The humble scout has been part of Warhammer 40,000 since the beginning and last year they received a brand new kit released as part of the Killteam game. This new kit see’s the Scouts get supersized inline with their Primaris brothers but still retain their classic imagery. They were perfect candidates to join my retro inspired Blood Angels. In this post I’ll share how I painted them and chat about the weapons load outs.

Last year I played a game of 40k against Dunk and I got trounced. I was so scared of all his tanks, that I forego claiming objectives and just threw everything at his armour. By the end of the game I had taken a battering but he didn’t have many tanks left, he did however have cheap guardsmen standing on objectives. That’s what I needed, cheap units to stand on objectives. Enter the Scouts.

I really like Scouts. They look cool, they have awesome weapons to choose from and the new models are scaled up to fit in better with the current Primaris scale Marines. It does make me wonder what the process for beginning a Scout is now. Do they cross the Rubicon immediately upon being chosen, or do they have al the organ surgeries first and then cross the rubicon to grow a couple of extra feet. Either way, I’m just happy to field the bigger models with my new Blood Angel army. The last Scout set released were very very short (on par with a Hearthkyn) and they had very questionable head sculpts. The new head sculpts are perfect, youthful and ready for battle.

When it came to choosing my weapon loud out for the squad, I went for classic Boltguns. These guys are going to grab objectives and sit on them so I wanted to ranged offensive weapons, Bolters, Sniper Rifles and Missile Launchers. I like the tactical flexibility of Missile Launchers with the choice of Frag or Krak grenades. This weapon is useful now in 10th Edition, because the Missile Launchers can target a vehicle whilst the rest of the squad unloads on infantry. Annoyingly, the 40k weapon load out I choose is an illegal weapon load out in Killteam. I can’t take 2 Sniper Rifles or 2 Missile Launchers, so I won’t be playing Killteam with this squad anytime soon

This full squad of 10 Scouts took me most of December to paint. I started batch painting all 10 and it was really slow going. It felt like I had a million sub-assemblies and after every paint session I felt like I was no closer to finishing them. In the end, I painted 3 to completion to feel like I’d achieved something and then finished the last 7 as a smaller batch paint.

How to Paint Blood Angels Scouts

My Scouts have quite a light colour scheme so you’ll want to use a Wraithbone undercoat spray. Some things like holsters and pouches can be left on the sprue (clean those mouldiness off still!) and undercoated with Chaos Black spray. It is definitely easier base coating as many parts as possible separate to the model, however, if you’re messy with your gluing then sub-assemblies won’t be for you. You’ll wreck your paint job with glue over-spill. When it comes to gluing painted pieces you’ll want to use some metal dental tools to scrape away the contact areas back to bare plastic. Then use polystyrene cement with a needle-applicator and apply the smallest amount to both contact areas. Patience is key.

I hope you enjoyed my retro-inspired Space Marine Scouts. My Blood Angels have grown to be quite the force, but I’m still short on my goal of 2000pts. I just have to paint a Gladiator battle tank and a Captain with Jump Pack and I’m done, so watch this space.