Power Armour

Power Armour is a science fiction concept of armor which increases the strength, speed, and reflexes of those who wear it. It features heavily in science fiction/fantasy settings such as Warhammer 40,000.

Starship Troopers

Like so many military science-fiction concepts, the modern idea of powered armor dates back to the Mobile Infantry of Heinlein's Starship Troopers. The "Marauder" suit is bulky, with integrated thrusters and heavy weapons (including nuclear weapons and heavy explosives, carried as easily as a human soldier carries grenades). Their primary purpose is not to destroy indiscriminately (though they certainly can), but to "make war as personal as a punch on the nose" -- to drop in and destroy with precision, in order to break the enemy in exactly the right way. In other words, it's much like Crisis battlesuits with less weeaboo and more humanity fuck yeah inside.

Heinlein never discusses pauldrons, but the Space Marines certainly take after the Mobile Infantry's other aspects.

Warhammer 40,000

All eight marks of Space Marine Power Armour.

Because 40k has a huge hard on for Space Marines, and because no super soldier worth his genetic enhancements will go into battle without super armaments, 40k has developed nearly as large a hard on for power armor.

Space Marine Power Armour

The most iconic users of power armour in 40k are the Space Marines and the Chaos Space Marines. Made of ceramite layers upon plates of plasteel and adamantium/adamantine which will deflect all but the most powerful of weapons, Power Armour possess many life support systems designed to keep the Space Marine inside alive, even in the worst and most extreme of battlefield conditions.

The Black Carapace, one of the Gene-Seed organs, is specially designed to allow a space marine to interface his nervous system with his armor and is the last organ implanted in Codex Chapters. Amongst its features, power armour possess auto-senses to supplement the Marine's already considerable senses, auspex arrays to create minimaps and transmit data between squad members and commanders, painkiller delivery systems in the event of severe bodily damage, and waste recyclers to keep the Marine going for up to fifty days without fresh food or water. The power source is a backpack mounted generator which needs initializing, but after that can take solar energy to keep itself going.

There are eight types or Marks of Power Armour used by the Astartes. Regardless of their type, they all have massive Pauldrons. Pictures can be found in the gallery at the bottom of the page.

Mark I: Thunder Armour

The first type of Power Armour was designed for the Thunder Warriors and worn by many of the techno-barbarians of Terra. They provided basic protection against weapons and enhancements to upper-body strength, but that is all - the suit was incapable of supporting its own weight and did not provide any significant protection to the legs. Since they were only used on Terra, there was no need to protect them against the void. Though the lack of life support systems and much lesser degree of protection make them essentially useless in the 41st millennium, several Chapters retain sets of Thunder Armour for ceremonial purposes. If you were to field one now, it would probably count as carapace armor (4+ save) with a slight bonus to strength but a penalty to initiative.

In Deathwatch, you can actually get your hands on some. Be forewarned: it's noisy, doesn't offer as much protection, doesn't work with a Marine's Black Carapace, and actually might not be a whole suit of armor depending on its state of repair. Overall, it's kind of shitty, but it's a surviving artifact linked to the days of the living Emperor and early Imperium and that impresses other Marines and those Ecclesiarchy schlubs. Take it for formal occasions.

Mark II: Crusade Armour

Designed by the Adeptus Mechanicus with the Great Crusade in mind, the Mark II armour was fully enclosed and contained all the life support and auxiliary systems now common among Astartes power armor, like a waste recycling unit and automated medical equipment. Much of these newer additions were made possible by a more efficient cooling system, which allowed a considerable reduction in the size of the powerpack. The helmet also came with a bunch of enhanced sensory equipment. Overall protection and flexibility was much improved, especially since the legs were now enclosed in armoured hoops and came with their own servomotors. Unlike the Mark I suit, the design is still sufficiently sound to remain in active, albeit extremely limited, use well into the 41st millennium.

Mark III: Iron Armour

Mark III armour was first conceived for the Squat campaigns boarding actions of the Great Crusade. It was pretty much a modified Mark II designed to provide better frontal protection for close quarters combat, essentially fulfilling the same role that Terminator armour would later fulfill. By the time of the Horus Heresy, the Mark III was slowly being phased out and replaced by Terminator armour, but it's still fairly common among the Traitor Legions. In fact, several of the more traditional Legions were reluctant to phase out Mark III because it was the most brutally iconic mark of power armour in their day, so there was talk of keeping it for honour guards or spear tip operations. Even into M41, the helmet or faceplate is still popular.

Mark IV: Imperial Maximus Suit

Now having access to more Standard Template Constructs, the Mechanicum was able to further refine power armour internal systems. In addition to having more advanced visual sensors, the helmet was now capable of movement. The suit was also made a whole lot lighter than before while managing to further improve on the Mark II's protective capabilities. Although the chest power cables were once again relocated to the outside of the plating, they were given an armoured sheath to protect them from damage. Horus Lupercal manipulated the Mechanicum's supply lines to ensure that the Legions that were planning to side with him in the Heresy would be fully equipped with Maximus Armour in time for the Heresy; as a result Mark IV was usually reserved for Chapter Masters and senior Captains of the Loyalist Legions. As the Legions were either fully or partially re-equipped with these suits by the time the Horus Heresy began, Mark IV is one of the most prevalent types of armour among the Chaos Space Marines.

