That Elusive Coyote

A while back I put up a tutorial on how to paint the USMC Woodland MARPAT camouflage.  Here is the image of a swatch I made--my attempt at matching the colors using mostly GW paints:


The colors are Chaos Black, Khemri Brown, Snakebite Leather, and the green is an odd blend of Vallejo's Gunship Green mixed with a few GW colors.  It was an imperfect solution at best.  Clearly the weakest match in the mix is the Snakebite Leather masquerading as Coyote 476 (FS20150), which in a way has become the USMC's signature color.  In addition to the color being prominent in the MARPAT pattern itself, it also is the color of their boots and body armor.

The War against Doctrine

The Codex Astartes is the holy tome written by Ultramarines Primarch Roboute Guilliman.  It defines the organization and tactical doctrine of the Adeptus Astartes and is followed by many, if not a majority, of Space Marine Chapters.

Guilliman is undisputedly one of the greatest military minds in history, rivaling if not surpassing all of the other Primarchs.  The Codex Astartes is considered one of Guilliman's most influential works. 

Yet there is a schizophrenia in the 40k universe...

Generalship

It seems like these days, the focus of gaming is more on making the army list rather than playing the game.  Army list posts on blogs and forums are extremely common.  You hear about "unbeatable" army lists with [insert awesome weapon of the day] spam.  Much (if not most) of the excitement generated by a new codex is determined by the rules/units available, and what units players can get to increase the power of their army list.  In order to succeed at a a tournament, it's a given that if you don't have a "competitive" army list, you needn't bother playing. 

Chess, StarCraft, and 40k

It's the background that gets you to play the game...but once the game starts, the background goes out the window.

To a degree, even Chess is like this. Chess has a hint of a politico-strategic element to it in the names of its pieces: King, Queen, Bishop, Knight, Rook, Pawn, but the names of the pieces are only incidental to gameplay. They could be called Dog, Top Hat, Wheel Barrow, Race Car, Boot, and Iron, and it would still be the same game. But naming the game pieces after personalities (or fortifications), instills in the player the politico-strategic element to the game, and the players can better imagine it to be a battle of political heavyweights as the maneuverings of the pieces are analogues to maneuverings in a political environment.

At least until they start playing. When the game actually begins, the last thing a player is thinking about is "political machinations." They're thinking of things like the "English Opening", or the "Sicilian Defense", which describe certain opening moves. (I'm far from a chess expert--I just looked up some openings and picked two at random).

If a motivator to play the game is because it's an analogue to political maneuverings, it has been lost. The game has become divorced from its abstract background, and has fallen into a set pattern of opening moves, some of them so common that they've practically become scripted. These moves have been analyzed by expert players to death.

This perspective of the game is certainly not limited to Chess. I'm also a casual Real-Time Strategy game player, and a fan of StarCraft. Soon StarCraft II will be released, but in the meantime the beta is out. I recently got into the beta and have been playing a few games (and losing--clearly I need to get rid of the rust after ten years since I last played the original StarCraft). The StarCraft universe has a rich background, involving three races (Terran, Zerg, and Protoss), each striving for dominance. The game has a single-player mode that consists of multiple missions/games/scenarios in a story-driven campaign where you learn about the conflicting motivations of the three races and how they relate to each other (usually through violence).

But then, fully drawn in by the rich story, it then comes to an end, and the player, wanting a fresh experience, is left with one major outlet to play the game--the multiplayer mode. Nowadays StarCraft is all about the multiplayer mode. What was once an add-on for many games has now become their reason for being. But the multiplayer takes the rich background that hooked the players and tosses it out the window.

The rich background of the game allows the players to imagine Terran marines using their Gauss Rifles to fend off leaping Zerglings and Hydralisks while Siege Tanks support them with deadly artillery fire, and Protoss Zealots wielding their Psionic Blades and raging over the loss of their homeplanet of Aiur to plunge into close combat for revenge.

