Campaign Honors

[Company Master Holden]

Hey guys!

 

So this question more or less accompanies my recent efforts to complete my "try hard" Dark Angels army. I am giving them great bases that unite the force, painting in company markings, and applying squad decals to replicate the 5th company with the units that I have. 

 

One of the models I am working on is a Predator tank that I rescued from eBay. I thought that it would be cool to give the tank a backstory of having participated in campaigns with the Sisters of Battle/Ecclesiarchy and I wanted the actual model to reflect that with a campaign badge (amongst other things). 

 

Thus my question; is there a resource out there that features established canon campaign badges or honors? I know that each individual codex provides some campaign badges or unique markings denoting service, but if I am not mistaken the selection is small and the backstory for them is not well fleshed out. 

 

Thanks for bearing with me, and I apologize if this has been addressed before!

[Laughingman]

Astartes had a variety of Campaign honors, going back to first edition... Usually in the way of axes, skulls, rooks, etc... Perhaps to represent a badge involving the defense of a shrine world, or holy relic, draw  instead from adepta sororitas/ministorum imagery.  

[Kinstryfe]

Not necessarily a campaign badge persea, but perhaps a Fleur de lys or rose motif? It could have been bestowed on the tank's machine spirit for exceptional purity and valor in aid of a particular sisterhood. It may stand out a bit more hobbywise as "oh, a sisters marking" rather than "huh, two crossed axes upside down behind a skull. I guess that's neat".

[Company Master Holden]

Astartes had a variety of Campaign honors, going back to first edition... Usually in the way of axes, skulls, rooks, etc... Perhaps to represent a badge involving the defense of a shrine world, or holy relic, draw  instead from adepta sororitas/ministorum imagery.  

 

That is what I seem to remember from the Astartes honors is that they featured primarily martial images for their campaigns. I think you are right that drawing from another faction's imagery seems to be the way to go. 

 

Not necessarily a campaign badge persea, but perhaps a Fleur de lys or rose motif? It could have been bestowed on the tank's machine spirit for exceptional purity and valor in aid of a particular sisterhood. It may stand out a bit more hobbywise as "oh, a sisters marking" rather than "huh, two crossed axes upside down behind a skull. I guess that's neat".

 

Yes! I can actually free hand a Fleur de lys relatively well. I also thought about covering the tank in more than normal amount of purity seals and possibly even putting some incense holders on the tank to denote the participation in the campaign. I don't want to go too heavy, but like you said it will be good to help it stand out more compared to other imagery. 

 

So, this may be a little unrelated, but do you know if different factions have different campaign badges for the same campaign? One example that comes to mind is the Siege of Vraks; would the Death Korp have one campaign badge to represent their participation (assuming they wear campaign badges at all), the Dark Angels another one, the Red Scorpions their own, etc.? Or would they all feature just a general "hey you were at Vraks and didn't die, you can use this on your tanks and armor" badge? 

[Major_Gilbear]

I think campaign honours = army badges.

 

Basically, it's standard practice for an Imperial Commander to choose an army badge for the duration of a campaign, and all military assets under their command will bear this badge to identify themselves as part of that war effort. This means that the army badge can be worn by any Imperial units participating, from SoB to Space Marines, to Imperial Guard, and is used by those forces to recognise friendly units.

 

If a unit performs particularly well or notably, they may incorporate the badge into their heraldry - the trooper's armour, the unit's markings, the company's banner, the regiment's standard, etc.

 

There's plenty of info about this in the various Codexes that have been released over the years, but you can get a decent summary along with some examples in the article here.

 

In your specific case, I would probably choose a fairly straightforward Army Badge that you like, and then affix a purity seal over its corner to show that it has been blessed by the SoB/Ecclesiarchy. To strengthen this, you could put some fleur de lys on the seal's parchment, or even make the seal shaped like a fleur de lys. This would then show that the Predator participated in a campaign alongside SoB forces, and that the badge they blessed was kept on the vehicle as an honour marking afterwards.