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Figure this belongs more in the background than the General Discussion since it is fluff related. I'm new to the Blood Angels and I buy from eBay pretty often. This is the third lot (image link below) that I have seen of Blood Angels with black shoulder pads and red trim. In the current codex, that looks like a sign on Sergeants and other squad officers. It doesn't look like a Secondary Chapter or anything else here in 7th and quite frankly, I didn't give a toss about Blood Angels before Deathstorm and the 7th Edition codex turned them into what is easily my fastest growing army since I started the hobby. After buying two lots of black shoulder pad Blood Angels, from different sellers by the way, I have to ask why they're popping up like this as often as they do and the image link from a third separate seller. Is there background I'm not familiar with or is this a relic from pre-5th Edition?

For Reference: http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/1PIAAOSw2s1UvTnU/$_57.JPG

Aren't those Flesh Tearers?

Flesh Tearers have a lot more black. Backpack, helmets, pretty much everything shoulders and up.

Canonically it's always meant squad-level leaders.

When Mk7 armour first appeared in 1st edition only Sergeants had black pads.

In 2nd edition each 10-man squad had a Squad Leader who identical armour markings to the sergeant - the only difference was the back banner.

Over the years a fair few people have gotten confused into thinking they were used for other things for two reasons:
The first is that in Codex: Ultramarines it was specified that Squad Leader was the position, the term of address was The Veteran (as he was the most senior marine after the Sergeant), this little fluff snippet however was omitted from the Blood Angel codex (Angels of Death), but the Eavy Metal paint guide for the Blood Angel Tactical squad referred to the Squad Leader as 'The Veteran', which some people misinterpreted to mean ALL Veterans.

The second is that when GW released the metal Blood Angel Honour Guard squad in 3rd edition, Honour Guard squads could include a Sergeant, so the Eavy Metal guy painted up one of the minis as a Sergeant. The Sergeant model was then used on his own next to the unit entry in the 4th edition White Dwarf/PDF Codex, which didn't include Sergeants as an option in the unit so quite a few people took that to mean that all Honour Guard had black pads (even tho the army list entry had a non-black padded Honour Guard as well, and the uniform guide also showed Honour Guard with red pads..)