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I've picked up a few armless dreadnoughts via the eBay parts vendors. Now I need to arm them. Both figuratively and literally. I figure one of the easiest ways to do so would be to buy a boxed Dread and make use of the spare arms, so I'm wondering which of the current GW dreads comes with the most Complete arms, so I can use them across the various figures.

thanks!

Question is, what arms do you think you would need? Most common configurations are one DCCW and a MM (you can only get the MM with the AoBR dread and FW, sadly) and two twin-linked autocannons (needs conversions or buy from FW.... again).

For the non-FW kits, they have:

Normal Dreadnought: right hand Assault Cannon, right hand twin-linked lascannon, left hand DCCW (with storm bolter and heavy flamer options), left hand missile launcher

Venerable Dreadnought: right hand plasma cannon, right hand assault cannon, right hand twin-linked lascannon, left hand DCCW (with storm bolter and heavy flamer options) and two ornate P-fists to decorate the DCCW.

Ironclad Dreadnought: left hand DCCW (with storm bolter and heav flamer options), right hand seismic hammer (with heavy flamer and metlagun options), right hand hurricane bolter, and left hand chainfist.

So basically, excluding the arm options, they have four arms each.

Probably your best bet is going to be going with Forge World arms, I've used them often and they are very nice.

The armless dreadnoughts that you have gotten off ebay, were they the AOBR ones or standard dreads.

starsdawn wrote:Question is, what arms do you think you would need? Most common configurations are one DCCW and a MM (you can only get the MM with the AoBR dread and FW, sadly) and two twin-linked autocannons (needs conversions or buy from FW.... again).

For the non-FW kits, they have:

Normal Dreadnought: right hand Assault Cannon, right hand twin-linked lascannon, left hand DCCW (with storm bolter and heavy flamer options), left hand missile launcher

Venerable Dreadnought: right hand plasma cannon, right hand assault cannon, right hand twin-linked lascannon, left hand DCCW (with storm bolter and heavy flamer options) and two ornate P-fists to decorate the DCCW.

Ironclad Dreadnought: left hand DCCW (with storm bolter and heav flamer options), right hand seismic hammer (with heavy flamer and metlagun options), right hand hurricane bolter, and left hand chainfist.

So basically, excluding the arm options, they have four arms each.

I haven't really played 40k since late 3rd-edition, so I imagine that everything has changed quite a bit rules-wise. Probably several times. I think I have the current SM rulebook since I've occasionally bought new books and things, though it may just as easily be the last one, but it's been packed away since I just moved, and with buying a house on the near horizon, I'm not likely to see or find it again before about Christmas. That's why I'm just looking for whatever will give the most physical arms. I'm also considering giving the arms all a simple colour scheme that would "work" for several different armies - then I just paint up the bodies and torsos as the different chapters. Just wanting to do some painting again so I have some things ready to go when we move in.

Can regular SM dreads still have duplicated weapons (ie 2x Assault cannon/2x CCW, etc)?

Catyrpelius wrote:Probably your best bet is going to be going with Forge World arms, I've used them often and they are very nice.
The armless dreadnoughts that you have gotten off ebay, were they the AOBR ones or standard dreads.

I've got 3 complete AOBR dreads, and 2 armless Venerables. I've considered doing a FW order to pick up some Plagurmarines, but the arms seemed a little expensive when compared to just buying a kit and getting another Dread plus some extra arms. Then again, I thought one of the plastic kits came with more than 4 weapons..

How many seperate weapons can you make with the Venerable Dread? Some of the arms looked like they reused the shoulder component.
Oh! Can any of the BA Fury dread's arms/weapons be used on a regular Dread? (Sorry, I'm way out of touch, and not really wanting to invest in books again till I'm close to playing again!)

thanks for the replies, guys!

With Codex Marines, the dreadnought and venerable dreadnought can have two autocannon arms. Aside from that, the left arm options are DCCW (with storm bolter or heavy flamer) or missile launcher. Right arm can have assault cannon, twin-linked lascannon, and plasma gun.

Ironclads are different. The seismic hammer arm (right arm) is kinda a DCCW too with benefits, so it can look like a dreadnought with two DCCWs. You can exchange the left arm for a chainfist and the right arm for a hurricane bolter.

Not familiar with BA, SW and GK dreads, but I think the normal/venerable dreads can equip the same loadout.

Cool, thanks for the info.

Without going into individual points costs, which I know is verboten, is there a "typical" "best" Dread loadout these days? I remember at one stage it was as Assault Cannony as you could possibly get. And obviously a Lascannon has different targets than a Autocannon or an Assault Cannon. Just at one stage there was a "best" loadout. So I can take it into consideration for whatever I end up buying..

On an unrelated note - what is the armament for Khorne Bersekers? I definately have the newest Chaos Codex, but like the others, it's packed away somewhere atm. Going to put together some KBs for my IW army, inspired by these and their blog on Dakka.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/276993.page

Venerable Dreadnought

scipio.au wrote:Cool, thanks for the info.

