5 Minute History: Baneblade Part Two

In 2002 Forgewold released the first of their Baneblade varients, three years after getting the license to make them from Armorcasat. Rules were included in Imperial Armour 1, which would be published in 2003. Forgeworld casts of the Baneblade offered significant improvement in detail over their Armorcast predecessors. Additionally, the organization structure of Forgeworld coupled with the quality of the Imperial Armor books made use of the Baneblade more common, this wider use by gamers would ultimately lead to the production of the largest Games Workshop plastic kit in their history 5 years later.

In late 2003 Games Workshop commissioned Mark 1 Tanks to build a 1/6 scale radio controlled Baneblade which was delivered in July 2004 and later shown for the first time at Games Workshop Day at the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham.

In September of 2004 THQ launched Dawn of War, a real time strategy game including multiple factions for play form the Warhammer 40,000 universe. In 2005 the 'Winter Assault' expansion pack brought Imperial Guard into the game as a playable faction. Fittingly, the Baneblade was included in the Imperial Guard arsenal as the super weapon.

In conjunction with the launch of Apocalypse in October of 2007, Games Workshop introduced the first plastic Baneblade kit. This kit marked a significant improvement for the company in terms of how its models were made, the Baneblade was the first Games Workshop kit to be made using injection molding, allowing for never before seen detail in their kits like hollow exhausts and gun barrels.

Following the release of plastic Baneblade kits, Forgeworld stopped sales of their Baneblade and Stormsword variants in July of 2010 due to loss of sales following the release of the plastic Baneblade and Shadowsword kits.

I hope you guys have enjoyed the last two weeks of Baneblade history, next week onto the humble Chimera!

Cheers,

Tallarn