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What is everyone's thoughts on having a custom color scheme for a Heresy Space Marine? I don't mean one of the alternative schemes shown in the lore, I mean something totally unique. For 40k, this wouldn't be a big deal at all, but as HH is supposed to be the 'historical' Warhammer game, I've heard that it is generally expected for me to stay close to the schemes in the lore. I for one was thinking of making either a Sons of Horus or Word Bearers army with a color scheme incorporating completely different colors from the traditional one, with a backstory on why this would be. Would this be seen as okay, given the spirit of the game, or not?

I'd be totally fine with it, they're your dudes as they say.

Besides it's not like it would be hard to make up a fluff reason for it. "By special order of the Warmaster" or "In recognition of their valor at the Battle of [insertname]" etc.

Or, and this is a thing that's bugged me for a while with soft sci-fi settings, not every planet has a yellow sun. On other planets Word Bearer red may look more purple or more auburn or whatever.

Its not a clear cut issue as while there is a lot of space within the Legions for heraldry and scheme variation, its stuff like having OG Legion colours (e.g. Luna Wolves or Dusk Raiders), combos of new and old schemes (e.g. Thousand Sons with their original colours but with red secondary colours), or specialist companies (e.g. Justaerin SoH or Nemesis Chapter Ultramarines).
Could you be a bit more specific about what exactly you are planning? It would make this much easier if we can whittle down the hundreds of possible choices.

I chose a custom paint scheme for my Iron Hands as well:

Link to album:
https://ibb.co/album/zsg9zv

However I was quite conservative about it so crazy stuff like rainbow colours were an absolute no-go. As a result I chose a metallic black with emphasis on the metal aspect. This paint scheme will distinguish them immediately from the Raven Guard and you also won´t confuse them with the Iron Warriors as there are no hazard stripes to be found. This set of colours was simple to implement and is still unique when compared to all other legions.

I was thinking of doing a custom Word Bearers warband called the Black Serpents, who, after the fall of the Legion, returned to the Eye of Terror. As time moves differently in the warp, they spend a lot of time there, but just a little bit in real time. Thus, they become far more corrupted than their 30k brothers. For the scheme, I was thinking of doing something maybe being black with silver trim, with some other colors sprinkled in. Also, I was thinking of using a more bizarre and monstrous version of their logo, something maybe reminiscent of some of these pieces:

Just as long as you make a fluff explanation and/or have a callback to the Legion you're running, I'd say go for it.

My Ultramarines use silver/steel instead of gold; they’re the lowest and scummiest members of the Ultramarines.

This video by Arbitor Ian might be of interest to the OP. It is about painting heresy armies in non-standard schemes and covers a variety of lore reasons for it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kCIPgQv-18

So if you're going for black as the main colour, I'd recommend red as the secondary to tie it into the post-Istvaan scheme. Maybe have them be a particularly zealous Chapter (the Chapter of the Black Serpent) who painted their armour black to emulate the Legions Chaplains keeping the red shoulders in honour of their new purpose. The pilgrimage to the Eye could be in emulation of Lorgar and the Gal Vorbak, with their new symbol being crafted from a vision from the Gods. As long as you don't go too heavily into the Chaos aesthetic they should work fine.

I reccommend the red purely because black and green is the scheme of the Sons of Horus Reavers:

Black and blue is the scheme of the Ultramarines 22nd Chapter, the Nemesis Chapter:

It might get confused for a Justaerin or Catualan SoH force but if you slap a load of books, scrolls and script on the models it should be fine and they won't look like this: