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Or like, Ezkeal at least, doesn't rep his chapter...

Why?

Codex Astartes prescribes blue as the color for Librarians (vs red for Techmarines, White for Apothecaries, Black for Chaplains, etc).

And the Dark Angels are technically a Codex Chapter.

Ah, that's brilliant, thanks.

The same reason that all Apothecaries wear White armor. It's a symbol of their branch. They will still wear chapter heraldry on their Pauldrons, but their base armor will always be blue.

... because blue is the color of Tzeentch, Chaos God of Sorcerers.

Ignore those who say it is a symbol of their branch, for they ignore *why* it is a symbol of their branch. It is fealty to the Changer of Ways.

I'm pretty sure it says somewhere that Librarians in specific wear blue to mark themselves out, so that all of their brothers know to be on their guard.

 EmpNortonII wrote:
... because blue is the color of Tzeentch, Chaos God of Sorcerers.

Ignore those who say it is a symbol of their branch, for they ignore *why* it is a symbol of their branch. It is fealty to the Changer of Ways.

And red is the colour of Khorne, which is why Techmarines are totally close combat beasts!

Alternatively its a handy primary colour and White and Black had already been taken by the time they came to coming up with a signifier for librarians.

Also, they historically wore a yellow robe over their armour.
The blue armour seems to be falling out of favour among a few chapters, some totally ignoring it.
And, IIRC, Deathwatch and Grey Knight Librarians wear a blue robe/tabard.

Have you got a reference for the yellow robe thing? Its not something I'd heard before. Or by "historically" do you mean as part of the newer HH fluff?

I'm talking like 2nd/3rd edition, maybe earlier. Can't remember the source for it though.

Yellow robe with rank markings for the different levels as I recall,
Of course that was when we had four different levels of librarian.
There was, Lexicanium, Codicer, Epistolary, Chief Librarian, If I remember correctly.

 marv335 wrote:
Yellow robe with rank markings for the different levels as I recall,
Of course that was when we had four different levels of librarian.
There was, Lexicanium, Codicer, Epistolary, Chief Librarian, If I remember correctly.

Those ranks still exist in the fluff.

The yellow tabards + marking dates from 2nd edition, but it's also in Insignium Astartes which was published in 3rd edition and listed as an additional source in the 4th edition codices. GW seems to have mostly ditched the yellow but the new plastic librarian does have the episotolary marking sculpted onto his tabard, whilst the Dark Vengeance librarian appears to have a variant of the codicier marking on his (and just to be confusing, the epistolary marking on the corner of his cloak).

Oh random historical note: Librarians (and Techmarines) did not originally have branch colours, the former was added at the end of RT when the studio army was Blood Angels, presumably because of the near invisibility of the Librarian on the cover of the Rogue Trader Compilation:
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EUn653qlyRo/USpLIolKT0I/AAAAAAAAArQ/VW3zRKDUCCo/s1600/IMG_1901.JPG

I never noticed the librarian in that image before. There you go.
Then again the Chaplain appears to have all white armour - was that a Blood Angel thing back then or is it just that the black hadn't caught on as standard yet?
I remember reading in a White Dwarf that the inverse colour helmets for veterans was originally just something one of the studio guys did on his own army, and they thought it was such a good idea they used it on the studio armies, and then added it to the background in a codex (3rd ed maybe?)

Chaplains were black* by default from the RT rulebook onwards, the Chaplain is actually silver, which was never seen elsewhere, I'm guessing it was mean't to tie in with the golden Captain.

* Exception: The chaplains & commissars article listed White Scars as having grey.

Inverted shoulderpads for squad leaders was around long before Mk7 armour came on the scene, white helmets for veterans were in the first painting guides for Mk7.

 Jimsolo wrote:
I'm pretty sure it says somewhere that Librarians in specific wear blue to mark themselves out, so that all of their brothers know to be on their guard.

It's like why the quarterback wears red in practice, it keeps his team mates from hitting him to hard.

Because blue iz lucky, so Librarians wear it to try and stop their `eads from `sploding.

 dementedwombat wrote:
Because blue iz lucky, so Librarians wear it to try and stop their `eads from `sploding.

Techmarines and BA tanks do seem to go fasta.

 Exergy wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Because blue iz lucky, so Librarians wear it to try and stop their `eads from `sploding.

Techmarines and BA tanks do seem to go fasta.

Tell me about it. Outflanking Baal Predators and Fast Vindicators... scary stuff man.

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Because blue iz lucky, so Librarians wear it to try and stop their `eads from `sploding.

Techmarines and BA tanks do seem to go fasta.

