# What happened to Beakies?



## Tau22 (Apr 27, 2009)

You know, the marine helmets that had those beak-like protrusions on them?
I realise it was part of the Corvus armour pattern, which has been replaced by the Aquilla, which is the standard armour in the Imperium now.

I just wanted to ask if there was a real fluff reason for removing the 'Beakie helmet', like a certain vulnerability in the design or somesuch, or if it was just an aesthetic change.
I think it looks cool.


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## Inquisitor Einar (Mar 6, 2009)

And now.. the NEW look for space marines in the next millenium.. this is the ALL NEW POWER ARMOUR.. You'll have the sororitas sighing at you at every turn.. presenting.. the PIMP ARMOUR....
If you're a Space Marine, and you know you're badass.. get yourself styled up in one of our new spangled old fashion arco tech PIMP ARMOURS.. Hats sold seperately.


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

The Mk6 helmet is an improved version of that used on that used on the Mk4 armour (which is often said to be one of the most effective armour types). The Mk6 armour was only ever intended to be a stop-gap desgin which mixed a lot of old and new technology, however Mk6 armour was so effective that many chapters chose to continue using it rather than adopt Mk7. Although the Mk7 helmet is outwardly similar to that used on Mk5 armour (which had a helmet type which was a spin-off from the Terminator development programme), it is a new type developed especially for Mk7 armour.


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## Tau22 (Apr 27, 2009)

So, there are still chapters which use beakie helmets?


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## Tim/Steve (Jan 25, 2009)

A lot of the space wolves have beaky helmets... but then we're technologically backward so its not a great surprise we're not up to date.


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

Yes. Most chapters, especially older ones, have a mix of armour types in their inventory.


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## Tau22 (Apr 27, 2009)

I see. Thanks for the info!


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## chromedog (Oct 31, 2007)

Every suit of armour in the chapter is a relic.
ALL of it is respected and revered. My vet sgts are beakies (rtb001 beakies) to represent them being given responsibility to wear and maintain this older armour. If he survives long enough, he may be granted the privilege of wearing one of the most holy venerated Tactical Dreadnought suits.


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

I personally think the Corvus helmet looked stupid, but that's just me. The Corvus armor was the one used for the longest time after the heresy, though, so it's probably a pretty good design.


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## Farseer Beltiac (Jul 11, 2008)

What happend to the "Beakie" armor.....well....they went Bankrupt because they invested in Madoff....he, hehe, made off with all thier money, get it, cuz..his name...I know bad joke


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

Captain Galus said:


> The Corvus armor was the one used for the longest time after the heresy, though, so it's probably a pretty good design.


According to the old article which first introduced the different marks of armour, Mk7 armour was introduced in the last days of the Heresy so it hasn't been in use for much less time than Mk6.

Although someone did tell me they'd read elsewhere that Mk7 was introduced after the Age of Apostasy - anyone know where that info is from?


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## Alexious (Apr 13, 2009)

Although not exactly part of the fluff, it appears that the beakie helmet was really part of the design process that GW went through in their efforts to perfect a design... within limitations and trying to avoid being so similiar to something else.

When Marines first came out back in RT, they were done with different stylings, but a lot of the original metal marines had either beaks or more likely they were scultpted with a standard human head. When the boxed set came out... they had evolved into the standard beakies which I still remain in love with.










Remember this was the late 1980's....

At the same time the boxed terminator set was out with the original 8 termies, plus you got a captain and libraian.

They looked a little different from todays terminators... more rounded in my opinion.... but still nevertheless kick ass. 











I assume two things now looking back....

1). Gamesworkshop made a choice in the late 80's to deliberately model marines AWAY from a face sculpt that was too close to STAR WARS and storm troopers. Remember we are talking about an era when Return of the Jedi was brand new... everything STAR WARS was cool, and STAR WARS had its own West end Minature game albiet in 15mm I think... 