At least until they start playing. When the game actually begins, the last thing a player is thinking about is Gauss Rifles and Psionic Blades. They're thinking of things like "Marauder Builds", "Muta-ling Builds", "Reaper Rush", splash damage, micro and macro. (the terms micromanagement and macromanagement taking too long to say for such a fast-paced game as StarCraft.) The gamer terminology has overtaken the background to such a degree that players even refer to units with special powers and/or abilities as "casting spells," despite spells usually being associated with science fantasy rather than science fiction. Races in the background story who are the most vicious of enemies, e.g. Protoss and Zerg, are now allies as often as not in the multiplayer environment.

The background as a motivator to draw interest into the game has served its purpose, which can now be ignored. The game has become divorced from its background and has fallen into a pattern of strategies, based not on the background of the game, but rather the damage models used by the game, and the tactics players use to get the most out of the various units. These tactics have been analyzed by expert players to death.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Warhammer 40k is a game with an extremely rich background. Background text is all over the rulebooks, codices, etc. The art in the rulebooks inspires us to imagine the 40k Universe. Black Library publishes novel after novel of what could be argued is just "fluff" for the game (but just as arguably it exists in its own right these days).

But all of this just serves to get us to play the game. (I'd argue that the whole hobby aspect of painting miniatures is an offshoot of the origin of 40k as a game rather than the other way around, as the company is Games Workshop, not Hobbies Workshop, but that's a discussion for another day) Once the game actually starts, who among us bothers to truly think in terms of what is happening from a "background" perspective? We don't really imagine the Space Marines plowing into melee and beating on orks with their chainswords. We think about getting the +1 attack on the charge, re-rolls to wound, winning the combat resolution. We make "Leafblower" army lists, focus on our ability to kill MEQ, and are desperate about getting on troops choices the on objective markers in Turn 5. At tournaments the majority of games are marines vs. marines.

The amazing background of the 40k universe has served its purpose--to get us to play the game. It's rich enough that when we're not playing the game, we still manage to obsess about it, and so much of it would live on even if 40k the game ceased to exist. But while we are playing the game...where does it all go?

Take no Prisoners!

The 40k Universe is a dangerous place.

In the real world, last stands happen in wars, but are generally uncommon (at least in modern times). Far more common is that once a side realizes it's been beaten, it surrenders. The hope of a prisoner is that they'll get to sit out the rest of the conflict and be able to return home (if it still exists) and live a semi-peaceful existence. Frequently that doesn't happen, but it's the hope. That hope, even if possible, is usually chosen because it is perceived as being better than the alternative at the time--which is usually death. 

Not so in the universe of 40k. There, nearly all wars are wars of extermination. "In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war." Well, not really. More like genocide.

Let's examine the various races in the 40k Universe and the viability of surrendering to them:

Imperial: Humans are so xenophobic they won't tolerate aliens to survive. Individual humans might be able to live alongside aliens, but the official stance is that the only good alien is a dead alien. On the other hand, Imperials surrendering to Imperials (in the case of rebellions or civil wars) is possible, but not usually wise, as the rebels are almost invariably executed anyway.  But there's the slim chance of performing hard labor in a prison for 20 years, tortured, and then killed.  So there's somehing, I guess.

Eldar: Eldar, if they don't exterminate an alien completely, are more likely to just drive an enemy away. If they won't leave, they the Eldar will kill them. What possible use do prisoners have? I can see that if anyone surrendered to Eldar, if they did not kill them outright, they'd disarm them and maroon them on some out of the way death world where they wouldn't be a threat. But only if they were feeling very generous.

Orks: Orks could conceivably take prisoners to use as slaves, but they'd have to restrain themselves from just stomping you. But why bother, when there's already plenty of Gretchin to serve the purpose? But I suppose its possible.  I can see a Mekboy using slaves to help him build some nefarious device and incorporate your race's technology into it.  He might even keep you alive for a while if you do a good job.  But then when you succeed he'll pat you on the back so hard it'll break your spine.  Then he'll send you to the Painboy, who'll chop off your head and sew it back onto another's body.  And that's likely to be the end of the road.

Necrons: Rend the living. Not so bad, considering that's all they'll do to you.  Except maybe wear your skin after they kill you.  But I guess that's better than wearing your skin before you die, which is what the Dark Eldar will do. 

