Do AL paint their armor when they infiltrate an army?

[Fajita Fan]

I still have a gaggle of plastic HH marines and termies to work on and I wanted to do AL.  I'll probably get to assembling them over the winter but one of the things I keep circling back to is how exactly the AL infiltrate an army, especially the fluff behind the "Rewards of Treason" rule where they can take a unit entry from other army list.  

 

Because so many battles during the HH had multiple legions on either side I thought it would be fun to paint my squads in the schemes of other armies but tie them all together with little hydras or α on the backs of their arms or helmets. Is there any fluff that confirms this idea or explicitly says they don't?  I would LOVE to think the outer skin of their armor has chameleon photoreflective scales or something that lets them shift to other legion schemes as they move around the battlefield but that's probably impractical. 

[Aias]

Actually, it's pretty explicitly stated that they do. In Deliverance Lost, they have several Alpha Legionnaires infiltrating the Raven Guard, and they're in RG colors, though I don't think that was a repaint, I think that was wholesale taking their armor from the sands of Istvaan.

[Beren]

Malevolence also has Aplha Marines wearing White Scars colours in ambushes. There's even a colour plate of a 'White Scars' marine where parts of the upper paint layer have been wprn away to reveal the blue underneath.

[Fajita Fan]

That made my day, thank you.

[bluntblade]

There's also a bit in Scars where the Wolves find mortal operatives in VIth Legion livery have boarded. It's of limited use, however: "the Vylka Fenrika could smell their own."

[Fajita Fan]

This is fantastic, I’d love to paint some of my squads as other legions just for fun. 

[bluntblade]

Someone on Heresy30K did do a "20 Alpharii" project once.

[b1soul]

You mean every legion is Alpharius?

[bluntblade]

It was an attempt at what Alpharius would look like if he infiltrated the UM, DA and Wolves, among others.

[Imren]

If you want models that looks like the White Scar infiltrating Alpha legionnaire depicted in black book 8 Malevolence then I suggest this:

1. Paint your model's armour as per your regular AL paint scheme, don't paint the details yet.
2. Apply (preferably with airbrush) thin coat of matt varnish on the areas you want AL colours to show.
3. Apply (preferably with airbrush) AK interactive worn effects on the matt varnished areas (this product: https://ak-interactive.com/product/worn-effects-acrylic-fluid/).
4. Apply your target infiltrated legion's colour scheme all over the model.
5. Wet the areas that you applied the worn effects fluid and wait a minute.
6. Gentry stroke and rub off the paint so that it looks worn and chipped off.
7. Paint your details (buckles, hoses, eye lences wargear etc)
8. Do your weathering (pin wash, sponge pitting, dust effects etc)
9. Seal it with satin varnish (preferably with airbrush).

If you want larger flakier chunks of paint to be pulled off in step 6 then change the matt varnish to gloss varnish in step 2.

[Kizzdougs]

I used the Forge World art as inspiration for this guy. 

 

The artwork.

 

And the accompanying lore. I says the armour was hastily repainted. I'm sure the Legion would do a far more thorough job if they were planing to do a proper infiltration.

 

 

 

 

 

I sprayed the model with Tamiya Light Metallic Blue, gave it a coat of chipping fluid, and then painted the White Scar colour scheme over the top. 

[Noserenda]

Damn Kizzdougs thats a sweet model :D 

For painting a whole army id look at sticking to one scheme building like a historical force pretending to be another Legion, a hodgepodge would look a bit messy, i guess unless you were masquerading as a shattered legion force? 

[Fajita Fan]

Lots of the HH battles had multiple legions on the same battlefield so I thought it’d be fun to do a mix. I’ve got a fun idea for an IW Rhino and a bunch of cyclones to make tyrant siege termies so that would be a fun unit to make and I may as well make a squad masquerading as IW. I have a bunch of 40k Dark and Blood Angel shoulders/weapons so I may as well throw some of them in there too. Fists would be fun to paint as would World Eaters. It’s kinda the only army scheme were a hodgepodge would look fluffy :D

 

This will take time to work on, I’m knee deep in Titanicus, Custodes, and 3 AoS armies.

[MegaVolt87]

Beware of the IW Tyrants- I only wanted 5, but immediately bought another 5 they are that good.

[Fajita Fan]

I have like 15 cyclones because I wanted to do IW but I can only take one unit with RoT.