Showcase: Space Wolves Deredeo Dreadnought by ComradeQuiche

Hello all, My name is Shane Blomberg (AKA ComradeQuiche) and I am a product designer living in NYC. A big thanks again to Stahly for giving me the opportunity to share my newest project here on Tale of Painters! After my last big project (The Iron Werewolf Knight Titan) I decided it was time to do something a little less ambitious! I haven’t included a dreadnought in my ranks, and wanted to do something a little different.

Though the Deredeo pattern dreadnought from Forgeworld cannot be legally added into a Space Wolves army, I decided that as with the Iron Werewolf Knight Titan, what Russ wants, Russ takes! My concept is to run an allied force of Vanilla marines who can take the Deredeo, in order to be able to use it in games.

I employed a few major modifications which helps give the dreadnought an over all more wolfy feel. I chopped the wolf head off of Logan Grimnars sleigh, and trimmed the ears down. Using blue tack I bumped the head up to give me a better feel for how high or low I wanted it to sit within the gorget. I was concerned that the head my look like a seal’s head since it no longer has ears, but since its hidden within the cowl, I imagine now that the wolves ears are simply pressed back as if he is growling.

An accidental slip with an exacto led to cutting off the standard lenses that normally sit on either side of the head, I decided to include small hard-points where chains or wires could tether the dreadnought into the hold of a ship or a tank instead.

I used the helfrost cannons from the Space Wolf dreadnought kit to replace the heavy flamers/ heavy bolters. A simple trimming of the back section of the cannons lead to a near perfect fit onto the underside of the bow shaped belly section.

My initial concept was that this type of dreadnought would be the perfect tomb for a Long Fang on the verge of death, allowing the entombed wolf to still get his fill of blasting off heavy weapons. Because of the ancient nature of the occupant, I added large rivets to the body, which are reminiscent to heresy era power armor. I used 1mm “no-hole” beads and a small pin-vice to create the large rivets found on the knee pad, and the side of the left leg.

When first assembling the Deredeo I decided that I wanted the guns to point slightly upwards. Long story short I broke both of the ammo feed tubes nearly immediately while trying to bend and positon them! Impatience and bending of delicate resin parts do not mix well. On my foot-slogging marines I really enjoy including chaos marine bitz, including belt feeds to replace the bolters magazines. I figured that this would be another great way to differentiate this model from the stock version.

Trying to mix non-40k parts into 40k kits has always been a very touchy subject for me, not many other model kits of have the sheer bulk and over sized components to merge seamlessly with the Grim-Dark future. After MUCH research, I found my best option for a belt feed was a 1/16th scale .50 caliber BMG ammo belt kit. (http://store.spruebrothers.com/product_p/lvrlre16001.htm) These ammo belts gave me the right amount of “girth” and look like they would actually feed into the Anvilus Autocannons. Most other belt feeds I found felt sparse, or like there were too much room between each round on the chain. To bulk it up even further I doubled the belt feeds seeing as two cannons means you need two ammo feeds! Soaking each length of chain in boiling water allowed me to bend them to shape.

With the addition of a few wolfy pelts, and charm-chains I finished off the model. I gave it the “Captain Morgan” stance, as if he had just stopped mid stride to track a target. I magnetized both feet for ease of transportation. The rocks outcrops are made from cork sheets ripped up, while the little tufts are pre made from Games Workshop.

Overall this was a fun project! I haven’t worked overly much with resin minis from FW, but it was a nice change from the all plastic GW kits.

What do you think of my wolfy Deredeo?