squad/superior markings

[vonny]

I'm currently painting up some sisters I found in a box somewhere after stripping them from their original paint, and even got some more sisters from my local store to build into an ally force, and hopefully they'll grow into an army of their own as well (but, as you all know, sisters are kinda expensive).

I based the color scheme on a drawing I made a while back of a dark heresy adepta sororitas character I played, from the Order of the Sacred Rose.

However, I was wondering how (if at all) you guys deal with squad markings on your models (how do you keep squad of sisters 1 apart from squad 2, and how do you keep those apart from your retributor squad)? And what do you paint differently, if anything, with the sister superior? I'm planning to give her a red gun casing, at least, but perhaps other stuff you guys paint differently?

or of course, advise me to paint differently, even if you don't do it yourselves

For reference, I made one test model so far, and although the picture is a bit overexposed, I hope you can still get an idea of how I'm painting the models.

http://i864.photobucket.com/albums/ab205/vonny83/Miscellanous%20models/BrothersinArms_zpsfa96ddb0.jpg

[Eddie Orlock]

Most of the time I don't have my units operate close enough that inteminglement is an issue, when I do I ussually declair something like one squad faces left, the other faces right and take care to maintain my convention.

 

Given how well your figures hold up to macro-photography, I don't think there's much I can tell you. You could get an earful over in PC&A though, we got some real pros over there.

[mince on toast]

just try a different colour combo on the sisters/church symbol on say the knee or where ever you want.

 

so squad A will have red,squad B will have blue etc

 

ive done it with  contrasting colours to my order of the bloody rose sisters ,

 

so ive got blues ,greens or even a subtle reversal of colours on the rosary beads too make them stick out from multiple SoB squads.

 .

[Dread]

You could do the bases for each a different color or terraign style.

[Dusktiger]

a SoB player asked me to paint his army for him, and what i did to denote the squads was each 'type' of squad had a different colored front sash. blue for the standard troop unit, red for seraphim, yellow for the one that gets up to 4 special weapons, and black for the heavy weapons team.

 

to separate which was which within each of those, i did a white embroidered trim on the sashes, and changed the design from one squad to the next.  his first troop squad had a thick white line down the left edge that went in as far as the button holes on the sash.  the 2nd squad had a thin line of white straight down the sash just behind that button line, and then a horizontal line of the same width was done near the bottom, as far from the edge as the horizontal one was from the right edge, to make an offset cross design.  the 3rd squad had just a horizontal line across the sash near the bottom.  and i just kept making variations like that as i got to another squad.  im going to be making a command squad for him in the future, but i havent decided on a sash color for them yet. red would've been nice, but its already his seraphim which he uses as an unnofficial command squad with st celestine.

[*Furyou Miko]

The Sisters colour scheme looks pretty awesome to be honest. For squad markings, as others have said - pick an icon (the left shoulderpad works pretty well) and apply a different colour to either the icon ecclesiarchy or the wings, depending on the squad (So Squad 1 might have blue wings and a red -(][)-, while squad 2 might have red wings and a blue -(][)-, and squad 3 has blue wings and a blue -(][)-).

[derpasaurus]

I just happen to have enough sisters to get a good representation of models. I have one squad that is almost all helmeted, one squad that is almost all unhelmeted. As for the retributors, they're usually farther back and/or to a side than the rest so they stay apart easy. Seraphim are also obvious as they are unique models. Most of my superiors have the fluer-de-lis on their helms so they're apart on their own, add to that 2 of mine carry plasma and rank and file sisters can't. 

I like the idea of painting the eclesiarchal symbol on the shoulder a different shade/color, though.

 

[*Furyou Miko]

^^; Only my Special Weapon sisters have helmets these days. I kidnapped all the helmeted ones to turn into armour wraiths for my Tzeentch army.

[WarriorFish]

I've never had issues with squad identification on any of my armies - not even the Guard! I don't much like the added requirement of denoting squads on units and therefore limiting them to the same squad forever though so maybe that's a good explanation. It can work well on Marines and to a lesser extend Guard but Sisters don't have anything similar to designate what squad a sister belongs to.

