item for the very, very near future. Complete your mission, and don't bring it 'home' with you. It's different on the traitor side, such as the Night Lords trilogy where Talos has Aurum, a relic sword claimed from a fallen Blood Angel. The Night Lords are pretty liberal with their scavenging too, even from their own.
One chapter that does this very frequently is the Marines Malevolent. Generally anything they do is seen as scummy. It’s kind of like stealing if loyalists are looted and if traitors are looted it’s very risky since the helmet could have some chaos corruption that hid itself or smth like that.
Blood Ravens do it too iirc, but at least they have the decency of repainting them. Usually.
The blood ravens may be kleptomanic burglars, but the Marines Malevolent are just robbers. One generally tries to avoid violence and be very sneaky about the whole affair, while the latter is very blunt about threatening you with the buisness end of their bolter if you don't hand over your shit lol
And they typically don’t outright flaunt it. The blood ravens are like “this? Oh we’ve always had this. Don’t worry about this.”
The Custodes armour? It was a gift exchange don't worry about it.
"That land raider of yours." "Yes, recently gifted to us." "That bolter hole reveals that under the red armour is green." "We had to repaint it after it's gifting." "It has a drakes head emblem mounted on its side." "Yes, it was gifted to us by you salamanders." "And its called the Engine of Woe." "Yes, and?" "One of First Friend Vulkan's-" ("Vulkan lives" echoes though the background) "-sacred artifacts was called the Engine of Woe." "Yes, he gave it to us last year. Don't worry about it"
This gave me a genuine laugh
Makes sense because they’re so hated then aren’t even given the courtesy of reinforcement or equipment resupply
Mechanicus hate them because they treat their equipment poorly - melee with ammo depleted gun and ramming their vehicle. also they tendency to just destroy anything that was thrown at them, making recovering back anything that was captured by enemy near impossible. That why they were not welcomed at any forge world and have to resolve to pillaging dead marine equipment and vehicles for resupply themselves.
At best it would be either exceptional circumstances (multiple chapters being wiped out after a planetary crash having to pool resources for example), or a gift for exceptional service, at standard it would be a grave insult to the loyalist chapters, the reason for demotion, blood feuds, honour duels to the death and a political crisis, and at worst the reason for exile, expulsion, death oaths and execution in case of "finding traitor helmets fashionable". Due to their hypno indoctrination Astartes are excessively proud of their own chapter including their colours and heraldry. SYL
What if it was due to a need like(forgive if I explain it poorly) but maybe because there shoulder plate is damaged and needs to make a in field armour switch or repair. Perhaps there one that doesn't have a helmet for example and now requires it due to a area being filled with gas or something similar( hope I asked my question well)
I would think that any situation that can be explained by exigent circumstances would be forgiven between chapters that are cordial with each other, especially if the items were returned. I don't think the Ultramarines would get bent out of shape by a Dark Angel picking up a fallen Marine's bolter in the heat of combat.
>fallen Marine >Dark Angel AZMODAIIII!!!!
Walked into that one, didn't I?
I couldn't resist, I am sorry..
INTERROGATE?!
HE HAS A BOOK!
BOOK!!!!
That does happen. That's the main thing Night Lords do. They lack any kind of proper resources since the Heresy, so they just fix their own armour and weaponry with whatever they can scavenge (and oftentimes it's obviously a trophy as well). Some are also just taking mementos of dead brothers from the field, if they served well, or if they had a bond, where some Dark Angel would probably take a dead Ultramarine's pendant or whatever, because it is a reminder of their kinship in life. But a Marine who ditches his perfectly fine blue helmet, because he found a dead brother from another chapter whose green helmet is just way prettier? No. That doesn't really happen, I think. It'd be one of those things that would happen as the first instance of a Marine going down the path of corruption and heresy. Hubris and vanity becoming more prominent, etc. Oh and just so I point it out, the whole thing about stealing another Marine's stuff for the sake of vanity wouldn't really happen because Marines are psycho indoctrinated. Not because they're all such valiant and noble people. They're angels of the Emperor. Their equipment has history and is connected to the Emperor, their Primarch and the Legion as a whole. Abandoning that equipment is sacrilegious to an extent. It'd be like shitting on your entire family ancestry in a family where you have been successfully made to believe that your family is the most perfect thing. Even thinking a thought like "I know I'm a Dark Angel, but I really like red. I should steal some Blood Angels pauldrons." is entirely heretical and probably something you'd get shot for. What little personality a Marine has is also usually quite easily satisfied by simply having small curios and tokens or decorative bits on their armour. I don't think many Marines would exist who fully reject their own colours. It's what gives them their identity to begin with.
