Alternate Paint Schemes (Raven Guard)

[Ultrasmurf117]

Hey gents,

 

So a little bit of context before the question. I'm a heresy veteran, and I wanted to start a Istvaan V campaign with my local gaming group. However, problem is we have quite a few traitor Legions all of a sudden and relatively few Istvaan V loyalist legions. (I myself usually play Emperors Children haha)

 

Anyways, im allowing players to take forces that weren't at Istvaan V but only as an allied detachment (I want to keep it historical and themey, I'm even trying to get specific terrain.

Long story short I was gonna start playing Raven Guard to fill up the loyalist gap.

 

We have a Salamanders and Iron Hands Player, so Raven Guard is the way to go, but I want to differentiate the paint scheme in a way that is fluffy and true to the heresy lore. Would it be anti-heresy to paint Raven Guard up in a camo scheme? I was thinking green and black or maybe even a jungle scheme if I can manage it, fluff being that since Raven Guard are A. Prone to use stealth and suprise when possible so taking advantage of terrain would fit up their alley. And B. They probably wouldn't have cameloine cloaks for everybody. Last solid reason for the change would be they weren't able to change colors due to the nature of the rapid redeployment of the Ravin Guard fo the Istvaan V system.

 

Has anyone had any luck with this? Painting camo schemes for heresy marines? Or is this idea not really viable? I know legionaries have the whole knightly image and want to rep their colors but I figure desert camo Raven guard would pretty cool being both different and fluffy. What do you guys think?

 

Another tidbit I'm basing this off is back in Rogue trader they had camoflauged space marines IE. Salamanders, Space Sharks had a camo scheme too I think, and even the Imperial Fists had a black scheme when they fought on a night world so this isn't totally out of the blue canonically.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Desert camouflage would be a cool look, and a nice nod to the Xeric dustbowl origins of a lot of Terran legionnaires.  And good thinking with the Rogue Trader era schemes as precedency - although I'm not quite sure how some of those will have aged, it's definitely a great starting point to run "if it was in RT, it may make sense for the Heresy". 

Now, as it happens, there actually IS a single example (that I'm aware of, anyway) of a camouflaged Crusade-era Marine - it's a Vth legionnaire in Mk.III from Book VIII iirc, and he's in some sort of tundra/urban grey-streak scheme; identiifed as a Pioneer of a Stalker Cadre, Grey Ghosts. 

Other than that, I'm actually rather surprised that I can't seem to think offhand of another Heresy-era [well, Black Book at any rate] depiction of an Astartes in camouflaged armour. In fact, I'm not even sure I can think of vehicular depictions. [there's an Alpha Legion infiltrator who's dressed himself up as a member of another legion, but that doesn't quite count]

Personally, I've quite liked the 'alternate' XIXth scheme given for a late-Unification/Crusade era legionary in a recon squad iirc, that's a more dulled gunmetal with black trim, but that wouldn't be as visually impactful as a camouflage approach, and in any case might wind up looking a little like the IVth you're there to fight. 

Although as applies the application of camouflage to Astartes warplate, it seems like it's something that's done relatively quick and thinly where it has been - that aforementioned Vth 'Grey Ghost' has patches where his armour's underlying colour-scheme is showing through where it's been rubbed or worn down, and ditto for the aforementioned XXth imitator/infiltrator, somewhat. 

So you could definitely include a nod to that in your eventual paintscheme, whatever it may happen to be. But my point is I'm not sure how 'out of water' the camouflage they'd be deploying with would likely be to their intended destination on Isstvan V. Although the 'black sands of the Urgall Depression might not be quite the visual pop you're after either] 

Another possibility is something like what we know about VIIIth Legion lightning-effects and other such things as being produced by the armour itself as a visual distortion/holographic array. Maybe something like that could be repurposed for small-scale camouflage? 

[Monkeychunks]

Pic related is of a White Scar from Malevolence and is a good demonstration of the idea. Camo is fine for the Heresy and particularly appropriate for the Raven Guard. As you said, there is also precedent from RT and anything that nods to the old background is typically a good thing.

My main concern is that the point of camo is to break up silhouettes, obscure definitions and generally make it hard to identify something from a distance; this is generally the opposite of what you want to do with a miniatures game. It will be realistic but also look pretty naff precisely because you are trying to hide what you have. If you do it properly, your army will blend into the table which is very appropriate but not great to look at.

If you decide to go ahead with it, I'd suggest putting them in greys and whites to represent the ash wastes of Istvann.

Alternatively you could look at the 40k Raptors chapter and run them in jungle greens as a nice foreshadowing.