Publication history
Space Marines were first introduced in '' Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader'' (1987) by Rick Priestley, which was the first edition of the tabletop game. The book ''Realm of Chaos: The Lost and the Damned'' (Rick Priestley and Bryan Ansell, 1990) was the first book from Games Workshop to give a backstory for the Space Marines. It introduced the original 20 Space Marine Legions as well as their Primarchs. It also first described the Horus Heresy, the civil war of the 30th millennium in which nine of the Legions converted to the worship of theTabletop games
The following tabletop games fromMiniature design
Bob Naismith created the initial design for the Space Marines. The first edition's Space Marines had helmets with prominent conical snouts. This design is popularly known as the "beaky" helmet. The design of the helmet initially had a gas mask, with an airtube connected to the snout, and this concept is apparent in a 1991 limited edition model that is based on this initial design. The designers at Games Workshop felt that this concept was too banal and derivative, and they made a conscious decision to give the Space Marine, and ''Warhammer 40,000'' in general, a "medieval-in-space" aesthetic. The helmet was modified to resemble a medieval '' hounskull'' helmet. Likewise, the Space Marine's armor was redesigned to resemble medieval plate armour. Jes Goodwin redesigned the armour for the second edition (1993), where the helmet's beak was replaced by a flat grill, and the chestplate features a winged skull. With the eighth edition (2017), Games Workshop introduced the Primaris Space Marine models which are slightly taller and have a new helmet design. Space Marine Terminators first appeared in 1989 for the spin-off board game '' Space Hulk'' and were eventually incorporated into the principal ''Warhammer 40,000'' game. They wear a bulkier kind of armor and carry heavier weapons. Simplified miniatures of Space Marines in Power Armour, Space Marine Scouts, and Space Marine Terminators are found in the board games ''''Warhammer 40,000''
As far as non-hero infantry go, Space Marines are rather powerful and have a high point cost. A Space Marine Intercessor is worth 20 points, whereas a normal human soldier is worth only 4 points. Consequently, an army based on Space Marines will be relatively small compared to, say, a Tyranid army of equal strength. This means that a player can assemble a functional army for relatively little money and effort. In terms of playing style, a Space Marine army neither excels nor fails at any particular tactic, though certain Chapters do have variant rules (e.g. the Salamanders specialise in flamethrowers). Individual units are typically not strongly specialised and can roughly substitute in other roles, meaning most mistakes and setbacks are easy to compensate for. Their tough armour and generally unspecialised weaponry means that they do not have to be maneuvered as carefully as units of other armies (such as the powerful but frail Aeldari). These qualities make them ideal for beginners, and may help them succeed more often in their early gameplay stages.''Kill Team''
Much like in ''Warhammer 40,000'', Space Marine teams in ''Kill Team'' tend to be small teams of powerful warriors. For instance, a Space Marine team will consist of five warriors, whereas an Imperial Guard team will consist of 10 to 14 warriors.''Space Hulk''
In '' Space Hulk'', Space Marines in Terminator armor move through narrow corridors fending off attacks by alien monsters known as " genestealers". The genestealers move fast and are very deadly in melee combat, whereas the Space Marines move slowly and are weak in melee combat but possess firearms.Fictional characteristics
A Space Marine is stronger, tougher, heavier and taller than a normal human due to genetic augmentation. Space Marines wear suits of mechanized armour which have a medieval aesthetic, and they are often brightly painted and ornately decorated (camouflage is mostly redundant in warfare of the far future). The classic weapon of the Space Marine is the boltgun, which fires small rocket-assisted rounds and has such powerful recoil that it cannot be safely wielded by a normal human. Space Marines can live for centuries and thereby develop vast combat experience. Those Space Marines who are loyal to the Imperium are organised into "Chapters", each usually containing about a thousand Space Marines, led by a Chapter Master. Each Chapter is an autonomous organization and controls a fiefdom from which it raises funds and recruits. Each Space Marine Chapter is a fully integrated military force, possessing both naval ships and ground forces. The Space Marines themselves are dedicated shock troops, while ordinary human serfs serve in support roles such as crewing their ships and maintaining their equipment. A Chapter's headquarters is called the "fortress-monastery". Each Chapter bears a name, such as "the Iron Hands" and "the Dark Angels", and a distinctive paint scheme for their armour (e.g. the White Scars paint their armour white). A Space Marine's commitment to his Chapter is lifelong and they rarely have any kind of personal life outside the Chapter. Space Marines are conditioned to have a fanatical reverence for the Emperor of Mankind. Chaos Space Marines are organised into large "Legions" and smaller warbands that likewise have colourful names (e.g. "the Thousand Sons" and "the Night Lords"). Some Chaos Space Marines dedicate themselves to a specific Chaos God, which affects their personalities and physiologies in specific ways. For instance, Chaos Space Marines devoted to Nurgle have grotesque, bloated bodies riddled with disease, yet are paradoxically very resilient in battle; and Chaos Space Marines devoted to Slaanesh tend to be hedonistic. Chaos Space Marines tend to be even more brutal than their Loyalist counterparts, often killing and torturing people for the mere sake of it. A Space Marine is created by implanting "gene-seed" in a human recruit, which transforms them into superhumans. Gene-seed cannot be mass-produced in factories. New gene-seed grows within the bodies of the Space Marines themselves and are periodically harvested by surgery to implant in new recruits. Space Marines also cannot procreate sexually as humans normally do as their genetic modifications make them sterile. Because their production cannot be scaled up, Space Marines are few in number. The vast majority of the Imperium's armed forces are regular humans. Space Marines are always male, as gene-seed will kill a woman if implanted. Most chapters prefer to recruit boys in early adolescence, as younger recruits suffer fewer complications in the transformation process; but adults can be recruited up to middle age. The Emperor of Mankind created the Space Marines around the time he founded the Imperium and used them to spearhead his conquest of the galaxy. A few centuries into this campaign, known as the "Great Crusade", about half of the Space Marine legions converted to the worship of the Chaos Gods and rebelled against the Emperor in what became known as the "Horus Heresy". The insurrection was eventually defeated and the survivors fled Imperial space. Because Space Marines age at a much slower rate than normal humans, and most of the rebels dwell in realms of Chaos that are outside the normal flow of time, many of the Chaos Space Marines that fled during after the Heresy are alive and continue to wage war against the Imperium over ten thousand years later.Primaris Space Marines
The 8th edition of ''Warhammer 40,000'', released in 2017, introduces Primaris Space Marines, which are larger and more resilient than standard Space Marines. Roboute Guilliman, the Primarch (genetic "father") of the original Ultramarines Legion and creator of the "Codex Astartes" (the rules that dictated the creation of Space Marine Chapters), had sanctioned the creation of a new generation of Space Marines following the events of the Horus Heresy. Ten thousand years later, upon Guilliman's resurrection, Legions of Primaris were introduced into the Imperial forces, both to augment the existing Chapters and to create new Chapters.Films
*'' Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie'' (2010). *Books
Space Marines are featured in numerousTrademark controversy
In December 2012,See also
* Supersoldier * Space marineNotes
References
Bibliography
* * * * Priestley, Rick, ''Warhammer 40,000 Rogue Trader'', Games Workshop, Nottingham, 1987, * Warhammer 40,000 5th edition rule book, Games Workshop, Nottingham 2008 * {{Warhammer 40,000 Imperium (Warhammer 40,000) Fictional genetically engineered characters Human-derived fictional species Space marines Fictional characters with gigantism Fictional characters with superhuman strength Fictional super soldiers Fictional warrior races Fictional monks Fictional military organizations fi:Warhammer-universumi#Space Marines