Army Display Board WIP

I picked up the new Codex: Space Marines today and I'm VERY, VERY happy with it.  So happy, in fact, that I already started plotting out my Scouts only army list.  Scout Sergeant Telion is now a straight HQ, so you have a couple of options for a Battleforged army list.

#1 - Combined Arms Detachment.  Now that Telion is an HQ, you can field him as your required HQ.  This leaves Scout Squads as the Troops, Bikers and extra Land Speeder Storms as the Fast Attacks.

#2 - 10th Company Strike Force.  This is a new Formation included in the new Codex.  It's basically 3-5 Scout Squads or Scout Bike Squads with the option of also including Telion.

I'm still working out the details, but I did start an army display board for this force.  It's going to be a 2' x 2' board segment, so it'll fit in with a modular table setup.  I've got the general terrain layout set up.  The one bit that sort of looks like a footprint is totally going to be a giant footprint.  I'll write up a little fluff to go with this.  Some sort of Chaos Giant will figure in somehow.

While I was at the saw, I went ahead and cut out a couple of area terrain bases to use for the WIP terrain I posted earlier.  I'll most likely finish these up first, in between painting models and working on the display board.

Pig Iron Studios Helmets

As you can see from the below photo, I decided that my Scouts should have helmets.  Well, some of them at any rate.  I do plan on doing some Wolf Scouts with appropriately bare heads, but I generally like the ideas of helmets to go along with my Scout Armour.

The only bit of fluff I could find regarding Scout Helmets is in a Black Library short story about a Wolf Scout who is piloting his own space ship on some sort of mission.  I completely forget the name of the story, but at some point the Scout makes a comment about how he doesn't like wearing the helmet because the face plate is all glass and they tend to shatter and cut up your face.

Given this, I wanted glass faced helmets.

Sample Scouts with Glass Front Helmets

I finally found what I was looking for on the Pig Iron Studios website.  The helmets are called HD.19 System Trooper Alternative Heads and come in packs of 20 for 5 GBP.  That's around 8 dollars US for those of you who don't like doing math.  Pig Irons has a TON of different, cool looking minis and sells most of the heads separately.  The heads are made of metal, so I did have to pin them, but this definitely makes them a little cheaper than resin options.  Since there really isn't much detail, I wasn't worried about the lack of detail.

I'd definitely recommend you check out the website and give them a shot.

Pig Iron Studios HD.19 System Trooper Alternative Heads

A Storm is Brewing

A Land Speeder Storm, that is!  Har, har, har.  I crack myself up sometimes.

Seriously, though.  I did some actual painting yesterday.  I'm was going for a 70's style pleather vibe for the seats and I think I pulled it off.  I still have lots of work to do, but I'm happy with how it's looking so far.  I did realize that I need to go buy some more paints, and with my local GW store having closed...  that can be sort of a pain.

There is a gaming store on the Main Street of my local town, but it's run by sweaty neckbeards who seem almost hostile towards gamers, so I prefer not to give them any money whenever possible.  I'll probably have to make a drive to the next town over to get what I need.

Here is the latest update pic.  More to come!  If you look there, you can see my completed test Scout wearing his bitchin' Pig Iron Studios helmet.

Land Speeder Storm Work in Progress - All Base Coating is Complete, Highlighting Commences

Next I really need to work on the line highlighting, a little wear and tear battle damage and then glaze the whole thing in the yellow glaze.  Makes it pop!  Oh, and the gun isn't going to be silver.  That's a base coat.