Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hi, I'm new to 40k so this might be a dumb question. Is there any clever ways of distinguishing between squads? If I'm running multiple large units of cultists for instance, it's easy to lose track of who is in which squad. Do you give each squad a slightly different paint scheme or something?!?
Thanks.

Greetings Abaddon303,
you've run into a problem that has blighted imperial guard players since time immemorial (and indeed anyone else who runs large blobs of infantry). The trick with cultists is that they don't have to look uniform, which gives you great scope to paint them differently. Maybe a certain spot colour to tie them in as separate squads, or a very obvious distinction would be to paint the robes and shawls in different colours - you could paint them according to their patron deity, if they have one. If you're running them as slaanesh or tzeentch then you actually have a lot to play with, because both encompass a broad range of colours - blue, yellow, pink, purple, and so on.

Alternatively, I think I've seen someone else on dakka use special bases with coloured clips to denote different guardsman squads. You could also use a common chaos symbol (if you feel up to a bit of freehand) to quite literally 'mark' each cultist blob.

Hope this helps!

Different paint jobs/squad markings are obviously the best way to do it, but it's not always practical.

A common trick is to have all members of a squad face the same direction: you could have all the model from squad A look forward, while all the models from squad B look to one side, or even face backward. It doesn't look as good (and quite odd to be fair), but it's pretty effective, especially if they have long guns (in this case you just point all the guns in the same direction)

I own a catachan force and don´t have any problems distinguishing the squads. Soldiers of a unit wear the same coloured headband:

HQ (Colonel): Red
HQ (Lt.): Purple
HQ (Lt.): Orange

Grunts: Dark Blue
Grunt: Blue
Grunts: Yellow
Grunts: Pink

Veterans: Green

Specialists: White
Specialists: Turquoise

HWT (Mortars, HB, Autocannon, Lascannon): Red

My way of doing this is clumping my squads together closely, and giving the squads proper spacing to other squads. That way, even a colour blind opponent can tell the squads apart.

Any permanent solution can be tricky if you're not sure on final configurations (i.e. are you running your 30 cultists as 3x10? 2x15? etc.). "Uniformed" units (Guard, Space Marines) can have squad markings on their shoulderpads easily enough, but again, is "Squad 1" always going to have a plasma gun?

One way I keep thinking of for such situations is a little accent on the rim of the base - going full-on with a solid colour works but looks a bit clashy, but just a stripe of colour (at the back, as that's where you're going to be looking most of the time) should work.
I haven't yet had the opportunity to try it out though, so YMMV.

paint the edge of the bases in different colours

I was trying to avoid painting a permanent distinction of possible because as you say, configurations will change a lot. I've actually just thought about coloured counters, say 26mm diameter I could blue tac to the bases. I think that should make quite a subtle coloured ring around the base?

One really easy thing to do that is real simple is to simply base them differently. Even if it is just a dofferent wash over the same basing like cracked earth, they will still be distinct.

I'll parrot the problem with long-term indentifyers.
I painted all my cultists with coloured base rims (6x squads of 15), but then 8th dropped and they're no longer in the same configuration, so now they're all jumbled together anyways and I'll probably just repaint them with black rims at some point. Same deal goes for coloured clothings or other marks. In a few years, who knows how cultist squads will best be outfitted and the markings wont matter anymore, then you're stuck with a bunch of multicoloured dudes in the same squad.

In 8th, model spacing is much less of a specific issue from 7th (where blasts and templates would obliterate hordes), so just be conscious of grouping all your models together with enough space between units to separate them. And when you've got some spare moments on your opponents turn, just count your models to make sure you havnt accidentally moved some models from one unit to another (opponents are 99% cool with just moving the model back to it's original unit if you tell them why)

Back when I played foot Guard and blobbed up I used different coloured shoulder pads to indicate the various different squads. Same with the four squads of veterans I ran.

Yes this does require a bit of thinking and possibly playtesting beforehand to ensure you are hapy with that configuration I found it made distinguising units on the tabletop much much easier.

I did have to repaint some shoulder pads and convert a few weapons but only a handful out of ~100 guardsmen.

My friend has used skin color as his distinguishing mark. It worked because he made sure the units whose color had the largest contrast were placed next to each other while slighter variations were not. This also solved his problem when he wanted them in one unit (he used them in 4 units of 15 or 2 of 30), as it wasn't a big deal to have such variation. He used four main colors for his skin. The light elf flesh, the cadian tan, a dark brown I remember as Skrag brown, and because he was nurgle, a putrid green. All were washed and such but still clear on the table. You could add different colors by your background (the Salamanders coal black coloring would be another good contrast).
I don't remember too many that didn't have skin showing, but this may have been the older models...

