Chaotic Color Schemes - Variety or Consistency?

[ashrog]

Recently I have had a renewed interest in expanding my Chaos collection, and especially in getting my little guys painted. And, as always, I am stuck on choosing the color scheme. I feel this is even more important with Chaos than other armies. If I was painting Orks, Eldar, or even loyalist Marines, I could just pick a couple colors that look good and be happy with it.

 

But for Chaos, colors say a lot about allegiances. Green Chaos marines? Probably heavy on the Nurgle. And Slaanesh basically has a monopoly on pink.

 

So, my question is this: do I pick one over - arching scheme for the entire army, or paint each unit in its own, unique scheme?

 

To be sure, both sides do have advantages. Having a unified scheme helps to solidify (visually) the concept of an army. The downside is that everything might blend together a bit.

 

Having each unit in a separate scheme seems to have been more common in older editions (Listing this as an advantage, I like the old - school look) and would help to break up the monotony of painting. The downside would be a lack of cohesion.

 

I realize that, in the end, it comes down to personal preference. But I keep going back and forth, and wanted to get some different viewpoints.

[chillin]

- like you said its totally personal preference. Personally I think having each squad a different color scheme looks like a mess (IMO of course) , doesn't look much like an army at all. A friend of mine did this with his DE and I think it looks like hell. I think having a bunch of different color squads makes it look like you borrowed a bunch of squads from a bunch of different people in order to throw an army together. A unified paint scheme gives it cohesion , makes it look like an army.

You could kind of split the difference and do 1 shoulder pad in different colors or something like that.

- As for having each unit being a different color scheme old-skool, I've been playing since the mid 90's and have rarely seen it, especially in well done armies, so I'm not sure how old-skool you're talking about. even in "slaves to darkness" the paint schemes were all done in legion colors.

- another problem with each unit in different color scheme, besides lack of cohesive look, is you have to use the same thing in the same squad all the time , or throw different color models in the same squad. Example : your red squad usually has 2 plaz and a naked champ , this game you decide you want 2 melta in that squad, so do you throw the 2 melta guys in there from the green squad , making your army look even more disjointed. How about if you decide you need a PF champ this time , do you throw your PF champ from the silver squad in ? Or do you buy and paint xtras for each squad , 2 red plaz , 2 red meltas , red PF champ, red naked champ , etc and so on for each colored squad ? Just something to consider

[Forté]

A lot of it will depend on how you view your force. Is it an old Legion, a renegade chapter or a rag tag force. Then you have the powers. Khorne with red, black and brass. Nurgle with green, brown and yellow. Or your more natural decay colours. Tzeentch with more vivid blues, yellows and purples. Then you have Slaanesh...which most people put down as pink but anyone really thinking about it would realise that there's no limit with Slaanesh.

 

The last minis I completed were the Horus Heresy Kakophoni. Recently turned to some other power. So, the base colour is still the legions purple with some white plates. But this didn't feel enough to me so I added some black parts and some different pastel shades on parts which look like recent additions. The weapons are unique to each mini with different styles of marble, stone, lacquer and metals. It worked.

 

So, what I'd say is go for which ever style you want but having something to unify them, no matter how subtle. Like the trim being the same colour for example. May help it look like a force to those who like to paint the same scheme on a whole force ;)

[Slayer le Boucher]

Having all units have different colours, like said, isn't really great, but of course everyone, and specially in a CSM army having the exact colour patern on their armours is has much silly.

 

What i do to keep a cohesive look, but to give a feel of individualism, is that i change the way the colours are applied.

 

While my dominante colours are red, Black and Gold, i change the paterns from squad to squad.

 

While i have a squad who is like the Zerkers in the books, i have others with only the Pauldrons, hands, helmet and feet in red, the rest in black, or legs and torso+ pauldrons in red and the rest in black, etc etc.

 

The army looks cohesive from a distance, but you see the individuality of each squads, and avoiding a boring colour patern.

