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I'm painting up my nid army, and I was wondering how best to tell squads apart.

I really like the idea of a unified army so I don't really want to change colours on the claws or carapace.

This doesn't leave many other options that I can think of.

Does anyone have any ideas on how i can differentiate between units in game? Any ideas are welcome.

Marks. Like Imperial Guard have stripes on their helmets or shoulderpads. You could put stripes in a striking color on the head carapace or on their face even. Think of something small, use different colors for different squads.

Put a stripe on the back of the base. Different colours for different units. Not visible from the front, fairly subtle from the back!

I've also seen washers attacked to the bottom of the mini's base used effectively. The washers are painted different colors for each squad, so in effect you get a small "ring" of color showing at the base of each model, with a different color for each squad.

As an added bonus, they make models less tippy!

Just paint the rim of the base different colours.

Sharpasaspoon wrote:Just paint the rim of the base different colours.

That's what I do. All bright colors. In fact, I have to get up my 30 boy squad with pink bases...

Or just place them on the field in such a way so as to make it easy to remember. I sometimes put spaces between my units, for example, so that everything that is 1.5" apart is in a single squad, but the 2.5" gaps are where the units end.

Iv seen a nids army that the guy put different races corpses on his nids bases. Eg: he had a squad with eldar heads and other bits for one brood, ork skulls, shootas (even a snotling on one) for another ect ect ect

Timonth wrote:Marks. Like Imperial Guard have stripes on their helmets or shoulderpads. You could put stripes in a striking color on the head carapace or on their face even. Think of something small, use different colors for different squads.

Or, if you want to keep a unified colour scheme, different patterns also work for denoting different units.

For space Marines you can usually place squad #'s on places like knee pads or shoulders. You can also have a slightly different color for a part of armor (for space marines each squad uses either Grey, White, Black, or silver since it goes with my color scheme)

I would second insaniak. Unique patterning of the overall army colouring would look really good on the battlefield.

Scarper wrote:Put a stripe on the back of the base. Different colours for different units. Not visible from the front, fairly subtle from the back!

I would vote for this. Just a colored dot or something per squad. This way the actual models still have a unified color scheme but you can easily look at the base and know what is going on.

yeah paint under the base or a small harking on model itself

Different colored base edges can help

I paint the underneath of my bases with numbers (roman numeral)

Scarper wrote:Put a stripe on the back of the base. Different colours for different units. Not visible from the front, fairly subtle from the back!

This ^^^ works well for me as well.
you could also paint a pattern or design that is the same throughout the army, just have it located in different locations on different troops
(ie. on the left side on one sqd., on the back of another, front for a 3rd sqd. etc....).

I often put a mark under the base. It's easier with Marines or pretty much any army that isn't Tyranids, but you can always try some patterning.

upliftingprimer wrote:Iv seen a nids army that the guy put different races corpses on his nids bases. Eg: he had a squad with eldar heads and other bits for one brood, ork skulls, shootas (even a snotling on one) for another ect ect ect

I am using a simpler version of this idea. Basically using terrain differences on your bases to differentiate the squads. For example, if you have stones on your bases, put a larger stone in the same spot for each member of the squad - when looking from above, one squad could have a larger stone at the 2 o'clock position, one squad at the 5 o'clock position, etc. This way your army can still have a uniform look without anything glaringly different (like the different coloured base edges.

You're playing nids? surely you can tell the different between hormagaunts and say, warriors ;]

Seriously, it can be a problem. At a recent event I started with two squads of Termagants, and my Tervigon spawned another three squads during a game. It's essential to keep them apart as you aren't allowed to recombine them.

Those small coloured circle stickers you can buy in packets from stationery stores, stuck on the rear of the base. I forgot to take any with me!