Without going into individual points costs, which I know is verboten, is there a "typical" "best" Dread loadout these days? I remember at one stage it was as Assault Cannony as you could possibly get. And obviously a Lascannon has different targets than a Autocannon or an Assault Cannon. Just at one stage there was a "best" loadout. So I can take it into consideration for whatever I end up buying..

On an unrelated note - what is the armament for Khorne Bersekers? I definately have the newest Chaos Codex, but like the others, it's packed away somewhere atm. Going to put together some KBs for my IW army, inspired by these and their blog on Dakka.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/276993.page

So currently there is no "best" setup. There are multiple winning combos, that fit well in different playing styles. A popular one is the "rifleman" dread. That would be two tl autocannons. Popular in gunline style armies, these prove very effective against transports and high toughness models (such as MCs). Another one that is popular is the suicide drop pod one. This would be a normal dread with a multi-melta and flamer, loaded into a drop pod. First turn he would be dropped as close as possible to the biggest enemy tank. He would then (hopefully) be able to blow up the tank before it can bring the hurt. This creates target priority issues for your opponent. Those are all the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but I'm sure others can help.

IMO, the dreadnought is the best Lascannon platform in the vanilla book. You pay the same price as elsewhere, for a TL one. I personally like to give my dread a lascannon, but thats just me.

Popular builds include, as mentioned, the Rifleman dread and the suicide 'pod dread. Variant of the suicide dread is an Ironclad with heavy flamer and meltagun. It's more likely to survive and assault something the next turn. Venerable dreads, especially of the rifleman variant, are also popular with GK codices.

The BA dread has

Right Power Fist
Left Power Fist (both can be upgraded to claws)
Right Frag Cannon
Left Force Weapon


The BA kit also comes with 3 different sarcophagus and front hull variants (BA,DC and Librarian). So it's not a bad kit for upgrading AOBR Dreads, providing you play BA that is.

Venerable dread kit is also great for converting other dreads since it has tons of sarcophagus fronts, designs and stuff.

scipio.au wrote:

How many seperate weapons can you make with the Venerable Dread? Some of the arms looked like they reused the shoulder component.

You can make one complete plasma cannon, one complete assault cannon, one complete lascannon, and one complete dreadnaught close combat weapon. All of these are completely seperate and do not share parts.

When I say "complete" I mean that you could easily pull off the assault cannon arm and swap it with the plasma cannon arm in a few seconds and it would look just fine. The weapons attach to the dreadnaught via a hole in the arm bit and a peg on the dread body, it is a press fit so the two parts fit snuggly.



One note however, the holes in the venerable dreadnaught weapons are larger than the peg that is on the AoBR Dreadnaught. Thus they will not fit at all unless you get creative.

Ah ok. I thought one of the Venerable dread's weapons shared the shoulder mount with another. Not the hole-and peg, but the weapon itself (like a Russ, etc). Good to know, thanks!

I did now know that about the AOBR figure being incompatable with the regular ones.. what an odd choice.

I checked out the FW Autocannon arms... they didn't grab me unfortunately. I might have a look at what can be done with Sentinel weapons or something.

Assault cannons rock go with those since you are not BA no blood talons for you

Relatively new company, rifleman spam:

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/customminis?section=28mm+Weapons

Those are about the same price as the Forgeworld arms, and not better looking.

I always thought the forgeworld arms were more than that, they don't seem so bad afterall.

The Bitspudlo ones look good. I'm not keen on the FW ones because the huge ammo drums look out of proportion on the Dread.

Another question - What's a "good"/"standard" Ironclad Dread.

Going through my recent bitz box purchases, it appears that I've picked up a Hurricane Bolter and chainfist. What makes a good combo with those? (if anything). I'll pick up whatever extra bits weapons I need to make it a solid, then that one will be done. Well, ready to build and paint, anyway...

actually, if you are going to arm your dreadnought with guns all around, it would be abysmally easy to just go and get an IG HW squad or two, and just build the weapon mounts, and apend the barrels onto those. Then pawn off the kneeling guardsmen on someone else, or use them for your own twisted diabolical purposes, and if it weren't for those damn meddling policemen, you'd get away with it too. =P

But no, seriously, if you want it on the cheap, and you are giving guns guns guns all around, just IG HW teams and some plasticard.

U should also take a look at the dreadnought Abilities, normal dreads don't anything but the ironclad can move through cover and the venerable can re-role the damage phase.

I've recently aquired several dreads through parts dealers. 2-3 AOBRs, 2 Venerables and (I think) 2 others, so I should be good for a little while. Bought 2 sets of AC arms off bitspudlo so I can set up some Riflemen. Now I just need to work out which will be corrupted to chaos, and which of the others will go to which chapters.. and then arm them.