Some Chapters/Legions also made their own sub-patterns of Maximus power armor, such as the Ultramarines' Praetorian-pattern.

Mark V: Heresy Armour

In between production of the Mark IV and what would be the Mark VI, both Loyalist and Traitor Legions found that they were running out of replacement parts for damaged systems. This would result in several Legions taking parts from older Marks and inadvertently making a brand new Mark of Power Armour. Although appearances varied widely as a result of its ad hoc nature, some form of standardization was achieved. One of the most notable was the introduction of molecular bonding studs on the left pauldron and both greaves, which made them look totally Metal. Probably one of the most common suits of armour in service among the Traitor Legions, since this was what most of them were wearing when they retreated to the Eye of Terror.

Mark VI: Corvus Armour

The much beloved Beakie armour. Designed as a stopgap measure while newer equipment remained in development, it incorporates some of the newly developed Mark VII features into the battle-proven Mark IV design, producing a suit of armour that is in many ways equal to its descendants. Although it offered no additional protection, Mark VI armour was the first to feature a redundant power system and parts that are slightly interchangeable with those of other marks. Somehow, it also manages to be lighter and fit together more smoothly than the current Mark VII Aquila, allowing for quieter movement, while the helmet includes further improved sensor systems in its, um, "beak". It was named the "Corvus" pattern after Primarch Corvus Corax of the Raven Guard, as the XIX Legion was the first to be selected for field testing the armour. Due to the design's inherent stealthiness and legacy, it still remains the preferred armour among the sons of Corax, who tend to be saddled with older equipment anyhow. For reasons nobody can seem to explain, it was also sporadically used by the Alpha Legion around the time of the Horus Heresy even though it was never actually issued to them.

Mark VII: Aquila/Imperator Armour

The most common Mark of Power Armour among loyalist Space Marines, Mark VII armor was still being designed when the Traitor Legions reached the Sol System and seized Mars. When this fact became all too foreseeable, Rogal Dorn ordered the design teams transferred to Terra to prevent the Traitors from seizing it. Mark VII featured completely covered chest and arm cabling, a distinct helmet that provided more protection, a high level of compatibility with previous Marks, and also bore the Imperial Aquila on the chest, which was first used there to provide quick identification of the Loyalist Marines during the chaos of the Siege of Terra.

Mark VIII: Errant Armour

Jes Goodwin originally designed it with awesome Power Fist-style hands, a modified helmet, a streamlined power pack, and a more flexible leg-and-ankle joint. Games Workshop only bothered with using the altered breastplate, so the overall design looks like a regular Mark VII with a collar. Breaking the trend of reverse-compatibility between newer and older marks, this Mark can only accommodate the helmet designed for it, which kind of becomes a moot point when reserving it for officers, since everyone higher up than a battle brother will never wear his helmet. The specialist design, or the Adeptus Mechanicus's head-up-own-arse tendencies around distributing new technology, are thought to be the probable reasons why it has yet to be widely adopted among Space Marine chapters. Because of its rarity, the armour is generally restricted for use by senior officers only, and even then they'll usually only be able to wear the breastplate. The Minotaurs chapter appears to be the only exception here, as almost all of their battle brothers have access to full suits.

It should be noted that, while artificer armor, at least in the art, looks like a pimped out Mk.VIII, regular Mk.VIII doesn't actually improve armor save. But Fantasy Flight gave it some love with an extra armour point all around, and the ability to deflect some headshots to the chest, greatly improving its protection.

Artificer Armour

Pimped out and individualized versions of regular suits, often enough to be considered one-off derivations in their own right. Artificer Armour can be formed from any older mark of Power Armour (perhaps barring Mk.I plate) by adding extra or upgraded protection. The upgraded and individualized suits mean that they require a lot of maintenance and needs techs to work around the clock to make sure they stay functional. Standard issue for Techmarines and optional for officers, pairing artificer armour with an Iron Halo can offer better protection than Terminator armour with none of the drawbacks, yet with only some of the benefits.

Chaos Power Armour

While many Traitor Marines are equipped with Marks IV or later (if you go by the models, almost all of them seem to have Mark VII armour with Mark VI legs), Chaos power armor is often a mix-and-match setup. About the only unified feature of Chaos power armour is a distinct power pack with stabilizers on long curved fins, that still runs on solar converter core instead of fusion reactor of modern loyalist power packs. Because Chaos Marines often have to go long periods with no access to proper industrial facilities, proper maintenance and replacement parts became an issue. Because of that, many subsystems in each suit of armor doesn't work and replacement parts come in the form of whatever they can dig up from plunder and taken off of corpses after raiding and looting. Furthermore, Chaos Marines like to customize their armor with devotional iconography and personal trophies, making sure that virtually each suit of armor is personalized and none are exactly alike. Where things get even weirder is when the armor gets too steeped in Chaos and begins to twist, mutate, and turn partially organic, or had a daemon replace its machine spirit. It's quite likely that the parts of armor that don't work get replaced with warp magic, daemonic influence, or Dark Mechanicus tech-heresy.