Tell me about it. Outflanking Baal Predators and Fast Vindicators... scary stuff man.

No fast Vindicators any more!
Or Rhinos c:
Only Baal Predators!

 EmpNortonII wrote:
... because blue is the color of Tzeentch, Chaos God of Sorcerers.

Ignore those who say it is a symbol of their branch, for they ignore *why* it is a symbol of their branch. It is fealty to the Changer of Ways.

I though Tzeentch was rainbows.

snip

 BrotherOfBone wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:

 Exergy wrote:

 dementedwombat wrote:
Because blue iz lucky, so Librarians wear it to try and stop their `eads from `sploding.

Techmarines and BA tanks do seem to go fasta.

Tell me about it. Outflanking Baal Predators and Fast Vindicators... scary stuff man.

No fast Vindicators any more!
Or Rhinos c:
Only Baal Predators!

Yeah ... well ... I am only going to take that FAQ as a suggestion because if I do not .... I have ZERO Independent Characters ... none at all. So that amendment can kiss my butt as far as not having any fast vehicles go ... and I lost scout with the preds with that too. Sweet Jesus! These people are one step away from being booger eating morons. GW writers .... What the hell?

There's an old booklet called the Space Marine Painting Guide. It used to be (shock!) given away from GW stores and FLGS and even gave permission to photocopy parts of it (notably the banners- GW used to do that in WD back then too).

It used to have details about the schemes for Chaplains, Librarians and Techmarines- none of which were predominantly any colour other than their chapter colour. It was usually a shoulder marking and colouration. To be perfectly honest I much prefer this scheme where a marine is first and foremost a battle brother and after that a specialist.

Of course this is all old and long since superseded but I think that's for the worse. I'm not sure what the legality would be with sharing a 'freebie' like this.

Standard for codex astartes


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Standard for codex astartes

 Kojiro wrote:
There's an old booklet called the Space Marine Painting Guide. It used to be (shock!) given away from GW stores and FLGS and even gave permission to photocopy parts of it (notably the banners- GW used to do that in WD back then too).

It used to have details about the schemes for Chaplains, Librarians and Techmarines- none of which were predominantly any colour other than their chapter colour. It was usually a shoulder marking and colouration. To be perfectly honest I much prefer this scheme where a marine is first and foremost a battle brother and after that a specialist.

Of course this is all old and long since superseded but I think that's for the worse. I'm not sure what the legality would be with sharing a 'freebie' like this.

I’ve been know to post samples of it for review and reference. It is horribly outdated, but I love it. And IIRC for all the librarians it was basically “colors as chapter, but with a book motif"

I've always wondered why Mephy wears red when he's the big-wig librarian. Probably because he's double-hard and no one in the chapter wants to correct him.

Any fluff reasons for him wearing red, or is it just 'because'.

D

 evildrcheese wrote:
I've always wondered why Mephy wears red when he's the big-wig librarian. Probably because he's double-hard and no one in the chapter wants to correct him.

Any fluff reasons for him wearing red, or is it just 'because'.

D

Mostly for grimdark. You can hadly call yourself the Lord of Death while prancing around in powder blue armour

 Nevelon wrote:
I’ve been know to post samples of it for review and reference. It is horribly outdated, but I love it. And IIRC for all the librarians it was basically “colors as chapter, but with a book motif"

It had a lot of cool bits in it. The markings for tactical, assault and devastator for a start, as well as being the original source of purity seals, terminator honours and kill markings (the last of which seems to have vanished, though to be fair a marines bolter would rack up a far too many kills to be marked). It also had rank insignia, something I very much miss and still use on my marines (such as your Lt Commander Nevelon).

But it was the little things in there, like how all Salamander medics paint their right arm red to honour a medic who- holding his wounded brothers in his right arm as they die- found he could not entirely wash the blood from his armour, leaving it permanently red. Or the way their banners look the same but to anyone with infra red vision they're clearly different (such as all Salamanders). You're right about the 'chapter colours with book motif' thing- Librarians just weren't the same back then.

Modern marines definitely feel more sterile to me than those of that era.

 Kojiro wrote:

 Nevelon wrote:

But it was the little things in there, like how all Salamander medics paint their right arm red to honour a medic who- holding his wounded brothers in his right arm as they die- found he could not entirely wash the blood from his armour, leaving it permanently red.

(Yeah, I'm gonna be that guy...) Actually, it's left arm and left half of helmet. The medic mentioned started to do that so he wouldn't have to wash away the blood of his fallen brothers. (What can I say: just discovered the book while working on a Salamanders army. Plan to also include some XVIII Legion markings.)