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I currently own two units of plague marines, one painted up in the usual colors, pale green with bronze trim and the other painted up with black as the main color and pale green being the trim. I think that different color schemes could work well to differentiate different units of the same model on the tabletop, however, I do worry that some people may not appreciate the color scheme of my army not being fully consistent. What I want to know is, how would you feel playing against these plague marines?

Perfectly fine!

In fact having squads with distinct color schemes will make them easier to discern if multiple units get into a muddle.

 FoxHybrid wrote:
I currently own two units of plague marines, one painted up in the usual colors, pale green with bronze trim and the other painted up with black as the main color and pale green being the trim. I think that different color schemes could work well to differentiate different units of the same model on the tabletop, however, I do worry that some people may not appreciate the color scheme of my army not being fully consistent. What I want to know is, how would you feel playing against these plague marines?

Works better for some armies, less logical to others. SOB/loyal marines for example benefit from more uniform look though you can go for some variation.

DG however is one I can see having more variation and chaos in general.

Upside is easy to identify in game.

Flipside it's trickier to sort in groups when same bolter guy isn't good enough for any squad and if you want to change squad composition...Just wait 'till GW changes rules and points completely

tneva82 wrote:

 FoxHybrid wrote:
I currently own two units of plague marines, one painted up in the usual colors, pale green with bronze trim and the other painted up with black as the main color and pale green being the trim. I think that different color schemes could work well to differentiate different units of the same model on the tabletop, however, I do worry that some people may not appreciate the color scheme of my army not being fully consistent. What I want to know is, how would you feel playing against these plague marines?

Works better for some armies, less logical to others. SOB/loyal marines for example benefit from more uniform look though you can go for some variation.

DG however is one I can see having more variation and chaos in general.

Upside is easy to identify in game.

Flipside it's trickier to sort in groups when same bolter guy isn't good enough for any squad and if you want to change squad composition...Just wait 'till GW changes rules and points completely

I Think its' not a BAD thing. The darker the "green" the more expert/veteran they are, with black being extremely veteran and virulent - I mean one of the signs of ebola is puking or... otherwise "moving" black (dead) blood. As long as you can come up with a logically and fluffy consistent explanation Yay!

I wouldn't care at all.
What colors, how you paint, IF you paint.... those are your concerns, not mine.
I do appreciate easy ways to differentiate Squads once things get crowded together in melee though.

My Death Guard has an older Camouflage paint scheme on some units as well as the newer 8th Edition paint scheme because painting camouflage was a pain and with the newer models I simply switched.
The newer models are also more than a head taller than the old, but that's GWs fault and CSM are lucky we didn't get Primaris rubbish to explain the difference .
I'm using these side by side, sometimes even mixed within one unit, fits perfectly for a Chaos army.

Squad differentiation has rarely been an issue for me, but once place where it is a problem is Tyranids. My solution was to make subtle but clear differences in different squads that allow me to blend them or break them up as needed.

My CSM have something similar where I use different highlights and styles that can be grouped in different ways.

Since Chaos is, you know, chaotic, having an eclectic squad isn't a problem.

My Death guard army started a long time ago so my units all look different to each other as my painting style and colour scheme evolved. A year or so ago I saw a rusty orange scheme that really caught my eye so one of my units is very different to the others as I tried to replicate it.

Absolutely fine by me.

Basing them the same way will pull them together as looking like the same army, if that's a goal.

Honestly the only time this ever became an issue is when GW allowed you to soup armies together from different subfactions freely and we had marine armies all of one colour rocking up with different chapters confusing things.


The recent editions have reigned that in a LOT from what it was (a good thing, in my view).


In the end if you've a single core visual style and then vary a bit for different squads its a good thing. It lets you run them close together and work out who is in which unit very clearly.

 FoxHybrid wrote:
I currently own two units of plague marines, one painted up in the usual colors, pale green with bronze trim and the other painted up with black as the main color and pale green being the trim. I think that different color schemes could work well to differentiate different units of the same model on the tabletop, however, I do worry that some people may not appreciate the color scheme of my army not being fully consistent. What I want to know is, how would you feel playing against these plague marines?

wouldn’t care.

