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Over the past few years I have seen a lot of "variant" paint schemes for 40k and to a lesser extent HH.

I have seen homages to movies/anime/comics as I've seen "UN SPACY"/Macross Tau, Avengers Knights, and Space Marines painted as different incarnations of Iron Man.

I've also seen Pastels and Neon Tyranids and every other eye shearing color used in models.

None of which are recommended by GW and their Grimdark esthetic.

Do you think it's cool to play with, or against, armies that have made their Cadians dress like they are extras in Starship Troopers? Or do you prefer armies select from the more "historically pleasing" 40k universe?

Yes.

It is cool and adds variety to the game. Color schemes should be entirely up to the player.

Also there is literally nothing in the lore against pastel and neon Tyranids, which BTW are amazing.

As long as it’s in good taste, I’m good with anything.

I've seen some posts online where nontraditional paint schemes haven't been well received in HH, but I've yet to see that in "real life."

Have you ever witnessed someone refusing to play due to someone's paint scheme?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Have you ever witnessed someone refusing to play due to someone's paint scheme?

No, but the local bar was set quite low. Coke cans were acceptable stand-ins for dreadnoughts, base-coat was painted, limbs were optional for non-special weapon carrying models.

To this day in oldhammer games a pair of space crusade dreadnoughts crudely painted with the legio astorum scheme see frequent use.

We do also have properly painted models but don't limit our games to our collections.

I want a fluff/lore reason for it. Gimme that, and I'll play anyone.

-STS

There are only two things that would keep me from playing your army when it comes to color schemes:

A fully black basecoated army that prevents me from seeing what the heck anything is from less than a foot away.

A color scheme so hideous that it hurts my eyes to look at it.

I play 40K to have fun, not to torture myself.

slade the sniper wrote:
I want a fluff/lore reason for it. Gimme that, and I'll play anyone.

-STS

So a hard "no" to the Robotech/Gundam Tau armies (and the like) ?

 Lathe Biosas wrote:
Over the past few years I have seen a lot of "variant" paint schemes for 40k and to a lesser extent HH.

I have seen homages to movies/anime/comics as I've seen "UN SPACY"/Macross Tau, Avengers Knights, and Space Marines painted as different incarnations of Iron Man.

I've also seen Pastels and Neon Tyranids and every other eye shearing color used in models.

None of which are recommended by GW and their Grimdark esthetic.

Do you think it's cool to play with, or against, armies that have made their Cadians dress like they are extras in Starship Troopers? Or do you prefer armies select from the more "historically pleasing" 40k universe?

It's absolutely fine. Really, the only exceptions I can think of is if your paintjob endorses hatespeech, like with Nazi imagery or something.

Short of that, the only caring I do is to say stuff like "Dude, your minis look cool!"

Yes, of course.

It's just painting, not modeling for advantage. I can think of only a few cases where it would pose a very mild and seldom deliberate WYSIWYG issue, such as making different unit types harder to tell apart in an army that fights as a ragtag coalition (e.g. CSM).

Aside from SM chapters and other subfactions (some of which no longer have their own rules anyway), I view the color scheme of GW's demo models as a suggestion, not the baseline. I've even seen Orks that had red skin instead of green, which can be explained by mutation and the general weirdness of their race. I thought it was a bold and interesting choice. There are color schemes that wouldn't make much sense, like Catachans wearing orange, but I hardly see how it would actively bother an opponent. At most, it makes the army harder to resell, which is really only the problem of the one who painted them this way.

Most of my armies have a nontraditional scheme. Dark blue and grey Cadians. Black, pink and blue Drukhari. Sisters of Battle in bone-colored armor. Grey and purple Custodians. Only my long-sold White Scars had the traditional white scheme, and that was because they were fluffed as explicitly the White Scars (who also had their own subfaction rules at the time) and not just a counts-as chapter with similar tactics.

.

Show me anywhere, in any codex, supplement, novel, etc. where any faction/army is depicted as sprue grey. Because 80% of all armies I've ever played against are this color.

I have no care in the world what color your army is if its painted. Playing against a fully painted army is a rare opportunity.

