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Can anyone point me towards the origin of the chapter markings in this photo? Like the black flames, yellow/blue helmets and what not? Just anymore info would be great, I'm thinking of starting up a new chapter of marines and I love the aesthetics in the art. Especially the giant yellow powerfist.

It's the box cover art from the 2nd edition boxed starter. They're Blood Angels as far as I know and the variation on paint was pretty common back in RT/2nd edition days. It was middle-late 2nd edition when they started releasing codices for paint schemes and starting to solidify how they presented Space Marine chapters.

Prior to that a Space Marine chapter often (logically) painted their armour to match their environment, much in the way real soldiers would. So this is really just someone's take on Blood Angels with an altered theme. Nothing stopping you from doing the same.

Old RT books would show camouflaged Dark Angels and tigre striped Space Wolves etc. Camouflage and paint schemes were very fast and loose in the early days. I saw someone convert and paint the lead figure from this piece of art somewhere too.

This was the 2nd edition artwork; things were a lot less fixed back then, and the artwork a lot less controlled.

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Warhammer_40,000_(2nd_Edition)

They were just BA in a fun and artistic representation of the army at the time.

Check out other images from the era

http://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Mark_Gibbons - my personal fav artist of the time.

The marines around him are 3rd Company Blood Angels... but it also looks like Captain Tycho's banner is flying as well.

This guy is a captain. I spent a lot of time searching for who he is in fact.

When they released this special edition miniature a few years ago, my least favorite BL author - James Swallow, wrote a little intro piece for it that, as I should have guessed, was a major let-down in all regards. It doesn't give him a name, it gets the company banners wrong and it is just otherwise bad. ...the only notables from that piece are that apparently an Imperial Fist gifted him the yellow bolter, and a previous BA chapter master gave him the sword called "challenger".

The old Blood Angels had a lot of yellow though so I wouldn't get caught up on that too much.

Yellow and Blue helmets are still used today in the Blood Angels fyi.

Thanks for the responses gents really appreciate it.

I don't think they ever actually had a story for this guy originally, until the awful Swallow piece decades later which should be expunged... but if you try to put the pieces together...

The best guess is that he is Captain Machiavi of the 3rd Company, who succeeded Captain Tycho in the 3rd War for Armageddon.

Back in 1st edition Captains were an optional extra, but a Lieutenant was mandatory.

Blood Angel Lieutenants were denoted by yellow shoulder pads.

When 2nd edition dropped Lieutenants vanished from the rules and the background.

I'm convinced this guy was painted to be Tycho's Lieutenant before the decision was made to drop them from the game.

 Gashrog wrote:
Back in 1st edition Captains were an optional extra, but a Lieutenant was mandatory.

Blood Angel Lieutenants were denoted by yellow shoulder pads.

When 2nd edition dropped Lieutenants vanished from the rules and the background.

I'm convinced this guy was painted to be Tycho's Lieutenant before the decision was made to drop them from the game.

It would make sense, which further points to him being Machiavi, who took over for Tycho.

I'm currently cleaning my model for priming as we speak.

Also working on 2nd Company Captain Aphael in the old school Blanche style:

 Gunzhard wrote:
I don't think they ever actually had a story for this guy originally, until the awful Swallow piece decades later which should be expunged... but if you try to put the pieces together...

The best guess is that he is Captain Machiavi of the 3rd Company, who succeeded Captain Tycho in the 3rd War for Armageddon.

This artwork was done before Tycho was a character. Tycho was created during one of the early battle reports in White Dwarf for 2nd edition. His name might have been created prior, but his background was developed from that battle report when the Ork weirdboy fried him.


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If he is anybody it would be Tycho's predecessor. Since Tycho was newly commissioned.

I'm still gonna go with Machiavi.

Yes I realize it's highly possible that Tycho was not even conceived at the time of this artwork, and again I don't think they ever had any story for this Captain/LT (I searched every old source I could find, even in Epic - and I still have this 2nd ed box)... and fyi the old BA captains did also have a half yellow shoulder pad, though he could still be an LT.

But it's Tycho's banner flying in the artwork that makes me think (or want to accept) it's his successor Machiavi, also given the (ret-conned) timelines of the Armageddon Wars. Check out this photo, you can see it more clearly above the other 2 banners in the upper right corner:

Machiavi was the company champion during Armageddon or at least he was during the word of the silent king short story. So he is more than likely with Tycho.

I think this is meant to be a veteran sergeant with the yellow actually meant to be gold. I'm also sure that his right knee shows the Archangels symbol. Veterans in 2nd edition were assigned to squads from the first company and came out of your HQ allowance.

There are a few flaws in that theory. One is that Veteran Sergeants were then-as-now denoted by black pads not gold, also he has personal heraldry in lieu of company marking which marks him as an officer. I'm fairly certain the kneepad markings weren't codified as squad markings until Codex: Angels of Death came along a few years later, prior to that they were just honour markings.