SecretLab Magnus Pro Warhammer 40k desk review – let the galaxy ascend

Many curious notions warm the depths of a wargamer’s soul, but is any more potent or familiar than a big table with a map on it, to push little soldiers around on? For some, the fantasy is a bustling war room with 100 model planes being pushed about with sticks, like RAF bomber command in the ’40s; others imagine wooden blocks on a parchment map in a Roman legate’s tent. In my mind, it’s always a Warhammer 40k commander’s hololithic starmap, charting Games Workshop’s war torn galaxy – so when SecretLab made a version of its Magnus Pro gaming desk with the 40k map on it, I nerded out. Hard.

Let me put my cards on the table (heh) right up top: this review isn’t going to have extreme analysis of this sit to stand desk’s tech specs, or pit it against alternative models. Wargamer is not a desk website – and besides, PCGamesN’s original SecretLab Magnus Pro review already has all the information you could want. But I still wanted to share some thoughts on this ridiculous piece of kit with you for two main reasons.

First, because I couldn’t pass up the chance to see if SecretLab’s aged parchment style magnetic desk topper, printed with a section of the 40 galaxy map centered on Terra and Mars, could bring my strategium fantasy to life. And, second, I wondered: compared with the similarly high end, high priced SecretLab Titan Evo Ultramarines gaming chair, might this desk actually be just a little bit tasteful to look at?

We loved the Ultramarines gaming chair, with its vivid blue leatherette, Imperial aquilas and Ultra symbols in brash, gold stitching, and preposterous, clip-on Space Marine purity seal. As Tim Linward’s review rightly concludes: “Without suggesting that you should spend a lot of money slathering your living space with nerdy brand logos, if you’re going to do it, there can be no half measures… unfeigned enthusiasm is king, and attempting to be subtle about it is a coward’s path.”

But I couldn’t help thinking Tim’s tendency to call people cowards, while laudable for any acolyte of the Imperium of Man, was a bit defeatist in this case. Surely it’s not impossible to create high-end gaming furniture that celebrates your Warhammer fandom, but still manages to be classy enough that you don’t have to hide it when your parents come round and demand to know what exactly you’re doing with your life?

And an eye-wateringly expensive piece of kit like the Magnus Pro – which looks like a stealth bomber and costs anywhere from $800 to well over a grand, depending on the bells and whistles – feels like an investment you won’t want to hide away. So, does it fit that bill? Well, SecretLab kindly provided us a free desk to review, and I’ve spent about a month with it now, so let’s find out.

Tech-priest’s specifications

Let’s go over the hard facts about the desk first. The Magnus Pro is a motorized, sit to stand gaming desk made almost entirely of metal (the desktop is MDF encased in steel, but every other part eschews biological materials completely in favor of cold steel – the Adeptus Mechanicus would approve). As a result, the two boxes it’s delivered in are very heavy, and, unless you’re an Ogryn, you’ll need a second pair of hands to assemble your desk. That’s not because it’s complicated – in fact I found assembly to be shockingly simple. No, this thing is simply too heavy for one person to build safely.

The regular $799 version, which I tested, is 1.5m long by 0.7m wide, while the XL variant, for an extra 150 bucks, ups that to 1.77m long and 0.8m wide. Both sizes are too small and the wrong dimensions to play 40k matches on (whatever the ads may say) – but as a gaming and workspace, even the regular worktop is delightfully spacious. The surprisingly smooth, quiet motors in the desk’s legs can raise the surface height up to 1.25m, or drop it as low as 60 centimeters off the ground.

The motors pack a lot of punch – you can mount enough monitors to cosplay an auspex operator on a battle barge’s command deck, and they’ll still whirr happily up and down without complaint. Even at full vertical extension, the heavy metal construction keeps its surface almost spookily wobble free – and the controls to raise and lower the desk are built into the desk’s surface, so there’s nothing to bash your knee on.

Beyond those basics, the shiny features that earnt the Magnus Pro rave reviews are, indeed, impressive. Its secret weapons are the integrated power supply and in-built cable management tray at the back. Instead of a curtain of knotted cables hanging off your standing desk like a bomb damaged panel in a voidship bulkhead, you literally just plug the desk itself into the wall, then plug all your devices into a surge protector that’s neatly stowed away behind your setup, with a folding aluminium plate to cover its modesty. It’s glorious.

Right, that’s the machine itself – pretty easily the best sit to stand desk for gamers bar none, but so expensive that you’ve really got to want one to justify the cost. What about the Warhammer 40,000 of it all? Let’s talk a e s t h e t i c s.

A galaxy at your fingertips

The “Magnus Pro Warhammer 40,000 edition” is in effect the regular desk, plus two addons: the 40k version of SecretLab’s MagPad magnetic desk mat ($79), and two 10.5 inch long, magnetic aluminium ‘cable sheaths’ ($69) for even more cable routing. With those rolled in, the Warhammerified version of the desk is going to set you back a brain-exploding 947 bucks, so it’s at this point that I’ll throw in my first ‘don’t buy’ of the review: I genuinely don’t understand the point of the cable sheaths, I’m not using them, and I would on no account suggest spending $69 on them.

