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 Smacks wrote:
I really dislike the BA heads for some reason, they all look too similar. The faces are good, but the hairstyles are a bit too 'pretty boy'

Yeah, I picked up some BA heads in a spare collection and came to the exact same conclusion. Their hair seems not to have been updated or varied since that bolt pistol / chainsword sergeant that came in the 2nd edition!

I'm spoilt for choice with sw heads, over 20 to choose from. There's even a head that look like He-Man and another like Heihachi from Tekken. Needless to say they're getting used!

If I built marines, I'd always use helmets because the lack of face matches their lack of personality

/daemons player

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Smacks wrote:
I really dislike the BA heads for some reason, they all look too similar. The faces are good, but the hairstyles are a bit too 'pretty boy'

Yeah, I picked up some BA heads in a spare collection and came to the exact same conclusion. Their hair seems not to have been updated or varied since that bolt pistol / chainsword sergeant that came in the 2nd edition!

I'm spoilt for choice with sw heads, over 20 to choose from. There's even a head that look like He-Man and another like Heihachi from Tekken. Needless to say they're getting used!

lol @ the He-Man head. I know exactly which one you're talking about. That's one of the few that I thought could work for BA, I put it aside especially. I've got a bunch of SW scout heads too which I delved into for my assault marines.

Another thing about the BA heads -- maybe it's just me, but they seem to make the marines look shorter and more disproportionate. Kind of like the IG bobbleheads. It could be the way the hair is scaled, but I think it looks weird. Has anyone else noticed that?

No marine of mine ever goes to battle without his helmet. Ever.

Great, now I need to make a BA with a Power Sword held aloft as if saying "I HAVE THE POWER!"

 Smacks wrote:

lol @ the He-Man head. I know exactly which one you're talking about. That's one of the few that I thought could work for BA, I put it aside especially

By the power of Greyskull!..Fenris...I mean Fenris

Showing skin is heresy, says so in the Kriegsmen Imperial Infantryman handbook v2.0

The only reason 3 of my Scions show their faces is because the guy who sold me the models didn't have any other dudes.

I like helmets on rank and file and bare heads or at least exposed faces on characters and some elite units.
The problem I have is that most of the bare heads lack character to me. The only ones I've found that I like and I use them often are chaos marauder heads and space wolves. Course, i like the wild grizzled look on characters. lol

Besides SW, helmets

Boniface wrote:
Wasn't there an old rule that penalised helmetless models in certain situations?

Yes. If I remember correctly power armour helm gave immunity to airborne toxins from things like gas grenades, and vison dampeners in the helm proofed against flashbangs, or blind grenades as they were called in 2nd. But I don't think it mattered whether the model actually wore a helm or not -if they had power armour then they were assumed to have a helm.

For my Orks, it does not matter, I use the head I think fits body the most.
My Tau force uses helmets in lower ranks but leading Fireblade does not.
As for CSM, they're Alpha Legion so they should lack inviduality, so helmets all over even cultists (I use masked scions as AL agents)
Recently started Steel Confessors chapter is helmeted mostly, but battledamaged and few inviduals have lost/abandoned their helmets.
And as above, my Salamanders also show some skin.

... Forgot my Dark Angels which are mostly helmeted, excluding scouts. And IG helmeted and preferally masked.

Rank and file tend to receive helmet heads. Sergeants its about 50/50%. For characters, it all depends on what I feel like at the moment of assembly for the model.

Helmets all the way.

I go helmetless, at least for guard, and I would for basically any non-SM as well.

Helmets are only given out when they're useful, and helmets aren't always useful. It's why there's been such inconsistent use of them over the course of human history.

In the grim darkness of the far future, helmets don't go jack. You're going to be exploded by a battle cannon, shot in the face by a rocket launcher machine gun, ripped inside out by sorcery, or stomped flat by a monstrous creature. A vast majority of the time, a helmet isn't going to help you in the setting, so it doesn't make sense to wear one (much less wasting resources producing them).

