Welcome to the second instalment of this mini-series about my latest additions to the ranks of Khorne’s Eternal Hunt, in which we meet yet another friendly face from the 4th assault company. And while the Doomwall was already pretty heavily armoured, we’ll be cranking up the heavy metal factor a notch for this guy — that’s right, we’re talking about another Dreadnought/Helbrute for my World Eaters!
Everything started when I bought myself a Dreadnought sprue from the Black Reach boxed set a while ago. Since working on my earlier Dreadnoughts had also resulted in a rather sizeable collection of different Dreadnought weapons, I felt that building another customisable Dread would be the best way to make the most out of all those weapon options. And since I wanted to keep things easy and cheap, using the AOBR Dread as a base model seemed to be the sensible way to go here.
When the model arrived, I found myself messing around with a couple of bitz to find out which approach I was going to take for the Dread. Here’s a very early version of the model from that time:
But while some of the characteristics of the early WIP above did indeed carry through to the final version, I just couldn’t really seem to get a grip on figuring out what kind of model I wanted. Once more, the Call of Chaos event was a nice occasion to finally force myself into action and get my act together, so I pledged a Dreadnought/Helbrute as part of my vow. With that, I had set myself a firm deadline, and even for a lazy slacker like me, there’s nothing quite as conductive to creativity as a bit of well applied pressure ;)
One of the main problems was that the AOBR Dread comes in only seven pieces, and the entire body is basically made up of two pieces — an excellent piece of economical design, to be sure, but it makes converting the model slightly more difficult. There was also the fact that I couldn’t get too adventurous with the arms, seeing how I wanted to keep them detachable.
In the end, thinking about what kind of character I wanted this Dread to be really turned out to be the breakthrough. I already have a frenzied berserker Dread (Marax the Fallen), a noble ancient of the company (Khoron the Undying) and a tragic, malformed monster (Khorlen the Lost), so I wanted this newest Dreadnought to fill yet another character archetype: the stoic line soldier.
In the end, I decided that he is a former Breacher Sergeant, and from there on out, it was pretty easy to design the Dreadnought around that concept and include some visual touches that would underline that background idea: A chaos knight shield was attached to his left shoulder as a kind of stylised boarding shield, for one. I also souped up the (really boaring) standard power fist by adding some spiky bitz from the WFB chaos chariot, in order to make it look like a miniature version of the siege claws wielded by the Chaos Decimator. And I found out that one of the Skullcrusher helmets – minus the Khornate “bunny ears” – made for a pretty convincing Mk III helmet.
And, like I said, what really made this model happen was the pressure of having to get my act together for the Call of Chaos vow ;) Here’s the finished conversion again:
Painting the Dread was a relatively straightforward affair, but then it has to be said that I really like painting Dreads to begin with: There’s just something to their scale and angularity that makes them really enjoyable to paint. The one thing that was slightly more difficult on this model was that the torso and legs came in one big piece, so I had to paint it all in one go. Apart from that, however, it was smooth sailing all the way.
Before I show you the whole model, I’d like to share a small detail that I am quite happy with: I have wanted to feature a mostly destroyed Necron warrior on one of my bases for a long time — as a shout out to the iconic ending of the original Terminator movie, and now I finally went for it:
t’s certainly just a small thing, but there’s a nice irony about two dead guys who both inhabit machine bodies sharing one base like this, don’t you think?
Anyway, without further ado, here’s the finished Dread:
And the remains of that poor Necron again, leaking oily fluid onto the ground…
One thing I really wanted to do this time around was to use some decals on the Dreadnought’s armour, in order to give him a slightly more businesslike, soldierly feel. I chose one of the excellent legion symbols from the Forgeworld World Eaters decal sheet for the armour panel on the Dread’s right side. For the other panel, I wanted to include his legion number — but it was actually pretty difficult to find a numeral XII in white that would fit the fairly limited space! The solution was to use a decal from the Cadian shock troops and cut it down to size. It’s a small detail, to be sure, but one that I really think adds to the model as a whole:
In fact, I like the effect so much that I am seriously considering going back to my earlier Dreads and adding some decals to them as well..
And since I’ve kept the arms detachable, the model can now be used with all the different extra Dreadnought weapons I have built so far. Here’s an example of a more “shooty” loadout:
It seems pretty shocking to me in hindsight, but this is indeed my fourth Dreadnought! But like I said, there’s just something about these guys that appeals to me, rules be damned! ;)
In fact, I think I may have one more Dreadnought in me at a later date. The only thing to decide is whether I want it to be a Dread for my fallen Space Wolves (who are allies to my World Eaters) or a huge, warp-infused beast. Or both?
For now, however, the only thing left to do was to come up with a bit of background for this latest ancient of the 4th assault company and then call it a day. Enjoy:
Brother Damokk, “The Breacher”
Originally a member of the fabled Triarii, Brother Damokk quickly found his true calling as a Breacher Sergeant and member of the 4th assault company during the turbulent days after the purging of Nuceria. He excelled as a warrior in shipboard actions and when it came to breaching fortified positions, and his prowess was so great that, upon suffering fatal injuries during a boarding action, it was decided to grant him the honour of serving the 4th as a Dreadnought.
Damokk’s ironform still bears many cues of his former station, such as his stylised boarding shield or the visor of his primary visual interface unit, shaped like an Mk 3 helmet. And his favourite armament, a combination of Multimelta – complete with underslung chainblade – and siege claw, serves as yet another reminder of his time in the World Eaters’ Breacher squads.
On the battlefield, Damokk implacably dismantles enemy fortifications with a surgical precision not often seen in a World Eater. In fact, Huntmaster Deracin has been known to jest that, if not for the numeral “XII” emblazoned on his ironform, Damokk would probably forget the fact that he is not an Iron Warrior…
I would love to hear any feedback you might have in the comments section! And, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!
Filed under: Chaos, Conversions, paintjob, World Eaters Tagged: 40k, background, blood and brass, breacher dread, call of chaos, chaos space marines, conversion, damokk the breacher, Dreadnought, helbrute, huntmaster, khorne, khorne's eternal hunt, kitbash, paintjob, Terminator, world eaters
