Bjorn the Fell-Handed

The venerable.

The ancient.

The dreadnought.

The Fell-Handed.

Yes.

Bjorn.

So, I've been watching a lot of battle-reports on youtube, and read Battle of the Fang by Chris Wraight, and decided that I want Bjorn on my team. Doesn't matter how I'd build my army, Bjorn has a place in my heart, and on my list.


The fluff
Bjorn walked the stars in the age of the primarchs. He was part of Leman Russ', the Space Wolves' primarch, personal Wolf Guard!

To summarize the history a little: way back in the day, in the middle of a feast back on Fenris, Leman Russ got a vision. He got up and gathered his Wolf Guard, all but Bjorn, and left! He said that he would return on the eve of the Wolftime (basically when rangarok, the apocalypse, the end of days, occurs), and left Bjorn in charge. Russ went for the Eye of Terror, and no-one has seen him since. For starters Bjorn was "temporarily" in charge, until it became clear Russ wasn't returning any time soon. Bjorn took the mantle of being the first Great Wolf (chapter master), and several centuries later, he was severly wounded in battle, and interred in a Dreadnought. He spent a lot of time on the front lines as a walking beheamoth of destruction, until he was entombed in stasis sleep like a lot of the dreadnoughts of the Space Wolves.

Every one hundred years he is awoken, unless situations arise that require his wisdom, expertise or skills in battle, to hold court at the Great Feast, where he retells the sagas of old.


The crunch
Bjorn is a really strong combatant, stronger than your standard Venerable Dreadnought. Comparing his base-stats with other dreadnoughts:
Bjorn is more pricey than the standard dreadnoughts; 220 points for Bjorn, 120 for a Venerable, and 95 for a standard. With the extra points his WS, BS and S is upped by 1, front armor upped by 1 to 13, and a standard of 4 attacks. Furthermore, he has a 5+ invulnerable save, and improves the Sieze the Initiative -roll by one (5+ to steal first turn!). He does, however, lose 1 point of initiative, down to 3, most probably because of his old age.

In a clearer format:

WS	BS	S	Front	Side	Rear	I	A	HP
6	6	7	13	12	10	3	4	3

Weapon-selection? He comes with a standard Assault Cannon, which can be swapped FOR FREE for the Helfrost Cannon or Plasma Cannon, or pay 5 points for the Twin-Linked Lascannon.

Assault Cannon, S 6 AP 4, Heavy 4 & Rending

Helfrost Cannon, focussed, S 8 AP 1, Heavy 1, Helfrost

Helfrost Cannon, dispersed, S 6 AP 3, Heavy 1, Helfrost, Blast

Plasma Cannon, S 7 AP 2, Heavy 1, Blast, Gets Hot

Twin-Linked Lascannon, S 9 AP 2, Heavy 1

Helfrost, bitches!

I'm running with the Helfrost Cannon, due to me, not having a proper amount of good anti-tank at the moment, BUT I left it unglued, so I can swap the gun for something else, should the need for it arise! The Helfrost special rule forces the target to make a strength-test when he suffers an unsaved wound. If he fails, he's frozen solid, and dies outright. Having a BS of 6, the scatter is lessened by 6 inches, so there's a high chance for it actually hitting dead-on, and insta-killing any T 4 units, and has a chance to freeze any multiple-wound characters with a higher toughness than 5. Quite sweet!

For his other hand, a heavy flamer and a relic, Trueclaw. S 10 AP 2, Master-crafted, Shred. Get in melee with him, and suffer 4 hits from that, with a WS of 6. First game I ever played, he slaughtered 2 Tau drones with a Hellfrost-blast and his heavy flamer, and slaughtered 2 Crisis suits in melee, before they fell back, and he destroyed the commander with a sweeping advance.

"I'll just pinch him a little there..."

The model

Okay, enough of the crunch... Here's the assembly and the painting... Unfortunately I didn't take much pictures during assembly, but I learned something annoyingly drastic, which I will cover next to a picture further down. I assembled and painted him in pieces, but decided that this is the last time I do that, as it gets VERY tedious.

There he is, still halfly unfinished. Painting the gold on the front wasn't as hard as I first imagined. On with the base, on with the layer. Didn't even shade it, and it turned out awesome. Also, what's up with the sarcophagi where the character inside has his head sticking out?

Like, come on, Murderfang. Really? One headshot, and you're out of commission!

That little drastic thing I mentioned? Yea, so I've sprayed a lot of things in the same cardboard box on our balcony, right? Problem there was, that the bottom got quite gunky from residue spray. Said gunk gets stuck on a modle-piece if it's resting against it. If your model is assembled, and standing on his base, then you're fine! Who cares about some gunk on the bottom of the base, right? Well, this was sprayed in pieces, and here is the result of what happened. Gunk, futile effort of scraping it off with a toothpick, aaaand the plastic's ruined.

An example of how it SHOULD look...

The claw itself... The box and Games Workshop has a lot of neat art on their site, and I tried replicating it. Turns out, using Lothern Blue as a base for it and White Scar for highlights/drybrushing had the wished effect of it!

And here we have him, with his arms off of him. Left these pieces unglued, so I can swap out his main weapon of I need to, or to just show the "Weapon destroyed" effect on him.









So yeah! There he is! One of the corner-stones of my army! What I've learned from painting and assembling him? Assemble first, paint later. A lot easier. Also, if using the same spray-box, use a sheet of paper or something to make the bottom less gunky every now and then... Again, highlighting and detailing is left to a later date, when I'm more confident in my skills.