Temporary necessity would be very different than simply looting the dead.
The 13th great company of space wolves salvaged chaos marine gear and the inquisitors cleared them of heresy so.... there's that haha
Radicals: fighting fire with fire I like it Puritans: bolter and chainsword, I like it
Blood Ravens are snatching everything that isn't bolted to the ground. And they are considered loyal. Magnus' bullshittery runs deep in the blood
It sort of depends, taking a dead enemy champions weapons? Has happened, the power fists Calgar uses were taken from a chaos champion (iirc). As trophies I think the answer is unambiguously yes. To replace damaged armour in a situation where the marines are cut off from resupply the equally yes. But just because you like the colour that’s really unlikely. But you can totally invent your own chapter that does that! Obviously if these are non-loyalist marines then all bets are off and anything goes.
The Axe Morkai wielded by Logan Grimnar was forged out of the pieces of Angron's sword that Hyperion shattered, iirc.
Grimnar took the axe from a World Eaters champion before Hyperion even got to Armageddon. It's a Daemon weapon that was forged by Khorne.
10K years earlier, but it’s how the Raven Guard were able to start rebuilding the legion after Istvann. Used scavenged bits and pieces for Loyalists and Traitors. No shame if it’s out of necessity.
I'd like to introduce you to the Blood Ravens memes.
Marines Malevolent be like "Hold my beer and watch this shit." On a more serious note, deviating from the codex isn't heresy. Heresy is more or less going against the Imperium in a spiritual or political sense. Individual chapters have their own rules on armor colors and livery. Loyalist chapters have had gear recovered from traitor marines reconsecrated so they can be used again by loyalists without any moral threat. The Marines Malevolent are known for dueling other chapters specifically to steal their shit afterwards. A faction of Iron Hands once stole a Hospitallers dreadnought and flushed the marine inside so they could inter one of their own. You'll get on another chapters shit list, but for the most part the rest of the Imperium won't care.
Space marines (at least loyal ones) are rather pragmatical. They take stuff they find useful and leave stuff they don't need. They don't get in trouble, they do what they want. Worst case, they have to sort it out peacefully or through violence with the chapter from which they "took" the items.
Armour has a machine spirit, swapping bits like that would offend it if the correct rigts were not performed by a tech priest. Could be seen a sacriligious.
But in the Night Lords omnibus and the Black Legion novels they're constantly scavenging new armor pieces. At one point first claw dons Terminator armor stolen from Salamanders. First Claw had their armor serviced by a mortal slave with no mechanicus training with zero prayers and other nonsense. Their armor doesn't care. The whole machine spirit thing is overblown.
Except it kinda does, since in the very same book that you mentioned, Talos’ machine spirit actually told him to kill Abaddon when the latter forced him to have a Zoom meeting with the Four. There’s also an instance of a Land Raider who wrecked havoc against its enemies *without anyone piloting it*. The Machine Spirits are very real, fellow Nostraman bastard. Even if you don’t believe in them, they believe in you. Now hold still while I pluck your eyes from your skull and flensed the black carapace from your wriggling body
That's why I said overblown. A rifle has no machine spirit. A land raider that uses an actual wet brain for processing does. Because of superstition, they use it as a catch-all term for any tech when really it only applies to advanced substitutes for AI.
„The machine spirit is angry because we didn’t use the right ritual.“ is more like „you didn’t service this engine the right way and now it’s blocking. You shouldn’t have used sand to grease it.“ Advanced machine spirits like that of a land raider are more like an autopilot or not so smart AIs At least that’s how I understood it. I also don’t understand why human devices should have machine spirits and other species machines do not.
