Alpha Legion colour scheme trouble

[Nrakmm]

I am currently painting up my new Alpha Legion army & have hit a small snag with regards to their colour scheme.

 

How would specialists (apothecaries, techmarines, chaplains & librarians) be painted:

 

>Legion colours with specialist markings on their shoulder pad/knee pad.

 

>Legion colours with a shoulder pad/knee pad painted in the appropriate colour (apothecary = white, techmarine = red, etc).

 

>The colour associated with their speciality, but with a shoulder pad painted in the Legion colour.

 

This also brings up another question - librarians are associated with the colour blue and the Alpha Legion are a blue/green colour. How would you go about making the blue noticeably different from the rest of the armour?

[Marshal Loss]

Oh boy. Well, if you wanted to pick a Legion with definite answers to any of these questions, you chose wrong. :P

 

Without trying to be a massive pain, the choice is totally up to you. AL forces can be pretty much any colour scheme and with any system of iconography you choose. If you want an AL force with echoes of codex style organisation, you can do that. If you want to ignore it all and do your own, you can do that. If you want specialists to be hidden in the ranks, you can do that.

 

If you were asking for opinions, I'd probably go option A, in order to differentiate from 40k style as much as possible, but that's just my personal preference.

[1ncarnadine]

In general, the more infuriatingly impenetrable your markings and iconography, the better.

 

You know you've done it right when you've finished a few units and can't tell which models belong in which squads, or if one is Alpharius, or if you're Alpharius but you're not sure anymore.

[Aramis K]

I struggled with this on my XX too.

I really don't think there is a set look for these roles, especially in the Alpha Legion. But I wanted them to stand out.

 

For the apothecary I started with some white trim and kept repainting parts white until I was happy. Lots of white looks great with XX colours.

 

http://i.imgur.com/D1wFBr5.jpg

 

For the librarian a different blue just didn't work for me, and as they're not supposed to have them librarians anyway standard legion colours seemed best. But I used some fancy trim, book icons, and a dramatic stance to try and make it clear it's a librarian.

 

http://i.imgur.com/JEOUiNR.jpg

[A D-B]

On a related note, I saw some absolutely cracking grey Alpha Legion online the other day. Wish I'd saved the pics. 

 

Like everyone already said, there's no wrong answer, but I'm always interested in what people choose. A whole army looking like the cover of Legion would be The One.

[TheAlephNull]

On a related note, I saw some absolutely cracking grey Alpha Legion online the other day. Wish I'd saved the pics. 

 

Like everyone already said, there's no wrong answer, but I'm always interested in what people choose. A whole army looking like the cover of Legion would be The One.

Agreed. I need to revisit that scheme. My first attempt made my tacticals look like the starting line-up for the Seattle Seahawks...

[Firenze]

On a related note, I saw some absolutely cracking grey Alpha Legion online the other day. Wish I'd saved the pics.

Like everyone already said, there's no wrong answer, but I'm always interested in what people choose. A whole army looking like the cover of Legion would be The One.

I actually originally made that my colour scheme goal, but my freehand techniques are no-where near good enough. I eventually decided to just follow the colour scheme laid out in Extermination with metallic blue and bronzes.

Personally I would go with adding a few subtle markings, such as a kneepad or a small patch of armour in a fitting colour that reflects the unit. For instance, my Seekers and Headhunters have a bronze left shoulder and black knees, my Tac supports have a black right shoulder and bronze knees, my tacticals have the left knee bronze. All sergeants have a bronze faceplate too. It really depends what you are doing with your paint scheme, if you were able to post an image of it that may help.

[Lucerne]

My guess is that specialists simply...don't have the same color coding you'd associate with a normal "Codex" force- if there are such indicators, they're probably just some of the strange symbols or coloration you'd see from a normal Alpha Legion force?

 

I mean while the Alpha Legion's been mentioned to ape the Blood Angels or Sons of Horus color schemes, the same source doesn't say that they actually followed those organizational markers or if they just did it out of mockery.

 

In your shoes, I'd paint them basically as "normal" Alpha Legionaires with some subtle differences, ie: more tech-y bits for the techmarine, maybe something like a stormcast head for the chaplain, Apothecary just has his tools...

 

After all, even specialists are just "one of many"- stuff that plays up the individual and highlights a given Marine to get shot in the face more than his squadmates doesn't quite seem fitting, even for 30k.

Edited June 21, 2017 by Ugolino