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Hi Dakka Dakka,

I am starting out an Empire Knightly Order for Warhammer and I am looking for some advice on what color scheme I should go with. As yet I have only just finished assembling and cleaning the first 16 Horses for the army and I want some ideas before I do a test model or two.

I am doing a Knightly Order called the Obsidian Order, how should I go about painting them? (Obviously in BLACK you moron!) Please keep in mind I just came off the back of an Iron Hands army so want to try and keep it away from just all black. The ideas I have had thus far are:

- The Knights are all black, but their horses have silver barding. (May be a little boring and stereotypical)
- Mix up Silver with Black ink to make a sort of metallic black and use this all over. (May be a bit monotone)
- Bite the bullet and paint them all black (I mean I named them right? I knew what I was getting into).
- Some brilliant individual has an even better idea? (Please, pretty please).
- Combination of the above. I am coming around to the idea of metallic black barding and shiny black armored knights.

Anyway, if someone can let me know what they think and I will paint some tests (probably, unless inspiration hits hard).

If you are interested in more details of my painting plans check out the links below, I am two armies in and hopefully 2014 will be a good year and I can tick a few more off the list.

Thanks for your time.

Well, obsidian is black glass, it can reflect ambient light, so you can highlight/edge black with almost any colour. And black is almost never black. For instance, you could add (and highlight with) some teal/turquoise (for 'noble knights'), or some green/brown for nature knights/ranger-like knights, or again reds/deep blues, for "dark knights". All of the above, with the option of mixing in some silver/iron, and/or some NMM effects. You may even "mix" metallic shading/layering and NMM, in a 'not completely metallic-metal'.
In any case, after choosing the"additional" colour, I'd basecoat with a black+colour+(metal) mix, keeping real black for shading.
You may also add variety with barding, horse furs and heraldics.
That's it, my two cents

And what a 2 cents it was, I may need to give you change of $10 for those ideas.

Well having had a lot of opinions and great ideas from the modelling community around me I present 4 concepts (they are really pretty similar, just slight difference) for painting the horses of my Knightly Order. Once I have sorted this out I will then work out how to do the riders.


This is the "Control" Model. It is simply black with a couple of gloss varnish coats. It is a really basic way of achieving the gloss black of Obsidian, but I am hoping to avoid it and get something a little more visually interesting.


This is my least favorite option. The red is a little too obvious and the black just looks like it has muddied up the armor.


Definitely a front runner, the green is there, but looks more like it is 'under' the black.


Another firm favourite (and my wife's choice) again it is mainly black with a nice blue highlight.

So, if the good people of the Hobby world would give me their wise and considered opinion on what way I should go and then I can move on to how to do the Knights themselves.

Thanks for reading.

Hi,

Something that might be worth taking a look at is the colour scheme for the Sisters of Battle Order of Our Martyred Lady (the 'standard' look). They have black armour with fine light blue highlights and red and white as spot colours. It results in armour that looks dark without looking too black, and makes the models look noble and proud too. Since the empire knights don't really have that much area's covered in clothing instead of armour, it could work to make the feathers a dark red colour and then use white as a spot colour on the flags on their lances and laurel wreaths. Also, giving the horses beige/white fur near their feet could add to the effect. If you model them as white wolves instead, go for red cloth on the arms and white on the headbands and fur cloaks.
I never tried this on my own empire knights as it wouldn't fit in with the colour scheme I'm using for my army, but I saw someone else do it once and it looked really good!

Hi all,

I would like to thank everyone for their input and advice on the paint scheme front, some very inventive people out there. Some of the ideas are probably beyond my current painting abilities and therefore may be reserved for attempts on my characters.

With the 4 schemes painted above I seem to be getting mixed reactions (as in I think I have people voting for each of the 4 color schemes which I was hoping wouldn't happen).

So I pose another idea, I happen to have 4 regiments of Knights in the Army, should I do each regiment one of the 4 options or do you think it will divide the overall look of the army too much?

Thanks again for all the advice.

Put it this way - it will look less divided than an Eldar or Brettonian army.

I say the Blue and Black one. Looks really nice. Also like the green and black one as well. Love the paint job so far.

The hobby community has been a great help with the armor for my Knights horses. I have decided to go with the blue and black scheme (although I will likely tweak it a bit to bring more blue through the black, but that is another story). Now I need help in deciding how to do the armor of the Knights themselves. I have a couple of samples that I invite the community to have a look at.

Firstly, this is simply a black undercoat (with a bit of gloss) to see what pure black would look like. Now I am not a fan, I feel that the Knight and horse blend together too much. But it is a good control model.


I haven't done one up, but I guess the option would be to imitate the horses armor on the Knight as well, but I am concerned it will suffer the same as above and just blend together, I could try a really dark blue with sharp edge highlights as which continues to carry the bluish theme?

Onto some other ideas.....


A more traditional paint scheme for a knight (please note I didn't paint this guy, he is an eBay hand me down). It is definitely a contrast to the horse. Not sure if it is too much though. I like the use of blue on the ribbons and the like, ties it into the horse a little.


I don't mind the bronze look, I think it is a little more muted than the pure silver guy. Gold and black also go quite well together, again would use blue on the ribbons and leather to tie back to the horse.


On the idea of 'gold' going well with black, here is the bronze sample with gold highlighting added. It is quite startling, but maybe a bit much over the whole army? Maybe could be used on characters only and the rest of the guys are the duller bronze?

On that idea, maybe I could do the knights in either bronze (as above) OR a boltgun metal type with a heavy black wash and then the characters are in shining gold or mithril silver to have them stand out from the crowd?

Anyway, any and all opinions are welcome and very much appreciated. The only other test I might do is a dark blue armor and an armor exactly like the horse.

Last pic before I go, what I have ready for painting with this army......


All 36 Knights and two of the Characters (who will be a Warrior Priest and Grandmaster) to finish off the 2,000 Points I need 6 Demigryph Knights and the Empire General box so I can kit bash two Captains. So very close to having all the models bought. Oh and yes that is my take on a Salamanders Captain I did ages ago hiding in the top right of the photo, not sure how he got out of his box, but I think he is one of the best models I have ever done.

Thanks for reading.

I would like to thank everyone for there help with choosing the colors for my Empire Knightly Order. I have decided (with lots of input) to go with the blue/black on the horses and the bronze for the rank and file knight. The characters will be fully gold and I will decide later if the Inner Circle and Demigryphs will be halfway between bronze and gold.

If you wish to continue following my progress on this army just follow the link in my signature and I will continue updating there.

Again, thanks for your time and input.