Today I have the final five of last month’s models – a squad of five Space Marine Scouts from the Mentor Legion (aka Mentors). As with my previous entries in this army, I’ve used the original/old school livery, though in the case of these models that’s limited to their chapter badge being the “Owl Face.”
Painting Scout Space Marines for me is always a divergent project of sorts, as the common practice of painting them just like their parent chapter, maybe with off-white cloth parts just doesn’t make sense to me. For scouts, at least. With that in mind, I prefer to use camo schemes, along with muted tones, and then throw in a bit of ridiculousness because Space Marines. In this case, it’s the clean, bone chest aquilas, the bits of non-dulled metal scattered across the models along with the teal of their shotgun shells and such (red would have been a little too much!) Oh, and that rope on the sergeant’s hip. Naturally, I was obliged to paint “Geordi LaForge’s” visor in gold.
Here’s a little focus on their Chapter Icons, along with a slightly better look at the camouflage pattern used on their armour – inspired by the classic US Woodland.
Last shot has a couple of the scouts – a Sergeant and a Neophypte alongside a Tactical Sergeant. Now, I just need to actually, finally complete one of those Tactical Squads to modern rules compliance!
Azazel's Bitz Box. 
Always liked these scout models, much better than the later plastic ones. Fantastic colour scheme, and brilliantly executed
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Yeah, as with so many ranges, Jes’ old(er) school metals blow the later plastics out of the water.
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Completely agree the owl motif is also great
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Thanks mate! 🙂
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Lovely job mate – your camo is always so damn good, and it suits these guys perfectly!
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Thanks Alex! One day I’ll get back around to my Imperial Guard, but in the meantime I’ve found some old-school metal RT Orks to work on, so expect some more desert camo sometime! 🙂
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That cam really does look good! All nicely done though and a much more believable appearance!
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Thanks John. I do like painting camo from time to time, and it’s always very satisfying when it works out all proper-like. 😉
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Very nice. At some point I am going to have to have a go at a space marine.
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I do look forward to seeing your take on one (or a few, over time perhaps). The large flat areas lend themselves to quite a few techniques depending on how you feel – and the variety of chapter influences lend themselves to pretty much any kind of accoutrements that you’d like to add.
I do have to say that I don’t believe I’ve seen any “old west” themed marines, but it would certainly be an interesting take if done well and not for comedy effect. Moustaches and muttonchops… a sheriff’s star -styled chapter badge… duster-styled robes for the heroes… yeah. It would be a lot of work in the converting and scratchbuilding, but it could definitely be done.
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You mentioning old west marines made me immediately think of this super cool Grey Knight gunslinger terminator I came across a whiile back. He’s a part of Rust Hulk Grey Knights warband, which has one or two more western-ish models.
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Very cool – I’ve never seen those but I can see the Western + Fallout-style influences there!
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That sounds a good idea, old west-styled marines! If TIM doesn’t think that’s a worthy challenge I don’t know what is! 😉
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Fantastic- I always like to see camo’d Space Marines.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Cheers Pete. I’ll have some more scouts to do at some stage. I’ve got another two originally from this lot who didn’t make the cut (squads of 5-10 and all that these days) and a few more in metal and plastic.
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Excellent- I look forward to them. I think it was the early Badab War art that got me into the camo’d look.
Cheers,
Pete.
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Yeah – the same article did it for me, along with the ‘eavy Metal pages in those early 100’s WDs that often featured camoed marines.
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The camo really does look great on them, even if I do have a preference for the ridiculousness of doing them up in Chapter colours. And yeah, like Dave said above, Jes really nailed it with these scouts. Other than the fact that there are only two sculpts each for the non-CC options, they’re so much better than the plastic Scout boxes.*
I have to say, tho, given that they’re all armed with Bolt Pistols, if those are shotgun shells, that’s probably not going to work out too well for them 😉
* The Scouts that come as accessories for the Land Speeder Storm are actually pretty good. But the Scout Squad boxes are kind of embarrassing.
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Yeah, the plastic scouts really suffer from the era that they were made in (like Chaos Maruaders), and then never getting updated. With the Primaris a thing now, we’ll never see properly updated plastic scouts, either.
Funny as it may seem, I think they are supposed to be shotgun shells, as they’re basically identical to the ones found on the actual metal shotgunner scouts. Before they got moved to the actual shotguns on the plastics for that very reason you point out!
I’ve got a whole bunch of the plastic scouts. One day I’ll properly start on them, but the plan (right now, at least) is to make use of the plastic element of them so I can kitbash them to properly fit the chapters I’ll be attaching them to with some appropriate bits…
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I always love seeing your scouts, your camo work is exquisite! I’ve got a box of plastic scouts and another of snipers in my pile of shame. These guys make me excited to get some paint on them! Soonish, I hope.. While I’ve been planning on doing the traditional chapter color armor + tan clothes, I’d like to give the snipers desert camo cloaks (6-color desert is my favorite, and seems doable).
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Thanks mate! After Alexis’ comment, I’m keen to do a kitbashed squad for one of the more way-out chapters, though I’m not sure who, yet.
6-colour desert is very doable – I actually have a DA Scout Squad done in that scheme (as well as the odd bit of Ork clothing scattered throughout my small Ork force).
https://azazelx.com/2015/02/28/dark-angels-space-marine-scouts-1998-metals/
https://azazelx.com/2018/05/17/waaaagh-pt-13-keelhaul-orc-warboss-and-his-faithful-squghound-muttley-neglected-model-march-18/
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Really nice colour scheme on these, and I love how you’ve managed to give them sensible camo yet also kept them looking very 40K.
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Thanks Mikko. It’s always a bit of a tightrope between the outlandish ridiculousness of 40k, and the more “realistic” (or at least grounded) look of proper camo patterns.
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Love the scouts
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Thanks mate! 🙂
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What’s this – camouflage on a Space Marine!?! Surely if the Primarchs had wanted us to sneak around they wouldn’t have equipped us with power armour in such loud colour schemes? Silliness aside I’m a big fan of these (and Space Marines making more realistic style choices in general). I’ve always found camo really tricky to paint so it’s particularly nice to see it done well.
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I’ve always been tempted by the idea of doing a whole force in a suitable camo scheme. I guess if I came up with a concept, or just found a suitable one to steal it could still happen. A lot of other small marine forces in front of the line, though!
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Bloody love the camo Az
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Cheers, IRO!
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