Heresy Era Librarians

[SkimaskMohawk]

42 minutes ago, lansalt said:

The problem is that those are all TS (who weren't technically "librarians") or traitor esoterists/former librarians. And the terminator was clearly meant to be a WB while being painted blue.

As said in other posts above, it really depends on the specific legion, and not all marine combat psykers were librarians, even in loyalist legions.

 

Ahriman has been described as the chief librarian of the thousand sons for a long time. 

 

The Terminator was sculpted as a night lord; the knee shares the same aesthetics as sevatar and the contemptor. And regardless of that, it's clearly holding a force axe, and was released way before the rules for esoterists existed.

Edited April 12, 2023 by SkimaskMohawk

[lansalt]

11 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Ahriman has been described as the chief librarian of the thousand sons for a long time. 

Yes, but he and the TS didn't follow at all the Librarius rules and it was more of a PR title. Something they created for other Legions to use, but their internal ranks and organization had little or nothing to do with it (Just like the WS/SW)

 

11 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

The Terminator was sculpted as a night lord

 

Fair enough, but his belt buckle and daemons out of his hand screams "Serrated Sun" daemonologist to me.

 

 

 

 

 

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

1 hour ago, lansalt said:

The problem is that those are all TS (who weren't technically "librarians") or traitor esoterists/former librarians. And the terminator was clearly meant to be a WB while being painted blue.

As said in other posts above, it really depends on the specific legion, and not all marine combat psykers were librarians, even in loyalist legions.

 I see a NL. The runes are no colchian i think and it have some tiny lightings in the belt, for example.

Anyway, with so few examples only remarks that any painter can do want wants. There is no "index astartes heresy librarians". And in the case that existed, I think is much better take as general guide than something engraved in stone.

[Arkangilos]

4 hours ago, lansalt said:

Something they created for other Legions to use, but their internal ranks and organization had little or nothing to do with it (Just like the WS/SW)

Yeah, I could be wrong but I thought I had read at one point that pre-Nikaea that the librarians of most legions wore blue.

 

It makes sense that the TS wouldn’t have been blue, though, considering almost all of them were psykers to some degree.

[Gamiel]

The Librarian Consul Boils Space Marines With Warp Lightning, Even if the Emperor Says Not To - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

[oldhat]

Well, that is good timing for this discussion.

I wonder how standard that color is - blue helmet and pauldron - across the Legions for Librarians.

 

...not that it factors in so much for me as a Night Lords player.

[sarabando]

pity its a poor example of a libby. 

[Etruscan]

I was wondering if the horned skull symbol would be appropriate on a Heresy era Blood Angels Librarian? I know it's open to interpretation but I try to use source material as much as possible.

 

 

 

[Xenith]

30 minutes ago, Etruscan said:

I was wondering if the horned skull symbol would be appropriate on a Heresy era Blood Angels Librarian? I know it's open to interpretation but I try to use source material as much as possible.

 

It's the generic symbol for the Librarius, and the Blood Angels had a functioning Librarius - it just depends on whether your army is pre-edict, post edict, or late heresy where the edict was forgotten and librarians made into their own ranks again to combat moral threats. 

[Etruscan]

30 minutes ago, Xenith said:

 

It's the generic symbol for the Librarius, and the Blood Angels had a functioning Librarius - it just depends on whether your army is pre-edict, post edict, or late heresy where the edict was forgotten and librarians made into their own ranks again to combat moral threats. 

Thanks for the info. I guess I was a little confused because the FW Librarian Consul model does not seem to have the horned skull symbol so I was trying to find out if said symbol was a post-Heresy adoption. 

[Bung]

On 4/13/2023 at 3:22 PM, Gamiel said:

The Librarian Consul Boils Space Marines With Warp Lightning, Even if the Emperor Says Not To - Warhammer Community (warhammer-community.com)

 

The problem is, this is an IF Paint sheme and IF didnt even have a standard armour Paint sheme until after Ullanor when they were called back to Terra and Dorn tried to unify the Legion.

So i doubt this would be the Standard in the IF Legion.