2). As time went on and the STAR WARS and West End minature game fell off the popular culture scene in the 90's. (Not a subgroup but the Main Stream entertainment factor faded) then they reviewed the situation and sculpted the helmets closer to those of terminators which were seen as the so OMG SO F**King COOL MUM PLEASE CAN I HAVE THEM. Although the image is not good, the original terminator helmet gave it almost a bulldog type metallic face which you can just make out... I assumed the latest armour was modelled after that from a sculpting perspective and evolved from there.

In the same way even today you can see the remains of former influences in the guard figures... take a look at the new Master or ordanance figure with his chest plate... it looks very much like the original trader colonel figure.

In fact the original boxed set of guard look like Cadians just they were styled in the 80's not 70's...


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## LukeValantine (Dec 2, 2008)

On a interesting side note chaos will eventually have more beakies then loyalists. since oddly enough CSM survive longer than regular marines.


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## Epic Fail (Jun 23, 2008)

Risking thread subversion here but: is there any info on when the Mk.8 "errant" armour came into production? I'd love to see a fact sheet on what changes are seen between versions.

Also, I wonder if there are any compatibility issues between armour versions - that is do mix and match marines have issues with their Mk6 optics not meshing properly with their Mk 7 body plate? Mk 6 greaves not reacting properly with a mk 7 main processor?


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## Da Joka (Feb 20, 2009)

sorry for being a little off topic but...

did anyone else notice the price on those marines? 30 SM for less then what 10 Boyz cost today

wish i could have played back then. of corse i was only around 5 at the time


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## Captain Galus (Jan 2, 2008)

My god $20 for 30 Marines? That seems like the one good thing that ever happened in the 80s.


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## Exitus_10 (Jul 14, 2008)

Beakies were out of favour because of the collar of the helmet which tended to bounce a bullet into the neck or up into the face I think, plus the beak was weak and crumpled under minor blunt force and ruined the vox and rebreather units in the helmet, it was prone to malfunction(The helmet was anyway) but most of those problems are fixed by now, but it just so happened that most were phased out before the problems were solved.

That was what I remember from an Inferno! or White Dwarf issue from a while back.


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

Originally the Mk6 helmet was said to be a development of the Mk4, which was designed to deflect shots away from the face. I'd be interested if you could tell me exactly where you read about them malfunctioning as I've never heard it before. 

Mk6 and Mk7 are said to be fully compatible, with parts easily interchangeable between the two.


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## Exitus_10 (Jul 14, 2008)

As I said before, I dont remember but am leaning toward an issue of Inferno! not White Dwarf. It was called Armour of the Astartes I think or something along those line I may be wrong but it was something like that. Or I am just misinterpreting the whole thing as I haven;t read that particular issue or article for over 3 years so its sketchy at best. Ah How I wish i stopped smoking sativa and retain some of my braincells.


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

Exitus_10 said:


> As I said before, I dont remember but am leaning toward an issue of Inferno! not White Dwarf. It was called Armour of the Astartes I think or something along those line


I was hoping you'd be able to narrow it down a little more. Do you know how long ago it was? Or a rough issue number? Basically anything that might help me track it down?

It sounds like it might have been an interesting article, and I'm usually quite good at tracking things down if I have a rough idea of were to look...


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## dark angel (Jun 11, 2008)

I have two full sqauds with these helmets (im a big fan of them) and personally if i had enough my entire chapter would have been wearing them


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## jack (Oct 30, 2008)

LukeValantine said:


> On a interesting side note chaos will eventually have more beakies then loyalists. since oddly enough CSM survive longer than regular marines.


Its not that they survive longer, they just have to use older equipment because they have less forgeworlds.

BTW, beakies rule!


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## RavenGuard123 (Jun 6, 2009)

Raven Guard use Beakie helms alot because of the bird like connection


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## PowerEncarnate (Apr 15, 2009)

kaled said:


> According to the old article which first introduced the different marks of armour, Mk7 armour was introduced in the last days of the Heresy so it hasn't been in use for much less time than Mk6.
> 
> Although someone did tell me they'd read elsewhere that Mk7 was introduced after the Age of Apostasy - anyone know where that info is from?


Its the mk 8 and not the mt 7 that came out around the Age of Apostasy.

