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I looked up the responses from a previous post about custom painting Space Marine Armies and I was really fascinated at some of the history individual players make up. I have two issues for my custom army at hand:

1: Creating my own symbols and chapter logos
2: Using special armies for a custom one.

Is it possible to use a pre-made army (Dark Angels, Blood Angels, etc) models for a custom army, with a color scheme that of the Angels Sanguine (Red and Black)? I love that color scheme but I want my own chapter. Thanks!

Oh, if anyone has any custom marines, please post them here!

To create a symbol can be a nightmare. First you need to answer the question " is it a successor chapter?" if it isn't you can then create your own emblem just remember it should suit to the army you cant create "falcon wing" and have a logo of a cat. It just doesn't tie in.

If its a successor just build off the primary chapters logo with a little imagination you can think of some amazing ideas

Using pre made armies like BA and DA do already have a lot of heraldry on them already so if you are going to use them always best to do successor unless you love shaving off emblems lol.

If you are going for a new chapter i have a few suggestions.

get your fluff down first. you cant paint them all fluro green and call them "dark stalkers"

Your chapter master should not be better than a primach, all space marines want to save the galaxy in one way or another but having Chapter master Frank first of the Dark Stalkers killed 100 eldar striking scorpions by himself. follow the SM fluff and tweak it here and there.

Creating a chapter is fun, frustrating and yet extremely satisfying when you see that first model, its like using mind green stuff to create an amazing model

Yes of course. Most players I think play the main chapters becuase they have a good background and some of the best color schemes.
As for choosing symbols and history, it is always helpful to find a specific army/force/civilization in history as a starting point.
This is a big part of 40k, that's why they haven't named 95% of the space marine chapters.

You can basically do whatever you want. If you want it to be "accepted", then there are some conventions to follow and things to consider:
- Codex astartes compliant or not.
- Known descent or not.
- If known, how much relation is kept with the founding chapter? Do they share iconography, colours etc?
- What founding if known (many foundings have certain themes)
- Relation to other Imperial bodies such as Ad Mech.
- Chapter policies such as xenos tolerance, opinion of the IG etc.

An example well known custom chapter is the Blood Ravens. They're largely codex compliant but have far more librarians than normal. Tying into this, whilst their heritage is unknown, it's thought (by players) that they're descended from 1K Sons the traitor legion. They share no iconography, but do share a dominant colour of the 1K Sons - red. Due to their lost history their founding isn't known, but it predates M36. They have good relations to Ad Mech due to handing over tech freely iirc and aren't particularly hostile or dismissive of IG.

You can - and should - make your own symbols for your own custom chapter, though it may be hard to make a good one and free hand it so you might want to look into printable decals and doing the symbol on your computer.

You can definitely use BA, DA, SW etc. models for your custom army, but you should make sure that they "fit" with the theme of the army. Blood Angel models for example are plastered with blood drops, chalices and wings with blood drops - if this doesn't fit your custom chapter, you shouldn't use the models, or you should remove or modify the iconography. If you have a very "monastic" chapter, you could be completely robed and use lots of DA Veteran bodies as they have virtually no iconography and so take minimal modifying. Then add vanilla (or other army) arms, shoulders, heads etc.

You can use any SM rules you want for a custom chapter (or in general even) - vanilla, BA, DA, SW, GK, whatever. My Blood Ravens swap between army books frequently depending on the list I play, they can be Space Wolves to have a lot of librarians, DAs, IF's... whatever I feel like as it's all WYSIWYG.

All of you guys are extremely knowledgeable, wow. I had really know idea how much information this hobby holds. Yonan thanks for your knowledge. Everyone thank you. So for now this is my army:

Color: Red and Black (Angels Sanguine)

Organization: My own in terms of squad units, weapons, companies, etc. Primarily a codex chapter. I'm a by the book person.

We love the emperor. We support the IG, but find it stupid in terms of how many lives they waste.

Descendants: either Ultra or Blood, I'm undecided.

Iconography: I'll create my own.

I started in Rogue Trader days, before the main chapters were completely solidified, and back when the GW thing was, "Hey there's over 1000 chapters at any given time, make your own for the hobby fun of it!", so I have always tried my hand at my own chapters. I've had some bad ones. But my last one, the Aegis Guard, I am quite happy with.

I am currently working on the history, but I have the basics ironed out.

