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I know this is most probably just a matter of prefference but wanted to get some opinions on it.
do you guys paint hq units in the same colour as your chapter or in the colour of there chapter.
example: if im running an imperial fists army i would paint lysander imperial fists but then i want to add lets say shrike or calgar, i would paint shrike in raven black and calgar in smurf blue, but i have seen people would paint all 3 fisty yellow.

what are your opinions here guys?

thx

tao

For me, it depends what I'm going for.

In that case I might paint Shrike & any of his units as Ravens, as it's not unheard of for Chapters to work together.

On occasion I've painted HQs/Independants in the colour of the Chapter they're fluffed too but not often, though I know many, many who do.

I personally paint HQ's in my own chapter's colours, regardless of fluff. I play dark angels but use the vanilla marine codex, so i ended up using Lysander as my HQ. took off all of the chapter icons and converted him to be more DA-like.

Personally I belive that your HQ units should be a reflection of the main color pallette while using grand colors that your normal units don't use. Like Using a gold or silver in more places than your normal troops. Or even maybe inverting your color shceme.

Heck even using a different helmet color or shoulder pad color by itself could get a great effect. Really it's all personal preference but I love having HQ units that are striking and draw attention.

I think you should paint Shrike (for example) in your chapters color, rename him, use his rules and say he's one of your chapters own hero.

Ex. Marneus calgar becomes Searth, Chapter master of the iron hands.

Yeah, if you're using Marneus Calgar as Marneus Calgar, then he should be painted appropriately.

If you're using him as Chapter Master Reginald D of the Emperors Hunters (or whatever) who just happens to share Marneus' rules, then paint him to match the Chapter.

Although if I'm using a counts-as special character, I would usually use a converted model rather than just repainting the original.

The SM codex is meant to be a flexible book - you're invited to appropriate special characters for custom chapters. Putting a named character into a different established chapter can be a bit more precarious on fluffy grounds, but it can be done successfully. Dress the character up in the army's colors and change his name and it's really no different than running an orange-clad Calgar as Mr. Relatively-tart-but-makes-good-jam, Chapter Master of the Imperial Kumquats.

Crossing codices for characters is game-bending beyond acceptability, but changing anything about a character from the same codex except his cost, stats, rules, and wargear is purely cosmetic/fluffy, and therefore justifiable by mere player preference.

I painted my Lysander up as an Ultramarine and left all the Imp Fist iconography on him.