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So I'm building some ultra's and I was curious as I've seen some pictures of the bolters paited red on the body instead of black. Is there any lore reason that this works or is it not lore friendly?

reason I'm asking is that I'm trying to make these units as close to "lore friendly" as possible. Most of the red bolters looked to have been on salamander troops though instead of ultra's but I just really like the red bolter better.

Back in the day, like WAY back in the day, almost all bolters had the red plating. It was standard operating procedure to paint them red.

Most people like the red, since it hearkens back to a bygone era of the game.

Plus, it'd make it seem like you've been playing for longer than you have.

Red gunz shoot fasta!!

As others have said, it hearkens back to an older era of 40k.

My opinion is this, if you play a Green Army (Salamanders, or Dark Angels also) I think Black Bolter casings looks better, as otherwise they begin to look very Christmas-like very quickly.

Secondly, if you play a predominantly Red Army (Blood Angels, Blood Ravens, etc) then red Bolter Casings tend to push things into the realm of too much of a good thing (in this case, the color Red) and as a result I tend to prefer Black Bolter casings here as well.

All other army colors, the red casings work pretty well to varying degrees. In the end, it's your army, paint up a bolter with a red casing and one with a black casing and test fit them on to one of your minis and see which one you like better.

Best of luck, and I hope to see some of your minis once you finish painting them up.

Take it easy,

-Red__Thirst-

I like the look of red bolters on green marines. It's like Christmas, except instead of getting presents the heretic get the holy wrath of the Emperor.

In fact, I always go with red bolters unless the armour is already red, since it's more colourful than black.

Thanks for the reply guys, I'm building ultra's so the blue and red I think look pretty good together. It's slow going on working on them though. I'm working almost 7 days a week now and when I do get a couple minutes it's hard to put them toward painting lol

Just leave your painting setup open all the time; it makes it a lot easier to just do a little bit of painting here and there.

Red bolters aren't really in vogue unless you're playing Dark Angels, but I love the retro look. They switched over to black bolters in 4th edition, back in 2004 or so. I prefer the red bolter casings, but considering I have a whole army of old school Ultramarines it's not surprising

 Brother SRM wrote:
Just leave your painting setup open all the time; it makes it a lot easier to just do a little bit of painting here and there.

Red bolters aren't really in vogue unless you're playing Dark Angels, but I love the retro look. They switched over to black bolters in 4th edition, back in 2004 or so. I prefer the red bolter casings, but considering I have a whole army of old school Ultramarines it's not surprising

yeah I just don't want to waist paint by doing just a model or two then cleaning up ya know. But yeah I think I'll go with the red bolters, I really like your old school ultra thread by the way.

 Klerych wrote:
Red gunz shoot fasta!!

That should totally be a thing for Orkz. Red Paint Job upgrades for their weapons, which would give them +1 dice. Melee weapons would instead get +1 Initiative (and Unwieldy ones with Red Paint Jobs strike at I2 instead of I1).

Maybe I am the only one to think this, but the red doesn't do it for me. I see too many toy guns in real life that are colored red or bright orange, it makes me think there's something not kosher about it. Plus red would make you stand out as a target on a battlefield.

All of my CSMs have bolters painted plain metal colors, with some weathering. Works well.

On the lore front, when GW switched from yellow trims & red casings to gold trims and black casings it was mentioned in WD (interview with the painter IIRC) as being down to the codex authorising commanders to vary their markings to confuse the enemy, with the change being down to a change in commander. So if you wanted to do Smurfs with red casings you could always say your units chose to retain the marking in honour of the previous commander.

PS: You young whippersnappers and your reds.. in my day they were WHITE

 sing your life wrote:
I like the look of red bolters on green marines. It's like Christmas, except instead of getting presents the heretic get the holy wrath of the Emperor.

I think you mean holy wreath

MitchellTyner wrote:

 Brother SRM wrote:
Just leave your painting setup open all the time; it makes it a lot easier to just do a little bit of painting here and there.

