Goatboy’s 40k Nostalgia – Saving the Dreadnoughts/Helbrutes?
Goatboy here and I want to talk about my love for the 6th ed. redhead stepchild known as the Dreadnought. What the frak happened?
If you have never read my stuff before or just comment some nonsense then here is a little introduction. If it is evil looking I like it. In fact almost all of my armies end up looking evil or demonic in some way. Heck I had a whole year or two with people yelling a me as the poster boy of counts as due to making “evil” Grey Knights, Space Wolves, or whatever power armored army I thought might do a body good. Don’t worry this leads into what I want to talk about.
My first army in the grand universe of 40k was purchasing the old Chaos army box when everything was metal. I had decided to go to 40k after getting tired of the competitive Magic scene back in 1998. I think the constant upgrading of decks mixed with the overall lack of personal artistic creation with the game led me into the open maw of the warp of play with 28mm toys. It didn’t help I worked at a comic book store so my discount was decent even though I lived on very little money due to going to school and being on a fixed “allowance” for food and rent. Still I threw my hard earned cash whole heartily into this game and drooled over the metal models I had to put together. I also had one of the worst glue experiences when I glued my calf to my thigh due to sitting crossed legged and wearing shorts. But that’s a story for another time.
Object of Goatboy Desire – The Dread
The model I loved the most in that set was the old metal brick Dreadnought. I remember its Hammer weapon and it’s “good hand” power scourge. I am also thinking of how terrible the metal model went together. This is before I learned of pinning, green stuff, and hatred of badly modeled metal figures. Still I loved that dang model and played it all the time. I think it killed a lot of my army back in the day too but it usually do ok.
The first conversions I remember doing were Nurgle based Dreadnoughts. Giving me an extra arm point sounds great. This is when I learned about green stuff and a lot of those models were held together with hate and that sticky putty. The idea of building this toy in whatever way you want really screamed out to the little kid in me. Heck I lived off of Legos for years and never built the model on the box. I usually made tanks, space ships, and robots. So being able to convert something into my own “creation” is why I still play this game.
This leads on to how sad I am that this old favorite of mine is a stinker that sits in its foam cage or gets converted into a crazy monster that doesn’t follow its original rules. The talk of new data slates, while giving me hope, still doesn’t fill me full of gladness. I really think a complete overall to their design and rules is the only way to go right now. I know I am not the only one that loves these models and not seeing them in army after army makes me a little bit sad. So after that Brent like intro let’s go into what I think we should do with Dreadnoughts/Helbrutes/DB Jerk Hole Tank Man!
Fixing the Dread
First idea is the most radical. Starting with a full rules change is sometimes the simplest. It is also usually the most damning because people get overly excited and make something to good. I know we think GW doesn’t play test but they do – just not as thoroughly as competitive jerk bags like to do. But hey – the don’t always plan for their games to battles on the same scale of damage.
Idea #1 “The Monster”
Remove Vehicle, make it a 4 Wound MC with the following stat line and call it a day.
WS 5 | BS 4 | S 6 | T 6 | W 4 | I 4 | A 3 | Ld 10 | Sv 2+/5++
Make it starting at 75pts with all the same upgrades it had before. This way it could use some of the Legion rules for the Imperial side and marks for the Chaos side. Mix up the weapons a bit, add things that make sense so at least it becomes a viable member of your army. It now can die to bolters but at least it won’t get killed by a single shot (Except those a$$hole Wraith Knights).
This type of rules change would give armies a new model to fill in the roll of long range support or just a Close Combat monster to help out assaults. It just feels a bit better to me but it is the biggest rules change.
Chaos Marks would give the monster things like – Fleet, IWND, FNP, Shroud, and access to crazy war gear. The Marine options would have some of these things as well. Better Invulnerable save and maybe some Special Character love. Wouldn’t this be neat to have a Chapter Master entombed and becoming some kind of crazy monster?
I just see how cool the Riptide and Wraithknight are and think – heck GW could change this and sell a ton of Dreadnought kits. Librarian Dreadnoughts from Blood Angels would be awesome as MC’s. I think the Chaos Versions could be a lot of fun too.
Idea #2 “Eternal as the Grave”
Keep it a vehicle but make it more survivable. Have it use the Apocalypse/Escalation/Knight vehicle damage chart. We would probably need to up the Hull Points to 4 but now this guy won’t get instant killed by a single shot all the time. Yes a 6 plus a d3 of 3 will explode it – but still that is a lot harder to do then just the single shot kill. This way the Dread can shoot all the time till it explodes.
I think his one is the simplest and one of the things I think we will see in any new edition. I think the vehicle damage chart gets too hurtful to vehicles especially when you have to keep up with what you have done to them. I think this is where we can really “shorten” the rules a bit and help make things faster and easier. It also eliminates that whole – keep up with the stunned results due to guys being in their tanks. Nothing is more soul crushing then watching your transport take a stunned result and then getting destroyed so your guys inside can’t do jack when they get out. No snap fire for you! Why can’t I just be pinned!
I’ve had these two ideas for awhile now and every time I look at the new Helbrute and all the dreadnoughts I have laying around it just makes me wish we had better rules to bring them to the table top. I hope the new Dataslates somehow get the Helbrutes in people’s armies with their current rules make up. I hope we do see teleporting Chaos Monsters raining from the sky. All I know is every time I read one of the GW reading books and imagine what the crazy Dreadnought character is doing I get sad because we never see that on the table top.
How would you restore the grandeur and glory of the mighty Dreadnought?
