Revelators Ironclad Dreadnought

It has been a bit too long since my last update, but I’ve finally got something new to show! I’ve finished an Ironclad Dreadnought for my Revelators. This is my main entry for Azazel’s Armoured April challenge.

I’ve loved the Space Marine Dreadnought ever since I first saw it when getting into the hobby back in 3rd edition of WH40k. While it doesn’t look very functional with those stubby legs, there is something special about the boxy hull and the small vision slit. In the 3rd edition days there was only the standard Dread, I think the Ironclad and the Venerable variants came slightly after my miniature hobby went on a long break. And of course, there’s now countless other Dreads as well, like the Primaris Redemptor and all those weird ones from Forgeworld. I’m not too hot on them myself, but luckily the old Castaferrums are still available. I’ve still got an unbuilt Venerable kit and I’m looking to get the classic Dread into my collection as well!

This guy took quite a bit longer to paint than I though it would, it’s a fairly simple model after all. But I did lose two weekends to travelling, and a couple of days to a flu (insert a Nurgle joke here). And layering the armor took ages! Well, it’s ready now and that’s all that matters. Overall this was a fun project. I tried a couple of new things and learned some important lessons.

This was my first vehicle in my current Space Marine collection, and I thought I’d have to do some battle damage so it wouldn’t look too boring. I’d have to keep it from going too extreme though, as my marines have no weathering. I think I overdid it a bit, again, but I’m happy with most of it. Another new trick I tried was masking: I did the soot on the flamers/exhaust pipes after finishing the (clean) armor, and not wanting to mess up that I tried some Faskolor tape that I have left over from my RC hobby. Worked out nicely!

What did I learn? One important thing: MicroSol softens acrylic paint too! So don’t be lazy like me, and apply gloss varnish before laying down the decals and chemicals! Another thing that I’ll be paying attention to in the future is how to handle sub-assemblies, as now I got some minor metal flakes on the arms by holding them with my fingers. Not super apparent, but annoying.

Modelling-wise, this Ironclad is pretty much as barebones as it gets. The only accessory I put on him was the smoke launcher. I did consider purity seals and other decorations, but I kind of wanted to keep him looking very utilitarian, a brawler without any bells or whistles. The one minor conversion I did was cutting out his “toes” and putting the feet on backwards. If I would’ve thought about it a little sooner, magnetizing some bits could’ve been nice, but I’ll just leave that for some other project. And in hindsight, I probably should have improved the base a bit with some fine sand and such. Well, at least I’ve got an example of the OG (at least to me) pre-molded scenic base in my collection!

I wasn’t too happy with the faceplates in this kit, but as I don’t have any better ones currently, I just attached one with a tiny blob of super glue so that it can be switched later. I think I’ve warmed up to it now though, so it’ll probably stay. In my quest to name all my Revelators units after cool video games, I dubbed the Dread ‘Ruiner’, though part of the name/callsign is sadly obscured by the purity seal.

Above you can see him duking it out with my other Dread, done for last Orktober. Is the washing machine a tiny bit shorter than the trash can? More on the Ork Dreadnought later. And, as with most of my models lately, I was able to claim a square in the hobby bingo: “paint a vehicle”.