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What would the world look like during the day? Why is it classified as a night world? Does the planet get NO daylight, or is it short, or is it more dangerous during the day due to intense heat or radiation? Answer these questions and you'll be better off as you'll have a place to "start."
For example lets use Crematoria from the second Riddick film (blarf).
The planet has a semi-volcanic surface with a day cycle so hot it turns a man to ash in a matter of seconds. If it weren't so hot, the surface would be tans and light grays and some blacks. There's no moon so the only light at night is either from an artificial source, or during the twilight right before/after sunrise/sunset.
So, for an army from here's what I'd do....
Armored vehicles should have a pattern of middle greys and tans with jagged black-dark grey marks to break it up. If I wanted to get fancy I'd use a piece of gridding to add portions that look like the desert night pattern the US uses/used.
Since the daylight hours are so hot (And there's no guarantee I'd be able to get my tanks under cover, I'd get plenty of rolled tarp bits for each tank and paint them a bright metallic silver to look like a kind of protective tarp that would reflect heat away from the tank. Were I in the mood, I might make one tank with some of the tarps still on it.
As for the troopers.. I'd go with either dark grey armor, or silver as well. (hey if the plating doesn't burn, just pick it up, replace the webbing and it's ready for reissue!) The Clothing would be lightish greys and/or tans (perhaps tan pants and a grey shirt?) Since the planet is relatively warm even at night, you can mix and match Cadian and Catachan parts to your hearts content.
Finally... night vision optics are cheap and easy to make, so you have no excuse not to issue them to everyone.
Don't just make them black. I know it sounds easier and it sounds logical but anyone who's seen any military unit at nighttime knows that a fully-black figure is fairly easy to see - large solid black shapes running across the place doesn't look right. Decide what kind of world these guys are on, then go for a really dull, muted and dark pallet. For example, if they were from a Jungle-world, you'd use browns and greens but you'd make sure they were as dull and flat as possible.
Also, limit the use of silver as much as possible and if you need to use it make it as dull as possible. Silver glints like a in the dark whenever it catches light, so Imperial Guard (given their likeness to modern armies) that fought in areas of constant darkness would again want to make it as hard for them to be seen as possible.
Just a bit of food for thought, even if these apply more to real-life scenarios than table-top ones!
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/09/19 23:22:45
Here are a few suggestions. Feel free to use/discard as you wish.
Night World Fluff:
Night World is a mineral rich moon, trapped forever in the gravity well of a much larger Gas Planet. Its period of orbit is the same as the period of the larger planet's orbit of the sun.
Therefore Night World is constantly in the shadow of its primary. Looking sunward from the surface of Night Planet, there is a very dim circle of light around the circumference of the large planet, so the blackness is not absolute.
Night World's resources make it worth fighting over. The Gas Planet is worthless.
Remember there will be some vegitation/plant life although it will be very different to what we know on Mother Terra. Any plants that still photosynthesise will have HUGE leaves in order to soak up whatever light is possible. Other natural life may evolve like that of the bottom of our oceans (think Light Lures. . .)
With occupation and inhabitance, artificial light would probably still make an apperence. (Ever tried to go open-pit mining in the dark?) Lights from Hive Citys or Orky bonfires may light up the horizons from time to time.
Schemes:
Because there is no sunlight, the world is likely to be very cold so don't be shy with the capes, cloaks, puffer jackets, furs et al.
Colours should be dark but not just BLACK! BLACK! BLACK! Break it up with variations, although keep the shiny stuff to a minimum. (Officers are Officers and will need some shiny bling to keep themselves happy.) Remember, camouflage is mainly to break up big shapes/silouettes not neccessarily make you look like something you are not (such as - A leaf.) A dark blue or even red (burgundy or Red Gore) is more difficult to see than black in near dark conditions.
Obviously night vision, searchlights and weapon/helmet mounted torches are all useful for your guardsmen.
Don't forget that you would constantly use night fighting rules. . . .
Orkses 1848 - Kr'aag da Krazy's Mob
SM 1906 - 2nd Company Black Consuls
Tau 1850 - Eoro'Gal Ka'Lissera (Recon Cadre)
Eldar 1002 - Wife's Warriors. . .
