Space Ork Super-attack Onslaughter Dreadnought

I've been very slowly building up a small Rogue Trader era Space Ork force, you can see the first ten painted minis here.

I'm not really collecting them for any reason, other than the sheer joy of revisiting my younger days, and I've no real goals. But one thing I really wanted was one of the original Ork Dreadnoughts. There's something so impractical about the design that I find really appealing, I mean, how does it even walk? It must need to swing from side to side, making accurate shooting nearly impossible. Mind you, these are Orks (though the BS of the Dreadnaught is surprisingly high).

They do crop up occasionally on evilbay, but always at a much higher price than I can justify.  I've seen some that I swear must have been built around a Faberge egg, so I had accepted that there would be a Dreadnaught shaped hole in my Space Ork force.

A Lucky find

But when recently browsing the FLGS (the same one where I got the Space Marine bits shown here) I saw this on the rack 

This is the Dreadnaught with the expansion kit added. It comes with a Heavy Flamer and a Heavy Plasma Gun, because in those days, orks used the same weaponry as the Imperium. It is missing a few bits though, the Gretchin pilot, the banner pole, and most significantly, one of the weapon mount arms.

Dreadnought - Seeks arm

Still, I bought it, hoping to cobble something together for the missing arm.

Then next day I found this on eBay, and for a reasonable price too (£3.50 plus postage*).

Not one but two weapon mount arms, and a lascannon

Now I have a complete enough Dreadnaught to build and paint, and a spare Lascannon. I might even magnetise the weapons so that I can swap them out.

Now this wasn't as cheap as when originally released (£3.50 for the basic Dreadnaught and another £2.50 for the expansion pack), but I consider it a good purchase, and, perhaps, a little reward for clearing out so much stuff recently.

Painting it (eventually)

I need to strip the new arm and the lascannon, and, as I mentioned, I'll look at making the weapons swapable.  I may even extend this to the one Ork with Heavy Weapon, in his case, a Missile Launcher.  I'm not sure what colour scheme to go for though.  The original models, both in White Dwarf etc and, IIRC my own, tneded to wards bright reds an similar.  It might be nice, given the khaki on my ten Raiders, to go for a similar sort of colour, it being Armour after all.  If you've any suggestions, please leave a comment.

I don't seem to be doing much painting at the moment, various other things, both hobby and otherwise, are taking up my time, but I'd like to get this done fairly soon. There are a few more infantry I'll paint first though, as I have a vague plan for my Space Orks.

*I'm baffled by this. Individual arm mounts sell for upwards of £8, and I've seen Lascannon fetch over £10. It does all seem to be genuine stuff.