Recent editions and artwork show senior Chaos marines with a sinister and more organic-looking power armour of Mark III through V, a look they pick up after a while either deliberately or due to the Warp's influence changing their outside look to match their corrupted souls. In the Rogue Trader Era, Chaos Power armor was organic, so this is actually a pleasant return to the old days. The Chosen models from the Dark Vengeance box set are commonly refered to as the harbringers of this new style, while the new Raptors/Warp Talons set incoorporate this design, alongside the regular Raptors, who's design seems like being "metal-guilded armour, that's begun to blend together and form spikes and weird shapes", hinting of what's to come for the aging Chaos Space Marine range.

Fleshmetal Armour

If Artificer Armour is superior to traditional Power Armour, then Fleshmetal Armour is this to Power Armour worn by Chaos Space Marines. Essentially the newest incarnation of Daemon Armour from earlier editions, Fleshmetal Armour is a "gift" from the Chaos Gods that grants superior protection to the user in which the Chaos Marine's armour becomes partially organic as mentioned above a section earlier. The results is something akin to a exoskeleton of extreme hardiness. The drawback of this armour is that the user is permanently fused with it. Normally that would be a problem, but Chaos Space Marines do not bother with this at all.

Aegis Armour

The Power Armour of the Grey Knights, Aegis Armour is master-crafted on the forges of Titan and inscribed with prayers and wards to prevent Daemons from possessing it. Based on parts from Marks VI, VII, and VIII, within the breastplate of each set is a copy of the Liber Daemonica. It frequently bears a stormbolter on its left forearm, keeping both hands of the wearer free to use. There is an Aegis/Grey Knight version of Terminator and Dreadnought armours, too.

"Aegis" is the greek name for Zeus' personal shield. Now that sounds cool, right? Well, it's not made of metal and awesomeness; it's a goathide shield much like the ones used by african tribes back in the day. Feel free to call the Grey Knights the Goat Knights from now on.

Terminator Armour

Set aside for space marines who are exemplars of toughness, martial ability, and wonky proportions, Terminator armor, or Tactical Dreadnought armor, provides the best personal protection available. Heavily layered with adamantium and indestructible pauldrons, a suit of Terminator armor is meant to steamroll nearly everything, and gives a fighting chance against everything else, which is anything that gives anybody else a fighting chance against Terminators. Standard loadout for Terminators are power fists and storm bolters or Power weapons and twin linked bolters for the Chaos variant, but they are able to fit a shoulder-mounted Cyclone missile rack, equip heavy weapons systems, and arm with other killtastic melee weapons. Since most suits are about at least as old as the chapter that owns them, and that the pauldron allegedly contains a tiny fragment of the Emperor's own power armor, these suits are holy relics as well as top-quality wargear.

Despite all the pain they lay down (and keep away), Terminator armor has a few serious drawbacks. First thing is that it is seriously hard to make. Seriously. Most chapters have a only handful that they can distribute amongst their veterans and officers, and any lost suits are damn near irreplaceable. Second thing is that they lack mobility. They counter this mostly since Terminator armor can be safely teleported from orbit into the thick of it, and judicious use of teleport homers can put them right where you need them, and a Land Raider can carry small squads. Beyond that, Terminators are otherwise going to be footslogging since they're too fucking huge to hitch a ride on anything smaller than a house. Unless you're fighting a fast or a crafty opponent, you won't care anyways.

Terminator Armor had 3 major designs: the Cataphractii pattern, the Tartaros pattern, and the Indomitus pattern. The Cataphractii was the first run at Terminator armor, developed after the mkIII power armor and sharing many systems. Bearing much larger power field generators and thicker armor, it provided better protection than future variants, but was much more unwieldy and difficult to use. In game terms, you get a 4++ and S&P. The Tartaros pattern shared many of its systems with the Mark IV power armor and was much more maneuverable than its predecessor but gave up some of its protection to do so. The Indomitus pattern is the current pattern of terminator armor, sharing similarities with the Tartaros pattern in therms of functionality, but is based of a design being tested during the heresy by the Iron Hands legion. After the Horus Heresy, Cataphractii pattern had eventually fallen out of general use; this may have been because was the last of that armor was either lost and the pattern became another lost technology in the following years, or because production was ceased in favor of later patterns, and most suits were either cannabilized or became chapter relics that wouldn't see field use again. There are also human-sized suits of Terminator armor, but the tiny amount of them that still exist are used exclusively by the Inquisition.

Finally, there was one more pattern of Terminator armour, called Saturnine. It get the hugest pauldrons one can get before moving into walkers category and was famous for it's extreme bulk, durability, cumbersomeness and difficulty of piloting - basically everything good and bad about Cataphractii turned to eleven. It never went out of field testing phase, since new smaller Castraferum Dreadnoughts could do everything Saturnine was designed for (boarding actions and indoor/tunnel fighting) better and without it's numerous drawbacks. Some legions still had their batches of test suits when Horus Heresy hit and used them to gain whatever edge over their opponents they could, but they were never seen after the Heresy.

Centurion Armour

Since somebody at GW forgot that the Xzibit meme wasn't funny anymore, Space Marines now have Centurion armor that they equip like a miniature walker vehicle, more like a mini-mech, a cute little dreadnought preparing space marines for their life after living. Centurion armour is "worn" over regular power armor, giving better protection (like terminator armor without the invul save) and comes in two flavors: assault and devastator. Assault Centurions are heavy assault units equipped with drills and meltas or flamers, meant to get in close to enemy strongpoints and fortifications and wreck shit. Devastator units are a heavy fire support units with hurricane bolters and twin-linked heavy weapons, which, in practice, provide less fire power than regular Devastator Squads, but higher resilience.

