Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Getting into Grey Knights and I'm wondering how people are modeling or painting certain units so they can tell them apart? For example Terminators and Paladins, what do you do to to make them different? What about certain characters like Grand Masters, Champions and Brother-Captains that are Kitbashed?

One good piece of advice I ever read was "it's your army, not someone else's"

Do it however you like, there are absolutely no rules. If you want to stick rigidly to the grey knights theme just make small changes such as a different colour kneepad, helmet, marking etc so it's a subtle indicator rather than a blindly obvious one.

For example my Urban Tau have different colour centre circles in their chest armour to show their rank, but because it's usually hidden by a gun, it remains subtle.

I kit bashed paladins with deathwing, so they have robes and storm shields (not allowed I know, but they look great and I did them when force swords increased the invuln save, so fit ok). I used sanguinary guard legs and winged jet packs for interceptors. Also used the BaC praetor to make a grand master. Only ever had compliments on them, especially the interceptors.

 Supershandy wrote:
One good piece of advice I ever read was "it's your army, not someone else's"

Do it however you like, there are absolutely no rules.

True enough, but I think he's asking for ideas.

Grey Knights are super ornate and that takes up a lot of the room you'd normally use for squad differentiation, but one easy choice is the color of their force weapons. It's easy to spot from most angles and is a significant color block on the model, so you'll always be able to tell which squad is which.

 John Prins wrote:

 Supershandy wrote:
One good piece of advice I ever read was "it's your army, not someone else's"

Do it however you like, there are absolutely no rules.

True enough, but I think he's asking for ideas.

Grey Knights are super ornate and that takes up a lot of the room you'd normally use for squad differentiation, but one easy choice is the color of their force weapons. It's easy to spot from most angles and is a significant color block on the model, so you'll always be able to tell which squad is which.

I like the sound of that idea! Standard blueish for basic terminators, something interesting like glowing red or purple for paladins. Certainly easy to spot. And for me easier to spot than any conversion I might make!

Alternatively go for fluff breach and paint armour in different colour(wonder how hard chrome might be...) like gold. Albeit that breaks fluff a bit but hey your army, your fluff. I like how with sons of horus justicaerin are dead easy to differentiate from legion catahprachtii terminators thanks to their black armour vs sea green.

 John Prins wrote:

 Supershandy wrote:
One good piece of advice I ever read was "it's your army, not someone else's"

Do it however you like, there are absolutely no rules.

True enough, but I think he's asking for ideas.

Grey Knights are super ornate and that takes up a lot of the room you'd normally use for squad differentiation, but one easy choice is the color of their force weapons. It's easy to spot from most angles and is a significant color block on the model, so you'll always be able to tell which squad is which.

Oh I get that he's asking for ideas, force weapons are a good idea to do, it's also the reason why I mentioned about doing subtle changes like kneecaps, shoulder pads (Maybe even the shoulder trim instead....)

The Terminator kit does have specific helmets for Paladins and regular GKT. The Paladins get the ones with the convex faceplates, while Terminators get the ones with the concave ones slanted backwards. Likewise, the tilt plates (shields on the shoulder pads) come in two varieties, ornate for Paladins and plain for GKT.

So Termies look like this:


And Paladins look like this:


Which is enough of a difference, but when I played GK, I also painted the Paladin helmets gold and left the Terminator ones silver, which helped make them a bit more recognisable at a glance.

Pretty tiny difference. Had to check several times to notice. Would definitely use painting to reinforce it

tneva82 wrote:
Pretty tiny difference. Had to check several times to notice. Would definitely use painting to reinforce it

Agreed, those helmets look way too similar.

As Paradigm said, painting the helmets a different colour would be a good idea or just something, somewhere (an arm, leg, chest plate etc) where you can tell the difference at a glance.

The little shield looking things they wear, use the more ornate sculpted ones for paladins, and the more plain ones for regular terminators

Of course, there is NOTHING saying you have to use the silver armor all over look you always see.

I've seen some really gorgeous works that were mostly Inquisition Black with trim. For a while mine were Gold with a Red wash (borrowed the idea from David Eddings for a theme) and now they're Alpha Legion Metallic Blue with Silver trim.

Its your model do what you want.

Personally think it would be cool to do them in white red and silver as a accent (so reverse GK)

in a quartered scheme.

or otherwise the simple helmet color change and possible super charged force weapon might be cool to(so simple glow on basic ones but super bright osl or crystal sheen nmm on the palidans or what not)