SM (and, by extension, CSM), are slightly different, not only because they sort of need the helmet for the style to make sense, but because SM have all sort of super high-tech gadgets that their bio-engineered bodies can interact with. That and they're supposed to be able to fight in literally any environment, including the hard vacuum of space. Were that not the case, I doubt SM would wear them either.

And Lo he doth read from page 90 of the good book....

*Sigh* I just finished building my Sanguinary Priest. The way he is molded makes it very difficult to fit a helmeted head in slot. So of the Blood Angels Marines I have built 2/2 are helmetless.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
And Lo he doth read from page 90 of the good book....

Thou art fortunate indeed to be in possession of this sacred tome

 thegreatchimp wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
And Lo he doth read from page 90 of the good book....

Thou art fortunate indeed to be in possession of this sacred tome

With great power comes great responsibility.

Will you please join me in results 7 through 10 of the hallucinogen gas table....
Thanks be to Goodwin.

I tend to go helmet-less for my squad leaders/heroes as it makes them easier to pick out on the table. I just imagine that they'd be wearing helmets but since its a game the rule of cool needs to take priority.

The great voice that is plot armor says: Wear your helmet, and you may live. Do not wear your helmet, and I will kill you. All models in my Iron Reavers army has a helmet. As a loyalist remnant of the Iron Warriors, they know the value of cranial protection.

I have helmets on my tac marines and GH, bare heads on SM sgts and WG sgts.

I play Space Wolves, so helmets don't really get worn half the time, you know, because. In my mind, the Space Wolves actually have more acute senses than the in-helmet autosenses. That being said, I try to model every single one that isn't wearing his helmet to have it slung on his hip. 1. It's cool looking. 2. Vacuum.

As far as Space Marines and taking damage to their skull, remember that their bones are super hard. I played a game of Inquisitor with a helmetless Space Wolf. He took a frag grenade full in the face and all it did was stun him for a round or two. So, I think you could probably pop anything short of a high powered rifle into a Space Marine's skull and accomplish nothing but some minor annoyance.

Hmmmm. It depends so much on the model, so I didn't answer the poll.

Even within one faction, it's not always the same. On certain models, like space wolves, heads are very cool, but on other models, like Blood Angels or Grey Knights, the helmets, I think look much better.

With Orks, my preference is no helmets. What Tyranid models were you thinking?

Helmet, always helmet.

With my SoB, I'm constrained by the models, so it's mostly bare-headed (the emperor protects, I guess), and let me tell you tying to paint that bob cut in natural tones over and over is super annoying (I can't get into the idea of brightly coloured dyed hair on my batle sisters).

With my Blood Angels, I went with a more thematic approach. Basically helmets for everyone but the DC, because those guys are crazy enough to go into battle without a helmet (perhaps they also get bitey when they go crazy and no one dares try to put a helmet on them...). I've even got a FW helmet head to put on the Special Character from death storm, seems odd to me that a Captain would go into battle without a helmet...

Librarians are tricky, my kit bashed guy I used a Death Mask from the sang guard box, but I have a finecast Libby in termie armour who remain unpainted, purely because I don't know what to do about his head...suggestions welcome!

D

As a space wolve player i have to say helmetless, you have to show your enemy your scary haircut and giant beard to make them think twice before to face you in combat
And besides, it gives great oportunity to make some face tattoos and scars and to show some high level painting skill

Honestly, I say screw helmets. SW look too badass to put their helmets on, besides, it humanizes the models in my eyes.

The irony being that Space Wolves are about as far from human as you can get without starting with a different base creature?

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:

Will you please join me in results 7 through 10 of the hallucinogen gas table....
Thanks be to Goodwin.

Haha! Classic stuff.

I always prefer helmeted. None of my armies have bare heads, at least in as much as I can possibly avoid it. I think my only IG models without helmets are my Techpriests, which still have hoods and masks but visible upper faces. None of my CSM or GK's have unhelmeted models barring some Oblits (which for some I found old metal Terminator heads for anyway). My Sisters of Battle don't have much choice. I don't think there's a single Tau or Eldar model I own with a visible face.