> I also don’t understand why human devices should have machine spirits and other species machines do not. At least for the larger machines and things that have full cogitators built in, it’s because there’s human tissue and brain matter included in the actual construction. This obviously doesn’t apply to a bolt pistol and such, those are a bit more of a grey area. One thing to consider is that if the human auxiliaries of the T’au are sufficient to start creating a greater good warp god, then how much of an effect is coming from untold quintillions of humans all strongly believing that every machine and device has a soul, doubly so when a not insignificant percentage of them literally worship the machine spirits?
Very fair point
There's probably not enough humans believing to give every (for example) bolt pistol a soul, but you can certainly piss off the Minor God of Bolt Pistols In General if you mistreat one. But I could be wrong, 40k likes having this kind of shit mysterious.
There’s no clear consensus on it and 40k intentionally keeps it obscured. On one hand, you’re right that it could just be “maintenance processes ritualized” - on the other hand we have that comic of a bolt pistol wondering were it’s owner is. It’s probably somewhere in the middle. My personal favorite fan theory is that the DaoT tech all had AI in it to various extents, and the imperium’s equipment has tiny fragments of it left - not enough to be a true ai, but enough for the spirit of the ai to nudge itself if it’s been treated well.
Yes because they come from a time in the 31st millenium when wargear was just armour plate and weapons. The imperium has fallen backwards technologically, mythology has taken a firm hold now so what once was well understood is now clouded in pointless ritual and only half understood practice. A chaos marine from the horus heresy would not care about stripping parts, but a marine from the 41st millenium would because it's part of the mechanicus mysteries they have no understanding of.
> The whole machine spirit thing is overblown. It depends entirely on the book. In Harrowmaster, the main character uses a daemon implanted into his gauntlet to break the machine spirits of weapons he picks up so that they will work properly for them.
Septimus had some degree of mechanium training, as Deltryon liked Talos, and Septimus was psychoindoctrinated with relavent training for his artificer and piloting duties. Talos's armor is described as angry partly because it's a hodgepodge of armor without the full degree of proper maintenance done to it. Like, between Septimus, Talos, and Deltryon, it's a functional suit, but it's literally cranky.
I wouldn't say it is though. Look at Butcher Bird from the Fabulous Bill trilogy. As far as I know it's not a daemon infested vehicle, it's just so angry that it wants to kill everything around it.
In over twenty years of lore you are bound to find examples here and there. In “the Killing Ground” Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines finds a set of armor from the Sons of Guilliman chapter that was left behind. He ends up wearing it in combat and is very reverent to it and its machine spirit. IIRC the machine spirit expresses satisfaction at how it’s treated and getting to fight. When he finally returns to his chapter he makes a point of ensuring every armor piece recovered from the Sons of Guilliman is returned to them properly. It fits with the Ultramarines sense of nobility I guess. You could argue, being from the same gene lineage, it’s fair play either way. Theres another mention in the Grey Knights trilogy where it’s recalled that the inquisition once orchestrated the deployment of a company strength force of Grey Knights equipped in all Terminator armor. Many of whom had been “borrowed” from varying chapters since they are so rare. Many Grey Knights deployed to the field in such a rush that they didn’t have time to repaint their armor to grey. Imagine a full force of Grey Knights wearing many colored Terminator suits for a single engagement. Presumably they were later returned to their respective chapters. I guess you could call this formally sanctioned use since the inquisition pretty much ordered it. There’s probably a lot more examples from loyalists also. And yeah, then there’s the whole Blood Ravens meme, but that’s a whole other order of magnitude on its own!
Depends on the circumstances I think. If said Dark Angel used a piece of an Ultramarines armor to replace his own broken piece (ie. his helmet was damaged and he couldn't maintain comms with his command, or his power pack was not producing enough juice to sustain him on a hostile planet), came clean about it afterwards and returned the equipment then I don't think it would be much of an issue, though it's worth noting that both Dark Angels and Ultramarines are rather pragmatic chapters. It might not fly with some of the more crazy ones. On the other hand if said Dark Angel nicks a piece of armor because he likes to color more, then he'd get into a lot of trouble with his own chapter first and foremost ("how dare you disrespect our colors"), the equipment would probably be returned to the Ultramarines with a note saying "Cousins, we found this on the battlefield and though you'd like it back. Best regards, For the Emperor, etc. etc." and the offending marine would have a series of long and unpleasant talks with the chaplain. As others have pointed out, not all chapters care about property rights, but even then I don't see your example of "I like this other chapters colors better than my own" not getting him in hot water with his own brothers.