Chaos: Surrendering to Chaos is hardly an option, unless it is done so by trickery (think Slaanesh or Tzeentch), in which case it's not really surrender as it is capture. An eternity of being tortured isn't as good as it sounds.

Dark Eldar: Like with Chaos, death is preferable to capture by these guys, so surrenders generally won't happen. They do take prisoners, however, and you really don't want that to happen.

Tyranids:  Nom nom nom.

Tau: Here we go...a race you can surrender to and they won't kill you out of hand.  But the Tau are still a minor player in the grand scheme of things.  They're not like to survive much longer.  But hopefully you can get captured by them and live in peace.  That is, before they get wiped out by an coalition of all the other races who band together solely to eliminate this upstart race that violates the galactic take no prisoners rule.

With so few options, it's no wonder that most 40k battles have horrendous casualties and most of the time combatants die where they stand.  Considering the alternatives, one would think that heroic last stands are so common in the 41st millenium that they've become passe.

Two kinds of Imperial Guard Players

It seems to me that there are two main kinds of Imperial Guard Players:  The Gamer and the Hobbyist. 

The Gamer plays games often.  He wants to win games, and enjoys the competitive aspects of the game.   He has a lot of experience tweaking his army list in order to get the most out of it.  The Gamer posts his army lists to the forums to get feedback and advice from other players.  He reads tactics articles religiously.  

The Hobbyist designs armies, not army lists.  He plays games when he can, but usually this is far less frequently than the Gamer.  The Hobbyist enjoys the game, but spends far less time playing than he does just thinking about his army.  The Hobbyist is more interested in creating an army that fits the background or "makes sense" from a real world perspective.  He's interested in fielding a force according to a real world organization, and be damned to its effectiveness on the 40k gaming scene.  This "real world perspective" can be simulating a modern force (e.g., my army is theoretically based on a US Army Combined Arms Battalion) or something historical, like a WWII formation, or the Praetorians, simulating the British during the Anglo-Zulu War (q.v. Col. Gravis' fantastic Praetorian Army).


Warhammer 40k is designed as a company-sized game (although you could almost say platoon sized for the more elite armies).  For a game of this size, the Gamer might field several armored fist squads, a Leman Russ or two, a Basilisk/Medusa, and a Vendetta.  (Or perhaps they'd field the Leafblower list.)  There's a little bit of everything, designed to handle many tactical situations. This may be tactically effective within the game, but an organizational nightmare (at least to the more bureaucratic Hobbyist).  The Hobbyist is more likely to field something like an infantry company of three platoons of three squads and a weapons section each, with an armor platoon for support.  If the Hobbyist were to consider using Vendettas or Valkyries, he would more likely consider using entire platoons of them rather than a singleton--platoons fit better into the TO&E.

The Gamer arms his Command HQ squad with an eye to getting the most damage from it.  A typical Gamer Command HQ squad might be armed with an officer with power weapon and plasma pistol, four meltaguns, plasma guns or flamers (4 of each, no mixing), riding in a Chimera.

The Hobbyist may not even consider arming his Colonel with anything more powerful than a laspistol, except maybe a ceremonial power sword.  (If he gives his Colonel a power fist, it's probably because his model has one and he wants his army to be WYSIWYG).  After all, a Colonel should be commanding his troops.  The fighting strength of a regiment is in the arms of the soldiers that make it up, not the commanding officer.  His job is to employ the fighting strength of his men, not embody it.  His squad would therefore consist of his command staff and liaisons such as a Master-Vox, Master of Ordnance, Officer of the Fleet, bodyguard(s) (aides, rather) and possibly standard bearer, depending on the army style.

The Gamer prowls the forums, reading about other gamers' battles, reading tactics and strategies, and discussing army lists.  He will also check out the blogosphere--basically anywhere he can get information on how to improve his game.  The purview of the Hobbyist is primarily just the blogosphere--he frequently has his own blog, and discusses painting, modelling, and army organization (as opposed to army lists)

When a new Codex Arrives, the Gamer asks "What new tricks do I have available now?  Which units are worth fielding and which aren't?"  The Hobbyist asks, "How can I fit the vision of my army into a legal force?"

