[Horus Heresy] Goonhammer Reviews the New Cataphractii Terminators

Coming in hot and heavy alongside the new updated Mk II Breacher Squad, the new updated Cataphractii Terminators are a massively-needed refresh of the classic plastic kit from the early days of Horus Heresy. Longtime players will be familiar with those smaller, squat terminators with their massive shoulder gaps and I'll go ahead and spoil it for you: These new models are a massive improvement. In this article we'll be walking through the new kits, how they're built, and what you need to know about assembling and painting your own.

We'd like to thank Games Workshop for sending us an early copy of this kit to review, contained in the new Siege Assault Battle Group box.

The Kits

Let's start with the kits: There are two here - one for Cataphractii Terminators with Power fist and combi-bolter, and one for terminators with volkite pistols and assault weapons. I'm not sold on why these appear to be separate kits - or at least, one set of 12 that only has options to do six of each set - but you get a lot of parts here to work with and you can mix and match quite a bit if that's what you're into. I am, but more on that later.

These are wonderful kit, and emblematic of modern GW design. That's great in that it means there's a ton of detail here and lots of options, but it also means that this is a very complicated kit with a lot of parts. Let's go over some key details here:

The Shoulders

Let's start with what I think is the most important part of this kit: The shoulders. These are now assembled in four parts: You have the arm itself, around which you assemble the first shoulder plate in two pieces, which glue together along their middle line and have a ridge on which you'll glue the final shoulder plate.

This means the shoulders are significantly bulkier than they were on the older kits and thanks to this three-part construction, lack the massive gaps between the shoulders and body that those kits had.

Your biggest issue here is going to be that those two plates need to be fit together snugly, and even when they're pushed together they may still leave an obvious seam. Most of this is going to be hidden by the shoulder pad on top, but it may still be worth adding a tiny bit of liquid green stuff to the gap to smooth it over.

It's also important to note that these inner shoulder pads are a) paired and b) correspond to specific arms. They may have their little hanging leather bits displaced by an arm intended to be outstretched, and you'll want to pay attention to the arms where that's the case. You don't want to end up with weird looking arms because you didn't do this part correctly.

The Heads

These guys have full-on heads now and not just weird little half heads that sit on a shelf. The chest cavities are now a full-on three-part construction where the shelf for the head glues into the back of the armor before you glue on the front armor plate. It feels a lot more like regular Terminators and means you have a lot more freedom to pose the heads or replace them with other options.

This sits on top of the legs, which have a ball-and-socket type construction which gives you some ability to pose the upper half, though this will be limited visually - it doesn't make a ton of sense to pose your models twisting too much at the waist but you can do a few things. These have a small nub atop them to help position the torso atop the legs.

Size and Conversions

I've painted my share of Heresy models but I'm a 40k gamer at heart and even for my Heresy models I prefer the modern Chaos aesthetic, which works fine for latter-day Traitor armies. If there's one thing I did not like about this kit, it's the weirdly small power fists. The first thing I did with this new kit was replace the power fist with a Chaos Marine Terminator fist from one of the older 2005 kits I had lying around. The good news is, the sizes here all line up and this was an incredibly easy kitbash - no greenstuff required.

My conversions here were pretty light - I've been swapping out the fist/weapon arms and adding a Chaos Bolter half to the combi-weapons, and looking to add trophy racks on top. This needs some trimming, mostly because these bodies are not as fat/deep as Indomitor pattern Chaos Terminators.

As I got more into doing conversions I started looking at the Death Guard Deathshroud, the only real 40k Cataphractii Terminators for Chaos. These are a bit big but have a very similar shoulder profile, so I took a stab at mashing the two together for a conversion with a cape.

This took a lot of work but I was pleasantly surprised by how well all the pieces lined up. The tabard there is from a Chaos Space Marines champion model (non-Terminator), and I've been pleasantly surprised at how well these pieces have fit together. They don't need a ton of work, except for those shoulders, where I've glued a Lord of Contagion cape and body onto one of the new terminator front plates. That said, the head enclosure sits at a bit shorter angle, and if I had to do this again I'd leave more room for the head to fit in that space.

Which is all to say that while these kits go together very easily and look great, they're also insanely customizable and can be kitbashed a ton of different ways with existing kits.

Final Thoughts

I wanted to paint my new Chaos Terminators as Iron Warriors, as I think the more restrained aesthetic fits them better and Cataphractii Armor just feels more Iron Warrior to me. So that's how I painted them, and the first one I painted is by far the most restrained of the bunch:

Credit: Robert "TheChirurgeon" Jones

These paint up just fine; there aren't any real surprises you have to worry about in terms of hard-to-reach spots or crazy angles on them. The arms all tend to be right out in front of them and while there are different materials on them they're pretty easy to pick out.

Compared to the old models, these just look way better. They aren't massively taller physically - only a millimeter or two - but what stands out is that they aren't nearly as fat and squat, and they tend to be mid-stride in their posing, which means they are in fact taller, even if that doesn't necessarily show on the final models. They look and feel longer and just look much better as a result. There's more detail here, top to bottom.

The big change here is those shoulder gaps. Those ugly things are gone, fixed by having the upper shoulder pads slide inward during construction, filling those gaps. What you're left with is a much more complete model and again, one that feels bigger and yet less bulky than the originals.

Compared to other Terminators, the new Cataphractii are about the same size as newer Tartaros and plastic Indomitor Terminators, but a lot less bulky than something like the modern Deathshroud Terminators. These fit very well in with the current set of plastic Terminator options and as mentioned, you'll have no problem bashing them up with other kits.

This is a great kit. The only part of it I don't care for are the weird little power fists but I see the aesthetic they're going for. If you want to chop them up to mash up with other kits, you'll have a feast with these.

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