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Hey folks,

I looked everyone online and just could not find a lot of the images and background taken from the 1st edition Epic Space Marine rules, so I thought I would scan my own copy and post some of the stuff here - not the rules, which I figure would be of less interest, but just some of the cool image snips and bits of background. For anyone who hasn't seen this before, it's amazing how much of it made it's way into the Heresy book series and is still 'canon', while there are definitely a few bits that you will note have changed. Sorry that my scanner isn't particularly good (my copy of the rules also have hole punches - sacrelige! - I've tried to tidy them up where possible) and this is quite time consuming so I'll update a few images at a time over the coming weeks.

These images (with tons of the little marines blowing each other away) from the likes of Kevin Walker really fired my imagination as a kid - and I thought now with Legions and the new released we finally have the miniatures that match up that original vision from the 90s!

So without further ado..


I will just say that when I was a kid I wanted to be as cool as Jervis Johnstone (and Andy Chambers!) when I grew up because of pics like this! The Rock Stars of wargaming!
A little signature key so you know who did each piece of artwork - even the wargaming clubs that helped with playtesting (how things change!)








Pretty sure this is the same image that is in Rogue Trader, but is so brilliant that it needs re-posting whenever possible. This is what the little Legions Astartes infantry are made up of!

from the days when marines were toughness 3 with a 4+ save and were normal human sized

Christ, for a moment I was 12 again. Boy that brought back some memories :-) Cheers for posting!

That Corvus schematic has been retconned over the years though. I think the backpack is now the power source for the whole suit, instead of a "jetpack for void operations"? Nuclear powered, was it..?

Also, the idea that the small holes under the armpit could be used for replenishing food supplies.. ehm.. Besides, there is no designated body waste processor.. In my headcanon, the suit also hold some sort of container for excrements (yeah, maybe better not to think too far into it hehehe).. I have this mental image of a stranded marine, whos alone on the battlefield facing impossible odds, hunkering down in a ruin somewhere, opening his suit, sees his excrement container full of blackened liquid.. thinking to himself "I will dehydrate soon, must make it back to the dropship".. no idea where I got that, maybe it was a dream I had..? Anyways, I digress..

ignore what you would need to do with the wearers hips to get them to fit

and indeed shoulders

maybe this is why the angry marines are angry?

Yeah, the anatomical fit is all over the place.. but this is the 80s, and "the parts are flying!" as the famous meme goes

its a really good drawing, 1st edition 40k had quite a few like this, vehicles, weapons etc

guessing they were reasonably easy to produce and had a lovely technical look to them

certainly better than photoshopped model pictures with more copy & paste than a North Korean propaganda image

Glorious! Thank you for your extraordinary efforts, Pacific.

Love that old art. It’s amazing to see the soup of ideas and concepts still being mixed. Only a year or so earlier, Slaves to Darkness introduced a short summary of the whole affair. Cracking stuff!

A few more!

have a scan of the book, its wonderful, all the little quotes on the various pages.

and how the game scenarios used whirlwinds but you had to proxy the rhino models

it was actually a really fun game, and the way the book was written is something the modern crew could do with reminding of

IIRC you started out with vehicles, how they moved, how they fight, then you had three scenarios with just vehicles, a handful each in a couple of detachments

then you got the same for infantry, followed by combining them, but the rules stepped you through the process nice and carefully with very quick to play scenarios that brought the rules in gradually.

and the box had the required terrain in it

2nd edition wasn't quite so good in that way as it seemed to be written to assume you had played 1st edition

not all of the artwork was this quality, some misses among the hits for sure, but gods the book gave you the atmosphere, not "oh look, more photoshopped models"

 Pacific wrote:
A few more!



...

Thanks for this Land Raider schematic! It is a slight evolution from the one seen in Rogue Trader. The top hatch has changed from rectangular to a more rounded plate, and it is no longer 90 degrees tilted sideways like in the RT schematic. Lascannons have undergone a slight rounding as well. What is interesting that those forward "Caesium Vapour Searchlights" that have been omitted from the modern plastic model version can still be found on this Space Marine 1st ed schematic

Damn, now I got the urge to start playing 1st ed Space Marine once GW releases those LI Proteus Land Raiders..

 Pacific wrote:
A few more!

The whirlwind in this image is taken from the 'official' white dwarf kitbash - built from rhino bitz and card with half of a large square base for the missile tubes.

the RT land raider was before the plastic kit, the SM artwork is based on the plastic kit

and I actually made that whirlwind from the WD instructions

made it badly

did a similar box for an Imperial Guard rocket launcher

Excellent yes I remember that.

And the Land Raider in the SM1 and SM2 releases was an almost exact copy of that design too. Still remarkably cheap to get hold of even today, contrary to much classic Epic stuff, as along with the Rhinos I'm guessing they sold tens of thousands of the things!

well it was 16 LR & 32 rhinos in the 1st edition box

A few more scans

A few more scans. Love the couple of pages on Russ and the Wolves - a few notable changes in the background since then!

Reaver Titans climbing ladders! Priceless