DreadTober 2020: Week 1 progress - build complete

 

Coming through a (short) week one in October, I have finished the build for DreadTober 2020. I assembled the three arm options and magnetized them at the upper arm. The shoulders of the dreadnought are pinned and glued to the body.  I spaced on taking pictures, but it's a pretty clear approach once you are looking at the parts.  Each arm weapon comes with it's own upper arm piece to glue into the shoulder which comes with the main kit.  So of the three arms, I only used two of the upper arm pieces.  These are permanently attached to the shoulders.

I used 5mm x 2mm magnets that I bought on a lark along with 5mm x 1mm magnets that I picked up for Adeptus Titanicus titans.  A 3/16" drill bit matches perfectly and I drilled out 2mm deep holes in the center of the upper arm sockets and the matching sockets in the weapons themselves.  Easy Peasy.

It's worth discussing my compromise with the claw arm.  You can see that the claw has a cable running from the lower arm to the back of the shoulder.  Leviathan arm weapon kits come with a plate for each shoulder. The kit for the claw comes with a plate that accepts this cable. In order to not lock myself in to a left arm claw, I did not glue this cable into the shoulder plate when I attached the plate to the back of the shoulder.

When the claw arm is attached the cable fits into the plate without glue and sits snugly - well with a little heating of the cable to seat it a bit better than the picture above shows.  If I remove the arm and attach a different weapon, there is a minor visual issue since the back of the shoulder has the plate with the socket, but nothing plugged in.  

Left arm with Grav-Flux Bombard (note empty socket at back of shoulder)

I decided this was so minor I couldn't care less in a game.  I will display the model with the claw so all looks as intended. I feel this is better than leaving the cable off and using the other plate shown on the right arm. And I didn't see this issue worth going the extra distance to magnetize the shoulder plates (though I considered it) for a full swap. 

With the weapons complete, I moved on to finish the base so everything can be primed for week two. A little wood glue with some mixed railroad ballast later and I was done. The ballast matches my other Dark Angels bases and ties this model to the larger force, despite the large chunk of bluestone. I also glued down a random orc skull, just for fun.

So we're all set to get painting now.  I won't bore you with priming pictures, but you can imagine that I'll get started with a coat of Vallejo Surface Primer Black laid down with an airbrush for a nice smooth finish. Oh, and I forgot to wash the resin before assembly in all the excitement (rookie mistake), so the model will get a good scrub too, prior to priming.

DreadTober 2020 is off to a good start and soon the paint will start flyin'.

Stay safe out there.

Cheers and Happy Gaming!