MkV Mortis Pattern Dreadnought; Thunderbolts Space Marines

Hi All

Bluddtoof here with a little update on my most recent work; a re-arming of a very old dreadnought. I think this was in fact the 2nd dreadnought I originally painted for my marines something in excess of 10 years ago!
Up until a last year he was a venerable dreadnought armed with an assault cannon and a massive hammer clenched in his power fist, this counted as a power fist and was from way back when I started this army and Marine forces could take traits, I can't remember which edition but the marine codex has changed somewhat! Anyway I used to field a great many thunder hammers, the fluff being that the thunder hammer was a symbol of office for most characters (I'd even converted my old termy Librarian to have a force hammer), I liked hammers I think!
Early in 2015 I decided to update my collection of dreads to have a broader range of weapons, at the time I had 4 venerables with assault cannons. the upshot of all this was a range of dreads (9 at the time) with lots of variety. The big hammer moved onto an Ironclad as a seismic hammer and I was left with this original metal venerable dreadnought with no arms. I figured 9 dreads was sufficient even for the most dread obsessed player! Incorrect! I can NEVER have sufficient dreadnoughts!
So a few months ago I decided to get number 10 armed and active; I'd been long considering a Mortis Contemptor but had just never got round to it, so having recently purchased the Imp Armour book War Machines of the Adeptus Astartes (new version) and already having a quad autocannon mortis mkv I decided to upscale to quad lascannons for that extra punch.
My bits boxes provided me with lots of spare lascannons from many kits, predators, razorbacks, dreadnoughts, flyers and landraiders. The only twin linked ones were from the predator kit but didn't really suit as they are just barrels sticking out from a curved mounting suitable for a turret, not really an arm.
I finally chose to use the landraider lascannons as they had complete power lines and generally looked the best. Admittedly they are pretty huge but I kind of like that, he looks like he means business. It was a simple task to file down the side panels of the lascannons so they would butt up together nicely to form a twin linked pair. The original hole for mounting to a side sponson served well, with a little enlargement, for mounting the pair onto the original shoulder pin, and hey presto...... twin linked lascannons at zero cost! Win!

Pics...

The painting involved a little touching up of the original model where the knife had slipped during the conversion process and some adjustment of original colours (10 to 15 years old!) to match closer to the new paints. I also added a smoke launcher, spotlight and a gothic looking gubbins to represent the helical targeting array.
Overall well pleased for a cut and shut job.
Welcome to the Thunderbolts forge, revered ancient!
That's 10 ready to roll, and number 11 on the way! More on him in the very near future...

C and C welcome as ever....

Bluddtoof

Showcase; Thunderbolts Space Marines Stormraven and Strike Force Ultra.

Hi all,
Bluddtoof here with a showcase of my recent additions to my space marine chapter; the Thunderbolts.
With the new codex came some tasty new formations; the one that really jumped out at me was the Strike Force Ultra.
I absolutely love terminators and dreadnoughts and with a special rule called Force of a thunderbolt it was an easy sell really!
I had a game planned with Doc a few weeks in advance so I wrote a 2k list including a Knight ally and ordered myself a stormraven; the only model I didn't own yet. I also needed to paint up an extra squad of terminators.
So here's a few pics of the stormraven and the completed army....

That's it for now, c and c welcome as always, next project is a scenery set for the group. Future post to come on that.
Bluddtoof

Venerable Dreadnought

I am back from my holidays and I am feeling refreshed and ready for more painting.

First up is a Venerable dreadnought I have been painting. It is the older metal one, which I like more than the current plastic kit. I had been looking around for the model for a while and seen a few on eBay for silly prices (£40+). I spotted this one and I got it for £18. It was missing a finger, but a bit of green-stuff and I don’t think you can notice the difference.

It has been painted in a similar scheme to that of my Masters of the Chapter and other high ranking officials of the chapter. A nice deep dark gold for the armour makes the model look a little more important!

I also added some more details to one of my grey knight banners.

As well as adding some symbols to a company standard.

Next up is Azrael and 2 crusader henchmen.

And finally the code guy are planning special event for December, I will let MAD-DOK explain later but it will involve lots of nice models…….

Dread-full December, Thunderbolts Dreadnoughts.

Hi All

Continuing with the Dread-full December theme, here are the rest of my Marine Dreadnoughts. Along with my new Contemptor these make up my 9 strong Ancients Assault Force.
Here's piccies of them all;

With Plasma Cannon;

With Quad Autocannon;

With Lascannon;

With Assault Cannon;

Fire Support;

With Multi-melta;

Ironclad with Chainfist;

Ironclad with Seismic Hammer conversion and Hurricane Bolters;

And finally the Contemptor;

And all 9 together;

As you can tell I like Dreadnoughts, I plan to build a Mortis pattern Contemptor too in the future, probably with Quad Lascannons and I have the remains of an old metal venerable left after all my recent conversion work, he'll get some new arms when I've decided what I want him to have.
As I've been touching up and converting these models recently it's become apparent how much my painting style has changed over the years since I started the Thunderbolts, how much I've improved but also how marked the changes in the GW paint range have been. Originally I used Ice Blue, now I use Lothern Blue, I'm carefully nursing my last bottle of Dark Angels Green because its' replacement; Caliban Green is totally different, when mixed with white, for highlights, it produces a much greyer tone. On the other hand Ceramite White is far superior to Skull White, giving better opacity and coverage and a much brighter finish. The brass has changed from the original Dwarf Bronze through Brazen Brass to a newer Dwarf Bronze and back to a newer Brazen Brass and is now the new Brass Scorpion. Don't even get me started on red! Suffice to say I'm now using the 3 new shades of red in layers, most notably on my Techmarines all of whom are either new builds or were stripped and repainted recently in the new reds.
So that's it for now. I'll be posting some pics of my existing Ork walkers soon as part of Dread-full December.

Bluddtoof