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Question: I want to make my own harlequin troupe. The colors I want to use are the same as an established troupe, but the pattern and ratio used are different. Is this alright or is that considered too confusing/poor taste?

GW's own words on it here are ambiguous as to whether they mean the heraldry as a whole or just the colors.


EDIT: Some more detail for context:

I want to use black, green, magenta, and gold. The Twisted Path's colors are black, green, magenta, and yellow, and like nearly all harlequins they also have copious amounts of gold. Since I don't plan on yellow there technically is some difference, and I plan on it being black-dominant while The Veiled Path is green-dominant. Yellow is so close to gold though.

The Dance Without End uses black, green, and magenta and blue. Blue is much further from gold, but the patterning is much closer to what I want. And again, harlequins all seem to use gold regardless of their colors.

It all makes me nervous.

Your opinions?

You do whatever scheme you want. Let the creative juices flow.

I very highly doubt you would ever run into another player that had the depth of lore knowledge required to even notice something as obscure as Harlequin troupe color variances.

It has been my experience that because there is so much gray plastic usually on tables, other gamers really appreciate a fully painted army, whether to lore or not. My red and blue Orks and rainbow plaid Space Wolves are a testament to that.

And if somebody talks smack about a fully painted army which takes hours of work and passion, that person is a terrible, toxic person and you should avoid them.

The colour scheme sounds great but since there are so many variations on colour schemes (Just check out the successor chapters of the space marines) I think no one will question the paint scheme and anyway, why does it always have to adhere to the lore, paint the harlequins pink for all I care, I’d still play against them

Honestly GW's policy on painting really only works with Space Marines. Even players of other factions can often not tell you what the official schemes are beyond whatever the current one being sold/advertised by GW is; and even if they can tell that its "sort of" an official scheme they wouldn't have a clue what subfaction it is supposed to be.


In general 99.9% of players won't care. Marines wise its a bit different because a Blood Angel with all the icons and colour scheme is very much a BA not a White Scare - but like I said that is different as they've not only got their own codex but also decades of marketing behind them.



Go for your own scheme - don't be worried

Hell, even with some Space Marines it's almost impossible to get a consistent pattern/ratio/scheme for the Alpha Legion, there's so many variations on their colours over the ages and between different warbands and the like.

Nobody can tell you you're doing it wrong, because it's your bloody models, and if they're gonna be critical like that, you don't need that BS in your life.

Sauragnmon wrote:
Hell, even with some Space Marines it's almost impossible to get a consistent pattern/ratio/scheme for the Alpha Legion, there's so many variations on their colours over the ages and between different warbands and the like.

Agreed for most its a simple
Blood Angles - red and black
Ultra Marines - blue and yellow
White Scars - white and black
Dark Angels - green and something

They'd certainly not be able to tell most custom red and black paintwork from the official scheme