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So, I have a big as-yet largely unpainted Marine force, slowly built up over the last eight months. I've been running them exclusivley as Vanilla marines, and was planning on painting them as White Consuls (I wanted white non-Scars guys). I'm in the process of finalizing a 1500 and 2000 list and am set to paint my guys very soon.

However, I've also been reading the Blood Angels codex a little, and see there's a huge cross-over of models in each codex. It's not the same with other Marine codices, but Blood Angels and Vanillas definitley serve the same list master.

Ideally, I'd like my base marine models to pull double duty, and let me field them as both Vanilla Marines and Blood Angels. I'd buy the outliers that are in each codex, of course, so I'd be running each army as codex-sopecific and legal. Thing is, if I paint my models as White Consuls, can I still field them in a Blood Angel list? Or if I paint them as red Blood Angels, can I still play field them as vanilla Marines? I just don't want to cut myself off from cool gaming options down the line if possible.

Any advice and info would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Well, you can do what you want in friendly games, But be careful in tournaments.

Painting color doesn't matter as long as the models are WYSIWYG. Tournaments, in general, don't care about what color you painted as long as the models accurately represent your list.

my marines are black with gun metal grey and rose gold accents... thye are both vanilla marines and blood angel marines. as long as you are running wysiwyg then jsut say you are running a successor chapter. when chapters were changed to only 1k marines per chapter my marines took their blood angels geneseed and picked new colors and new name they are the deadly "happy-go-lucky killing company marines"

Paint your models however you like, and play them using whatever codex you like.

As long as you keep everything WYSIWYG nobody can make any complaints beyond childish whining.

Blood Angels may be played as C:SM as they are ALSO a codex army (by fluff not rules) and field codex companies. The BA codex can be used to represent a lot of assaulty marine armies that are (mostly) codex; where the BT codex is an assaulty but not codex armie.
Basically the answer is you CAN have your cake and eat it too. Generally speaking I would advise you to shy away from using specific BA units like the Baal Pred, but TBH I can't see the fluffy support for not having Stormravens (being restricted to BA and GK is the hieght of stupidity fluff wise.) or SG which are just fancy Honor Guards like say Marneus' but with JPs, and Furiosos especially Libbys, can't see a logical reason that other marines, maybe not all of them wouldn't have picked up on them. Honestly the only thing I don't like to share is the Baal (it's probably nostalgia).

@AustonT: Why should he restrict what units he picks based on paint job? If he wants to play blood angels painted marines using the space wolf codex and he is WYSIWYG, it shouldn't matter.

pretre wrote:@AustonT: Why should he restrict what units he picks based on paint job? If he wants to play blood angels painted marines using the space wolf codex and he is WYSIWYG, it shouldn't matter.

even Jervis does this, just paint them as your own and use whatever SM you want (Not GK though due to the NFTs)

pretre wrote:@AustonT: Why should he restrict what units he picks based on paint job? If he wants to play blood angels painted marines using the space wolf codex and he is WYSIWYG, it shouldn't matter.

Because this is an abomination.

It's the same advice I give everyone with BA's this being the interwebs he can and will do what he wants. I stand by what I've posted.

I think what I'm after is a core of marines that are in both codices that are painted in such a way that they can be run as both BAs and C:SM. For example, a bunch of guys painted white with red pads and highlights, and maybe a touch of black in there too. I play them as vanilla codex marines and call them, I dunno, the Ultra-Jeffs. Then when I want to run BAs, I add some Death Company and Storm Ravens and what have you, painted in the same colours as the Ultra-Jeffs, but this time I call them a Blood Angel successor chapter called The Blood of Geoffrey or something. Two separate chapters fluff-wise, just using the same colours for convieninece (and the same core models), both painted in a way as to avoid people saying "they are CLEARLY not Blood Angels" and so on.

I suppose I could even do the same for Dark Angels, Black Templars and Space Wolves, but they may require more work (and certainly more models, as while Blood Angels use a good proportion of the C:SM, the others are more liberal with the new stuff).

Thoughts?

EDIT: And of course, the BA specific models like HQs and Death Company can be much more BA-themed in their painting and iconography. That would help.

Can I play my dark eldar as regular eldar if I use the right WYSIWYG? No I cannot, seriously, just pick one codex or the other. Most people are fine with it in theory as you can see, however start pulling that at your FLGS week in and out and people will get frustrated at you. Just make up a BA successor chapter yourself painted in white, and play them as BA. BA is essentially codex marines +1, - thunderfire canon, so that's your best bet IMHO.

=I= White-Wolf wrote:Can I play my dark eldar as regular eldar if I use the right WYSIWYG? No I cannot, seriously, just pick one codex or the other.

Of course you can. I think that a Dual Seer Council with Jetbike troops list would look badass using DE models.

Most people are fine with it in theory as you can see, however start pulling that at your FLGS week in and out and people will get frustrated at you. Just make up a BA successor chapter yourself painted in white, and play them as BA. BA is essentially codex marines +1, - thunderfire canon, so that's your best bet IMHO.