Parent chapter - Find the one that you like the most
Color scheme - very hard. I mean it seems easy, but it is not. My first run at the Aegis Guard had them basically orange with blue helmets. Yeah, I thought it looked good. Now they are yellow(IF yellow) with bone colored helmets/shoulder pads, and a few blue highlights. It is subdued and looks pretty good. I think a lot of people over do the colors and come up with horrendously garish things off the bat. But hey, remember the Rainbow Warriors?
Chapter History - yeah, it takes a bit, but look at the books. You can work out a timeline for the founding, etc. And I whole heartedly agree with XdeadpoolX, the stupid things people have their chapter masters do....sigh. I mean does anyone believe the crap they claim Calgar as done? Now we've got folks bringing in new shenanigans... yeah don't. Space Marines die. They are tough, but they die, and a good chapter history will have defeats. I think the big issue with the perception of Ultramarines, are the fact that the chapter history is full of crazy, unbelievable victories.

Be grounded. Look at the Salamanders, Raven Guard, and Scythes of the Emperor; or the entire Badab War for great grounded SM histories where they lose battles.


Anyway, if you are a SM player, this is a very rewarding part of the hobby, making your own chapter. It is great fun. You can pick a parent chapter or not and be all secretive like the Thousand Sons successor, the Blood Ravens. I mean the Blood Ravens don't know where they come from. Yeah That's it!

Anyway, there's a lot to be had with your chapter and I recommend it. Very fun. PLus, you can paint it any damned way you please, even if it is orange with blue helmets.

Yonan wrote:You can basically do whatever you want. If you want it to be "accepted", then there are some conventions to follow and things to consider:
- Codex astartes compliant or not.
- Known descent or not.
- If known, how much relation is kept with the founding chapter? Do they share iconography, colours etc?
- What founding if known (many foundings have certain themes)
- Relation to other Imperial bodies such as Ad Mech.
- Chapter policies such as xenos tolerance, opinion of the IG etc.

An example well known custom chapter is the Blood Ravens. They're largely codex compliant but have far more librarians than normal. Tying into this, whilst their heritage is unknown, it's thought (by players) that they're descended from 1K Sons the traitor legion. They share no iconography, but do share a dominant colour of the 1K Sons - red. Due to their lost history their founding isn't known, but it predates M36. They have good relations to Ad Mech due to handing over tech freely iirc and aren't particularly hostile or dismissive of IG.

You can - and should - make your own symbols for your own custom chapter, though it may be hard to make a good one and free hand it so you might want to look into printable decals and doing the symbol on your computer.

You can definitely use BA, DA, SW etc. models for your custom army, but you should make sure that they "fit" with the theme of the army. Blood Angel models for example are plastered with blood drops, chalices and wings with blood drops - if this doesn't fit your custom chapter, you shouldn't use the models, or you should remove or modify the iconography. If you have a very "monastic" chapter, you could be completely robed and use lots of DA Veteran bodies as they have virtually no iconography and so take minimal modifying. Then add vanilla (or other army) arms, shoulders, heads etc.

You can use any SM rules you want for a custom chapter (or in general even) - vanilla, BA, DA, SW, GK, whatever. My Blood Ravens swap between army books frequently depending on the list I play, they can be Space Wolves to have a lot of librarians, DAs, IF's... whatever I feel like as it's all WYSIWYG.

Gorgrimm wrote:I started in Rogue Trader days, before the main chapters were completely solidified, and back when the GW thing was, "Hey there's over 1000 chapters at any given time, make your own for the hobby fun of it!", so I have always tried my hand at my own chapters. I've had some bad ones. But my last one, the Aegis Guard, I am quite happy with.

I am currently working on the history, but I have the basics ironed out.

Parent chapter - Find the one that you like the most
Color scheme - very hard. I mean it seems easy, but it is not. My first run at the Aegis Guard had them basically orange with blue helmets. Yeah, I thought it looked good. Now they are yellow(IF yellow) with bone colored helmets/shoulder pads, and a few blue highlights. It is subdued and looks pretty good. I think a lot of people over do the colors and come up with horrendously garish things off the bat. But hey, remember the Rainbow Warriors?
Chapter History - yeah, it takes a bit, but look at the books. You can work out a timeline for the founding, etc. And I whole heartedly agree with XdeadpoolX, the stupid things people have their chapter masters do....sigh. I mean does anyone believe the crap they claim Calgar as done? Now we've got folks bringing in new shenanigans... yeah don't. Space Marines die. They are tough, but they die, and a good chapter history will have defeats. I think the big issue with the perception of Ultramarines, are the fact that the chapter history is full of crazy, unbelievable victories.

