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OK, so the vast majority of the novels that I've read/listened to are from the Horus Heresy time frame where keeping armor looking brand new is a top priority of all of the Astartes. But, break to the 41st Millennium... yes, battle is going on a vast majority of the time, but armies do get pulled away from battles to help out with other battles. I'm currently reading Cadian Blood, several companies of the IG are pulled from one battle to another. Now, while traveling through the warp is drastically faster than traveling through real space, it still usually takes anywhere from weeks to months (depending on where the army currently is and where they are going). Seems that, during these times, the troops that spend time riding in troop transports or take crews would take time to clean them out on the inside as well as at least clean them on the outside. Seems they'd also have members of the mechanicus around to perform repairs (like removing rusted bolts and replacing them with new ones). So, before each major battle, it seems to me that vehicles and armor would probably have been repaired, repainted where necessary, and definitely washed. So, they should come out as close to the "showroom floor" as is possible during a couple of weeks in the warp.

So, why do we hobbyists weather the vehicles so much? I mean, it'd make sense from a fluff point of view if it were an ongoing campaign against the same enemy. But, against each new enemy, there's probably a couple of weeks in the warp where everything would be repaired and repainted.

just my $0.02. Curious what other people think.

SG

Vehicles do not take long to get dirty and beat up during a war. And plus we don't play a landfall mission every game so....

Shiney new vehicles and armor doesn't convey grimdark terribly well.

I depends on the race...

Eldar would get bonesingers to sing the dents out of the wraithbone, and grow new bits where they got blasted off.
IG will have to 'mend and make do' with what they have, with a couple of new items to replace those lost.
Space Marines have vaults of old kit to use while the damage is being repaired.
Orks just bolt on new panels.

Stuff is hard to keep clean, impossible actually, the second your not cleaning your kit in the field it gets all dirty and worn, marine armour would be a dirt magnet too

My friend commissioned me to paint his Deathwing army and he'd agree with the OP. I asked how he wanted the vehicles to look and he was taken aback by the thought of his force going into combat caked with mud or even worse with chipped paint!

Stylistically it is kinda funny when people go overboard (including GW) with the paint chipping. Certain parts of a tank will get chipping, dirt and rust while others not so much. Historical model painting guides are good, showing where the crew is likely wear paint off or for example how the hull may be darkened due to the hull gun mount.

Personally I like the grubbier look, so although my space marines have limited wear and a bit of dust my chaos and ork forces have plenty of grime and rust. It's all really a matter of personal taste.

My current project is 30K Emperor's Children, with an eye on keeping them legal as a 40K CSM force and including a few of the 40K units too.

Conceptually, they're technically post Heresy, fleeing from Terra after Horus' defeat. At this point Fulgrim has ascended, but as a Legion I have them in the process of falling, certainly past the point of no return but not completely corrupted yet.

My point of reference has them somewhat like a junky, more concerned with the next hit than with mundane considerations like hygiene, maintenance etc. Sure, if something's broken like a gun or an engine and it stops them indulging their bloodlust, it'll get sorted, but when it comes to stuff like paintwork and cosmetic damage, it is beneath their notice.

But Deathwing are explicitly designed to be teleported into battle rather than slogging through the mud. On the other hand Terminator armour would also quickly get chipped to hell by all the bullets bouncing off them.

Weathering looks cool. Also, from a fluff perspective there are plenty of wars in the 31st and 41st millennium that grind on for months or even years. Equipment is going to get filthy, and eventually the fighting will catch up and overtake the maintenance you can do.

I agree with the OP.

I paint my Imperial models 95% of the time in "landfall" condition. Spit and polish.

Chaos and Orks are another matter.

Sometimes wear fits well with the army, sometimes it doesn't.
I might be wrong but I always tend to imagine what the army does during their free time.
I imagine Ultramarines polishing and re-painting.
I imagine Dark Angels servicing their weapons but leaving their armour cleaning to the servitors.
I imagine the Space Wolves carving sagas into their arms and armour so I imagine it being fairly clean.
I imagine Orks don't give a damn.
I imagine Tyranids grooming themselves like a cricket but I also imagine them being gore soaked as soon as the fighting commences.

In my headcannon marines don't do just a single drop then go home, a marine intervention against Orks or Tau or Tyranids for example will see a company doing 2-6 drops a day for a week or three - each time chewing up a battalions worth of enemy before withdrawing. No point restoring the parade-ground finish when you're only going to mess it up in a couple of hours.

 Gashrog wrote:
In my headcannon marines don't do just a single drop then go home, a marine intervention against Orks or Tau or Tyranids for example will see a company doing 2-6 drops a day for a week or three - each time chewing up a battalions worth of enemy before withdrawing. No point restoring the parade-ground finish when you're only going to mess it up in a couple of hours.

Actually, when you put it that way, I can see the serfs cleaning up the marine's gear between each drop. Something about it just seems... right, to me.