I use colour on the bases, so a red line with an orange highlight through it for red squad etc.

edwardmyst wrote:
My friend has used skin color as his distinguishing mark. It worked because he made sure the units whose color had the largest contrast were placed next to each other while slighter variations were not. This also solved his problem when he wanted them in one unit (he used them in 4 units of 15 or 2 of 30), as it wasn't a big deal to have such variation. He used four main colors for his skin. The light elf flesh, the cadian tan, a dark brown I remember as Skrag brown, and because he was nurgle, a putrid green. All were washed and such but still clear on the table. You could add different colors by your background (the Salamanders coal black coloring would be another good contrast).
I don't remember too many that didn't have skin showing, but this may have been the older models...

"My friend has used skin color as his distinguishing mark"

Colored stickers (dots). Attach to bases on the back side. Lets you change the size of your units if you need to.

paint them to look nice and uniform, including the base, then on the base apply a marking for the squad - I use a red square for one, a blue square for another, green for another etc.

I find picking colours that are easily told apart at a glance under poor lighting helps (so use a Fluro green, magic blue and blood red typically), command models tend to get black or gold depending on the base rim colour, others can have white, yellow, etc.

My IG where that wasn't enough gain a basic form of heraldry with the base colour being the platoon - then halved, quartered etc with typically white or black.

Do yourself a favour, mirror this on the front of the base so your opponent can see it as this can save a lot of time.


then if you also want unit marking on models go ahead, but the base is "gospel" and easy to see at a glance, without distracting from the models.

Its also a heck of a lot easier to repaint if needed

DIFFERENT BASE RIM COLOUR.

Apply different accents to the bases of different squads.

Squad 1 - a pebble
Squad 2 - a bush
Squad 3 - a branch

Relatively easy to change if needed

I use decals for different platoons, then a written # under the bases to differentiate squads.

 McMagnus Mindbullets wrote:
DIFFERENT BASE RIM COLOUR.

this is what I do

Coloured base rims, shoulder pads and helms per squad.

One, or more of above to tell between.

The best way I know of is buy a large pack of different coloured loom bands(small bright coloured elastic bands) or equivalent. You can then stretch them over your model so it lies around its feet. They usual remain slack on anything 25mm based, so avoids damaging the paint. You then have a cheap, easy to identify, reusable way of denoting squads, while still being able to change squad composition for different lists.

I used to carry a few extra pencils on me. If I needed to separate squads I'd throw it down in between the squads. I got the idea while throwing food on the conveyer belt at the grocery store.

Guard player here.

I solved this problem simply. I just paint left shoulder pads in a different color.
Black for all command staff
Blue, Green, Red, Beige, Brown for Infantry Squads etc...

For cultists, you can just paint their coats or head covers in different colors. Or maybe paint a colored stripe on their base. If you are good with the brush, giving each squad a unique symbol would help while looking good too.

If you want an interchangeable solution, drill a tiny hole into the base and put differently colored pins into them. If you need to change the configuration, just change the pins.

I too use Small but bright colored stripe of paint on the back of the base in the opposite direction that the mini is facing. If you need to change squad composition just scrape it off with a razor blade and repaint it. It works great and doesn’t mess up the overall aesthetic by having completely different bases all across the army.

On Marines I decal them with appropriate squad markings.

My Marines I differentiate with decals indicating their squad type and number. It would be heresy to ignore the dictates of the Codex, after all.

My Guardsmen (who are Steel Legion, so they lack a good shoulder pad to paint numbers on) I differentiate with dots on the back of their bases. Each squad has a different number of dots.

My Eldar have different-colored antennae, but that hardly ever comes up as usually have plenty of space between my units.

I paint the side bits of my bases different colours for my squads. Doesn't look pretty if you want nicer-looking bases, though.

In the past I've painted a simple Roman numeral on the sides of the bases, usually in cardinal points around the base. Super easy, and let's me number my squads.

My cultist army has squad numbers painted on the rims of the bases.
My space marines have squad numbers (and squad type icons) on their pauldrons.
My Grey Knight power armour models have different coloured right pauldrons (red/black/silver)
My Grey Knight terminator armour models have different colours on the heraldic shields.
My Dark Angels have different coloured tactical squad marks on their pauldrons.
My berzerkers squads each have a set weapon type or some other feature - one squad has chainaxes, one has chainglaives, one has bare torsos and one has mark IV armour mixed in. I then distinguish the berzerkers from havocs by giving the havocs black legs and torsos (where the berzerkers are red), and then the Chosen have gun metal trim where the others all have bone trim. It sounds complex, but is actually very clear on the tabletop. My opponent can see that squads are clearly distinct, even without understanding what the scheme is.
My necrons have no system for demarcating squads, because I really didn't feel like it fitted the fluff. I think I'll paint numbers on the base rims, as I did with the cultists.

The one good thing about having index army like orks is no worry about having to have same chapter/whatever. So my orks, started in 7th ed, are representing Ghazkkhull's great waagh with many clans(in good old tradition of 2nd edition). so I have for boyz 4 clans each 1 unit ATM. That makes it dirt easy!

Alas clan rules will make this tricky :( I'm planning on doing base rims for that. And something more to identify shoota/choppa guys quickly. Now it's annoying and slow to look at weapons.