I don't get frustrated unless it is unclear what is on the table. Don't appeal to the commons, speak for yourself.

=I= White-Wolf wrote:Can I play my dark eldar as regular eldar if I use the right WYSIWYG? No I cannot, seriously, just pick one codex or the other. Most people are fine with it in theory as you can see, however start pulling that at your FLGS week in and out and people will get frustrated at you. Just make up a BA successor chapter yourself painted in white, and play them as BA. BA is essentially codex marines +1, - thunderfire canon, so that's your best bet IMHO.

I'd play that... just saying... then again I will also accept pennies as bases with a printed firgure on paper taped to it as long as i get to play a game i'm happy.

thing is as an ork player i've looted alot of other codexes fo rmodels so as an ork everybody universally accepts my wysiwyg so why nto do every other army the same courtesy. I have a landraider as a battlewagon because i thought i'd be fun to make the model and nobody complains... I use a looted trygon with a leman russ turrent and a ork sticking out of its head as a looted wagon and people just get a kick out of it... its isn't even an actual vehicle btu people accept it. really with my marines I do it the same they can be any chater as logn as they have the right equipment and it is clear what everything is.

heck my flgs only has a few people so i'd be pretty bored playign the same marines chapters every week i like when the usual space marines chapters change things up

Just do what ever you want, if you want models you can use with both the BA and SM codex then do just that but just don't use the BA specific models when using the SM codex (such as Sanguinary Guard and Death Company) and vice versa if its that big of a problem for your FLGS.

JbR of the Endless Spire wrote:Just do what ever you want, if you want models you can use with both the BA and SM codex then do just that but just don't use the BA specific models when using the SM codex (such as Sanguinary Guard and Death Company) and vice versa if its that big of a problem for your FLGS.

Why can't he use appropriately WYSIWYG Sang Guard as Vanguard Vets in a C:SM force?
Why can't he use appropriately WYSIWYG Death Company as Assault Marines in a C:SM force?

The same applies in the reverse.

=I= White-Wolf wrote:Can I play my dark eldar as regular eldar if I use the right WYSIWYG? No I cannot, seriously, just pick one codex or the other.

That's different MODELS. This is different COLOURS.

I'm not talking about using non-codex models as counts-as. I'm talking about using the same tac marine models as tac marines in armies of both codices, the same rhino models as rhinos in armies of both codices, and so on. If I want to run a Stormtalon, I'd buy one and only run it in C:SM lists. If I want to run a Baal Predator, I'll do the same and not run it in C:SM lists. The models are entirely legal across both codices, no stupid "hey this eldar is a dark eldar" or "this predator is a Baal predator" nonsense. A tac marine is a tac marine is a tac marine. If there were Blood Angel specific tac marine models, with winged backpacks or some crap, then fine, I'd run them. But the kits are the same.

Look at it this way: I buy some vanilla marines and the SM codex. I paint them as Excorcists chapter (base red armour, black piping, gold chest eagle). I play them as vanilla marines, using the vanilla codex. Down the line, I'd OBVIOUSLY be able to run these models in a Blood Angels list. Or would you make me go paint them a slightly different shade of red, or re-paint all their shoulderpads with blood drip logos and back again when I fancied a change? The only difference in my enquiry is that I'd like to start from something other than base red. But still have red in there.

I buy 10 tac marines. I paint them blue. In order to play as Blood Angels, I need to either re-paint them or buy 10 identical models and paint them red?

EDIT: clarity. lots of times

I wanted to do the same at one point OP. I play Vanilla Blood Ravens so for me it is easier to transfer (red and unknown origins)..I say just go for it. A paintjob.is just to look pretty( or horrible for those Nugly ones).

@pretre

Re read my post. I said IF its such a big problem for your FLGS. I personally can't think of any reasons why not but they might.

Scouseboy wrote: both painted in a way as to avoid people saying "they are CLEARLY not Blood Angels" and so on.

Lamenters don't even bear a tangential relationship to other BA Chapters, I wouldn't sweat this point.

I might have a problem if they were clearly painted as Ultramarines, but you used the BA codex. I keep looking at the table and makeing all sorts of wrong assumptions. But once you step away from the main chapters, into total homebrew or just lesser known ones with no offical fluff, it's all good by me.

The one problem I could see is confusing your opponents if you flip flop all the time. Just be clear at the start of every game which codex you are using. It might help if you magnetized banners with diferent iconography and had diferent objective markers.

Winning a battle because your opponent forgot key rules due to you swaping rulesets is not fun for anyone. By the book, WYSIWYG is all about gear, not color. But the people you realy need to care about are the people you are going to be playing against, not just strangers on the internet. If you walk up to a stranger at a tortament with a custom chapter and tell him you are playing a BA successor chapter, he should have no problems, as he has no basis for confusion. But the guys you play every weekend might have problems keeping things straight.