Astral Claws

[Forgefather]

I've recently started an Astral Claw painting project; not planning to paint a full army (yet), but so far I've got myself a box of Vanguard Veterans, and a box of Masters of the Chapter, and I've been brainstorming on what Chapter to paint 'em; I've got my answer now. In a few weeks I hope to show you a set of Astral Claws.

 

Now, the more I read about these guys, the more enthusiastic I got. In the mean time, I started to have a lot more unanswered questions, too. Anyway, my source for information right now is this page, but they're not exactly clear on certain bits like the shoulderplates, which is what brings me here.

 

The pictures (I'm gonna guess they're from the Forge World "Badab War 1 & 2" books) show several marines with several shoulderplates, ranging from being painted silver-on-silver on both shoulders:

http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/b/bf/Battle-Brother_Mark_VII_advanced.jpg

 

To one silver-on-silver shoulder with a gold-on-silver shoulder:

http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/f/f0/Retaliator_Mark_VII_b.jpg

 

To two gold-on-blue shoulders:

http://images.wikia.com/warhammer40k/images/c/c3/Strike_Leader_Mark_VIII.jpg

 

...And several other combinations. Now, I'm aware the Astral Claws were a fairly organized Chapter, and even after their fall to Chaos they remained to be fairly unified in colour schemes I believe. Point is, I'm not sure how to proceed, now. I'm going to guess the marines completely silver are the most basic of marines. I know the golden backpack exhausts are signs of the marine being part of a Retaliator squad, but I don't know what the rules are behind for example the golden shoulder trims, or the blue shoulderplate colour.

 

Gold-on-blue on the left, combined with gold-on-silver right seems to be reserved for Veterans. Gold-on-blue on both shoulders seems to be for Retaliator squad leaders (Veterans from a special squad)? If so, what is a marine with fully silver armor, besides blue shoulderplates? Would those ranked higher than Veterans (Senior Veterans, Librarians, Techmarines, Chaplains, Captains) have other shoulderplate rules? How about Chapter Masters? I can half-half imagine them wearing fully golden shoulderplates.

 

If anyone has any clear guides (be it official or home-made based on official sources), I'd be happy to hear it. Opinions are, as always, welcome. Any advice, likewise; I'd like to know how to paint these guys before I move on. If anyone feels like dropping some paint advice then they're more than welcome, too.

 

As always, thanks in advance, and I hope to show you some Astral Claws soonish.

[The Sound of Machines]

Hey mate, for what it's worth - I reckon the more blue pads you do, the better. You need something to break them up.

 

I used the Astral Claws scheme as the basis for these GKs:

 

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=319...e=3&theater

 

I wouldn't get too caught up in the "official" stuff - just do what looks good. I reckon more of the spot colours (blue/gold) is better than less, given the rest of the model is silver.

 

 

Luke

[Heru]

The way Forgeworld seems to handle the ACs is that the blue is on a marine by marine basis, they like to show their marines being slightly more individual than the "everyone is the same" look you get in the codices.