Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Now i'm not sure if this should go in this section or the painting section. Oh well, here will do. Eldar have aspects (obviously) and those aspects have a distinct colour scheme (fluff wise anyway) I'm wondering do Dire avengers come into this category, as in is that 'standard' blue and white scheme the entire aspects scheme? Also why don't guardians and other units in an Eldar war host come under this 'rule'. Lastly how would you guys recommend I put a Biel-Tan touch (green and white) on the original aspects while still keeping their own colour schemes?

Thanks for the replies as I know this isn't the most interesting post to reply to.

Yes, Dire Avengers are Aspects so they always use the blue and white scheme. Guardians etc don't fall under this rule because they are a militia force of the Craftworld, and so use the colors and heraldry of the Craftworld. The Aspects are an... aspect of the Eldar religion, and a highly ritualized part of their culture. It isn't limited to one Craftworld, and so is standard across the entire race. Deviating from it, fluffwise, would be messed up for their religion.

As for customizing them to your personal craftowrld, go for the little touches. On a lot of mine I replaced the metallic golds with silvers, so something that doesn't change the Aspect scheme but injects a little of my personal scheme (purple and silver) into it. Also, for the Avengers, the back banner on the Exarch would be a good place to customize.

Painting the undersuit of the aspects white and painting the gemstones green would be a nice way of integrating the Biel Tan scheme.

 Eldarain wrote:
Painting the undersuit of the aspects white and painting the gemstones green would be a nice way of integrating the Biel Tan scheme.

I like that as an idea but it would be really hard to pull off a white undersuit and have it not look weird. If you could do it well, though, it would be awesome.

I don't think there is any hard and fast rule that says Aspect warriors have to be any color. Many people use the standard paint jobs, but I've seen lots of variation and use them myself.
You don't really have too look to hard to find some non traditional schemes.

I am very torn between painting my Eldar Aspects with the "codex" color scheme, or one of my own. My Eldar are modeled to represent Eldar "Corsairs" who have close ties to the Saim-Hann Craftworld (not the FW ones, the classic version).

I really think the classic Aspect schemes would be jarring next to my black and purple army color, so I am toying with the idea of giving each Aspect the standard color on their helmet (or at least the face mask) and shoulder pads, but their body armor will be that of the normal army.

I think I might do something similar to my Shining Spears, but because they are made from Eldar Reaver Jetbikes (with Cold One lance arms) rather then the stock models, they will have some blue and white detailing somewhere on their model. Maybe some white armor accents on the rider, and a blue stripe(s) or details on the fuselage of the bike.

 Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think there is any hard and fast rule that says Aspect warriors have to be any color. Many people use the standard paint jobs, but I've seen lots of variation and use them myself.
You don't really have too look to hard to find some non traditional schemes.

Well yeah, there are no rules or anything on how you paint your models. It's just that if you happen to be going for a fluffy look, then all Aspects use their traditional color schemes. There's nothing wrong with painting them whatever color you like, but as this is in the background section and not p&m, the answer is Aspects don't deviate.

Thanks for the help guys, it really cleared things up for me. Now I can finally get on painting.

The Eldar aspect warriors can have fairly varied colour schemes. Dire Avengers will use grey as well as blue and white, Dark Reapers will go from balck to dark blue to dark red etc, etc.

Sometimes Aspect warriors will wear the colours of the Craftworld they come from so you can paint them that way.

Even Aspect Squads from the same shrine in the same craftworld will have differences to distinguish them.

Much like squad markings with Space Marines.

The original 2nd Ed Eldar Codex had a far wider range of colour schemes for each Aspect. It is only as time has marched on that the colour schemes have become more fixed. I suspect that if and when they update the Codex Eldar, they will loosen things up again. For example, I think Fire Dragons look awesome painted black but with flame/lava coloured detailing.

