Scout Sentinels for the Brood!

The base Genestealer Cult codex includes a few Astra Militarum units which can be taken as part of the core army. This is nice option because the units include the faction keywords Tyranids and Genestealer Cults automatically. A GSC army can field both Armoured and Scout Sentinels as a part of the core list. Of course, these can also be fielded as a part of an Allied Astra Militarum detachment as well, making them fairly versatile. I finally finished up a full squad of three Scout Sentinels for my growing force. One of these days I'm going to have to take a group picture of the whole army, but that will likely wait a couple of weeks or so.

As you can see, I've continued with my "50 Shades of Soviet Green" theme here using two different shades of Russian green for the sentinels. The one on the far left is done with a Second World War vintage 4BO Russian Green (A.MIG-019). I went with a simple red cult insignia on this one. The middle and right-hand sentinels are in a more modern Soviet/Russian green called Dark Green (BS 241) (A.MIG-915). I went back to my tried and true graffiti over the aquila on those.

I went with a mixed armament on these. My force in general doesn't have enough Lasconnon in it at this point, so I wanted to have at least one in this unit. I stuck with the vanilla Multi-lasers on the others as it is a good, cheap, general purpose weapon that is strong against tough infantry or light vehicles.

I spent a lot of time working on the interiors of these as you can actually see into the cockpit of each sentinel. These were done with an interior green and all of the controls and dials were painted, in addition to the intrepid pilots! Each pilot, of course, has a head swap for an appropriate Genestealer Cult head from the upgrade sprue.

I spent a fair amount of time on the bases on these because the 65mm base - even with a 4-layer rust paint job - looked a bit spartan. I had several leftover Leman Russ tracks from the old sprue that I ended up using liberally. I also included a couple of discarded lasguns and jerrycans. There are a couple of Easter eggs as well. The skull and helmet on the 4BO green walker is painted to match the helmet of a Vresh Grenadier while the skull on the other multi-laser one is actually painted to resemble a U.S. Third Infantry Division helmet, though the blue stripes are reversed.

I also included some barbed wire from the Gale Force Nine set. I put these on my heavy weapons as well, I think it really provides a nice look and gives the sense that these walkers are actually in combat as opposed to posing on the catwalk. I also included a damaged control panel that's been knocked over. I simply took the control panel from the Sector Mechanicus bases and added a piece of distressed brass tube to the bottom to make it look as if it had been snapped off.

I'm looking forward to getting these little guys out into battle. They're not incredibly powerful, but they do all have the Scout Vehicle rule, which will allow me to maybe head off any sneaky units the opposition fields!