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At one point GW had a half dozen or so different designs for imperial/crimson fist shoulder pads available. I just used a different fist variation for each squad.

My Alpha Legion have a small triangle painted on the "top" of their backpacks... different colors for different squads.

Orks... Pants Colors and/or Trim on the pants...

Epidemius List... Different washes on the squads to give them a different "look"...

Space Wolves - Tactical Squad Shoulderpads with different "Arrow" shapes.

Dark Angels - Same

Khorne Demons - Markers on Base... rocks on one, twigs on another, "bare" (flock only) on a third, etc.

Just have to be creative.

For my marines, I put a squad symbol on the lower left leg. My orks are getting a squad symbol painted somewhere on them.

For my opponent, I just keep different squads out of coherency.

My Tau have squad markings on their helmets. I also have a selection of Shas'ui with rank marking on helmet and squad colours on bonding knife.

When I get around to painting my Guard they will also have colour markings on a shoulder pad.

I give squads markings.

That, or I have little tags with the Trooper's Name and Squad on the underside of the base in the recess (I know, I like story driven battles).

With my newer guard some men have different uniform colours for their fatigues -- this helps differentiate.

That or I just know by sight who goes with who.

Or... I make bases themed for each squad. But that's rarer.

sA

I run marines (templar like marines), so I have decals of templar crosses on both shoulderpads (with skulls for assault units).

To differentiate my units, I use homemade, custom waterslide decals on the left kneecap. I actually use greek capital letters (omega, alpha, etc). So, I have tactical squad alpha, Devestator squad Beta, etc. These things aren't easy to use, they are smaller than a pencil eraserhead footprint. But I can make tons of them from one sheet of decal paper - I did full lines of one letter, every letter, and repeated until the page was full.

I kind of like this, because it gives a real uniform look to the army - nearly every figure has the same shoulderpad look. And a quick glance to the kneepad shows which guy is in which unit.

For the fluff nuts, I also name the Sergeants of the units with the same starting letter. IE, Sgt Arilius of tactical squad Alpha. Sgt Berterand of Devestator squad Beta.

For my dire avengers I paint their headresses different colours.

I never use any kind of unit markings. I just don't put similar units close enough together. Like, say, 2 units of Hormagaunts would be set up usually on either side of my zone so I never confuse the 2 units. For my guard, I don't have enough models to have tons of different units for different lists, so I have 1 list that uses platoons, and 1 list that is mostly vets, and I use the same models for each list and just pick the list I wanna play when I play.

I always wanted to do unit markings, but I'm just too lazy

I am very OCD when it comes to my bases being uniform through out my army. I also use a lot of different write ups for each army, and need to be able to be flexible when it comes to model unit construction.

The best way I have found is to use a darker or lighter shade of paint than I use on the rim of the base, and make a certain number of lines to correspond to it's unit. It doesn't detract from the overall appearance of the army, but still allows you to organize. With thin lines, they are easy to quickly repaint or cover up should a model be moved to a different unit.

I really had to get into this with my orks. I use the new Foundation Brown (Devlan mud?) on their bases, and then do their unit marks with Bleached Bone. I typically run 3 squads of 20 Boyz in BW's. One squad will have one bone stripe on the back of it's base, the other 2, the last 3.

Simple, effective, and very easy to change.

I tend to go for squad markings.

My old Guard army, every squad was numbered on the right shoulder pad. I sat down and worked out squad numbers and Lt squad numbers for the entire regiment.

Chaos have been all squad markings, either symbol or letter somewhere on their armour.


With the Orks I'm still pondering, thinking I might go via face paint, with each Squad Nob suggesting all his boyz follow his example with the blue stuff.

An idea I was playing with was to have each SM squad to be painted in a different Chapter's colour . . . but I decided that this wouldn't look very Imperial.

My High Elves use a slightly different secondary color in certain places on their armor: the tips of their lances, crests on helmets, barding on horses and tassels on chainmail all change depending on what unit In fantasy thats more for ME than for my opponnent tho.

My Tau have a different number painted (in tau) on their shoulderpads. I actually came up with a fluffy squad numbering system that was coherent for the whole army and could be expanded to a full system for the entire race if needed

My Necrons and Orcs (very small armies) each have colored stripes down the side of their bases.

I use different color shirts for my orks. I have 3 mobs of 20 orks. I have red team, bloo team, and yella team, but they are all deathskulls. Each team has at least one portion painted blue.