Red bolters aren't really in vogue unless you're playing Dark Angels, but I love the retro look. They switched over to black bolters in 4th edition, back in 2004 or so. I prefer the red bolter casings, but considering I have a whole army of old school Ultramarines it's not surprising

yeah I just don't want to waist paint by doing just a model or two then cleaning up ya know. But yeah I think I'll go with the red bolters, I really like your old school ultra thread by the way.

Was just gonna link BrotherSRM's thread before realising that you were already aware of it. As someone who started out with ultramarines in 2nd ed before taking a 14ish year break, I love that thread.

But yeah, it's purely personal preference. And I doubt anyone would argue the fluff with you over red bolters on Ultramarines. My advice would be to try a couple of testers and see what you prefer. Go with what looks best to you, and stick with it consistently across the whole army.

I recently painted an UM sergeant and went with the traditional red bolt pistol and yellow shoulder trim, but with a darker, later style blue. Think it was a really good look.

But good luck, let us see how you get on.

 CanoptekTea wrote:

 sing your life wrote:
I like the look of red bolters on green marines. It's like Christmas, except instead of getting presents the heretic get the holy wrath of the Emperor.

I think you mean holy wreath

No, I meant "Holy wreath", though you could replace that with the alternative gift if you so like.

Bolter casings should compliment the color scheme of your SMs, as others have said. Paint a test model or two and see if the red or the black work better for you.

Me? I use gold casings for my black painted SMs.

 Red__Thirst wrote:
My opinion is this, if you play a Green Army (Salamanders, or Dark Angels also) I think Black Bolter casings looks better, as otherwise they begin to look very Christmas-like very quickly.

Yea, never combine green with red. It is very hard to avoid the "Christmas look". Poor whfb Hochland... The only way is to use a very, very dark green and only a little red.
For the same reason, you should not combine black and orange

Ultramarines look allright with red bolters, altough black bolters also look good. Fluff-wise, both red and black bolters can be seen depending on the source.

 Iron_Captain wrote:

 Red__Thirst wrote:
My opinion is this, if you play a Green Army (Salamanders, or Dark Angels also) I think Black Bolter casings looks better, as otherwise they begin to look very Christmas-like very quickly.

Yea, never combine green with red. It is very hard to avoid the "Christmas look". Poor whfb Hochland... The only way is to use a very, very dark green and only a little red.
For the same reason, you should not combine black and orange

Ultramarines look allright with red bolters, altough black bolters also look good. Fluff-wise, both red and black bolters can be seen depending on the source.

Black and orange?

I though Blue and Orange was the colour combination that looked silly.

 sing your life wrote:
I though Blue and Orange was the colour combination that looked silly.

http://3.cdn.nhle.com/oilers/v2/ext/facebook/cover_anthem.jpg
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcS4yYfTPFmekNZYqgqlekndpqZoeYEs2SXPY9doGVIeda-Sq3MMcA
http://blogimages.thescore.com/nhl/files/2011/10/haley.jpg

yep blue and orange look a bit ..........................

I've been making a compromise with the old red bolters and modern tastes and painting them a much darker, subdued brown-red. Like mahogany.

Which really follows suit with all the painting changes from 2nd to now. Which is to take the old bright primary color models, and give them a black wash.

My Grey Knights have red Strom Bolters and Psycannons. But it's quite a dark red, I may even have used brown wash to shade, instead of red/purple.

It breaks up the blued steel effect of the rest of the mini...

so to get a darker red I need to use the black wash on the red bolter? That sounds good because I don't want brightly colored models... want mine kind of dingy looking to be honest. I like the battle used worn down look.

Most of mine are black, with gold and gun metal details.
I've tried to keep my black templers simple and clean looking.

So actually got some work done today. I'm just starting out so for some reason red is hard as hell to paint... lol maybe I should have went black. I mean just a little bit of water like 25% water to 75% red is to much water. But I just cleaned out my airbrush and loaded up some red with airbrush medium and it layed down okay. I think I'll have to do the black wash to darken it up though. I tried one tac marine by hand in blue, it took like 30 minutes and then I just loaded up the airbrush and done the other 9 in less than 30 lol. They came out a lot more even and nicer looking.