Saturnine Terminator Armour

**Saturnine Terminator Armour** is a variant of Tactical Dreadnought Armour created during the hellish wars of Terran Unification Wars fought by the Emperor's legions of pseudo-Astartes, known as the Thunder Warriors, to reunify Terra under His rule. The first suits of Space Marine Power Armour were developed from the primitive powered armour worn by the savage techno-barbarians that fought alongside the Emperor and later, worn by the first gene-hanced Thunder Warriors.

Faded techno-arcana of the Mechanicum tell that even before the Age of Strife had ended, the Emperor had started to make provisions for his Great Crusade. Part of these plans included the re-equipping of the Space Marine Legions with a far more sophisticated fighting suit that Imperial historians have dubbed Mark II "Crusade" or "Crusader Armour". Alongside these developments, the Emperor initiated a programme to develop a system of armour that would provide even greater protection than that offered by Power Armour for Space Marine Legionaries on the field of battle - Tactical Dreadnought Armour.

## History

The technology for Exo-armour was originally developed during Mankind's Dark Age of Technology. These sealed environment suits enabled maintenance crews of spacecraft to operate in extremely hazardous environments such as hard vacuum or in other adverse atmospheric conditions. Exo-armour was constructed from heavy gauge plasteel plating, forming an armoured shell that could withstand even the colossal impact of high-speed orbital micro-debris.

It is the only armour suitable for working inside the high-pressure casings of plasma reactor shields, or the extremely corrosive environments inside the holds of bulk chemical carriers. These same qualities, suitably enhanced, were used to make Tactical Dreadnought Armour virtually invulnerable to most weapons. The development of Terminator Armour, as Tactical Dreadnought Armour soon became known, was well underway during the Great Crusade to replace Power Armour, but was relegated to its current role due to a lack of maneuoverability.

During the Great Crusade, the Mechanicum was receiving a steady influx of new and rediscovered technologies from each planet brought to Imperial Compliance, and, in an effort to stem the horrendous loss of Astartes lives resulting from the ferocious conquests, attempted to design the "ultimate" pattern of Power Armour which would render a Space Marine virtually invulnerable. This project was called the '*Tactical Dreadnought Armour Project*'.

The design emerged from a hybrid of standard Astartes Power Armour, the cybernetic shell of a Dreadnought and the armoured hostile environment suits long worn by Terran engineers who worked in difficult conditions like debris-plagued orbital space and the radioactive engine cores of interstellar spacecraft. Tactical Dreadnought Armour, as it was called, would turn the Astartes warrior within it into a living tank.

The result - the first suits of Mark I 'Saturnine' pattern Terminator Armour. Little is known about the origins of this particular Terminator pattern save that they were conceived alongside both the Indomitus and Tartaros patterns. This hulking suit of Tactical Dreadnought Armour is similar in many aspects to Mark I 'Thunder' pattern Power Armour worn by the Thunder Warriors, as Saturnine Terminator Armour was designed to possess extreme upper body strength capable of bearing the the heaviest portal weapons into battle. In effect, these suits of Terminator Armour were walking heavy fire platforms.

This particular pattern of Terminator Armour is easily recognisable by its massive shoulder pauldrons comprised of thick adamantium and ceramite plating. The suit's oversized pauldrons are not without purpose, as they cover both the suit's few vulnerable joints as well as housing additional shield generators, though the additional weight and power requirements of such reinforced protection comes at a cost of speed and manoeuvrability. However, due to their superior defensive protection, nothing short of a direct blast from a turbolaser can lay the occupant within low. In such cases, a wearer inside one of these suits would succumb to damage before the armour itself. Even with the advent of the most powerful protective conversion field emitters of the time, they could not divert the hellish energies this formidable suit of Terminator Armour could withstand, away from the wearer.

