They don't make MKIV anymore, it's too expensive and difficult to acquire the materials required which the Imperium now dedicates to Aegis, Inquisitor and rarely, Chapter Artificer armor (according to Rick Priestly). If damaged it takes an enormous amount of Chapter resources to repair as a result. That's primarily why they're chapter relics in most cases, and only warn by senior brothers. It's the perfect shitstorm of easily damaged + expensive upkeep All early marks are exceedingly rare as a result of attrition and chapter armorers and artificers can only maintain a few sets at a time, although they are lovingly tended to and will drive a Chapter to war if they have a chance of recovering a set from the enemy. Being the armor warn by a Chapter hero who fought for the Emperor back in the dark days of Horus' betrayal makes them potent relics. So while rare, they take every effort to keep them in good order. At any rate, that's why bE are limiting the older Mks to 5% of the player base. You can't 'grind' them out because too many players doing that will exceed the limited permission GW is allowing. Although maybe as a campaign reward for stellar players ? I'd like to see 1-2% held over for that, add a Campaign medal or badge to them for extra "Money can't buy these skills" sting. I think I might ask for that. edit: Changed 7% to 5%.
Here's a link to an article that should help: http://z13.invisionfree.com/The_First_Expedition/index.php?showtopic=8 Also, Mk III is a development of MK II. The original Formative Armour article by Rick Priestley made that connection, and it has not as yet been superceeded.
Did i not read Founders would receive Horus Heresy armor skins in some form? Perhaps I'm losing my mind but I would have sworn I read that somewhere.
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The problem however is that it's blatantly false given the losses Astartes consistently sustain, coupled with lost ships, Tyranids, and Chaos Space Marines stealing the armor off corpses. MK IV is certainly not rare, especially as evidenced by the Red Scorpions, but other chapters make use of it for Veterans, the Angels of Absolution and Howling Griffons have both been depicted as equipping their veteran sergeants with it. At least Maximus armor should be available from grinding rank, as a lack of rewards for playtime will lead to an inevitable loss of players. Plus then there's every single GW Space Marine kit with veteran units with MK IV armor. At the very least MK IV should be available to everyone with grinding rank or relic drops from the 'Nids, if not the other armors as well. Limiting it to founders/the store is just a fantastic way to piss people off.
It depends on our definitions of 'rare' I suppose but I don't disagree with the idea of seeing them in game for non-purchasers. Putting aside that the Red Scorpions being able to manufacture IV as an extreme rarity, and one that is hardly surprising seeings they're FW's adopted Chapter (gee, wonder who sells the MK IV kits ), they are rare Wyz. GW says 5% cap and they're the IP owners and I doubt it's an arbitrary number. If you can grind them (good gods, I hate that word) then it's foreseeable that the player base could exceed that maximum, right ? bE aren't allowed to let that happen. That's actually higher than the basic Vet kits, where it's 1 in 7 of the helms (I believe) so even if you don't subtract TDA-only wearers in the 1st Company (especially the DAs who have no MKIV on their Company Vet sprue and the DW runs all TDA), that's still no more than 14:1000 helms per Chapter, as suggested by the minis, for what that's worth. It's not a big % by any means for the average Chapter (plus a few here and there for HQ like Company Commanders, say between 2-4%). GW wants to keep them low in EC, that's their deal although again, personally I would like to see a few kept aside as rewards for campaign victories, maybe even being linked to the Strikeforce Leader armory. I just don't see bE running out of armor pieces for us to hunt whether we get pre-VI or not but don't mistake my disagreement on rarity for praise of there being a RTP pay wall on them *shrug* edit: Changed 7% to 5%.
When the hell has GW stated they want the armor rarity maintained by a percentage? That's probably just going to end up killing the game ahead of time. People stay in games because they feel their progress is rewarded, if they aren't rewarded, they tend to leave. With the current things being done to Eternal Crusade it seems much more likely this game will just have a short life-span suffering from a lack of experience on BE's part and (if it's true), GW trying to micromanage. Especially considering how in Space Marine you could end up looking like a fucking Chapter Master by level 30, I doubt GW's actually imposing any statistical limits on wargear.
