# Why do SM scouts wear white??



## Spacedcadet (Jan 12, 2010)

This has puzzled me for a while. Why are SM scouts always painted with white trousers ect?? Surely "Infiltrate" and "Moves through Cover" are clues that perhaps a more subtle colour would be better. 
Maybe its just me but snipers unless shooting polar bears, should be in green, grey, brown or any damn colour but not white.
Could be I'm up too late and its the pinot griglio talking!!!!!
Going to paint mine in camo colours anyway.


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## genesis108 (Jul 29, 2009)

White is kind of just the standard color for the soft part of the scouts armour because white is recognized as "initiate" or "medic" colours typically.


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## GrizBe (May 12, 2010)

Not all space marine scouts wear white.. its just typically how their painted as it is a pretty standard colour.

That said, it doesn't really matter as they usually wear their camo cloaks over it which blends them into their enviroments.


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

the tenth company secondry colour is white(same as the first company) as per the codex astartes.


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## DeathJester921 (Feb 15, 2009)

Nuts to the codex astartes in this case. I painted my SM scouts' trouser's black because it fits with the overall color scheme of the chapter. White would just make it look weird


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Also keep in mind that as far as colours go in regards to infiltration tactics, white is a good all around choice. With white, you can mess it up in any environment and then when it is cleaned, you can do so again for the next one without the need for an entirely new set.

This is important because while clothes are not much of an issue, fewer pairs means less wait and space used, which means you have more space and the ability to take other things.


But as others above me have said, white is also a standard use for the tenth company in any codex adherent chapter. (Those being the vast majority and all.)


Gonna be in a desert environment, messing your pants up with dirt and sand to capture that colour is all you need; and in that case the white can help because it will blend in with the lighter colours. Infiltrating a bombed out city, dust, dirt, and grime can be used alongside the white to make for good camo. Gonna be in a swamp or forest, mud and dirt.

White is easy to mess up, and in some cases works well in blending with some colours.


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## ChaosSpaceMarineGuy (Jan 29, 2010)

Prob b/c it's before Labor Day. :laugh: JK. I have no idea.


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## King Gary (Aug 13, 2009)

Like with the Cadian 'whiteshield' youth army white = noob colours :biggrin:

Also what he said about making it dirty


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## MidnightSun (Feb 10, 2009)

Well tau Stealthsuits are *purple*. Go figure.

Midnight


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## Johnny Genocide (Mar 4, 2008)

Tau stealthsuits can also go invisible. So I don't really believe that color comes into effect here. :biggrin:


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## Orochi (Jan 28, 2009)

Beats coming out in Neon Spandex with glow-in-the-dark accessories.


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

isn't the white just there dress clothes?, I'm sure the codex has pictures of scouts in proper camo, I can't check myself since my codex fell apart and is now in the bin


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## ItsPug (Apr 5, 2009)

The scout biker with astartes grenade launcher on page 118 has desert camo fatigues. all other marine scouts on the page are white fatigues


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## bitsandkits (Mar 18, 2008)

You can paint them what ever colour you want, and to be fair if you were going to paint any of the models in the 40k range in a suitable battlefield colour white would be far more likely than ultramarine blue or blood angel orange.Seems pointless to me to paint the trousers in camo if the rest of you is covered in bright blue armour. White works pretty well across the board as a good secondary colour, and is traditionally the colour of youth or "virgins" so makes sense. 
though things are much better these days than in the 90s, 40k and warhammer back then was like some technicolour teletubbie nightmare,although i still get the impression the eldar army has never quite recovered from that era, the orks and marine armies have been toned down but the eldar stayed the same.


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## Cato Sicarius (Feb 21, 2008)

Bearing in mind, you are an Ultramarines player, so you're mainly looking at Ultramarines models. Look at the other models and you'll see it's far from just white.

The difference is that the main two Ultramarines colours are blue and white. Hence the white. Other chapters have other colours.


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## CLT40k (Jun 18, 2010)

I'm guessing it's because very few GW folks were ever in the armed forces. Unless you're in the snow, wearing white is stupid.

But when you look across the board... 40K suggests a military theme without getting too bogged down with reality. I think it's part of what makes the game fun. 

How the hell could a vet miss the side of a Land Raider with his Meltagun when it's right in front of him... Rhinos would throw track constantly (too little clearance - mud with kill you) But we try not to think about that kind of thing lest it ruin our game... So, scouts wear white...


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## darkreever (Apr 3, 2008)

Or as has been said before, it could be because white can be messed up and works with many camo patterns. If you have white fatigues, then all you have to do is mark it up or mess it up with whatever is around you; good for any setting.

Desert camo is great for the desert, but then sucks in an urban setting. Jungle camo doesn't work so well in the desert; night camo kinda stands out in the day. With white, your in the desert you mess it up with the dust/dirt and rocks and you blend in, with an urban setting with the soot or dirt and you blend in, with the wild mess it up with dirt, dew, vegetation, and mud and your good to go.