About the only way id see this being problematic if you have a chaos terminators or something similarly and you try to intentionally confuse your opponent based on those pint schemes.

Fundamentally? Your models, your choice.

All I ask (and it doesn’t sound like a problem here) is to be able to readily identify the unit from across the board.

More an issue for proxy/converted armies, but still a generally solid rule of thumb.

I think it’s a good idea. I mostly paint and therefore don’t want to keep painting the same colour scheme as it gets boring, but I want enough units to play if I have the opportunity. As long as your rules are consistent then what’s the problem. I think it works really well in CSM armies that are made up of warbands and there’s lots of other fluffy reasons why a IG regiment might be made up of squads for different regiments. And with the introduction of the rough riders and the guy on the golden horse there’s less uniformity anyway.

I think the only time it might start to feel silly is with an army like ultramarines and having a squad of raven wing bikes but as long as you’d tick to the ultramarines rules for bikes then what’s the issue

As long as you make clear which unit is which and what subfaction rules you are using it'll be cool.

My suggestion is to paint a ring of color around the base of the model. So you can have red rings and blue rings for example. This way you don't have to disrupt your paint scheme but it would be easy enough to tell which model belongs in which unit.

Necron back in the 5th? ed book had a nifty way to show different units. You would paint a part of the Tomb World symbol on the shoulder piece. Different units would get another part of the symbol or a reflected part on the other shoulder. Warriors had the most basic, Immortals would be slightly more complex, and higher up units like Lytchguard would have even more complex.

For SM I've seen people use the knee gaurds or arms to show different units depending on which company they are from. For CSM you could do just about anything really

In general I don't mind how you paint your minis, and prefer to see painted on the tabletop than unpainted.

I do feel that if the paint schemes can lead to confusion by someone not familiar with the models of that faction then it should be avoided.

For example, assuming the rest of your Death Guard are painted pale green but one squad is black, and you decide to play a game allying in a detachment of Black Legion, who are all painted black, then at a glance the black Death Guard could be confused with the Black Legion, so efforts should be made to ensure that which is which is clear for your opponent.

 FoxHybrid wrote:
I currently own two units of plague marines, one painted up in the usual colors, pale green with bronze trim and the other painted up with black as the main color and pale green being the trim. I think that different color schemes could work well to differentiate different units of the same model on the tabletop, however, I do worry that some people may not appreciate the color scheme of my army not being fully consistent. What I want to know is, how would you feel playing against these plague marines?

Ehhh....sounds fine to me. Chaos Marines vary in both veterency and allegiance. It's easily justifiable that this explains the different color schemes. Maybe one unit is a recent convert to Nurgle, and another has been around since the Heresy. Or they follow different aspects of the Plague God. As long as you keep each unit separate, I see no problem.

My custom marine chapter has a variety of colors - the original models (RTB01's) are a puke green, some are white, some are medium green, some are dark green.

In reality, it's because I had access to different green (or white) base sprays over the years, so I couldn't get a consistent color. They all have a green-gold-white color scheme of sort, though.

In world reason is that my guys start off dark green (Dark Angels offshoot, and "green"/untested troops), and their coloration gets lighter until it is white by the time they're veterans and in the 1st company (like the Deathwing).

So, I wouldn't see any problem myself to a similar gradient scheme done by others - and even the official Dark Angels have different colors for the Ravenwing and Deathwing.

Personally I don't think that matters for any army, there can always be fluff reasons for it, but for any Chaos army, personally I don't know why you would paint them all with the same color scheme. Their chaos, they are not worried about looking uniform, only spreading, well, chaos.

 FoxHybrid wrote:
I currently own two units of plague marines, one painted up in the usual colors, pale green with bronze trim and the other painted up with black as the main color and pale green being the trim. I think that different color schemes could work well to differentiate different units of the same model on the tabletop, however, I do worry that some people may not appreciate the color scheme of my army not being fully consistent. What I want to know is, how would you feel playing against these plague marines?

Coloring one shoulder pad slightly differently would have done the trick. Other than that variations of a colour would have been fine too. Using drastic different colours on the squads would look like a clown show.

It’s your army. Your lore, your decision. Who cares what other people think or care. Do what makes your little heart happy.