In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only neck pain.
When it comes to shoulder pads, Warhammer 40,000 has always been hard to beat.
The denizens of Games Workshop’s grimdark galaxy routinely wear pauldrons so massive they’d make Prince Arthas quiver in his boots. In the recent Space Marine 2 you could practically feel the weight of them on Titus as he heaved his beefy arms around.
And yet… I thought the peak had been reached. That the maximum size for upper-body accessories had been achieved, never to be surpassed. How wrong I was.
The trailer for the upcoming new edition of the Horus Heresy tabletop wargame is full of lovely, evocative moments, from a servo skull being obliterated by a plasma weapon to legendary Custodes warrior Valdor grimly steeling himself for “a war that may never end”.
But its best reveal is the arrival of space marines in Saturnine-pattern terminator armour, towering warriors that achieve the seemingly impossible feat of looking scary while being at least 40% shoulder by weight. I mean, my God, just look at those pads. Absolute filth.
The Horus Heresy range is a bit of a nostalgia-fest in general, and this design actually harks back to the original design for terminator armour, back when Warhammer 40,000 miniatures were a bit more charmingly absurd. But in line with modern space marine aesthetics, these guys are bigger and chunkier than their ancestors—with even more imposing pauldrons.
But then! Just when you think you’ve seen as big a shoulder pad as your heart can handle, who’s this looming out of the fog of the battlefield? A Saturnine dreadnought—a five meter tall mech with pauldrons so large he could be smuggling another couple of space marines under each one! The mind races.
For those more interested in what to actually expect from this new edition than advances in shoulder pad technology: it’s launching with a new boxed set featuring said terminators and dreadnought, and seems like a fairly light touch update rather than a major overhaul. Existing armies should port over pretty seamlessly—though there will now be far fewer restrictions on army building, making it easier to put together more themed forces (like, say, a tank company) and even to combine multiple factions together.
For more details, including an in-depth look at what comes in the new box, Games Workshop’s gathered all the links together over on its Warhammer Community site.
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