 

I'm not aware of there being any fluff to support anything in particular so painting an easily identifiable area such as a symbol on a shoulder pad seems reasonable. As for identifying Superiors she has fancy weapons for a reason :P

 

Last but not least I like your colour scheme, white is a solid colour for Sisters along with black and red and more importantly you've painted it well :)

[Eddie Orlock]

I've never had issues with squad identification on any of my armies - not even the Guard! I don't much like the added requirement of denoting squads on units and therefore limiting them to the same squad forever though so maybe that's a good explanation.

I like to claim that per the fluff Marines can see a bit into the infrared and ultraviolet, and so to confuse their enemies the Storm Angles apply most of their tactical markings with pigments out of the normal spectrums of visible light. Not painting my unit markings is fluffy :P

[Azash]

I have never seen this done with sisters in point of fact it was done with Deathwing Terminators but the theory is sound can could apply to sisters models.

 

What the fellow did is take the Deathwing symbol and on each squad made one section of it a different color (it still fit the color scheme though) so you would have one squad that had a half red half white deathwing with red on the right. Another squad had red on the left, yet another squad was quarter right red, and so on until all the squads could be easily discerned by a quick look at the shoulder.

 

Using the same methodology you could use the fluer on the shoulder of the sisters model to make the same sort of differentiation.

[WarriorFish]

I've never had issues with squad identification on any of my armies - not even the Guard! I don't much like the added requirement of denoting squads on units and therefore limiting them to the same squad forever though so maybe that's a good explanation.

I like to claim that per the fluff Marines can see a bit into the infrared and ultraviolet, and so to confuse their enemies the Storm Angles apply most of their tactical markings with pigments out of the normal spectrums of visible light. Not painting my unit markings is fluffy

Mine too, conformity is approved of on the Chapter scale. Plus as a tightly knit brotherhood I think it's safe to assume each can readily identify his own squad mates so why give an advantage to the enemy?

Maybe when SoB get updated we can look forward to some expanded fluff on the workings of the Sisterhood, it feels well overdue.

[AdmLancel]

I've never had issues with squad identification on any of my armies - not even the Guard! I don't much like the added requirement of denoting squads on units and therefore limiting them to the same squad forever though so maybe that's a good explanation.

I like to claim that per the fluff Marines can see a bit into the infrared and ultraviolet, and so to confuse their enemies the Storm Angles apply most of their tactical markings with pigments out of the normal spectrums of visible light. Not painting my unit markings is fluffy

This would be cool if you then produced a UV Lamp to illuminate the squad markings, haha.

I just paint a numeral on their base, along with the Sister's name and their force organization slot. Makes it simple to change later if I so choose. The Superiors get helmets with gold face plates, while the other helmets get white face plates.

[vonny]

I was planning to do the superiors' bases at least the same as the sergeants' in my lamenters force (added at the bottom of the post), with the name banners on. You can see it on the bases of the independant characters as well, although they have a first and surname.

You can also see some of the freehanding I'm prone to do as shown by their chapter and squad markings (yes, all those 2's are painted on, and yes, it did cause me some small amount of frustration at times. It's part of the fun).

Maybe that name banner is enough for the superiors, I'll look into it. I also saw some gold trims on shoulderpads that seemed to look nice, I might do that.

I would prefer not to take in extra colors for squad markings, such as adding green or blue to the winged I symbol on the shoulder. I like sticking with this limited color scheme.

I like warriorfish's point that they each know eachother well enough not to need any markings. On the other hand, I like the idea that an order with a militaristic core system would place importance on visual cues on rank and squad.

As for helmets - I'm trying to do as few helmets as possible. Unfortunately, I acquired a pair of special weapon wielders, and they both have helmets. Also a superior, but I was planning on her having taken a vow of penance or abstinence or something, with the helmet a visual and physical reminder and symbol of that vow. However, if I can't find an unhelmeted replacements someone wants to trade for the two special weapons, I'll use more helmets and not for any special reason. What a shame that'd be :(

Lastly, a trim pattern on the robes. I'm hesitant to do that, as the current trim (red) was really needed to give the model some more body and differentiation between the robes and surrounding shadows. Changing stuff around there seems risky, at best.

[WarriorFish]

The name scroll on the base looks cool, but also looks like a lot of work :P