A lot of people have been posting about heraldry this week in the Raven Guard subreddit, because they’ve just booted up Space Marine 2, have fallen in love with the greatest Chapter in the Imperium, but are (very understandably) confused about how our heraldry should work. I’ve responded to a few, but I thought it would be good to have the whole thing explained as briefly as possible in one place that can be linked to. There is no one simple answer. There are three official sources of info, and then guesswork. As briefly as possible, I will explain those sources and then you can make your own mind up.
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| My beautiful sneaky boy. |
That said, the Raven Guard specifically have a huge caveat GW keeps repeating: “they change their markings regularly to confuse the enemy”. Take that for whatever it’s worth, I think it mostly confuses us fans, but it basically means whatever you do is fine (and conveniently also means the many mistakes GW have themselves made are fine too).
Codex Astartes
To start with, the image below is the standard Codex Astartes marking scheme. Were the Raven Guard completely Codex compliant, we would use those same markings, but with black armour instead of blue and a raven icon instead of the big U. This is the default, and for the rest of the article we will be talking about the ways the Raven Guard differ from it.
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
This is the latest graphic GW has done for the codex heraldry, but other than the addition of Lieutenants the rules are basically unchanged from the 2nd edition Codex Ultramarines.
Index Astartes
Back in the before times, long before we’d heard of Primaris Marines, there were a series of articles in White Dwarf magazine entitled Index Astartes that focussed on the different Chapters. The Raven Guard article nicely explained the way Raven Guard markings worked, which were a bit different to the standard Codex.
- We only colour the right pauldron trim, not both.
- The colour represents unit type, rather than company.
- Sergeants have white helmets.
- Veterans have white arms, from pauldron to fist.
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
The thing is, Games Workshop didn’t stick to this. Possibly due to confusion by the team painting the models, the official paint jobs by ‘Eavy Metal generally gave everyone red right shoulder pad trim. Maybe they started with a (very Raven Guard) assault squad in the correct red colour and then as the army expanded someone just copied that onto other models?
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
The Tactical Squad should have green trim here, and the old firstborn Shrike should probably have just had white shoulders, but I guess equipped with a jump pack it doesn’t seem too wrong to give him red trim.
8th Edition
By the time of 8th edition, we finally got a new formalised scheme that better reflected how GW were actually painting their models.
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
We were now basically codex compliant, the only real difference being that we painted only one shoulder trim (the right on everything except phobos, who only have a left) rather than both. But the colour was definitively the company colour, not unit type. Also we still have white helmets for sergeants rather than red.
Notably there is no mention here of white arms for veterans, and several places they state that First Company should have silver trim and not white arms.
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
That said, in the actual models GW displays in the various codices from 8th edition onwards, the veterans do still retain their full white arms, and officers have white arms and black shoulders with company colour trim.
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
So even though it’s not in the heraldry spread, with what we know from before, and what we can see in the models, we have I think pretty clear rules:
- Basic armour colour is black, with a white raven on the left shoulder, white unit type on the right, white squad number on the left knee and a silver aquila and weapon casings.
- Company colour is depicted on one shoulder trim, left on phobos armour, right on everyone else.
- Veteran Sergeants have white helmets.
- Veterans don’t have white helmets (except for Sergeants) but instead have fully white arms and shoulders (with the shoulder icons in black).
- Officers have white arms but black shoulders with company trim.
- Captains have white helmets and no yellow bar on the right shoulder.
Except…
Well… nearly. Even setting aside the issue of white arms not being mentioned in the guidelines, there remains one major error. During the update, Shadow Captain Shrike of the 3rd Company got promoted to Shadow Master of the whole Chapter, and became Primaris and we got a lovely new model. And yet his model very clearly has the markings appropriate to 3rd Company Shadow Captain.
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| Image Credit: Games Workshop, used without permission for illustrative purposes only. |
Yet again I’m assuming miscommunication. This model probably got painted up before the lore was written to say he got promoted. It makes no sense at all.
My Way
Of course if you’re familiar with the models I’ve painted and have followed along with all this, you’ve noticed a glaring inconsistency. I don’t actually paint my Raven Guard like this at all. As 5th company my dudes have black trim, so the apparent lack of trim makes sense. However I have also completely rejected painting arms and helmets white. To me that looks more like Magpies than Ravens. I also don’t like unit markings. My dudes are basically painted plain black all over but for the white (not silver) chest aquila and chapter icon. Also black gun casings.
As I said at the top, Raven Guard regularly change their markings to confuse the enemy. Whatever you do is basically fine.
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