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Feel free to play around with the colour schemes.

When Codex: Angels of Death was released (2nd Ed Dark Angels and Blood Angels), WD featured a gamer's Dark Angels and he did something different with the characters. As Azrael, Ezekiel and Asmodai are all Deathwing initiated, the power armour was painted white with the robes indicating their role. Azrael had green, Ezekiel blue and the Chaplain had black.

Over the last couple of years, studio armies have been different with Apothecaries and Chaplains in Chapter coloured armour with one shoulderpad painted to show specialisation.

If you want a background reason for being different (you never know, some opponent may demand to know why your army is different), the aforementioned Insignium Astartes book mentions that the Codex Astartes states armour squad markings should be altered regularly so as to deny intelligence to an enemy.

Carlson793 wrote:

 Kojiro wrote:

But it was the little things in there, like how all Salamander medics paint their right arm red to honour a medic who- holding his wounded brothers in his right arm as they die- found he could not entirely wash the blood from his armour, leaving it permanently red.

(Yeah, I'm gonna be that guy...) Actually, it's left arm and left half of helmet. The medic mentioned started to do that so he wouldn't have to wash away the blood of his fallen brothers. (What can I say: just discovered the book while working on a Salamanders army. Plan to also include some XVIII Legion markings.)

If you are going that old school, you mark your Salamanders with VIII Legion markings. 8th chapter of the 1st founding.



And to keep things vaguely on topic, you will note the old RT markings for Librarians in the pic.

It always cracked me up that chapters seemed to be okay with making their most important guys different to the plebs in the army

Ceann Fine wrote:
It always cracked me up that chapters seemed to be okay with making their most important guys different to the plebs in the army

But thats how heraldry works... If everyone is wearing the same armour, how else do you tell them apart? (apart from the IFF system on your HUD of course)

Its part of the same reason why marines tend to be bright colours. You only need to hide the differences between grunts and leaders if you're actually afraid of being picked off. Wearing a big powered walking tank has its benefits

 Flinty wrote:

Ceann Fine wrote:
It always cracked me up that chapters seemed to be okay with making their most important guys different to the plebs in the army

But thats how heraldry works... If everyone is wearing the same armour, how else do you tell them apart? (apart from the IFF system on your HUD of course)

Its part of the same reason why marines tend to be bright colours. You only need to hide the differences between grunts and leaders if you're actually afraid of being picked off. Wearing a big powered walking tank has its benefits

Because sergeants wearing a bright red helmet is also perfect for enemy snipers to pick them out and drop. Saves them the hassle of having to identify the commanding NCO's by body language.

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

Ceann Fine wrote:
It always cracked me up that chapters seemed to be okay with making their most important guys different to the plebs in the army

But thats how heraldry works... If everyone is wearing the same armour, how else do you tell them apart? (apart from the IFF system on your HUD of course)

Its part of the same reason why marines tend to be bright colours. You only need to hide the differences between grunts and leaders if you're actually afraid of being picked off. Wearing a big powered walking tank has its benefits

Because sergeants wearing a bright red helmet is also perfect for enemy snipers to pick them out and drop. Saves them the hassle of having to identify the commanding NCO's by body language.

Only if the enemy knows that a red helmet means its a sergeant or even understand the concept of a chain of command in the first place.

Also Marines deliberately parade themselves around as a shock tactic and rely on the effectiveness of their armour in lieu of the benefits of concealing their position and identity.

 Flinty wrote:

 Wyzilla wrote:

 Flinty wrote:

Ceann Fine wrote:
It always cracked me up that chapters seemed to be okay with making their most important guys different to the plebs in the army

But thats how heraldry works... If everyone is wearing the same armour, how else do you tell them apart? (apart from the IFF system on your HUD of course)

Its part of the same reason why marines tend to be bright colours. You only need to hide the differences between grunts and leaders if you're actually afraid of being picked off. Wearing a big powered walking tank has its benefits

Because sergeants wearing a bright red helmet is also perfect for enemy snipers to pick them out and drop. Saves them the hassle of having to identify the commanding NCO's by body language.

