Word Bearers - Character Colour Scheme

[ChainMachete]

I've more or less finished building my first batch of Word Bearers and want to start painting. Currently have Kor Phaeron & Erebus, a chaplain, a librarian, an apothecary, some tacticals, some heavies with MLs and two laser rapiers. Armour is approx. 25% Mk II & 75% MkIII. I should be able to field around a 1000 points depending on which HQs I choose, with the rest made up of allied daemons.

 

I've still not really decided on a colour scheme - grey, red/black or a mix of the two. I will probably go either all red /black or a mix of grey troops and red/black elites.

 

The fluff is fairly clear that the Val Gorbak is red/black and the rest turned from grey to red/black shortly after Istvan V, so I just need to decide what time point I need to use. Because I'll be running allied daemons, this needs to be some time after they started worshiping chaos.

 

But what about special characters? FW have painted their Kor Phaeron grey and Erebus red. Did Kor Phaeron go red and when? If I decide to paint my elites red then that will eventually include terminators, so that suggests Kor Phaeron needs to be painted red now to fit in later, but does that match the fluff? And when did Erebus go red and what was he before? At least I don't have to worry about Lorgar yet, since I won't be buying him until I have most of my existing purchases painted.

 

And then there's the other non-named characters. I've converted up a MkIII chaplain, but what colour is their armour? Based on Erebus it probably also turned red at some point, but when and was it chaplain black before?

 

I've also converted up a MkIII librarian and really have no idea what paint him. I didn't think librarians had their own colour scheme at this time point, but I'm not sure. I guess with my conversions, I could also run him as a Diabolist, so probably a colour scheme that would fit both.

 

Finally I've also got an apothecary built up (the MkII one since it fits in better with the rest of my mkII & III models). I think a white painted apothecary with grey or black shoulder pads will fit in amongst grey painted models, but I can't see it working too well with those I've painted red; and I eventually want to run one with a unit of Gal Vorbak. I guess this is more of an aesthetic choice than pure fluff, but has anyone actually seen how well a white painted apothecary fits in with red painted models?

 

Any advice would be really welcome, since I'm very undecided at the moment.

 

Thanks.

 

[Adra'Melek]

First up, you can generally do whatever you're happy with. The Forge World books have very little in terms of rigidity in colour/symbolism.

 

Second, IMO a mix of grey and red, for troops and elites would look really cool.

 

As for HQ, well the original Imperial Heralds had black clad chaplains but Erebus had grey, so....not much help there. For Librarians, well I've not see anything to say how any Librarians looked really. So, do as you will. I'd paint as a Diabolist (whatever they look like and uses. Librarian if wanted).

 

On apothecary, can you put one with the Gal Vorbek? The squads they can join are specifically named IIRC

[lukepepper]

Looks like you have built up a good core force of Word Bearers. A mixture of grey troops and having your elites red/black would be cool looking and fluffy. Some Word Bearers, maybe ones far away could have been slow to change to red.

 

As far as I have read Kor Phaeron's armour doesn't change to being red but I can't see any problem painting him to fit in with the rest of your army if you go the red/black route. Erebus could have been the only chaplain to be wearing red being the high chaplain and all, the others could have kept to black as it was when they were Imperial Heralds. The great thing about 30k is how open it is and you can do pretty much whatever you want, there aren't any strict guidelines of how to paint your armies.

 

Apothecaries can only join the squads mentioned in Betrayal. You don't have to paint your apothecary fully white, maybe just pick out the torso and head.

 

Looking forward to seeing some painted models, whether they are grey, red or anything else. Would be good to see some more XVII legion action around this forum.

[Daemon2027]

I am not sure of Kor Phaeron but Erebus is described as having black armour in one of the novels and I think red in another. He possibly has more then one set of armour.

 

I like the sound of the grey and red/black mix.

[ChainMachete]

Just read Know No Fear and Erebus is mentioned as having red armour there, but couldn't find anything describing Kor Phaeron or Lorgar's armour. However I've just started reading Aurelian and post Istvan V, but pre Calth, Lorgar is described there as wearing crimson. Nothing about Kor Phaeron yet, but I've only read ~30% of it so far.

 

I have read Battle for the Abyss and First Heretic, but that was ages ago and I wasn't paying attention. Perhaps I ought to re-read them before picking up my paint brush.

 

I've also just finished the initial assembly of Kor Phaeron and think he'd look great in red & black, so unless I find anything saying he didn't change his armour from grey to red at the same time as Lorgar, I think I'll go with that for him. Erebus is still incomplete due to me needing replacements for some miscasts but I'm fairly certain I'll end up painting him red. By the way, Kor Phaeron's claws were a pain to build and I'm really not sure how durable they'll be for gaming. Which is a shame because at <= 1750 points, I can see him (and a generic chaplain) being a standard for my lists so I can include some allied daemons.