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

I am starting to assemble my Word Bearers, and we all know the color scheme there, right??!! But to show favoritism or allegiance from certain squads, I am giving said unit a light taste, if you will, of what the god in particular would grant, it's colors, afflictions, blah blah blah... That's the solution I came up with, and quite honestly it would work on a lot of different chaos armies.  *2 cents*

 

End of Line

[Forté]

I am starting to assemble my Word Bearers, and we all know the color scheme there, right??!! But to show favoritism or allegiance from certain squads, I am giving said unit a light taste, if you will, of what the god in particular would grant, it's colors, afflictions, blah blah blah... That's the solution I came up with, and quite honestly it would work on a lot of different chaos armies. *2 cents*

 

End of Line

Don't forget there's also the grey WB scheme.

[Tenebris]

I think that the best way to portray a very varied and interesting chaos warband is to go with the Black Legion and add snippets of color here and there, use all the shoulder pads in the CSM kit and all helmets, to invoke the image of an Undivided army with Cult elements, and the best part of all is that is perfectly valid and even based on recent fluff. I think that the appeal of chaos is more in the individuality of the single marine than that of an unit, we speak of a force that is wholly driven by individual agendas hence I think that is better to load on model gear than on colors. Overall most of the CSM plate is looted or stolen from the many battlefields and an unifying color is not necessary at hand to paint all the warband plate. 

[Rune Priest Ridcully]

The way I'm doing it with the world bearer raptors I'm using with my Thousand sons is having them in the red and silver scheme, but with the Thousand son legion symbol encircling the word bearer one, and their other shoulder pad will be in Tsons colours, with heiroglyphs and cuneform writing. 

[caboosebe]

If you have a problem choosing, here is a good tip:

Look how big your army is.

 

When I started with Chaos, I wanted to have a Black Crusade force. Havocs were Iron Warriors, Berzerkers World Eaters, Emperor's Children Noise Marines and Thousand Sons ... eerr ... Thousand Sons ...

I just had enough models to create a 1750 list and to be honest, it looked horrible (and my painting skills weren't any better than table-top standard)
After a few month I got my hands on massive armies of people who didn't want to play Chaos anymore and most of it had never been painted (lucky me)
Now, there are over 60 Berzerkers, 45 Havocs (with various Iron Warrior bits), 90! Terminators, etc etc. 
I became more of a collector and a 'I don't care if I lose, my army looks better and has more conversions' than a competitive player.
With so many models, I can make lists with a single scheme, but most of the time it is up to 3 if I wish to have a good list.
On the other hand, Apocalypse really feels like a Black Crusade force. 

 

So, my advice would be, if you are a collector and you know your army will grow, feel free to go multiple legions/warbands.
If you feel you have enough with a single list with maybe a few spare models, I would go for any of the good tips the others have posted here.

 

Hope you will find something you like and that we may see your models soon!

 

 

 

Edit: All the typos I could find.

[Rune_Priest_Rhapsody]

 

I am starting to assemble my Word Bearers, and we all know the color scheme there, right??!! But to show favoritism or allegiance from certain squads, I am giving said unit a light taste, if you will, of what the god in particular would grant, it's colors, afflictions, blah blah blah... That's the solution I came up with, and quite honestly it would work on a lot of different chaos armies. *2 cents*

 

End of Line

Don't forget there's also the grey WB scheme.

But I'm not running them Pre-Heresy forte!! :)

 

End of Line

[Lord Rust]

My chaos army uses the same pattern on all troops and vehicles (heavy rust over bare grey ceramite) but to make my cult troops stand out I use their specific helmets and  torsos and paint them in traditional colors, Red for Zerkers, Blue for Tsons, Greeen for plaguies, and purple(just cant do pink) on the noise marines

it doesnt seem like much, but it sets them apart while still maintaining a cohesive army look

[crucial]

For me this is the biggest problem with chaos (fantasy included).. once you have painted models a certain colour (red bolter csm) they are obviously alligned the that colours respective god. Editions come and go where one set up is clearly better than the other so this can be a royal pain in the ass for me.

 

I've played back since 3rd edition and at one point I used the get the hobby knife out and chop arms off when a new set up became more appealling only to have a new edition come out and leave me chopping them up yet again.

 

Nowadays ive resigned myself to leaving my models be. Afterall eventually you will have practically every set up going. I love my zerkers with boltguns and special weapons!

[Forté]

Magnets ;) though that can go too far.