A Key Document in the History of Warhammer 40,000: White Dwarf 112 & Terminator Armour

Not the first issue of White Dwarf to feature Terminator Armour but the main expansion of the lore and rules for it, plus some other cool things.

Welcome to another article in my ongoing series of key documents in the history of Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader. This time I’m taking a look at White Dwarf issue 112. Let’s get into it!

(Image - The detail of a shoulder badge for Space Marine Terminator Armour showing a skull motif on an ‘Iron Cross’ from White Dwarf 112 page 15.)

A key issue from the book timeline:

April - WD 112 would see a bunch more 40K content; more on the now iconic Terminator Armour, the Predator tank, Ork Wartrak and Field Gun. However it is a more notable issue for its non-40K content for this was the last article WD would publish featuring the RPG Paranoia and probably the last non-GW owned RPG article in WD.

Here’s a video overview of what is key in this issue:

To add some notes, as mentioned in the video this issue of White Dwarf is not the first to feature Terminator Armour (as noted in a previous article here) White Dwarf issue 108 in December 1988 would give us the first view of a Space Marine in Terminator armour via that is now called the Saturnine armour. There would be some more lore on Terminator Armour in White Dwarf 109 too, which would show 2 designs of armour (pages 32 & 33):

(Images - The then 2 different designs of Terminator Armour from White Dwarf 109 pages 32 & 33.)

One of the cool bits of lore in this issue, and so added to the game itself, that I loved from back then was its connection back to the Emperor himself:

Captain’s shoulder badge: made of stone, and containing fragments of the Emperor’s armour. At the climax of the Horus Heresy the Emperor personally led an attack upon the Warmaster’s bunker with the Imperial Fist Marine Chapter and an elite unit of the Adeptus Custodes. During the fierce fighting the Emperor came face to face with Horus, who, in the battle that resulted, seriously wounded the Emperor. The Warmaster was only prevented from taking the Emperor’s life by the timely intervention of a squad of Imperial Fist Marines in Terminator Armour. The squad cut their way through walls and sealed doors to reach the Emperor’s side and launched an unexpected counter-attack on the Warmaster. Distracted by their appearance, Horus was off his guard long enough for the Emperor to press forward and kill him. Although weak, the Emperor was still able to order that his armour be taken off and melted down. and that the pieces be made into badges that all Marine Captains attached to Terminator squads should wear in recognition of the service performed in the defeat of Horus.

Note in this version of the story, it is a bunker that the final battle takes place, not in Horus’ flagship, as later accounts would state.

(Image - The detail of White Dwarf issue 112 pg.16 showing the Space Marine Terminator shoulder badge and the text accompanying it. Photo by author.)

The final hurrah of RPG content in White Dwarf would be this crossover of the post-apocalyptic RPG ‘Paranoia’ (which is about a future world where a psychotic computer that controls the last human city thinks that Cold War era ‘Commies’ are everywhere and hilarity with death ensues.

(Image - The detail of White Dwarf issue 112 pg.34 showing the details of an Orks meet Paranoia RPG adventure)

From these beginnings so Space Marine Terminators became a core part of the game, appearing in the boardgame Spacehulk the following month and since then have been a key part of the game. Indeed the same week of writing this we see the accouchement of Battleforce: Crux Terminatus!

(Image - A Space Marine Crux Terminator with Storm Bolter and banner. Image from Warhammer Community)

Thanks once more, for reading!

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