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I have a problem that I need some help with. I have a Dark Angels army. I love Dark Angels. I love painting and how my Dark Angels are painted. However, I would like to add some other space marine elements and allies. My problem is to either continue and paint everything to match and fit the rest of my Dark Angels are to actually paint them a different color. If I painted them a different color I would like something generic enough that I could run Codex Space Marines, Space Wolves, and Blood Angels. For this, I'm kind of thinking Blood Ravens. A little caveat, I have a Storm Talon painted in Ravenwing colors.

What are your thoughts?

Uh, why would you want red guys when the Wolves are grey?

So I wouldn't have to have 3 separate armies.

Paint them up however you choose. I personally picked a Blood Ravens force simply because that means I can lift models from any Space Marine range and joke about stealing their stuff (I checked the HH rules and discovered Forgebreaker (which the Blood Ravens can find in Dawn of War 2) is basically just a Thunderhammer so I converted a Captain to be carrying Forgebreaker around).

The colour schemes are way too different to work that way; space wolves are very much iconically grey, with no successful successor chapters. You might manage to paint up a space wolves army which you can play as a blood angels successor.

However, again, space wolves have iconography which will be difficult to say is also part of another chapter. And then there's the final, and largest, issue-space wolves and blood angels play very differently, and have a lot of chapter specific units which are unmistakable.

You could get either one of the chapters to look/play like vanilla marines, but I can't see how you will ever get space wolves and blood angels in the same model/army.

@skollrarden
I would disagree. From a modeling stand point, very little separates the different space marine chapters. If you let your imagination run and don't mind doing some conversions or kit bashes, you can make all three work.
For example:
Space Wolves units
Grey Hunters - Space Marine tactical squad
Blood Claws - Space Marine assault squad without jump packs
Wolf Guard - Space Marine veteran squad and terminators
Wolf Scouts - Space Marine scouts
Swift Claws - Space Marine bikes
Sky Claws - Space Marine assault squad
Thunder Wolves - Space Marines mounted on calavry. Doesn't have to be wolves: horses, Star Wars AT-PT, Raptors, imagination goes on.
Lone Wolves - Generally a lone terminator
Fenirian Wolves - Model in theme with whatever army: Watchers in the Dark for Dark Angels, Cherubs for Blood Angels, imagination goes on.
Storm Fang/ Storm Wolf - Use model and remove wolf icons
Murderfang - Basically a Furioso Dreadnought

Just give them different detail. Paint them up as dark angels, but give them different coloured shoulder pads, helmet, or something else which would mark them out as different.

You could say they are a different company, successor chapter.

SM models and rules are totally interchangeable, just make them WYSIWYG and you should be fine.

Only TFG players will have issues as long as you make each detachment clear enough.

Iconography stands out, particularly on blood angels and space wolves. I agree that there is some overlap, and you could make some of it work.

But then you have very different weapons loadouts (notably grey hunters v standard tac marines, and SW terminators v vanilla terminators). For blood angels you have a prevalence of jump pack marines, which aren't used often in space wolves forces.

Making one of these chapters play as vanilla is definitely doable. Making a space wolves army which will effectively play as blood angels is where this plan has problems.

Also, take a look at some space wolves sprues sometime-this is an army which very much stands apart from the other chapters in terms of looks.

skolirvarden wrote:
Iconography stands out, particularly on blood angels and space wolves. I agree that there is some overlap, and you could make some of it work.

But then you have very different weapons loadouts (notably grey hunters v standard tac marines, and SW terminators v vanilla terminators). For blood angels you have a prevalence of jump pack marines, which aren't used often in space wolves forces.

Making one of these chapters play as vanilla is definitely doable. Making a space wolves army which will effectively play as blood angels is where this plan has problems.

Also, take a look at some space wolves sprues sometime-this is an army which very much stands apart from the other chapters in terms of looks.

You don't have to buy SW models to use SW rules. They are identical to tactical marines, but with more bones and less helmets.

A box of 10 tactical marines, with 2 special weapons, would be absolutely fine as a grey hunter squad. As long as it is painted in a different way to the rest of his DA army.

@Big Blind Bill
Agreed. I had a Space Wolves army up until this summer. I know what each of the Space Wolves unit boxes have. Most of my Grey Hunters were regular space marine parts with some of the Grey Hunter bits added here and there. I would give some a bolt gun and chain sword to indicate they had two close combat weapons.

If I went with Blood Ravens', I still could use both Blood Angels and Space Wolves codexs with little problem. Remember, Blood Ravens are known to steal anything and everything that isn't bolted down.

As for different paint scheme, if I went with the continued DA color, I would probably just mark them with a different company icon. Right now my DA is 5th company, so allies would probably mark 6th company.

Of course I could throw a complete curve ball and paint them Alpha Legion colors. What's the saying, "All Space Marines are Alpha Legion. We just don't know it,"