The Gamer speaks in gamer jargon.  He talks about army "builds", refers to other armies by terms such as "Nidzilla, Smurfs, Clown Cars, Lash Armies, Daemon Bombs, and discusses tactics such as "Melta-spam".  The names of the armies builds frequently are the same as the primary tactic they use.  The Hobbyist speaks in military jargon, and he usually doesn't talk too much about other armies at all.  He refers to things like "sections", "detachments", "combined arms", "order of battle", and knows how to spell "ordnance".

After each game,  the Hobbyist considers painting on honor badges to the models in his army that performed well.  The Gamer considers how to tweak his army list to improve game performance.


The Gamer is more likely to be younger than the Hobbyist.  There are plenty of older Gamers, but many players who used to be Gamers got older, got married and started families, and suddenly had much less time to play.  When they did have free time, they might only have time to work a little bit on their armies, and suddenly found themselves morphing into Hobbyists.

All in all, there's nothing wrong with either type of player; they are both equally valid ways of being involved in the hobby.  I find myself firmly in the category of the "Hobbyist".  I consider myself lucky if I get a game in once a month, and when I do, half the time I make my army list the night before, and don't even start thinking about my strategy until game time.  Most of the rest of the time I spend painting/converting my guardmen and thinking about their regimental organization.  Would I like to play more often?  Absolutely...but that'll probably have to wait until my daughter's in college and/or I retire...or win the lottery.

I keep saying to myself that GW would be far better served if they just paid me to play their games.  I could then quit my job and do this stuff full time.

Painting MARPAT Tutorial

Here's a step by step guide on how I'm painting up my new Imperial Guardsmen.

I was trying to match up the USMC's woodland digital camouflage pattern, but that turned out to be a tall order. I used a piece of posterboard to make a swatch, and compared it to the actual camouflage.
The black is easy--just use Chaos Black. The green was difficult, as Dark Angels Green wasn't quite it, so after lots of experimentation, I found that the best match was Vallejo Model Color Gunship Green. It had the right shade and level of saturation, but was just a little bit too light, so I darkened it with some Chaos Black. Then it looked a tad too desaturated, so I put in a few drops of Snot Green, but for some reason the Snot Green didn't mix too well with it. Regardless, the green is pretty close. The light/sand brown matches pretty well with Khemri Brown, so that worked out. Finally, the main color of them all, the brown... Now that was a pain. I made a separate swatch with nothing but shades of brown--Bestial Brown, Vermin Brown, Calthan Brown, Graveyard Earth, Snakebite Leather, Desert Yellow, Scorched Brown, etc., and none of them seemed to match right. The closest color (which is on the swatch) is Snakebite Leather, but as you can see it's not quite the right shade, and is way too bright. I messed around with mixing some colors, including Snakebite Leather and Graveyard Earth, and got pretty close, but it was a pain to do so, and since this was going to be a major color on the models, I didn't want to have to mix it up every time. So I settled on just using Snakebite Leather, and figured I'd tone down the shade with a wash of Devlan Mud.

So with the pattern down, it's on to a miniature:
After assembling and priming the model, I basecoated it with Chaos Black, Tallarn Flesh, and Calthan Brown.

I then painted the armor and boots with Desert Yellow, while I gave the cloth a coat of Snakebite Leather.

Then I gave the entire model a wash of Devlan Mud, to shade and tone down the colors.

Next started to paint the camouflage pattern. The MARPAT woodland pattern is dominated by the brown shade, followed closely by the green, with slightly less black, and a small contribution with the lighter shade of brown. As the real pattern is mainly dominated by the brown and green shades, I gave the green a significant amount of coverage.

For the next stage added the Chaos Black patches, and small dabs of Khemri Brown on the cloth to finish up the pattern.

Finally I highlighted the armor with Desert Yellow, highlighted the skin with Tallarn Flesh, painted in the eyes, and finished up the base. Voila! Now I just have to do all that a couple hundred more times! I plan on doing a similar guide for the ACUPAT in the near future.

The Eight Stages of a Brazen Claws Space Marine

For fun I decided to take pictures of a model from start to finish.

