Written by I decided I it was time to to resurrect my Salamander Space Marine force as they hadn’t seen the light of day for a while and needed an new Leader…
Salamanders have always been one of my favourite chapters and in my opinion one of the best in 40k, fearsome warriors that have a sense of kinship with humans in the 40k universe.
I wanted to add something to the force to add some variety. I’ve always loved the aesthetic of dreadnoughts in 40k but not their function in the game they never seemed to function like I would expect.
So with the change in 8th edition and how dreadnoughts work I decided to add one. I did my research and I settled on Bray’arth Ashmantle, the walking behemoth to join my 2nd company badab era salamanders.
I started with a mk iv venerable dreadnought kit and promptly kit bashed a banner and scratch built a firestorm cannon.
It didn’t strike me with the presence that I wanted for my HQ in the way I wanted and they just didn’t match what I thought Bray’arth should be. I thought surely he would be BIG and more in line with the heresy dreadnought’s and I looked to the largest dreadnought out there, the leviathan.
I brought the set and the started to customise him with green stuff to make it more a salamander model.
I added a new salamander chapter logo, which I used a blustuff press mould from the GW Vulkan model. I’ve added some purity seals, a coat d’arms on his leg from a grey knight box. I also took the time to magnetise one of the arms to give me options in the future.
I built the custom base and posed the model in a just advanced and surveying stance which I think came out pretty well.
I took to painting the model, started with spraying of Caliban green and working my way up to warpstone glow. It took far too many layers to get where I wanted. I’ve not fully finished but it’s at a good standard for me.
This has made me feel the need of a airbrush and I think that’s going to be one of my next purchases. I’ve got some more centurions and aggressors to add to my force.
I freehanded the name and the flames.
Here is the magnetised arm which means I can run a leviathan dreadnought when the need takes me.
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Painting In The Dark 
This guy iiiiiis cool. I remember going up against him in his previous incarnation and was surprised (and horrified) at how bonkers his rules were. He was an absolute beast… And his new body tells it how it is, i already love how he looks, great job on the fire and highlights. Cant wait to see the rest of the stuff go up.
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Thanks man. I spent a fair amount of time researching Bray’arth and found that he would be very similar to Dracos from the Horus Heresy. So it would be right to be in a leviathan.
I’ve been on the look for a deredeo.
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Great work on the Leviathan! The green is quite lovely!
I do think you could have done more with the big flat panels on his torso armour, though: A couple of cleanly applied decals there would elevate an already awesome model to the next stage: Maybe a chapter badge on the one side, and a company number or a motto on the other?
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Agreed I’ve been thinking about what to do was thinking of some flames or salamander logo as freehand.
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If you’re into freehanding that stuff, don’t let me stop you! 🙂
Come to think of it, the larger scale of Dreadnoughts really lends itself incredibly well to addig the kind of detail that really sells them as an actual, storied war machine, and for me, all kinds of symbols (in my case, decals) have become a part of that — stuff like a small warning sign near the reactor section, legion or company designation or personal heraldry. It rarely works that way for the smaller infntry models, but on Dreadnoughts, the simple act of picking the symbols and figuring out what goes where has become part of the fun for me 😉
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Yes! Agree I’ve been taking my time I’m thinking of putting hazard stripes over the ammo feeds. And maybe a black chapter symbol.
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