Birth of a Chaos Dread Reloaded, pt.3

Right, with the body of my Chaos Dread complete, it’s time to take a look at the different weapon options. Join me for Birth of a Chaos Dread Reloaded, part 4: the weapons.

The Venerable Dread kit comes with three different wapon options already, so much of the work had already been done for me by GW’s designers. The options present in the kit are a Lascannon, Plasma Cannon and Assault Cannon. As a very nice bonus, those three weapons can be easily exchanged by swapping out the gun barrels even after the model is finished. It doesn’t even need any magnetising.

It was clear to me that I would keep the Las and Plasma Cannons, since they are just as viable in a CSM list as in a loyal Marine army. The only thing I had to do was to make them look slightly less loyal and a lot more chaotic.

First, the Lascannon:

This one was the easiest conversion by far: I just clipped off the ends of the gunbarrels and exchanged them with dragon heads from the Chaos vehicle sprue. The arm itself would be used for both the Las and Plasma Cannon, so I only had to convert one version. I stole the idea to use a little icon of Khorne on the arm from Doombreed’s Dread conversion and added a dangling skull on a chain as well as another skull on a spike for good measure. As a rule of thumb, you can never go wrong with skulls and chains on a World Eaters model.

Next, the Plasma Cannon.

Once again, all I needed to do was to add a couple of bits to achieve the Chaos look. Easy, right?

And it was. I added a leftover daemon head from the Defiler kit which fit perfectly with only minor cutting necessary. I also added a chain hanging from the weapon’s muzzle, and the Plama Cannon was done as well.

So far, so good! Here’s where the fun started though: The third option that came with the Venerable Dread Kit was a modern day Assault Cannon. So as a true follower of the dark gods, I would have to come up with a weapon more in line with the Chaos Space Marine armoury. I chose the trusty Autocannon which meant that I couldn’t use the Assault Cannon bit. I also wanted a Heavy Bolter as another option, so I would have to convert that too. Luckily, my deep bitzbox contained several unused Dreadnought arms (some from the Venerable Dread, some from the Furioso kit I had used to buy my CC Dread), so I gathered my bits and got going.

First up, the Heavy Bolter:

An easy enough conversion, this one. I took another page from Doombreed’s book and pretty much stole his idea of how to build a heavy Bolter using weapons from the regular CSM kit. A little cutting and fitting was all it took. I added an old Warriors of Chaos shield and yet another piece of chain and a skull to the shoulderguard. A little repetitive, I know…

And finally, the Autocannon:

This was built by combining a leftover Frag Cannon arm from the Furioso Kit with Ork gun barrels. The requiste skull and chain bits were then added to acieve the Chaos look – you should know the drill by now…

And with that, the different weapon options were finished – although I feel I’ll have to build a Multimelta and Rocket Launcher somewhere along the way, just to have a full set.

Now it was once again time to paint the Dread. And with the body as well as four different weapon options, I really had my work cut out for me. But that, as they say, is a story for another time.

Next time on Birth of a Chaos Dread Reloaded: the paintjob. Coming this Friday. Until then, as always, thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!