I was right - Forgeworld announce new range of variant Space Marine armours

OK, not exactly a ground-breaking admission, but I think I got it pretty spot on here when I called out Forgeworld for making sets of Astartes armour from the variants they haven't yet made.

Today's Forgeworld newsletter announces that they are releasing a series of armour variants:

The first of our new Space Marine armour sets is this fantastic MkIII Armour Set sculpted by Will Hayes. The full resin kit provides enough parts to build 5 Space Marines in MkIII 'Iron' Armour, including two different sets of legs, shoulder pads, arms, torsos and helmets. You can see these here, along with a gallery of photos showing examples of how these brilliant parts can be combined with plastic Space Marine kits

The MkIII 'Iron' Armour is a variant of the previous 'Crusade' pattern adapted with additional armour plates to the front, as well as a reinforced helmet faceplate and strengthened vambraces for the savage firefights of fleet-based boarding actions. This extra armour turns an already resilient Marine into an almost unstoppable juggernaut within the cramped confines of a ship. This detailed kit can be pre-ordered for despatch in the week commencing August 23rd.

And if you go and have a look at them here I think you'll agree that they are pretty damn nice!

  
  

Interestingly, these are a different design of Mk III armour from that shown in their previous newsletter suggesting that there will be many variants within each armour type as well, or perhaps more specialist models such as captains etc.

As well as the new armour variant, Forgeworld have also released a variant bolter - Umbra pattern, and a special weapon pack which has some very cool old style missile launchers very much like the old RTB01 style and Space Crusade offerings of the early nineties.

It all seems to be pointing to Forgeworld doing something in the near future involving a chapter that hasn't changed much from the Heresy era, and they are taking their design queues from the early citadel miniatures Space Marine ranges.  I think its really nice to see some of these old, classic designs being given a new lease of life and can't wait to see what they will show next!

Very, very cool Forgeworld

All images taken from Forgeworld without permission, no claim to ownership of the images intended, will remove if asked.