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A friend of mine is leaving town to follow a new job up north. So he had a clear out and sold off or gave away stuff he couldnt really move with. I was given some 'new' unassembled Space Marine minis, including a Chaplain, Techmarine with four tech servitors and a Dreadnought. My gratitude aside for any gift I can see a use for a Chaplain, I have 'only' one and didnt need another, but my current Chaplain has a jump pack, now I get a choice. The techmarine is very iffy, I have one as part of the collection but don't use him and am sceptical about in game functionality of the repair abilities. But now I have a full repair team I am wondering if I will get any mileage out of placing the Techmarine in base contact with a static Land Raider.

My main dilemma is the Dread. I wanted a Dread and never got around to buying one (I keep my gaming budget very low). This model was most welocme and I am very pleased with it. It is the current design dreadnought but in metal, technically its a Dark Angel dread but the iconography is not overt and can fit with vanilla just fine. My friend could see that I was very pleased with my new toy, thankyou.

Here is my one dilemma. It is a fire support dreadnought with twin linked lascannon and missile launcher. I could convert with a spare assault cannon left over from another friends Ravenwing boxset (which drowns you in them apparently), but then assault cannon normally goes better with the fist arm. Or I can keep things as they are.

A Fire Support dread has two high strength 48" shots for 135pts plus add ons. Is this worth it? Yes, yes I know that an assault cannon is not only much cheaper but also better.  That isn't the question. Can I get good mileage from a fire support dread as is, and if so what upgrades will it need?

Well, currently it's only 10 points less than a Predator for considerably less anti-tank firepower.

If you upgrade it to Venerable, then it will be fairly durable. It also has a mobility advantage over the Predator.

Not the strongest unit, but not useless either.

I prefer to avoid praying for 6s.

depends on the role you need it to fill

 

fire support

las/missle extra armor, venerable and tank hunter=golden

 

assaultish

assault cannon, DCCW/heavy flamer, extra armor, venerable, tank hunter, drop pod=golden

Unless you are going to pod it into the fight (not a bad idea) then you are going to want the long range version. The assault cannon is nice but when you are walking 6' a turn, it just isn't going to get the job done. That and with an armor value of 12, you probably don't want to be all up close and personal with the enemy any way. Stay back at 48'-36' (back up if you need to in order to keep this kind of space cushion) and blaze away. You'll find that while it might not do as much damage on any one turn as an assault cannon dread might do, it will do consistant damage for most of, if not all of the game instead of dieing horribly by turn 3 when everyone and his sister with a melta gun (plasma gun or power fist) gets close.

Heck, if you have 2 that sit shoulder to shoulder behind a piece of level 2 terrain with the techmarine in base to base contact with both, you can make a very resilant fire base (4+ hull down save and the repair).

As one who uses the various loadouts of Dreadnoughts, I find the firesupport Dread to be very useful. Yes, it has one less shot than a Predator, but it can always fire both on the move, rather than just one main. It doesn't immobilize in terrain, and can easily use and traverse terrain for better shots. I would say that extra armor is a must, and tank hunter and/or venerable status are valuable, but skippable if points are tight.

I also run assault cannon/ML dreads, and have a good bit of success with them, so getting another arm to make the loadout tradeable wouldn't be the worst idea ever.

I wont get another arm, I may still get another Dread. My ideal default loadout would be assault cannon and missile/fist with flamer. Simply because the two left arms are identically costed so I can swap out on a whim. With a metal dread wrappable arms are inconvenient, while it is a built in option with the plastic model.

I will take this model as is, and add the extra 40pts of upgrades when I can afford them. It is rather a lot, will the dread work well naked.

I find Lascannon/Missile Launcher to be the ideal loadout for regular Dreadnaughts. The 48" range and 6" move+fire is really just great. Being that far away, you opponent has to dedicate his long-range guns to destroy it (especially hull down), which can allow other vehicles in your force an opportunity to pour the hurt on, or vice versa.

However, the clampy arm can occasionally be useful. Granted it's expensive, but a Lascannon/DCCW loadout is probably ideal for counter-charge use. As stated, having stand-off ability increases life span appreciably.

I used the exact Drad you are talking about for many years. It is a good unit, keep him cheap and at max range. He can hold your table quarter and walk aaround in cover to get a hull down roll. He is not as efficient as a pred, but as others have said, he can always move and fire. Plus, he is a cool looking model and he takes up an elite slot as opposed to a heavy, so you could have three of him and three preds for a pretty intimidating mechanized fire base that would have decent staying power.

"a Lascannon/DCCW loadout is probably ideal for counter-charge use"

I go with a Flamer too.

At 1000 points and below a Venerable Dread with this load-out is a threat to anything on the board and pretty darn durable. He doesn't hold up as well at higher points levels though where the flexibility ceases to be an advantage.