DA Colour Scheme

[Arkangilos]

Which edition was Codex Imperialis?

 

+Edit+

Never mind, found it. It is second edition.

 

Index Astartes is newer, and so overrides its, in my book.

[Grotsmasha]

I know that all Primarchs armour doesn't necessarily match their Legions, but in the Black Library's HH novel, The Primarchs, The Lion is wearing black armour, as were the marines in both HH Dark Angel novels.

 

As to the Legions symbol I prefer red, but in I.A. GW has stated it to be white.

 

Cheers,

Jono.

[Aleax]

Hi.

 

The link above is the cover of Epic Space Marine 1st edition, which was set precisely during the Horus Heresy.

 

That picture was however also used as the cover of the novel Space Marine, a book about Imperial Fists.. so it could have been a case of "What should we put on the front cover?" "Well, this is pretty awesome?" (note the pic doesn't show who they are fighting, unlike the similar cover to Battle for Armageddon which appears to show Salamanders fighting red armoured marines instead of orks)

So the cover would depict green power armoured Dark Angels, but let a possibility that the Dark Angels are truthfully all black? ;) Nah, in the rulebook there is a guideline for the different chapters colors. This is dark green for Dark Angels.

 

Cheers.

[Arkangilos]

I don't really understand the above post.

 

But in the original copy of space marine that my dad had, it did not show that picture.

[Aleax]

My english is that bad? ;)

 

I will try my best this time : Dark Angels in Epic 1st edition are green, the proof is not only the artcover of the game which depicts green Dark Angels at war, but also within the rulebook : inside, their color scheme is dark green as well.

 

;)

 

Cheers.

[absolon]

I think the best place to draw the line is at the battle of Caliban. We know pre Heresy the armor was black and post heresy the armor is green. Think about it this way your about to land a major force on a hostile planet whose troops are ave identical to yours in most ways. A quick way to solve this problem is to change the color of your troops uniform. Since dark green was already being used by some of your troops to allude to the Calibanite forest, the switch to dark green would seem to be a natural choice. Then you can issue orders to fire on anyone in black armor.

[Arkangilos]

My english is that bad? :tu:

 

I will try my best this time : Dark Angels in Epic 1st edition are green, the proof is not only the artcover of the game which depicts green Dark Angels at war, but also within the rulebook : inside, their color scheme is dark green as well.

 

:tu:

 

Cheers.

 

Oh, well I got what you were saying, I just didn't understand why it was quoting a novel. :)

 

And I am not disputing that they are green now. But pre-heresy it is said to be black. (even in the Index Astartes, which is an official GW document from 3rd Edition, which is more current than first and second).

[Vodunius]

I will try my best this time : Dark Angels in Epic 1st edition are green, the proof is not only the artcover of the game which depicts green Dark Angels at war, but also within the rulebook : inside, their color scheme is dark green as well.

 

Mind you, so were World Eaters, yet Varren was described as having a red uniform and on the side of the box they wore blue..

[Bane of Angels]

Just trying to clarify what you said and add to it. It was a little muddled.

 

Read perfectly fine to me. :D

 

Speaking as an aged gamer that has played since the very beginning of the game the DA were definitely not black during the original version of the Heresy.

 

When Space Marine 1st edition came out after the release of the rogue trader book and four years before second edition I was told at the time that the DA were changed to green because there were too many black armoured chapter schemes included in the boxed game. So we got green dark angels and one of the best pieces of forty kay artwork in the history of the game (in my opinion) for the cover.

 

The whole concept of the Heresy comes from the fact that they needed a reason to be able to include two sets of identical plastic titans in Adeptus Titanicus and the same with Space Marine because they couldn't afford to produce a second alien race to go in either of the sets.

 

The black armour was the original RT colour but this was replaced with green about three years before second edition much to my distaste having painted all my DA at the time in the original black scheme.

 

The return to the black armour only came about with the IA article detailing their history along with the other Legions as a nostalgic nod to the original black which was later strengthened with the release of the heresy artwork books.

 

Personally I wouldn't use RT material as a reference because it also said that Leman Russ founded the Space Wolves in the 32nd Millennium and the Ultramarines had a Half Eldar chief Librarian, the game setting has evolved greatly since then.

 

In all honesty though all this has now been retconned by the Heresy books and novels so the best source of information would be there to be honest and if FW ever do an official IA book then I imagine this is going to be the main source of inspiration.

[Aleax]

Hi.

 

Nice to see a fellow Epic 1st edition DA player. :)

 

I second your post, as we drew basically identical conclusions.

 

However I do not like the BL books, and don't consider them as official fluff.

 

(too much Lion'el Jonson is an idiot :) )

 

Cheers.