Be grounded. Look at the Salamanders, Raven Guard, and Scythes of the Emperor; or the entire Badab War for great grounded SM histories where they lose battles.


Anyway, if you are a SM player, this is a very rewarding part of the hobby, making your own chapter. It is great fun. You can pick a parent chapter or not and be all secretive like the Thousand Sons successor, the Blood Ravens. I mean the Blood Ravens don't know where they come from. Yeah That's it!

Anyway, there's a lot to be had with your chapter and I recommend it. Very fun. PLus, you can paint it any damned way you please, even if it is orange with blue helmets.

These are great basic starting criteria

The chapter insignia is the hardest part. It has to be simple enough to translate to a tiny shoulder pad. If you got means to create and print custom decals than the design is you only problem. Otherwise take into account that if you freehanding it you are gonna be painting it alot so you probably want some thing simple.
I pondered the logo for my marines for a while I originally used the yellow drop of the bloodangel transfer sheet. Since this was the only transfer to stick relatively smooth to the curved service. This was years ago. I used the yellow drop as a basis
Their base color was hull red a kind of burgundy type red I got from my local hobby shop. However different paint brands caused it to vary from black-red to brown-red I used Pactra brand model paint and later Testors, Humbrol, Tamiya and Vallejo. Their secondary color would be black.
Since I was not a player I got to go all out in chapter unit equipment, but thats beside the point. I added blue to where the chapter icon should go e.g. shoulder pads and armor plates. The shield shaped parts became two color as some sort of contrast or company indicator
I came up with the name "the Tears of Epsilon". Their icon would be the yellow drop withe greek letter E (Epsilon) which I confused with the greek letter S (Sigma) on top of it. I named them after their fictional home system of Sigma Epsilon I am currently writing the fluff.

Two combined symbols simple to paint are the easiest. It looks great on screen and the only thing that stopped me from painting them on my miniatures was my personal uncertaincy.

My homebrew chapter. The Knights of Cydonia. I use the Space Wolves codex as these guys are close combat fighters.

This was my company commander.


Here you can see my freehand chapter badge. Not done to the best but good enough.

timebandit3077 wrote:
1: Creating my own symbols and chapter logos

I had this problem, too. I eventually chose the Dark Angels' Ravenwing icon to use as my chapter icon.

timebandit3077 wrote:
2: Using special armies for a custom one.

Actually, this is less a problem than a freedom. You can use any codex you desire as long as you make a legal list. I have played games using the SM, DA, and even BA lists. As long as your opponent knows which codex you are using and your models are wysiwyg then there should be no problem.

timebandit3077 wrote:
Is it possible to use a pre-made army (Dark Angels, Blood Angels, etc) models for a custom army, with a color scheme that of the Angels Sanguine (Red and Black)? I love that color scheme but I want my own chapter. Thanks!

Yes. I frequently use special character models.

timebandit3077 wrote:
Oh, if anyone has any custom marines, please post them here!

Symbols can be very hard. I did a lightning bolt on a shield. I surprisingly have a hard time painting it. But my freehand is terrible.

Deadmeat 85, that is a great symbol. Fits them and is something that you can do. Nice chapter.

Breotan, very nice models. I especially like the raven captain.

timebandit3077 wrote:
Oh, if anyone has any custom marines, please post them here!

My only finished Tactical Squad, Aegis Guard, 9th, 1st Tactical



WIP of the captain and standard bearer.




I think if you make your own chapter, you put a lot of time into them, they will mean more to you as you finish. They really do opposed to say if I painted Ultras or something. Well, to me anyway.

They look really nice Gorgrimm, more detailed than most standard tactical squads which I'm a big fan of. Post-human warrior monks with the wealth of a million worlds lavished upon them shouldn't look like vanilla marines often do. Could just be the nice paint scheme and shading. The blue stripe on the troops helms and the red sgt helm combine for a very nice look.

Wow this thread's amazing, I'm doing the same thing only as a legion. I believe there were 2? Missing chapters so it's really open to whatever you want. My idea:

Legion Name: Earth movers
Color scheme: Brown/copper
Daemon Allegiance: Non-specific
Specialty: Heavy support Tanks
(Also cuz I had the time and I'm a nerd like that)
Primarch: Grothrim "The Earth Mover"- Brains over brawn basically, has stones growing from his left arm. Was close to the night hunter as they both believed in using fear to control the masses (Although Grothim uses more strength based fear as opposed to the bat-man style of the night hunters)