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Personally I dislike banners on space marine backpacks. I think the banner holder should be dedicated. Anyway I was about to order the Captain Sicarius mini, and was thinking of not putting the banner on him.

I was wondering what others think? Do you think Sicarius would look better with the banner?

Totally personal preference.

When I started my BA successors, I never gave them banners. They were mostly assault squads to start with, then transport mounted tactical squads.

Back banners didn't really seem to jive with the whole "high mobility" thing I was going for.

Now, I kinda regret it, because I actually think back banners on sergeants and characters look really cool. Particularly when you have loads of them.

For the 30k/40k Death guard army I'm currently building, There're going to banners all over the place. Most carried by hand (regular marines mostly), with some back banners scattered (characters/ maybe terminators).

I've got a cool idea to model a terminator with a powerfist, with a zombie/plaguey hand broken out of the armour and holding a banner pole.

As I say, I like banners, but each to their own. There are none in my ~5000 BA army and I think it looks OK.

To answer your question, personally, I like the banner on Sicarius (as I do on most SM characters), but I also thik he'd look perfectly fine without one. There are plenty of quite ornate back packs out there to suit his status.

I've never liked back banners other than being good for identifying models.

I'll add another vote against back banners. I think they look strange. I do like hand carried banners/flags/pennants. I feel like they really add to the spectacle of the game.

I really dislike the backpack banners, and even the books on the top of terminator librarians. They just look odd, and tend to be delicate. I don't use any in my BA (I'm fine with hand carried banners) and I did not use the banner for Draigo (I'll likely also cut Crow's off).

That being said, it's all personal preference.

Against.
How do SM banner bearers enter buildings or transports? Tactically, it is stupid.
For showing a presence on the battlefield, they have a minimal place.

I like them, I imagine in a chaotic grim dark battlefield when communications are down it is a rally point towards ranking marines. While I like the hand held standard bearers it seems like your kinda boned standing there holding a flag while everyone is trying to gun you down. Just my two cents!

 Skinnereal wrote:
Against.
How do SM banner bearers enter buildings or transports? Tactically, it is stupid.
For showing a presence on the battlefield, they have a minimal place.

Obviously the banners furl up back into the backpack when not required!

banners make it easier to tag my squads.

Banners seem very impractical in battle, for anyone but the most low-tech of armies who need an easy way to tell grunts who to follow (just as in the real world). High-tech marines would seem unlikely to get much benefit at all from banners. Unless just maybe banners would cause Fear in enemies? Other than that, they seem as useful as carrying around a giant "Please Shoot Me" sign.

For ceremonial purposes, they make much more sense.

But I agree with others that on the gaming table, banners make it easier for everyone to identify units, which is a good thing. The only obvious downside is storage/transport of the banner bearers - backpack banner poles tend to be fragile, and all figures carrying banners (on back packs or not) tend to be awkwardly bulky.

I will occasionally use banners. In general these days, I use a banner top stuck right on top of a backpack to denote a sarge, and not the full-on flag flapping about.

But on my Sicarius counts-as, I did do a full back banner. He’s the kind of arrogant tool to fly his all the time.

The topic of banner brings up an important point: 40k is fantasy in space. Space marines have more in common with feudal knights of yore then a modern soldier. Sometimes that gets lost in the laser beams and spaceships, but a lot of the oddities of of fluff can be traced to this fact.

Personally, i love them. They give me a chance to lay some fluff down about a particular squad or model.
Also, i'm rather surprised they're not more prominent in traitor legions like Word Bearers, as they are pretty decent at spreading messages of faith.

nareik wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
Against.
How do SM banner bearers enter buildings or transports? Tactically, it is stupid.
For showing a presence on the battlefield, they have a minimal place.

Obviously the banners furl up back into the backpack when not required!

Indeed. This was actually illustrated in an old RT-era cutaway diagram.

Everyone's preferences are going to be different but I enjoy the newer molded banners. They've come a long way from the printed card banners.

We used to make the banners out of paint/marker on paper and super glue them to the back pack poles. Some of my first were done that way in the 90s. I'll pass on those in the future.

 insaniak wrote:

nareik wrote:

 Skinnereal wrote:
How do SM banner bearers enter buildings or transports? Tactically, it is stupid.

Obviously the banners furl up back into the backpack when not required!

Indeed. This was actually illustrated in an old RT-era cutaway diagram.

I'll have to have another look at that.
Time to model furled banner poles.

 martian_jo wrote:
Everyone's preferences are going to be different but I enjoy the newer molded banners. They've come a long way from the printed card banners.