Warhammer 40000: Space Marine

In Warhammer 40000: Space Marine, the Marines are wearing what looks like regular Mark VII Aquila Armor. However, it appears to be far less bulky in comparison to similar armor portrayed in official artwork or Dawn of War, suggesting it might be different. For one thing, it appears to be much more streamlined, with lower pauldrons that aren't quite as fucking enormous (although still unrealistically huge), and with more head room and mobility in the arm sections. This becomes very apparent when using ranged weapons, like the Bolter. This streamlining was likely done to avoid hilarious amounts of clipping. Judging by the fact that every other suit of Imperial power armour in the game - Chaos included - shares this appearance, it is probable that it is simply a reimagining, or a 'realistic version' of regular Space Marine armour. It's not like the Space Marine game is the first artwork to portray power armour with different proportions to other media.

Human Power Armour

Virtually identical to Space Marine power armor, these suits of armor are scaled down to fit regular humans (notice that this is the reverse of what it would have been 10,000 years ago). Human power armour is relatively quite rare, since it occurred to somebody that making good protection being an affordable and wide-spread asset would severely impinge on the current state of grimdark, not to mention expensive.

Without the extra room and black carapace interface Marine armor provides, many suits of human power armor don't offer the same degree of protection, as much strength enhancement, or as many subsystems found in Marine armor. Still, the wearer will still be stronger, better protected, and better equipped than the guy in cardboard.. There are a few variants, including a lighter suit and one for Chaos-fighting Inquisitors. Because these things are still super-rare, usually only people rolling in money, tech fetishists, and those able to declare not giving them power armor is heresy, will have any.

Sisters of Battle Armour

Less bulky than the Space Marine armour, as they're designed for normal sized humans. Despite Astartes & Sororitas armour both giving 3+ saves on the tabletops, in actuality the power armour of the Orders Militant of the Adepta Sororitas provides less ballistic protection than Space Marine armour does. (The identical in-game protection is mostly because saves in 40k are decided on numbers between 2-6, so there aren't as many gradients in-between.)

This armour also does not provide the same level of strength enhancement, but it gives enough to carry heavy bolters and ammunition into combat, and fire them without a sister shattering her arms. Sororitas armor has noticeably smaller pauldrons. The leading theory behind why they chose this design feature is that smaller pauldrons cut back the material cost it takes to create this variant, without having to sacrifice the pair of perky, globular breasts.

Helmets are not included as standard either, mostly because the majority of Sororitas models have distinctive haircuts. But also because (according to Dark Heresy), the Sisters of Battle do not receive their helms until about halfway through their careers. This makes them inverse of the tradition held by the Astartes, where higher ranking officers are more likely to ditch their helmets instead. The advantage of Sororitas power armour, though, when compared to all other human-scales of power amour, is that it runs off of the same fusion reactor that Astartes armour does, and therefore can run indefinitely, rather than for a few hours at a time. Another advantage is that it is not as bulky so it does not turn the wearer into a big giant target either.

Dragon Scale Armour

Dragon scale armor is basically Mechanicum power armour, commonly used by militant Enginseers of Imperial Guard and Myrmidon warrior priests of the Ordo Secutor. It does not have an external power source, as it derives power from Mechanicus implants (and therefore cannot be used by anyone outside the tech-priesthood or high-ranking Skitarii). Not as thick as Astartes power armour, it sports many more inbuilt devices and sensors and gets further pimped by the Techpriest wearing it as he progresses through the ranks of the Adeptus Mechanicus to the point where it's hard to tell where the armour ends and its wearer begins. Some wonder if it is connected to the Void Dragon.

Fallout Power Armor

Unlike Warhammer 40,000, Fallout powered armor is more "power" than "armor". It was originally made to allow troops to use heavy weapons on the move and with increased weight limit it was obvious to put some extra armor on the exo-suit. Even while it turns you into a nearly-indestructible walking tank, sneaking and camouflage are always considered better protection than armor in Fallout, so the main reason people use it is strength and radiation resistance bonuses. It is also possibly the most realistic armor here, strangely.

Power armor got a massive overhaul in Fallout 4, turning them into basically an infantry fighting vehicle rather than just better armor. The crafting system extends to upgrades and new systems for the armor, including neat stuff like a stealth field and a jet pack.

T-45 Powered Armor

The first generation of power armor to go into the field, the T-45 series was rushed into service to hold back the invading Chinese from taking over Alaska. It worked and contained the invasion, but had a lot of problems. Later used on the homefront. The T-45d is most commonly seen in the Capital Wasteland.

After Bethesda got the rights to make Fallout 3, they were like "Guys, guys, let's make a SHITTY POWER ARMOR!" and they went through with it. The result was far from shitty a mixed bag. Sure, it has -2 AGL, less radiation resistance, and makes you move around like the Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons, but it looks BAD-ASS!!!

NCR Salvaged Powered Armour

This is the 'zombie' version of the T-45d. After the Battle of HELIOS One, the NCR recovered many suits of T-45d from fallen Brotherhood Paladins. Before issuing them to heavy weapons troops, the NCR stripped out the "power" part of the armor instead of teaching them how to use it properly.

