# Word Bearers Mhara Gal Tainted Dreadnought



## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

The model we saw previews for during the HH Weekender event is finally here, a twisted Contemptor now warped by the powers of the... warp.




























http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/The_Horus_Heresy/Legiones_Astartes/Word_Bearers/MHARA_GAL.html

RULES: http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/Downloads/Product/PDF/M/Mhara Gal.pdf

I personally feel like this is one of the rare instances that FW releases a lousy sculpt. This thing is fugly, which in and of itself could actually work, considering what it is. Doesn't work for me, but I'm sure others will love it.


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## Uveron (Jun 11, 2011)

With the correct Paint job it would look ace. 

Iam not a fan though... but Iam not a fan of the other possessed they do eather.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

I love the Gal Vorbak! Similar aesthetic to this monstrosity, but pulled off well IMO.

With this Contemptor, I think it's the waist. All Contemptors have a relatively fat torso on a skinny waist, but those torsos are somewhat squat and the look works. This Mhara Gal has a much longer torso on the same skinny waist, so it looks like a stiff breeze would snap it in half.


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## Khorne's Fist (Jul 18, 2008)

Not a fan. Looks a bit rushed, tbh.


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

I think it does the possessed/Helbrute look pretty decently. I mean that sort of thing isn't really supposed to look "nice" but horribly twisted from what you'd normally expect.

It may not be everyone's taste but I think they nailed the core idea nicely.


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## Svartmetall (Jun 16, 2008)

Decent concept, poorly executed.


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## SwedeMarine (Jun 3, 2013)

Maybe with a different paint job this would look better. As it is its pretty bad looking.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Yep. This is not successful. 

It's a good idea . . . But as Svart said poorly executed. 

I really like the mutated aesthetic when done well. I really like the old Rogue Trader chaos dreadnoughts, which is what I think this is trying to reference. 
Both of mine have been converted, but you can clearly see the spinal column like edging and organic forms. 









I think the Gal Vorbak mostly work as do the plastic possessed. 

This on the other hand looks too messy, too much of a hodge podge, too "Mr Potato Head" to work for me. Granted it might be a more realistic rendition of a mutated dreadnought but it looks stupid. 

I have trouble with the teeth in the middle of the chest, the spindly waist, the bulbous upper torso.


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## Stormxlr (Sep 11, 2013)

Whatever dudes, I think it looks sick as hell! Would look amazing with 40k chaos marines with all the mutated and chaosed up corrupted machines.


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## gen.ahab (Dec 22, 2009)




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## Svartmetall (Jun 16, 2008)

Kreuger said:


> I have trouble with the teeth in the middle of the chest, the spindly waist, the bulbous upper torso.


The chest-teeth would be fine if they were sculpted better and had a sense of being properly inset into the model's physionomy, but those look like someone's whittled the end of some cocktail sticks and stuck them on randomly - there's no sense of a jawbone for them to be anchored to and emerge from, it's effectively 5 similarly-sized badly-done teeth sat in the middle of nowhere with no mutational context and no sense of a jawline of teeth that starts somewhere and goes somewhere. I don't know if those are meant to be intestines in the centre of the torso, directly below the head, but if they are they are also very poorly sculpted, as bad as the _piss-poor_ intestines on the plastic Herald Of Nurgle sculpt. The torso's proportions would be fine if the waist as beefed up with some vertebrae-like segments and possibly some strands of flesh to bulk it out somewhat.

This makes me want to start on the Death Guard Contemptor that's been sat on my shelf since just before GW made me redundant, just to show them how this sort of thing can be done; this is not at all the standard I expect from FW.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

Thank you professor @Svartmetall for your lesson. =) 

Few people can use "physiognomy" in a sentence let alone unironically when discussing the "mutational context" of a model. 

That's a very long way of saying, 'it's nice to see you posting again.'


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## Old Man78 (Nov 3, 2011)

Not a fan, looks half arsed to me, like the sculpter could not be bothered, i would rather get a normal contemptor and add spikey bits!!!!!!


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Love it. It looks twisted, tainted and insane. And those rules! They are awesome;

-Any attack made by fire/heat/plasma weapons is reduced by S1.
-Any attack made by a model with less than T7 or AV13 takes a To Hit modifer of -1 in combat.
-Upon death the Mhara Gal explodes with a 7" blast marker, any model caught in the blast suffers a S6, AP5 Barrage hit with Soul Blaze.
-Fear tests against the unit have a -2 modifier.
-All Daemons and Psykers within 6" of the Mhara Gal suffer a S5, AP2, Ignores Cover hit at the end of the turn.
-Model completely ignores Dangerous Terrain and suffers no penalties when moving through it.
-Any successful Invincible Save made against an attack from the Tainted Power Claw,S10, AP2, must be re-rolled. (Only the first)
-Any unit that suffers a casualty from the Warpfire Plasma Cannon, S8, AP2, 36", must take a Morale Check as if 25% of the unit had been lost.