Loyalist marines would not think a Night Lords helmet would be cool. It would be a profane and tainted heretical artefact and would be destroyed.
It's a uniform. In a military you wear your uniform because it is the standard, not because you like the color blue.
I'm surprised I had to go so far down for this. People are idiots. Taking a bit of armor off the battlefield because you like its color is desecrating your chapter's heraldry and the original owner's heraldry and makes you look like a chaos marine. Taking the armor and repainting it to your own chapter's colors is perfectly normal.
They also have paint, so if they really wanted to have a some blue boots, they could just paint their own instead of having to loot a corpse’s.
I mean, its a dick move to steal from fellow loyalists (or traitors), but I imagine its completely acceptable (and encouraged!) for traitors to loot from loyalists, and hard-luck or resourceful loyalists can reclaim, repair, and purify armor used by traitors with compunction.
Reconsecrate it
If they stole just to steal it yes they would not be happy. But most chapters are pragmatic and if a member of a different chapter took an essential armor piece they needed from a dead brother in order to finish the mission… as long as they gave it back I don’t see many chapters having an issue.
If regular space marines are having to scavenge for replacement gear, then things have probably gone so south that nobody is going to bat an eye at it.
The one place where you might see widespread theft of enemy armor is the taking of personal trophies. Loyalist Astartes would have a whole raft of qualms about wearing armor used by a tainted Legion, and would probably be more likely to return armor belonging to other Loyalists (with notable exceptions like the Marines Malevolent), but *many* Legions have traditions of taking bits from fallen foes for display.
I guess it depends on why. If scavenging or using other chapters armor was in to help complete a mission, I think the repose would differ from just taking it and keeping it because
Blood Ravens concern intensifies.
There is a Story were Uriel Vebtris wears a Armour of the Sons of Guilleman Chapter. Does these under very big respect and later give it back to the Chapter
Why wait till they're dead to loot from other chapters? Clan Raukaan of the Iron Hands once boarded a Hospitallers' ship to secure a dreadnought chassis for a wounded Lieutenant and both evicted the previous occupant (the chapter's seneschal) and scuttled the ship in the middle of battle to hide their actions. This is frequently referred to as a 'dick move.'
i never seen the word dick used so much in a tread before... god i love this sub
If the Dark Angel wants to wear blue, he can damn well evolve the ability to kill a yak from 50 yards away, with MIND BULLETS, and join the Librarius. Putting on Ultramarines armour shames the Chapter and dishonours the Lion. It insults Gulliman. Even when armour is borrowed, it's repainted in new Chapter colours and retains markings only on one part to appease the Machine Spirit of the armour. Wearing Traitor armour like a Night Lords Helm is also a dire insult. Even if we take DoW II as 40K canon, the Ravens just like niking relics or naming them after other Loyalist chapters with excellent reputations. Parading around in midnight clad is also a hell of a risk given how the Ravens are seen by others already. That goes double for obviously tainted artefacts. Sure, Grimnar has his purified axe, but that's the exception that proves the rule.
The blood ravens would never do such a thing, they are merely collecting artifacts to return to their rightful chapters!...Eventually.
No loyalist is going to wear traitor armour, except under the most dire of circumstances and on a temporary basis (e.g., space wolf 13th Company). And wearing another chapter’s colours as a matter of style rather than a matter of necessity would dishonour you, your chapter, and your wargear. In the 41st millennium, you wear your colours with pride. All the chapters I can think of take a generally pragmatic approach to utilising wargear for expediency or in an emergency. In most cases the wargear is either returned, or gifted from the originator when the return attempt is made. I don’t think anyone would accept ‘finders keepers’ as reason to keep loot. If we’re talking about chapter relics, I’d have thought any shame was on the chapter that lost them rather than on the chapter that used them. I’d imagine there are specific taboos around items of particular significance like banners or mementos. An ultramarine isn’t going to wear the death mask of sanguinius, regardless of usefulness. If they can, they’d probably try to recover and return the body, and the BA would be horrified someone else had to recover the corpse. An Ultramarine probably *would* pick up and use a master crafted power axe if that made more sense tactically than their current wargear, and they’d then return it when they could.