 Jayden63 wrote:
Show me anywhere, in any codex, supplement, novel, etc. where any faction/army is depicted as sprue grey. Because 80% of all armies I've ever played against are this color.

I have no care in the world what color your army is if its painted. Playing against a fully painted army is a rare opportunity.

So if I were to paint my army "Spue Grey" no problem.
But if I just left it as it came, ie Spue Grey, & saved myself the effort/$, then you'd suddenly have an issue?

My memories of Rogue Trader schemes, including Space Marine camo are too fond for me to object.

Painting your models is a form of art. And so a form of artistic expression. Even if I don’t like the end result, that doesn’t change.

It’s only when you get to your Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin modern art guff that I’d beg to differ.

But your models, your scheme. Go for it.

So long as you're not being deliberately offensive and/or "edgelord-y" about it (i.e. swastikas outside of a historical WW2 German army, anatomically correct naked people, etc.), I say paint your army however you like. I myself have a couple of slow-grow armies based on things outside the 40k/AoS universes (Leagues of Votann painted to look like the Grineer from Warframe, Lumineth Realm-Lords painted to look like the nations from Avatar: The Last Airbender), so I kind of expect others to do the same occasionally. Ultimately, they're your models, do what makes you happy.

Especially in 7th some players would dual use their 40K SM for HH, at least online some people disliked seeing 40K armies directly ported to 30K, especially in cases were the Legions had changed their scheme between the two.

I don't care how, or even if, you paint your stuff. That's your business.
And you'd have try extremely hard to offend me.
And no, putting Swatika's on your space Nazis won't do it. Because 1) if you intend them to be Space Nazis I'll already know what you intend with or without the symbol. 2) I'm always down for a game of blowing up Nazis.

I care even less about your views concerning my own unpainted/merely base coated stuff. Things will get painted at my own pace & nothing is going to change that.
But if you have an issue with the fact that something of mine isn't painted/finished? Then here, you do it. Go ahead, I'll let you paint my stuff. I'm not going to pay you anything to do so though....
I've never had anyone take me up on that offer.

I'd rather see original colour schemes and conversions.

Honestly, the generic studio schemes are the last thing I go for on my own minis.


But...

I don't like crossover or joke armies, I like the immersion that comes from models and terrain belonging to the setting.

"None of which are recommended by GW and their Grimdark esthetic."

The strongest I've seen has been "this is OUR version"... I like different and original.. necron flowers were brilliant!

Cyel wrote:
I'd rather see original colour schemes and conversions.

I agree with this. A well painted custom scheme is my favorite thing to see.

Personally, anything goes in 40k. It is a wacky, open ended setting where everything is possible.

For HH I would expect both sides to show up with a theme that has been mentioned somewhere in a book, being more of a historical setting.

ccs wrote:
And no, putting Swatika's on your space Nazis won't do it.

I think it says something about someone being willing to take the time to paint swastikas on models. And unless they're historically-accurate literal Nazis, what it says isn't very good. If you show up to a game of 40k and I see a swastika, I'm out.

As for nudity, etc... I'm gonna say it's situational.

Other than that, go crazy with your scheme.

At the risk of potentially derailing the topic, Nazis are in the stage of leaving living memory and going from the vilest evil to just another genocidal group of donkey-caves, not fundamentally different from the many other historical genocidal groups of donkey-caves.

And that's just on the western culture, in eastern culture they were never really such a big deal so a Japanese player with a swastika army probably doesn't say much.

On objectionable symbols?

Just remember that a legitimate response can include a tu’penny one up the bracket.

Be careful where you place your edge, or someone may blunt it.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On objectionable symbols?

Just remember that a legitimate response can include a tu’penny one up the bracket.

Be careful where you place your edge, or someone may blunt it.

I had to Google that, but I agree. And sadly, Nazis aren't nearly as far in the rear-view mirror as some would like to think.

Well, Swastikas would be forbidden to paint on your fantasy models over here, but if you showed up with a whole Ork army of the awesome Wehrmacht style Kromlech Orks I wouldn't complain.