As Biel Tan is something like a centre of the way of the warrrior (according to the german lexicanum at least) I would think having the Aspect Warriors in typical livery would be the way to go, and the Biel Tan colours would be more something like the colour of the "Aspect of the Non-warrior serving nevertheless".
But in the end it is all about what you like on the field. And if you want it a bit uniformed, then make it so. I could imagine if you use the official scheme with white armour and green helmet, then just swap the colours of the Avengers, instead of a white helmet, make them a white body and a blue helmet, so that they share the colour distribution.
For a friend of mine I went another way. He had decided the colours of his craftworld would be light green and plume. While I did the body armour of all aspects in the basic aspect colour, the helmets showed the colours of the craftworld. The single minis looked a little bit vivid, but the overall appearance was quite satisfying.

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think there is any hard and fast rule that says Aspect warriors have to be any color. Many people use the standard paint jobs, but I've seen lots of variation and use them myself.
You don't really have too look to hard to find some non traditional schemes.

Well yeah, there are no rules or anything on how you paint your models. It's just that if you happen to be going for a fluffy look, then all Aspects use their traditional color schemes. There's nothing wrong with painting them whatever color you like, but as this is in the background section and not p&m, the answer is Aspects don't deviate.

I don't agree, I've never seen anywhere where it says they must be any particular color, there are standards, but I have not seen in the fluff anywhere dictating the colors. I have the old white dwarf where the aspects came out and it has some tradition colors, but also some variations.

I did my dire avengers with yellow helmets because I play an Alaitoc craftworld army. You can always paint the shoulder pads and knee pads with greens and whites for your aspect warriors while still taking the traditional colour schemes of the temples.

 Andrew1975 wrote:

 MandalorynOranj wrote:

 Andrew1975 wrote:
I don't think there is any hard and fast rule that says Aspect warriors have to be any color. Many people use the standard paint jobs, but I've seen lots of variation and use them myself.
You don't really have too look to hard to find some non traditional schemes.

Well yeah, there are no rules or anything on how you paint your models. It's just that if you happen to be going for a fluffy look, then all Aspects use their traditional color schemes. There's nothing wrong with painting them whatever color you like, but as this is in the background section and not p&m, the answer is Aspects don't deviate.

I don't agree, I've never seen anywhere where it says they must be any particular color, there are standards, but I have not seen in the fluff anywhere dictating the colors. I have the old white dwarf where the aspects came out and it has some tradition colors, but also some variations.

I guess that's possibly. I've never seen anywhere in recent fluff with them deviating, though. It seems like, especially because of the strictness of the Path system, that the Aspects are an extremely ritualized system. Given the intensity of the rituals in Path of the Warrior, it doesn't seem likely that it would happen. But hey, there could always be some Craftworld out on the edge of space that doesn't follow so closely. Biel-Tan definitely would, though, seeing as they're the most militant Craftworld, and the one with the most Aspect Warriors. They're more likely to display differences as squad markings on helmets, banners, or Wave Serpents.

I could also see members of Aspect Shrines in far-flung craftworlds, or in Corsair forces like under Yriel deviating from standard color schemes, possibly just keeping certain parts the same.

You also might consider that Biel Tan is a very martially minded Craftworld, and as such, they have a lot of Aspect Shrines. Each Aspect shrine will need it's own colour scheme to identify it, so there is more likely to be more variation in the squad colours. I personally would keep the shrine colours, but paint the gemstones or the weapons in Craftworld colours or something like that.

I am painting an Ultwe craftworld, for example, but to keep my army looking coherent, my aspect warriors adopt a darker colour palette so my Fire Dragons are painted deep reds to emulate glowing embers, while my Swooping Hawks are themed on stormy skies for a colour scheme.

Aspect Warriors have regional variations on the paint scheme; each Temple could theoretically have its own distinctive uniform if you want to get creative. I personally enjoy getting to paint a wide variety of different things in one army so I've done a more traditional flying-circus approach to my Aspects, but if you want to use more of the base Craftworld colors that's perfectly well supported in the fluff.

The final chapters of each of the books in the path series; where you get a culmination of aspect warriors, from different shrines, it notes that each shrine adopts the traditional scheme but tweaks it slightly e.g. all the different striking scorpions shrines have different shades of green and yellow.

Fluffwise each shrine can change the colors, but most make at least a token attempt to connect to the standard theme. GW has had several eldar armies where the aspect warriors are painted off standard to match with the rest of the army in some way.