I remember pretty well that in the DA fluff novels, the Astartes repainted their own armor after almost every battle. So for some chapters I guess there is not common to deploy in a fresh battle without proper maintenance.

Armory servitors have nothing better to do than meticulously maintain the Emperors war machine. They like it!

I think youre thinking about this a bit too much. Even well cleaned and maintained military equipment on a force that is freshly deployed to the battlefield is going to be weathered to some extent. Youre not going to get a piece of mitary equipment thats been around for more than a few months looking like its fresh off the showroom floor, ever.

It depends what you mean by weathering and it depends what point in a battle/war you are recreating on the tabletop.

Just off a dropship at the start of the campaign I would imagine most Imperial forces would look clean.

As the campaign progresses they would start to look "weathered" even if they were not involved in fighting. Half an hour off road and tracked vehicles would no longer be clean, the first 100m of off road driving if it has been raining heavily or there is a stream to cross etc and the tracks and the bits which get sprayed from the tracks will have a nice layer of "weathering" (as would everyone nearby)

Then the fighting starts. Artillery explosions throw dirt and debris over a wide area, dust and dirt from collapsing buildings spreads over a huge area downwind, men dive into cover without wondering if they will spoil the parade ground look.

My IG and Imperial Fists (siege specialists) are "weathered", my Tau much less so as in my head they incorporated dirt resistant technology in their armour - in part it shows how their technology is advancing, but also how effeminate they are compared to the IG - my Tyranids are painted mainly with washes and have no other "weathering" as they dont have tracked vehicles making a mess everywhere and dont care about individual survival enough to throw themselves in ditches etc when the shooting starts.

If my chapter of choice had been anything other than Imperial Fists I might have gone down the route of having unweathered duplicates - for actions in space or for the start of campaigns or drop-pod assaults etc. Fortunately for my wallet I dislike parade ground yellow as a colour on the tabletop.

 Gashrog wrote:
No point restoring the parade-ground finish when you're only going to mess it up in a couple of hours.

I can't disagree with you on that one. But, say that same chapter or company is called to a different battlefield. Again, it all depends on the distance between the current battlefield and the battlefield they are traveling to, but it could take up to a couple of weeks (anymore than that, and they'd probably try to get reinforcements from somewhere else instead) traveling in the warp. If I remember correctly, there's nothing to look at in the warp. It's just blackness... no stars, nothing. So, I have a feeling the troops that travel in Drop Pods, APCs, and Tanks would take the time to clean out the inside of their vehicles and probably wash the outside as well. And, I know there are members of the Mechanicus assisting Guard to Astartes, so anything that was broken or worn out could be fixed or replaced as long as parts were available. And, things like bolts and rivets (that we paint as rusted with rust running down the side of the vehicle) shouldn't be that difficult to come by.

Yes, there are battles that go on for months or even years while the same vehicles are being used. But, when traveling for long periods of time in the warp between worlds (which happened a lot during 30K especially), I have a feeling servitors and other members of the Mechanicus would be doing their best to make the vehicles that were manufactured by the companies on their home world look as good as is possible when they entered the battlefield on the new world.

SG

 ServiceGames wrote:

 Gashrog wrote:
No point restoring the parade-ground finish when you're only going to mess it up in a couple of hours.

I can't disagree with you on that one. But, say that same chapter or company is called to a different battlefield. Again, it all depends on the distance between the current battlefield and the battlefield they are traveling to, but it could take up to a couple of weeks (anymore than that, and they'd probably try to get reinforcements from somewhere else instead) traveling in the warp. If I remember correctly, there's nothing to look at in the warp. It's just blackness... no stars, nothing. So, I have a feeling the troops that travel in Drop Pods, APCs, and Tanks would take the time to clean out the inside of their vehicles and probably wash the outside as well. And, I know there are members of the Mechanicus assisting Guard to Astartes, so anything that was broken or worn out could be fixed or replaced as long as parts were available. And, things like bolts and rivets (that we paint as rusted with rust running down the side of the vehicle) shouldn't be that difficult to come by.

Yes, there are battles that go on for months or even years while the same vehicles are being used. But, when traveling for long periods of time in the warp between worlds (which happened a lot during 30K especially), I have a feeling servitors and other members of the Mechanicus would be doing their best to make the vehicles that were manufactured by the companies on their home world look as good as is possible when they entered the battlefield on the new world.

SG

You are so off course in your assumption, this is the imperium we're talking about. They have send ice world troops to a desert battle, closest battle group are usually not the immediately reinforcement. The IG, especially the veterans do not give a gak about shiny armor, they're more concern about efficiency in their vehicle, ammo etc. The only time they shine their armor and really clean their vehicle is before a scheduled parade or inspection. That goes the same with marines, they care more about daily training than maintenance, that duty is for the tech marine and serfs, I'm not saying they don't care, just not top of their priority.

