Hello readers! I'm taking a break from all my competetive articles and Battle Reports to contribute a little bit to the Hobby side of things. A tournament player, who enjoys the hobby? Nonsense! Anyways, the basis for this article is my Pre Heresy army of Iron Warriors that I am currently working on. Although I love my Tyranids, and think that they are more competetive, I've always loved the IVth Legion, and I think that the army has more personality. Plus, some of my Tyranids are pretty old and not too well painted... I want a nice looking army on the table! Because the FW Horus Heresy books are not fully accepted yet, I play my army with the Chaos Space Marine Codex. One of the new units that, statwise, caught my eye was the new Forgefiend. The only problem was, I couldn't just throw a Dinobot into my Heresy Era army! My army represents the point where the Warsmith has declared his support of Horus, but has not yet started to be physically corrupted by Chaos.
I thought for a while on how to best represent this, and then stumbled on the answer in a Horus Heresy novel! In the second Dark Angels book, the First Legion is protecting a weapon from the Sons of Horus, which was a super heavy sort of Artillery. The Dark Angels end up jury rigging the machine so that a Dreadnaught could be plugged in and man the Vehicle. This inspired me to replicate this on a smaller scale, where a Dreadnaught has been mounted on top of a rhino!
Materials needed:
One Rhino kit (Loyalist or Chaos)
One Dreadnaught kit (I used a venerable, but a different kind would work fine)
Rare Earth magnets ( I used 3/16" by 1/16" which worked fine)
A couple extra gun bits, your choice. I used two Lego cannon pieces!
A spare 1" base.
Superglue
Clippers/Exacto knife
To start off this conversion, assemble a Rhino! Leave off the top doors.
Also, no Storm bolters or cupolas. I put the optional top straight in here, and in the other put the Marine torso peice in upside down. I then mounted a searchlight and Radar dish on top. Both look suitable without being restrictive of the model.
Next, take the Razorback option top door shown below. Use a couple of spare sprue peices to make something that the small base can drop onto, as shown below.
Flip it upside down once dry, and glue one magnet in, as close to the center as you can get! Don't be shy on glue, it'll take a bit to dry but you want it very solidly in there!
Assemble the Dreadnaught top as usual. Leave off the legs and arms for now. Note that I attached an Iron-Halo looking peice that came with the Dread, this is used to represent the 5++ invulnerable it gets.
Then, take the unused cupola (without a Storm bolter, obviously) and glue the cover on, then glue it on the Dread torso where the legs would go. It should fit quite well, as shown below.
Glue the other magnet inside that cupola peice, as shown below. Make sure it matches up properly with the magnet on the tank!
The Dread torso now fits very comfortably onto the tank body. It can be removed with relative ease, but will never pop off during a game. You could glue it straight on instead of using magnets, but using them allows the torso to be removed for storage, and to rotate in game.
For the right arm, I took an assembled assault cannon arm, and cut off the actual cannon. I then shaved it flat with a knife and glued a lego on! This particular peice doesn't look obnoxiouslt lego-like, but you can use whatever you want to get the Hades-autocannon. Dual Autocannon would work just as well. Also, Plasma cannons could be used, if you prefer the Ectoplasm cannons that the Forgefiend may take.
The left arm was a wee bit trickier, as it comes as an "arm" not just a gun mount. I clipped a lot of the arm peice off, and added a plate underneath to cover the hole. The Ven. Dread. comes with plenty of extra plates that fit the job. Then, add another cannon matching the opposite arm.
Because the other arm had an ammo feeder, I added the plasma coil to the left arm so that it looked roughly the same.
Take the arms and attach to dreadnaught as normal! Feel free to leave unglued, so that the arms can move up/down, and be removed.
But, how viable is it to use in game? After all, the Forgefiend is mounted on an oval base! Compare the footprints in the two pictures below. Shooting from a head on angle is actually slightly better for your opponent, and because shooting is measured to the hull it will never be a pivotal "He's cheating!" issue. However, I always carry a spare base with me in case my opponent wants to check for himself. So far, I have had no issues. Also, the arms don't even extend past the rhino, so no Fodeling for Advantage there either.
The tank-Hybrid is slightly shorter than a Tervigon but is still a big model. A built from the box Forgefiend is actually almost the exact same height. Still no modeling for advantage!
Finally, a fun shot! Forgefiends make great fire support for your precious marines as they challenge the blind followers of the Emperor. Tear down the Imperium! Death to the lackeys of the false Emperor!
I hope you found this article informative! Although it looks a bit different, this conversion is proportionally very similar to the original Forgefiend model. It also makes a very unique model to add to your collection, and an interesting center piece! Just make sure that your opponent knows exactly what it represents on the table, and you shouldn't have any trouble. Like a Forgefiend, a Dreadnaught has a 12/12/10 statline. The BS 3 could be represented by the tremendous recoil of such a High caliber weapon, while the Iron Halo I added could explain its durability. Even the Daemonforge rule could be represented by the Dreadnaught ignoring Mechanicum reccomendations, and firing full auto... devestating, but in danger of overheating. Also, walkers can rotate in the shooting phase, just like the Dreadnaught on top!
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