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The title says it all. I'm talking about things like:

Tyranid Warrior Kit is also used to make a Tyranid Prime
Kabalite Warriors can be used to make Trueborn
etc.

So what do you do to distinguish models like this?

For my Assault Marines I use Death Company models, but simply paint them a different color. For my Paladins I plan on adding the book on their backs in order to show they are "different" in some way.

For turning tyranid warriors into primes I usually give them the larger arms, so MC scything talons or a hive tyrants bone sword .

Different paint jobs or some form of conversion.

For my kabalite trueborn, and my squad leaders i plan on adding a banner on their back displaying the conclave(is that the right word?) symbol

Obsidian Raven wrote:For my kabalite trueborn, and my squad leaders i plan on adding a banner on their back displaying the conclave(is that the right word?) symbol

I think the word you are looking for is Kabal.

Wargear helps as well....

Looking at my army you will see 50 warrior models.
40 of them have 7 Rifles, Pistol/CCW, Splinter Cannon, and Shredder. These are painted Blue.
10 of them have 7 carbines, 2 splinter cannons, and a pistol/ccw These are painted Green.
Guess which ones are the Trueborn.

Similar thing here too:

I've moded my space marine sternguard with facier pose and instead of regal blue color, I went with a darker, necron abyss.

Makes the stand out quite nicely

Great White wrote:Different paint jobs or some form of conversion.

From my Alpha Warrior...Ergh...Tyranid Prime I just added more spiky bits, and elongated the tail, becasue the weapon arms are magnatizes they are set in a way to swap with any of my other warriors, but the body is clearly different to look at.

In terms of my marines, I have them marked with their unit info on their shoulder pad like the good vanilla marines they are.

Red Comet wrote:

Obsidian Raven wrote:For my kabalite trueborn, and my squad leaders i plan on adding a banner on their back displaying the conclave(is that the right word?) symbol

I think the word you are looking for is Kabal.

Thanks. The word really left my mind completely there, I have no idea why


edit : i suppose i should add, for my chaos army, i plan on having my chosen sqaud in Pre-heresy colours, splattered with blood.

For my IG veterans, I gave them tattoos and shotguns converted from Chimera lasguns. I also exclusively used the command squad kits instead of Catachan infantry kits.

Being csm I use different helmets to distinguish their squad. Having parts to cut off helps ^^ that or color them differently.

They'd be differentiated by wargear primarily. The "basic" unit (Like Kabalite Warriors) cannot have a unit filled with Blasters since they can normally have only one.

In your case, are you fielding GK Termies and Pallys in the same list? If not, then simply pointing at the models and saying that they're Pallys (with proper WYSIWYG of course) ends the problem then and there.

My veterans have red boots and my regular infantry have black boots.

Paint and conversion... if you don't want to go there, mark the front and back of the bases to make it obvious to both you and your opponent

For my Sternguard I gave them backpack icons that come from the command squad box. For my paladins I gave them the icons that come with the GK termie box. So usually I gives some small aesthetic detail to set things apart for easier identification.

I paint basic troops with minimilist colors. Special troops(like stern guard) get the full one gold treatment.

For my zombie guard, I use standard IG colours for the average guardsmen and Blood splattered for the penal Legion unit. Works quite well actually.

One squad of Trueborn has Corsair Cloaks and hair coming from their helmets. The other squad of trueborn all have Woodelf cloaks and hooded heads. One squad of Wyches has heads with face masks on them (The Sisters of Silence) and the same color of hair, while the other unit has random haircolors. Alternative ideas include having all members of an "elite" version all have cooler or more heroic bases with more enemy trophies on them, for instance. When I played Necrons, I separated the squads by painting each base a different color (black, red, green, etc) since you still needed them separated, but want to present a unified scheme. Others will add unit markings, like Marines or Tau (or even units like Etherial Honorguard having pristine, well kept armor, and the rest of the army looking a little more weathered and chipped.)

I... err, use different models.

I know, not what you wanted to hear.

My Primes are RT era plastic Warriors and my Trueborn are 3rd ed era plastic Warriors. My IG vets are Death Korps amongst my standard squads being Steel Legion.

So, they actually stand out if mixed together.

I paint all my guard the same camo pattern and paint the bases. No need to distinguish one unit from another except for squad purposes.

Camo does work in this game. My daemon army uses the most obnoxious daemon prince models I could make so that they spend all their effort and mind power worrying about the massive evil looking things that are coming right at them. (Meanwhile my plague bearers march right upto them before they realize what is going on.)

It all depends on what you want. For vets, I really don't want flashy models in my IG army. I want them to blend in and be ignored. Then they unleash 3 melta guns and a demo pack template before my opponent realizes it I've destroyed two land raiders on turn 1 (HEHEHEHEHE)

I may be a bastard, but I'm not going to make it easy for them. (HEY LOOK HERE SHOOT THAT!)

With my sisters I just painted a striped pattern on the backs of their bases to distinguise the infantry squads (white,x colour, white for the sisters, black, x colour, black for their guard conscripts).

In the case of my Chaos I've got different banners in each. Additionally one squad is covered in purity seals, another had very little and heavier armour, and the third all have horned armour. I intend to distinguish my Khorne Berserkers from my basic marines by having my Berserkers covered in candles and purity seals, as with skull motifs on their helmets (I play an undivided force, thus I'm not going to use the old Khorne minis). All my chaos units come from the same box set, but they're also heavily converted, so it doesn't take much effort me to add a motif to each so as to tell them apart easily. ^^

mostly I use weapon upgrades to distinguish one type of squad from another. As far as different squads between their own type, I usually leave a little space between them on the field.

With my huge pile of guardsmen, about half of them have bayonets and half don't. In this way, I just organize them into a 20-man blob with bayonets and a 20-man blob without and then stagger them, every other one with and every other without. When two of my big masses of troops get too close, I just look at the end of their lasguns.

Nothing? A sister with a bolter is a sister with a bolter. I guess after years of having a single model make up 90% of my army I just can tell them apart. But when I am putting my girls on the table I just grab the special weapons the squad has and then any 7 other ladies.

There was one point where I painted their robes different colors. I hadn't settled on a color scheme so I just mixed them up, basic sisters were black and red, rets were black and yellow, dominions black and pink, etc. But I decided a uniform army looked better and a month later just went all black and red.

Model the special one on a big rock. Like the bling'ed out Chaos Terminator Lord!