It depends on how you want to portray your army. If you want to portray them as troops being in the middle of a bloody campaign, you should use weathering.
If you want to portray them as troops coming fresh of the dropship, then do not use weathering.

Of course, most Chaos and Ork armies could always use weathering, as they don't do much maintenance.

Personally, most of armies do not have much weathering, as I like to imagine my Imperial troops to have decent standards of maintenance and cleanliness, even while on campaign. Especially Space Marines with their sacred equipment. For my Chaos renegades and Orks I use rust and paint chipping effects quite liberally, but no dirt or such.
The reason that I do not like dirt weathering is that it does not make sense fluffwise in some scenarios or battlefields. Like a space scenario or an ice-world themed battlefield.

Fluffwise, I think heavy weathering only makes sense for armies that for some reason have not been able to do maintenance for a long time.

I think weathering can reflect the tone of your army.

For me, Eldar, Space Marines, and Tau are all armies I want with factory-finish presentations.

IG, Covens, and Orks have a much more visceral feel to the army, so muck and injury fit their theme much better.

On campaign you only have so maitience time.

Paint work is a low second to keeping all your armour and tanks combat effective

I thibk i remember reading somewhere about marines being meticulous about cleaning and painting their armour to appease the machine spirit. Though chapters do vary, Blood Angel would keep their army nice and shiny as much as possible, while Flesh Tearers almost never repair their armour fully, they like to keep their battle scars.

Rihgu wrote:

 Gashrog wrote:
In my headcannon marines don't do just a single drop then go home, a marine intervention against Orks or Tau or Tyranids for example will see a company doing 2-6 drops a day for a week or three - each time chewing up a battalions worth of enemy before withdrawing. No point restoring the parade-ground finish when you're only going to mess it up in a couple of hours.

Actually, when you put it that way, I can see the serfs cleaning up the marine's gear between each drop. Something about it just seems... right, to me.

But how much time do they have to do it. Marines don't need to sleep, but equally in most imperial war zones there will never be enough marines to go round. Time on campaign painting their armour is time that cannot be spent smashing xenos and/or heretics. I see Marines on campaign as constantly being picked up, resting just long enough to resupply and repair stuff that is knackered before getting dropped into the next crisis zone. When the pace drops off such that they have time to paint their armour between missions then it's probably time they left the fighting to the mortals and hopped off to the next war zone.

Having said that, every drop bay in Marine ships could just have a spray booth that they walk through to get to the drop pods A couple minutes of scooshing and they are good to go. It's not like they have to worry about volatiles getting into their lungs. Hmm... maybe all marine transport vehicles should have a layer of tacky paint applied to represent this issue...

My vehicles are all dirtied down to a greater or lesser extent, because you pick up dirt very quickly. Exceptions are Eldar and Tau.

 Dakka Wolf wrote:
Sometimes wear fits well with the army, sometimes it doesn't.
I might be wrong but I always tend to imagine what the army does during their free time.
I imagine Ultramarines polishing and re-painting.
I imagine Dark Angels servicing their weapons but leaving their armour cleaning to the servitors.
I imagine the Space Wolves carving sagas into their arms and armour so I imagine it being fairly clean.
I imagine Orks don't give a damn.
I imagine Tyranids grooming themselves like a cricket but I also imagine them being gore soaked as soon as the fighting commences.

And the guardsmen are waiting for a rain...

---

On topic, I also do weathering and battle damage to my tanks and sometimes even guardsmen (chipped armor, torn clothes). It looks odd for the guard to deploy clean and shiny vehicles, looking as they rolled out of factory a mere hour ago. I understand that Eldar and Tau vehicles should be more clean, but I would add a dust, or something like that.

Weathering also seems near mandatory for Skitarri in general as they just point and send legions of dudes who just march tirelessly to their destinations/targets.

I wish I could do some weathering on mine to show they marched their way to each battle but alas, I'm not very skilled at painting so I'd likely do a real mess of it...and not in a good way!

The Skitarii march? What? Madness! Even the relentless pace of enhanced cyborg soldiery can't beat the speed of armoured vehicles, surely?

Once I painted a really awesome Bretonnian longbowman with mud and stained clothes and all sorts.

Then years later I repainted him, then decided it was terrible now, then cut him up and made him an undead archer. I still mourn my original decision to overpaint what was probably the best figure I'd painted until about 2003.

 Gen.Steiner wrote:
The Skitarii march? What? Madness! Even the relentless pace of enhanced cyborg soldiery can't beat the speed of armoured vehicles, surely?

Sometimes there aren't enough vehicles to transport all the Skitarii. Or they are too close to the front lines to be put in APCs. The Mechanicus would often prioritise the vehicle over Skitarii.

I actually need to learn to weather my stuff so it can look more orky. But like most people have said, it makes it look like a long, protracted battle. It just looks weird going into a fight with a clean and polished tank- that's more for military parades.