Contemptor Month - Chicken Soup for the Space Marine's Soul

Bustin' out.

I have to make a confession: before I saw the contemptor dreadnought in person, I didn't like it. At all. I thought it looked like a big space marine and was weirdly shaped with curves everywhere.

Iron Hands

At Games Day last summer I checked one out at the exhibition booths. I really liked the look of it up-close, and the weapon options definitely grew on me. Plus these things were purposely built for the Badab War campaign. I had to have one. Or three.

Thousand Sons

I was inspired mostly by seeing all of the different contemptors posted around the interwebs. There were so many cool ones out there - people really went all out to produce a centerpiece model. Some inspirations:

Love the weathering and the plasma cannon on this one.

Wings look great (although I don't know how the thing would move around with them on it) and I really like the cyclone missile launcher.

Tiger claws! So many of the contemptors have been posed in a very dynamic, action-oriented pose.

Really clean, well done. The helmets on these models draw so much of your attention.

One can't help but be inspired by Forge World's Astral Claws contemptor. The Maelstrom Warders logo on his knee is something I tried to replicate on my first Contemptor.

After scouring the web for pictures of contemptors to check out, I started on my first one a few months ago. I chose to just do a normal lascannon + fist arm like the regular Forge World one. I don't think they had Relic contemptors at the time I purchased so I just bought the regular one.

Brother Natian is the one on the right. You can see how much bigger they are than regular dreads and how they look more like they're actually moving and wouldn't fall over. He also has a Maelstrom Warders logo on his knee.

For this Contemptor I chose the relic pattern because I already had the regular pattern. I also chose to get a variety of weapons - multi-melta, fist arm, and heavy conversion beamer (it looks so cool). I also picked up a cyclone missile launcher because they look really awesome, plus it is another gun to shoot.

Natian is really well weathered, so I imagine the new one will be too. These dudes are very, very, very old. Especially for the Mantis Warriors - after they were 'censured' for 'rebelling' by the 'Space Marine government fat cats' they didn't get much in the way of new equipment.

Check back next week for my thoughts on how to build and equip my contemptor!