The Evolution of The Dreadnought

In 40k we all know dreadnoughts, if it wasn't for them War Machine wouldn't be the game it is, and with a game that has nearly 30 years of history there have been several versions of this venerable war machine. My own taste is to Imperial machines, and as you can see I've got a few. The only ones I can point to and say it is missing from my collection are the the old metal chaos chuck that had a skull and a wasp sting, the 4 weapon chaos dreadnought from Mission Dreadnought for Space Crusade, the new Hellbrute and the plastic Furioso pattern. Dreads started out as an upgrade unit for Guard, back when they had Predators and Land Raiders as well, and Marines. The orginal Dread had 3 versions , Chuck, Eddy and Fred, each had one build from the standard bits and GW made 2 sets of legs, one short, one long and 2 body styles, one with narrow shoulders and one with wide shoulders. I'm not to sure how long this style lasted, but my oldest Codex, Angels of Death, shows the next Dreads along as standard and these are the style that most of you will know as a Dread, I've got 2 of these types, one metal Furioso and one standard that I'm using as a Mortis Pattern. Next to them is the orginal Venerable Dreadnought, if you kept the old DA codex you can see a picture of it in there. The top row shows the evolution of the metal dread and the bottom row shows the evolution of the plastic dreads. The first plastic I know of came out in the MB/GW cross over game Space Crusade and the Dreadnought found it's place in the Chaos Android section of the enemy side of the game, this style, to my mind, owes something to Ed 209 from Robocop. In the supplement this style got an upgrade an upper weapon deck was added to it so it could field 4 guns, this is one of the types I don't have. Next up is the plastic standard Dreadnought which is what is with us now, along side this should sit the Ironclad Dreadnought, but I forgot to get it out of the box for this family photo so have added one from an older post. Next to that are the 3 plastic Blackreach Dreadnought. This was the first dread squeezed into a big box, it sits a little smaller than a standard dread and only had one build but it's still the most common dread on ebay and you can do a fair bit with it if you put your mind to it as I've made a counts as Bjorn The Fell Handed out of one and a wrecked dread out of another. Next up is the plastic Venerable dread, not as tall and not as decorated as the metal version but you do get lots of bits in the box. And lastly is the Forge World Contemptor. The only thing more modern is the Hell Brute from the Dark Vengence box set but I not a fan of that model and the Chaos Decimator, but I'm torn on wither or not to have the Chaos Decimator on this list as it is classed as a Daemon Engine not a Dreadnought.