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So, as we all know, SM sergeants and officers used to wear backpack banners. This practice however looks kind of dead as of late, with banner toppers being instead put directly on backpack to denote the more important models. Or is that just my imagination? On what models, you'd say, the banners should be these days? Alternatively, what they should be used for instead?

I’ve found I just use banner tops more these day from a purely practical standpoint. They fit better into cases to cary to the FLGS.

I think the last back banner I built/painted was my counts-as Cato Sicarius, as he’s the kind of arrogant prick who is going to fly his personal colors 100% of the time.

I've seen loads of people use them as objective markers etc.

 OneManNoodles wrote:
I've seen loads of people use them as objective markers etc.

That’s what I do, I’m super annoyed at ones like the Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard who have the hand molded one that I have to go in and chip out with a knife.

I always thought they looked tacky and made it harder to store minis.

They might be useful for decorating buildings or as mentioned, they can be used for objectives. It’d be neat to make Dawn of War style markers

I think they faded out due to both practicality (makes the model very hard to store in figure case slots, which usually only fit a SM sized model from head to toe), and a painting one, to avoid having to do any sort of freehanding which can take a B+ tabletop level miniature to either an A grade quality or drag it down to a C- shoddy looking job.

I still use some as wolf standards for my Grey Hunters. I have drilled a hole in the backpack and placed a long metal pin in the pole. So I can plug them in whenever needed.

 Deadshot wrote:
I think they faded out due to both practicality (makes the model very hard to store in figure case slots, which usually only fit a SM sized model from head to toe), and a painting one, to avoid having to do any sort of freehanding which can take a B+ tabletop level miniature to either an A grade quality or drag it down to a C- shoddy looking job.

I think these are the reasons as well.

I'm probably in the minority nowadays, but I love banners! It might be nostalgia, but as I started the hobby with Space Marines in the 3rd ed. everyone from sergeant and up had a banner. I got out of the hobby at the start of the 4th ed. (I think the banners started to vanish around that time, incidentally), and when I got back to it at the 8th, there were not many banners around. I do like the plastic banners over paper ones that we had to do back in the day, but I'm kinda on the fence about the sculpted detail in many of the banners. Kills some of the creativity, but then again is easier to paint/use decals for a simple design.

Another reason that I like the banners is that their just so absurd from the modern military point of view, and so 40K! Utterly impractical but so cool. I'll be sticking a banner for each of my sergeants and other characters (minus Chaplains and Librarians), and the Venerable Dreadnought as well, when I get to it.

Banners are the part of 40k I miss the most, actually. This is where I used to see the most freehand work and some armies really benefited from the uniqueness that comes with it.

I just painted up a Grey Knights army that had 5 of them plus heraldry on the vehicles. I still use the banners from the CSM kit with my Black Legion army. My Raptors and Terminators have magnets in the backpacks allowing me to add banner poles as needed.

So they never went away, they are just disfavored. Some of us still use them.

 mcmattila wrote:

 Deadshot wrote:
I think they faded out due to both practicality (makes the model very hard to store in figure case slots, which usually only fit a SM sized model from head to toe), and a painting one, to avoid having to do any sort of freehanding which can take a B+ tabletop level miniature to either an A grade quality or drag it down to a C- shoddy looking job.

I think these are the reasons as well.

I'm probably in the minority nowadays, but I love banners! It might be nostalgia, but as I started the hobby with Space Marines in the 3rd ed. everyone from sergeant and up had a banner. I got out of the hobby at the start of the 4th ed. (I think the banners started to vanish around that time, incidentally), and when I got back to it at the 8th, there were not many banners around. I do like the plastic banners over paper ones that we had to do back in the day, but I'm kinda on the fence about the sculpted detail in many of the banners. Kills some of the creativity, but then again is easier to paint/use decals for a simple design.

Another reason that I like the banners is that their just so absurd from the modern military point of view, and so 40K! Utterly impractical but so cool. I'll be sticking a banner for each of my sergeants and other characters (minus Chaplains and Librarians), and the Venerable Dreadnought as well, when I get to it.

The "modern military" point is an interesting one, as I feel 40k is slowly being moved towards practicality. The hate for say, SM flyers, melee combat in a guns heavy sci-fi universe, and the introduction of Lieutenants to the SM forces, for example, are all examples that make 40k more "practical in a modern military viewpoint" but less 40k. I think the phasing out of banners are an example of that too.

 Deadshot wrote:
The "modern military" point is an interesting one, as I feel 40k is slowly being moved towards practicality. The hate for say, SM flyers, melee combat in a guns heavy sci-fi universe, and the introduction of Lieutenants to the SM forces, for example, are all examples that make 40k more "practical in a modern military viewpoint" but less 40k. I think the phasing out of banners are an example of that too.

Not to mention the Primaris Marines losing much of the ornament bling that was going on in especially the standard veteran Marines. You might be on to something here! But thankfully many kits still come with banners, trinkets and other silly stuff, so you can build your models just the way you like it, be it more reasonable or more impractical.