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I've not been playing Warhammer style games for very long, so I'm not sure of the unwritten rules. I recently bought the Sylvaneth start collecting box, plus one or two extra bits and pieces, and have built a little army of Sylvaneth with some Wood Elf allies. As I mentioned, I've not been playing these games for very long, so when I came to paint them, it didn't really occur to me that they should all be the same colours, as if they were wearing a uniform. I thought they would look like a forest, with several different kinds of trees, so I painted the Dryads in quite a variety of colours. Some have dark bark, some light, some have green leaves (several different shades), some orange.

Would you consider this "wrong" if you came up against someone who had done this? I understand that a Space Marine army would look a bit strange if they're all wearing different coloured armour, but I think that's kind of different. These are trees, not an organised military force. With me as their general they'll he far from organised, actually. I did a similar thing with my Chaos Cultists, actually. I painted them as kind of a rabble.

Am I crazy and wrong? Will I be run out of my local gaming group? Would you run me out of yours?

You can paint them any colour you want. There is no rule, stating what colours you have to paint them

Sounds good. Paint them they way that makes you happy. A consistent method of basing will help pull them together visually if that's a concern.

My stormcasts are a mix of Hammers of Sigmar and Astral Templars. There has never been a reason why you shouldn't mix and match the colours/origin/allegiance of your army (you know - the models you bought). Looking right and wrong is subjective

As the others have said, there is no rule that says your army must look uniform. However with that said, sticking to a limited palette will give your force a more cohesive look and will look more like a single army than a collection of random units. In the end, how you paint your models is up to you.

So I really like the idea of them being different types of trees but they should all be the same season. And if possible several of them should be the same type, that makes the different ones more special. You can then base them the same and use similar lighting choosing effects to make them more similar.

I like to use different species of tree to signify importance. My Dryads are a somewhat standard Oak (though I do like varying the shade/intensity of the colour so they aren't too uniform), my Branchwraiths/Branshwyches are a bit greener, my Treelords are a Birch/Ash grey, and my Kurnoth look like they've been burnt so they're very dark brown and black.

However there's another guy I've seen mix and match tree types in each unit and I think it looks great. So yeah, do as you please.

Thanks for the answers, guys. Good to know that I won't be shunned, at least not for this.

Some good points, too. Tying them together with the bases is a good idea, and one that I think I would have done anyway without really thinking about it. They're all getting grass/forest bases.

As for them all being the same season, I see them as existing in autumn (fall for you American readers) as you get explosions of different colours at that time of year, as different types of trees lose their leaves at different rates.

Depending on the group, the worst that would probably happen is you may end up with the Hubcap of Shame like this guy I heard about down in Indiana (they take their gaming very seriously down in Muncie Indiana), or are forced to walk The Room of a Thousand 4-siders.

Just kidding. As they say, it's your Army, paint it how you like. A unified looking theme for a force on the table can be an awesome sight.

 feltmonkey wrote:
Thanks for the answers, guys. Good to know that I won't be shunned, at least not for this.

Some good points, too. Tying them together with the bases is a good idea, and one that I think I would have done anyway without really thinking about it. They're all getting grass/forest bases.

As for them all being the same season, I see them as existing in autumn (fall for you American readers) as you get explosions of different colours at that time of year, as different types of trees lose their leaves at different rates.

We say Autumn too....

Also i have always thought it would be cool to do a Sylvaneth army where each unit is a different season.... oh to have infinite time and money....