Warhammer 40,000 – Leviathan Terminators and Characters

We did the Unboxing of the Warhammer 40,000 Leviathan boxed set and start with the first detailed review covering the new, upscaled Terminators and Characters, a Captain and a Librarian.

These models are currently only available via Leviathan and as they are push-fit, it is likely that the characters will be available separately later, but the Terminators will most likely be replaced with a multipart plastic kit, covering additional weapon options.

What are Terminators? Only the Veterans of the 1st company of a Space Marine chapter, who earn the Crux Terminatus, have the right to wear the Tactical Dreadnought Armour, most commonly known as Terminator Armour. These armours are the toughest infantry armour the Mechanicum provides to the Space Marines, but their wearers trade in maneuverability for protection and heavier firepower. As such they are often used in boarding actions on starships or other assault missions, where they can make additional use of the teleportation technology integrated into the armour.

Terminator armour is incredibly rare and are often unreplaceable relicts to their chapters, held in high honours. The most common armament of a Space Marine Terminator is a storm bolter and power fist, which is replaced for close combat missions often with either a pair of lightning claws or a thunderhammer with storm shield. Similar to the regular Space Marine squads, the Terminator have specialists wearing additional weaponry for various purposes, like replacing the power fits with a chainfist, to cut through armoured bulkheads on boarding actions. In each squad, one Terminator marine is designed for fire support and due to the massive artificial muscles and suspensions of the armour, can carry much heavier weapons than their power armoured brothers. The most common options are either the assault cannon or heavy flamer, and in some cases, they carry a cyclone missile launcher.

The first Terminator marines were designed by Jes Goodwin and Bob Naismith in the mid-80s, with different designs, but the ongoing development with Jes' design marked as Indomitus pattern and branched out into regular Terminators, Inquisitor and Traitor armour variants in 1985. Goodwin's alternate design with the broad shoulders was later brought back into the lore as Saturnine Pattern Tactical Dreadnought Armour. For the Horus Heresy / 30k, two further designs were added, the Tartaros Pattern and Cataphractii Pattern. The Adeptus Custodes have two special patterns of the Tactical Dreadnought Armour, the Aquilon and Allarus Pattern, as do the Grey Knights with their Aegis Pattern, to support their daemon fighting purpose. The armour we see in Leviathan is still the Indomitus pattern, but scaled to fit with the new size of the Space Marine range.

The Leviathan Terminators are spread across two sprues, a medium and a small sized one. You get a full squad of five Terminators, with a Sergeant armed with a power sword and storm bolter, three regular Terminators with power fist and storm bolter and a Terminator with a heavy weapon, in this case the classic assault cannon. On top you get a teleportation beacon.

There are minor mould lines on these. And the space within the sprue was properly used. Yes, there are a bit room here and there, and they could have added a few bits for variation, but that is something we will receive in the upcoming multipart kit.

As mentioned above, these are push fit and are built as is. Some of the Terminators come with a bit of basic base design. The squad comes with 5 40mm round bases and a small 25mm round base for the teleporter beacon. We start building with the Sergeant. He is armed with a storm bolter and power sword, a usual load-out of a Sgt. This model is the only one in the squad with an option, you can give him either a helmet or bare head. I went with the helmet variant.

There are three regular rank & file Terminator Marines, all armoured with storm bolter and power fist. No chain fist or other variants on these. The fit is good, nothing to argue here. Yet, due to them being push-fit and the way the models are split into the individual parts you have the undercut problem of injection moulding. Some slopes on the legs for examples have weird angles and would be more detailed / plastic in a "proper" multi-part kit. I am not a big fan of the hollow space behind their heads, as these recesses were tricky to paint in the older push-fit Terminators as well.

Due to the way they are designed, you could do arm swaps quite easily. So for example, if you have the Deathwing Terminators as part donors, you could either give them other weaponry or make them upscaled Dark Angel Deathwing.

The fire support in this squad is covered by a Terminator with an assault cannon. There is even a small base decor with empty shells next to the gun.

No assembly needed on the beacon, just put it on a base. And the full squad. As you can see, quite dynamic poses for a launch set / push-fit. Really like the taller design and I went through the trouble of filing / cutting some of the angles on the lower leg armour. Please note, none of the barrels come drilled, the product pictures show drilled barrels.

There are two characters in Terminator armour in this set, one of which is a Space Marine Captain. He comes on single small sprue, as the most characters nowadays do and he has a 50mm round base, including a tyrannic war themed base topper (of a defeated screamer killer).

He is armed the same way as the Terminator Sergeant, with a storm bolter and power sword. No options on this one, neither for the head nor the weaponry. He has a more glamorous armour and is wearing a cloak.

Very dynamic pose and you can basically not distinguish him as a push-fit miniature from the multi-part ~35 EUR kits Games Workshop offers as a main range product.

The second Terminator character is a Librarian. He comes in a small sprue as well, but is placed on a 40mm round base.

The Librarian is armed with a power axe (weapon of choice, often used by the Space Marine psykers) and a wrist-mounted storm bolter. His armour is highly artificied, and I can see this one being used for conversions, for example Word Bearers.

This is the Terminator section of the new Leviathan set, a squad of 5 Terminators, a Space Marine Captain and Librarian for further battle power.

We have come a long way with the Terminator miniatures over the last 40 years. The Indomitus pattern got a slight re-design in the 90s and was available both in metal and plastic (first just with 1996 Space Hulk and later as a kit of its own). A design update came in the mid-2000s, as well as with the 5th edition Warhammer 40,000 starter set Assault on Black Reach.

A brief history, where the first picture is taken from the 2013 (!) review, that we updated a weeks ago with higher resolution pictures. Starting on the left with the first plastic terminator from the 1st generation Space Hulk box (1989), there next to a plastic miniature from the 2nd edition of Space Hulk (1996) which were later also available as a re-cut as a box of 5. In the middle a multi-piece Terminator with lightning claws (circa 2006), a Deathwing Terminator from the Storm of Retribution set and a Terminator from the Deathwing box. The second picture shows a Terminator Captain from the 80s, a 2009 Space Hulk Terminator and the new Leviathan era 2023 Terminators.

Similar is the story with the heroes. Both options, Captain and Librarian were available quite early on in the 80s / 90s. The pictures below show the Librarian from the 2nd edition of Warhammer 40,000, and the Space Marine Captain from the third edition. Most Space Marine Captains wear power armour, as they are more versatile. And due to Terminators being exclusive to the first company, they are lore-wise less flexible to be used (and due to restrictions in the various rule sets with mixed armours as well as transportation).

And some close ups for the build Terminator marines. I drilled the barrels on all of them and it improves the final model a lot in my opinion. So, take the time.

Conclusion

These are the stars of the Leviathan launch set for me. I really like the new, taller stand of the Terminators. Very impressive models and both Space Marine characters are very well done and have impressive poses. The fit and assembly was overall no problem. With push fit models you can't really do a dry-fit, so I recommend filing the pints and putting the glue on the sides not the tip of the connecting areas, as the mass of the glue might prevent you from pushing the pin all the way in and leaving you with a gap (A problem I had with some of the larger tyranid models).

With the exception of the Librarian, you can quite easily convert the weaponry on these models with part from other kits / your bits box. Replacing the shoulder pads is a bit tricky, but you get a proper decal sheet with the starter box for most of the loyal first founding chapters.

I can't wait for the multi-part box to be released, as I want to see the additional options, not only for the fire support, but especially the close combat / assault load out, and with a Captain and Librarian we already have 2/3rds of the characters and I am quite excited to see an updated chaplain in Terminator armour.

Warhammer 40.000 is a brand by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.