Nonstandard warband colours

[Quixus]

I just saw this beautiful miniature in the HQ showcase thread and wondered, how often do a warband's colours differ from the legion they are from?

 

Do only a few individuals who worship a certain chaos deity change the armour or is it everyone?

 

Does it happen on the whim if a leader?

 

What are the reasons?

[Brother Tyler]

From as early as 2nd edition, GW has emphasized that the Chaos Space Marines/Heretic Astartes don't follow regimented uniform requirements. While they often follow patterns and themes, each traitor is an individual that follows those patterns and themes only insofar as he desires. There is room for each individual to be unique, displaying myriad applications of those themes and patterns across an army.

 

Moreover, if the codex supplements and codices are any indication, the various warbands, whether operating within the larger force (such as the factions within the Black Legion) or separate from that force (such as the rival warbands descended from the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus shown in the Black Legion supplement) often have their own scheme, whether an addition to the main scheme, a variant of that scheme, or something else altogether.

 

Since each force can be considered to be independent (sometimes only to a limited degree) and unique, you have the flexibility to decide how much individuality each model can have. Leaders of a more regimented and authoritarian bent might insist on some type of "uniform" pattern; other leaders, meanwhile, might not impose any sort of restrictions; and all variations in between, with the reasons varying with the personality of the leader and the philosophy to which they subscribe.

[Slan Drakkos]

In many ways, chaos space marines are like real life pirates. They dress how they want and have whatever colors they want. The same way that no two pirates dress the same is exactly what happens with csm. 

 

The thing about CSM is that they like being unique. If you look at a warband of world eaters, your'e just as likely to see some of them wearing brass armor, others not cleaning their armor and letting the blood of their enemies serve as paint, and you could even find a few that keep their pre-heresy colors and legion markings. 

 

There are still some warbands that keep one type of color scheme as their standard (mainly Night Lords, Iron Warriors, and Alpha Legion), but the vast majority wear whatever suits their fancy.

[Panzer]

It's important to note that such fluffy descriptions rarely work on the table tho. Making every model look unique or in case of EC making each model have a bunch of not fitting colors that stimulate the visual sense in a way only Slaaneshi marines would enjoy is a terrible idea for a whole army.

Either it looks extremely busy and not very coherent or it's simply ugly for our eyes. Hence why GW themselves never show EC in a color scheme like described in the fluff and models in any chaos warband generally having similar paint schemes.

[Kite Senet]

Personally, I think a mixed color scheme army can work, but the most important part is having similar themes running throughout your army or at very least through your units.

 

For example, a mob of cultists should all look very different from each other, but if you paint them all with the same general color palette, you can still enforce a degree of visual uniformity despite the high degree of individual variety within the mob.

 

As for my army, I have three overarching color schemes playing out through three different subsets of my Thousand Sons, each symbolic of different army fluff: 

• I have a fairly standard Thousand Sons Blue/Gold scheme for the large core of my force, led by an Exalted Sorcerer in the same colors, with this conformity to standard colors representing his general common purpose with Ahriman in amending the Rubric and restoring his brothers.
• I have a subset in Red/Gold and Black/Gold colors led by an Exalted Sorcerer who is primarily motivated by vengeance for Prospero: the Red/Gold scheme representing Anger and the desire to cling to memories of Prospero, letting them burn within as a source of rage, and the Black/Gold representing Grief and the desire to forget the past and move onto something new (in particular, this subset includes those who have defected back from the Black Legion after fighting for Abaddon failed to silence the past).
• Finally, I have a subset in Blue/Silver led by my third Exalted Sorcerer, who is alone amongst these three quite a willing servant of Tzeentch; the abandonment of Gold, the remaining color from the days of Prospero, for Silver, a metal associated with Tzeentch, is symbolic of willingly abandoning their past and leaping to the service of the Architect of Fate.

I don't have a clue if others would dislike the idea, but I like the look personally. It also lets me tell at a glance which models belong to which units, which I find helpful.

[Panzer]

Subgroups in the army having their own colour schene is perfectly fine. Just look at the Dark Angels with their different wings or Blood Angels with their Sanguiny Guard and Deathcompany.

Important is that people can see some kind of intended order there instead of random colour schemes thrown into the army.

[Kinstryfe]

This is gonna sound weird, but I have a point, I really do :)

 

My favorite GW experiment ever were the chaos rules near the end of WHFB 5th edition. Your chaos army was formed of usually multiple Warbands following a specific leader rather than a cohesive force. You choose a Mortal, Daemon, or Beastman character and had to bring along matching troops of at least that many points.

 

I still like to think of chaos armies like this. While admittedly I haven't done a lot in awhile with modern chaos marines, my mind still thinks in these terms, and find it a convenient way to visualize my army. That's why when I finally get around to painting all the random chaos miniatures I have lying around I think they'll mostly be in experimental color schemes by the unit, because as mentioned already a unit in mixed colors (sadly) doesn't look very good often times. Though if they ever get around to launching an updated Emperor's Children line, that will get the full Harlequins treatment...

[MaliGn]

Just check out Kierdale's log to see Emperor's Children done with the brain melting colour scheme, but in a way that works across an army.

[Panzer]

And even Kierdale's EC are harmless compared to how they are supposed to look fluff-wise. He's mostly using pastel colours after all. ^^

[Trevak Dal]

Mine were very regimented because I had initially wanted loyalist marines. Then I fluffed it to be they were an alpha legion cell who had fully joined the black legion, with their recruitment taking elements I liked from chaos and loyalist lore and implementing a template for superior super soldiers.

 

They take a bunch of kids, wipe their minds (like Greyknight recruits) and then run the training montage from Soldier.

 

Between campaigns various squads are kept in cryostasis, with new teams being rotated in.

 

They don't use bionics limbs or eyes (outside of midcampaign repairs/healing) but use cloning technology to regrow the lost limb, eye etc.

 

Their armor is plain Jane black legion, but the surface is reactive and can be made to appear in the heraldy of other factions-this is more for use against human elements, as Astartes probably have in built Friend or Foe detectors which could be hacked...but maybe not.

 

They eschew "rampant individualism". Though the two 'officers' who aren't of legion by blood, being it out of them by their gregariousness.

 

Basically one part Clone Troopers, one part Spartan 2s being led by the Leader of the Third Street Saints and a guy who wants to be a farmer and live peacefully but keeps getting dragged back in.

 

My world eaters were regimented for my benefit. I had....a lot of guys. Horde of guys, and character and squad markings helped me as a player keep things straight (I don't know how Tyranid, guard and Ork players do it without movement trays.)