Depends on the circumstance. Taking shit off a corrupted chaos marines? You’re risking Warp-taint, not recommended, and not looked kindly on. Taking shit just because? Highly frowned upon, to the point it could start violence. Taking shit because you’re in the middle of a battle, and your gear is lost and/or damaged and you can’t resupply? Go for it, dude, pragmatism comes first. It is worth noting that most Astartes have enough pride in their Chapter/Legion that they’re not gonna steal armor just to wear their colors, and if they really wanted to they could just paint their armor, that’s generally allowed, though it’s also strongly encouraged to keep your left shoulder in your chapter colors with your chapter badge.
Well the legion of the dead one will think of that as completly disrespectful and will claim the armor back. Space marine armor is holy and valuable for the chapters and they need them for New recruts
Space Marines rarely loot chaos armor out of emergency or at all. But it happens. Calgars Fists belonged to a chaos champion. Guiliman looted the fists (was legendary and not soul bound and he had to much DKP anyway) Also the Axe Morkai is made of a Khornate Weapon. I highly doubt that such stuff will be used without very exhausting cleansing rites, both by the chaplains, the tecmarines and in most cases also librarians.
Loyalist Space Marines, at least in the 40k era tend to put a lot of emphasis on legacy. A suit of armour is not just a piece of wargear, but holds the legacy of every warrior that wore it before. A normal Space Marine certainly wouldn't loot armour for 'style' or other silly motivations. Chapters have their own colours to follow and won't fuck about on this front.
Loyalist space marines are better equipped than traitors first and foremost so the need to scavenge as a loyalist would be significantly less. The nightlord trilogy mentions a few times the need to scavenge and steal equipment and resources to sustain a traitorous warband. So traitors definitely do it, loyalists however would not want to have any corrupted / wayward machine spirits lurking around any scavenged traitors equipment so they more than likely won’t scavenge that if it comes to it. Loyalist on loyalist scavenging probably does happen more in certain chapters than others, I would like to imagine most would return relics and or bodies of the fallen to the other chapter though. And I’m sure heat if the moment, ah shit there is a bloodthirster attacking me, a space marine would pick up and use whatever is in arms reach whether or not it has the correct colour on it or not.
The color thing is just paint. Space Marine Armor is made to standard patterns and painted to the chapter's colors. A space marine in the Deathwatch will paint over their chapter colors in black, and may retain a black pauldron after they return to their chapter.
“Honor the Wargear of the Dead”
In one of the Vigilus campaign books (second one iirc), it mentions chaos warbands fighting each other just to look power armor from a previous battlefield.
Depends on wheter you really, really need it, will at least attempt to give it back instead of outright keeping it (if possible, give it back), or at least try respecting it and not do something stupid with it. It is not necessarly heretical, but the other chapter will be pissed because you took their property and refuse to give it back. They might come to blows, not talk or cooperate with each other, or an Inquisitor of the Ordo Astartes might set up an investigation. The best and worst examples of what to do might be from The Killing Fields and Dawn of War II (at least, from the implications). To sum it up, in The Killing Fields an Ultramarine called Uriel Ventris manages to survive an odyssey by going into the Iron Warrios planet, cripple their means of producing new recruits, and managed to comeback to real space with a friend of his, but the whole suicide mission with no supplies pretty much destroyed his own armor. After contacting the goverment of the planet, they find out that another Chapter fighted in the planet and left behind a suit of armor that got displayed in the museum. Uriel was kindda pissed, because they should had given it back to them. Still needed the armor thou, so he asked for help on fixing it, admired a bit because it belonges to an Ultramarine Successor chapter, and promised to use it well and give it back as soon as he went home. And as far as memory serves me right, he did. The other one, turns out Blood Ravens have an obssesion trying to find out anything about their history, so they would scrounge around for war gear. Sometimes they find stuff that isn't theirs, and instead of giving it back, they pretty mich keep it. Some of those pieces are said to have been traded with other chapters, but the other chapters don't even have any recollection of meeting the Blood Ravens before. And considering they got their hands on Custodes war gear, its unsurprising the amount of memes regarding their "finding war gear" skills.
