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Decided to read up on some Red Scorpions lore and was surprised to find a little foot note about how they've been recorded using camouflage in the field before, apparently as depicted in the codex. Is there source material anywhere that shows the different kinds of camouflage the codex includes?

In the old RT compendium there are a few pages of codex approved camo schemes.

It’s old lore, but it’s there.

If I remember correctly most chapters use camouflage as appropriate in the early fluff and I don’t think this was ever specifically retconned. In the RT compendium they had examples of chapters in regular colours, urban camo, deeet camo, desert camo etc.

This has a lot of the images from the old RT compendium:


https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Space_Marines_Camouflage_Schemes

Nice link, Aash - if anything that backs up the camouflage being a thing beyond Rogue Trader. That Executioners mini is at least 3rd ed, and there's examples of the later "template Marine" being used for some of the schemes.

I've mentioned it before but I'm sure that Jervis Johnson jokingly said something along the lines of 'Marines don't need camouflage!' ,and everybody seems to have taken that as lore.
I've done camo schemes on marines and so far no-one has fainted because of this!

Camouflaged astartes were absolutely a thing post-rogue trader, as the IA Badab War books show.
But as was said, almost every chapter does approve of the use of camouflage for special circumstances, with the possible exception being Imperial Fists and a handful of their successors.

jareddm wrote:
almost every chapter does approve of the use of camouflage for special circumstances, with the possible exception being Imperial Fists and a handful of their successors.

Y'know, I was trying to find the quote for this and couldn't find it - but isn't there a quote from (I want to say) Rogal Dorn addressing it? Something about "let them use camouflage while I stand tall in my shiny armour, I want them to know I'm coming"?

Imperial Armour 9: Badab War 1 shows several Chapters in variant camo schemes
- Raptors with tundra camo (their green armour might be camo as well, considering they've also been depicted with blue/yellow armour)
- Howling Griffons with night world camo
Imperial Armour 2 (1st ed.) shows multiple vehicles and support weapons in camo
- Raptors in desert camo
- Executioners in disruptive scheme
- There's also a black Dark Angels Razorback, which might be camo?

When the current Land Raider model was released, one of the colour schemes shown in White Dwarf 245 (UK) was a night world Imperial Fists scheme.

jareddm wrote:
Camouflaged astartes were absolutely a thing post-rogue trader, as the IA Badab War books show.
But as was said, almost every chapter does approve of the use of camouflage for special circumstances, with the possible exception being Imperial Fists and a handful of their successors.

The Codex Astartes canonically has a sections on approved color schemes and camouflage. But its been pretty buried over the years, and there were never many 'real world' details.
GW basically decided it liked recognizable color schemes, but left the idea uncensored for people to do what they liked.

Personally, I really like the idea of campaign and environment specific colors. As nice as it is for armies to be immediately recognizable, I hate the color=rules idea, and the sheer monotony of a lot of armies.

- There's also a black Dark Angels Razorback, which might be camo?

Nah, just the real, un-retconned color scheme.

The quote for me has always been "Camouflage is the color of cowardice". But that was a Carab Culln quote, so it might just be a Red Scorpions thing.

 RaptorusRex wrote:
The quote for me has always been "Camouflage is the color of cowardice". But that was a Carab Culln quote, so it might just be a Red Scorpions thing.

"Camouflage is the colour of fear... I have no need to hide from my foes... I have no fear of death. My colours I wear openly, they proclaim louder than any words, "I am proud to live - I am proud to die"."

Which is somewhat ironic given the Red Scorpions frequently use camo (such as the Badab War).