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Hello all, I'm about to begin painting some Exorcist chapter marines, and I have a few questions.

The only marines I've painted were Ultramarines, and as a stickler for correct unit designations it was easy to decide which markings and colors to put on certain marines, such as shoulder pad trim and sergeant designation. My question to you is where can I find out how other chapters designate such things? Or do all chapters faithful to the codex use the same systems? As in, would an Exorcist 2nd company have gold trim? And would their sergeants have different colored helmets? Is there a book I can buy that explains things like this?

Thank you very much.

The best resource for that kind of information is the Warhammer Lexicanum; it's an "unofficial" encyclopedia but it only contains official cannon.

Everything I've been able to find about Exorcists company designation says that they use red armor with black shoulder trim as standard, save the veteran squads who use white shoulder trim. I was able to find a picture that showed an Exorcists sergeant and he had a white stripe on his helmet, but I do not know how "official" that picture was.

The best thing to do is do it however you want. Since there seems to be limited information on company/squad designation, I'd take that as free reign to do it your way.

 ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
The best resource for that kind of information is the Warhammer Lexicanum; it's an "unofficial" encyclopedia but it only contains official cannon.

Everything I've been able to find about Exorcists company designation says that they use red armor with black shoulder trim as standard, save the veteran squads who use white shoulder trim. I was able to find a picture that showed an Exorcists sergeant and he had a white stripe on his helmet, but I do not know how "official" that picture was.

The best thing to do is do it however you want. Since there seems to be limited information on company/squad designation, I'd take that as free reign to do it your way.

That's what I thought too, but I saw a picture of an Exorcist marine on the WH40k wikia with orange trim, with a caption stating he was from the Exorcists 6th Company. The Ultramarine 6th company also has orange trim. Wasn't sure if it was coincidence or not.

 robam45 wrote:
Is there a book I can buy that explains things like this?

Hah. Yes. There is. It's called Insignium Astartes, it lays out the markings for the entire Ultramarines chapter then follows up with examples of about 60 other Codex chapters with express statements of how each chapter denotes company including the Exorcists. Unfortunately GW can't be bothered to actually READ it (the last codex's mini gallery was full of beautifully painted 2nd company non-veteran Sternguard, Vanguard and Terminators for various chapters). Said book expressly states that the Exorcist's denote company by colour of a helmet stripe but no subsequent depiction of Exorcists has followed that.

Imperial Armour is a garbled mess, Forge World's writers really 'get' Space Marines (in an old skool way), but the art department seem to be clueless - the Exorcist entry in IA10 shows the aformentioned veteran with white trim & helmet suggesting standard Ultramarine markings (as suggested in the text) but the example squad (including aforementioned sergeant with white helmet stripe) has black trims but are labelled as being from the 'Tactical reserve company' which doesn't make a great deal of sense seeing as a codex chapter has two neither of which would use that colour..

Regarding sergeant helmets, its not official but as interesting obscure snippet from 2nd edition (from whence 95% of Insignium Astartes was copy-pasted textwise) was that the Genesis Chapter and White Consuls used blue as a replacement in result of helmet clashes (blue in place of white for White Consul Veteran helmets, and blue in place of red for Genesis Chapter Sergeant helmets), since both chapters are 2nd Founding Ultramarine successors and followers of the codex this always suggested that it was a 'codex approved' variation.

 Gashrog wrote:

 robam45 wrote:
Is there a book I can buy that explains things like this?

Helpful words

Thank you so much! I found a PDF of the Insignium and it's sooo helpful. I feel like I could accurately paint any chapter!