1. Assembled: Model cut from the sprue and stuck on the base.
2. Cleaned/Based: Flash lines cleaned up, glued sand and some modeling gravel to the base.
3. Primed: Primed the model with white spray paint (see reasoning below)
4. Basecoat 1:

• Armor: Red Gore/Regal Blue
• Head: Tanned Flesh
• Metal bits/loincloth: Chaos Black
• Parchment: Snakebite Leather
• Base: Goblin Green, Scorched Brown, Dark Codex Grey (50% Chaos Black, 50% Codex Grey--a special pot I mixed up).
• Various wires, etc., Regal Blue, Dark Angels Green, Scab Red.

Obviously the coverage wasn't so great, so that led to:
5. Basecoat 2: Same a Basecoat 1, but with:

• Loincloth: Tin Bitz
• Aquila, Back Banner Eagle, Terminator Honors chain & medallion: Brazen Brass

6. Highlights 1:

• Armor Plates: 50/50 mix of Red Gore/Blood Red and a 50/50 mix of Regal Blue/Enchanted Blue. I thinned the mix down a bit and applied it mostly towards the edges of the plates, but not to the extent of an extreme highlight.
• Parchment: Bleached Bone. I didn't worry about the coverage too much, as the parchment is supposed to look old.
• Face: Dwarf Flesh over most of the face except for the most recessed parts.
• Chainsword Blade/Armor Joints: Boltgun Metal
• Chainsword, Grenade, etc. Dark Codex Grey on the edges.
• Loincloth: Brazen Brass on most of it except for the most recessed areas.
• Aquilas, skulls, chain/medallion: Drybrushed Shining Gold.

7. Highlights 2:

• Armor Plates: Pure Blood Red and Enchanted Blue on the edges of the plates.
• Loincloth: Shining Gold on more raised areas.
• Aquilas, skulls, chain/medallion: Dry brushed Burnished Gold.
• Face: Painted a 50/50 mix of Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh on the most raised areas (eyebrow ridges/nose, cheekbones.

8. Final Details:

• Head: Drybrushed some Chaos Black on the skull to give the impression of stubble, then toned it down a little with a thin wash of 50/50 Dwarf Flesh/Elf Flesh.
• Eyes: Painted the Eyes with Chaos Black, then two Skull White dots on either side of a pupil.
• Teeth: Bleached Bone.
• Loincloth: Burnished Gold on the most raised areas.
• Medallion Gem: Painted the gem Blood Red, shaded the top portion with Red Gore, then put a single Skull White reflection dot near the top.
• Chapter Symbol: Painted the Brazen Claws Symbol on the left shoulder pad with Mechrite Red. Then painted it again with a 50/50 mix of Blood Red/Red Gore. Finally cleaned it up by painting over the mistakes with Regal Blue.

After some experimentation, I decided that painting over a white undercoat gave me brighter colors than painting over a black undercoat, so I think that for all my brazen claws going forward I'll paint them with a white undercoat.


White undercoat on the left, black on the right

Figuring out what color to use

A while back I decided I needed swatches of my paints to help me plan future projects. I've found that more often than not, paint doesn't look quite the same color wet as they do dry. Therefore, I've found it immensely helpful to have a painted surface with the color I want right on it, for easy reference.

So I took a piece of posterboard, drew out a bunch of squares, and started filling it in with all the colors. I did this over time and somewhat haphazardly, but the result has turned out to be an invaluable reference for me--whenever I about a new paintjob, the first thing I do is grab this thing and pore over it, comparing it to miniatures I've painted, or swatches of cloth (for example, camouflage patterns) whose colors I want to try to match.

Next, I may make two of these swatch boards--one for colors painted over white, and another painted over black, to help with deciding what color primer to use for the effect I want to achieve.

The Art of Camouflage

The uniform of the 5th Arcadian Regiment, from an old White Dwarf magazine ¹. Note, they are not my 5th Arcadians--this is clearly a regiment from some other Arcadia in the Imperium.
The Warhammer 40,000 universe is one of contradictions. It is a universe of terrifying, obscenely lethal ranged weapons, but it is also a universe where most races wear bright battle dress and seem to prefer fighting in hand-to-hand combat rather than at range.

