Welcome to the Armory of the Red Scorpions. Here you can see and learn about the different troops and armor styles of the Legiones Astartes Red Scorpions.
This first picture
shows a few of my assault marines. Note the typical blood red
armor, and black bands of fire. The knee pads of the Red
Scorpions are generally decorated with slashes, skulls, crosses
and other icons. These icons represent various things, but
usually are a measure of their battle skill. A fully black
kneepad, or a skull icon are the highest form of this honor.
These suits are maintained by their owners with great care and
precision. As is normal for all Red Scorpions, the chapter
badge is displayed on the right shoulder, leaving the 
other shoulder either blank,
or decorated with honor badges and or markings of rank. These
troops are remarkably easy to paint. I usually start with a
white primer, followed by dousing the entire marine in Testor
Model Master's Insignia Red. Then follow by painting fire and
ripples of black into the armor. These three are part of my
veteran assault squad, which normally is armed to the teeth.
All with jump packs, chainswords, then 2 plasma pistols, 3
powerswords, and 4 power fists. Usually the sargent is
outfitted with a power fist and a wargear card of some sort,
like a bionic leg, or digital lasers. I try not to give them
any range weapons, for I find the best way to get an assault
squad killed is to give them time to stop and
fire.
This next photo
depicts one of my army centerpieces, my Dreadnaught 
Infernus. He is armed with an
assault cannon, stormbolter and a missile launcher. I'm piss
poor at making banners, so I made his on a color printer.
Cheezy, but so much better looking than my previous attempt.
The chapter badge is displayed on the left of the chest, and
the right shoulder. Other than that, he is wearing his standard
chapter colors. This guy took me forever to
paint.
Here are my
servitors. VERY hard to paint. They took me 6 or so hours each.
I usually paint the bodies Insignia Yellow, then the flesh. My
next step is to wash the wires on his body in a thick black.
(going over white primer) This gives 
deep black shadows
inbetween the wires. I can then go ahead 
and paint the rest
of his body parts and pieces the appropriate colors, and
finally, I take a multitude of colors and paint the wires. With
the shadows already blackened, I don't risk dulling the colors
with a black wash, and the result is a gorgeous, bright bundle
of wires that looks very sharp. Servitors do not have the honor
of wearing the Red Scorpion Badge.
My terminator
captain is another favorite of mine. I actually painted this
guy a 
long, long time ago,
and then stripped him and repainted him when my skills became
more refined. I gave him aged and greying hair, and you can see
his standard Red Scorpion badge on the right arm. On the left
arm is his terminator captain badge. His entire left arm is
left solid black to show that he is a close combat veteran who
has been bathed in honors. In the hierarchy of the Red
Scorpions, this one would probably rank just below Carab Cullen
himself.
This chaplain is
the very one from the Blood Angels death squad. When I bought
this squad (to make close combat troops out of) everyone told
me I could never 
use the chaplain model because it was obvious who he was.
Also, his headgear looked goofy. So I spent about 3 hours with
a knife and sand paper chopping and sanding his head down.
Another useful piece of equipment was a piece of sandstring a
buddy of mine who worked in a vaccum cleaner repair shop gave
me. Its a piece of string that is mildly abrasive, and it works
wonders for smoothing out flash and mould lines on your
miniature's rounded body parts. (arms, legs, heads)
Unfortunately because of the placement of the skull, I was
forced to put this chaplain's badge on his left arm, but
otherwise he is a standard chaplain for the Red Scorpions,
wearing solid black armor, and wielding a mighty crozius. This
is a true close combat hero indeed.
I actually made
this sargent to originally be my devastator sargent, but he
seems 
ill suited to that
task with his armament. He was made from the sargent in the
Dark Angel's tactical squad boxed set, with a second arm and
sword added. His head portrays the standard Red Scorpion
marking of a sargent, his hair is dyed with two long white
stripes going back. Sargents never wear helmets into battle to
prove to their troops that they are without fear. Most high
ranking officials in the Red Scorpions do not wear helmets into
battle.
Here you can see
two standard Red Scorpion marines. The black armor with 
yellow trim is the normal
armor of the Red Scorpions, and all of the troops other than
the assault troops wear this armor pattern. Both of these
marines are members of a devastator squad, as signified by the
red stripe on thier helmets. Tactical squad members wear a
yellow stripe there, and techmarines or vehicle crews usually
wear a silver stripe. These are two of my favorite simple
conversions. The first is pointing his finger down the barrel
of his gun. This was made by cutting the index finger off one
of the cupped hands from the plastic sprue, shaving the finger
off the hand and gluing the pointed one on. The other marine
was made by slicing the top of the arm flat and gluing it to
the body as shown, very simple, but gives this marine a very
ferocious look to him.
Standard Red Scorpion marines are very easy to paint. Simply primer in white, and overcoat in Testor's Model Masters Insignia Yellow. Then fill in almost everything with black, leaving the trim, and round arcs on the front of the shins. The rest is pretty much up to you. The chapter badge is a simple white circle with a red scorpion in the center, once again, very simple.
I hope you have enjoyed this insight into the armor and painting techniques I use to form my army of Red Scorpions. You may also want to check out my painting/modeling area of this page to see some of my other miniatures, and see how I made my Arbitius rhino.
HAIL THE EMPEROR!