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I was Reading the Codex and it showed some colors and ideas but can i do some crazy stuff like scorpion green and black and skull white and blood red ?

The colours are up to you. Just wait, in less than two days you'll notice that your "crazy" idea with scorpion green and blood red and skull white and NOT chaos black but just ordinary black was actually taken by someone else and isn't so original after all.
Go for it, and have fun!

If thats what you want to do then go for it, the sky is the limit.

i like to potray a colour scheme that looks like its fighting a war, not a fan of the raving hippie color armies but by all means im not holding you back im just mentioning that 40k armies can be made to be verry modern militaristic with camo and cool environments to battle in, WHFB couldnt let you fight on a moon!! mwuahah

but you must give us a photo of the test mini when you paint it! makes us all feel that much better inside our murderous warmongering hearts!

Nightwatch your right but also wrong someone took those colors but i can use the same ones and still make my army unique. And also you got the colors wrong its scorpion green with Chaos black and skull white if needed and Blood red for the eyes and other parts. My army will be very differnt

Have it match the environment they're fighting in. According to Tau standards, running around in bright yellow armor in an urban environment is just plain stupid, but to space marines...well most of the people haven't lived to point that out...

Depends. If you want your army to be fluffy, then paint them in colors that will match whatever environment you imagine them to be fighting in. I'm no Tau player, nor have I ever touched their codex, but I do believe that their colors are meant to blend in with their surroundings.

Otherwise, you can take this quote to heart:

"The uniforms of the Imperial Guard are camouflaged in order to protect their wearers by hiding them from sight.
The principle is that what the enemy cannot see he cannot kill. This is not the way of the Adeptus Astartes. A Space Marine’s armour is bright with heraldry that proclaims his devotion to his Chapter and the beloved Emperor of Mankind. Our principle is that what the enemy can see, he will soon learn to fear…"
+++ Chaplain Aston, 10th Company, Fire Hawks Chapter +++

Most importantly, do whatever you want to. Good luck.

I always liked the Ke'lshan sept, the ones who fight inside ships and such.

agree with all the above. tau septs have their own specific color schemes but nothing is stopping you from making your own sept (like people do with custom marine chapters). in addition, as already stated, they camo to match the planet/terrain they're fighting on so there is yet another justification for it. go crazy!

But say we did not go with the Terrian color and make them camo that would make them easy pray and easy to spot for insted of going camo and making it more hard for the other Army

I have Desert Camo storm troopers in my daemonhunters army, we generally play on the citadel battlemats (green).

Sure the camo is useless, but they look good

Gambit88 wrote:Nightwatch your right but also wrong someone took those colors but i can use the same ones and still make my army unique. And also you got the colors wrong its scorpion green with Chaos black and skull white if needed and Blood red for the eyes and other parts. My army will be very differnt

Don't worry about being original, dude. Green is still green, no matter what fancy GW word you slap on it. No matter what colors you pick, I guarantee you someone somewhere has done it already. Pick colors you like and roll with it.

I'm pretty sure the Tau codex has an out for painting whatever color you want and staying super fluffy.

Something about armies sometimes being painted oddly for religious/ceremonial/astrological reasons... or something like that.

yea i have seen a decent painted black and pink tau army, and it beat me in a kill points match *back when i used worlds most fail thousand sons list*

but tournament play is codex colors right fun is what ever you want to paint correct

Tournament play has nothing to do with the colour scheme and vice versa. You don't even need to use standard colours to represent the various named marine chapters, as long as you are clear with your opponent what rules set you are using.

If a model is well painted then it shouldn't matter what colours are actually used. Having said that, good painting also leads to an appreciation of how colours work together

ok i am ditching the scorpion green and crap and going black red and light blue for plasma but some say plasma HAS TO BE BLUE AND CANT BE RED

Plasma isn't real, man. It's whatever color you say it is.

Just remember your playing a game of little plastic space orks and elves... paint them gold with purple polka dots... i'm sure it could look good!

dont make the mistake of saying its gotta be 'realistic'.

Actually, plasma is real; plasma is super heated substance more easily obtained under pressure. It's a state like solid, liquid or gas. So colour would depend on what it was plasma of.


This is a game that has genetically engineered super humans wielding chainsaw swords and guns shooting rocket propelled bullets. I think in such a setting the plasma coils are whatever colour you want them to be.

I just usually paint them boltgun metal. I've always imagined that the plasma coils never actually glow, and all the science that goes on is inside the actual coils.

Another chance to trot out my stock tau test paint piccy

I took the view of painting my tau in a less striking fashion than marines, and so settled on painting them almost in pastel colours, if you can spare the models i can recommend a test paint, however, like me you may end up settling on your first attempt. i went with the rotting flesh, without considering the colour has changed over the past 20 years


woodland green, blue grey, ice blue, graveyard earth, rotting flesh (old citadel, now coat d'arms, greener than modern rotting flesh. nearest vallejo is pastel green), and terracotta
I

My first 40k army was Tau, way back when they first came out in 2001, I think . But my colour scheme was turquoise and red and has stuck, although it has changed slightly in style since then. If it helps, there's some fluff in the Codex that says that some Tau wargear is painted in the colour of old warpaint from when Tau were tribes.

If this is your first army, here are a few things to consider when choosing your scheme:

You're painting a whole army. Don't do something crazy like tiger stripes or whatever, because after the third fire warrior you'll be ready to toss your brushes out the window. Don't go overly simple either, or you'll just wind up bored.

Stay away from bright, light colors - reds, yellows, oranges, white, these are all very difficult colors to paint because they all have some natural transparency to them. This means you need more coats to keep brush strokes from showing up, and more coats means more time, and more time sucks when you want to get that gak done fast and get it on the table.

So my advice to you is to see if you can fix up something you like with a grey, dark blue, dark green, or brown and see how you like it. These colors are all very easy to basecoat, they go good over white or black primer and they're easy to shade down or highlight up as your preference.

Just keep it simple and pick a scheme you like. If you over think it you'll never get to painting.

The only tip I can give that different from what's been said: If this is your first Army, resist the urge to make a camo pattern.

The reason why is this: Camo patterns, especially ones that are reasonably well done, are intended to hide things by blending thier colors and breaking up thier silhouette. On a dude only 2 inches tall, this means you end up with colored blobs instead of little soldiers. So if you are just starting, and decide you want your guys to be camoed stick to solid colors intended to match the enviroment instead of a pattern.

My first was also Tau, and I gave it a blue-grey night/urban pattern. While it came out about how I wanted it (didn't figure out the specific method to get the exact pattern I wanted until I had already finished the firewarriors) a lot of their detail was lost, and on a dark colored board they blend a little too well sometimes. The only reason I haven't totally repainted is because the vehicles and suits actually came out about right.

For what it's worth though, by screwing up the tau, when I started painting my first guard force this week, I was able to develop a camo pattern that had a nice camo look to it without breaking up the models form.