"The best gun in the galaxy won't help if your opponent is bashing your brains out with a rock!" ^{2 3 4}


The 40k Universe is a universe where you can be carrying an assault rifle (sorry, I mean lasgun), eyeing an enemy on foot, on open ground, way off in the distance, outside the range of your weapon, and yet somehow you just know that you will only be able to get off one, or if you're lucky, two shots before those tiny dots on the horizon will be in your face, slashing at you with a choppa, and there's absolutely nothing that you can do about it...

But I digress. The reasons the 40k Universe are like this are to appeal to the gamer and hobbyist. The wargame is fun to play, with wide variety in the way each army is played. The models are dynamic and colorful, designed to be visually appealing.

Despite the polychromatic flair of most armies, camouflage still has its place in the 40k Universe. That place is with the Imperial Guard. (and with the Tau and a few others, but never mind...)

Most Imperial Guard players are drawn to the army for their "real world" appeal. If a player really wants "sci-fi" soldiers, they'll play Space Marines. If a player wants Space Elves, Space Orks, or Aliens, he'll play Eldar, Orks, or Tyranids. But if a player wants an army of human soldiers with armor and artillery support, i.e., like a real world modern army, they'll choose the Imperial Guard.

Thinking about Camouflage
Every Imperial Guard Commander has to put some thought into camouflage. Other Army Commanders do too, notably Tau, but most armies seem to like being in bright colors, probably due to pride and confidence in their armor (Space Marines), numbers and bravado (Orks), fashion sense (Eldar), etc. But to the Imperial Guard, camouflage is as necessary as their flak armor.

The Imperial Guard player has to take many things into account when considering a camouflage pattern, for example, the "culture" of the regiment he wishes to field. Many Imperial Guard regiments, like the Cadians, are well equipped and wear camouflage battle dress. Some, like the Mordians and Pretorians, fight in their dress uniforms, and therefore do not make use of camouflage at all. Others, like some Valhallan or Tallarn regiments, dress more for their harsh environments, and camouflage is a secondary concern to protection from the weather--but regiments still make use of it when they can.

Valhallan Imperial Guardsman ⁵Not every commander has the means to equip his soldiers with camouflage uniforms at all. Sometimes the unit may be raised rapidly, from a poor world with limited resources, and the units end up being clothed in whatever is available at the time. Other units, with vast resources, may be equipped with some of the best equipment that the Imperium has to offer. This means that with the Imperial Guard you can find units wearing anything from cameoline to undyed wool.

As I mentioned in the last article, boldly painted armies look better on the table. If you paint your Imperial Guard camouflage too well, they will blend in with the terrain and look dull. If this is what you want, then fine. But can you paint a bold, striking army, and yet still paint them in "realistic" camouflage?
An Anacostian guardsman and a Brazen Claws Marine. Clearly, the marine is more striking on the table. The guardsman's camouflage is very similar to the color of the table itself--in fact, the camouflage is almost too good.

In order to be realistic, your camouflage MUST match the terrain
No it doesn't. The camouflage of your troops does not have to match the terrain. In the real world, inappropriate camouflage is often a fact of life.

US Marines in Iraq, 2003. ⁶In this photo, soldiers are wearing desert camouflage on their helmets, but the rest of the uniform is woodland camouflage--far from ideal in the terrain of Iraq. Why? Because they are wearing MOPP gear over their desert camos. MOPP gear is battle dress to protect soldiers from toxic (nuclear, biological, and chemical, or "NBC") environments. When MOPP gear was originally issued, the US was expecting to use them in Europe, where a toxic battlefield was likely should World War III occur. Woodland camouflage in the European environment made sense. Desert camouflage MOPP gear was simply not available for Operations Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom, so the soldiers were just issued the gear that was available, inappropriately colored though it was.

There are also plenty of stories where troops, due to supply snafus, lack of funding, lack of time, or plain stupidity result in the troops on the frontline not getting what they need. For example, in the fall of 1941, when the Germans were driving to Moscow, the soldiers were not issued cold weather gear because their commanders wanted to encourage them to capture the city before the arrival of winter. Issuing cold weather gear, thus implying that it would be a long campaign, was deemed to be bad for morale. As it turned out, this was a big mistake--but it happened nonetheless.

