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Subject says it all. I can't find the reason and quite frankly, it is kind of strange considering no other chapter has ever changed their heraldry (that I can think of).

It was my understanding they were black, but some artist painted them with black armor that had green highlights, and so people started painting them green and it stuck. No real fluff reason has ever been given.

Jungle0731 wrote:Subject says it all. I can't find the reason and quite frankly, it is kind of strange considering no other chapter has ever changed their heraldry (that I can think of).

Salamanders did, from a rather complex/time consuming black with yellow splodges to the green we all know now. Several of the traitor legions changed their colours as well, even before the heresy.

Background reasons are these days: to remember the green death world of Caliban and to distinguish their selves from the Fallen.

Green is also a obvious choice if you look at their chapter-banner and its central figure.

Space Wolves also changed after the heresy from Grey to Blue-Grey.

And lets not forget the tragedy that was Blood Angels red (or should I say orange )

The green colours were changed during the great crusade. When the Lion left caliban with a garrison of DA he left Luther behind to rule caliban and recruit soldiers as second-in-command. When the Lion returned they had changed thier armour from black to dark green, but El'jonson saw the wicked thing luther turned into so they and thier armies fought each other. When the battle was over and the Lion badly wounded and Luther was captured the chaos gods spread out the Fallen through the warp where they try to reconcile with themselves and hide in society. To this day they still bear the ancient colours of the Dark Angels.

IIRC, the real reason was it was harder to photograph the black figs during the RT days. It would also explain the move away from camouflaged marines and the changes in the Salamander's scheme.

I believe deadratman's explanation comes from the 2nd Edition "Codex: Angels of Death" which IIRC, was the first instance of Luthor in print.

I believe what Dalyth dude said. The story is probly just used to cover up the change.

deadratman wrote:I believe what Dalyth dude said. The story is probly just used to cover up the change.

This is true of LOTS of things.

"hey guys, I got a good idea for a new kind of Land Raider that has these boltguns on the side instead of lascannons!"
"O RLY? how will we explain the fluff behind it?"
"I got that covered too, we can take this no-name chapter and design their whole codex around it! we will sell a ton and it'll look really cool"

LOL!

The fluff is being rewritten right now with the Horus Heresy books. The third book promises a violent conclusion and answers.

Jungle0731 wrote:Subject says it all. I can't find the reason and quite frankly, it is kind of strange considering no other chapter has ever changed their heraldry (that I can think of).

IIRC, in the Tales of Heresy book, the 'caliban' Dark Angels have sections of their armour painted green while the 'earth' Dark Angels are still completely black. To symbolise the forests.

Also, the most obvious chapter to change their heraldry was the Luna Wolves (white) to the Sons of Horus (green) to the Black Legion (um....black)

I think it all boils down to:

"Lets change this colour... to that colour."

"You can't just randomly change the scheme!"

"Fine, I'll make some fluff."

I think you're a bit harsh on GW's fluff makers and artists...

I may be a little naive, but I "want to believe" (TM) that sometimes, one of the studio guys comes up with a nice idea :"Hey, those guys have been betrayed by their brothers; it is such a traumatism for a SM Legion that it could have some impact on their heraldry!?"

I'm not denying that most of the time, it happens as "I want to make this" and then "Ok, we'll make the fluff out of it"!!!

Moreover, I'm also uncomfortable with the fact that people seem to criticize this very scheme, which some consider as unnatural and profit-based.

But if we are true to ourselves, a huge share of our projects come from this scheme: "Ok, I've found these new plastic ghouls could make for some perfect twisted IG soldiers (w/ appropriate converting & bits uh), so I'm gonna create the 4th Doomed Legion, Harbingers of Death, their history and fluff, and it would make a very nice Chaos battleforce!"

Another example:
Piscina IV, one of the largest campaigns organized by the GW studio in the 90's, has now been a part of the 40k universe timeline for years, some SM chapters have been created during this event, a famous Ork Boss (Nazdreg... sthg), and no one complains about this fact... They just look natural to us now, and add a lot of fluff in the 40k background!

So I want to believe that after the horrendous betrayal of Luther's followers, the Dark Angels changed their armour colours to distinguish themselves from the Fallen... Even if there's a "painter bored with painting black guys", a "photograph who can't get the good contrast w/ those ****ing minute black men" or a "If we painted them green, maybe we'd sell more of them"...

The hobby is something we use to create and infuse with a bit of our dreams, and I guess it's part of mine....

I see...

They changed the color to dark green when Epic was released because it's easier to paint the tiny Marines. BTW Deathwing changed their color from black to green in honor of those that fell in the battle against the genestealer cult that had taken over their home world.

G

person person wrote:I see...

Seeing what????

Your point.

The 2003 "how to paint citadel miniatures" has dark angels in black, with green highlights. IMO that looks better than some of the current totally green ones.

That does sound good...

person person wrote:Your point.

Oh ok.... So it seems you don't agree that much then uh!!! [I MAY be really really naive, this I willingly admit....]

Green Blow Fly wrote:They changed the color to dark green when Epic was released because it's easier to paint the tiny Marines. BTW Deathwing changed their color from black to green in honor of those that fell in the battle against the genestealer cult that had taken over their home world.

G

It was black to tan.
http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Deathwing

I know why the colour changed. It's all becasue of this game, http://www.flickr.com/photos/12690196@N04/1333776818/sizes/z/in/photostream/

1996 Warhammer 40K Dark Crusaders.

Andy Jones and the artists at Leaping Lizard software in Washington DC did it, because back in 1996 alot of games used Indexed (8-bit) colour instead of the millions of colours that modern video games have. Back in 1996 with only 8-but colour (256 unique colors in the game palette) meant that the Dark Black armour had only 16 or so colours, but making the Dark Angels very dark dark dark green, the artists had more like 32 colours to work with.

That's one reason why.

The main reason is because the Lion said it should be so.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/473859.page

Lots of info on color changes here.

Not sure if it is 100% canon, but fluff wise, I read an account about why the Fallen and the Unforgiven are both green instead of black now. Apparently, the DA participated in a bunch of aquatic missions preheresy. As such, their armor was painted black with a special paint that resists various aquatic issues. (Used in real life on ships.) Anyway, this paint contains copper, and over time it will corrode and become green. Due to the black pigments it is darker than a pure copper corrosion. The Ravenwing are still black because of the lack of need for the special paint.

I will try and dig up the post that I read this and post better info.

The fluff was changed to help with the art changes. The paintjobs of old, if you read IA or other sources like the novels, changed radically depending on engagements (ala Badab) and on Inter-Chapter events (ala Deathwing).

I always thought the reason was so that they could distinguish between the Fallen (Luther's lot) and those who stayed 'Loyal' to Lion'El.

So the fallen would still have black armour and the 'loyal' DA would be green to match their lush homeworld of Caliban and I believe their old knightly orders were centred around a lot of greens in their armour/banners to match the forest deathworld of Caliban (Think the Lions/luthers order banner was originally green, although that may be and probably is wrong)

Although Jadebullets post seems more plausible/interesting and I hope we see some return on that, as I do love DA fluff, especially stuff I don't know

Remember also that the Ravenwing, who seek out info on the Fallen, are still Black. I am trying to go through my old codexes to see if I can find the blurb about the color change, may take a bit though. Just found the bits about the Termie armor from another thread.