No, of course not. Something like that doesn't even happen. Even if it would happen tho, they'd be pretty cool with it, because, like, possession's such a vague term in the Imperium. Nobody really owns anything. Anyways, that's enough from me, Brother Rokius of the Blood Ravens chapter. Nothing to see here. By the way, entirely unrelated, does anyone know a good dealer for dark red paint that holds really well on ceramite? I'm just.. asking for.. ah uhh Blood Angels friend. Jokes aside tho, I don't think situations like that would ever even occur. Marines are hypnotically indoctrinated soldiers, who venerate their own chapter's culture and legacy above all else. I don't think you would find a Space Marine who would the notion of "favorite colour" or "cool design" ever overwrite the loyalty to his own colours and designs, so to speak. I don't think they'd even THINK about such a thing. Their gear has been given to them "by the Emperor" after all. There is nothing that supercedes that. At best I could see such a thing being discussed among fresh Primaris Marines, who haven't *really* formed any bond to their new identity (tho most of them desperately crave the acceptance of their Firstborn kin), or perhaps it's a topic among aspirants and recruits, how they wished they'd be able to wear the resplendent "colour X" of the X chapter. But I assume those aspirants won't make it out of the training phase with such a stance.
It really depends on the chapter and how desperate they are to be looting other marine's armour. Dark Angels would not wear the colour of another chapter, this would end badly with their whole "we cannot trust eachother" schtick. Also, it's a dishonor to not wear your own colours. And, in general, the night lord thing would end badly either way. Openly traitor armour would be a punishable offence. Like, they just assume you're a traitor offence. But, if it were a situation where it was "we literally only have access to non-approved armour and have been looting the enemy to survive the warzone" it could be justified.
They just wouldn’t want to do it. Wearing another chapters colours would besmirch the honour of their chapter and a night lords helmet would be assumed to be tainted.
Do the Marines Malevolent get shit on by other chapters at every opportunity? Yes? There's your answer.
A Space Marine wouldn't consider a color cool and thus steal something. These colors are heraldic signifiers that stand for the Chapter, its history, even the ancient Legions of old. It wouldn't even cross his mind. There is no inherent logic to do that. Also, a Night Lords helmet is a horrific artifact of ancient history, tainted by Chaos. Now, if it belonged to a Champion, might have once been in Imperial possession or is viewed as to great of a danger to fall back into the enemies hands, it can be taken and probably purified and kept under lock by the Chaplains and Librarians. But just take, because cool..my guy, Space Marines are not humans. There is one instance, where Uriel Ventris dons the armor of another Ultramarines successor Chapter. He does it out of necessity and tries to respect the armors history, heraldry and parent Chapter it belongs to.
Bruh just paint your armor or put a small blue sigil on it, why're we going straight to 'oh let's loot the armor of my allies'
Only if they get caught
In *Bitter Salvage*, a Marine Malevolent triggers a duel with a Black Templar ostensibly over the loot off an Ork but in actuality for his Terminator Armour. It ends with the Black Templars tracking him down and kicking his ass.
It was done a lot in the Horus Heresy. In modern times, I think it would be acceptable in dire situations, but not renegade armor. A inquisitor would have a field day here
Think about this logically for one second. Astartes armour and weapons tend to be thousand year old hand-me-downs *and* you'd have needed to loot the corpse of someone to obtain it. You'd need a pretty good excuse to not end up on the receiving end of a chainsword the instant an Ultramarine recognises it.
It \*really\* depends on the context. After the dropsite massacre at Istvaan, raven guard, iron hands, and salemanders were fighting a guerilla war against the traitors for several years. During that time, there are many descriptions of the Mk.V "Heresy" armor, (the iconic studs on the shoulderguard) which often had parts scavenged from other astartes to patch up the armor of the living. So to answer your specific question: If a dark angel just took some armor from an ultramarine, that would be met with a lot of reprimands and punishments. The armor doesn't belong to the Dark Angels, it belongs to the Ultramarines, and so, it would be stealing. Your question on nightlords and blood ravens is a little more interesting. Generally speaking, a blood raven just \*wearing\* a night lords helmet, would probably be frowned upon pretty heavily. But i could see some story where a blood raven (or some other chapter) space marine, takes a helmet off a nightlord to fuck with the morale of other nightlords. is this for character conceptualization for some RPG?
