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I am only 1/4 done with having a combat patrol sized Guard army and Im already deciding on what type of army im looking for paint scheme wise then I reviewed the models I already painted and its currently a mix of different regiment colors, Ive got an infantry squad painted in the valhallan colors,a cadian style heavy weapons team and Im currently browsing for some Mordian models to paint in their own respective colors.

My question is what does the community think if i stroll up in a casual game with these models all mixed up with different regiment paint schemes As long as I clarify what doctrine I choose before the game begins? What about in competitive tournaments? Is it required to have a uniform paint scheme across the whole army?

I think in a casual environment it should not be a problem, as long as it is not confusing. Ideally if all use the same doctrine.

It might still be a bit confusing as colour schemes are generally the easiest way for people to know what they're playing against i.e. dark blue Space Marines with red hands are likely to be Crimson Fists, yellow Aeldari with blue helms are likely to be Iyanden, etc.
If you make it clear then it shouldn't be an issue in a casual setting but in a competitive environment might raise some eyebrows. In the end, you never know since it will be down to your opponent as to whether or not they care enough to make a complaint.

Since rules-wise you are now only really allowed one doctrine/chapter in an army (at least by faction) it shouldn't be a problem.

Back in the days when you could take one per detachment there was a preference that say all the Cadians should be red, all the Catachans should be blue etc, so your opponent has a vague idea what is what. (Hopefully you get what I mean).

But if you just say "okay, everything is Cadian" then... well, that's it. Or at least to my brain anyway.

Tournaments can have different rules so the usual answer is to check with the organiser - but I think as per the above, most shouldn't care.

Tyel wrote:
Since rules-wise you are now only really allowed one doctrine/chapter in an army (at least by faction) it shouldn't be a problem.

That's Tournament Matched Play rules, not regular 40k rules. It's important to make the distinction.

Outside of Historicals? Other than liking/disliking someone's paint jobs I don't care what colors you paint your minis. Or even if they're painted....

Now if your running multiple subsections at the same time? Then I expect some way to easily tell wich units belong to wich subsections.
Paint might be 1 answer, but another reasonable answer is a token that says "Cadia" etc next to each unit.

ccs wrote:
Outside of Historicals? Other than liking/disliking someone's paint jobs I don't care what colors you paint your minis. Or even if they're painted....

Now if your running multiple subsections at the same time? Then I expect some way to easily tell wich units belong to wich subsections.
Paint might be 1 answer, but another reasonable answer is a token that says "Cadia" etc next to each unit.

This. Make clear what models are what, but so long as it’s clear, you’ll be fine.

 Gert wrote:

Tyel wrote:
Since rules-wise you are now only really allowed one doctrine/chapter in an army (at least by faction) it shouldn't be a problem.

That's Tournament Matched Play rules, not regular 40k rules. It's important to make the distinction.

And in practice virtually everybody plays by those rules unless specifically agreed otherwise.

tneva82 wrote:

And in practice virtually everybody plays by those rules unless specifically agreed otherwise.

Which is why it's important to be specific so people stop using bloody tournament rules for casual gaming. It doesn't matter what your local scene considers to be the rules because your local scene doesn't decide what the rules are for everyone else.

If your entire army is using one sub-faction rule it's not likely to be a problem that the models are painted differently. The only problems you might encounter related to painting are when identically painted models are representing different sub-factions.

Just don't go to the London GT:



Yikes...

They need to go further. Only allowed to have paint schemes like the ones on the boxes.

Yuck, large scale competitive warhammer was a mistake.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just don't go to the London GT:



Yikes...

It's probably the result of the fact that GW often has tanks and such without bases so having part of it open or closed makes a difference to its game footprint. Whilst if it were on a base it wouldn't have any impact.

The rest is likely due to real-line-of-sight. Where, again, the actual shape of the model can influence things.

The whole "GW box art" is likely their best attempt to find standard to work with without having to write an individual one for each model - which would be more accurate but likely argued over all the time.



It's a pain but its part of the issue of taking a game that, as its core, is designed for casual play and putting it into a formal competitive system. Heck GW doesn't even keep things like base sizes consistent between releases nor publish any up to date article for any game system on them (AoS has one but its not been updated in ages)

Well OP, while I have enough Guardsmen for a full army each of several regiments, based on what I've painted of them thus far, what I bring when gaming looks like it came out of Arma III

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just don't go to the London GT:



Yikes...

Who the would want to play in that environment??

Your Codex allows options xyz but the box art only shows x - so that's what you must play (and have modeled)??

I seem to recall the London GT doing a lot of gakky stuff the last time round but there are so many GTs and they all have gakky behaviour it's easy to get mixed up.

ccs wrote:
Who the would want to play in that environment??

LGT / Warhammer Tournaments are trying their best to be the worst.