[facmanpob]

However I do not like the BL books, and don't consider them as official fluff.

you should probably take a quick look at this blog by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, in which he explains the concept of what is and isn't considered canon by GW for 40k. Interesting read! :lol:

[Unintentional Batman]

Personally I wouldn't use RT material as a reference because it also said that Leman Russ founded the Space Wolves in the 32nd Millennium and the Ultramarines had a Half Eldar chief Librarian, the game setting has evolved greatly since then.

 

And yet a major portion of the original RT fluff is significantly cooler than anything that has done afterwards. Only the Very Big Things, like Primarchs and... well, things related to Primarchs are an improvement. Personally, canon is what I find coolest. Which means major parts of RT and pretty much anything in Ian Watson's Inquisition War books is very hard to overcome in canonicity.

[Vodunius]

And yet a major portion of the original RT fluff is significantly cooler than anything that has done afterwards.

 

Seconded. Some of it was also better thought out. I remember one RT description of the Codex Astartes stated that every generation or two as the old copy fell apart, a chapter would pick a marine to receive the honour of making a new copy, but it wouldn't be 100% exact, changes would creep in (possibly due to changes in dialect - even the 'current' Insignium Astartes says parts of the oldest surviving copy are all but unintelligible due to Guilliman's flowing prose and archaic dialect). Ironically the same has affected 40k itself, ie: Marines run around screaming FOR THE EMPEROR and being all holy, yet supposedly not worshiping the Emperor as a god because in one of GW's rewrites someone left "in accordance with the Imperial Creed" off the sentence "Marines don't worship the Emperor".

 

Likewise you have things that really should be detailed which GW strangely hasn't bothered to do, ie: the 3rd edition Chaplains IA article tells us how badass they are, but fails to explain how a marine becomes a chaplain or how they are organised - for that you have to go back to the early RT write-up. On a similar note GW has reduced Librarians to little more than mutant boomsticks, it was only in RT that the Librarium had a decent description of what it was and how it was organised (which rather sensibly included attached Astropaths such as the Half-Eldar)

[Aleax]

However I do not like the BL books, and don't consider them as official fluff.

you should probably take a quick look at this blog by Aaron Dembski-Bowden, in which he explains the concept of what is and isn't considered canon by GW for 40k. Interesting read! ;)

Euh no. Off of what I was saying. I did read the article, and while I am writing this, I am thinking I shouldn't have to.

(Thanks anyway because I am this sort of kind guy)

 

Cheers.

[Pall Ironbear]

Also, the symbol of the DW was changed to a broken winged sword to honour the commander of the DW squads that went to the world as a broken sword was his personal symbol.

 

Never heard about that part. Was always pretty sure it represented the Lion's sword breaking during his duel with Luther (Cypher carries it) and in a sence the legion breaking aswell with the fallen and such. Seeing as the Deathwing is the level of rank you need to be to start learning about this stuff in the Chapter this seemed plausible.

 

Offcourse a story like "it was his personal symbol, so we changed the symbol in the entire company/circle to honour him" would make it easier to explain it to outsiders.

 

Pretty certain it wasn't his personal heraldry either, but then I read the original when it came out. Not the year 2000 re-print. And just to throw another spanner in the works, the box art work on Deathwing (the expansion set for the original Space Hulk) has heraldry based on the descriptions from the book the short story. I can get a better pic, close up of the heraldry if needed. But I'd agree that RT era sorces aren't the best, because GW have screwed the DA pooch's fluff ever since in my opinion.

[Harleqvin]

Then Ive found that rogue trader listed it as black with a red stripe down the centre of the helmet with red or white detailing. Again 'pre' heresy – and in some cases referred to as 'pre' Caliban.

The stripe on the Marine's helmet was a rank indication convention from 1st Edition. A red stripe indicated a "Trooper", alternating red and black referred to a Veteran, red with yellow borders was a Sergeant, red with white then black borders a Captain, and so on. Some Chapters had different conventions, such as Ultramarines and Iron Hands using white stripes for Troopers, Space Wolves using yellow stripes, and Blood Angels using black.

 

In 2nd Edition, and even sooner, during the later years of 1st, the ranking conventions were completely revised. You can completely ignore those stripes in terms of "in-universe" traditional Chapter colors. They are only interesting as an "out-universe" history of the development of the chapter.

 

 

About the only thing I can absolutely confirm is that the Deathwing and Ravenwing colour schemes havent changed at all (save possibly for a red stripe) on the helm. Ravenwing are still basically black, and Deathwing are still not bone white.

Similar to the red helmet stripe, the red unit and chapter markings from 1st Edition can be ignored. The color scheme shown in the WH40K Rogue Trader rulebook was not intended as a "pre-heresy" paintscheme, but as the current day scheme of the Dark Angels Chapter. That has been changed to green later during 1st Edition. The Dark Angels Index Astartes shows black armour with white markings as their pre-heresy paint scheme (which is also the contemporary color scheme of the Ravenwing), and it states that the armor color scheme was changed for unknown reasons following the Horus Heresy.

