Warhammer 40,000 – Space Marine Terminators Pt 2

We already covered the introduction to the classic Terminators back in March on the blog, and now it’s time to move on to the characters and additional options.

As outlined in the previous article, the 1990s models came in three basic poses, plus a Sergeant, a Chaplain, and a Librarian in Terminator Armour. Naturally, depending on the projects you have in mind, that also includes the models for the Space Wolves and the Dark Angels’ Deathwing. According to the Codex Ultramarines for the second edition of Warhammer 40,000, a Space Marine Terminator Squad consisted of five models: one Sergeant and four regular Marines. “Regular” is a relative term here, as these are veterans of the First Company. This also means that, according to the Codex Astartes, Terminators wear the helmet colour of veterans, which for Ultramarines would be white. That would also apply to the Imperial Fists, although in earlier editions this was not always implemented consistently by the ’Eavy Metal team.

This squad was equipped entirely with a power fist and storm bolter, but one model could be armed with a Terminator Heavy Weapon. In addition, each model in the squad could exchange its power fist for a weapon from the Terminator Assault Weapons section of the wargear list. In practical terms, this meant that a model could be equipped with a storm bolter and Cyclone missile launcher, assault cannon, or heavy flamer. The melee options for Terminators consisted either of a pair of lightning claws, a chainfist, or a thunder hammer with storm shield, while the Sergeant alone could also take a power sword. All of these options were covered by the miniature range. The same applies to the Space Wolves’ Wolf Guard and the Dark Angels’ Deathwing. Options such as plasma cannons for Terminators only appeared after the second edition.

For character models, there was the option to be equipped in Terminator Armour. This was either the classic loadout of storm bolter and power fist, or alternatively a pair of lightning claws, thunder hammer and storm shield, storm bolter and chainfist, or storm bolter and power sword. The character models in Terminator Armour each came with a storm bolter; in the case of the Chaplain, a Crozius Arcanum, and in the case of the Librarian, a psychic axe. The Terminator Captain only appeared rather late in the 1990s (UK White Dwarf #229, January 1999) and is therefore, not just strictly speaking, not a true second-edition model.

I sorted the models accordingly so that I can build two Terminator squads as well as the additional character models. If you have a Cyclone missile launcher, make sure you also have the matching targeting-arm piece. That part is often missing, or on second-hand models it is easily confused with the left arm that is supposed to carry the storm shield. Likewise, Terminator Sergeants often miss the small shield that belongs to the sword arm.

As noted above, the Librarian in Terminator Armour consists of four parts: the body, the banner pole (a unique design with a horned skull), the standard storm bolter, and a psychic axe. The psychic axe, psychic sword, and psychic staff are not standard wargear items, but were added via the wargear cards from Dark Millenium. There were no sculpts for a psychic sword or staff for Terminators; those would have to be borrowed from the power-armoured models for a conversion.

Librarians wear the blue of the Librarius on their armour, which blends them very neatly into the rest of an Ultramarines army without making them stand out too much. In the images from Codex Ultramarines and Codex Angels of Death, you can see that Librarians from other Chapters wear their Chapter colour on the left shoulder pad, with a blue trim. For Terminator models, this would mean that the right shoulder pad would be painted in Chapter colour with the Chapter insignia.

The same basic principle applies to the Chaplains in Terminator Armour. They also consist of four parts: the body, the banner pole (a unique design with a skull and laurel wreath), the standard storm bolter, and their insignia of office, the Crozius Arcanum. In more close-combat-oriented lists, I have also seen conversions where the Chaplain is equipped with lightning claws.

This model is in fact one of the “oldest” in my collection — more specifically, I’ve had it since the Black Templar army I built at the start of third edition in late 1998. And, fitting the grimdark and their fanatical nature, it obviously needed even more bones added to the Chaplain: I crucified a skeleton from the then newly updated plastic regiment box of the Undead onto the banner pole. Appropriate for Black Templars, a bit too extreme for Imperial Fists. So this conversion will be undone.

Traditionally, Chaplains wear black armour. In power armour, the Chapter colours are shown on the left shoulder, while in Terminator Armour they are shown on the right shoulder. Just like with Librarians.

As mentioned above, this is technically not a second-edition model, since it was only released in January 1999, just about three months after the end of second edition: the Space Marine Terminator Captain. The model is a little more dynamic than the other character models in Terminator Armour from its era, and it comes classically with a storm bolter, a power sword, and a two-part banner pole.

I am very tempted to “retrofit” Darnath Lysander. In second edition he did not yet exist as a character; he first appeared in the third-edition Codex Space Marines and was still a veteran sergeant of the Second Company at the time, before being promoted to captain of that same company in fourth edition and later elevated to the First Company as First Captain. Much lore later, he was also captain of the Third Company, which would fit my army project quite well.

Darnath Lysander does have a model: originally released in metal in 2005 and later kept available in Finecast, and then, 20 years later, very successfully reissued in plastic. The 4th edition model looks much fresher in design and would stand out even more than the early 3rd edition captain. Because of the way the model is assembled, it would be easy to swap the storm bolter for a thunder hammer — or even Dorn’s Fist itself — and place a storm shield in the left hand, creating a slightly more era-appropriate Captain Lysander.

For my Imperial Fists Terminators, there was – or rather, used to be – also a matching set of bits, which already carries the Chapter badges. I still have one set completely untouched. The image is missing the Imperial Fists banner pole, which you can see further down; the sword shown there is not from the Imperial Fists, however, but comes from a Dark Angels Deathwing Sergeant. You can tell from the different blade design as well as the “broken” sword on the shoulder pad.

Since I did not have enough of those, or in the case of the melee weapons there simply were no suitable bits, I copied and adapted the symbols with Oyumaru, as I did in Call to Arms post #5.

I also made one more chapter-specific item for my Imperial Fists out of one of the Space Wolves’ chainfists.

For the two squads, I would need two Sergeants, and for a bit of variety, one of the Dark Angels’ power swords would help. I would still need to repair the “broken” sword on the shoulder pad. That is nothing some Green Stuff or Milliput couldn’t handle. The second small shield also optionally needs a fist as iconography.

Then there is the big question of personal taste: what do you do about the bases? In a purely purist sense, second-edition 40k only had 25 mm round bases and 40 mm square bases. Square bases are completely off the table for my projects. I already brought up the topic back then with the Chaos Terminators. With today’s options, there are various possibilities, from 25 mm all the way up to 40 mm. 25 mm is definitely too cramped for Terminators in my opinion, so I am leaning toward 32 mm for the regular Space Marine Terminators and 40 mm for the character models.

In the first image, you can see what the proposed base sizes would look like. Since this is purely about appearance and not competitive play, I consider the base-size adjustment negligible. And finally, there is a comparison of the classic Terminators on 32 mm bases next to the newer 2024 Indomitus-pattern models, i.e. models that are almost 30 years younger and show the corresponding scale creep quite clearly.

The next step will be assembly and the first conversions, so that the collected parts can become two playable squads and the appropriate characters. After that, it will be interesting to see how well the Terminators fit into my Imperial Fists project with just a few adjustments.