Death Is Not The End

Having recently played, and lost, a game of 2nd edition 40k with my burgeoning Astral Claws army, it was painfully obvious that whatever version of the game I was painfully missing some heavy weapons.

Therefore, I've taken some steps to address this issue. Big, clonking, metal steps.

This Dreadnought brings some much needed weight to my Astral Claws, with the ability to both lay down heavy firepower, and punch things until they cease to be.

It was part of an eBay lot I picked up, primarily for this model, but included a few other bits and pieces that will get used in my various Space Marine armies.

Painting was a bit of a breeze as the Astral Claws are generally silver, and so a spray base coat followed with a wash of Nuln Oil does most of the work.

The blue is Caledor Sky, and I've taken to giving the blue a gloss varnish, which seems to gel better with the metallic main body than a matt finish. I've also taken to edge highlighting the blue bits to give a bit of extra pop. I'm still not the best edge highlighter, but I like the outcome.

For the gold elements I tried something new, which is to use Nazdreg Yellow contrast paint directly over the silver, and it worked a charm.

I'm fact, most of the other painting was done with contrast pains, speeding up the final process massively.

  

The transfers are from the same set I've been using and this model marks the first time that I've used the actual chapter badge of the Astral Claws; the Tactical Marines all bear the icon of the Tyrant's Legion.

My thinking is that only those units that are directly mentioned in the Tyrant's Legion army list should have their chapter symbol, the rest, such as this Dreadnought, are actually seconded from the main Astral Claws, hence this different iconography.

I have a range of weaponry available for different occasions, including a Heavy Plasma Gun, a Lascannon and an Assault Cannon. The model came with a Missile Launcher for the other arm, but I'm going to use that on one of my Blood Angels Dreadnought in games of Horus Heresy.

Although the Lascannon is better for hurting vehicles, and the Assault Cannon works against infantry hordes, I'm going to favour the Heavy Plasma Gun initially as that's what is featured in this artwork from which I took my inspiration.

I originally painted my Dreadnought with the same blue shoulders as in the image, but it made it look too much like an Ultramarine, and so I stripped the arms back and started again.

I'm really happy with the final outcome and it means my force is growing, and with Arbitor Ian's Tale of 4 Gamers campaign officially launched I've already done enough models for a Kill Team and am making headway towards a Combat Patrol equivalent (more on that in a future post).

Acquired: -69
Painted: 317
Lead Mountain: 667