Saturnine Terminator ranged weapons

[Praetor Lex]

Hello. I thought the "lore" subheading would be the best place to ask the following question - I don't play 30K:

 

Why do the gun-arms show the gun hanging from the elbow without the appearance of a forearm anywhere?

Were the brothers who wore Saturnine Terminator plate missing limbs from previous combat, or are the forearms somehow wrapped by the weapon's housing?

 

I like the retro-ridiculous look of the Saturnines, and am aware of their history in the GW's miniature range, but not of any explanation about why the aforementioned gun-arms appear the way they do.  Any fluff explanation for this? Thanks.

[Astartes Consul]

As far as I know, there isn’t any current lore explanation. Maybe in the upcoming Forces of Saturn (I think that’s its name?) book we’ll get some more info.

 

For me, missing limbs wouldn’t account for the fact that the terminators can also have fists. I’d say that is is a weight / recoil thing. The weapons are fully integrated into the suits. If you look at some of the Tartaros and Catalhractii heavy weapons, the marine’s hand gripping the weapon is half encased in the weapon’s stock. But not fully meshed into it. I guess this would be the next stage of that approach.

[Grotsmasha]

My head-cannon is that the marines arms have nothing to do with the suits arms and are probably folded across their chests within the suit. Everything driven by MIUs or PA to TDA suit integration 

Edited August 21 by Grotsmasha

[Doghouse]

Overall it's a very odd design, I think had they said these are advanced mini dreadnoughts I'd be perfectly fine with that. I'd even be happy with the foetus position pilot from the original Contemptor design from Rogue Trader. It looks even more surreal with a bare head. 

 

The ball joints on the hips don't really make much sense to me either because it suggests they have no legs, I'd genuinely love a lore description of how they work.

[Xenith]

My head cannon is that they're not wounded enough to need to be on the life support systems of a full dreadnought sarcophagus, but otherwise sufficiently maimed to be a battlefield liability - they might undergo voluntary surgery to amputate the remains of limbs to integrate into the suit, and when not wearing saturnine armour, they have an appropriate set of bionics they can use to get about. 

[Cadmus Tyro]

I mean, Gorgon terminators are essentially fused with their armour. What’s an amputation or two compared to that….? 

[Xenith]

This *is* the Imperium after all! So a couple of weeks on, has anyone got some use out of the terms and got any favourite weapons? I'm thinking hidden tactical squads are going to be a pain, so single or double plasmas might be a winner. 

[Brother Kraskor]

On 9/6/2025 at 11:02 PM, Xenith said:

This *is* the Imperium after all! So a couple of weeks on, has anyone got some use out of the terms and got any favourite weapons? I'm thinking hidden tactical squads are going to be a pain, so single or double plasmas might be a winner. 

I'm really torn on them. I'm running disintegrator & fist, a brick of five stomping around - big threat to enemy elite terminators. The overload also isn't too bad at all, and only going with one shooting weapon means I don't feel bad moving them and they retain the melee option. But they're very slow.

 

I've seen the deep striking flamers used very well. And I can't help but wonder if deep strike flamer & plasma is the way. Jump in and flame a tac squad to death off an objective - big VP swing. Then just start plasma mortaring anything around (and everything will be in range presumably) and try and dislodge another enemy scoring unit. Let the praetor act as deterrent or run off on his own mission.

 

I've glued it all on though so I'm scuppered!