DR:70SG-MB++I+Pw40k10#+D-A+++/wwd361R--T(M)DM+
Maybe giving them bayonets, as I'm sure they would be more assault prone than most guard. After all it is easy to get close to an enemy if it is almost pitch black.
When I was in the Army we did lots of night ops. We used glow sticks ALOT! they are hard to see from a distance but make it easy to mark cleared rooms or rally points. You could model a glow stick on the bases and have the glow reflected on the legs... also we had two small glow in the dark squares on the back of our helmet to help identify who was in front of you. Red light is harder to see at night where as green is really easy to see.
Automatically Appended Next Post: I have always though this piece by Victoria Lamb represented night time perfectly.
http://www.victorialamb.com/
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/09/20 15:20:51
Oppl wrote:
Just a bit of food for thought, even if these apply more to real-life scenarios than table-top ones!
Actually this is a valuable statement by itself!
Remeber that 2" tall men are only 2" tall. The purpose of camo is to break up shapes and make things harder to see. So if you do go with a camo pattern of any kind, keep it as simple as possible and go more for look then function. If you try and go for accuracy, even if you paint the model perfectly once on the table you'll end up with a bunch of colored blobs as the camo starts working and causes the models to blend into themselves and each other.
As many others have said: stay away from painting them black. At all. Not the tiniest part. May make your painting a bit more time-consuming, but worth it.
If you really want to know how they should look, go outside a night without moonshine or clouds (both mike the night brighter) with some clothes in different colours. Then you can really see how it will look.
I would, as some said, use darker shades of the terrain on the planet. Grey would be showing almost as much as black. Perhaps some kind of dark blue or green. If the world has vegitation that is.
Isn't Mordian a night world? Get some Iron Guard! But seriously, if they use bright blues, reds and golds you really have a license to use whatever. Maybe the Iron stands for Irony... the dour gits. Perhaps living in darkness gives you a poor sense of humour..?
... But if you want to do a regiment that specialises in night fighting, an effective way would be night vision goggles on all the troopers (with cool scorpion green glossy lenses! Wait, I'm getting carried away here). Just painting cadians in greys or grey camo would make them look more like urban fighters... black may be a better bet but could be very plain (maybe use purple as well like Coolyo294 suggests.?) But specialist equipment could, if you're willing to do some converting, really set them apart (and make it obvious that they're night-world guard, not cityfighting guard or stealth guard or whatever). A whole regiment of Sam Fishers, heheh..
On a sidenote... I heard that in real life it's better to wear camoflague at night that black fatigues, since the black stands out more (it's too black, or something...).
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2011/09/20 22:39:22
The space marines wouldn't care what colour they are, they are space marines, they don't use camouflage so that the enemy CAN see them, and fear them, so if they are black, then they are black, it doesn't matter.
The guard on the other hand should be camouflaged, at least a little bit. Remember what Kr'aag said, there would still be a small portion of artificial light, so camoflage would be a must for any operation in and around these areas.
I suggest dark muted greys and blues, start with a dark base coat and just add geometric shapes to your guard in the other, slightly lighter greys and blues.
And don't forget those all important night vision goggles etc. Make sure to paint them as if they are glowing, this can easily be done using drybrushing, i don't know what your painting skills are, so i wont go into details
Overall i hope my comments have helped ^^
LazzurusMan
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2011/09/21 01:16:56
If you wanted to make the army really unique, you could paint them as viewed through NV goggles. IR light interacts with material differently than light in the visible spectrum. For example, I had nomex gloves that, when viewed through a night scope, looked white. Imitating this effect would likely be a huge pain in the ass and people would probably not understand it, but it would be neat...
I'd just go with different shades of gray's for the clothing and black for the armor. that seems to be what modern day "night" camo is these days.
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"The Gods of Chaos are just like real human emotions, I mean when your Khorne your angry, when your Nurgle your sick, when your Slaanesh your horney, and when your Tzeench....YOUR SHOOTING DOOMBOLTS OUT OF YOUR HANDS...
in the dark whenever it catches light, so Imperial Guard (given their likeness to modern armies) that fought in areas of constant darkness would again want to make it as hard for them to be seen as possible.
Cadian 901st "Rust Dogs" (1850)
Emperor's Crusaders (585)
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