The mk 4 came out toward the end of the crusade, refitting mostly horus' forces first as they were still on the fringe. So when horus turned the legions had to quickly create the mk 5 as a stop gap sence the tech of the mk 4 wasn't understood that well. The mk 6 was deveolped from the most common patterns of mk 5s, then mk 7 from the mk 6 as they figured out how to add plating over the cables without causing an overheating issue. In each case, horus' forces ended up getting the lions share of the new armor untill they were at the gates of the imperial palace.

The change in helmet design was to allow a more efficient resperator to be included in the design and to evoke fear.


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

PowerEncarnate said:


> Its the mk 8 and not the mt 7 that came out around the Age of Apostasy... The change in helmet design was to allow a more efficient resperator to be included in the design and to evoke fear.


If I might ask, where's that info from? Do you have the article someone was referring to earlier?


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## PowerEncarnate (Apr 15, 2009)

kaled said:


> If I might ask, where's that info from? Do you have the article someone was referring to earlier?


Had...past tence alot of my stuff was either lost, stolen, or destroyed over the years. Sorry cant give a referance. Wish I could


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

Someone must know where it was - it's not that I don't believe you, but I prefer to be able to read things for myself.

Having looked a a few sites that have indexes of White Dwarf, the only two issues I could spot that seemed to have something to do with armour variants were WD129 and CJ45. Was it by any chance either of those you were thinking of?


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## quint89 (Jul 18, 2008)

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?autocom=ineo&showarticle=43


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

quint89 said:


> http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/index.php?autocom=ineo&showarticle=43


I've just had a quick scan through that article, and good though it is it makes no mention of some things that have come up in this thread and there are a few things in there that (as far as I can see) are not mentioned in the sources it cites (not saying it's wrong, just that as you'd expect there's a degree of interpretation and extrapolation gone into compiling the article).

Also, I have all of the sources it references except Codex: Dark Angels (4th ed) - what does it say about marine armour on p.53?


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## quint89 (Jul 18, 2008)

There is a schematic of Scout, Power and Terminator Armour... nothing particularly new; 3 parts are annonted:
"Auto reactive shoulder plate"
"MK VII Helmet - Incorporating low light and target finder capability"
"Reinforced graves incorporating gyroscopic stabilizers"

So a slight upgrade for the helmet from the beakie version.


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## Searune (Apr 10, 2009)

I like the beakies, though it is a conundrum Curse GW


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## PowerEncarnate (Apr 15, 2009)

i think it was something from 2nd edition in the fluff maybe the ultramarines codex, or maybe it was a white dwarf article from when the MK 8 armor was released that was also around 2nd editionand they only made something like 3 models with the MK 8 but it is known as "Apostasy Armor" just as the MK 5 is known as "Heresy Armor" and the MK 6 is is known as "Corvus Armor" and btw if you choose the rt combination of parts you can make a true MK 6 Marine from the tactical box just take the 2 Studded shoulder pads and use then, filing down the studs on one of them.


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## kaled (Jun 24, 2008)

The first models in Mk8 armour were released during the _Rogue Trader _days at least 2-3 years before 2nd Ed was released, and it was known then (and still is known now) as 'Errant Armour'. It may well have been introduced around the Age of Apostasy, but I've never heard of it being called 'Apostasy Armour' before...


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## primeministersinsiter (May 31, 2009)

I friggin' hate the beakies. I think they look foolish. If anyone wants 3 unpainted and a few painted ones, PM me.


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## PowerEncarnate (Apr 15, 2009)

kaled said:


> The first models in Mk8 armour were released during the _Rogue Trader _days at least 2-3 years before 2nd Ed was released,


Was it in the RT days? ok well that time is a little fuzzy to me. 



kaled said:


> and it was known then (and still is known now) as 'Errant Armour'. It may well have been introduced around the Age of Apostasy, but I've never heard of it being called 'Apostasy Armour' before...


I've heard it called both it differant times, but now that you mention it, I think "errant" was the more common term used, refering the the many crusades of expansion that happened about that time on the Pre-recon timeline (not sure if that part has been changed sense GW seems to want to rewrite the history every time they release a new book.)


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