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I've got my hands on a lot of Chaos Space Marines and I really like the hazard stripes on the Iron Warriors.
But I'm not that keen on the metallic of their armor.
I'm very new to Warhammer, so I don't really care to change something. And figured I'd go black with warm gold trim.
Perhaps replace some panels with brown/red (you probably didn't recognise me because of my red leg) and add the Hazard Stripes on some panels and weapons as a nod to the older Iron Warrior models.

But as I said, I'm very new to the hobby. Am I committing a sin by altering a factions colour scheme?

Would I have to say they're a subfaction of the Iron Warriors? Or call it a different faction alltogether?
Would a change like this be a problem with playing with other people?

Firstly they're your models, you can absolutely paint them however you want. It may be slightly confusing to go for another legion's colour scheme (black with gold trim is Black Legion) - but it's not like the legions have individual rules any more anyway. Don't worry about it too much.

In the older editions, such creativity was actually encouraged

If you have concerns for lore, you could always say your group renegades has a grudge against Iron Warriors and therefore those panels/weapons are trophies. Alternatively, your guys could be scavengers and source of most of their repairs comes from Iron Warriors (the hazard stripe panels) and Black Legion (black & warm gold) while their original livery was the reddish brown.

When it comes down to it, the most important part is making it clear to your opponents what rules your guys use on the table


Hey, what's wrong with metallics?!

The Black Legion is also famous for taking in anyone who is willing to 'take the black'. They could be Iron Warriors who have joined the Black Legion but decided to keep some of their old heraldry.

Or come up with some new story. Iron Warriors don't have an IP on hazard stripes, anyone can wear them.

Mactire wrote:
I've got my hands on a lot of Chaos Space Marines and I really like the hazard stripes on the Iron Warriors.
But I'm not that keen on the metallic of their armor.
I'm very new to Warhammer, so I don't really care to change something. And figured I'd go black with warm gold trim.
Perhaps replace some panels with brown/red (you probably didn't recognise me because of my red leg) and add the Hazard Stripes on some panels and weapons as a nod to the older Iron Warrior models.

But as I said, I'm very new to the hobby. Am I committing a sin by altering a factions colour scheme?

Would I have to say they're a subfaction of the Iron Warriors? Or call it a different faction alltogether?
Would a change like this be a problem with playing with other people?

Your models your choice!


There was one edition where it "kind of" tried to become a thing that your paint scheme mattered. That was mostly because of the messy way allied and subfaction rules were at the time which resulted in people taking multiple subfactions of the same army in the same force which could cause confusion when they were all painted the same. However following and current editions of the rules don't have that issue.


And honestly a LOT of people have no freaking clue what official schemes look like anyway beyond a most basic concept for some of the core Marine factions as they get marketed a LOT. Most people won't know the true colours of most Chaos factions at all.

Ah I see, thank you all.

The reason I opted for black is because I'm not overly fond of metallic paints. On a gun, maybe, but not on the armor.
I've been keeping my eyes peeled how unpainted metal/iron looks and I'm somewhat confident I can go NNM on their armor.

My CSM book arrived yesterday so I'll read up on lore and rules. Wednesday I'm going painting with friends again, I'll pick their minds also.

After some googling yetserday I found that hazard striping are in 40k since a very long time and people either hate it or love it.

I've been keeping my eyes peeled for dulled iron and am somewhat confident I can airbrush that NNM on the models. I'll airbrush some spoons first to see what I can reproduce.
Iron Warriors have a rather dull colourscheme and I feel the striping adds a splash of colour and visual interest.
(and also I'm getting crash test dummies vibes from them