Voratus Hellbrute

Yes, this guy is the Hellbrute from Dark Vengeance box. After reading a bit about the Hellbrutes, I decided to change some things in him, like adding a flamethrower to his Power Fist and changing the Melta for a Twin Heavy Bolter. Also I think this model gets waaaay more scary without the head poking out of his maw. I added some (three) eyes too, as he is devoted to Nurgle, and that "brain thing" from the Tyranids also look cool as a exposed brain/tumor/something... 

For painting, damn, I think this model is the hardest to paint ever! There are a lot of small details, some barely extruded from the rest, a lot of curved surfaces... Took me quite some time and I'm not quite happy with him yet... 

---------------------

Voratus is a strange and disturbing creature, even for Nurgle standards. All started when a small corvette of Plague Marines found parts of a space hulk floating freely in the Warp. Trying to savage something, they found an almost intact suit of Dreadnought, never used before, disassembled and stored in a room, inside one of the floating pieces of spaceship. The Dreadnought was recovered and restored by the Dark Mechanicus, and them stored at the corvette. 

Answering the call to arms issued by the Devourers of Flesh, the Plague Marines traveled to Meteora, but as soon as they left the Warp they were ambushed by Imperial ships and their corvette was obliterated. The gravity of planet Meteora attracted the debris and the Dreadnought made planetfall, being rescued by Dark Mechanicus devoted to Nurgle and to the Devourers. 

After the betrayal of Drake Blackwolf and the furious battle of Nurgle against Khorne marines at Red Peak, the Devourers captured a berserk captain of their treacherous former ally, and it was decided that, as revenge, the prisoner would be changed into a Hellbrute, to be unleashed against the Blood Wolves Contemptors in battle. 

The berserk was locked inside the recovered (and again restored) Dreadnought and the proper rituals and sacrifices were made, changing the hulking machine into a mix of diseased flesh and rotten bone. Less than a week after the creation of the Hellbrute the Dark Mechanicus perceived that the life signs of the prisoner inside were faltering, and decided to open the creature and try to save the "pilot" (dying is a blessing when you are sentenced to suffer forever...). Once open, there was no sign of any astarte ever being entombed within the machine. In desperate need of the monster for the frontlines, the Devourers drew straws to see who would "replace" the berserk, and a young marine named Avoukan was unlucky enough to be chosen.

Also three days after the entombment, Avoukan life signs started to dim, and the Mechanicus again opened the monster to find it completely empty. This time a prisoner Blood Wolf was chosen and stuffed inside the Dreadnought. The creature was chained to a repair bay and closely monitored by the Dark Mechanicus. And once more the same phenomenon happened, the prisoner life signs went out and the Hellbrute was hollow again. 

The Dark Techpriest Arguellus sent for Ahriman of the Thousand Sons, in hope that the sorcerer could understand and solve this weird problems. Ahriman examined the Hellbrute for days and came to a conclusion, the Dreadnought suit had developed a mind of it's own while lost in the Warp, and became a (more or less) living entity. The tomb inside it was taken by the creature as some kind of stomach, and the pilots were just digested to death by the monster. Following Ahriman schematics and directions, the Dark Mechanicus adapted a circular lamprey-like maw and a disgusting esophagus full of teeth, connecting the "stomach" to the front hull. Feed with human meat, the Hellbrute would awake and function like expected (an insane and dangerous machine of stomping stuff and killing people mindlessly) , even procuring more "food" at the battlefield to feed itself and be awaken for longer periods of time. A particularly gruesome note is the fact that the Mechanicus never added a rectum to the monster, so the Hellbrute have to puke all the remains of his "food", usually storing the disgusting excrement inside it's esophagus and them vomiting the stuff over some enemy foolish or unlucky enough to be nearby (also it sometimes does the same with the Dark Mechanicus priests while being loaded or unloaded before combat...). The plate under it's maw is permanently tainted with acid and remains of excrement.

Named "Voratus" ("Devourer" in High Gothic) by the marines devoted to Nurgle, the Hellbrute is kept as a centerpiece in Hansell strategies, usually loaded with twin heavy bolters and a weird fleshy "sack" under it's powerfist, that produces and sprays a mix of acids that burn and corrode like flaming promethium. Also the Mechanicus (maybe as a "counter-joke" to the constant pukings of the monster) started their own personal sport, painting Voratus' plates pristine white before battle and them gambling about how much blood, filth and dust it will gather when the fight is over...