We used to make the banners out of paint/marker on paper and super glue them to the back pack poles. Some of my first were done that way in the 90s. I'll pass on those in the future.

Ye the card banners from 3rd and 4th edition are proper old school!

See its basically personal preference of course BUT I am an old head (20+ years of this hobby) and back in the day over sized banners and back pack banners were on everything. I think the newer generation of minis etc has moved away from that but it has a soft spot in my heart from back in the day. I do have some High Elf units with the old paper banners and several of my marine units still have banner tops. I say do what you want!

 Rotgut wrote:
I like them, I imagine in a chaotic grim dark battlefield when communications are down it is a rally point towards ranking marines. While I like the hand held standard bearers it seems like your kinda boned standing there holding a flag while everyone is trying to gun you down. Just my two cents!

I view back banners as being more analogous to sashimonos. Ways to announce yourself and your status on the battlefield.

http://www.sierratoysoldier.com/ourstore/pc/catalog/FL_SAM/SAM022_1(l).jpg

http://www.archives.pref.fukui.jp/fukui/07/zusetsu/C07/hataall.jpg

http://bloguploads1.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/d21.jpg

Marines are all about blaring their presence out, which is why they wear gaudy 'shoot me shoot me' colors instead of matte colors, camo, and so forth. Back banners, while they can look silly, are an extension of that and you can get ideas from samurai. A way to call out yourself/your army/your squad, it's litany of honor, and thus encourage difficult foes to find you and fight you to garner further honor.

During the first Mongol invasion of Japan, apparently the Samurai all ran out with their banners (which extolled each warrior), shouted individual challenges to match up with equal opponents, and were shot down mercilessly by the Mongols who laughed about it. Seems pretty similar to 40k's love of huge banners, garish color schemes, and silly tactics.

I'll have a banner on a Grey Hunter, unfortunately I can only have one since banners in each squad looks so cool

Back in the day I would've said no and never to back banners on my Space Marine Sgts but lately in the last year or two I've actually changed my tune and really fancied building some for my Sgts in the reboot of my Battle Company.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 Rotgut wrote:
I like them, I imagine in a chaotic grim dark battlefield when communications are down it is a rally point towards ranking marines. While I like the hand held standard bearers it seems like your kinda boned standing there holding a flag while everyone is trying to gun you down. Just my two cents!

I view back banners as being more analogous to sashimonos. Ways to announce yourself and your status on the battlefield.

http://www.sierratoysoldier.com/ourstore/pc/catalog/FL_SAM/SAM022_1(l).jpg

http://www.archives.pref.fukui.jp/fukui/07/zusetsu/C07/hataall.jpg

http://bloguploads1.s3.amazonaws.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/d21.jpg

Marines are all about blaring their presence out, which is why they wear gaudy 'shoot me shoot me' colors instead of matte colors, camo, and so forth. Back banners, while they can look silly, are an extension of that and you can get ideas from samurai. A way to call out yourself/your army/your squad, it's litany of honor, and thus encourage difficult foes to find you and fight you to garner further honor.

During the first Mongol invasion of Japan, apparently the Samurai all ran out with their banners (which extolled each warrior), shouted individual challenges to match up with equal opponents, and were shot down mercilessly by the Mongols who laughed about it. Seems pretty similar to 40k's love of huge banners, garish color schemes, and silly tactics.

This is exactly how I see it as well. Space Marines are a force known and feared in the galaxy. When the enemies of the imperium fight, they normally fight the lowly planetary defence force or the Imperial Guard who in turn are all camouflaged. Then drop pods in bright red and blues (or whatever chapter colours) smash into their front lines, and Humanity's finest step out in their bright non-camouflaged chapter colours and begin dishing out the Emperors justice.... I think its about fear, intimidation an as Maniac_nmt said similar to Samurai, the back banners would simply be an extension of all this.

 Maniac_nmt wrote:

 Rotgut wrote:
I like them, I imagine in a chaotic grim dark battlefield when communications are down it is a rally point towards ranking marines. While I like the hand held standard bearers it seems like your kinda boned standing there holding a flag while everyone is trying to gun you down. Just my two cents!

I view back banners as being more analogous to sashimonos. Ways to announce yourself and your status on the battlefield.

Another example of that was the original Aspect Warriors - Dire Avengers, Fire Dragons and Striking Scorpions all had sashimono-style banners. Dark Reapers had a similar "standard" style to Marines (although with a triangular flag)> Looks rather striking on the battlefield