T-51 Powered Armor

The second generation of power armor, the T-51 series managed to get all the kinks ironed out. Used to kick the Chinese out of Alaska and invade China. The quintessential Fallout power armor suit. The T-51b variant is common among the West Coast Brotherhood of Steel. Two suits are known to be in the Capital Wasteland.

This armor only has +1 STR for some reason. What's even stranger is that the hunk of metal that you put on your head (AKA the helmet, but who calls it that?) gives you a +1 CHR bonus (probably because it's heavily featured in old world propaganda, but yet again, so was the T-45d variant). We really should be wearing around hunks of metal on our heads these days. After all, this armor be pullin' all dem bitches...

X-01 Power Armor

The Enclave rolled out their advanced power armor in 2220. It went through several upgrades and variants through its operational history, like the Tesla armor, which has improved energy resistance, and Hellfire armor, which has improved insulation against heat (for which the flame weapon-armed troopers who wear them are grateful). It can be encountered, in all of its variants, on the West Coast, the Mojave Wasteland, the Capital Wasteland, and the Commonwealth.

T-60 Power Armor

The last pre-war armor made. The US Army began development just after the Anchorage Reclamation, intending to replace the T-45 and T-51. It didn't make it to general issue before the bombs fell, and has not been found outside the Commonwealth. Brotherhood Paladins wear it as a symbol of their station.

Raider Power Armor

Raiders in the Commonwealth have managed to refurbish power armor frames. They weld together scrap to make external armor plates. Raider power armor is the least versatile of all the armor types.

StarCraft Power Armor

Incredibly unoriginal, rip off of space marine armor. But still fucking cool looking.

In StarCraft, the Confederate Marine Corps Power Armor, more simply called the CMC power armor, is the standard powered armor suit used by all military factions within the Koprulu sector. Despite the fact that each armored suit comprises a complex array of sensors and other advanced combat technologies, life-support systems, and its own independent power supply that appears to be a portable fusion reactor, it seems to be dirt-cheap as hell to manufacture, given that every armed force within the Koprulu sector can give one of these suits to every Terran marine worth a damn. Unfortunately, that technology doesn't seem to grant much actual protection; the marines are usually unceremoniously wiped out by the dozens hundreds during an engagement.

Along with that, however, it's not exactly known if the armor plating on the suit can protect the wearer from actual combat damage. The CMC armor is incapable of reliably protecting the wearer from projectiles, ruptures, or chemical attacks (apart from the passive hazards found in NBC environments), in both fluff and crunch, considering that it cannot hope hold out against: zergling claws, roach acid, the Marines' own gauss guns (hell, it can't even deflect the pistol rounds from their sidearms), fire and/or plasma, hydralisk spines, Mutalisk wurms, Psi attacks, Protoss photon guns, and really just about anything. Then again even tanks, huge giant robots and battlecruisers could not hold against said attacks en masse - this might say more about how nasty are weapons in StarCraft universe rather than how shitty is armor there, or more likely it's how real world armor works. In fact, some of the fluff describes it as existing more to protect the wearer from the recoil of the Gauss than anything else. In addition, Starcraft armor is primarily ablative - no armor in the game renders anything in the game immune to damage. In Heart of the Swarm game terms, consider a fully upgraded marine, marauder, reaper, and ghost:

The marine has 55 hit points and armor 3. On a per-hit basis, he takes 6 damage from a marine's assault rifle, 4 from a reaper's pistol, 10 from a marauder's grenade launcher, 23 from a ghost's sniper rifle, and 25 from the sniper rifle when the ghost psionically charges the round. The reaper is almost identical, but his armor is thicker - he has 60 hit points, so it takes 2 more pistol rounds (one more salvo, since they fire both pistols at once) to put him down. The ghost's armor is substantially more impressive. Not only does he have 100 hit points, he takes less *base* damage from sniper rifles - 10, rather than 23, so it takes 10 sniper rounds, not 3, to kill him. However, he takes extra damage from psionically charged rounds - 50, enough to kill him in a mere 2 rounds. The marauder has the thickest armor of the lot: 125 hit points and armor 4, with reduced sniper damage - but his armor is weak to grenades. His spread is 5 from the assault rifle, 3 from the pistol, 9 from the sniper rifle base, 25 from empowered sniper rounds, and 22 from the grenade launcher. This means he'll die in 6 grenades like a marine or reaper, compared to the ghost dying in 10 grenades, but will last much longer against the other three weapons.

Other variants exist, based on specialised functions. Medics wear a light armor that isn't designed for combat, but which carries advanced field surgical equipment and even some minor cybernetic construction equipment, allowing them to patch up wounded troopers and fix their busted armor. More visually distinctive is a model of power armor worn by Firebats. The armor is much bulkier than the standard armor, which keep in mind was already similar in size to terminator armor, especially in Starcraft II, where the thing's arms and pauldrons are bigger than its legs. Since the the armor's bulk makes it thicker, it can take far more abuse than the regular armor. As the name of unit might indicate, the armor uses a pair of built-in flamethrowers. The armor worn by Marauders in Starcraft II looks almost identical apart from a change in color, and has the same durability, but in place of flamethrowers uses grenade launchers that are best used against armor. The visual similarity between the two is neatly explained by the fact Marauder armor is rebuilt and re-purposed Firebat armor. Despite the armors' size (and concomitantly longer legs), the guys using them are just as slow as regular marines. A third type of armor is made for Reapers, which looks similar to Assault Marines except their jetpacks are bigger.