They look rad – one sporting Imperial aquila wings and the other with a pretty grungy servo skull motif going on. But their purpose appears to be cinching cables to the back of the legs, and that’s exactly what the Magnus Pro’s in-built power supply means you don’t need to do.

I have a gaming tower, a laptop, two monitors, a sound system, a boom mic, and numerous other wired peripherals plugged in in my setup, and try as I might, I can’t find a single use for these things. Just give them a miss.

But, reader, the Warhammer 40k galaxy map desk mat – the real selling point of this setup – does not disappoint. The leatherette material feels smooth, but pleasantly textured to the touch and – despite many reviewers seemingly having a hard time rolling the magnetic fabric neatly across the desk, I found it a breeze (thanks be to Him On Terra).

I set this map mat two win conditions: satisfying my insatiable thirst for Warhammer 40k vibes; and looking classy enough in its design, colors, and general feel that I wouldn’t feel embarrassed to show it to normie guests. Notwithstanding one (quite amusing) wobble on the first point, it honestly passes both tests comfortably.

Looks wise, I think this straddles the line between grimdark excessiveness and clean, understated design better than any piece of Warhammer 40k merch I’ve ever seen. The biggest pleasant surprise of all? No massive Warhammer 40k logo! I’ve lost count of the number of times I nearly bought a sick looking Warhammer T-shirt or mouse mat, then turned my nose up at it because the awesome artwork was half obscured by a massive, compulsory corporate stamp that’s only there because Uncle Geedubs insisted.

It’s a mark of this desk mat’s refreshing approach that there’s nothing of the kind here – just a beautifully stitched black Aquila in one corner, and a smaller, subtler SecretLab logo in another. Sure, it’s still a logo – but tastefully hidden in a way that doesn’t intrude on the overall design. Big points for that.

And that design – in a creamy sepia, black, and red color scheme that takes coffee spills like a champ – is excellent. The left hand third of the mat is a huge, stylized, hand drawn Aquila, surrounded by intricate patterns of wires, skulls, and assorted Imperial iconography.

The other two thirds is a superb rendition of 40k’s galactic map – or at least, just enough of it to show the jagged red arc of the Cicatrix Maledictum carving off the wilds of Imperium Nihilus to the far North and East. The map’s symbolism is spot on, with the fading lines of the Astronomican’s light radiating out from Holy Terra and Mars at the galactic core, and bloody red splotches marking warp storms like the Maelstrom. The Imperium is a thing of grandeur, vainglory, and inexorable decay – and this design gets that far better than I expected.

No fewer than 28 in-universe locations are marked, too – a slightly random selection of key Imperial worlds and systems, plus a handful of Deathwatch watch fortresses marked out in black with a different symbol. I can’t quite puzzle out the logic by which they chose the locations, but there are more than enough big names here that you can have a delightful time listening to the Horus Heresy books on tape, and tracing a finger between some of the major planets.

Effort has been taken to fit satisfying, well executed little lore details where you might not have noticed them, too – like the metal doodahs that cinch either end of the mat, which are both painted with a battle damage effect and bear the immortal words: “In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war”.

Here’s where I found the one little peccadillo that marks SecretLab down on the lore front, though, and depending on your specific kind of nerd-dom, it might seem either an unforgivable sin or a tiny and amusing slip-up: they seem to have marked one place on the map twice.

Keep Extremis is a Deathwatch watch fortress to the north of Fenris, homeworld of the Space Wolves – and indeed, that’s where it is on SecretLab’s map. The trouble is, they’ve put another Keep Extremis over in the far East, near Ryza, in what I can only guess is a typo. Mock me for picking up on it if you like – but if you ordered a 900 dollar desk with a map of the USA on it, and it had two Michigans, you’d probably be a bit miffed.

That’s it, though, that’s my whole list of cons (aside, of course, from the prohibitive price tag). If you already own a SecretLab Magnus Pro, then I can 100% recommend buying the Warhammer 40k desk mat as and when it’s available standalone. Duplicated fortresses aside, I genuinely love it, and will be using it for a long time to come.

If you’re looking at buying the ‘Warhammer 40k edition’ desk as a whole, though, it’s an even bigger commitment than SecretLab’s chairs. I can only say that, of the handful of sit to stand desks I’ve tried over the years, I concur with PCGamesN’s review that this is the ultimate best choice.

If you’re already considering blowing two weeks’ rent on a silly motorized table, and good quality Warhammer 40k gaming kit brings you joy, well, I’m pleased to confirm that in this case shelling out an extra 79 bucks to turn it into a grimdark starmap is, in fact, worth it. And not just because you’ll forever enjoy a smug sense of superiority when playing Warhammer 40k games on your mega gaming rig, either.

If you have more questions about the Magnus Pro 40k edition, you have the solution to the mystery of the two Keeps Extremis, or simply want to chat Warhammer lore with our team – please teleport directly into the Wargamer Discord Community and join the party!