Dreadnought/Warjack Conversion

Some of the space marine kits are pretty uninspiring, and the plastic dreadnought is one of the dullest. I remember that, when it first came out, a friend of mine said that it looked like an eggbox on legs. That was at least twenty years ago and time hasn't improved the model very much.

A while back, I was doing one of my standard (and ill-advised) trawls through ebay, and saw a Warmachine warjack going cheap. Warjacks are big robot things that fight each other in Warmachine, in a a rather rules-heavy way. Warjacks have even smaller legs than GW dreadnoughts, and look very top-heavy. Anyhow, I bought the warjack and a pair of old metal dreadnought legs, with a vague idea of combining them later on.

This particular warjack was from the Menoth faction, the inevitable religious fanatic side, and looked quite like a caricature of a medieval knight. Hmm. Last week, I realised that I'd built up enough bits and bobs to finish the conversion off.

The first thing I did was to stick some new shoulder pads on the warjack torso. These were left off the chaos armiger I made a couple of months ago. They looked good on it, if very wide.

Then it was time for the legs. They didn't sit comfortably on the torso and needed some spacing to make the machine a bit taller. I used a gun-shield left over from the armiger and a piece of plastic rod to raise the torso up a bit. Plasticard scraps were used to make some pointless extra detail.

The feet were going to be a problem as, well, I didn't have any. I did have the warjack's original feet, which looked quite like the pointy armoured booties that a cartoon knight might wear. Together with plastic rod, plasticard and green stuff, I was able to make roughly convincing replacements. This was a pain, to be honest, and took a lot of trial and error. 

Now for the arms. The left arm was simply the armiger's autocannon. I did however add a new, bigger gun shield to imitate the wide protector at the base of a knight's lance. I'm not sure what the piece I used was: maybe part of a chimney or a font. 

The right arm was trickier. It would mostly be hidden by the shield it would carry, which was left over from an Imperial Knight. I made the arm out of plastic rod and a spare terminator power fist, which looked suitably clunky. The elbow was an odd metal piece that might have come off an ork many years ago. It looked complex.

I stuck everything together and it was painting time! I followed the usual paint scheme for these marines. I wondered about attempting some complex freehand on the shield, but I didn't think I'd do a good job, so I divided it into complex heraldry instead. I copied a Brettonian design.

The heraldry means that our chap is a senior member of the chapter. It also tells his story, shows that he has defeated a large tyranid (heraldic monsters are often used to represent large aliens) and warns anyone nearby to stand clear, since he's a big robot. His head, if you're wondering, is that little thing about halfway down his body.

And here he is with a couple of friends!