Less well known, but still present, is the armor worn by the Protoss. This advanced alien armor, although considerably more "ceremonial-looking" than Terran armors, is actually significantly more durable. Not only is it comprised of more resilient materials, but it contains built-in devices that convert the bearer's psionic energy into a forcefield; though this is depleted by absorbing damage, it will eventually regenerate, if the user survives. Presumably, it also provides environmental protection, though that may have something to do with the fact that the Protoss' alien biology makes them hardier than humans, even without armor they can more abuse than any Terran CMC armor variant. The common "Zealot" armor also has wrist-mounted devices that can focus psionic energy into energy-blades, which they use to rip 'n' tear shit. Dark Templars use similar devices to create "void blades", whose alien energies are one of the few things that can permanently kill "ruler" type Zerg such as Cerebrates.

Metroid Power Armor

AKA the "Power Suit" or "Chozo Power Suit", and one of the most powerful armors on this list. Like Starcraft, pretty much every scrub gets a power suit in Metroid (especially if you're with the Galactic Federation), but the main character's suit is the one you probably want to know about. Samus Aran's armor is like a wearable, form fitting Titan, designed by magic bird people who took Samus in after her parents were killed. It completely kicks the shit out of basically all other technology in the Metroid universe; while a Federation plasma cannon is as powerful as a charged shot of Samus's Plasma Beam (which slices through aliens like a knife through warm butter), it's also nearly as big as a person, takes several minutes to charge, and requires a heavy power pack, while the proper Plasma Beam is integrated with all of Samus's other weaponry into her forearm-sized cannon, takes seconds to charge, absorbs ambient atmospheric energy to function, and is so energy-efficient it doesn't dip into her suit's resources whatsoever.

But that's not all, it's ridiculously modular and can accept pretty much any piece of technology ever and turn it into an upgrade, even if the Chozo had never once encountered the technology in question! Samus doesn't have any idea of how this works either but more or less all she knows about the suit and its functions is that it works.

When fully upgraded to end-game status, the Chozo suit shits all over every other suit here like a pigeon with precision diarrhea. The only real flaw in its design is that it is stupid easy to knock all of its power ups and reset to default -- Samus never manages to hold onto her upgrades between games. Like all Power Armours worth their name it also has pauldrons; the default pauldrons are actually pretty small, but add a Varia upgrade (where some materials have listed the pauldrons as a cooling system associated with the upgrade) and she can shame even the most ridiculous Space Marine.

Halo Power Armor

Spartan MJOLNIR armour

Most people think of the Spartan power armor when they are asked about Halo. These suits cost as much as a UNSC ship and have the decency to protect the wearer from multiple Fuel Rod shots, despite being penetrated by a single pistol shot...inconsistency aside the Spartan power armor is in between the strengths of a Astartes power armor and the Terran power armor. Unlike most other armors, the enhanced speed and strength given by these things is too much for an ordinary human; anybody other than the Spartans, who underwent genetic enhancements, ends up getting mutilated in the armor just by trying to move in it. Other power armor in Halo includes both the Brute and Elite combat harness which boosts their already insane strength (twice that of a human of the same mass for elites, about two or so tons for a Brute) and reaction time (although Brutes tend to be a bit more sluggish than humans).

More noteworthy perhaps for the fact it does not cost as much as a spacecraft, does not have pauldrons the size of the user's head and is implied to be halfway to efficient or practical (if you took away its active ingredient, the shield generator) and is used by the SAS in SPEHSS is the ODST armor, which has both better data analyst equipment than the MJOLNIR and suspiciously similar play style to the piece of junk used in halo 1.

Of course there are the Forerunner Combat-Skins, but putting them here on the list would shit over any power armor listed there. How powerful are they? Enough that they could shrug off multiple melta-level bombs, fall off and survive a Slipspace rift without a scratch, tanking weapons that could dwarf most WH40K, Starcraft and Halo small-arms altogether, can command up to a million attack drones, and can shut-off your brain like a switch. However, in a setting where battlefleets can blow up planets and combat mechs can level cities (which are the size of continents), they are very tame in comparison.

It is also worth noting that Forerunner armor comes in mini-mecha and form-fitting varieties. Most of the above is for the mini-mecha, while form-fitting armor seems to be substantially less impressive.

Metal Gear Exoskeleton

The Metal Gear series has featured exosuits throughout the series. While not very /tg/-ish, they do deserve a spot on this list for being either balls-out wacky to Complete awesome.

Solidus' Powered armor

Solidus Snake, the third clone of the Sons of Big Boss, has a powered armor suit that allows him to zip around and jump absurd heights, as well as engage artificial muscles to enhance strength, speed, and make himself look like an Austrian bodybuilder. He can disengage them back down to allow him to fit into smaller spaces or appear naturally. It also has a pair of tentacles to choke people. Oh, and the tentacles also shoot missiles.

Cyborg Exosuits

After the fall of the Patriots, cyborg technology became prevalent. With CNT muscle fiber being as cheap to produce as plastic; just about every mercenary insane enough, opted to be augmented and encased in one of these things. Pioneered by The Patriots, the armor enhances the wearer's strength, agility, and survivbility to absurd levels; turning them into an unstoppable murder machine that will completely wreck the shit out of anything it faces.