 

The Deathwing armour had initially been black as well, and had remained black after the Heresy, similar to the Ravenwing color scheme. The Deathwing was changed to white much later, in honor of a unit of Terminators that fought a genestealer infestation on one of their recruitment worlds. Since it was a campaign against genestealers, it could not have been much more than one or maybe two or three millennia ago, so for the first 7000 years following the Heresy, Dark Angels Terminators were black.

 

 

I actually thought it said that the red stripe was the determining factor of veteran status and the continuing other stripes for sergeants and so forth for distinction from the rest of the veterans that may have been in the same squad and whatnot. but I would need to double check that.

 

I had wrong image in my head. RT has this, so yeah. I failed lqtm

http://i1245.photobucket.com/albums/gg584/Briscoe_Covnty/helmets.jpg

 

Also it all depends on what you are going for and from what fluff you will use. Some of the covers for the current HH DA books show black armor with white icons and the other has black with red icons.

I know that at a certain point the Icon shoulder pads were green and the opposite pad was the knightly order and heraldry for Calabanite DA, while the Terran DA still had normal and then rank squad listings on the other. In "The Lion" it has Libs wearing black armor with Blue surplices from what I have read. So there is another way Libs can be done...

All in all, current fluff including BL, has Pre/heresy DA with Black armor and Calabanite DA had one pad being green with chapter icon. The Icon had changed to have the downward pointing sword of The Order added to it after Lion was found.

 

I know I am doing a mix of both Current fluff and RT style for colors and whatnot for a Pre/Heresy DA but more Pre-heresy than Heresy. Sticking with mostly Mk IV and before with a couple of Mk V and Mk VI, for Power Armor. Now I am just trying to find out what the color of the RW icon is during that time as I haven't found anything on it. :P

I am still trying to find out what the RW chapter Icon color being

[Harleqvin]

But I'd agree that RT era sorces aren't the best, because GW have screwed the DA pooch's fluff ever since in my opinion.

 

Very true lqtm It all comes down to what you like and what you want. lqtm

[EPK]

I'm not sure the Plains World incident actually occurred. To me, it's a parable for the Fall, as would be told to lower-ranked brethren. Think about it, the Dark Angels are crusading around the galaxy, and return to their world to find it corrupted. They fight to cleanse it, and their leader falls while fighting the leader of the enemy, defeating them in the process. In addition, the survivors are forever marked by what happened there. Now, why does that story sound familiar?

 

We're already told that the Dark Angels are told countless metaphors of the Fall, seeing which are capable of joining the inner circle. The Plains World story is just one of those stories. Swap the Plains World for Caliban, and the genestealers for the Fallen, and it's the same story.

 

 

Am i the only one who thinks thats brilliant? I never thought the genestealer idea carried much weight really, no matter teh sacrifice.

 

Is it your theory LC?

 

Yep, it's my theory. I was just reading over the story, when I noticed the many, many similarities. After all, when you think about it, the Dark Angels can't say "the Deathwing wear bone-coloured armour because of what happened during the Fall", because the Fall totally never happened, guys. So they've made up a story to explain it, still keeping the same themes and imagery, so that they're subconsciously preparing the listener for the truths of a closer circle. Did the Dark Angels recruit from the Plains World? Probably. They might even have had to fight off an enemy force from there too, and from there sprung a new legend to tell to the newest recruits, beginning their path down the circles.

 

Perhaps you came up with it on your own, but the DA codex alludes to as much in in the Deathwing sections. It is noted as a legend among many other similarly told tales that are recanted to marines as they progress through the Chapter's ranks. "All are tales of bitter woe ending in the defeat of the foe at terrible cost to the heroes and of an eternal stain on the hour of those who come after them".

[Artemid]

As far as the Cypher model goes: there's a HH era debate thread that's been going on over in the DA subforum and the green came up. Somebody (I don't have the post immediately on hand) said that the artist who painted Cypher wasn't aware of the green/black post/pre HH armor color stuff and just painted him green because DA are green.

[Felix Antipodes]

While I like the rationale above of using green armour to tell friend from foe during the Fall of Caliban, my own take is that they didn't want want the Fallen turning up in armour identical to theirs and so changed the third thru tenth company colours to Dark Green; retaining their original colours in the Ravenwing and their second founding Chapter (forget name just now and unable to check ATT)

[Brother-Sergeant Bohemond]

In Call of the Lion, it is told that the colour Green is used eclusivily by the sons of Caliban as a mark of honour decreed by Jonson himself. One shoulder pad is oftenly Green, or contains Green.

 

This was made permanent for the whole Suit after the Fall in order to Honour Caliban (or so we assume, lol)