Recently I realized one scary – well, in the hobby sense of it – thing: we’re never getting a new, updated MKVII/MKVIII Marine kit. Never will it be graced by the more dignified proportions now seen on the new beakies. And for that, I am a little sad – no, the Space Marine Heroes re-release (in red) doesn’t help much.
A history in ceramite
It is extremely, unfathomably easy to say that most people got in 40K during the long, long tenure of the Mark VII Power Armor. If Lexicanum is to be believed, the first kits came out in 1990; beakies had only been the face of Astartes-dom for only a couple of years. You can read more about it at Barreldrill. The vox-grille snout welcomed people back when the USSR fell; painted in Blood Angel scarlet, it turned left and right in the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War graphic settings test; it graced covers of uncountable books and Codexes released over 30 years of its career. For years and years, the most striking Space Marine art depicted the humble Mark VII.
Of course, I was talking here about the Mark VII helmet. Fitting to the fluff, Tactical (and other) kits featured power armor cobbled together from multiple Marks going back to at least 2002. But no matter how many Beakie helms or Mark IV chest pieces you added, everyone knew what they expected a Mark VII Marine looked like.
MKVIIs as far as auspex can see
He looked awesome! And so did his counterpart, the humble Chaos Space Marine. Fitting for someone named literally “evil version of X”, it looked like an evil version of MKVII as well. Maybe the Legion fluff – including the plentiful veterans of the Long War – hadn’t been developed at that point, and maybe they just didn’t care. A Chaos Space Marine was likely to be a MK VII Marine with horns (or a topknot) and a fancy backpack.
Unlike fan-favorite and dreadfully common depictions featuring death by detail (via a whole bunch of dumb spikes in some especially bad cases) CSM power armor, it’s a simple, clean, easy to read design. Only a trained eye will notice the spikier panel lines or the presence of MKIII shoulder pad. And the brain will go “ah, these are like my Space Marines, but evil.”
I’d also lament the loss of the iconic Godwyn-pattern Boltgun (inexplicably also arming large swathes of CSM) if not for the fact Primarine bolt rifles are but longer versions of those, so whomst’ve cares. I’m not a fan of the new bolt pistols, sure, but I don’t have an argument there: both bolt pistols and laspistols always sent designers into a fugue state, and thus they never sculpted the same twice.
Only the laughter of the thirsting gods
So outside of the new Berserkers, new MKVIIs (or, God forbid, MKVIIIs) don’t seem to be on the horizon. The future belongs upscaled MK IVs, their stupid knee extensions, and their backpacks echausts with form-fitting ablative armor. For many reasons, I’m not a fan: MKIVs are too sleek (been a problem for me since the release of Betrayal at Calth), and GW is insisting on doing mono-weapon squads, something I find objectionable even in Horus Heresy. So it’s sad to see MK VIIs go, even if you can sneak a helmet or two into Heresy by claiming “Sarum-pattern breather.” At least we can hope for MK IIIs to get upscaled one day.