Similar to the first iteration of Mark II 'Crusade' pattern power armour, the Saturnine pattern also possessed a helmet set in a fixed position, but did allow the occupant to turn his head inside the suit. The helmet also contains electronic sensory devices and miniaturised cogitators that monitor the surrounding battlescape and feeds visual and auditory signals directly to the Legionary's cerebral cortex through a neural feedback mechanism. This further enhances the Legionary's already superhuman sight and hearing, while at the same time dampening any blinding flashes or deafening explosions. These so-called 'autosenses', as well as other internal improvements, all become standard equipment in every subsequent pattern of Tactical Dreadnought Armour.

A cursory glance reveals that it is made for frontal protection. The huge shoulder pads and sunken helm afford maximum defence from enemy fire. Such was the bulk of the armour that all necessary cabling is very prominent. Each tube contains multiple cooling ducts and fibre bundle relays. Though it looks unfamiliar one can see traits of later Terminator design in gestative form. The tubular ribbing on the edges of the armour plates, the high mounting of the shoulders and heavy boots are all recognisable. The disk on the left shoulder pad is where the Legion icon is displayed. Very few of these suits remain today, and those that still function are venerated among certain Legiones Astartes and reserved exclusively for use in extremely confined spaces like the corridors of a hive city or during a boarding action on a Space Hulk where Dreadnoughts and armoured vehicles cannot operate because they are too large to fit.

The eventual result of the Mechanicum's travails was only a partial success: the first suits of Terminator Armour did, as intended, afford a level of protection previously unattainable for its wearer. Like Power Armour, these suits were equipped with fibre-bundle synthetic muscles and imposed few movement restrictions upon the wearer despite their immense weight. But they were also too bulky, and their massive weight made running difficult despite built-in auto-balancers. The Saturnine suits suffered from voracious power demands, and few existing armaments could be carried as the armour's sheer bulk made handling and reloading impossible.

The most cogent hypothesis as to the demise of this particular Termiantor Armour pattern amongst the majority of the Space Marine Legions is that its bulk was simply too great and the Mark 2 design, which was being developed concurrently, proved more successful.
Many within the Mechanicum believed that Saturnine Terminator Armour had run its course, just as Mark I 'Thunder' pattern power armour had. However, despite its multiple weaknesses, it was through the intervention of both Primarchs Kozja Darzalas and Yucahu Sumakutaa of the Warbringers and Void Eagles Legions, that saved the armour from diminishing and being mothballed.

These suits had proven invaluable in 'Zone Mortalis' theatres of warfare - the most savage arenas of combat conceivable. They also proved extremely reliable in confined areas of conflict, and their level of survivability and ability to carry heavy weapons more than made up for their shortcomings. Though the majority of their fellow brother Primarchs disagreed, as they saw little merit in the use of such specialised weapons of war, for the Warbringers and the Void Eagles such battlefields were their element, and so, the recommendations made by these Primarchs were listened to.

## Notable Patterns

* **'Deredes' Pattern** - The 'Deredes' pattern is a heavy variant pattern of the standard Saturnine pattern, and is utilised exclusively by Saturator Terminator Squads of the Warbringers Legion. This pattern was the product of collaboration between the Ist Legion's artificers and Magos of the Ordo Reductor. Building off siege variants of Cataphractii pattern battle-plate and the obsolete, but stalwart, Saturnine pattern suits, they produced the 'Deredes' pattern. Forsaking any melee viability, they essentially became walking weapon platforms, easily distinguished by their unique pattern of Terminator armour. The shoulder plates and helmet became a solid mass encompassing the wearer's head, adding extra layers of armour as well as the power coils, ammunitions feeds, targeting systems and shock absorbers required to mount heavy weapons atop the suit. The result was a force barely human in aspect and sufficiently armed to devastate armour formations. Against infantry, their flanks guarded by their brethren, they were monstrous, killing with horrific ease as they slowly advance. Yucahu often used these Saturator squads in conjunction with Mortis Dreadnoughts when the Void Eagles faced Orks and other "swarm" armies.