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I'm starting on a Tau army using the T'au Sept colors, and while looking through the most recent Codex to get a good idea of what should be painted which color, I saw a picture of a T'au Sept Breacher Team model painted in Night War Camo.

So, let's say I wanted to use the regular Ocre color of the T'au Sept but paint my Breacher team in Night War Camo. Would that be looked down upon at all or would it break any rules?

Thanks

SG

There are no rules at all on how to paint your models. You could paint every single model a diferent colorscheme and it would be prefectly legal, so go right ahead and paint them as you want them ^_^

I don't believe there are any rules requiring your models to be painted. I'm sure most people would just be happy you're models were painted, without worrying about the colors you used.

Totally legit. GW has always taken a "do what you think is fun" approach to the rules. Some tournaments require your army to be painted, but the actual rules do not at all. No tournament has ever required a specific paint scheme, so you can do as you like. Sounds like a cool scheme!

The only thing I've ever heard of some tournaments saying is they don't like when you paint say, ultramarine blue colors and call them iron hands, while you have a second detachment that are iron hands yellow that you are using as ultramarines. Literally never comes up, but visual clarity is generally nice. Totally non-applicable to Tau, though

Personally it bothers me when an army has one squad of guys in a completely different colour to another squad of guys for no particular reason.

... Or... at least I think I do, in practice it's only ever been this one space marine player who paints his devs green, his assault marines red, etc.

Tau have an excuse in that they're established in fluff having elite units inverting their colour scheme but beyond that the armour colour is supposed to be at least a little useful as camouflage.

That said, they're your dudes and you should paint them the way you like. If you make up an in-universe reason for it (emergency replacements or they're saboteurs that carried out an operation under cover of darkness or something...) then its an added opportunity to fluff your army, which is always good.

I do it with my necrons but thats because of fluff.

I think the most I've heard in terms of painting requirements was fully painted using at least three colours. Even then it was a very flexible requirement as long as the army was painted beyond just being primed.

Honestly, as long as you've put some effort into painting your models, even if they don't meet the requirements of the tournament, most places will be fine with it, as long as you're not doing something shady to gain an advantage.

It should only really matter in SM because of all the Chapters but it wouldn't matter in any other case.

Way back in 3rd Edition, I wanted to play a Biel-Tan army but I thought their paint scheme was both boring and difficult (Lots of plain white, which is actually harder than it sounds, plus I knew thorn patterns were beyond me at the time).

So I just made up my own color scheme. And now my Orange Eldar are "from my own custom Craftworld" and I can choose Iyandan or Biel-Tan or whatever, because no one will assume they know what my rule-set is based on looks. It was a good decision

 Frozocrone wrote:
It should only really matter in SM because of all the Chapters but it wouldn't matter in any other case.

CSM also have Black Legion and Crimson Slaughter Supplements, and that's not even going in to the Daemonkin codex, either. Tau also have the Farsight Enclaves/Mont'ka and Kau'yon options to work with. The Necrons also have the Mephrit Dynasty options to play with to consider as well.

And that's just a sampling on the Citadel side of things and doesn't take in to consideration the Forgeworld options.

But these are examples of how having some consistency in your painting can help you not cheat and not feel like you are trying to cheat to your opponent.

You could be running a modern crusade detachment for Marines, made up of multiple different chapters that have contributed to the war. Could have an Ultramarines tactical squad with a Raptors squad, a Red Scorpions Devastator Squad, and a Salamanders assault squad. Just make sure to inform your opponent what rules/chapter Tactics you are using, and model your squads appropriately. And if you go down that road... Don't ally any marines in, that will just cause more confusion.

 Crazyterran wrote:
You could be running a modern crusade detachment for Marines, made up of multiple different chapters that have contributed to the war. Could have an Ultramarines tactical squad with a Raptors squad, a Red Scorpions Devastator Squad, and a Salamanders assault squad. Just make sure to inform your opponent what rules/chapter Tactics you are using, and model your squads appropriately. And if you go down that road... Don't ally any marines in, that will just cause more confusion.

Or, if you do, keep the colors on a relatively consistent basis between Tactics users. For example, If you prefer to use Ultramarines as your "core" Tactic choice, have all the units in those Detachments either be Ultras, Ultra Successors, or wearing a fairly obvious Ultramarine Crusader Badge on a kneepad or pauldron.

My Tau Sept is totally made-up, including colors. Go wild, man!

My Red Corsairs are working towards most models being different colors than the normal ones. Some Khorne Berserkers in with Tacticals and CSM for a squad, my Chosen will be from as many different chapters as there are models in the unit. Not to mention the actual Astral Claws in the mix. Do whatever you like to your bits of plastic,

I would actually encourage you to paint your models differently(possibly around a theme) from squad to squad. It helps to differentiate squads once you get them all in a scrum.

Do what makes you happy.

I like to paint my cult CSM on their gods respective color scheme and just paint a shoulderpad on the rest of my army scheme to keep them as part of the same army. Never had a complain.

Will probably do the same for my chaos knight