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I'm looking for help on painting my Blood Angel Sniper Scouts. The official paint scheme for Scouts has always bothered me. Bright white pants for a bunch of dudes that are supposed to be under cover never worked for me.

I wanted to paint them more like Special Ops troops and go for a mostly black color scheme, but I don't think that will work as I still need some variance in colors so they stand out. I probably should have a bit of red in there as well so they tie back to the rest of my army.

I was thinking of something like this:



Anyone have any advice or that has done something similar?

Well if i was in your place, i would have done it like this.

your selection of skin tone whit camo stripes.(black or dark green)
dark red shoulder pads.
cloth in a grey variant.
body armor in dark metal.
boots in black.
camo stripes on the weapons.

Enugh paint variation for comp entrys but still low profile.

For my SM scouts I make it so their armor plates are in chapter colors, but other areas that are fabric (sleeves, pants, boots, etc) are black.

This darkens them up quite nicely. Granted, it's not full camouflage to any extent (especially for an army who's primary color is red), but the black makes them stand out far less on the tabletop, which hints at a stealth role.

As a bonus, it also looks great.

 Cothonian wrote:
For my SM scouts I make it so their armor plates are in chapter colors, but other areas that are fabric (sleeves, pants, boots, etc) are black.

This darkens them up quite nicely. Granted, it's not full camouflage to any extent (especially for an army who's primary color is red), but the black makes them stand out far less on the tabletop, which hints at a stealth role.

As a bonus, it also looks great.

Thanks man. Yeah, that's what I think I'm going to try first. I have a spare scout to test on. What about the cloaks? All black, or go with a camo pattern? You have any pics of yours you are willing to share?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 FrozenDwarf wrote:
Well if i was in your place, i would have done it like this.

your selection of skin tone whit camo stripes.(black or dark green)
dark red shoulder pads.
cloth in a grey variant.
body armor in dark metal.
boots in black.
camo stripes on the weapons.

Enugh paint variation for comp entrys but still low profile.

Sorry, missed your post. This sounds cool too. I think I might give this a try as well.

 theharrower wrote:

 Cothonian wrote:
For my SM scouts I make it so their armor plates are in chapter colors, but other areas that are fabric (sleeves, pants, boots, etc) are black.

This darkens them up quite nicely. Granted, it's not full camouflage to any extent (especially for an army who's primary color is red), but the black makes them stand out far less on the tabletop, which hints at a stealth role.

As a bonus, it also looks great.

Thanks man. Yeah, that's what I think I'm going to try first. I have a spare scout to test on. What about the cloaks? All black, or go with a camo pattern? You have any pics of yours you are willing to share?

I personally do a camouflage pattern on the cloaks, made to look like the Chapter's respective home world or warzone. I'll see if I can get some pics for you.

Special forces, etc. don't wear all black...well at least not since the 90's. Those that do just have way too much hold-over gear.

Having chased people for a living - I can tell you one thing, black shows up way better at night than most other colours.

Here's my scouts. Forgive the less than stellar paint job, I painted these guys up years and years ago.

 Elbows wrote:
Special forces, etc. don't wear all black...well at least not since the 90's. Those that do just have way too much hold-over gear.

Having chased people for a living - I can tell you one thing, black shows up way better at night than most other colours.

They mostly just wear camo now? I know black shows up really well at night. Was mostly going for the rule of cool.

 Cothonian wrote:
Here's my scouts. Forgive the less than stellar paint job, I painted these guys up years and years ago.

Spoiler:

Why is it easy to see black at night? That seems counter intuitive, but I've never spent any time lining up different colours in the dark.
Also there's some camo scouts on page 7 of my plog if you're interested.

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Why is it easy to see black at night? That seems counter intuitive, but I've never spent any time lining up different colours in the dark.
Also there's some camo scouts on page 7 of my plog if you're interested.

Wearing black will make you look like a solid shadow/blob in a dark environment. Wearing the same camouflage as you would wear during the day on the other hand would permit you to blend in better. Other words, if there is any light at all (such as moonlight), wearing the same color as your surrounding environment will break up your outline and allow you to blend in better than if you were wearing black.

For Blood Angel Scouts, I'd paint the fatigues in a color appropriate to your game table and the armor in a red camouflage scheme something like this:

 CREEEEEEEEED wrote:
Why is it easy to see black at night? That seems counter intuitive, but I've never spent any time lining up different colours in the dark.
Also there's some camo scouts on page 7 of my plog if you're interested.

Thanks. This look nice. Maybe camo is the better answer. I dunno. Going to do some tests.

Ghaz wrote:For Blood Angel Scouts, I'd paint the fatigues in a color appropriate to your game table and the armor in a red camouflage scheme something like this:

I actually don't have a game table anymore. Moved across country a couple years ago and my terrain never made the trip. I just freeload at local stores now. Not sure about the red. Looks neat, but I'd have to a test first.

Colours match your environment at night just as they do during the day. Imagine having a room with a dimmer-switch on the lightbulb. If you stand in a creme coloured room in a black outfit - you're starkly standing out from the surrounding walls. Now imagine turning down that dimmer switch. As long as there is any visible light you'll still be standing out like crazy against the background of the creme walls.

Now, hiding in complete darkness? Sure, and is black better than, say, white? Absolutely. But to blend in at night - use normal camouflage (i.e. whatever your environment is).

I'd say do your guys in black if you want to paint them black (camouflage discussions are a little pointless in 40K, I admit!) - I do think it's a hard scheme to do. Maybe consider starting with a rather dark grey - so you can use washes to darken it and give it the effect of black without being actually black? (i.e. letting details stand out more?).

It would be hard to pull off but there is a version of the famous Multicam camouflage pattern called simply "Black" and it looks pretty cool - regardless of being relatively useless.

Thanks for the explanation.

Black on red isnt all that bad looking i think.

Red armor. Black or very dark grey fatigues wouldn't look all that bad.