This is the full screenshot (they've taken the rules pack down now):


Apparently the main issue they're trying to fix is Harlie players using shorter flying bases and leaving the crew off to make their skimmers smaller targets.

 Overread wrote:
It's a pain but...

Wow. You're even trying to excuse this.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Overread wrote:
It's a pain but...

Wow. You're even trying to excuse this.

I'm looking for the logical reasoning behind it yes.

Like it or not the size of the base of a model impacts its performance during a game. It's why we should have a base size chart formally so that there's a clear guideline and so that GW doesn't just randomly change them on a whim - or at least without being noticed.

It doesn't mean I fully agree with the GT - if a model has moving parts which can be posed either way then they should be allowed either way. eg a drop pod could be open or closed; then pressure put on GW to put them on a base that has the full open mode covered so that, open or closed, it has the same game impact because its on the same base size etc....




I've also never agreed with the whole "armies must be the subfaction they are painted as" because outside of marines no one really knows other schemes for forces. Furthermore some are just daft - eg Daughters of Khain in AoS is basically different shades of red bar one where the theme is the same save for the skin colour being dark brown as opposed to pastel white. It also gives "unique schemes" an unfair advantage in the player being able to use whatever subarmy rules they want.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just don't go to the London GT:



Yikes...

Make sure you put those Russ sponsons on upside down and Valkyrie aerofoils on backwards then. Don't forget the blu tack either! Don't want to be breaking any rules there!

 Overread wrote:

I've also never agreed with the whole "armies must be the subfaction they are painted as" because outside of marines no one really knows other schemes for forces. Furthermore some are just daft - eg Daughters of Khain in AoS is basically different shades of red bar one where the theme is the same save for the skin colour being dark brown as opposed to pastel white. It also gives "unique schemes" an unfair advantage in the player being able to use whatever subarmy rules they want.

Which faction scheme? Yeah, it is stupid to be too restrictive on paint.

 Grimtuff wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Just don't go to the London GT:



Yikes...

Make sure you put those Russ sponsons on upside down and Valkyrie aerofoils on backwards then. Don't forget the blu tack either! Don't want to be breaking any rules there!

It doesn’t seem to specify which box though. I’m sure there is a way to abuse that idea somehow. Like use the 2nd edition box art. Bonus points for taking the original box with you to the comp. Or find a box with the models you are using are in the background but modelled wildly different to the actual box they come in.

Had the same issue when painting my Orkz from several editions ago when Clans were just color schemes.

 Gert wrote:
It might still be a bit confusing as colour schemes are generally the easiest way for people to know what they're playing against i.e. dark blue Space Marines with red hands are likely to be Crimson Fists, yellow Aeldari with blue helms are likely to be Iyanden, etc.
If you make it clear then it shouldn't be an issue in a casual setting but in a competitive environment might raise some eyebrows. In the end, you never know since it will be down to your opponent as to whether or not they care enough to make a complaint.

Copout answer. No one cares if your Blues marines are green, you tell them they are XYZ rules. Its not like the 100's of players throughout the year knows my armies colors being Xenos, if they can handle it with the other 1/2 of the games armies they can handle it with marines.

I think the marines thing comes up more so because Marine subfactions are different to every other army. Other army subfactions are purely about half a paragraph of alternative rules and perhaps a few unit restrictions/allocation changes.

Marine subfactions have entire codex of their own, entire unique models of their own and subfactions within themselves.
It creates a more messy scene because they also share a lot of common core models where the only difference might be a shoulderpad and paint.


I think a lot of these art/paint rules also came around when GW started to move away from the idea of most armies being one single faction/subfaction to where taking allied detachments became not just more common but almost the norm. As a result paint became more important because you could have two or three different forces on the table and remembering which was in which was important.




In the end I never liked the whole open allied detachment approach because it felt very min-max and very messy. I also think paint shouldn't matter.

Broadly speaking too, as said, no one really knows official schemes anyway. Even marines, with decades of marketing behind them, people really onyl have a casual concept of the colours for a handful of the biggest chapters. Even then its not a specific colour scheme, its basically "is it mostly red/blue/white/green/black"

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Copout answer. No one cares if your Blues marines are green, you tell them they are XYZ rules. Its not like the 100's of players throughout the year knows my armies colors being Xenos, if they can handle it with the other 1/2 of the games armies they can handle it with marines.

You obviously didn't read the rest of my post where I said making it clear causes no problems. Two seconds of "Yeah I'm using X Chapter Tactics/Reg Doctrines/Craftworld" and there's no issue. Better to be helpful than just assume people can read your mind no?

Casual play you will be fine. Ask the TO of the events you plan to attend. Most tournaments are fine as long as you're only playing 1 subfaction in your army, so there can't be any confusion. Some GW sponsored events require a paint scheme to match the faction you're playing. So I can't play my black templars as blood angels for example. This is mostly bigger events in the UK.