Let the Snakes Begin!

Awhile back I posted about some plastic hoplites that, at the time, had not yet arrived at store shelves.  I really wanted to try out the hoplon (aspis) shields contained within to see if they met my rather nit-picky standards.  Well, yesterday they arrived in the mail.  Immediately I began to see that while the shields are the correct size they have one major issue - the arms come attached the the shields.  Anyway, what you see below is the first mock-up of one of the sternguard (notables) for my Iron Snakes list.

  

Right now I have not finalized a pose.  What you see above and again below consists of all of the correct pieces held together with some blue-tac.  The final pose will need a large amount of conversion work including, but not limited to, arm repositioning, dremeling out the back of the shield, and soft armor sculpting.

Anyway, a quick run-down on parts.

Head - Forgeworld Red Scorpion upgrade
Torso - Sanguinary Guard
Arms - Sanguinary Guard & Tactical Marines
Legs - Space Wolves
Shield - Immortal Studios Plastic Hoplites
Backpack - Standard Marine backpack

The marine in question also does not have a sea-lance because I still need to finalize plans for those.  At the moment I am considering both the Chaos marauder spears and the Dark Elf banner poles.  Both have advantages and disadvantages.

Bases will be a mix of custom-made beach (with sand and water-effects) and the ruins bases from Dragonforge Designs.