Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marines Terminator Squad

With a bit of delay, we take care of the Space Marines Terminator Squad for Warhammer 40k, and these are the Indomitus pattern models in a fitting Primaris scale, introduced first with the release of Leviathan as push-fits, and later followed by this multi-part kit with more options.

This is a really interesting release, especially for me as Terminator were something that was completely out of reach when I started the hobby. Back in the 90s the models were only available in metal, and a single terminatur was 18 DM (9,2 EUR but 15,10 EUR with inflation) and a box of 5 was 85 DM (42,25 EUR, but 71,30 EUR with inflation) and that was quite an amount of money for a teenager for a single unit. Just by that comparison, the new RRP of 55 EUR is cheaper than the metal models were back then. But the "first" plastic terminators (there were plastic terminators from Space Hulks first edition) were already a huge improvement, as you could get 10 of them from a box of Space Hulk (99 DM), later as an individual kit, and they were part of the battle force that was released in 1998, which made them much more accessible and dropped their price below retail.

But what are Terminators? The Tactical Dreadnought Armour, how it is officially called, are honoured relicts of each Space Marine chapter and only the veterans of their 1st company, who earned the Crux Terminatus, have the right to wear the Terminator Armour. In some chapters, especially those who don't follow the Codex Astartes more loosely, like the Space Wolves, this honour is handled differently. Terminator 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.

Games Workshop did their own journey through the valley of Nostalgia on Warhammer Community, showing the different miniatures and designs through the ages.

However, in this new boxed set of the Space Marines Terminator Squad you will find enough bits and pieces to build five Terminators, with different armament focused on tactical warfare (Assault Terminators have a different load-out and are not covered with this box), as well as an instruction leaflet, a large decal sheet and 5x 40mm round bases.

The three sprues are densely packed with bits and cover various options for the terminator squad. Casting is as usual top notch and nothing to argue.

As I gave you an overview in the older Space Hulk article, we're not going to build a regular squad from this kit, but an addition to the existing Terminators I own in Indomitus pattern, to fulfill the role of the newly scaled Terminators for the board game. While the boxed set gives you the opportunity to build four terminators and a sergeant (using a power-sword), we're going to build three regular terminators and two with special weapons.

The Terminators from this set are more detailed and less "simplified" compared to the Leviathan kit, as they are not intended to be build by push fit. This means more individial pieces. Never the less, the core poses are fixed and for our regular Terminators with storm bolter and power fists we are going to build three bodies.

In direct comparison with the Leviathan kits, you can't see any different in height. You can notice the less detailed back part of the lower backs, as due to a lower amount of parts, the unavailability of undercuts had to reduce some complexity on some parts. With the Leviathan kit we already have our fair share of regular Terminators, and we need a few more of them but with chain fists this time, which is what we are going to do.

Now the only items missing for a complete model are the heads and shoulder pads. Regarding the heads, these have a ball joint and give them the option to look around in different directions. As for the shoulder pads, these have the Crux Terminatus on one side and are blank on the other. There are upgrade options from Games Workshop and various third party companies. As the Indomitus pattern is rather "new", the Primaris upgrades don't cover them, so far only the Dark Angels cover Deathwing pads in their upgrade sprue, and the upcoming Blood Angels upgrade will have fitting parts for them as well.

With three models build, we have further two bodies left. And this kit offers you the option to build three special weapons, the assault cannon, the cyclone missile launcher and heavy flamer. As we already have the assault cannon from the Leviathan kit and need the other two, we're going with them. The core body is the same as with the regular terminators. The chest armour piece for the cyclone missile launcher has a scanner piece, which we used.

While the cyclone missile launcher is armed with a storm bolter and power fist, he has an additional sensor on his power fist to aid the aiming of the missiles. The heavy flamer is used on the left side and replaces the regular storm bolter.

The cyclone missile launcher is added on the back of the terminator armour and elevates slightly. It adds a very bulky finish to an already very present model. I used a head with an bionic eye for the missile launcher, and the one with the face mask for the heavy flamer, as I thought that would be fitting.

There are further smaller bits included, you have a teleport homer, in the same design as from the Leviathan kit, just with the difference that the hooks are grappled to the floor, beyond that the identical piece. And there are various crux and purity seals, that can be added to the armour or weapon of the terminators.

And a quick scale comparison between one of the first terminator models, the 3rd edition Space Hulk Terminators, the new Indomitus scale and a Primaris Marine.

This is how the multi-part terminators look, for a better understanding in the difference towards the Leviathan models, you can see the improved detail on the back of the legs on the multi-part kit.

Conclusion

We have been waiting for an update of the Terminators since the release of the Primaris, and the Indomitus pattern makes so much sense and provides a lot better proportions for these models. We're talking the elite of the elite, Games Workshop had to show them some love. Along with a proper amount of new characters in this new scale and armour, the players can use Captains, Librarians and Chaplains as well. The only gap we have are the assault terminators, who have always been a bit of a "step-child", as the poses didn't look as good or dynamic as the others. But the Citadel team can do great close-combat terminators, as they have shown with the stunning Chaos Terminators. Yet, the Assault Terminators would be an entire new set of sprues, as I don't see a sprue swap working here to replace the weapon options accordingly (adding thunderhammers, storm shields and lighting claws).

At 55 EURs per box, they aren't cheap, but there are / were multiple battle forces and Leviathan starter set, where the models (or at least terminators) were included, and of course, you don't have to pay RRP. Beyond that, unless you are really going for a Deathwing or similar elite forces, you don't need that many of them, which evens it out.

As we have a second box of those at hand, and still some gaps to fill for our Space Hulk load out, stay tuned as we're not done building terminators.

Warhammer 40,000 is a brand by Games Workshop.

The reviewed product item was provided by the manufacturer.