Imperial Space Marines (Box Set)

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Warhammer 40,000

Imperial Space Marines (Box Set)
Box set[2]
Manufacturer	Games Workshop
Released	1987[1]
Price	£9.95
Scale	28mm

The RTB1 Box set

The first box set for Warhammer 40,000, whose product code was "RTB01", included Space Marines and came out in October 1987, alongside the release of the Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader rulebook.^[1][5]

The box included 17 plastic sprues, which allowed to build 30 "Imperial" Space Marines. Its price was £9.95. They were designed by Aly Morrison, Bob Naismith, and Jes Goodwin^[1].

Although not a "starter set", as it lacked an opposing faction in the box, it is a culturally significant product which marked the birth of Warhammer 40,000.

The appearance of those Space Marines in lights of decades of lore development can be identified as Mark VI "Corvus Armour", a concept which was definitely fleshed out in a September 1990 article by Rick Priestley, and illustrated by John Blanche.^[3] "Armour variants" were later released as a set of metal miniatures designed by Jes Goodwin in January 1991, as featured in issue #129 of White Dwarf magazine.^[4]

The Space Marine Concept

Concept Sketch of the first Space Marine, by the Games Workshop' design team^[6]

Bob Naismith was the first to design and create basic concepts and miniatures for the Space Marines, but the design process subsequently involved all of the studio, including Jes Goodwin, Aly Morrison and Trish Morrison.^[6]

Images

Imperial Space Marines (Box Set)^[2]

Sources

• 1: White Dwarf 93 (UK), pgs. 31-44
• 2: Warhammer 40,000 Chapter Approved - The Book of the Astronomican, pg. 49
• 3: White Dwarf 129 (UK), pgs. 19-26 — Space Marine Armour described by Rick Priestley
• 4: White Dwarf 133 (UK), pg. 79
• 5: Warhammer Community: 40 Years of Warhammer – The First Multipart Space Marines (posted 22/02/2023) (last accessed 20 March 2023)
• 6: White Dwarf 346 (UK), pg. 31