space wolves colors

[recon0321]

well i am reading battle of the fang right now and from the cover art its seems like the SW still are in Grey armor like pre heresy style...i want to start a SW army but i want to use the grey scheme...however dont want them considered PH. i know i could just say 13th co however i know the 13th co doesnt have access to new wargear due to being stuck in the warp...so my question is WHEN did the legion change colors...

 

that way i have a more accurate idea of the time frame my army can be from...

[Inquisitor Kravin]

I don't think that they ever officially changed in fluff.

 

For most legions that changed colours there was a definite point when they changed for a specific symbolic reason - primarily the changes were traitor legions rejecting their Imperial heraldry as a sign that they had thrown off the yoke of the oppressive and unworthy rule of The Emperor. The Dark Angels changed from black to green either to differentiate the loyalists from the fallen after the schism or to represent the green of Caliban's forest. I'm not completely up to date with their latest Heresy fluff.

 

With the Space Wolves it was a real world change. If my memory is correct the Wolves were grey until the 3rd Edition codex came out. For reasons never specified the Eavy Metal team decided that a blue-grey was better than a flat grey, perhaps to look "icy". That codex was around so long that the blue-grey became accepted as the norm but old timers still kept the grey going. The current codex skirts the issue by showing models in the blue-grey armour but virtually all of the models shown have the shoulder pad heraldry of Ragnar Blackmane's Great Company and the colour scheme guide page says that there are few hard and fast rules and practices differ from company to company.

 

I'm painting my present day Space Wolves in grey as I'm doing Logan Grimnar's Great Company and I feel that as the spiritual heir of Leman Russ he should maintain the traditional grey armour of the original legion.

 

So the good news is that you can paint them anything from dark grey through to almost blue and can claim them to be "official".

[Marshal Wilhelm]

This is how it is, at least imo :P

 

It pretty much coincides with Kravin's take on things ;)

 

GW revamped the Wolves and perhaps even truly created them in WD 150-something. They decided to make them a 'colour' rather than a 'shade'. They used to be grey-grey before that time.

The problem with shades like grey and including white and black, is that they are a bit of a monkey to shade and highlight. A colour lends itself far more to such things, and by adopting blue-grey from their newly Viking'ed Space Wolves, they made them much more paintable for the Eavy Metal team, but more importantly for we mere mortals.

 

Then appearing in WD 260-something, was the Index Astartes Space Wolves article. GW enjoys a bit of nostalgic flash backs every now and then, and so included the pre-WD150-something colour scheme as the "Pre-Heresy" version. This was around 2001.

 

Then C:EoT comes out and shows that grey-grey Wolves can actually look pretty good, in the form of the "Lost 13th Company" who therefore must be in the 'Pre-Heresy scheme of the IA article'. This was around 2003.

 

The EoT colour scheme comes across as darker/tougher when contrasted with the 'modern' colour scheme. Some people like this, other people prefer the modern scheme that was ushered in with the rightly famous Ragnar Blackmane.

 

So before the BotF book, we had an understanding that grey-grey was only Pre-Heresy and for whatever reason the Wolves went blue-grey after that.

But because Wolves are cool and Wolf Lords are individualistic, it was pretty easy to excuse the grey-grey colour scheme.

Now with the BotF book, the adoption of blue-grey gets pushed out and so all we know is it happens 'sometime after that'.

 

But I think the Wolf Lords are individualistic works, is fluffy, and is still relevant today.

I like Levitas's dark blue-grey variant.

I like Bad-Sam's light grey variant.

I think you could easily do a black variant, and it is not because I am a Templar player :P

I have seen Wolves done in a blue-grey but having black helms and I liked that too.

I have also seen Wolves with black 'paws' but not the back of hand plate, and I have seen Blood Claws with red paws or red hands.

I have liked them too.

 

+++

 

Basically, paint them how you like, and they can be from whatever era you like. The fluff is supposed to be encouraging, not prescriptive.... within realms of good taste. Whatever good taste in 40K is ^_^

[Levitas]

I went very dark as the good marshal pointed out. Its a mix of black, shadow grey and a hint of codex grey which I have to mix in batches. I highlight with pure shadow grey on the edges and then a mix of codex grey and shadow grey. I don't consider it 'pre heresy' just that I wanted a darker more menacing grey. I also opted to use yellow very sparingly, and if I did it was heavily weathered.

 

One of the best things about wolf players is seeing just what grey they use, there are so many.

 

heres what mine looks like..

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_x1vt2GUjp_I/TFq3FdnG33I/AAAAAAAAANk/5SSaxpxROqg/s1600/Tors_hunters_full.jpg

 

 

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ovCFZnNRYvo/TWFvsmPHHtI/AAAAAAAAAZw/U8HdzdwvunU/s1600/helwinter_front.jpg

[PKAwolf]

only traitor legions change their colors (Im looking at you Dark Angels).

Space Wolf armor looks lighter sometimes because of all the time spent in the cold, ice crystals form on the armor and change the way light bounces off.

its true, its science.

[Chapter Master Ignis Domus]

According to the Battle of the Fang, should I remember correctly, they changed the colors around then. Grey-grey is still cooler, though.

[ulllyssies0110]

Space wolf grey is whatever shade of grey you want it to be :) I went with the blue grey cause everyone in my area has painted there's grey

[Valerian]

Here is what Jervis Johnson had to say about Space Wolves' colour schemes/markings back when the 3rd Edition codex was released:

 

From US White Dwarf 244 (May 2000):

 

Fortunately, one of the things we've tried to get away from with all of the new Codexes is'straight-jacketing' players by telling them how they must paint their models. Instead we'd rather provide guidelines, and then let players give full rein to their own imagination and creativity. Bearing this in mind, I decided to say that with the Space Wolves, the markings worn on the armor of a Space Marine were chosen by his Company's Wolf Lord. As a new Wolf Lord is elected to lead a company, one of the first things he will do is decide what markings his followers should bear on their armor. Thus markings could range from Space Wolves Grey armor with a Great Company bade on one of the shoulder pads, through to pretty much anything the player could come up with. Under this system, the markings shown in the previous Codex [2nd Edition] became those worn by the Space Wolves in Ragnar Blackmane's Great Company, rather than those worn by every Space Marine in the Chapter. The photographs accompanying this article will give you some idea of the markings we've chosen for our new Space Wolves army, and the hobby section in the Codex includes lots of other examples. However, the bottom line is that the new system lets you pick a set of markings which suits your own tastes and skill (which for me is Space Wolves Grey and a transfer, thank you very much!).

[Silverwolf]

This discussion crops up every couple of months. I'll put this simply.

 

Every Wolf Lord has his own iconography. As each Great Company changes leadership to a new Wolf Lord, so they adopt the new Wolf Lord's heraldry, and his personally preferred colour scheme. This is and the "Lost Companies" are our "mechanic" for allowing for artistic variation between different peoples armies (Since we don't technically have successor chapters like other chapters do).

 

There is no Pre-Heresy or Post-Heresy colour scheme.

 

That whole discussion started because some guy in White Dwarf made a Pre-Heresy themed SW army, and went with a grey scheme, and ever since people seem to assume that being grey armoured means this. Such is not the case.

 

Any shade between a Blue-Grey & a Storm-Grey is generally considered acceptable as Space Wolf colouration. Have a look around, pick what you prefer and go with it. My only suggest would be to paint up a test model first and be certain your happy with the results before slapping paint on all your other models :devil:.

 

Edit: Why post that while I'm typing Val, geez :lol: