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I am painting a codex chapter, and I came up with a problem. What color trim do I paint a Land Raider gunner? The Land Raider obviously belongs to first company, so I painted his shoulder trim white, but not his helmet.

What company do tank crews belong to, and how do you paint them accurately?

It's up to you as the fluff is not clear. It may be that the tanks are crewed by marines from the reserve companies. One of the reserve companies was said to crew the landspeeders and bikes, the one that was all assault marines. It may be that the reserve company that is all devastator squads also crews the tanks.
If that is the case and your chapter is a codex chapter then the colour trims are the same as those used by the Ultramarines for their companies.
If tank crews are dedicated marines and not part of one of the ten companies like the older fluff suggested then you could come up with your own colour. Mine are pink as my chapter is loosely based around the German army of WWII and pink was the colour of the piping on panzer uniforms, copper for motorcycles, white for infantry and so forth.
You might decide to give them a mechanicum feel though and paint them red or gunmetal.

The Codex says 1st company maintains their own landraiders for moving Terminators around the battlefield. Logically therefore the marines driving them are on the rolls of 1st company.

Alternatively, the rest of the land raiders belong to the armoury, not a specific company, and as such would be painted to match. I do not, however, know what that would be.

Tank crews have the symbol of the machanicus on there shoulder pads, i thought they would have red accents to there armour like sergeant chronus.

Vehicle crew coloration for Space Marines is a little foggy. It may be that they wear their chapter color, a company color, red (for mechanicus ala the techmarines) or something else entirely.

Tank crews are usually seperate from the rest of the chapter organisation. Land speeder pilots and bikers are part of the reserve assault company.

Crews of company vehicles could follow company colors + mechanicum badge ( you get a mechanicum shoulderpad with the vehicle upgrade sprue ).
Vehicles of the armoury: Predators, Vindicators, Whirlwinds, All sorts of Land Raider; may follow general chapter scheme + mechanicum iconography.

So any crew would sport the chapter scheme + allegiance with a) company vehicle = color from company and tactical marking of unit ( dedicated transport ), and
b) arsenal vehicle = supplied by Techmarines/MotF, some additionally red bits or a icon of the mechanicum.

Examples of GW painted minis are either using the 'head+shoulders' crewman ( which has no shoulderpads ) or show the crewmember in a single color without
company markings but sometimes use the mechanicum shoulderpad. Another option is to keep your marines inside their vehicles...

IMO a crewman fully in mechanicum red is often done to differ the marine from the vehicle color. ( example: Black Templars ).

Tank crews are from the Armory and would be made up of Junior Techmarines.


Rhinos, Razorbacks, and Speeders are usually crewed by the marines of their Company. Speeders and Bike marines are usually Assault marines that arn't being deployed as infantry although any marine can crew them.

Fluffwise, a squad member is who is driving a Rhino transport. of course if everyone exited the Rhino wouldn't have a driver and couldn't move, but this isn't represented in the game.


I just paint my Tank crew pauldrons red with the chapter trim. Speeders and Bikes have the Assault company heraldry.

I always paint them red and the badge on his shoulder as it should be

I tend to support the "belongs to the forge" and "Junior tech marine" it seems to make sense. (however it also means there are usually about 1500 marines in a chapter) So I tend to keep one shoulder pad normal and the rest red, for the mechanicum.

Normally there is an Infantry company of around 150, supported by an armored company of the same regiment.

Not sure how it works with space marines tho.

I tend to do mine as techmarines with some chapter colouration somewhere. Main reason for me is that it breaks up the model a bit instead of having yellow tank with yellow driver and yellow gunner.

Bullfrog wrote:I tend to do mine as techmarines with some chapter colouration somewhere. Main reason for me is that it breaks up the model a bit instead of having yellow tank with yellow driver and yellow gunner.

Or a black and white space marine on a black and white bike?

themocaw wrote:

Bullfrog wrote:I tend to do mine as techmarines with some chapter colouration somewhere. Main reason for me is that it breaks up the model a bit instead of having yellow tank with yellow driver and yellow gunner.

Or a black and white space marine on a black and white bike?

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