Here's what it takes to get one of Warhammer 40,000's space marines ready for a fight

If you've ever looked at a fully armored space marine from a Warhammer 40,000 game like Dawn of War, Battlesector, or indeed, Space Marine, and thought, “They must take ages getting ready to go out with all that on,” then you'd be right. As a new animation from the official Warhammer YouTube channel shows, it's a heck of a process.

To be fair, the marine in the video is one of the newer-model primaris marines wearing Mark X Tacticus Armor, which is why the helmet comes in multiple parts and the collar is fashionably popped. It probably doesn't take quite as long for your basic joe regular marines in older makes of power armor. And anyway, given that it contains life-support systems and a power pack, it's not like he needs to ditch it whenever he wants to go to the toilet or whatever.

What this video really gets across is the amount of ritual involved in armoring up. There's a robed tech-priest overseeing the operation, skulls full of incense, and a lot of chanting and recitation. The Imperium is all about making things more baroque than they need to be. The scale of the gear comes across well too, with two servitors struggling with the weight of the chest piece, even with their cybernetic arms. The bolter looks massive, too.

If that's got you excited to play a videogame about space marines, then good news: even more are coming. There's Space Marine 2, release date yet to be announced, and Chaos Gate: Daemonhunters coming on May 5. That one gives you a squad of Grey Knights to control, the psychic space marines dedicated to fighting Chaos daemons. They wear specially crafted Aegis Armor to ward them against the powers of the Warp, and probably take even longer getting ready to go out.