Long Range Recon Dreadnought.

Sonder76 · 2025-10-03T20:27:35Z

This is my heavily converted LRRD or Long Range Recon Dreadnought.

Painted in the colours of my own chapter the Storm Crows.

This conversion is now in its 3^rd variant. I have made this attempt 3 times and I think I’m finally happy with how its turned out. I will post images below of the first and second attempts so you have references to what I’m about to post.

The first attempt was built in 2013. I wanted a dreadnought that looked fast. A model that looked like it was moving fast and capable of faster but also wasn’t posed in an unbalanced running stance.

In 2013 I didn’t have a kid and wasn’t married… so this model had an insane amount of money thrown at it but I never felt like I stuck the landing with the design. I now have both a wife and a kid and really didn’t want to spend a lot of money in a 3^rd attempt at remaking this idea so the next best thing was to rework what I had already…… again.

The model has lots of components over the 3 attempts and a fair few of them are no longer on the finished design. The main core of the model is made from 2 Imperial Guard Sentinel kits for the legs and arms and a Space Marine Venerable Dreadnought kit for the core body.

Over the 3 iterations of this model some parts have come and gone as I focussed in on what I wanted. The weapons systems have totally changed from the 1^st and 2^nd attempts. The carapace has been altered and then completely changed. The power system and exhausts have been ditched for a completely unique design and then the “head” has been totally reworked by using the targeting lenses from a Predator tank.

With the first attempt I felt I captured the concept of movement and speed in the model. It looked like it was moving and would cover ground rapidly but the original attempt actually looks like its seconds away from falling. The power mace didn’t quite work the way I envisioned and the twin auto-cannon simply didn’t look or feel real.

The 2^nd swing I took at this model was 3 years later in 2016. I was building a small Carcharadons force at the time and felt this dread could fit nicely. I decided to revisit the weapons on the model. At the time I felt the weapons were the main issue so I simplified the left arm by removing the mace and converting the power fist from the venerable dread into the claw weapon that is still in use. I tried different ideas for this but most liked the scale of the claws from the Abaddon The Despoiler model. The gun was also reworked. I wanted the weapon to look plausible but to be able to count as either a twin auto-cannon or a counts as assault cannon. Again I dipped into the predator kits for this and used the barrel along with some other parts.

During this time I realised that I hated the exhausts. I hated that whole engine slapped on the back of the model but I didn’t have any real idea in my mind that would work well as a replacement, so I left it in place.

Oh and a banner was added. That was from an undead sprue I think.

The Carcharadon variant sat on a shelf for 8 years. Every time I looked at it I felt it wasn’t finished. For a long time I thought the issue that bugged me was I rushed the paint job. It looked drab an while this is true, eventually I realised that the model itself wasn’t finished.

However, I worried that if I tried to change it, I might get dragged into a forever build unless I had a clear idea of what I was aiming for.

I decided there were 3 things that I wanted to improve.

1 - The engine. I hated the noise and smoke that the base design suggested.

2 - The weapon. I really wanted an assault cannon look but with maybe a 3 barrel design. I planned to scratch build this using brass tubing however I knew this would be intensive and this was the main reason I put off starting the rebuild.

3 - The sarcophagus / carapace. I was dead set on changing the exposed helmet of the occupant.

My initial thoughts on this 3^rd part were that the model should maybe look faceless but I quickly realised it gave the model no character. You couldn’t tell where he was looking so the model looked soulless.

For the longest time nothing happened and it kept floating around my head and I kept coming up with different ideas but nothing stuck.

Then everything changed when I was in an FLGS (Travelling Man in Newcastle, UK.) and stumbled on the Armoured Core Weapons Set 04.
The assault cannon in this set is huge BTW… The scale of these things is not even close to 40k so I had to dramatically cut down the barrel length in order for it to look acceptable but I think it worked out well and was just big enough to look intimidating but not so big It dominates the model.

The discovery of that kit propelled the rebuilding of this dreadnought from a distant future idea to the number one project on my desk.

I kept most of the model in place, the pose was good and the arm positions I was happy with.

The assault cannon arm was a complete rework to incorporate the new parts and for it to look like it has full operational systems and ammo storage in place.

The actual ammo drum for the Armoured Core weapon along with a Terminator teleport beacon became the new “power source”. A quieter, no smoke power plant for a machine that might need some degree of stealth rather than furture tech powered by a 1989 tractor engine.

The biggest issue was redesigning the head. I had no idea what to do and almost decided to just keep the original base design and maybe opt for the slitted sarcophagus. Then came a moment when I was messing with the Predator targetting lenses that I removed from the weapon on the 2^nd variant and I almost jokingly placed it over the gap where the helmet had been and it just seemed to work.

My only issue with this “head” on that body was that it almost looks Tau. To try and get past the Tau look I added the antenna. They don’t change much but add a slightly more 40k Imperial look……. Maybe?

I think I have hit what I wanted originally and in some ways I have gone further than I expected. Relentless, Stealthy, Fast, Deadly, Cold.

3^rd time lucky. I honestly think I’m done with this model. I really like how it looks. Its got just the right amount of uniqueness but also looks aligned with the 40k aesthetic.

I cant use him in a Warhammer store but ill accept that small price to pay for using non GW parts.

Let me know what you think. If you think something looks dumb or doesn’t work, feel free to say. I wont take offence. It would be interesting to hear reactions & opinions.