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Many color changes happened during the Horus Heresy. Five/Six Traitor Legions changed their colors. After the Battle of Terra, the Custodes dyed their red sashes black and the Sons of Horus painted their armor black to mourn the demises of their respective leaders.


The Dark Angels are the only Loyalist Legion to have made significant changes to their color scheme. From black to an (somewhat unappealing) spinach green.

Before the White Scars, the Dark Angels were the original basis for traitors within a Loyalist Legion. Given their intense shame at the actions of the Fallen, is that the reason for their color change? To whitewash (or "greenwash") the past?

Just as black is associated with mourning for the Black Legion and the Custodes, is green somehow associated with shame in the Dark Angels' culture?

It's in memory of the forests of Caliban.

Whatever the reason, it was a horrible mistake.

OF COURSE IT IS NOT RELATED TO FALLEN!
Green is the Emprah's favourite color

ThatSwellFella wrote:
OF COURSE IT IS NOT RELATED TO FALLEN!
Green is the Emprah's favourite color

Calm down, this isn't 1D4Chan

It allowed the Loyalists on Caliban to distinguish themselves from the Traitors under Luther. After the Heresy it continued as a way of remembering the verdant forests of Caliban, a show of knightly mourning.

I believe the Black Legion painted their armor black in shame of Horus's failure.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I believe the Black Legion painted their armor black in shame of Horus's failure.

According to the wikia it is the color of mourning and vengeance. And also because GW loves using the adjective "Black".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Farseer Anath'lan wrote:
It allowed the Loyalists on Caliban to distinguish themselves from the Traitors under Luther. After the Heresy it continued as a way of remembering the verdant forests of Caliban, a show of knightly mourning.

So they repainted their armour immediately after Meir Astelan launched his attack on the returning Loyalists?

Apparently, the Calibanite DAs were the first to start painting their armour green. But after the Saroshi incident, the Lion abandoned his fellow Calibanites, including Luther, and led the Terran DAs for the remainder of the Great Crusade.

In the wake of Luther's treachery, all of the Terran DAs were Loyalists, hence it seems odd that they'd want to emulate the traitors in painting all of their armor green. And although Caliban was destroyed, you might say that they were not too attached to it in the first place.

My apologies, by Calabanite Marines I meant the marines that were stationed on Caliban. They were a mix of Terran and Calibanites.

The Loyalists on Caliban painted their armour green because they needed to distinguish themselves from the Traitors, and the green had significance to them. The Loyalists who attacked Caliban painted their armour green to honour the Loyalists on Caliban who had resisted Luther, and because the black was 'tainted'.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
I believe the Black Legion painted their armor black in shame of Horus's failure.

Black is the colour of mourning, shame, vengeance. In modern media it is also associated with power and evil. Black also happens to be the colour of the Luna Wolves/Sons of Horus Justaerin First Company Terminators. Abaddon was First Captain and Commander of the Justaerin. As the new leader he chose a scheme he had connections with.

The DA probably did not change it due to the fallen. Remember the Ravenwing and Deathwing (Who are Fallen hunters) were black armoured. Deathwing changed to honour the dead on one spectacularly failed mission where a lot of Termies died honourably. The RW still remain black.

I think it was those little imps that follow around their ICs, they told them to. The imps are the secret fashion advisors to the Lion's legion.

I'm the most recent hh short audio it's because the calabanites painted there armour green and the terrans had black

In the 'real' world, the change from black to green was supposedly due to the release of the Space Marine (precursor to Epic 40000) game. The black didn't work as well on the 6mm models, so they changed to dark green.

The fluff that was added to explain it originally just said that they repainted after the Heresy. The suggestion over the intervening years is that the armour was repainted for the assault on Caliban so that they could distinguish loyalist from Fallen, but I don't recall off the top of my head if that was ever actually stated specifically or just something that everyone has assumed.

Either way, there's no guarantee that they'll stick to that when they cover that part of the story in the HH novels.