[lansalt]

15 hours ago, Etruscan said:

Thanks for the info. I guess I was a little confused because the FW Librarian Consul model does not seem to have the horned skull symbol so I was trying to find out if said symbol was a post-Heresy adoption. 

As I said earlier in the thread, the horned skull icon cannot be a pre-heresy symbol of Librarians for several reasons, the main one being that daemons weren't supposed to exist, and even Magnus denied their existence, so he hardly was going to use them as symbol. That's why space marine psykers were named the politically correct term "Librarian" instead of being called "sorcerers".

However, we have the Knight Errant librarian Tylos Rubio model that uses that apparent post-Heresy icon, so how to solve the contradiction?

I'd say that the icon should only be used by those librarians under Malcador's control or given a waiver for Nikaea, namely the loyalist legions that were able to reach Terra before the Siege. That would be the BA and survivors of other legions, as the SW/WS had no "Librarians", and the IF expressely kept them locked up until Dorn was forced to use them during the Solar War.

 

37 minutes ago, Bung said:

IF didnt even have a standard armour Paint sheme until after Ullanor when they were called back to Terra and Dorn tried to unify the Legion.

Was this stated in the Black Books? I've never heard it before and we have a few GC-era stories with the IF already in yellow.

 

[Bung]

10 hours ago, lansalt said:

s this stated in the Black Books? I've never heard it before and we have a few GC-era stories with the IF already in yellow.

 

 

You have basically all the different paint shemes in the Black Book Nr. 3 with all the black basically in use for different companies but the best example is from the Sigismund novel

 

This Book still plays at the time of the GC after Dorn was found and changed a bit of the Legion.

Its a bit strange, but the unfun hardcore soldiers are one of the most un-uniformed Legions.

Yelllow pauldron with the Legion Symbol is the only requirement. 

[Gamiel]

13 hours ago, lansalt said:

However, we have the Knight Errant librarian Tylos Rubio model that uses that apparent post-Heresy icon, 

We also have the earlier mentioned SoH Librarians in Warhammer: Visions #9 and White Dwarf 407.

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

WH Visions #9 ?? Page, please?

[lansalt]

9 hours ago, Gamiel said:

We also have the earlier mentioned SoH Librarians in Warhammer: Visions #9 and White Dwarf 407.

 

I'm afraid I disagree. Customized 40k models by fans (WV9) or even staff members (WD407) aren't exactly evidence.

 

11 hours ago, Bung said:

You have basically all the different paint shemes in the Black Book Nr. 3 with all the black basically in use for different companies but the best example is from the Sigismund novel

 

The Sigismund novel had a few continuity problems (like Appius not being a dreadnought), and other GC era books (like the Dorn novel) with IF and the Black Books pretty much put all them in yellow (despite minor variations like more or less black parts)

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by lansalt

[Gamiel]

8 hours ago, AGRAMAR said:

WH Visions #9 ?? Page, please?

130-131

[Gamiel]

20 minutes ago, lansalt said:

The Sigismund novel had a few continuity problems (like Appius not being a dreadnought), and other GC era books (like the Dorn novel) with IF and the Black Books pretty much put all them in yellow (despite minor variations like more or less black parts)

Maybe it's the Black Books that are in the wrong? They are after all supposed to be written after the fact....

 

 

And I would not be surprised if GW have deliberately created what we would see as continuity problems to give themselves and the players/painters much more freedom to do what they want.

[Bung]

2 hours ago, lansalt said:

 

I'The Sigismund novel had a few continuity problems (like Appius not being a dreadnought), and other GC era books (like the Dorn novel) with IF and the Black Books pretty much put all them in yellow (despite minor variations like more or less black parts)

 

 

Tell me a HH novel that didnt. The Dorn novel never mentions the IF armour colors.

Second its never mentioned in the Black Book that the Grey with only Yellow Pauldron fell out of use.

Even in Cthonias Reckoning IF are allowed to put some of their own Markings on their armour (like the IF recruited from Necromunda had a Spider marking on his Pualdron).

