Ferrum Infernus Dreadnought
Coming just 15 points short of a 1.50 the ferrum is an expensive dreadnought. It is armor 12 front and side, it has 3 hull points, and constitutes an infernal relic (meaning you need a warpsmith, abaddon, or a sorceror with malefic daemonology to take more than one), and causes fear. The ferrum comes stock with a dreadnought close combat weapon and a multi-melta.
You can replace the multi-melta with the standard weapons and some not so standard, like a power scourge or thunder hammer. However, the only options to replace the close combat weapon is: a missile launcher, chainfist with twin-linked bolter, power scourge, or thunder hammer. Which is strange considering the ferrum is WS 5 and BS 5. At first glance I thought it could fulfill either role, close-combat or shooting. Alas, the weapon options for the close combat arm disprove that.
Of course you can give the ferrum malefic ammunition, but why would you? You can give the ferrum a dedication to any of the chaos gods, with their typical benefits; however, what sets the ferrum apart is the final entry allowing several upgrades: Lord of the Long War, Host of Daemonic Iron, and Destroyer of Cities.
Lord of the Long War- basically allows a 33% chance that when a ferrum explodes it will turn into a spawn, just die like normal, or turns into a daemon prince...Yeah.
Host of Daemonic Iron- gives the dreadnought daemonic resilience (2+ ignores shaken/stunned), and any unit in CC that takes a hull point off the ferrum suffers a str 4 ap 3 hit per hull point lost. yawn.
Destroyer of Cities- front armor gets +1, the ferrum gets move through cover, and when playing cities of death missions you get the wrecker stratagem for free. The assault drill the ferrum acquires is x2 str ap 2 armorbane.
The only problem I see with the ferrum is a common problem in the codex. Great stuff, but everything comes at a steep point cost. I don't really like random tables for competitive play, so if I had to take an upgrade it would be destroyer of cities, with a dedication to khorne. That only bumps the price to a steep 185. Getting it into CC would be difficult, and there are far better options for the elite slot.
Emperor's Children Sonic Dreadnought?
The reason for the question mark is because I don't really understand forgeworld's thinking on this entry. There's the ferrum, contemptor, and then the Emperor's Children sonic dreadnought. I mean, that is cool that they decided to give Slaanesh-oriented armies some love, but forgeworld also sells a variety of other legion-specific dreadnoughts. So why did they leave them out? Your guess is as good as mine. Writer's block?
Coming in 10 points higher than a ferrum, I would be expecting a greater focus shooting, alas the Sonic is BS/WS 5 same armor and hull points. It comes with a twin-linked sonic blaster, chainfist with inbuilt storm bolter, doom siren. This fills an elite slot. I think the one build that might work is the upgrade, warp amp (allows the Sonic to forego movement in order to double it shots). So by my calculations, the sonic blaster is salvo 2/3, str 4 ap5...If it doesn't move it would have 6 total shots and ignore cover.
You can upgrade the weapons as normal, with the addition of the blastmaster. Even that plus the warp amp upgrade would only give you 2x str 8 ap 3 large blast, ignore cover shots. So it could potentially fill the roll of skimmer killer, but it would be much better if it had an ap value of 2. It would show that the unit has a purpose. Sadly, for the point cost I think better more point-efficient alternatives could be found.
Chaos Contemptor Dreadnought
Well you definitely see a natural progression in exceedingly high point costs. This monster is nearly 200, he has one less BS than the previous two dreadnoughts, but he comes with a front armor value of 13. Much more resilient in my opinion. The Contemptor comes with a twin-linked heavy bolter, dreadnought close combat weapon with combi-bolter. The kickers...
Hellfire Reactor- 4+ inv against all glancing hits, and a 6+ inv against penetrating hits. Any psyker in CC takes an auto-hit of str2 ap 2 at initiative 10. If an explosion is rolled on the vehicle damage table add D3 to the radius of that blast, and count it as soul blaze.
It has fleet and adamantium will. You can upgrade your heavy bolter to a multi-melta for free, take a twin-linked autocannon for the cost of extra armor. It has bonus options such as conversion beamer and butcher cannon. Here's where I think it starts to get better, the contemptor can trade it's dreadnought close combat weapon for a heavy bolter or multi-melta for free, a twin-linked autocannon for the price of a dozer blade...why not the same cost as above? However, it can't take two conversion beamers, which makes me sad. You can take dedications and add a havoc launcher.
Originally I thought you could possibly take the two twin-linked autocannons and upgrade with malefic, which would be amazing in my opinion; however, the malefic ammo upgrade only works for heavy bolters. This is a really cool model with tons of options, and the hellfire reactor and front armor 13 gives it very good survivability in my opinion. Fleet will allow you to close distance to targets, but keep the Contemptor as cheap as possible if you are going to take it.
I would possibly recommend taking dedication to nurgle or tzeentch if you choose to make him CC-oriented. Nurgle bestows "it will not die" and we all know what tzeentch does, allowing invulnerable saves of 1 to be re-rolled. Since you have a 4++ on glances and a 6++ on penetrating hits (not just shooting) then that might be another possible way to kit the Contemptor out.
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