The caveat to this is that majority of cyborgs are...messed up. While some accepted augmentation willingly to enhance their abilities (and are thus, able to come into terms to their new life), there are a lot more who were only forced to undergo cyborg transformation, largely due to desperation or against their will. And those who don't accept the path of being murder on legs after augmentation don't really have a choice in it; recipients can be injected with fear-inhibiting nanomachines that will force them to fight, regardless of the circumstances, all the while their inner self is trapped screaming in their mind and is unable to stop themselves. Even without that having a body that is part machine means having various needs to maintain it.

Some of the more notable examples include: Gray Fox, the original recipient of this armor, was resurrected from the dead against his will and became a guinea pig for further experimentation in grafting exoskeletons onto people, particularly finding no reason to live and suffering painful feedback effects from the imperfect system.

Raiden, the more popular surviving recipient, was captured against his will, and was augmented to the point that he was little than the upper half of his head grafted onto cyborg body. His cyborg body is so crazy, that he's known to throw titan-sized Metal Gears into the air before slicing them to ribbons before they land. Other lulzy feats include fighting, suplexing, and ripping the arm off a Metal Gear the size of a Warhound Titan to engage it in a duel and destroy it. The downside to all the augmentation is that his body optimizing combat performance over fuel economy so he needs to take fuel enemies to avoid shutting down, but since most his enemies after the final upgrade are other cyborgs, that's a non-issue.

Iron Man suits

Probably the most well known Power Armor suit in fiction, popularized by the Superhero who's power is that he has power armor. Tony has built a lot of suits, some meant for a specific purpose, some just a stronger version of older iterations. At the high end, Iron man's suit is flat out superior to anything in nonserialized science fiction short of a few cheese builds from role playing games (but hey, comic books), even allowing him to fight Odinforce Thor, who mind you, has the power of a being who can destroy galaxies as the side effect of his fights. Sure his standard suits may be beaten by weaker stuff, but if he really sets his mind to it, the things Tony can build are essentially magic contained in metal and get shit done!

Destroyer Armor

Perhaps the snazziest and most powerful armor in fiction. This creation of Odin (Marvel Universe version) cannot be damaged by anything less powerful than Odin himself (characters who can smash planets to pieces have tried and failed) and can destroy just about anything weaker than Odin in a single hit. Forerunner suit, Chozo suit? HAH. This is made by gods who actually feel godlike. Crafted by someone who could eradicate entire galaxies as a side effect of his fights to battle even more powerful beings. Accept no substitutes, this is the finest power armor you'll ever find that does not ascend you to Celestial wonkyness. Even if it does run on magic.

Humorously, the things it was design for, to fight Celestials fails as they just one shot it the second it shows up.

Strike Legion

Strike Legion has teraton pistols, Uzis that can outgun all of WH40K and planet busting grenades. You can survive those in one of these babies. Like a bauss. Even the weakest ones have built in shield generators and flight capabilities. That is really all that needs to be said. They are also mass produced. Like, standard issue level mass produced. By factions that can outnumber the Imperium of Man.

X-COM

XCOM operatives in Titan armor

A trio of MEC troopers with kinetic pilebunker fists and minigun. Yes, you can make your own Terminator squad using MEC upgrades.

X-COM always had high-tech armor, including actual power armored suits in the first game. The first one is the "Titan" armored suit, a heavy personal powered armor suit composed of alien alloys. These could drastically reduce damage, give the wearer increased strength and stamina. The other is the "Archangel" armor, while less durable, it instead sported a personal jetpack that allowed the user to hover and fly for limited amounts of time until they ran out of fuel. Finally, there is "Ghost" suit, which get more emphasis on power part of power armor, granting increased mobility and maneuverability, while only being slightly more durable than carapace armor, and as the name suggests, it spotted both passive camouflage systems and active cloaking. They're all fully sealed from the outside-environment and had an array life-support systems, so the wearer was immune to poison, fire, and getting chocked to death.

However, in the Enemy Within expansion to the 2012 remake. This came in the form Mechanized Exoskeleton Cybersuit troopers, or "MECs" for short. Departing from the usual type of armor, these require a considerable amount of cybernetic enhancements through the use of the game's Meld resource to use, which in game is shown in that MEC troopers have much of their body replaced with cybernetics (they basically look like smaller version of Robocop, minus the helmet) to interface with MECs; Giant powered-armor suits capable of carrying an array of powerful weapons, one of which is a giant fist weapon that can insta-kill just about almost anything it hits.

The pay-off far that is enormous, however. Unlike other low ranking soldiers in X-COM, the MEC troopers are extremely durable (to compensate for their size meaning they can't use cover.), and can use the most powerful guns in the game, that only the MEC's strength and durability allows them to use. Additionally, additional rank-up abilities and suit upgrades will further make MECs much more lethal as they progress through the ranks.

However, while MECs are incredibly powerful, they are not invincible. They are like XCOM's equivalent of tanks, and much like tanks, they tend to draw the biggest amount of enemy fire in the map (This is especially made more problematic by the fact that even the aliens' basic plasma pistol can be a threat to MECs and the enemy AI will usually prioritize anyone not in cover.), very limited ammunition stores that forces frequent reloads, and overall tend to lose against numbers where they're simply drowned by the sheer amount of attacks that come their way. Thus, relying completely on MECs isn't the best strategy, it is always best to supplement MECs with some infantry troops for support.