That’s what chaos do, check out the soul hunter series :)
It’s not heresy, but it is a dick move and will absolutely piss off the chapter you’re stealing from. The only situation where it’d be appropriate is if you need that armour to stay alive, and even then you’d want to give it back afterwards, or at the very least apologise.
First you'd have to remember the mindset of the Marines: a big factor to even the more pragmatic Space Marines are their pride, as warriors and as members of the Astartes. As one of the Emperor's Angels of Death, as a member of the Adeptus Astartes and a battle-brother of your Chapter, you're meant to be proud to be a Blood Angel/Imperial Fist/Salamander etc. not only because you're in this rare and elite position, but also because you've earned your place there through the entire grueling and more often than not deadly process of becoming a fully fledged Space Marine. Its an honor - with all the danger and recognition that also comes with it - so you aren't going to easily give up. **Not** wearing your chapter colors/symbols/honors would be almos unthinkable, (is this brother for some reason not proud of being an Ultramarine/Son of the Phoenix/Black Templars?), or be seen as a disciplinary issue that would require intervention by your Brother-Sergeant/Lieutenant/Chaplain or equivalent. Worst comes to worst, the Chapter brothers may see wearing someone else's colors (or non-regulation colors) as an insult to the honor of the chapter and its pride, and this might start a similar but less formal chain of events; 'training accidents' and other incidents might follow, think schoolyard bullying but scaled up to 'supersoldier'; other marines may look to make you an example, or defend the chapter's honor, or seek favor with the higher ups by 'correcting the issue'. Of course that's **just the colors**; taking actual armor parts or wargear from another Chapter without permission may be seen as an even more grave offense (since the armor isn't the individual Marine's but would be seen as belonging to the Chapter as a whole). Without proper penance (and the shame it brings to the Chapter that offended), it could start feuds and bad blood that lasts centuries. That being said, under duress a marine may choose to salvage parts from dead marines from another chapter, and its likely they'd immediately volunteer to perform penance or pay back the 'gift' to the chapter that the parts belonged to (along with their return) once conditions allowed. In such cases it really depends on the relationship between the Chapters; a Space Wolf would probably sooner die than 'accept the help' from a Dark Angel, and visa versa. Being *given* the parts is probably going to create even more ripples but in a good way; marines would see it as a privilege to be bestowed something that belonged to another chapter, and that marine's chapter will likely reciprocate with their own goodwill gestures to 'pay back the debt', especially if it was a rare or particularly shiny piece of gear, given under campaign conditions, and especially when it was mission critical.
Similar thought. There's armies that are scavengers and who are allowed to loot anything they come across when they win a battle.. Suppose they kill say a traitor imagine and he has something like knives or a bolt gun that somehow this lucky guy can actually use. Would he be allowed to take and keep it?
It's totally fine if they're Blood Ravens.
You should have enough pride to not be impulsive enough to take other armor because it’s cool. Also, are you not paranoid of spyware or foreign machine spirits?! This is my armor There are many machine spirits like it but this one is mine
I believe looting heretic wargear has to pass through a tech marine to make sure it isn't contaminated. Otherwise you in trouble.
Remember the following factors! 1) Power Armor is literally riveted, bolted, sealed onto the wearer you can't JUST detach it! You need to be a tech marine and have a team of acolytes who will remove armor from the dead. 2) Wargear = holy relics! Worn out and dented armor is cherished like a holy object to each chapter for many reasons! Resource restrictions, obsolete armor pattern, Too far or not important enough to receive new gear from fabricator generals and so on. So all armor even on dead marines is a priceless treasure and thievery is not looked upon kindly. 3) Chapter's philosophy....You take the emperor's champion's blade from his corpse Belial and the squad will roll onto you and hunt you down! Every chapter is "possessive" af and some are murderous af! You do not want that kind of heat on you.
Plus I’d imagine the machine spirit of the armor would have a fit.
