The Colourful History of the Emperor's Children

[LSM]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[INKS]

Really great to see, it was a nice walk through time

[N1SB]

This was particularly intriguing:

 

 

It's just like how under-utilised these colour schemes are.  Really worth pondering as we await the new EC Codex.

 

Thanks for archiving these images, Brother LSM, especially now.  Gives us time to back-of-mind process this in the lead-lag.

[SvenIronhand]

Love seeing stuff like this. These really help to visualize the visual evolution and changes in the visual language of the grimdark universe we all love.

[Indy Techwisp]

While I know it's not from a Games Workshop product, there is this Noise Marine artwork from MTG which IIRC Games Workshop had to approve before it was printed:

 

Edit: Artwork is from the Warhammer 40,000 Commander Decks released Oct 7, 2022.

Image of the card included below:

 

Edited October 7 by Indy Techwisp

[LSM]

A quote from Slaves to Darkness:

 

"The Legion’s original Chapter colours of gold and purple were abandoned long ago, as was the Imperial double-headed eagle which was, at one time, forbidden to all other Marine Chapters...

"A few of the original Traitor Marines have retained their original Chapter colours, although the Imperial badge has been replaced by Slaanesh’s male-female rune. For the most part the Emperor’s Children use Slaanesh’s pastel shades on their armour, reserving particular colours for different companies within the Legion. Officers and sergeants are, however, still marked out by gold or silver helmets and rank badges."

 

Combined with the image of the marine in gold, I really think the pre-Heresy scheme was originally supposed to be gold. It's funny how quickly that flipped, with purple becoming the main pre-Heresy colour only a year later.

 

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The second edition style "riot of clashing colours" that are "offensive to the eye" are fun to write about, but as noted by 'Eavy Metals' Torben Schnoor... don't necessarily look the greatest. I included Fred Reed's Noise Marines (even though they're not 'Eavy Metal) as an example of how it looks in practice.

 

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I also feel like there's a bit of conflict at Forge World. From Angel Exterminatus it seems like Graham McNeill was envisioning the Emperor's Children transitioning during the Heresy into their 40k "riot of clashing colours" schemes, but everything that's been put out for the table top game has held to the pre-Heresy purple and gold heraldry. The Captain Lucius - The Faultless Blade model, for example, wasn't painted in "pinkish-purple plate". More like Tony Cottrell's old Epic stuff, which stayed purple throughout the Heresy Wars (except their tanks - he had them as dark grey by the time of the invasion of Terra). Which makes sense - Cottrell being so instrumental to Forge World.

 

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It's also worth noting that the "Coming 2025" preview image in the stream was in purple and gold, and even used a very non-Chaotic pre-Heresy Legion symbol. When I first saw it, I actually expected it to twist and corrupt, but... no, it just stayed as it was ten thousand years ago.

 

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If I had to bet on what GW will do scheme wise, I'd put my money on the 2015 painting guide scheme. Black (with a purple highlight), gold trim, and pastel pink as a spot colour. That's far from a guarantee though - they changed the Codex scheme into black and a dull, pale pinkish-purple in 2017 instead, which is also (roughly) how they did the 2022 Chosen. So they could continue with that. (And I'll continue painting mine black and hot pink.)

 

 

(Though I suppose they could also do the logical thing, and go with Emperor's Children pink, highlighted by Fulgrim Pink pink.)

Edited October 8 by LSM

[Indy Techwisp]

 

It's also worth noting that the "Coming 2025" preview image in the stream was in purple and gold, and even used a very non-Chaotic pre-Heresy Legion symbol. When I first saw it, I actually expected it to twist and corrupt, but... no, it just stayed as it was ten thousand years ago.

 

(Though I suppose they could also do the logical thing, and go with Emperor's Children pink, highlighted by Fulgrim Pink pink.)

 

I think personally they'll double down on both schemes, using the underused fact that even the Cult CSM have differing Warband Colours.

 

More specifically, I think they'll Pivot to EC using their Pre-Heresy colours with the Lore Explanation being that this "return" of the EC are Fulgrim's personal Warband who went with him on his 10,000 year vacation to Slannesh's Party World, so they retained the Pre-Heresy scheme due to not being in the Galaxy, but highlight that EC who have been in the galaxy until now use the colour scheme shown in Codex: Space Marines 2019 (tho maybe simplified to make the Pink a more consistent "core" of the design).