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Can someone explain to me the death guard colour scheme please?

Is it white, with green pauldrons, with gold trim? (as seen in the FW paint guide)
Or is it all white, with green trim (see the FW death guard terminator conversion kit)

I seem to have seen both types equally as often. Can someone please explain if there's any rhyme or reason to it?


Is it a pre-heresy thing? Was there a change?
Are veterans different from regular marines?

I'd like to keep my post heresy (40k) death guard accurate and any clarity or advice would be warmly recieved.

Also, post heresy, did they ditch the halo and skull insignia, swapping it for the 3 skulls in the nurgle pattern? Or would they still use both?
And where did the fly symbol come from?

Sorry for all the questions, but, to be honest, I've never followed chaos closely, and I'd like to get it right.

Thanks.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
The gallery at the bottom of this page doesn't really clear it up....

http://warhammer40k.wikia.com/wiki/Death_Guard

They seemed to have ditched their Pre heresy color schemes completely and gone for green armor and 3 skull sign.

They didn't so much ditch their old colors as they neglected them in favor of mold and rot. As for their insignia it always had a skull they pretty much just added two more to form the symbol of Nurgle but instead of paint used the real thing.

The fly symbol represents Nurgle as well.

all the fluff seems to claim that when the Death Guard emerged from their ships back from the warp and newly infected, they were changed and clad in the colors of rot...

Which is why I have green, brown, yellow, and pre-heresy white Plague Marines mix-matched into my units!

Agreed, the underlying colours are unchanged. They are just covered in slime, bile etc.

The Great Crusade era livery was plain armour, i.e. with just the white/off white undercoat, trimmed in green. However, the exact distribution of the could trim vary across the 7 Great Companies, or indeed within them.

So one might see green pauldrons trimmed in white or visa versa, white trimmed in steel or bronze, or indeed green trimmed with bare metal. Then one or more poleyn or couter might also be in green or have a green stripe.

The sign of Nurgle seems to have come with allegiance, i.e. it is not painted on.

Thanks, that's great. Hoping mine will be the white with green shoulders and gold trim (obviously plagued up a bit). Got a few pre-heresey bits and things, so hopefully it'll look ok (I'll try a couple of test minis first).

Just didn't want to make any fluff faux pas'. And as I say, I'm not that up on the traitor legions.

What is the best source for info about the greatcompanies outside of the wiki's? Anyone know of any useful BL sources? Just ordered Flight of the Eisenstein for starters.

 alanmckenzie wrote:
Thanks, that's great. Hoping mine will be the white with green shoulders and gold trim (obviously plagued up a bit). Got a few pre-heresey bits and things, so hopefully it'll look ok (I'll try a couple of test minis first).

Just didn't want to make any fluff faux pas'. And as I say, I'm not that up on the traitor legions.

What is the best source for info about the greatcompanies outside of the wiki's? Anyone know of any useful BL sources? Just ordered Flight of the Eisenstein for starters.

Galaxy in Flames has some Death Guard stuff in it. Horus Heresy: Collected visions is also a really good source of examples (A bit pricey though)

Have you got the rules, Alan, i.e. Betrayal, as there's a lot in there.

No, I don't. Only playing 40k, so wasn't planning on the extra expense for the betrayal book. Although I expect there is a good bit of useful stuff in there, they're supposed to be really nice books. Might have a shout round the club, see if anyone owns a copy I could have a flick through.

Just want to make sure I'm fluff accurate with my schemes. The extra knowledge on the great companies and the subsequent different warbands would possibly just help give a little background to my own force. Not planning any special characters, typhus or anyone, warlord might just end up being a former captain of one of the old companies or something.

 alanmckenzie wrote:
No, I don't. Only playing 40k, so wasn't planning on the extra expense for the betrayal book. Although I expect there is a good bit of useful stuff in there, they're supposed to be really nice books. Might have a shout round the club, see if anyone owns a copy I could have a flick through.

