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Hi, I'm planning on using a heresy era chaplain as my night lords warband dark apostle but I'm not sure on the colour scheme! Did HH chaplains use their legion colour scheme or did they paint them black? Thanks

All the legions had a variety even inside there own different fleets.

Depends. If you wanted to keep the legion colours but black pads and skull helm could work.

 jhe90 wrote:
All the legions had a variety even inside there own different fleets.

Depends. If you wanted to keep the legion colours but black pads and skull helm could work.

I was actually thinking of going the black route I'm not in the mood to free hand more blue lightning

For all my special characters, chaplains, librarians, apothecaries, I'm going standard legion scheme, and their right shoulder pad is the units corresponding color.

So Apothecaries will have a white pad for example.

This was before the Imperial Cult. Were chaplains like violent councilors and therapists for the marines? Disciplinarians? I have noticed that in the novels I have read(and I have by far not read them all) the writers seem to avoid mentioning chaplains outside of Erebus.

Reading Deathfire right now, one of the Salamanders is explictly a Chaplain, skull helmet and all. Can't recall if he's described as black armoured or not though.

Very much a sort of adjutant, counsellor, disciplinarian type, although even by this point in the Heresy, there are seeds of the Imperial Faith beginning to take root, in the loyalist legions at least.

Given the NL MO, I could see their Chaplains being responsible for curbing the worst excesses (if they were self defeating for example, not just because they were unpleasant) and trying to stop Marines getting distracted from their objective flaying the local populace etc..

Col. Dash wrote:
This was before the Imperial Cult. Were chaplains like violent councilors and therapists for the marines? Disciplinarians? I have noticed that in the novels I have read(and I have by far not read them all) the writers seem to avoid mentioning chaplains outside of Erebus.

2nd Dark Angel book, one of the main characters is a Chaplain. He served as sort of an adjutant for the Lion.

 Spyro_Killer wrote:

 jhe90 wrote:
All the legions had a variety even inside there own different fleets.

Depends. If you wanted to keep the legion colours but black pads and skull helm could work.

I was actually thinking of going the black route I'm not in the mood to free hand more blue lightning

Ha, black to is a hard colour to do right.

Col. Dash wrote:
This was before the Imperial Cult. Were chaplains like violent councilors and therapists for the marines? Disciplinarians? I have noticed that in the novels I have read(and I have by far not read them all) the writers seem to avoid mentioning chaplains outside of Erebus.

The Chaplain role originates in the Imperial Heralds (original name of the XVII Legion), in that their method of warfare was to send out a single warrior armoured in black and wearing a skull helm (the Herald) who would approach the gates of the enemy and demand their surrender and acceptance of the Imperial Truth or be destroyed. When the enemy was brought to Compliance, either by surrendering to the skull helmed, black armoured warrior or from the might of the Legion itself being brought to bear, the XVII Legion would proceed to destroy all records of religious superstition, sorcery and other false beliefs from Old Night. You would either embrace the Imperial Truth, or you would burn on the pyre of false gods. Hence why the XVII Legion had also earned the nickname of the Iconoclasts.

When Lorgar was reunited with the Emperor, and given command of the XVII Legion, he expanded the role of the Herald into that of the Chaplain - a warrior priest who would see to the Legion's spiritual needs by leading ceremonial rites to ensure the moral strength of their fellow Battle Brothers. And as Lorgar's conviction in his beliefs of the God-Emperor grew, they were echoed around the Legion by the Chaplains. That would eventually lead to the censure of the now renamed Word Bearers, and the Emperor personally rebuking Lorgar for straying from the Imperial Truth which in turn led Lorgar to the worship of the Ruinous Powers.

After the Council of Nikaea, when The Emperor banned the use of Psykers in the Legions, Malcador expanded the use of Chaplains throughout the rest of the Legions as a way of 'enforcing' the Edict of Nikaea by the way of ensuring their fellow warrior's loyalty to both Primarch and Emperor. Of course Malcador was unaware of the true role of the Word Bearer Chaplains so the expansion of the Chaplain role from the Word Bearers to the rest of the Legions was darkly ironic especially since by the time of the Council of Nikaea, Lorgar and the Word Bearers had already embraced Chaos.

Col. Dash wrote:

The Chaplain role originates in the Imperial Heralds (original name of the XVII Legion), in that their method of warfare was to send out a single warrior armoured in black and wearing a skull helm (the Herald) who would approach the gates of the enemy and demand their surrender and acceptance of the Imperial Truth or be destroyed. When the enemy was brought to Compliance, either by surrendering to the skull helmed, black armoured warrior or from the might of the Legion itself being brought to bear, the XVII Legion would proceed to destroy all records of religious superstition, sorcery and other false beliefs from Old Night. You would either embrace the Imperial Truth, or you would burn on the pyre of false gods. Hence why the XVII Legion had also earned the nickname of the Iconoclasts.

When Lorgar was reunited with the Emperor, and given command of the XVII Legion, he expanded the role of the Herald into that of the Chaplain - a warrior priest who would see to the Legion's spiritual needs by leading ceremonial rites to ensure the moral strength of their fellow Battle Brothers. And as Lorgar's conviction in his beliefs of the God-Emperor grew, they were echoed around the Legion by the Chaplains. That would eventually lead to the censure of the now renamed Word Bearers, and the Emperor personally rebuking Lorgar for straying from the Imperial Truth which in turn led Lorgar to the worship of the Ruinous Powers.

After the Council of Nikaea, when The Emperor banned the use of Psykers in the Legions, Malcador expanded the use of Chaplains throughout the rest of the Legions as a way of 'enforcing' the Edict of Nikaea by the way of ensuring their fellow warrior's loyalty to both Primarch and Emperor. Of course Malcador was unaware of the true role of the Word Bearer Chaplains so the expansion of the Chaplain role from the Word Bearers to the rest of the Legions was darkly ironic especially since by the time of the Council of Nikaea, Lorgar and the Word Bearers had already embraced Chaos.

This is probably the best explanation for legion chaplains I have seen. Their role has changed a lot since then..

Indeed. The 'chaplain edict' was originally someone to monitor and enforce compliance with the Decree of Nikaea - i.e. shutting down the librarius and banning marines from using psyker powers.

Several legions also had other functions who sort-of-overlapped and either got rolled into the function of the chaplain or who must have been tagged by Malcador's boys as "these people will act as chaplains" - the Iron-Fathers, for example, existed pre-heresy, and the Blood Angels Wardens were there to watch for the Red Thirst (the red thirst existed pre-heresy, just not the black rage) and keep it covered up.

The only Chaplains to my knowledge that are explicitly said to be wearing black armour rather than legion colours are those of the Word Bearers, where it's specifically a reference to the black ash Monarchia became after the Ultramarines bombarded it to the ground.

This was before the Council of Nikea though, so it's entirely possible that the colour was carried across with the role to the other Legions after that.

I almost see them as ones who strictly enforce Legion regulations and law among their own and enact discipline when needed. Someone has to keep those young legionnaires in check. But then that makes me wonder, in the rules they grant Zealot. Is that 'fluffy' for 30k?