This kill team will consist of two Deathwatch fire teams. I'm going to limit the number of official Chapters that are represented, however, focusing on more obscure official Chapters and DIY Chapters of my own creation. In all likelihood, I'm going to revert to the original color scheme that we used for the Legio, as seen on this model painted by @Chronophague in 2003:

That version of the color scheme featured the black armour, red helmet (you can see it hung on his belt behind the grenades), and red weapons casings that we are familiar with. The left kneepad is white, indicating that this battle-brother belonged to the Light of the Emperor Great Company. At that time, the left shoulder pad field and chest decoration were bone in color. I don't recall exactly why we formally switched the chest decoration to white and the shoulder pad field to red. If you look carefully, you can see that the =][= on the Deathwatch shoulder pad is red. Most of the entries to this contest followed the "bone" theme, though not a few used different colors for the chest decoration and/or left shoulder pad field (typically white, silver, red, or black).

A good example of a variant color scheme used in that contest can be seen in the model painted by @disinfect. While the left shoulder pad uses the bone coloring, the chest eagle is painted white; and the model incorporates the black and white checkerboard pattern on the right boot to indicate veteran status.

As you can see, we allowed a bit of creativity in color scheme when we first created the Legio; and I think we need to return to that to better support the varying preferences of players. You can see the other images from that contest here (we distinguished between the mod entries and the Frater Domus entries, but all are collected together in that album).

So the scheme I'm going to use is:

• Black armour (duh)
• Red helmet (duh) with green eyes
• Red weapons casings (duh)
• Red left kneepad or decoration upon that left kneepad (for the Blood of the Emperor Great Company)
• Bone chest decoration
• Bone left shoulder pad (Legio) field
• Red =][= on the left shoulder pad (I'm using the Deathwatch pads and the inclusion of the =][= indicates that these Legio members have served with the Inquisition)
• Silver skull on the left shoulder pad
• Right shoulder pads (parent Chapters) in a variety of colors, see below

Why am I reverting to the "bone" theme? In short, since I'm building this kill team to introduce a group of players who are relatively new to the hobby, I'm not sure if they're familiar with the various Chapters of the Adeptus Astartes. So I want them to be able to describe the models based on the color of their parent Chapter badge. By switching to the "bone" theme, I can include Chapters whose shoulder pads are red.

Assuming each member of the squad has a different color for their right shoulder pad, I have blue, red, yellow, orange, purple, green, black, white, silver, and gold.

And since my freehand painting skills suck, I'm only using sculpted shoulder pads.

At this point, I have identified the colors, icons, and parent Chapters of the first fire team (of the first squad), the icon and shoulder pad color of the rest of the first squad, and icon of the entire second squad. Most are DIY Chapters of my own creation, with only one member of an [obscure] official Chapter in each squad.

The planned fire team of the first squad consists of:

• White fist on blue disc, possibly surrounded by a sunburst (Fists of Purity Chapter, DIY) - Sergeant
• White hawk head on orange (Nova Hawks Chapter, DIY) - Fighter
• Bronze bull head on purple (Khalkotauri Chapter, DIY*) - Warrior
• Black griffon on yellow (Emperor's Knights Chapter, DIY*) - Warrior
• Gunmetal crossed swords on black (Guardians of the Covenant Chapter, GW) - Warrior
• White Maltese cross on green (Storm Angels Chapter, DIY*) - Heavy Gunner

This leaves me with white, red, gold, and silver for the fields of the remaining members (with icons given contrasting colors). It will be important to distinguish these four shoulder pads from the Chapters that I named for each.

