Hey guys, one of my players continually keeps losing his armour when he goes on missions.  First incident happened when he decided he could fight two Chaos Space Marines by himself and the other incident was him losing scout armour when he was cpatured..  Obviously, Astartes Power Armour is worth something and they wouldn't simply let it go.  I know that the Tech-Priest will be absolutely pissed about him losing it.  What sort of punishment should I design for him doing this?  Both times he spent Fate Points.

Large Renown loss. And probably not getting any new armor issued. He has to get that set back. I'd apply the Losing a Relic rules.

Seriously, how does one "lose" armor? The CSMs stripped him and sent him on his way?

The Chaos Marines basically beat him up so bad they thought he was dead.  They simply scrapped him for parts.  

PrimarchSanguinius said:

And they didn't steal his geneseed WHY? That's like…their thing, considering so much CSM geneseed is simply too corrupted to be viable for implantation, and even warbands know their success is measured in their ability to replace casualties.

You mean burned fate points right? I would say the CSM were interrupted before they could take the geneseed or thought his injuries had ruined the organs. If a fate point is burned, then fortune should favour the character - to a point. He's still a broken mess, stripped of his armour and dignity.

Losing hefty reknown and the losing a relic rules are a good start, since losing his armour is a huge deal. Each suit is a centuries old relic, let alone if pieces of older and more honoured suits are embedded in it.

 Yeah he had to burn a Fate Point to just survive.  Chaos Marines assumed he was dead and just stripped him of his armour.  There was no time to harvest his geneseed.

Decessor said:

Former, yeah. Latter, no. Any Apothecary would do an exploratory surgery to try and recover a progenoid even if the Brother was torn to bits. I'm sure CSMs would be just as zealous.

They *might* be zealous. Or they could be overcome with bloodlust. Or their few remaing 'apothecaries' have pressing matters of import to attend to immediately. Or don't care because they grow marines using sorcery these days.

With regard to the initial question I'd suggest a loss of 3-5 reknown and then restoration of some of that reknown if they can recover the power armour in a later mission. The scout armour isn't quite anywhere near as big a deal and he'll probably be losing reknown for being captured by the enemy anyway. If he can retrieve his armour before the missions completion a much milder penalty would be called for if any at all depending on the condition of the armour.

Even if they had the time to take the geneseed they might not have had any particular use to it, at least immediately so prioritising gear and parts over that could make sense… and the loss of the players geneseed would be… well reknown loss for that character (though I know one geneseed can be taken out while the astrates lives but can both? IE could a character survive the removal process) as well as probably some for the group, one each or more depending on the circumstances I'd say.

As for the geneseed there are two uses for loyalist geneseed by Chaos Space Marines, firstly making new astrates to replace loses for their warband. Sadly not every Chaos Warband has the skills to do so, or in other cases the equipment. Making new astrates isn't a one apothecary job, there are usually several involved as well as other personel including librarians… but they probably wont pay as much need to his services for ferreting out corruption. Still not ever apothecary knows how to make an astrates though they do know how to retrieve the geneseed. I recall them making a point that after the Heresy Fabious Bile the Chief Apothecary of the Emperor's Children bartered his skills at making new Legionaires to the various Legions for resources and protection. Even if they regained the knowledge then there is no guarantee that every chaos space marine apothecary knows all the steps or has the equipment to make new astrates… Not every warband will have an apothecary as they are specialists.

If we are talking about a renegade chapter of Astrates who turned the Chaos comparitively recently and without as traumatic an exit from the Imperium they might have all the facilities they had in their loyalist days. They and some Legionaire Warbands might not want to use geneseed outside their own group… though I can easily imagine some Renegade Chapter Masters/Insert Grandiose Title Here not caring and just wanting to increase numbers to complete their goals. Others might be more selective, I know the Iron Warriors seem to like taking Imperial Fist Geneseeds others might specifically pass over the geneseeds of their ancient enemies seeing them as being unworthy etc.

The second use depending on the warband is the use and sacrifice of the geneseeds as part of sorcerous rituals. Before they obfuscated their origin's and brought out the old games workshop patented white wash and deny paint the Defiler required geneseeds to be sacrificed to bind the daemon into it… which the Abadon's goons used loyalist geneseeds for. The symbolism behind the geneseed as well as it's value is what is important for these but the warband might not have a sorceror.

PrimarchSanguinius said:

This isn't the player losing his armour, this is you taking it off him.  Has he had a chance to get it back?  You say that he has burnt fate points to survive, that is massive and should be penalty enough.

I don't understand why he burned Fate if he wasn't literally about to die and needed to do so to survive.

And, I dunno. Burning Fate is not a penalty. It's a choice to keep a character alive in a situation that would otherwise have killed him. If a player chooses to solo multiple CSMs, I as GM have no obligation to let the player win or to consider the player being hurt to the point of needing to burn Fate to live and losing their armor a "penalty." Instead it's a consequence of character choices…nothing more, nothing less. The Renown loss would be the penalty from the superors saying "damn son, you dumb."

Certainly in the same vein I would assume there was a way for the character to avoid capture by the Tau and he failed. But if it was an unwinnable situation from the get go, with the only possible way out being capture and armor loss…I don't know, I don't GM like that nor do I railroad to that degree, so I can't comment.

How much of a suit of Power Armor did the character lose? I thought getting into and out of a suit took a while, and having a Space Marine's worth of dead weight wouldn't help. Where were his Battle Brothers at? If they just watched, they might want to pay out some Renown, too. (I am certain they were elsewhere, but team fighting is sort of what these Space Marines are supposed to do. While I can see CSM's stealing, the Power Armor they wear would be a lot older, I think, so I don't know how much use they would get out of it.

per Black Crusade at least, CSM power armor frequently has several systems which do not work properly at all, given CSMs are outside the normal logistical chain of a Chapter and less likely to receive proper maintenance. While Mk 4 might be pretty cool and ancient, it's still not as good as a set of Mk 7 where all the subsystems are operational…and Mk 7 has more AP and some better features anyway.

agree with zokalwe…..

He fought with 2 csm?, giving him an award.
 

Gantz the slaughterer said:

sorry….i wrote bad……Zakalwe

sorry again

Hefty renown penalty in the region of 5-10 and not issue him a new set of Power Armour. Tell the player he has to wear Carapace Armour until he can recover his suit of Power Armour and then add in his recovery of his armour as as sub-plot, having to hunt down the 2 CSMs could make an interesting plot for the player.