Only if the enemy knows that a red helmet means its a sergeant or even understand the concept of a chain of command in the first place.

Also Marines deliberately parade themselves around as a shock tactic and rely on the effectiveness of their armour in lieu of the benefits of concealing their position and identity.

That's great right up till they run into Necrons, Chaos Astartes, or Eldar.

A medic who saves time by not cleaning the gore from the arm he holds his wounded brethren with. That's brilliantly lazy!
And extremely bio-hazardous!
That's awesome!

Slight thread hijack here, but what would the pauldron trim of a Librarian be, specifically an Ultramarine one? I'm leaning more towards blue, but I've considered good to match the studio models, or possibly red, to fit in with the rest of the 3rd company, like Chaplains and Apothecaries attached to the company. But a Librarian wouldn't be permanently attached to a company.

 Nevelon wrote:
If you are going that old school, you mark your Salamanders with VIII Legion markings. 8th chapter of the 1st founding.



And to keep things vaguely on topic, you will note the old RT markings for Librarians in the pic.

Thanks for posting that. While I was around for RT, I wasn't playing, so I missed those sorts of things. (Other than whatever RT material showed up in the WDs I was buying for WHFB articles.)

And I agree with the above poster that marines should be battle brothers first, and specialists second.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
Slight thread hijack here, but what would the pauldron trim of a Librarian be, specifically an Ultramarine one? I'm leaning more towards blue, but I've considered good to match the studio models, or possibly red, to fit in with the rest of the 3rd company, like Chaplains and Apothecaries attached to the company. But a Librarian wouldn't be permanently attached to a company.

In a quick survey of materiel on the shelfs/online, it looks like either gold or the same blue as you use for the armor are the “official” options. You are correct that the company marking should not be used. Librarians are their own group in the chapter, and not company level assets.

 Nevelon wrote:

In a quick survey of materiel on the shelfs/online, it looks like either gold or the same blue as you use for the armor are the “official” options. You are correct that the company marking should not be used. Librarians are their own group in the chapter, and not company level assets.

Sounds like they aren't team players. Especially with all these new buffs that always target the psyker.

-Matt

 Nevelon wrote:

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
Slight thread hijack here, but what would the pauldron trim of a Librarian be, specifically an Ultramarine one? I'm leaning more towards blue, but I've considered good to match the studio models, or possibly red, to fit in with the rest of the 3rd company, like Chaplains and Apothecaries attached to the company. But a Librarian wouldn't be permanently attached to a company.

In a quick survey of materiel on the shelfs/online, it looks like either gold or the same blue as you use for the armor are the “official” options. You are correct that the company marking should not be used. Librarians are their own group in the chapter, and not company level assets.

Nevelon, as always, you have solved my conundrum.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:

Nevelon, as always, you have solved my conundrum.

No problem, glad to help.

A quick web image search didn’t turn up the Index Astartes article from 3rd, so I snapped a quick pic for reference here. While not as out of date as the old RT fluff, it shows that how librarians are done has been anything but stable over the years.



The Iron Hand is in what we would consider a modern scheme: full blue, chapter markings/color on his shoulder
The RG Lib in TDA is the opposite. He only has the blue and Lib insignia on his shoulder, otherwise as the rest of his battle brothers.
The WS and Sally Libs are just the arm/shoulder in blue, with the helmet matching for the one wearing it. Tabards are blue.

None of of blue pads use trim colors.

I used the AoBR captain for my "counts as" Libby and did his armor in chapter colors and his cloak in blue. As with my captains I gave him a back banner as well, but instead of company markings, I gave him librarious marking for my chapter

The main thing I have about Librarians who aren't blue is that they can be hard to quickly identify on the battlefield. Obviously, the yellow robe helps out if your army is already blue.

 Sir Samuel Buca wrote:
The main thing I have about Librarians who aren't blue is that they can be hard to quickly identify on the battlefield. Obviously, the yellow robe helps out if your army is already blue.

Isn't that a good thing?

Hell now I'm tempted to use dummies in any future Space Marine army I create to ensure the enemy never knows which squad to target with arty if he gets first turn.