If you look into the IF Lore Dorn didnt care much about that, as long as the Company did their job.

 

This is based on a real event but watch at 1:20 min, thats how it should work

 

 

Thats my last comment on IF color shemes to not derailt that thread more.

 

My conclusion simply is, the FW paint sheme on the IF Psyker shouldnt be taken as any form of standardisation in my eyes.

Edited September 10, 2023 by Bung

[lansalt]

1 hour ago, Bung said:

The Dorn novel never mentions the IF armour colors.

Yes it does, multiple times as it also mentions the Templars and their black/yellow scheme. IF not being in yellow before Ullanor is a very strange idea.

The FW resin librarian in IF colours also seem to match previous descriptions of librarians, including having blue parts, even if it lacks a psychic hood.

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by lansalt

[Bung]

6 minutes ago, lansalt said:

Yes it does, multiple times as it also mentions the Templars and their black/yellow scheme. IF not being in yellow before Ullanor is a very strange idea.

The FW resin librarian in IF colours also seem to match previous descriptions of librarians, including having blue parts, even if it lacks a psychic hood.

 

Then you didnt get my point, too. IF werent only completly yellow.

Differnet companies had differnet paint shemes including yellow with the only common thing a singular pauldron in yellow with the legion symbol. The Black Book shows that companies were allowed to alter their legion colors. The Sigismund novel proofes that there were differnt variations in use at the same time even when Dorn was around.

And as the Companies were free to add other colors to the yellow as they wanted, the IF Librarious would have been free to do the same as they wanted.

 

 

[lansalt]

8 minutes ago, Bung said:

The Sigismund novel proofes that there were differnt variations in use at the same time even when Dorn was around.

That scene is a flashback set when Sigismund became a Templar and met Dorn for the first time during the early GC, and they were already all "in yellow" as the first line says. Companies having their own heraldry doesn't mean there weren't standards, and Librarians were anyway their own organization with specific ranks and rules shared across the legions.

[Bung]

3 hours ago, lansalt said:

That scene is a flashback set when Sigismund became a Templar and met Dorn for the first time during the early GC, and they were already all "in yellow" as the first line says. Companies having their own heraldry doesn't mean there weren't standards, and Librarians were anyway their own organization with specific ranks and rules shared across the legions.

 

And the single Standard is one yellow pauldron with Legion Symbol.

Even the Black Bock 3 has one Marine with füll black armour except pauldrons and Helmet which a) isnt a Templar and b) took part in the Battle of Phall which was Set at the beginning ich the Heresy.

[Agramar_The_Luna_Wolf]

13 hours ago, Gamiel said:

Maybe it's the Black Books that are in the wrong? They are after all supposed to be written after the fact....

 

 

And I would not be surprised if GW have deliberately created what we would see as continuity problems to give themselves and the players/painters much more freedom to do what they want.

It's far more simple: GW don't give a things like continuity. It's more profitable.

[General Zodd]

55 minutes ago, AGRAMAR said:

It's far more simple: GW don't give a things like continuity. It's more profitable.

To be fair, the background of any GW game, even Heresy which is pseudo-historical, isn’t a cast iron complete picture. They hardly ever give absolute statements about things like this because they don’t want to invalidate people’s creativity. The background is there as a sandbox for us to create our armies, fight our battles and tell our own stories in.

 

Obviously, if you paint your whole Imperial Fist army ultramarines blue with only the left pauldron as yellow, then you’re going to get some funny looks, and I wouldn’t suggest anyone go that far away from established archetypes. But at the end of the day, we’re talking about an epically enormous civil war with many different phases, 100s of major battle zones in an unimaginably vast galaxy. There’s plenty of room for most things people want to create.

 

And don’t get me started on people being angry about a slightly different look for the new MkIII armour, as if every thing is being made exactly the same across every single Forgeworld across the entire galaxy. They can’t even decide what a Warlord Titan looks like! And what drove that divergence? The desire to redesign and modernise the look of the models. The desire for continuity is understandable, but I think we can take it too far.