Table Ready: Ultramarine Terminators

The New scale makes a great model even better

There is no secret in the fact that I love Space Marines in Tactical Dreadnought Armor: more commonly known as Terminator armor. In the very infancy of my long-lived Warhammer hobby, the image of bone white metal Deathwing Terminator models from the inside of the Space Hulk 2nd ed campaign book set this whole thing in motion. Some 28 years later (God, I’m old) and not only do I still own my original Deathwing models from back when they occupied uncomfortably small 25mm bases painted in Goblin green, but I have a new(ish) box set full of them to paint up and showcase here soon. Hopefully. 

But we are here to talk about the boys in blue. Somehow I accidentally built and painted a fairly large Ultramarines army during 8th ed. You know, it happens. I only painted a single unit of 40k style indomitus pattern termies for them; this of course ignores the cataphractii variant armor of which I have many for my Heresy Era Ultramarines, but, I digress. 

Fast forward to the reveal of the 10th edition of Warhammer 40k. Not only are new terminator sculpts incoming, but they are scaled to look appropriate next to the more accurately proportioned “primaris” line of space marine models. There was exactly zero point zero zero chance that I wasn’t ganna jam a whole pile of those glorious fuckers right into my shame. 

I might actually paint a few as well!



Cobalt Thicc Bois

The Leviathan box was kinda glorious. I painted the first set already. I also bought a second Leviathan box, and an additional normal starter set, because yeah, I am obsessive. At least I sold off the extra Tyranids, instead of leaving them in my shame for some undetermined time period. My Ultramarines needed a second unit of the new Terminator models, as I saw it anyway, especially since I had three land raiders painted up to thunder down the board with: I don’t care how non-meta it may be, dumping three units of Terminators with attached characters out of three land raiders on central objective markers is fun and not easily dealt with.

Not Ganna lie: when I was painting the Leviathan box, I was primarily focused on getting the minis painted fairly quickly. When I got to the second squad, I put more time into the volume by using darker blue in the recesses and lower parts and brighter blue towards the tops, with a fine highlight afterwards. Certainly not a show-worthy unit by a long shot but I am quite happy to get them ready for the table and looking good.

I also put some time into painting up hazards and a check pattern for power fists to make sure the squad was visually distinct from the previous squad. The yellow stands out particularly well. They came out fine, not amazing, but far from terrible. Calling out the Veteran Sergeant with the white stripe down the red helm also stands out wonderfully amongst the sea of cool tones.

The new Terminator sculpts are perfect In my humble opinion. Gone are the janky squating poses that many older 40k models were sculpted in. Classic marine models, which have come to be known as First Born Marines are about the same height as modern Cadian guard models; this has a lot to do with the fact that the scale of Warhammer models have slowly shifted from 25mm to 28mm over time. While this doesn’t sound like much, when the dude is about an inch tall, a three millimeter increase as to where the models eyes are can be fairly significant.

Then came the Primaris Marines. It’s unclear if the Primaris was a way to shift the scale and reset the most common army among Warhammer 40k players, or if they were merely attempting to correct the size discrepancy. The end result was at least a collection of new Space Marine models with lore accurate proportions to the regular human soldiers. With the Leviathan box set release, we finally get Terminator models that are designed to look correct next to the Primaris Marines: big and bulky still, but with the added bonus that it doesn’t look like a marine has to cut a chunk of their body out to fit themselves in the Terminator armor.

By Paul Dainton

Most importantly of all, they are a faithful representation of the Terminator models we have been covering for upwards of thirty years at this point. Indomitus Pattern Terminator armor has looked the same since 2nd edition (as far as I can tell, that is) and they still own the same silhouette. By and large these are the glorious looking terminator models we have been collecting for decades, only bigger, and I could not be happier about that.

Check out more of my Ultramarines collection.



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Tyson

Obsessive and neurotic collector of little plastic men, novels about the same little plastic men and paints to make the little plastic men pretty. Married to Kera, who puts up with him and pretends that she doesn’t hear him speaking to the little plastic men in between making pew pew noises in the hobby room. Requires adult supervision. A menace to himself but rarely to others. More beard than man

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