This thing is a beast, would be great at savaging TEQs and units that rely on ++ Saves. I want one for my CSM army, a Black Legion version with Niliahk Oxide shining out of the cracks and indentations. :grin:


LotN


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

I agree with the paint job, It is shyte. Also enough with placing mouths on the torso, Possessed get away with it and it looks cool on the possessed, but here it is out of whack, out of balance.

Speaking of balance it certainly has none of that, I mean that waist is dainty at best, exceptionally fragile at worst.

Shyte Model, probably the recasters in China/Russia will have to fix it up as usual to get a decent copy and at 1/4 of the cost.

Another GW Fail


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

After reading the rules, which are pretty fearsome I think somebody at FW went "Uh, that's not one of our best models. Well, we just need to give it nasty rules to ensure it sells!"


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## SonofVulkan (Apr 14, 2010)

Poor model, needs more daemon showing through.


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## Kreuger (Aug 30, 2010)

I'm actually going to recant one of my criticisms.

I just spent a little while looking through all the Contemptor Dreads on ForgeWorld's site, and the waist in Mhara Gal isn't any skinnier than on other contemptors. It's just a little more obvious because it doesn't have the same armor plate which typically hangs down in front of it. And that ball joint/waist is _really _obvious from the rear.

I wish they did a better job on this guy. 

After doing some reading over on Stuff of Legends, it is increasingly clear to me that these new dreads are a recreation of the original Rogue Trader dreadnoughts. And Mhara Gal is likely the only really chaosy dreadnought we'll get. Not that the legion ones aren't cool, but I'd like to see dreads with some more corruption, but less . . . dopey.

Stuff of Legends: Rogue Trader Dreadnoughts & Robots.

You will noticed that the dreadnought classes are:

Contemptor class dreadnought
Deredeo class dreadnought
Furibundus class dreadnought
and Chaos dreadnought

And Forge World have release many contemptor classes, a deredeo class, and now a mutant chaos dread. It would not surprise me if they release a Furibundus class (or similar name) in the near future.


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Achaylus72 said:


> I agree with the paint job, It is shyte. Also enough with placing mouths on the torso, Possessed get away with it and it looks cool on the possessed, but here it is out of whack, out of balance.


Well since this is basically a Possessed Dreadnought, surely it isn't out of balance for it to have similar features to the Possessed Marines kit.


LotN


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## Nordicus (May 3, 2013)

Achaylus72 said:


> Also enough with placing mouths on the torso, Possessed get away with it and it looks cool on the possessed, but here it is out of whack, out of balance.


But I think it looks cool :cray: Am I the only one here, beyond Lord of he Night who thinks it looks awesome?


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## Deus Mortis (Jun 20, 2009)

I think it looks pretty cool, but only in so much as Chaos lots-of-teeth-claws-and-flesh can look cool. The slight disproportion of the waist isn't a big deal for me since Daemons basically ignore physics, so the disproportionality almost makes it _more_ accurate.

Sadly though, I'm still slightly bitter that this guy is 235 and an absolute fucking beast and Rylanor, whose basically a Contemptor with a Kheres, Venerable, Crusader and +1 to combat resolution within 24" costs 255. It just worries me that we might be seeing a power creep in 30k and that was one of the main reasons I left 40k and went over to 30k. 

But one of the other reasons (which was actually more important) was that the models look cool as hell, and I still feel that's true so I'm still sitting happy


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

dunno about you, but 6 auto arrive outflanking Legion Dreads with double haywire and i5 ap2 phoenix terminators with Cruader (rember crusader works defensively) in a Spartan work reasonably well. Throw in some Sniper vets in a rhino to take on mc's, some scoring bolter armed Tacticals, and maybe Eidolon and Palatines in an Anvillus/Kharybdis While Deredeos back you up.

Word Bearers only reason to power before now was due to Gal Vorbak and Daemon allies from the stupid cheap Erebus (the Rite of War costs are too expensive), while this Daemon Dread gives them some more oomph it is still ripped apart by Grav Haywire and the ever increasing number of melta weapons as Armoured Ceramite goes out of fashion. 

