What are the 'arms' above the shoulders for on chaos space marines

What are the 'arms' above the shoulders for on chaos space marines

Pic related

Stabilizer jets

Originally they were flight pack attachments. You can see the regular backpack nozzles on older miniatures.

It gradually changed into the generic style of chaos backpacks because it was a nice visual shorthand separating them from loyalists.

This. After the jet pack thing was dropped it just became the vents for the backpack power plant.

well I mean the normal marine packs were jet packs. The second set of arms was the upgraded version.

I always thought they were anti-grav things to reduce the trooper's weight so that they don't unduly sink into the ground and/or destroy the infrastructure they walk on.

More for spaceborne maneuvering than anything else. Older art would also show marines using their backpacks to slow their rate of descent after jumping out of airborne transports, or allowing them to jump onto higher vantage points.

They basically had a lot of the properties of modern jump packs. The flight packs added on continuous flight.

Arms slaneesh can grab on to while raping them.

Once they were jetpacks, they were retconned into vents

Well at least then it would have some worth. Personally, I think as just vents they look ridiculous and I'd swap them for a space marine backpack every time.

I like this - I like this a lot. My headcannons are spinning! Making ALL space marines jump-capable makes them MUCH more elite and maneuverable. Making Chaos Marines FLIGHT-capable makes them much harder and scarier.
Verry interesting indeed. The grimderp just got faster and more chaotic. (Or, I should say: the grimderp WAS faster and more chaotic - and in my head, it is again!)
This needs to be retconned back into canon. For serious.

>so metal, how can loyalists even compete?

Back in the day CSM were more like raiders and pirates than they are now, I think only the Black Legion was ever portrayed as an organised force. Although the brought back the renegade vibe in the 5th edition codex and people didn't like it.

Those orbs are anti-gravity spheres, they reduce the weight of the armor to allow space marines to not instantly sink into the ground whenever they step onto something.

Space Marines are 7-8ft tall guys in huge thick plate armor. Stepping on anything with their feet should cause them to sink into the ground, those spheres prevent that.

>Making Chaos Marines FLIGHT-capable makes them much harder and scarier.

For the record, Chaos Raptors and Warp Talons are stated to have the power of "true" flight because of the Warp-fuckery with their Jump Packs.

In exchange, of course, they can never really take them off.

that's retarded

I can tell from the way you type that I want you to die.

Reddit, remove yourself from this board.

Yes, indeed, friend user - I am just reacting to the cool notion that ALL chaos marines can fly.
That's just so fucking nasty.
Obviously, if one were to make this 'change' to the system, it would have wide-reaching ramifications. (As you point out, does this make raptors redundant? Does it make ALL chaos marines 'raptors'? I don't know - but i really want to find out!)
Thanks again to those who pointed out the original thinking behind this - as is often the case, the original idea (to my mind) is cooler than what they've retconned.
Chaos in my mind just got real nasty bad.
(and so much for those fuckhuge jumppacks)

Pure 4chins, user - careful.

Air vents for whatever is powering that monstrosity. You don't think a suit like that runs on pixie dust right?

Well actually, if that's an original EC armour it's been in the Eye of Terror for 10.000 years, so it could run on XTC and unicorn farts by now for all we know, but Chaos is cheating when it comes to engineering.

>Powerboard
Emperor, PLEASE let this be a weaponized hoverboard...

Think of it as all chaos marines have a double jump while Raptors can straight up fly for short periods of time.

That's why he made it up

If you dont know, it aint for you to know

You need to administer some lead into your skull. For serious.