When it comes to Warhammer 40K, one of the most iconic Miniatures is that of the Space Marine Dreadnought.
If you’re new to the game or Space Marines, this overview is for you! With Primaris Marines slowly phasing out the First Born, we got to see the Dreadnoughts change too. Having bought back into 40K, I wanted to get my hands on these fantastic machines in the new Primaris size. That leaves three variants.
Table of Contents
The Three Pramaris Sized Dreadnoughts
The Ballistus
The Ballistus Dreadnought is the long-ranged attacker of the group. You can get it on its own, or in the Levithan Box Set if you can still find it at your FLGS. Of the three. This is the easiest to build. It comes with 21 pieces as opposed to the 131 pieces of the Brutalis and the 109 pieces of the Redemptor.
Below is a shot of me building my Ballistus Dreadnought. If you are new to building models, this is a friendly miniature to build.
The model itself specializes in attacking models that are at half-strength and above. It comes armed with missiles, a lascannon and twin-linked storm bolters. This is a great option if you want something to hurt your enemy from afar.
The Brutalis
This is the Dreadnought to build if you want to take the fight close to the enemy – the Brutalis. It comes with an anti-fly heavy stubber. After that, you have options to arm this with fists or talons. The talons have a hand-to-hand attack mode that is better against multiple weaker enemies while the fists come equipped with twin linked bolt rifles. For the chest, you can choose to arm this model with twin heavy bolters or twin multi-meltas.
For maximum up-close firepower, I armed mine with the talons and multi-melta. That said, I believe there is a lot of synergy if you were to arm this walker with the twin heavy bolters with fists and the bolt rifles.
The Brutalis was a brute to build. I actually had to cut into some of the pieces and shave away the wing that holds the arm in the shoulder to make the piece fit.
Building the arm was also a challenge for me. The instructions say not to glue the arms down so you can move them around. I glued my down as I found if I moved the arms wrong, they would fall apart. Glue solved that problem.
Before heading to the next model, I want to let you know that this unit’s special ability is that it gets the chance to cause extra mortal wounds when it charges an enemy.
The Redemptor
The Redemptor comes with an anti-air missile launcher and three different choices for weapon load out. In its right arm, you can arm it with a heavy gatling cannon or a plasma incinerator. I magnetized those two options so I can choose which I want based on the game I am about to play.
In the chest, you get the option of a twin storm bolter or twin fragstorm grenade launchers. I went with the storm bolters as their range matches that of the gatling canons. On its left arm, you choose between an onslaught gatling cannon or a heavy flamer. I opted to go with the cannon instead of the flamer. This time, I used glue instead of magnetizing the parts.
For a special ability, the Redemptor can ignore one damage off of each attack it takes a hit from. That sounds super powerful!!!
In terms of a build, this Dreadnought is easier to build than the Brutalis but nowhere near as easy as the Ballistis.
An Update on My Dreadnoughts
Having built the models, I am now working on painting them up. You’ve seen my start, but here is where they are now.
In the back row, you can see my three dreadnoughts in progress. They aren’t done yet, but they are really coming along!
Here is a close up of the Redemptor. There is still more to do, but it is looking awesome so far!
A Scale Comparison
When I write posts, I like to include scale comparison images to give a semblance of size to the miniatures. Below I placed a couple of shots for exactly those purposes.
Here we have the Psychophage pictured across from a Ballistus Dreadnought.
And here the same mini is beside a Primaris sized Lieutenant. Now, let’s close this article out.
Wrapping it up…
Normally, I like to cover games outside of those by Games Workshop, but most of my hobby time lately has been going to painting up these figures. As such, I wanted to give you an update about these models and talk a little bit about the Dreadnought.
In the interest of full disclosure, this post contains some affiliate links to Amazon. If you buy from there, Must Contain Minis receives a small commission at no extra cost to you. You can also pick these miniatures up at your favourite FLGS or Games Workshop themselves.
Do you have Dreadnoughts in your army? Let us know in the comments below.
Until next time, Happy Gaming, Everyone!!!
