Librarian colours?

[Antarius]

Hello fellow Raven Guard players :)

 

I was wondering about Librarians, seeing as I've got one in my ETL vow. Is there anything specific about RG Librarians, heraldry/colour-wise or are we codex compliant here?

 

If nothing special is mentioned/known, what's your own take on it? I was considering painting mine black with blue robes or vice versa. Otoh white/cream robes would look nice on both black/blue as well.

[WAR]

While it is not Raven Guard but their Successor Chapter the Raptors, I am planning on painting mine to match the army with cream robes, blue shoulder pad and blue stripe on their helmet. 

 

I know their an old Index astartes article that showed a RG terminator LIbby with black arrmor and one blue shoulder pad, iirc. 

 

found the image

 

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y15/kp13/RGLib.jpg

[Race Bannon]

And that image accompanies a White Scar where only an arm is blue.

 

It seems to me, that the RG do not have specific rules in this regard.  It is what you want it to be ^_^

 

Same with Techmarines I should add.

[Antarius]

Hmm, I see. So there's at least some precedence for black armour, it would seem. Otoh it'd be nice to have something else to paint than black :D

 

BTW I've painted my Apothecary white, just to make him stand out a bit. Anyone know if that's at odds with the fluff?

[Jacques Corbin]

Yeah, I would do the horned skull shoulder pad in blue, and I do the cloth blue, but the armor is always black for me.

[deathspectersgt7]

All my witchkin have various displays of blue . Personnel taste .

[Race Bannon]

Same with Apothecaries I should have added.

[WAR]

Same with Apothecaries I should have added.

 

 

But you paint your RG Chaplains black right....

[deathspectersgt7]

Same with Apothecaries I should have added.

Agree !! except for Black Guard I have mine in Black Armor.

[Jacques Corbin]

I wouldn't see as it would be. He will be in a unit of Veterans, and fluffwise, all RG veterans and terminators and shadowcaptains have white arms.

 

My Chaplains always have black armor, with bone and gold accents. It just doesn't feel right to paint Chappy's arms white. Primarily, because Chaplains are :cuss-ing scary. He is an 8ft tall super soldier in black armor, with a skull helmet, brandishing a mace, and whipping the other armored 8ft tall super soldiers into a frenzy.

[Antarius]

Thanks for all the replies guys.

 

I'm now leaning towards giving the Librarian black armour with blue robes/shoulder/kneepad. I'll still keep the apothecary white, though.

As for my veterans, I think I'll keep them mostly black too, apart from the shoulderpads, as I'm not a huge fan of the white arms. I think I'll give them some white detailing/robes though.
 

I've actually converted a pretty cool RG Chaplain which will be in my next ETL vow, assuming I get through the first one - I'll keep him in black apart from some bone white, gold and steel - and perhaps a chapter symbol/shoulderpad (I'm not quite sure if a white shoulderpad with a black raven or a black shoulderpad with a white raven will look best). He's got a bare head though, as I couldn't find a skull mask that didn't look silly.

[WAR]

I recently have been using these heads for chaplains:

 

FW Night Lord Terror Heads

 

If you know anybody in your error that has spares of them you can always beg or try to buy one off them. 

[Antarius]

I recently have been using these heads for chaplains:

 

FW Night Lord Terror Heads

 

If you know anybody in your error that has spares of them you can always beg or try to buy one off them. 

 

Ah yeah, they're pretty cool. I've already put a RG head from FW on him though. And he's all primed and everything, so attempting a head switch would probably end in tears :)

[DanJester]

When it comes to Librarians, and Techmarines for that matter, I tend to stick with the standard chapter colours for the majority of the figure then give them role-appropriate coloured shoulder pads and sometimes the chestplate and/or helmet gets it too.

[ShinyRhino]

I have my Techmarine black armor, red shoulder and helmet. My librarians well get blue shoulders, black armor.

[Canadian_F_H]

Even the strict codex astartes is fairly liberal with color schemes denoting librarius, techmarines, and the apothecary. Just the blue, red and white areally important, the amount of armour painted the designating color is not particularly important...

 

Chaplains however are different. I've never officially seen them anything other than strictly black. Lib,apoth,tech are jobs. Chaplain is more of a dedication.

 

Of course I play black templars so my entire army are almost chaplains... lol. Seriously tho for us in black armour armies like your ravenguard, making chaplains stand out is a bit harder.

[Race Bannon]

Techmarine a are not dedicated to their craft?! That's ... Blasphemous.

 

:P

 

Seriously, I agree about color schemes for all disciplines being fluid and find it interesting the Chaplians are somehow different from the treatment.

 

As for my upcoming Librarian, it seems he may need to take a bath ^_^

[Canadian_F_H]

Techmarine a are not dedicated to their craft?! That's ... Blasphemous.