Since the technology for the MEC troopers is taken from the alien invaders, they unsurprisingly have their own version called the Mectoid, own of their basic trooper the Sectoid in their own MEC suit. By the sequel they have phased these out and instead have their ADVENT soldiers (creepy cloned humans meshed with alien DNA) in MEC suits.

Warmachine

A Khador Man-O-War Shocktrooper

Warmachine has had a number of different armors that technically qualify as power armor (almost all warcaster armor, for instance, includes enhancements to the wearer's strength and speed fueled by their magic), but probably the closest (and likely most famous) thing it has to traditional power armor is Khador's Man-O-War armor. Designed because Khador found it the lack of materials to make cortexes for its Warjacks meant even with the effort it put into building its jacks to last, it had a problem with still having a lot of resources it wasn't using and its lack of any cheaper jacks meant the jacks it had tended to be too badly outnumbered. To compensate for these problems, they designed huge suits of armor that would allow the wearers to function almost like pseudo-Warjacks. The Man-O-War functions the same way Khador's jacks do: it's slow, heavily armored, and hits really hard when it gets in close. Fluff wise there's a problem with the built in boilers releasing steam where it shouldn't go and killing the wearer, but this doesn't show up in gameplay since it would make them too unreliable (plus it only happens when they're damaged enough, depending on the addition to the game). Not that they care as they gladly DIE IN STEAM!! Since the armor is still expensive to manufacture, Khador only allows its veteran troops to wear it, meaning they possess high skill with melee weapons.

While the Man-O-War is an industrialized solution to lacking mechanical brains for light warjack-production, they are not the only power armors in the Iron Kingdoms: Some very eccentric mechaniks actually build their own armor called "Ironhead armour". Though the Man-O-War-armour is big and scary, these tend to be even larger and impractical, and are usually built so only the bearer can use it properly. The use for these is everything from mechaniks-work to warfare, as proved by Captain Dominic Darius of Cygnar, who actually build himself a small, wearable light 'jack which in turn creates new miniature 'jacks called Halfjacks as long as he activates the thing. The thing is a four-ton heavy machine, that births smaller machines at all times. I couldn't make this shit up.

Also, the Iron Kingdoms RPG allows players to own these armors - The Gods, Nations and Kings expansion allows for the use of Man-O-War armour and career, and the 52# issue of No Quarter has rules for your own custom-build murdermachine of steel and awesome.

Star Wars

The Star Wars Expanded Universe has had some minor power armor use. The iconic Stormtrooper armor is unpowered, but the zero-G assault Stormtrooper or "Spacetrooper" armor is a suit of powered armor that is worn over regular Stormtrooper armor, and may have been associated with the Dark Trooper armor. Dark Trooper armor itself was bigger and had strength enhancing and protective systems, but it attracted the most deadly of Jedi forces, and was canceled for that reason. It incorporates a set of thrusters and other integrated weapons. Visually, it looks a bit like a cross of Terminator armor and NASA's Manned Maneuvering Unit, with a goofy, oversized Stormtrooper helmet.

These were all based off of Mandalorian armor, which was more streamlined and effective than storm trooper armor, but also more expensive.

Power armor isn't used as much, since some sources indicate that the materials used in regular armor can hardly stand up to the ubiquitous blaster, nor the much rarer but much more asskicking lightsaber. Though in actuality, power armor is practically useless in the universe when compared to Plot Armor.

There's also the Phase III Dark Troopers, which functioned as both automated robot infantry or could be worn as Power Armor, and was pretty much 40K Terminator Armor that wasn't hunched over, and had a built-in jetpack along with fun stuff like micromissiles.

Sadly, like all cool things in the Star Wars universe, it shows up for just a couple games and books, then gets immediately destroyed and you never use it.

Real Life

DARPA exoskeleton going through it's paces in a rather literal sense.

TALOS Power armour.

While they are still some ways off from producing a fully functional power suit, there is interest in the idea. Some people are now looking into making functional powered exoskeletons, this includes some guys in Japan and the US government. While it's initially going to be used to help do heavy lifting where heavy equipment is impractical/inadvisable, along with helping the disabled to walk once more, using it for military applications is in the works. Hell, just look at the image. The basic idea works well enough, but there are still in the experimental phases and while they got the basics of the "power" part down they have yet to add the armor.

Even so, they still have a fair bit to go since most early versions will be restricted by a power tether or run on batteries that have at most a few hours of juice. Still, the first airplane's flight only was about 35 meters and it took less then two decades for the first transatlantic flight.

When they have a working model, this will by the only Superpower ability that isn't fictional or part of a pseudoscience (although that might be a redundancy).

When they do get armour, it will probably look like Fallout power armour.

Gallery

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  Mark I Thunder Armour

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  Mark II Crusade Armour

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  Mark III Iron Armour

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  Mark IV Maximus Armour

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  Mark V Heresy Armour

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  Mark VI Corvus Armour

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  Mark VII Aquila Armour

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  Mark VIII Errant Armour

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  Diagram of Aquila armour components.

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  It actually fits! Still a bit unsure about those hips though.

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  Eternal Crusade concept art. Again, fitting real snugly.