Games Workshop's 25mm Chaos Dreadnought

by Jason Gillard

As my local modelling club's 1999 annual end-of-year competition drew menacingly close, I realised I couldn't complete my intended project in time for this highly esteemed event. With five days to go before D-Day, and in a mad panic, I desperately searched for an easy-to-build replacement. As I have an interest in Science Fiction Wargaming as well as normal kit-models, my eyes fell upon a recently purchased item from my Warhammer 40000 sci-fi gaming armies - The Chaos Dreadnought. With no time to lose I began construction .....

A Brief History

In the future of the Warhammer 40000 universe, there is only war. Multiple human and alien factions battle it out to determine the dominant race in the Galaxy. One of these warbands is the Armies Of Chaos. Amongst their number, the most feared is the Chaos Dreadnought.

The Chaos Dreadnought is essentially a war-walker exoskeleton for a mortally wounded Chaos soldier of exceptional battle prowess. Unable to survive outside his sarcophagus-like cocoon, the crippled warrior's abilities are augmented by his parasite machine's armour-plated super structure and devastating ordinance. Thus entombed, the Dreadnought can fight on for a thousand years or more, drawing on it's pilot's fanatical and insane energies to sustain it over the duration of never-ending conflict

In short, he's one BAD dude!!

Building Against The Clock

The kit consists of 15 White Metal parts of very good quality moulding, with two optional weapons parts for both hand-to-hand and ordinance combat. I chose the Plasma Cannon and Blade-Hand variants (the Blade-Hand kind of reminds me of Freddy Kruger's finger-gloves in 'A Nightmare on Elm St') as per the cover photo's example.

Now I had the optional-extras decided, onto the construction and finishing of this monster. I have enclosed a day-by-day breakdown of my experience of modelling outside my normal comfort zone for your general sadistic amusement ..(Please forgive the lack of progress photos, though. Remember, I was in a hurry!!!)

Day 1

After scraping the parts clean of flash and mould lines, I began assembly. As the parts were all white metal, I had to use super glue throughout as my adhesive of choice. Initial construction was fairly drama-free, and the parts fitted together nicely. What little gaps that weren't meant to be present I eliminated with Zap-A-Gap. As the kit has no base for the model, I purchased one of appropriate size from my local hobby store and secured the Dreadnought (and at one stage several of my finger-tips) to it. After sanding back the glue residue, I left it to dry overnight

Day 2

The next day, I prepared the Dreadnought with a couple of undercoats of black paint, followed by a thin dark green wash. Once dry, I heavily drybrushed the entire model a chainmail colour. The darker layers of undercoats creates a good base for this type of technique and is an ideal surface for the adherence of the other metal-pigmented paints I would soon use.

Day 3

As I wanted my Dreadnought to look a little different (and match into my existing army's colour scheme), I decided to ignore the box cover example and paint most of the exposed armour-plating with rusted iron . In doing so I was careful not to over-paint the left-over drybrushed edges and ruin the ancient, battle weathered effect I was looking for. After the main colour had been applied, I touched up the hydraulic cylinders in the legs, chains, spikes, metal grates and corners of armour with chainmail.

Things were going nicely - hey, I might even finish this model!!

Day 4

Day 4 saw the finer details worked on. I painted all the skulls off-white, then in a wash of flesh brown ink to add depth. I then drybrushed the highlights in bleached bone, creating quite a satisfactory final result.

I painted the Plasma gun structure silver, then washed it with green ink to create a light green metal. That done I worked on the tip by painting progressively lighter shades of blue up until then end of the gun's muzzle, which achieved a pleasing 'fade away' effect. I carefully picked out the recesses of the muzzle and barrel with a thin blue wash of ink to deepen the shadows. Once done, I was quite happy with the overall attention-grabbing aspect of this feature.

The two main arterial cords leading from the Dreadnoughts head into its torso were painted bleached bone, then given a thin wash of green ink, then drybrushed with bleached bone again. The Blade-Hand was given silver highlights, then blood spatters painted on the talons proper and the left side of the torso to finish it off. I then covered the spikes with a brown ink, giving them a corroded look.

Finally, I weathered the exhaust ports with a drybrush of black, painted the base green and glued modelling flock to it to add the final effect.

Day 5

After doing all necessary touch-ups I gave the model a few layers of Testors Dullcoat to protect my hard work. Hey presto, I did it! Not bad for less than a weeks work.

Conclusion

Overall, I am happy with the results I achieved under great pressure. However, I do not recommend ANYONE does this madness on a regular basis, especially if 'quality not quantity' is your motto, as you have to move on past things that ordinarily you would spend time on to fix properly. The fact that I actually had few if any problems with the kit itself is testimony to its high level of craftsmanship (although this is reflected in the price - $60 Australian!). In closing, it is a great kit of an unusual subject - most worthy of a try if you can afford it!