Oldschool Rogue Trader Siege Dreadnought......attempt #2

Hello all,

Some of you may remember my attempt at building a Siege Dreadnought a few months back. The final creation was, to put it mildly, disappointing. It just ended up looking awkward, the body was too small, the arms made it look like a Gorilla aping across the ground (fine if that's your intended purpose, but a pain if it's not) & the siege ladder that I later removed just compounded the bodys' inadequate size issue. All in all, it was a bit of a failure.

In "Warhammer Siege" there's an illustration of a couple of Siege Dreads assaulting an imposing fortress. They look to be normally proportioned Dreadnoughts, but upon closer examination of the illo & further reading of the text, it's clear that these things were supposed to be huge, cumbersome wrecking machines, much larger than their skull smashing brethren. Here's the description;

Basically, Big Arse Robots do the siege work.

After my failed construction I was a little stuck as to how I could build a "proper" Siege Dreadnought. I still wanted to build one, but was unsure what I could use for a base model. While I was on holiday a few months back I visited a model shop & came across this Japanese robot kit. Straight away I could see the potential this puppy had to offer. It's long arms ending in over sized metal claws looked menacing. I could picture it trying to tear down a fortress gate with them or ripping a watch tower up from it's foundations while the soldier's were still trapped inside.

Tasty!

Also on display was the Japanese inclination to sexualising robots (any Astroboy fans out there will no doubt recall his arse guns of doom!). This guy was no exception....twin linked cock cannons & "high beams" for nipples! Classy stuff guys, very classy :p

Meeting your demise from it's devastating "tackle" could be quite humiliating, don't you think?

Once I got this guy home I began trying to figure out the remodelling I'd have to carry out to "siege him up". First up was removal of his head/drivers seat, to be replaced with a cockpit for a miniature to fit in. Also, remove that radiator thingy above his groin & the silly looking collar he had behind his neck.



So, on with the show!

Here's the initial work I've carried out so far;

Enlarged the cavity in the neck space to allow a suitably sized cockpit to fit.

Old Umbrella support from a picnic table used for a cockpit....the wife will never know.

Added some plastic mesh flooring & cut out a relief to uncover the hatch.

Test fit....it's a good'n.

I thought about removing his "offending members", but the comedic potential of getting
 gunned to death by them made keeping them a must :)

An almighty spiked ball & chain will go in his right arm, so one claw was removed 

The other one can be used to crush it's victims.

And here is the semi-completed beast, obligatory RBT01 for scale.

Here he is, perched atop the giant wrecking machine.

As you can see there's still a long way to go, but I'm pretty pleased with how it's coming along.

Until next time, cheers :)