Sons of Horus 30k Contemptor Dreadnought

Contemptor Dreadnought from the 16th Legion

I've been painting a fair bit of WW2 stuff recently, but the Warmaster's stout lads in the 16th Legion need some reinforcements in order to take the fight properly to the dupes of the False Emperor. More vehicles, more firepower.  I hope this will help with the "more firepower" requirement - a Legion "Contemptor Mortis" Dreadnought, armed with a pair of Kheres-pattern Assault Cannons. The model is from Forge World.

The "Kheres Pattern" assault cannons - look cool, but they were a pain in the @ss to put together

Dreadnoughts are armoured battlesuits that support Space Marine units.  The dreadnoughts are "crewed", if you can call it that, by the physical remains of a badly wounded Space Marine.  Basically if you serve bravely in the Legion, and are terribly wounded, but still alive enough to be sort-of-saved, you are "honoured" by essentially being entombed into one of these armoured suits, so you can keep on fighting on behalf of the Legion.  Yay for you!

Besides, it's not like your average Space Marine is worrying about a defined benefit pension plan or anything...

Contemptor Dreadnought power system - NOT carbon neutral...

The average Dreadnought usually combines one heavy weapon on one "arm" with a suitably horrifying close combat weapon on the other, but this "Mortis" version is all about firepower, so sports two ranged weapons.  The Kheres pattern cannons are pretty nasty, and this fellow will be laying down fire support for the members of the 16th Legion as they work to destroy rival loyalist Space Marine Legions bring the Warmaster's light of liberation and tolerance to the galaxy.

Love the "Eye of Horus" logos sculpted right on to the models...spooky as heck

Forge World makes generic and legion-specific versions of these Dreadnought models. This model is obviously the Legion-specific make for the Sons of Horus.  On the plus side, I love the iconography and roman numerals sculpted right on the surface of the model - I am generally more and more addicted to the embossed and sculpted accessories Forge World offers for the different Space Marine Legions.

On the down side, the sculpt is a bit..."Chaos"-y for my tastes.  Now, you might say "well, duh, of course it is", and rightly so.  After all, in the narrative, Horus was tainted by Chaos, and so were the Legions that followed him a victim of an arrogant and uncaring Emperor.  It's subjective, but I loathe all the spikey bits, skullz and overly simplistic spooky stuff that adorns the Chaos stuff in the "current" 40k period.  In a bid to appear scary, the effect is instead almost self-parody, and you get laughable models like this. YMMV - you might love the current Chaos stuff, and more power to you if you do! But I remember a time, back when the Horus Heresy was played out through 6mm figures, when the Chaos side was subtle, and Horus and his Legions were more genuine rebels, at least in appearance if nothing else.

Detailed logos sculpted on to the front plates - Forge World does a dreadnought body like this for each major Legion, loyalist and traitor, profiled so far

In the current version of the Horus Heresy narrative that is obviously changing - in today's version, the Legions are already looking a bit "Chaos-y" - some more than others - and by the point they are landing for the assault on Holy Terra, they will probably all look as silly as this thing from the Word Bearers.  But I have to give the Forge World designers credit - they are straddling the line pretty well - the sculpt of Horus looks amazing, and ominous without being goofy (I expect another angry deamon version will be released at a later time...).

I christened this one "Issues" - I figured he was hurt in battle, and woke up entombed in an armoured suit with guns for arms - he would probably have issues

Anyway, all this to say, this Dreadnought model has about as many spikes, chains and skullz as I can tolerate.  It doesn't look too bad - just enough to be angry and ominous.  I have a second one of these still to paint, but I am going to shave a bunch of the spikes, chains and skulls off before I assemble it.

Dallas and I have been plotting a series of 30k games for some time - he's been adding reinforcements of his own.  We are hoping to start a series of linked games as soon as this week...stay tuned for details, and for more reinforcements!