Imperial Guard units are frequently on long campaigns, fighting on planets with markedly different environments. Due to the requirements of war, including rapid redeployment and supply problems, units may not receive the proper camouflage for a given planet, or indeed, any resupply at all. The result is that camouflage a given regiment is equipped with may be wildly inappropriate for the environment in which they are fighting. So, your Imperial Guard Regiment may be painted in a color scheme that seems out of place for the terrain on the table, but rather than being "wrong", it can be argued that this is in fact realistic.
Anacostian guardsman and a Fafnir Ice Wolf. Here, both are wearing camouflage, but the Ice Wolf's camouflage is slightly more vivid. More importantly, he's wearing winter "overwhites", which make him stand out more. If you're fighting on a woodland tabletop or a city, the argument goes that perhaps the snow melted the day before. (This outfit might seem a bit impractical on a desert battlefield however, but then, so do Valhallan overcoats...)

In the real world, troops are constantly being resupplied, and the army is notorious for delivering units inadequate or inappropriate gear. Soldiers in the field frequently have to make do with what they have. Hence their gloves, boots, packs, and web gear, etc., may be improvised with whatever they can get their hands on. Frequently this means that their equipment doesn't match their camouflage pattern. For the hobbyist, this is as important to remember as the camouflage. In other cases, the camouflage uniforms may have been issued to troops, but none of their other gear is yet available in the new pattern yet, so they have to mix and match multiple patterns.
In this picture from the movie Black Hawk Down (2001), it shows a US Army Ranger unit wearing a mish-mash of camouflage patterns--and the Rangers are an elite unit, so you might expect them to get priority when it comes to supply. At the time this event took place the army was switching between desert camouflage schemes, phasing one out while phasing in another. Here the rangers are wearing 3-color desert BDUs, 6-color desert "chocolate chip" helmet covers, and woodland camouflage body armor. If you want to see better pictures, watch the movie! ⁷

Paint Schemes
Here is a selection of camouflage schemes I have tried out and their real-world inspirations. In some cases I intentionally deviated from the strict color pattern in an attempt to make the color scheme stand out more, and thus be more attractive on the tabletop. In other cases, I just experimented in order to see what color patterns might look like.

16th Arcadian Snot Green, Bestial Brown, Camo Green, and Chaos Black.	Woodland Camouflage
Anacostian Light Infantry Knarloc Green, Goblin Green, Dark Angels Green, Khemri Brown	CADPAT
2nd Deukalion Shadow Grey, Fenris Grey, Regal Blue, Space Wolves Grey	Navy Working Uniform
Fafnir Ice Wolves Snakebite Leather, Dark Angels Green, Chaos Black, Khemri Brown	MARPAT
11th Arcadian (old) Bleached Bone, Rotting Flesh, Bestial Brown	3-color Desert
11th Arcadian Kommando Khaki, Graveyard Earth, Bleached Bone	Desert MARPAT
2nd Cydonian Codex Grey, Adeptus Battlegrey, Chaos Black	T-Pattern
5th Arcadian Codex Grey, Dheneb Stone, Fortress Grey	Universal Camouflage Pattern (Army Combat Uniform)

Useful Links
Kamouflage.net is a site with tons of samples of real-world camouflage patterns that can be used for inspiration.
Camouflage Schemes: An Essential Guide by Tammy Haye - An article on the GW Australia website.
http://www.militaryphotos.net/ - A large archive of military photos that show all sorts of camouflage.
Notes
1. White Dwarf, Issue 109, January 1989, The Imperial Guard.
2. Warhammer 40,000 3rd edition Rulebook, p62, 1998.
3. Warhammer 40,000 4th edition Rulebook, p38, 2004.
4. Warhammer 40,000 5th edition Rulebook, p34, 2008.
5. Photo taken from Games Workshop Website.
6. AP Photo.
7. Screenshot from Black Hawk Down, 2001.