The rest of the first squad and the entire second squad consist of:

• skull (this is the Silver Skulls shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit)
• talon (the Brazen Claws shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit)
• skull and halo (the Novamarines shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit)
• gauntlet (this is one of the original metal Iron Hands shoulder pads)
• wolf/hound head (the Ragnar Blackmane's Great Company shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit)
• starburst (this is one of the original metal veteran shoulder pads)
• skull and crossbones (this is one of the original metal Death Company shoulder pads)
• dragon head (this is the Salamanders shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit)
• raven/bird (this is the Raven Guard shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit)
• lambda (this is one of the original metal devastator squad shoulder pads)
• fist (this is one of the original Imperial Fists shoulder pads)
• flames (this is one of the original Legion of the Damned shoulder pads)
• skull on a Maltese cross (this is one of the plastic Black Templars shoulder pads from the old upgrade sprue)
• freehand! (I figured I should challenge myself with one of these models)

I may decide that some of the second squad members are from obscure official Chapters. Options include:

• Angels of Fire (flames) - yellow/orange on red
• Angels Redeemed (I'd have to use the Dark Angels shoulder pad from the Deathwatch kit) - white on red
• Contenders (fist) - red on silver/light grey
• Crimson Talons (talon) - red on white
• Dark Brotherhood (skull on Maltese cross) - red skull and white cross on grey
• Hawk Lords (raven/bird) - yellow on purple
• Iron Fists (fist) - gold on blue-silver
• Knights of the Raven (raven/bird) - black on silver
• Red Wolves (wolf/hound head) - red on black
• Shadow Wolves (wolf/hound head) - white on black
• Subjugators (fist) - black on green
• Imperial Paladins (skull on a Maltese cross) - white skull on yellow cross on blue

If I decide to do this, I'll be limited by the self-imposed requirement for different colors on the shoulder pad fields.

I could make the freehand shoulder pad an obscure official Chapter, doing something that I might reasonably hope to render such as:

• Crimson Guard (crossed red axes on yellow/gold)
• Dark Hunters (white axe on blue)
• Emperor's Hawks (white wing on red)
• Masters of Protelus (blue axe on white)
• Storm Callers (yellow lightning bolt on black)
• Storm Giants (red lightning bolt on bone)
• War bearers (crossed black axes on green)

Note that I've ruled out Second Founding Chapters such as the so-called "First Founding" Chapters, Black Templars, Brazen Claws, Crimson Fists, Mortifactors, Nemesis, and Silver Skulls, as well as more well-known Chapters such as the Howling Griffons, Novamarines, and Sons of Medusa. I've also ruled out those Chapters known to have participated in the Abyssal Crusade.

There are probably other official Chapters I could choose from, but those named above were found in the Insignium Astartes, Successor Chapters (booklet in the limited edition version of the 7th edition Codex: Space Marines), and How to Paint Space Marines books as well as the Index Astartes article about the Chapters that participated in the Third War for Armageddon. My focus is the first six models (colors and Chapters already decided upon), so the rest of the decisions are academic for now. If/when the time comes, however, I'll consult other sources to find the full array of official Chapters.

I'm pretty sure that both Sergeants will end up having a blue shoulder pad, both fighters will end up having an orange shoulder pad, both heavy gunners will end up having a green shoulder pad, etc. I'll probably differentiate by having different shades of the colors - so one of the Sergeants will use a dark blue and the other will use a light blue. Since a single Deathwatch fire team composes a full Space Marine kill team, and since each operative type other than Warrior can only be included once in the kill team (remember - I'm using the 2021 version), this means that I'll effectively have two options for each operative type. Since my Fists of Purity Sergeant has a thunder hammer and bolt pistol, the other Sergeant will have a different weapon combination. Likewise, my Storm Angels Heavy Gunner has an Infernus heavy bolter, so the other Heavy Gunner will have one of the other heavy weapon options.

Decisions, decisions...

And just to manage expectations, don't expect my finished minis to match the quality of painting seen in either of the Legio mini-me's that are shown at the top of this entry.

* It has been a while since I created any DIY Chapter articles, so I hope to develop these three Chapters (Emperor's Knights, Khalkatauri, and Storm Angels) to exercise some creativity. I also plan to update and revise the Fists of Purity article, removing the more egregious of my errors and [hopefully] improving the quality of the article. Each of these will be conducted as separate blogs, though I'll cross-link to them in this blog.