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Hi all,

I'm new to the hobby and mostly into painting right now. However i would like to get involved in some games in the near future.

I'm currently building/painting an ultramarine army. However due to my interest in painting so many different thing (including non space marine models) I was wondering if I could use different Ultramarine paint schemes per squad?

For example, I have a group of 5 intercessors with the standard blue and gold trim. I have some other units that have a blue winter camo scheme and I have a unit which uses a mix of blues and silvers.

I have plenty more idea for paint schemes for my Ultramarines and wondered if this was frowned upon games wise as they may look like they are from different chapters? I find it hard to keep painting the exact same paint scheme over and over and just wanted to make my army a little more interesting.

Any advice etc would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

They're your models - paint them how you want! Nobody who's worth playing against will object to varied paint schemes. I'd much rather see an army painted in an interesting variety of schemes that kept the owner interested than an army of grey plastic or primer because they couldn't get motivated to paint.

In practical terms, you should ask yourself how you want your force to look. Some like uniformity, others don't mind a mix of colors or patterns. At the end of the day they're your models and the one person who has to like the look of them is you. If a variety of different patterns is the way to go for you, there's no reason to hold back. And if you still want to tie them together as a single army (which I would advise, but again at the end of the day that's up to you) you can easily do so with unified basing and, if this suits you, recurring colors like eye lenses, bolter cases, the Ultramarine chapter badge or using the same blue tone you have on your plain Ultramarines as part of that blue camo scheme you mentioned. Having common elements to tie an army together is often a good idea and doesn't prevent you from using different colors on different models.

By the background Primaris seem much more practical than old Marines, and it's conceivable that the Marines in your force have been drawn together from various assignments that had them wear different versions of approved Ultramarine uniforms and camo patterns, so I don't see a problem with that. It's not how armies are commonly presented, but it doesn't strike me as impossible to rationalize.

Interestingly yesterday there was an article on Warhammer Community about someone's Space Sharks army that had a squad or two strikingly painted in a yellow camo pattern. That looked pretty neat. So you're certainly not alone in approaching Marines in such a way.

Edit: An addition to the practical side of things, as the owner of a uniform 2nd company army of Ultramarines, I have noted that some of my opponents felt that such uniformity blurred one squad into another and they couldn't always tell which squad a Marine belonged to (in spite of the clear markings in accordance to the Codex Astartes that those heretics of course didn't recognize). All they saw was a sea of blue. While this is not a universal problem, it's certainly a point in favor of making different units distinct as it allows you and your opponent to clearly tell them apart. Again, it's not necessary, but it may be an approach you may want to consider.

Thank you so much for both of your responses. It's great to hear that I can go with alternate colours. I have used the same blue tones for my normal marines, camo and blue metallic ones.

I guess i asked this because when I was a lot younger a tried to play a game of warhammer in the shop (i was only 9 at the time) and someone said that because my models had different colours I couldn't use them which really threw me off the hobby for a long long time. I didn't want to face a similar issue again as despite having many other hobbies, interests I feel really shy about getting into the wargaming thing - i get a bit worried about elitism etc.

Unfortunate as it is, you can never entirely get rid of that kind of behavior.

That's why I usually suggest an effort to tie models together with common elements shared across the entire army. Most people will recognize those common elements and see that these models were consciously painted to go together. Reasonable people with reservations about mixed forces can be swayed to accept your army for what it is supposed to be because they can see what you're going for.

There's no fix for those special individuals that insist their way is the only way, unfortunately, other than to not let their attitude bother you.

Thank you, i'll bear that in mind when I'm painting the rest of my army

There is nothing against it. Its the hobby part. That being said as a general rule in tourneys, normally you only see different detachments or keywords as different colors as a courtesy to your opponent, but not a requirement.

Like if you ran two chapters of space marines, say Ultra and Crimson fist. Both are blue, but have a different scheme. You could paint them different per chapter, or just use some sort of market to notate the different units.

As far as sticking within the chapter. Google "ultramarine company colors". Normally the company trim is the only thing that is different.

You could create a Successor chapter from the ultramarines where each company (or squad) has different markings. Like the Blood Angels have different shoulder trim/sigils for the company's and then different knee pad colors and icons for squads etc...

That being said, i would keep with at least 1 color that is universal to all the models in the army to tie them together. You don't have to, but it really helps with the aesthetic IMO.