Back to war!

My brother recently speculated about how many vehicles I have and I was prodded into getting them all out to check. (I need a better system for this)

While unpacking cases I ran across the fuzzy void of not quite a vehicle Dreadnaughts. Dreadnaughts have always been funny to my mind as they are not fast enough to keep up with the close combat troops, not quite high enough initiative to be useful against monstrous creatures, not quite tough enough to slug it out at range with the likes of lightly armoured Eldar Falcons, or traitor marine tanks and lately not much use at tying down large squads. They do look cool, they are very nice fluff and they are not too points heavy so they do occasionally make it into my lists.

I have a couple of these guys painted and finished, but nowhere near the total number for the whole chapter and in the new Codex you can now field squads of them, which will look so much better if they are painted. I still need to base these latest additions and the large flat blue areas are a sucking void that makes me want to add more detailing, but I managed to bash out 4 dreadnaughts in a weekend, including a very nice venerable dreadnaught from Forge World.

I am still sticking with a few of the 80s/90s paint scheme elements and can’t bring myself to paint the end of a lascannon anything but bright red. They might look like lipstick, but let’s see you laugh about it when it punches a nice big hole in the side of your prize tank. Ha!

Black Reach Dreadnought

My Black Reach Dreadnought has been sitting around in my collection with a blue base coat and a few splats of colour on for a while so I thought it was about time I finished him off.

One of the few things that make my Black Reach Dreadnought a little different are the brass bits that  have made their way onto his main armour plates and the small pile of skulls from the basing kit that are my attempt to fill the 28mm void that is his flat base.

I have tried a couple of things with the brass disk Ultramarine icon on his greave, but they have not worked as well as I liked. In the end I took it almost back to the original brass colour with Beastal Brown and Shining Gold and then picked out the details with green and white.

Most of the other work was cleaning up and adding a little consistency with my existing Dreadnoughts, painting the power fist red and colour to some of the cabling around the sarcophagus. I based it using a snow flock and PVA glue mix to add a bit of texture.

Overall I am happy with the finished item and it fits well with the rest of my painted miniatures.