Just want to make sure I'm fluff accurate with my schemes. The extra knowledge on the great companies and the subsequent different warbands would possibly just help give a little background to my own force. Not planning any special characters, typhus or anyone, warlord might just end up being a former captain of one of the old companies or something.

That thing is totally worth it man.

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

 alanmckenzie wrote:
No, I don't. Only playing 40k, so wasn't planning on the extra expense for the betrayal book. Although I expect there is a good bit of useful stuff in there, they're supposed to be really nice books. Might have a shout round the club, see if anyone owns a copy I could have a flick through.

Just want to make sure I'm fluff accurate with my schemes. The extra knowledge on the great companies and the subsequent different warbands would possibly just help give a little background to my own force. Not planning any special characters, typhus or anyone, warlord might just end up being a former captain of one of the old companies or something.

That thing is totally worth it man.

Just for the read?

 alanmckenzie wrote:

 Bronzefists42 wrote:

 alanmckenzie wrote:
No, I don't. Only playing 40k, so wasn't planning on the extra expense for the betrayal book. Although I expect there is a good bit of useful stuff in there, they're supposed to be really nice books. Might have a shout round the club, see if anyone owns a copy I could have a flick through.

Just want to make sure I'm fluff accurate with my schemes. The extra knowledge on the great companies and the subsequent different warbands would possibly just help give a little background to my own force. Not planning any special characters, typhus or anyone, warlord might just end up being a former captain of one of the old companies or something.

That thing is totally worth it man.

Just for the read?

Well it has a LOT of stuff to work through I would still recommend trying to get a peek at it yourself though. I have flipped through Betrayal and the amount of stuff in it really impressed me. (But it still may not be worth it as a lot of the Death guard stuff is floating around the 40k wikis.)

I have some of the original plastic models, I will point to the "classic" insignias and models:



The last image are the older models after the 2nd edition plastic ones.
They have the 3 dots on the left shoulder and the 3 skulls on the right... very stylish.
These were the "true" models I was used to seeing (do not forget the helmet spike on the top, the more "recent" split toe of boot looked cool too).

I have heard that they are really nice books. I'd be worried about actually buying one though. The risk of then starting 30k would be pretty high. Don't know if I need the temptation.

 alanmckenzie wrote:
I have heard that they are really nice books. I'd be worried about actually buying one though. The risk of then starting 30k would be pretty high. Don't know if I need the temptation.

Well if you have the models for it.... But I understand the fear here. I'm getting drawn into it and I can't get out

It's a tough situation. Fortunately I don't have the 30k models, apart from a few mk IV and mk III bits lying around. It's definitely gonna be a 40k Nurgle army. Just put the prospective list up in the army list forum.

Not getting into 30k.... Just can't.

 alanmckenzie wrote:
It's a tough situation. Fortunately I don't have the 30k models, apart from a few mk IV and mk III bits lying around. It's definitely gonna be a 40k Nurgle army. Just put the prospective list up in the army list forum.

Not getting into 30k.... Just can't.

Probably a good decision... too late for me though....

One thing to bear in mind, when considering colour schemes, is that Forge World portrays Space Marine Legion and Chapter colour schemes as having much more variety than most gamers seem to want to accept. As others have mentioned, the Death Guard's colours are white with green trim, and gold as a third colour. However, the precise usage of those colours isn't totally prescribed. You can see the same sort of thing in the Imperial Armour Badab War books (volumes 9 and 10). It can vary across companies and squads, and even within a squad.

Hi Andrew, yeah, I kinda figured that this was the case. Just wanted to make sure. I really like this scheme;

But didn't want to paint a load of plague marines this way, only to read somewhere down the line that it was only sergeants (like how BA sergeants would have pads the reverse of the rest of the squad), or 1st company who had the green pads.

I know it's possibly silly and doesn't really matter, but I enjoy concerning myself with things like this. And I've missed sooo much all those years I was out. Not least the wealth of background stuff that has come out. All full of info, and ideas, and such. Books like IA and the index astartes.