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Brotherhood Markings


Hidicul

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So I've been through our forum and looked around on line to no avail. Do we have some kind of markings to differentiate between our 8 Brotherhoods? I know Purifiers stand out from the rest with their white helmets, but what about the rest as well as Paladins? Any help would be appreciated brothers.
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No, as others have said, each Knight carries his own personal heraldry. Also, the Chapter rarely fights even at Brotherhood-strength, and multiple Brotherhoods would rarely be deployed. There simply isn't a need for it. 

 

Its likely that a Knights heraldry incorporates similar aspects to others in his Brotherhood (ie they both survived the same campaign), but then new battle-brothers wouldn't have those battle-honours. 

 

Knights don't really need markings anyway. They're all psykers, so if they wanna know which battle-brother they're addressing and who he serves under, they can just read his aura. 

It also goes against their tradition of not including superfluous markings as they believe that a pure soul resonates in a pure armour, so they dont paint it for that reason and the ceramite is visible (which is apparently Grey, hence the name). Painting on brotherhood markings would go against that belief.

 

In contrast, they display their personal heraldry.

It also goes against their tradition of not including superfluous markings as they believe that a pure soul resonates in a pure armour, so they dont paint it for that reason and the ceramite is visible (which is apparently Grey, hence the name). Painting on brotherhood markings would go against that belief.

 

Eh, its not really a spiritual thing, its more a statement of 'we don't have a Primarch or a Legion legacy, we're the mailed fist of the Emperor smashing daemons into paste'. As in, every other Astartes paints their armour to signify who their allegiance and gene-seed comes from, but for Knights, they have no need. It's actually quite a clever statement of purpose when you think about it. 

 

The personal heraldry probably reflects the fact that whilst they are a Chapter and nominally operate in brotherhoods, in practise each Knights wields power and command resources that effectively make each one of them a hero of the Imperium. I mean, their Terminator core (ie the noobs) are more highly trained and deadly than Astartes Librarians from day one, and they only grow in power and ability with experience. Also makes sense when you consider that few would recognise the markings, and all Knights die in secret (the wider Imperium doesn't even know they exist in the first place). Might as well show off how great a warrior you are, as the only people who will ever know are Inquisitors and your battle-brothers. 

It also goes against their tradition of not including superfluous markings as they believe that a pure soul resonates in a pure armour, so they dont paint it for that reason and the ceramite is visible (which is apparently Grey, hence the name). Painting on brotherhood markings would go against that belief.

Eh, its not really a spiritual thing, its more a statement of 'we don't have a Primarch or a Legion legacy, we're the mailed fist of the Emperor smashing daemons into paste'. As in, every other Astartes paints their armour to signify who their allegiance and gene-seed comes from, but for Knights, they have no need. It's actually quite a clever statement of purpose when you think about it.

Even chapters without knowing their primarch have a colour scheme, like the Blood Ravens. Grey Knights don't taint their armour, lest it beckons a daemon. I'm not sure which codex it's in (or even where i heard it tbh) but I shall have a look tonight. Actualy scratch that as my PC is broken cry.gif

While thematically (as people here have rightly said) there's no reason to expect that a "unit" of GK would be tied together visually, on the tabletop there's obvious benefit to tying them together...which I still don't have a good solution to for GK beyond simply disregarding the fluff a bit and giving units a single matching shoulder pad OR being cheeky about it and painting a small colored daub on the back of their bases.

I use the different shield shapes to differentiate my GK units. Each squad has one shape of shield, half with icon, half without, which makes it easy for me to combat squad on the fly. The units I use mixed shields on are Paladins and Ghost Knights, which look better in my opinion by being individually distinct. This also lets each Knight's personal heraldry stand out yet still show they are part of a squad. There are more than enough different shield shapes ( w/ or w/o icon) to use a specific shield for each unit in the army.

 

Another thing I do is paint the bottom base edge of each unit a different color, such as Strikers in shades of green, GKT in shades of gray, Mordrak and his Ghosts in white, Librarians in blue, Draigo in dark red, etc.

 

SJ

My grey knights share a colour theme - each squad shares 2 colours, but arranged differently according to traditional heraldic patterns. Haven't gotten around to transfers yet. My paladin squad has red and black. They also use the bordered shields as opposed to the plain ones my regular termies use.

 

My fluff for this is that they are the first company which is made of elite like a regular chapter. As they have to meld they psychic bonds into a new squad, they share a theme to help signify the union.

I'm certain I remember reading in one of the GK novels that a certain character was elevated to the rank of Justicar, and the novel in question made special mention of the fact that, as a Justicar, he was entitled to his own personal heraldry.

 

Make of that what you will.

The heraldry is displayed on the shield you can see on your avatar Adeptus, and varies from Knight to Knight. Squad markings and otherwise painting the armour is a big no-no. The shield itself (cant remember the cool name for it) is actually attached to the armour and doesn't constitute the armour itself. You could expand that and have different idols or badges hanging from the belt or liber daemonica in some fashion that all knights in the brotherhood adopt.

While brotherhood markings aren't supposed to be there, I strongly encourage some form of squad marking. Especially with combat squads sharing transports, my opponents like to have some sign of who's with whom. While I haven't done it yet, I plan painting the edge of the left paldron. As of yet, they are all solid red, but I might do some patterns in red/white/black...

Here's something that Brother BulldoggUK did for his squads - he used a different color on the helmet stripes for each squad, using fairly subtle tones, so as not to distract from the model's paint job. Here are members from four different squads all together, following by one squad with the coherent stripe.

gallery_23369_5177_159716.jpg

gallery_23369_5177_97336.jpg

  • 2 weeks later...

The shield itself (cant remember the cool name for it)

Insignium Valorus! Its on the back if the old codex and apparently it mentions that it is used to display the personal heraldry of terminators and for PAGK it is used to display squad markings! But this is coming from the codex that says only veteran Grey Knights are awarded the crux terminatus.
  • 2 weeks later...

Noice man. Wish my Knights looked half as good as that smile.png

I'm trying so hard not to noice your noice right now.

I have to say, I really like Valerian's different crest-colors more than I thought I would...I may actually do that. Thanks, Valerian!

Absolutely! I just want to ensure that you saw the bit about them not being mine, though; those are BulldogUK's from his terrific "Lock up your Daemonettes" thread.

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