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hi guys,

a month or so back, I posted a thread asking for advice on how to unify a multi-god CSM army. at the time, I was imagining an army with raptors painted up as nightlords, thousand sons cult troops, tanks in iron warriors colors, shootie CSMs in black legion colors, CC CSMs in khorne red, and so on. sure, I could base them all the same way and give them the same warband icon, but that didn't feel like it would be enough to tie the army together.

after thinking about the problem some more (and looking at lots of photos and fluff), I think the most challenging part is visually integrating cult troops into my army. for example, say I decide to go with a word bearers theme for my warband (red & silver). if I include thousand sons cult troops (blue and yellow), how do I make them look like part of the same warband? just give them the same shoulder badge? paint them up in the warband's colors instead of their usual blue and yellow? if the latter, how do I make it clear that they're thousand sons? how about integrating khorne berserkers into a nightlords-themed army? keep 'em red? paint them like nightlords, but then drown them in blood and skulls?

similar questions arise with respect to representing marks of chaos on units. is painting the mark onto the unit enough? should the unit take on some of their patron deity's colors or stick to the warband's colors? should I bother visually representing the mark at all? (I can see arguments for not painting on the mark, in case I want to change it from game to game)

my army's going to be some mix of cult troops, marines, cultists, bikes, oblits/forgefiends, a heldrake and other odds and ends. any advice for how to make this warband look cohesive on the table is greatly appreciated once I have a plan for tying it all together, I can move on with deciding on a color scheme and coming up with a warband icon.

cheers and thanks for reading,

v

I have a common colour for my guys, which is bone.
Berserkers are red with bone borders.
PM are dark bone with green borders
TS are bone with blue borders
Standard CSM are bone with red borders.
Various elite troops are bone with dark borders.

My only problem so far are raptors, wich are black and red. But I'll find something!

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-52654-24074_Csm.html

The cultists will all have a bone coloured part of cloth, and that's it !

Some shared colour elements would help, like maybe black brown clothing except for bright blue jackets, rags, hats etc if with Thousand Suns, red details for Khorne-allied cultists. You get the gist. Give the models their own scheme, but one key colour that makes the force coherent, like some folk do with their Tau and Kroot.

I have berzerkers and Plague marines in my IW army.

I went the easy route and gave them all IW normal colours and then adjusted.

My Plagues are painted up in normal IW colours but with olive green shoulder pads. I also added a rust effect to most fo their armoru and gave them the bio hazard helmets from MaxMini.

My Berzerkers are also painted up in mostly IW colours but their shoulder pads are red and then i splashed a bt og blood aroudn their armour as well.

I have this pic. Dont read too much into it as they were one of the first units i painted but it might give you an idea:

@seb, do you happen to have a photo of your full army somewhere? would be interested in seeing them all together.

 varl wrote:
@seb, do you happen to have a photo of your full army somewhere? would be interested in seeing them all together.

Absolutely not !
Most of it is not or half painted, since I spend my time painting HQs.


However, I will in 7 weeks, since I have a 2k game planned, painted models only !

@seb: ha, fair enough. I look forward to seeing that photo in 7 weeks then

@praxiss: I'm leaning towards doing something like what you suggest. I like the way it's worked for your berzerker, especially with all the khorne details present on the model (icons, helmet). maybe that's the trick to making it work... make sure the cult troops have the proper bitz for their cult and then the colors don't matter as much. I don't suppose you've got a full army photo somewhere?

 varl wrote:
@seb: ha, fair enough. I look forward to seeing that photo in 7 weeks then

@praxiss: I'm leaning towards doing something like what you suggest. I like the way it's worked for your berzerker, especially with all the khorne details present on the model (icons, helmet). maybe that's the trick to making it work... make sure the cult troops have the proper bitz for their cult and then the colors don't matter as much. I don't suppose you've got a full army photo somewhere?

It's something I keep meaning to do but have never gotten around to it.

Cultists are likely to be a ragtag collection of fanatics, uninterested in standard uniforms and probably still wearing their civilian clothes or whatever they've picked up on the battlefield.

Sure, they'd quite likely have some method of showing their allegiance to their warband, but it would be very simple - an icon painted on their bodies or clothes or tattooed/branded on their bodies (like some Dark Vengeance cultists have chaos stars). The Lord of the Rings movie had a perfect example - Saruman's troops all had a white hand symbol daubed on their bodies.

@clang: right, *cultists* I'm not so worried about and I totally agree with you. I'm more conerned with *cult troops* (plague marines, thousand sons, etc.)

I'd still go for the hand-painted icon concept, symbolising the dark pact under which they've temporarily agreed to cooperate.