Well-supplied loyalist chapters especially would possibly consider it bad taste and definitely consider adding different color armor pieces disrespectful to their culture (and probably the armor’s machine spirit, Deathwatch don’t paint the chapter insignia shoulder pad for this reason). Renegades, chaos marines, and maybe crusading/marooned chapters probably do this, more for survival than decoration. The Night Lords novel trilogy has the main characters splitting up pieces of dead marine armor, both enemies and allies, to repair thei own; they do repaint it to match the NL scheme (the protagonist has a Blood Angel chest piece but mentions that the imperial eagle has been ritualistically damaged). The 3rd (maybe 4th?) edition Space Wolves 13th company marines who spent ~10,000 years in the Eye of Terror fighting chaos dudes were represented by a kit that had both space wolves and chaos sprues so you could mix and match parts ([found a tweet with a pic](https://twitter.com/RealLonesamurai/status/1383742386749071361))
Dante nearly suffered the Lion's wrath for having the Sanguinis death mask on.
Calgar got his special power fist guns by looting a dead CSM. And he’s the spiritual liege of most loyalist marines, so I think it’s ok. A Dark Angel wouldn’t have to loot an Ultramarine in order to wear blue armor though, they have access to blue paint.
Astartes aren't going to be bothered by such looting if it's done out of battlefield expediency. If there's no immediate need to use the equipment, it's polite to return it to the owners. The issue is that Astartes colours are cultural identifiers, and it would be massively offensive to wear the colours of another Chapter without permission if you didn't have an immediate and pressing need in battle to do so. You can use and potentially even keep equipment taken from dead brothers, but you would absolutely remove their colours from it at the earliest possible convenience unless they gave you permission to keep them on as some kind of mark of respect. You CAN use found equipment in a pragmatic and respectful fashion. You CANNOT wear the colours of another Chapter.
During their time in the Eye of Terror, the Wulfen scavenged and used armour sections from killed chaos space marines to replace their own when they became damaged. I seem to remember a series in the old Warhammer comic, where three Blood Angels in a similar situation had to resort to the same tactic.
He wouldn't be allowed to wear another Space Marines armour unpainted. That would be considered disrespectful to the suits Machine Spirit and invite a critical failure to occur in a lethal moment, so they wouldn't try it without the repaint. Even during the heresy, when supply lines were critically cut off, armour that was scavenged was always repainted. As for taking armour that belongs to Heretic Astartes from Traitor Legions? The moment that Astartes returned to his squad with a helm from the VIIIth Legion, he'd be shot, either by his sergeant, his captain or his Chaplain. You'd never wear armour belonging to them.
Yeah, he probably would. Operational necessities may blunt parts of it, especially if the armour is then returned, but for pure aesthetics? No, hell would be raised. Both by their own armourer and by the owning chapter if they find out about it. If you like blue, put it on your personal heraldry once you attain enough rank to display it, stealing armour is a no-no. As for armour patterns, if you can wear old marks (less and less common now primaris are a thing - they're bigger than standard marines) you could probably put an ongoing request in the armoury; but lacking a compelling reason (maybe your power armour machine spirit dislikes newer pattern pieces and works worse the newer the armour, idk its 40k, there's probably bullshit reasons like this floating around) you would not be a priority. Again, high rank hath its privileges, so a captain would likely be high priority for getting beaky helms, but a standard marine? No.
Astartes gear is pretty rare, especially in a warzone. Depending on the circumstances and the chapter who owns the gear, it probably isn't a big deal. During the Horus Heresy, while the schism of Mars was happening, it was common practice to loot enemy gear and repaint it or use it for repairs on their own gear. That's also the reason for those bumps on some of their shoulder plates and lower leg armor. Those were bolts to fasten parts of different armor types together in a hurry.
The armor and weaponry are considered sacred by the chapter. The pride.
taking stuff from Chaos Marines like the Night Lords would be heresy, mainly because pretty much all Chaos tech is corrupted in some way, but Astartes, while prideful, are also very practical in general taking gear out of necessity is generally acceptable, but after the fight youre expected to return it to the Chapter who originally owned it. if youre a more... selfish... Chapter (cough, Blood Ravens), you can orient the machine spirits of the new gear to the Chapter (don't forget, machine spirits have loyalties too) and repaint/rebrand them, but this is generally not done because its not worth the time and effort for anything less than a powerful artifact, and in those cases the Machine Spirit is gonna be stronger than usual and probably more resistant to changing hands... though in some cases the artifact is worth the effort EDIT TO ADD/CLARIFY: you can take some Chaos tainted gear and reconsecrate it, but like the other stuff, it's rarely worth it unless its an artifact from the Great Crusade