 

:P

 

Seriously, I agree about color schemes for all disciplines being fluid and find it interesting the Chaplians are somehow different from the treatment.

 

As for my upcoming Librarian, it seems he may need to take a bath ^_^

All the fluff I saw said that while techmarines train at forgeworlds and study under the priesthood of mars, they usually still feel more loyal to their chapter, even if eyed suspiciously by their brothers.

 

Personally I feel that the degree of loyalty to chapter vs loyalty to the admech was measurable by the ratio of Martian red to chapter livery on their armour... if I didn't feel so good about the old Techmarine I've had for over a decade I would cover some of that red with black.. but oh well...

 

I believe there are similar sentiments about the librarius. a choice to keep a higher than normal amount of chapter livery might be made to reinforce fraternity and mitigate the feeling of segregation.

[Ascanius]

My understanding is that Techmarines run the gamut from "all red except for one chapter-coloured shoulder" down to "all in their chapter colours except for one red detail". In Codex: Space Marines, for instance, the illustration is of a White Scars Techmarine with red armour save for a white left arm and shoulderpad bearing the chapter symbol.

 

The photograph accompanying the datasheet is an Ultramarines Techmarine in mostly blue, seemingly this exact model from the webstore, so very much splitting the difference: one Ultramarines shoulder, one red AdMech; red AdMech servo-harness, though part of the backpack is blue; one Ultramarines kneepad, one red AdMech; red helmet with AdMech cog detail. A different older Techmarine on the webstore appears to be all in red with a black chapter shoulder, though I can't make out which.

 

The same thing seems to apply to Chaplains and Librarians. This Chaplain with Jump Pack has an Ultramarines shoulderpad, but that's all. The old Cassius adds an Ultramarines kneepad. The Terminator Chaplain only has the shoulderpad. Meanwhile, your Blood Angels Terminator Librarian is all in blue with two red shoulders, but some chapter-appropriate blood drop details on waist, thighs, and kneepad. The Rune Priest has no blue at all, and neither does Njal Stormcaller (also Space Wolves) or Mephiston (Blood Angels). The much older Librarian is all in blue with one Dark Angels shoulderpad, but that bound with chains (actually a cool detail). Ezekiel is the same, with one Dark Angels shoulderpad, though he's also wearing the cream robes of the chapter.

 

(Librarians are tricky because GW is in the habit of using Ultramarines as their example, and it's the same blue . . .)

 

Anyway, long story short, it seems pretty clear that there's no set rule except for some red on Techmarines and mostly black on Chaplains.

[Ulrik_Ironfist]

I intend to do my librarians as standard codex astartes compliant libbies. My chaplain will be all black, and my vets will have white arms.

[Knight of the Raven]

Here's how my favorite Raven Guard hobbyist painted his own librarian, Dragomir:

[Servant of Dante]

That pose is flat out amazing.

[Race Bannon]

Yeah, it's standard on the model except the right arm.  Dare I say it's one of Forge World's best, even in it's relative simplicity.

 

For my part, I'm opting to have some variety depending on the quantity of the HQ choice: I have two Libbys and one will have a blue arm.  The other is undecided but will be other than a blue arm.

[Brother Tyler]

Chaplains however are different. I've never officially seen them anything other than strictly black. Lib,apoth,tech are jobs. Chaplain is more of a dedication.

Actually, when chaplains were first introduced back in the days of 1st Edition (a.k.a., the "Rogue Trader era"), their coloring was not strictly black. The image below first appeared in the White Dwarf Index Astartes article on chaplains (and commissars) and was later re-printed in the Warhammer 40,000 Compendium in 1989.

So the coloring varied from chapter to chapter, but the application within each chapter was strictly defined (at that time).

Basically, the 1st Edition established the basic colors for the specialist orders of the Adeptus Astartes (white for apothecaries, blue for librarians, red for techmarines, and black for chaplains), but didn't require that they be painted solely in those colors. When the lore of the game was refined in 2nd Edition, the coloring for the specialists shifted to the pure colors, and largely remained that way during 3rd edition. It was during 4th edition that we saw the shift back to more variety in the coloring of the armour for the specialists. In all cases, there were exceptions, of course.

Under the current lore, compliance with the Codex Astartes merely requires that the specialist (in this topic, the librarian) have some amount of the specialist color (blue in this case) as part of his livery (along with the appropriate order badge). Whether that is total blue or only part of the armour/tabard is completely up to you - all variations are "codex-compliant."

So ultimately this is a question of what appeals to you aesthetically.

[Biscuittzz]

I represent my librarians the way Corax did them..........locked up or expelled. 

 

But no that Loth conversion is great.