White Scars Sniper Scouts

In an effort to try to speed up my glacial pace of painting, I decided to try painting a unit almost entirely with Contrast and washes/shades. The cloaks and fatigues of the old space marine scouts seemed to make them a good set of models to try this approach. Of course they needed a head swap from their giant heads with buzz cuts and square jaws. I spent some time searching around for heads with the right look and size, and that came in a combination of hooded and bare options to match the mix of models with cloaks being worn or folded up. I think these heads give a great ninja-like stealth feel to the unit, perfect for snipers. 

The Contrast painting is still not perfect and there are some areas that still came out a bit blotchy but it is a huge improvement over where I was previously with these paints. I found you need to thin the paints with wash medium and then possibly apply multiple coats, depending on how dark you want the color. And the new Soulblight Grey shade does a really impressive job on white.

With this unit complete, my White Scars now have two 10-man scout squads and a 5-man recon squad. This gives me more than enough to build a force based around the Recon Company Rite of War. I always thought this sounded very flavorful for the V Legion, which started as a collection of recon companies for the Great Crusade.