Warhammer 40K: Grimdark’s Best Cutaway Drawings
Today we are turning back the clock to look at some of the best 40K cutaway drawings GW ever produced. Starting with perhaps the most famous…
If there is something I can’t resist, it’s a good 40K cutaway drawing. From my early days of building scale models, and poring over WW2 books with cutaway drawing of every tank and plane under the sun – cutaway drawings are awesome. Let’s wade into GW’s offerings over the years.
This poster is perhaps the most famous Warhammer 40K cutaway, about 2 decades old. It kicked off the introduction of the modern Land Raider kit, and GW’s long road to making ever more detailed kits. The Land Raider was super-advanced for its time with the working assault ramp and detailed interior.
The Predator cutaway poster appeared 2 years later in 2002.
Of course, the granddaddy of all the cutaway drawing was of the classic Beakie marine power armor from the Rogue Trader book of 1989
When the Orks got their Stompa, we got a cool new Apocalypse poster to go along.
Here’s the Leman Russ Demolisher cutaway from back in the 90s.
Forge World
Then over the past decade and a half, Forge World has been cranking out cutaway drawing for all kinds of vehicles to accompany their series of Hardcover Imperial Armor books. Here are just a few:
You can’t make something as cool as the Thunderhawk without a good drawing of it. I am a giant fan of it’s 40K cutaway, dripping with detail from the upper flight deck, to the lower transport areas. Then you get into all the little crawlspace in and around the rear of the fuselage and the upper rear zones surrounding the main gun. There’s a reason Techmarines need all those arms to get into those hard to reach spaces.
The flying workhorse of the Astra Militarum has a fully detailed interior and the cutaway does the kit justice. Let’s round out the last 3 with a variety of Imperial tanks.
Astartes Damocles Command Rhino
A very cool and venerable Rhino variant with decent 9th Edition Forge World rules – that perfectly match its command & control background.
A nice Warhammer 40K cutaway, showing the Imperium’s cavlier placement of ammo. Now if only the Vanquisher’s rules lived up to it’s artwork.
A rarely seen odd duck, the Salamander’s cutaway is a nice introduction to the incredibly cramped quarters within the Chimera chassis. Especially for the driver.
The grandfather of all the Space Marine Dreadnoughts. The Eddy (Deredeo), and Fury (Furibundus) had a smallish and dense metal kit. These were the first Marine dreads rolled out in White Dwarf 100 in 1988. Look at that creepy curled up pilot.
Great 40k cutaways aren’t always large vehicles. Sometimes we get smaller scale stuff like this fabulous Stormbolter. Go Terminators, but good luck to those Astra Militarum Sergeants who get issued one. It looks like a beast.
~Who still has some of these classics on their walls?
