Bood Drinkers questions

[Gv0zD]

I'm building my new army, and I'm considering switching to Blood Drinkers. I like their color scheme, their major trait, and their lack of fluff gives me opportunities to create background ;)

While I'm still deciding, whether to choose them, a few questions occured.

 

First, do they still follow the Codex Astartes? I rember them being its followers in previous editions, but the latest BADex says nothing about it.

 

And second, do they keep the BA-like iconography? The assault marine in BADex has red helmet and yellow shoulder trims. Does it mean that the Blood Drinkers follow the Vanilla iconography, and don't paint their helmets accordingly?

 

Thanks in advance for any help!

[Vodunius]

The Blood Drinkers have always been described* as following the Codex Astartes marking conventions - it says it at the top of the page 80 (same page as the devastator sergeant). As far as I'm aware the only place that ever said they followed the Codex in lieu of Blood Angel organisation/tactics was the Blood Angels Index Astartes article.. but the author seemingly didn't know what he was talking about since he seemed to think the Blood Angels 100% Codex adherent 8th Company was a deviation from the Codex..

 

* except of course when Eavy Metal decided to paint up the sergeants with BA style black shoulder pad insets which does admittedly look good but is somewhat iffy fluffwise.

[Gv0zD]

Thanks for the input!

 

Following Codex iconography introduces new colors to the red-yellow-black palette, but I like differently painted helmets too much. Oh, do Blood Drinkers Vets wear white helmets? And how do they distinc Sarges and regular marines?

[Vodunius]

The BA codex says they follow the Codex heraldry exactly, presumably that would mean white helmets. The Eavy Metal example gives Sergeants black shoulderpads (the example marine on page 80 is from the example devastator squad in How to Paint Space Marines) but I'm not a fan of that - partly because I'm old enough to remember why BA sgts have black pads: they would invert the colour, so if they did follow that the example should have yellow pads with red trims - and partly because that's not sticking exactly to codex heraldry. Personally I'd go with blue helmets: that was the replacement colour favoured by the Ultras 2nd Founding successors in Codex Ultramarines (White Consuls used blue helmets for vets, Genesis Chapter used blue in place of red for their sergeants).

 

Actually if you like addition of other colours, a while back I decided to experiment with some editional jiggery pokery and came up with this:

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r155/khromash/BeeDeeVth.jpg

Thats how Blood Drinkers 5th company would look if they were based off the original Ultramarines Mk7 scheme - originally the smurfs had squad colour as well as a badge, and their trims were in their secondary colour with the company colour on the marines right arm.

[Gv0zD]

Wow! Thanks for the image! And for your help! :huh:

 

Now, I'm going to uncover my Insignia Astartes (oh, there was z time when I played Smurfs :D ) and recheck all the markings.

 

*looks at unpainted assambled models*

 

My guys have quiet a few BA-shaped shoulder pads... Mmmmm... I need to think for a while... Established fluff or broad possibilities for creativity...