March of the machines.

Over the last year I've been using a Deff Dread and a pair of Killa Kanz. All armed with big shootas I've found them to be a little underwhelming. Even though a Kan did finish off a Dread Knight in close combat they have generally under performed in most games.
Having looked at the options and still loving the Idea of these clanking behemoths of war, over the last few months I've picked up a box of Kans and a new dread. see how things have changed after the break.

Largely I was dissatisfied with the performance of the Big shootas. By having them I felt they needed to be be used yet they rarely did more then cause a wound a turn if I was lucky, yet by using shooting I lost the extra movement I could have gained from running. 
In the past I have dismissed a run move as too random and often not worth it. However in the game VS Dave's Imperial Guard I did manage a few run moves and found it helps a lot more than I would have expected.
Knowing I didn't want to throw all my eggs in one basket and go with just Klaws (in part because fitting 2 more Klaws on Da Krab would look weird) Skorchers where the obvious choice.

Step one consisted of picking up a model for WWII U.S. Field Maintenance Yard containing lots of barrels, canisters and bitz.

 WWII U.S. Field Maintenance Yard from tamiya

Along with some more parts from the Robogear kits I managed to build up a pair of skorchers and with the help of some magnets replaced Da Krabs big shootas. Happy with the results I then began considering options for Killa Kans along with the possibilities for some skorcha wartracks, as I didn't have any great nozzles bitz left for scratch building and only one old metal skorcha it was a bit of a problem. After dropping into my local GW and chatting with the member of staff I picked up a box of killa kans, hoping to get 3 off each weapon options.
His marines had suffered on several occasions at the hands of Grotzookas and since marines are often an issue for me I wanted in on the action.
Of cause you actually get a much more limited selection of weapons....

With three new Kans the first stage was to sort out my current models and get rid of the badly performing big shootas. With spares from the Mega Gargant dismantled for gothic, more robogear and the Rokkit arm from the Kanz kit I'm going to take advantage of the Grot pilots BS 3 and set them up with Rokkits.

Rokkit Kanz

While adding a good batch of rokkits I also took the opportunity to tidy up my scratch built Kan a little and add a big glyph to the front 

Scratch built Rokkit

Next up was to tackle the Grotzookas, as the kit only comes with one I would have to improvise for the second. It took about a month to for me to get round to assembling all of the kanz and in particular decide how to go about building a second grotzooka. In that time I picked up a Deff Dread and with a combination of the spare Feet, a burna bomba missile, and a load of bitz the second grotzooka was finished. 

Grotzooka Kanz

Scratch built Grotzooka

Finally I wanted to finish the last Kan, grabing the old metal Skorcha I had in my bitz box and a barrel from the Tamiya kit supplied the last bitz needed for my Kanz

Skorcha Kan

Next up was the assembly of my new Def Dread. With my choose of weapons on Da Krab made I decided that a pair rocking up the field could only be a good thing. Since the lower weapons on the deff dread usually don't have arms it was a choice between cutting down the killa kan skorcha or extending the single (WTF why single!!!) Def Dread one. So grabbing a spare Big shoota arm and the remaining skorcha from the Kanz kit I set about making a pair of skorcha arms for him.

Big ol Stompy Def Dread.

Simple kit bash for lower arms. 

With all the new kits about There was one last thing to do. Da Krab's claws now looked weedy and small next to the new kits and I noticed this after picking up the Killa kans. Fortunately the solution was an easy one. Since the Kans come with an extra CCW the big chain claw was the perfect replacement and along with a second from the Def Dread kit . The addition of a lower jaw piece from the Def Dread kit finished Da Krab's improvements. 

Pimp my Dread

This means I now have seven fully assembled walkers ready to rock and can field the apocalypse walker formation to boot. I have plans to pick up another 3 Kanz to fill out my options with one more of each.

Sadly though I was a little disappointed at the number of options within the kit and it would have been nice to be able to get a couple of each weapon. in particular the Def Dread should include a second Skorcha as the pair and CCWs is a solid option. Still I always enjoy building things so at least the initial disappointment was washed away. Since taking the photos they whole lot has been undercoated. Da Krabs new jaw has been painted to match and the next job for painting is to finish the Claws and do the skorchas.

Once I finish my 1000 points I have plans to reward myself with a Stompa and Escalation. A quick and fun way for me to build Gargshuv's forces up to 2000 points along with some burna boyz.

For now though have fun and as usual all C&Cs welcome.