Space Marine 2: Every Way to Unlock Armour Cosmetics

“Armour cosmetics” in Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 is really three systems that share one menu, and most confusion comes from mixing them up. First, the physical armour parts — helmets, pauldrons, chests, greaves — which unlock per class as you complete Operations (Stratagems count as Operations) or win Eternal War matches, at no Requisition cost. Second, Heraldry — Chapter colours, emblems, patterns and Chapter presets — which you buy with Requisition Points, item by item, inside each Chapter. Third, the special rewards: Heroic armour parts for Accolades, one cosmetic per Prestige rank, robes and tabards from Ordeals, Season Pass packs, Community Events, and — from October 1, 2026 — Purity XP from Crucible Mode. This guide walks each layer with its exact condition and where to check it in the Armouring Hall; the Sources and Confidence table separates official statements from third-party counts.

Standard Armour Parts: Completions and Wins, Per Class

If what you want is a new helmet or pauldron, this is the layer that matters, and it does not involve currency at all. Armour sets and their individual parts unlock as you complete Operations missions or win Eternal War matches, and the progress is counted separately for each class — a Bulwark’s completions do nothing for your Heavy. Third-party guides that tracked the thresholds put the final set of each class at around 35 completions or wins (Game8), and a part unlocked through Operations is usable in Eternal War as well. To see what a specific piece needs, open the Armouring Hall on the Battle Barge, choose the class, go to Customisation → Edit Armour and select the locked part: the tooltip names the requirement and your current count.

Heraldry: Requisition, Bought in Order Inside a Chapter

Colours, emblems, patterns and Chapter presets live in the Heraldry menu and are bought with Requisition Points, which you earn in Operations, Eternal War and the Class Trials at the Armoury. Per Focus Entertainment’s customisation blog, over 30 Chapters had their colours and heraldry available at launch, the majority through normal progression and only some reserved for Season Pass owners. Every Chapter is selectable from the start; inside a Chapter, though, the items are bought in sequence — the first tile, then the rest left to right — at roughly 30–50 Requisition each according to the guides that priced them (unofficial figures, see the sources table). The Armoury Data farming guide covers the separate currency for Relic weapons, and the PvP vs PvE breakdown is worth reading before choosing where to earn, since Requisition accrues from both.

Special Rewards: Accolades, Prestige, Ordeals, Season Pass, Events

Accolades, tracked on the Lectern of Oaths and topped up by Weekly Siege, Weekly Eternal War and Community Events, buy Heroic armour parts — the same currency also buys Heroic weapons, which are weapon versions with their own stats rather than cosmetics, so the two compete for the same pool. Prestige hands out one unique cosmetic per rank reached. Ordeals (the Trials of Resolve) unlock robes and tabards as skill-based rewards. Season Pass DLC adds full Chapter and Champion packs that appear in the customisation menu, with some items inside them still costing Requisition. Community Events pay lump sums of both currencies for a themed task list.

How Heraldry Presets and Custom Colours Work

The Heraldry menu’s Astartes Chapters tab gives you presets that recreate a legendary Chapter’s look in one step; if you would rather not use a preset, the same menu lets you build a custom colour scheme and emblem combination piece by piece. Two statements that sound contradictory are both true once you separate the levels: every Chapter in the list can be opened, and inside a Chapter the purchases go in order, first tile to last. The price of a tile and the count a part still needs are shown in the game itself — they are checkable data even where no official blog lists them.

Patch 14.0’s Confrontation Update is the clearest recent example of how one patch touches several layers at once: it added 6 new Heroic Weapons and, in its own words, “4 Heroic Armour” parts — the Deathwatch Hand, Deathwatch Chest and Ultramarine Chapter Champion Pauldron — all unlockable with Accolades, alongside new Season Pass content in the Salamanders Champion (with its Signature Multi-Melta Weapon Skin) and the Raptors Cosmetic Pack. The Heroic weapons are weapon versions with their own stats — the same notes tune them — so treat them as the alternative spend for your Accolades, not as a cosmetic tier. The same patch expanded the free side too: robes for Assault and Tactical, tabards for Assault earnable through new Ordeals, a free Raptors knee decal, and the Black Templar Champion backpack split into two separate parts.

What Prestige Actually Costs You

Prestige unlocks once a class hits PvE level 25, and activating it from the Armouring Hall costs 100 Requisition Points; it resets that class’s level back to 1, so the perks gated behind levels go dark until you re-level (whether their Requisition is charged again is community-reported, not printed), while weapon levels, other classes and your already-unlocked cosmetics stay untouched. Each rank you clear afterwards grants a permanent perk, a stacking XP bonus and one unique cosmetic. Only Operations count toward that class level — Eternal War has its own progression and does not feed the PvE level that Prestige and Crucible require, though its wins do unlock armour parts and its Requisition buys Heraldry. The full reset mechanics are covered in the Space Marine 2 Prestige guide.

What’s Coming and What Isn’t Confirmed Yet

The Cape Recolour feature — the update’s own phrase for a customisation option the developers called “something we should have done a long time ago” — was shown as still in development in the August Community Update, with the developers flagging that its final version may still change. The same update confirms the Second Anniversary Update and Season Pass 3 for early October 2026 and a Greatsword in Year 3, but names no cosmetic packs beyond that. Patch 15 itself was later dated October 1 by Focus Entertainment on X.

None of this is a short errand. Reaching PvE level 25 on a single class — the gate for both Prestige and Crucible Mode from October 1 — takes the sustained Operations time covered in the class leveling guide, and the armour-part counts run per class on top of it. For scale, the Divine Retribution Community Event paid 100 Accolades plus 150 Requisition Points for completing three Chaos PvE missions before its September 8 deadline; that event has ended, but its payout is a fair reference for what one event is worth.

Myth: Chapters Unlock in a Fixed Chain

Two guides look like they contradict each other — one says every Chapter in the Heraldry menu is available with no nested requirement, another describes buying items in a track. They describe different levels of the same menu: choosing a Chapter is free, buying its tiles goes in order. Plan a Chapter by adding up its tiles, not by worrying about a hidden gate between Chapters.

Myth: Season Pass Packs Work Like Normal Heraldry Parts

Not necessarily. A community cosmetics compendium notes that some Season Pass power-armour skins cannot be split apart in the editor the way individually unlocked pieces can, while Patch 14.0 split the Black Templar Champion backpack into two parts — so modularity is decided pack by pack. Check the pack’s items in the customisation menu before buying it for one piece.

Myth: A Quick Offline Session Is Harmless

Focus Entertainment’s own FAQ is explicit: progression earned offline does not carry over to your next session, so perks, skins and other rewards earned that way are lost. Nothing official says earlier purchases are wiped — the rule is about what you earn while offline. If a session is meant to unlock anything, play it online.

Sources and Confidence

This table separates what the studio has confirmed from what comes out of press previews, and what is still just circulating. Every link below was fetched before publishing.