Leviathan Dreadnought Conversion
I got into playing 40k right at the beginning of 9th. I owned like a thousand points of poorly painted marines. It was a great time to get into the game. Indomitus was a sick box. I loved vehicles, big guns, etc. The whirlwind and the thunderfire cannon were like my favorite models--well, after techmarines. Combat engineers with robot arms like Doc Oc; what's not to like. 'In fact, this post from admgr on instagram is really probably what got me back into the game. Fierros is a dynamite model, and his paint job is insane. I played exclusively with one friend, playing Techmarine Babysitting Tank™. First it was a Whirlwind. Whirlwinds aren't enough damage output for the points commitment, especially with a techmarine. Then I upgraded to a Repulsor Executioner that was more like it, but it always got targeted and was tough to hide. We preogressed through our crusade and I started shopping around for a centerpeice. Something durable, with tons of damage output. I could have gotten a redemptor. That might have made more sense, but I didn't like the way they looked. So I (kind of nervously) ordered my first forgeworld model: a leviathan with two storm cannons.
Leviathans Are Awesome
Leviathans are awesome. At that point they were reasonable. I understand that in eighth, they were the boogeyman for a time. Iron hands had just gotten a refresh, and in true GW fashion, they came out juiced. I played my bright yellow Dawn Treaders chapter as Iron Hands, complete with the command point character dreadnought upgrade. I paid another command point for the warlord trait that gave him exploding sixes. In normal games, I don't think this was busted. We saw the reign of the double vulkite cntemptor dread with those same exploding sixes, but also leveraging bodyguard rules so that they were untargetable. I didn't do that.
My dreadnought, brother Carlo Hobbes, and techmarine Calvinius galavanted across the battlefied with a 4+ invuln and guns. Life was good. It was perhaps a little unfair in crusade. I bought the Dark Angels leviathan to give brother hobbes an upgrade. And then tenth started getting spoiled. Armor focused! Tankier games! Sweet! Sternguard getting a refresh! Awesome! Moving away from primaris keywords! Life was good. PLASTIC LEVIATHAN KIT! Everything is coming up millhouse! And then: leviathans are too epic to be played in competitive play and are being moved to legends. The one-two punch of plastic kit and immediate legendsing immediately erased all cred GW had slowly been earning with me. I was really bummed. I obviously wasn't going to go pick up 30K with hobbes. I didn't want to give them another cent. I found myself getting bitter and trying to make other people mad like I was. I was simultaneously bitter at GW for sacrificing the integrity of their game in order to get people to play another game (30k), and I was mourning the fun that I'd had with these models I'd loved painting. Then I came across this mockup on reddit.
A Leviathan Converted to a Ballistus!
I could do that! I could draw it up and I could print it! I could kill two birds with one stone: I could keep playing my favorite guys in 40k, and I could resist GW's insistence that I buy ballistus dreads!
