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Bit of a personal rant - it drives me crazy when miniatures in war-games do not have helmet options. I understand that there are collectors and players out there that prefer the helmet less option to give their miniatures more personality or to show gender etc.

For fantasy games I tend to be more flexible when assembling my miniatures - there is an assumption that the air is breathable, not every "fight" has bullets or other projectiles, and the helmet likely isn't assisting the miniature in seeing the battlefield. There is actually a probability that the helmet limits what the "commander/leader" can see, so them taking off the helmet does make sense. BUT being in imminent danger they should put their helmet on, the most important part of your body is your head and it controls everything you do.

For sci-fi/futuristic games I have zero flexibility with my miniatures. Everyone of those goons is going to have a helmet because sometimes I play with them in space or on a planet where they can't breathe. Also I'd like to think their helmets has HUDs or different viewable assistance modules to give them an advantage when it comes to starting the fight. Also shrapnel, bullets, beams, anything flying through the air can damage skin, catch hair on fire, or snag hair. I'm not arguing that a helmet makes your head invulnerable but a bullet is more likely to ricochet off a helmet then it is off a bare head.

I don't want to take away your barefaced miniatures I just want to make sure every miniature has an option for a helmet. I'm raging right now as I assemble my Leagues of Votann Combat Patrol box and the Hernkyn Pioneers don't appear to have helmet options..on a floating bike..

This is a big pet peeve of mine, too. For a while, some companies like Wargames Atlantic and Shieldwolf were making plastic Sci Fi kits with only 8ish helmeted heads for every 10 soldiers. Fortunately, they seem to have responded to feedback and now try to include enough helmets for every troop, and often enough of both enclosed helmets and open faced helmets.

giving plentiful of heads in variety is definitely for the best. what i will prefer will depend on the model and army. sometimes, faces, sometimes helmets, sometimes helmets, sometimes open-faced (and the extra bits are always appreciated)

All of my Death Guard have helmets, barely any of my Orks do, so... depends I guess?
I feel helmets sometimes take away from the models. Take Oathmark Elves for example. Because of their helmets there's very little that marks them as elves. Barely visible hair, no ears, generic armament - the occasional helmetless head will help to identify them, realism and reason be damned. In movies heroes lose their helmet usually the second the battle begins (if they have one in the first olace) because we need to identify the actors that get a lot of money. And sometimes it's the same with our miniatures, so we see a lot of leader types without helmets- and from a gameplay view it's actually helpful to easily identify the leader.
Coming back to my DG - GW makes the ugliest and terribly comical faces for them, so of course they get helmets.

Sgt. Cortez wrote:

Coming back to my DG - GW makes the ugliest and terribly comical faces for them, so of course they get helmets.

that's a big part of why i'll prefer to use helmets in some circumstances, but not other. the quality of faces is important... and masculinity is not exactly appealing to me, so for armies with little gender diversity, the men are probably getting helmets, and the women get to stand out. but something more androgynous like elves, i'll be fine with them being unhelmeted

Helmets are for pansies.

T. SW Successor player.

Completely agree with depends on the army and even manufacturer of game for some of my flexibility on the matter. I'm not a huge fan of some of mantic's faces or games workshop's faces. But I like parabellum and corvus belli bare faces. Still I would prefer the option is there for all to have a helmet. I'm also good with having options for bare faced miniatures.

I also agree with orks, orcs, tyranids, giants, or other non-humanoid not having headgear. It is interesting that the new vespid have a miniature that has a helmet.

 Jammer87 wrote:


I don't want to take away your barefaced miniatures I just want to make sure every miniature has an option for a helmet.

So you want my Hive Tyrant to come with a helmet option??
Wouldn't that be really silly for ripper swarms?
Etc etc etc.
Unless you mean as basing decorations....

Also, my 8-Bound.
I think once you stuff a dude full of 8 demons he pretty much does't need to worry about his helmet anymore.

 Jammer87 wrote:
. It is interesting that the new vespid have a miniature that has a helmet.

Iirc it is more so that their leader can communicate with their Tau overlords than for head protection.

Tyranids can provide analagous protection options. The recent Malstrain genestealers show this qutie nicely:

I mean I'm the person who wishes that Imperial Guard figures had more armor than middle school football players, so there's that. Helmeted heads for the win, although I suppose for some hero characters. I suppose "helmet analog" would also work a la tyranids with extra carapace on their heads (or orks just having reinforced skulls because, well, orks). But puny humans running around a futuristic (or historical) warzone? Better put on your iron dome boy-o!