The last few weeks have seen me dust-off my Scouts and prepare them for a few outings on the tabletop – I also picked up five more Scout bikes and three Landspeeder Storms for them, and yesterday saw their first outing as a coherent force.

I would be facing Sean (of Lucky 88th fame), who would be using his Guard army. We were also joined by two younger club members who brought more Guard and some Tyranids.

Set-up for me was rather easy, as I kept my speeders in reserve and so only deployed my captain and command squad, who were placed in a wood for some much-needed cover from the two Leman Russ and Medusa mortar which were present.

Once Sean’s gunline had been set up, I placed my Scouts in the ruins near the centre of the board, with my Scout bikes taking up position ready to hit the right flank. Some oversights on my part meant that I didn’t get a first turn charge off with them – the beauty of the bikes having both Scout and Infiltrate means they can scoot up with their Scout move, then take their first turn move and charge, however I assumed that first turn charges weren’t allowed, which meant my bikes were left in the open and were promptly obliterated by the three tanks.

However, driving up and unloading 6 Frag templates plus a hail of twin-linked Bolter shots was more than sufficient to eliminate the infantry screen surrounding the tanks, and so when my Speeders arrived, they were able to get in close and knock out both the Russes and the Medusa in a couple of turns – Anti-tank for Marines is now pretty plentiful what with Krak Grenades being issued all-round, and vehicles getting hit in the Rear when assaulted is a definite bonus.

In the centre of the board, my standard Scout units fared very well, trading fire with Guard units, seeing them off the board bit by bit, and finally despatching a Broodlord and retinue with massed firepower.

Given that two other players were also in the mix, I can’t help but feel that I haven’t been able to properly test out the scouts yet, so another outing or two will give me a good idea of what they’re capable of on their own. I suspect they’ll struggle against tougher armies such as Orks or Marines, but I’m sure in a big game they would be a hell of a laugh to use.

Ever since I saw my friend’s Raptor Scout army (waaaaay back in my Maelstrom Crew days), I was inspired to create my own. It began with the metal scouts I had already. DDWG were having a campaign involving Space Marines so I got around to re-painting my scouts. In the beginning, they’d had this horrible blue, red and white colour scheme which really didn’t help them when it came to sneaking up on things. They then went over to Codex Grey, but I felt this was still too bright for infiltrating in. Finally, I bit the bullet and mixed my own dark grey using Codex Grey and some black ink.

Going with this vibe, i repainted all of my scouts (at this stage, only comprising of about 15 metal scouts) in more appropriate colours, whilst still remaining in keeping with the colours of my other Space Marines.

With the release of plastic scouts during the short-lived 4th edition of 40k, my plans for an entire army of scouts were realised. I picked up quite a few boxes of them and began formulating an army of scouts. Of course, the 4th Edition codex was a lot more forgiving to ‘custom’ armies such as this, and so my command squad was able to take such skills as Infiltrate, which really kept things in theme.

Alas, that’s changed now in the 5th Edition codex, although it has allowed me to bolster the ranks of the scouts by taking Scout Bikes (finally in plastic) and the new Landspeeder Storm, which, as of last night, I now own three of.

I’m planning to run a few games with the Scouts and see how they fare. Of course, I expect them to lose horribly. Watch this space.