3rd Squad, 4th Company

Or Why Do I Paint All The Chest Eagles And Pauldron Edges Yellow? Part I

Veteran Sergeant Peliel, Squad Standard Bearer Areli, Squad Support Gunner Thaddeus

Plasma Cannon Gunner Nahum

Hello phantasmal readers, the blog has been filled with some non-GW content lately that's frankly far faster and easier to produce, but today we return to our first order of business - painted Dark Angels miniatures!  Also today we will answer the question on the minds of everyone (all four of you) reading this blog: why do my Dark Angels look so colorful?  The answers will involve a deep dive into the history of space marine paint schemes and some pictures of my most recently completed unit Squad Peliel of the fourth company.

Ahhh, the days when Inquisitors fought alongside the abhuman rather than hunting them...

As mentioned in the post that started the blog many months ago, I first fell into the worlds of all things Games Workshop via the magic of White Dwarf magazine.  In the same way that they do today, many comic book stores in the late 80's did side business as gaming and hobby stores.  Collecting comics in earnest from the age of ten or so, I was always trying to find ways to get my parents to take me to one of the local comic shops so I could burn through whatever allowance money I had managed to save from week to week.  My father was always a value oriented guy and would always steer me in the direction of the best deals in the comic store, especially if he was the one paying for the outing to the comic store.  As a result I became very familiar with the discount racks or bins of the three comic stores in my area growing up.   On these half off or more shelves I found my first and subsequent issues of WD.  After #122 blew my mind with possibilities of the worlds contained inside I began seeking out WD issues any time I was in a comic store.  White Dwarf #129, pictured above, was either the third or fourth issue I came across, but due to the amount 40K content inside this was the most formative issue of WD I ever read in my teen years.  Even after reading the magazine for the last thirty years, I would call this my favorite issue of WD ever and that is mainly due to one article:

I would love to get a large framed print of that picture of the Emperor...

My favorite was always the Mark V Heresy suit, but I had to wait years for FW to make it widely available as resin miniatures.

Over the course of seven pages, Rick Priestly simultaneously laid out the history of the development of space marine armour as well as the history of the imperium in a level of depth that had never been delineated in this much rich detail or with this coherent a timeline before this article.  This article was one of the bridges between the loose descriptions of the Astartes that were contained in the Rogue Trader book and the more clearly defined and characterized space marine chapters of 2nd edition 40K.

The legendary white power armoured Deathwing is pictured above in the short time before they were erased from canon...

As a teen first getting into 40K I spent hours imagining the meanings of the campaign markings and honour badges illustrated in the color plates with the article.  It wasn't the first time GW did this, but it was the first time they had done it in such detail.  Accompanying the color plates was three pages of text giving detailed descriptions of uniform colors and campaign badges for the three most prominent (at the time) chapters: Ultramarines, Dark Angels, and Blood Angels.  The text also laid out the color schemes for each company in the chapter, which at that time was painted on both the edges of the pauldrons and the chest eagles.

There was also a wide range of variation discussed such as simpler or no unit markings for situations where it was necessary to disguise ranks, or on a long campaign when armour had been repaired or replaced.  In retrospect I'm sure this was to allow players to incorporate their already painted miniatures or account for painters varying levels of skill.  While the company color variations were eventually dropped for the Dark Angels chapter, the colors laid out in the article for the Ultramarines have been used in codex after codex and are still the guide for company markings in codex adherent chapters today.  The color plates also featured the first appearance of the Death Company color scheme for the Blood Angels even though it wasn't labeled as such just yet.

I think this article and 'Eavy Metal page was the first sighting of long lasting unit designation ideas, white helmets for Ultramarines of the 1st company, red helmets for Ultramarine sergeants...

For me this article cemented my love of the game and space marines far more than the Rogue Trader rule book had.  In the thirty years since, I have read this article countless times and it still inspires my love of the whole 40K universe.  So as usual, that is the long story as to why my Dark Angels look different from the guides GW has been printing since 3rd edition.  They're my own personal way of incorporating my own love of my Oldhammer origins into the game, even on the more modern elements of my current army like the primaris marines I have been adding in since the advent of 8th edition.  So tune into the next installment to see the actual pictures of Squad Peliel and an explanation of what colors I used to paint them, you know like most normal WH40K blogs do :-)


White Dwarf pages scans courtesy of the excellent Recalcitrant Daze blog.