When Stealth Fails, Try Boldness

Why camouflage?
For most of human history, camouflage was not used in organized warfare. Today the benefits of camouflage seem obvious, but in the past the lack of it made just as much sense. In warfare, posturing is just as important as killing power. To win, you don't necessarily have to kill the other guy, you just want him to be so scared of you that he doesn't want to fight at all (If he doesn't run/surrender, then you kill him). To look scary you wanted to be noticed--you wore flamboyant costumes in bright colors, waved huge flags and banners to rally your troops and strike fear into your enemies. You wanted to be seen and feared, because fear was your ally. (e.g., "The Redcoats are coming!")

Reenactment of the Battle of Lexington, April 21, 2008 ¹The situation changed when weapons became so long-ranged and deadly that posturing in this manner was no longer effective. (Posturing is still around in modern warfare; it just takes on different forms.) Standing proud and tall in your bright uniform isn't as scary when the enemy can kill you easily from hundreds of yards away. Nowadays it is better not to be seen at all than be a tempting target.

To the Space Marine, camouflage is for wimps, while for the Imperial Guard, it's a matter of survival. But it was not always so.
Space Wolves on a covert mission ²In the old days of the 1980s, Space Marines made as much use of camouflage as did the Imperial Guard.

"Some Marine chapters adhere rigidly to the traditional patterns. The chapter of the Red Scorpions not only sticks strictly to the lore of camouflage handed down from their original founding and embodied in the Codex Imperialis, but views any deviance from this practice as tantamount ot heresy ... The Commanders of the Imperial Guard are less stringent about such things than Marines, and will sometimes design their own schemes for a specific campaign." ³
Ultramarines Rhino in camouflage color scheme ⁴Later on the same article, the more "modern" view seems to apply:

"Many schemes show no attempt at camouflage as such, but consist of solid heraldic colours proclaiming the identity of the occupants as surely as the shield of a medieval knight. Indeed, there are some Marine chapters whoe tradition actually forbids the use of camouflage on the grounds that "the colours of cowardice" are wholly inappropriate to a true warrior. This attitude, although by no means rare amongst the Legiones Astartes, is not officially recognised and is not emboded within the ancient Codex Imperialis." ⁵

The current trend in 40k is that all Space Marines paint their power armor and vehicles in the chapter colors, regardless of whether those colors are vibrant or subdued. The reason for this is probably due to the fact that brightly painted armies just look fantastic on the tabletop. This is one of the compromises the hobby makes to improve the wargaming experience. Armies with well painted camouflage schemes may be more "realistic" and blend in with the terrain, but because of that, they aren't as aesthetic. Most players want to paint an eye-catching army, not a dull one.
My Brazen Claws, looking pretty on the tabletop
For my Tau army, I originally wanted them in a camouflage scheme, but I also wanted them to stand out on the table. I also used a limited palette of Jade Green, Vile Green, and Scaly Green (unfortunately all discontinued, although I have found matching colors from Vallejo Game Color paints). My reasoning behind the scheme was that the Tau had originally been fighting on an exotic world with Jade Green colored vegetation.

One of the problems with this scheme was that since the palette was limited, there was little contrast on the model, and with the camouflage pattern, the outlines of the various pieces were also blurred. In a sense, the camouflage worked, and the result was that while the model had a bold color, the details of the model were minimized and the result was somewhat bland. My new paint scheme is much bolder, with much more contrast, and the result, I believe is more attractive.

My Tau, with the old camouflage pattern on the left, and the new, bolder scheme on the right.

In my early days in the hobby I wasn't too keen on brightly painted armies, but since then they have grown on me. But is it possible to have an army in camouflage, and still have it look striking on the tablestop? I say yes, but I'll elaborate on that in another post.

Notes
1. Joanne Rathe, Boston Globe Staff, April 21, 2008.
2. White Dwarf, Issue 105, September 1988, illustration by Russ Nicholson.
3. White Dwarf, Issue 103, July 1988. Rampaging Rhinos, Technical Drawing by H, coloured by Colin Dixon and Sid, p65.
4. White Dwarf, Issue 105, September 1988. Land Raider!, Rick Priestley, p4.
5. Ibid.