The miniatures might be small, but the upcoming Legions Imperialis is a huge deal. It’s the first Warhammer game of combined arms at epic scale released in two decades – and the first set at the time of the Horus Heresy for more than 30 years. And as you’ll see while we take a lot of (tiny) steps down memory lane, it’s drawing on a proud and petite pedigree.
We’ve literally rummaged through the Warhammer Archive to find as many old models as possible from all the various epic scale eras to show you how they line up with the incredible new miniatures!
Adeptus Titanicus (1988)
The first ever epic scale game was the original Adeptus Titanicus, which dealt strictly with games between opposing Imperial Titans. In fact, the notion of the Horus Heresy was expanded to justify two forces of near-identical God-engines squaring off against each other. The box came with six plastic “Beetleback” Warlord Titans, which were soon joined by the smaller Reaver and Warhound Titans in metal, as well as some cool upgrade options to make your Titans your own.
The original metal Reaver Titan is of particular interest – not least because we found one that had never been assembled in a baggie in a drawer in Forge World! It was joined by the first ever sculpted epic-scale Space Marine, a metal cast which acted as a prototype for the plastics that followed. You got one with every purchase of a Reaver – and they are totally out of scale, because Aly literally couldn’t sculpt him any smaller!
Space Marine (1989)
Rules for Space Marine infantry and vehicles followed in White Dwarf 109, rapidly giving rise to a new boxed game containing a balanced force of 320 Space Marines, 16 Land Raiders, and 32 Rhinos, plus oodles of cards, counters, and banners – and some card buildings with plastic roofs that were way ahead of their time.
Xenos miniatures soon began to appear in the pages of White Dwarf, with plastic boxed sets containing Eldar Guardians and Grav-tanks, and Ork Boyz and Battlewagons – plus oodles of metal models in support, including the first appearance of the Phantom Titan, as well as Wraithlords, War Walkers, Jetbikes, and all sorts of other mainstays of the modern Aeldari arsenal.
Space Marine (1991)
Subtitled Epic Conflict in the War Torn Universe of the 41st Millennium, this second edition moved away from the Horus Heresy, with a gigantic box that contained Orks, Eldar, Space Marines, and a Titan for good measure. These rules lasted a long time, growing to encompass a wide variety of troops and vehicles for Eldar, Orks, Space Marines, Squats, Chaos, Imperial Guard, and Tyranids over a series of boxed expansions. Every faction received increasingly high quality plastic troops, which were supplemented by detailed metal reinforcements – including Titan-sized behemoths for all.
This edition is one of the major influences for the Legions Imperialis rules – but it’s important to note that they are not the same game.
Titan Legions (1994)
Titan Legions was an expandalone big box which introduced Titans of even more ridiculous size into the Warhammer canon. This is the debut of the towering Imperator Titan and the two Ork Mega-Gargants.*
The God-engines in this set were so enormous that we really didn’t bother with any infantry – instead, 10 plastic Imperial Knights battled 12 Ork Bonebreaka tanks.
Epic 40,000 (1997)
After a set of rules that lasted – albeit with revisions and refinements – the best part of 10 years, this game was all-change for epic-scale. The miniatures stayed the same size, but the entire scope of the game changed around them. Armies were no longer confined to set companies or detachments, making force selection more flexible, but the trade-off meant that the complexities of different weapon types were much reduced to make the game faster.
These were joined by other innovations, including the notorious blast markers which denoted suppression and morale. It was an undeniably sleek system, and made the controversial move from square infantry bases to oblongs.
It was accompanied by a substantial range refresh – the old plastic troops were replaced with much more intricate and detailed new miniatures, for instance. And that venerable old Land Raider design (later called the Land Raider Proteus) was replaced with an exciting new look that remains to this day (aka the Mk2B Land Raider).
The second edition of Adeptus Titanicus grew out of this system – in 2000, there were new rules for Titans in Epic 40,000 Magazine, but these were eventually split off into their own game for Titans alone.
Epic Armageddon (2003)
Epic Armageddon was a product of the Specialist Games Studio. For the most part, it was a set of trial rules worked on in collaboration with the gaming community with a little additional support from the sculptors at Forge World, who released new miniatures – including for the T’au Empire and Imperial Navy – every so often.
But that wasn’t all for the world of tiny warfare. Aeronautica Imperialis received editions in 2006 and 2019, joined later by Adeptus Titanicus which was the first game to slightly embiggen the Titans into the new scale we have today!
Built on such foundations, the future is looking bright for Legions Imperialis… if not the soldiers fighting in its wars.
* Not to be mistaken for Mega-Gargants. Those are different lads entirely.