Just don't get in an assault With it


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## Deus Mortis (Jun 20, 2009)

Vaz said:


> Snip



Oh don't get me wrong, the Emperor's Children as a legion are very viable, and Eidolon's a god damn steal (seriously he's 5 points less than a Praetor with all the same weapons and none of his rules). My minor bitching is that the loyalist characters like Rylanor and Tarvitz suck eggs, but it is only minor.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Nordicus said:


> But I think it looks cool :cray: Am I the only one here, beyond Lord of he Night who thinks it looks awesome?


I think so! uke:


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

venomlust said:


> I think so! uke:


Hey now, I like it! FW's paint jobs tend to not do the models justice lately (the filgree on the Imperial Fists you can't see because they painted it yellow for example). There is a *lot* of potential for the model, but it needs to be painted correctly to bring it out:


































I mean I love the HH sculpts, but damn it seems like FW just can't paint them well enough to do the models real justice.


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## Lord of the Night (Nov 18, 2009)

Zion said:


> Hey now, I like it! FW's paint jobs tend to not do the models justice lately (the filgree on the Imperial Fists you can't see because they painted it yellow for example). There is a *lot* of potential for the model, but it needs to be painted correctly to bring it out:
> 
> I mean I love the HH sculpts, but damn it seems like FW just can't paint them well enough to do the models real justice.


Indeed, plus the Word Bearers colour scheme is one of the weaker Traitor Legion patterns. To me those indentations all over the model are crying out for Nihilakh Oxide or something similar to be poured into them, so the model looks like unholy light is streaming out of it. Wish they did a red Oxide style colour.

I'll definitely be getting one of these eventually.


LotN


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

Word Bearers had two colors: first grey then red. Both can work, but some extra care needs to be applied. Also you need a contrasting color in the runes to make them pop. Either making them darker, or with their paint scheme here, brighter like they are glowing. Otherwise they blend in too much and you lose a lot of the detail that people are buying the model for.


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## Achaylus72 (Apr 30, 2011)

Zion said:


> Hey now, I like it! FW's paint jobs tend to not do the models justice lately (the filgree on the Imperial Fists you can't see because they painted it yellow for example). There is a *lot* of potential for the model, but it needs to be painted correctly to bring it out:
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think seeing it in the raw is much better, I have gotten a better perspective on the model and it does look cool. A better paint job would have brought out the model better.

So thumbs up for the model, thumbs down for the paint job. I now like the model.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Flip flopper! :grin:


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## Zion (May 31, 2011)

venomlust said:


> Flip flopper! :grin:


You're just mad because you know @Achaylus72 is right.

Seriously though, I always try and look at the models without paint. Sometimes you see things that FW obscured in their paint scheme, _especially_ when it comes to the Heresy models.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

I still don't like this thing, but you're definitely right.

The Red Butchers are AMAZING models, IMO, but the paint job is just so lackluster on the FW site.

Compare










to










and it's like, WTF?


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## Stormxlr (Sep 11, 2013)

To people who complain about skinny waist, look at an Imperial Knights, they also have impossibly skinny waist. As do MKV and MKIV Dreadnoughts, those shouldn't be even be able to walk properly with those stumpy legs and should be so easily flipped on their backs with the tiniest push.


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## DaisyDuke (Aug 18, 2011)

I like it to Nordicus but the pose is pretty lame and also not sure about the head.


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## venomlust (Feb 9, 2010)

Stormxlr said:


> To people who complain about skinny waist, look at an Imperial Knights, they also have impossibly skinny waist. As do MKV and MKIV Dreadnoughts, those shouldn't be even be able to walk properly with those stumpy legs and should be so easily flipped on their backs with the tiniest push.


Both of those do have skinny waists but look quite balanced to me. This one just looks off. It's all just our opinion, anyway.

For all my smack-talking, if you guys like it that's fine. I'm happy for you and your ugly daemon-dread. When's the wedding? :angel:


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## DeathKlokk (Jun 9, 2008)

It's hideous, and not in a good way. I love the FW possessed but this dread looks ridiculous. The pose makes it look like a toddler trying to stand.


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## Vaz (Mar 19, 2008)

toddler trying to stand? Looks like it's trying to tiptoe more like


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## forkmaster (Jan 2, 2010)

Stormxlr said:


> To people who complain about skinny waist, look at an Imperial Knights, they also have impossibly skinny waist. As do MKV and MKIV Dreadnoughts, those shouldn't be even be able to walk properly with those stumpy legs and should be so easily flipped on their backs with the tiniest push.


I don't like the skinny Knights either. I have no problem with the paint job and the only issue I have is perhaps that it looks too thin. Otherwise it works.


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