Choosing Paint Schemes

Morning all.

This month I've set myself the task of painting up my Chaos Space Marines from the Dark Vengeance boxset. However, I've set myself this task and not really decided on a colour scheme for the army which is inevitably going to hold me back until I do decide - just like last month when I faffed about trying to decide which green to use for my loyalist Dark Angels.

The intention is, I'm going to list a few schemes and images here to try and get a decision made by the end of the post and make a start on painting them tonight.

Option #1 - Black Legion

At the moment I have a converted Abaddon painted up in Black Legion colours, along with a Daemon Prince in BL armour which would be both HQ slots filled up with BL oriented characters.

The paint scheme is also different enough from my other armies to stand out and be a bit different for me to paint. I don't currently have any armies that are black armoured, with the exception of Ravenwing elements of my Dark Angels.

I also want to stray away from too many specialised elements of the Chaos army like the cult or marked troops. I don't generally like mixing and matching, but Black Legion would give me the option to add a few Khorne related bits in to go with the Daemons.

Pros:

• Get to use existing models from my collection.
• Open to expanding to God-specific units due to nature of Black Legion.

Cons:

• Black armour isn't any quicker to paint, as I have to repaint it after everything else to get a clean coat from stray paint elsewhere.
• Bit of a boring paint scheme compared to other Chaos Legions. And I HATE painting Gold. Can never seem to get a decent coat.
• To me, doesn't really suit using Cultists.

Option #2 - Alpha Legion

I like the idea of the Alpha Legion and an emphasis on Cultists and seeing the Alpha Legion marines as more in a Chosen / Veteran role. However, I can't really imagine the Alpha Legion using some of the things I would like to - such as Forgefiends, Terminators and Raptors, nor would I have much use for Abaddon and my Daemon Prince.

I really enjoyed the Horus Heresy book with Alpharius in (I'm guessing it was Legion) and all their shrouded secrecy which is what draws me in a bit, but I think I'm more smitten with the background than I am with the thoughts of them as an army.

Pros:

• Emphasis on Cultists with options for leading my Guardsmen as Traitors.
• Uses what I have from Dark Vengeance pretty well.

Cons:

• Colour scheme is pretty similar to my Dark Eldar army.
• Outside of Cultists, Chosen and normal Marines, I find it hard to theme towards Alpha Legion.

 Option #3 - Word Bearers

These were my original go-to choice for the Chaos Marines and how my older Chaos Marine army started getting painted before I got fed up of painting red.

They work with what I have (cultists, emphasis on Daemons, chosen marines) and would be similar in paint scheme to the actual Dark Vengeance models.

The use of Daemons also ties in with my plans for them being allies of a main Daemonic force, but not tying me down to specific Gods, so I could take the Word Bearers with Khorne Daemons one week with the marines as an allied detachment, then the next as a primary detatchment using Tzeentch Daemons as allies. They're pretty flexible in what they can do.

Pros:

• Emphasis on Daemons.
• Uses Dark Vengeance bits well.
• Paint scheme would look good and tie in with my Khornate Daemons.
• Allows me to use pretty much any non-God specific Marine units without an issue.

Cons:

• More red to paint, similar to an existing army.

Option #4 - Fallen Dark Angels

Now, this is the one from out of nowhere. I originally had a thought that since I already had lots of Dark Angels stuff, I would convert the Dark Vengeance DA bits into Fallen Dark Angels, to be lead by their Dark Apostle, the one and only Mr Cypher.

The more I think about this, the more tempted I am... However... looking at the paint schemes for them, they're very similar to Black Legion as it is. As well as this, the models I currently own for the Chaos stuff, don't look very Dark Angels related, so they'd just look like a bunch of Chaos Marines painted black as well as some very loyalist looking Dark Angels that have a darker green armour.

It can work, but I don't think it would work well with Chaos Daemon allies. Personally, I've always been a believer that Lion El'Jonson was the traitor and not Luthor. So the way I see it, the Fallen are actually the true loyalist Dark Angels from that time period. Some may have been swayed by Chaos during the Warpstorm and become mutated, or even falsely portraying themselves as the Fallen. But in my mind, Fallen wouldn't ally themselves with Daemons.

However, I can remember reading a story in one of the Codexes about Fallen DA taking over planets as Governors or champions but never revealing their identity as a Fallen DA. Maybe my Chaos Lord is one such type.

Pros:

• Cypher. Cypher. Cypher.
• Gives my actual Dark Angels a proper foe.

Cons:

• I would want to paint them very Dark Green, similar to Cypher, but Fallen artwork shows them in black armour which again, makes them look very Black Legion.
• I would have to inject Dark Angel visual style into the army somehow.
• It'd lock me out of using Forgefiends and other more Chaos-y units.

So those are my options when it comes to schemes. I'm going to try and decide properly on the drive home tonight and make a start with whichever I choose later on.

That's all for now folks!