White may be used because it can be used in a number of settings with no real problem.


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## darklove (May 7, 2008)

40k is basically a Sci-fi version of Napoleonic era warfare (just look at how units are categorised and the general game play). 

Everyone wears bright colours so you can easily see who to shoot and who not to shoot. In 40,000 years time they almost certainly won't use simple camouflage and instead use active/adaptive optical camouflage as we know it today, so the actual colour matters very little. Being able to hide from scanning equipment will be far more important than just hoping to not be seen by an enemy's naked eyes.


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## Ascendant (Dec 11, 2008)

Eh, I understand the fact that some camos will look awkward against the wrong kind of table, but I don't understand painting the actual guys white. Sure, it's their company color, but it never makes sense on the battlefield. They could hypothetically smear themselves with all sorts of things best left to the imagination, but the little plastic guys you have will still be painted white. If you're going to be imagining the colors of them, why not leave them gray? 

I think it's best to go with a dull brown or gray scheme, as it should look decent on most tables.


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## Cato Sicarius (Feb 21, 2008)

Ascendant said:


> Eh, I understand the fact that some camos will look awkward against the wrong kind of table, but I don't understand painting the actual guys white. Sure, it's their company color, but it never makes sense on the battlefield. They could hypothetically smear themselves with all sorts of things best left to the imagination, but the little plastic guys you have will still be painted white. If you're going to be imagining the colors of them, why not leave them gray?
> 
> I think it's best to go with a dull brown or gray scheme, as it should look decent on most tables.


It's been said before, I'll say it again: Stop looking for logic in a *game* where 8-feet tall superhumans with 2 hearts, 3 lungs, 2 stomachs, and modified brains, each wearing the equivalent of a tank, who have guns that shoot .75 caliber rocket propelled grenades decide to fly across the Galaxy at faster-than-light speeds to fight each other with swords.

When it comes right down to it, this is a tabletop game with overpriced miniatures. The important thing is colour co-ordination - not realism. :biggrin:

Of course, if your army looks alright in those colours or if you just prefer it that way, by all means go ahead and paint it like that. I however will stick to my Ultramarines.


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## Daemonetteboobs (May 31, 2010)

Careful, because that camo works both ways. If it's too good you'll deploy your scouts into some heavy brush and then on the 5th turn find out you've been moving one less scout around the entire game. But seriously though I think people just think it's a striking color scheme.


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## The Son of Horus (Dec 30, 2006)

It's just because off-white looks good with blue. Most players seem to paint their scouts' fatigues either the trim color of their Marines, or paint it as camo. Either way works fine.

As for the fluff issue... the Scout Company has no Company Color by the Codex Astartes-- white is only for the 1st Company. It wouldn't do to have a lot of heraldry in a bright color to display for the 10th Company of a Codex Chapter, as they're theoretically not going to be in situations where a big "HEY LOOK AT ME IN BRIGHT COLORS!" is a good plan.


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## Ascendant (Dec 11, 2008)

Cato Sicarius said:


> It's been said before, I'll say it again: Stop looking for logic in a *game* where 8-feet tall superhumans with 2 hearts, 3 lungs, 2 stomachs, and modified brains, each wearing the equivalent of a tank, who have guns that shoot .75 caliber rocket propelled grenades decide to fly across the Galaxy at faster-than-light speeds to fight each other with swords.
> 
> When it comes right down to it, this is a tabletop game with overpriced miniatures. The important thing is colour co-ordination - not realism. :biggrin:
> 
> Of course, if your army looks alright in those colours or if you just prefer it that way, by all means go ahead and paint it like that. I however will stick to my Ultramarines.



But but ... I agree! If you like your scouts to look like your other guys, that's cool. I just like pretending they're all camo'd up, so I'm gonna paint mine muddy colors. I guess the "logic" I was applying was to do what looks good to you, not necessarily following the law of the codex. 

I guess the example I was thinking of was a friend who painted his Tau in "dress uniforms". It looks pretty striking on the models, but weird on the tabletop. He explained to me that they would wear different fatigues depending on the theater of war, which is cool, but doesn't change the fact that the models are all red and blue. 

As for space marines, I wouldn't volunteer to be the guy that tells them not wear whatever they damn well please.


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## Stella Cadente (Dec 25, 2006)

darkreever said:


> Desert camo is great for the desert, but then sucks in an urban setting. Jungle camo doesn't work so well in the desert; night camo kinda stands out in the day. With white, your in the desert you mess it up with the dust/dirt and rocks and you blend in, with an urban setting with the soot or dirt and you blend in, with the wild mess it up with dirt, dew, vegetation, and mud and your good to go.


I think as a scout I'd be more freaked at the fact I just walked out of a desert into a massive urban environment, then suddenly into a sprawling green environment faster than it takes to change my trousers....what kinda F'd up place we in?!?!


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

Just as it was stated 40k is a game that allows you to express creativity. Its all fantasy an d the key thing to remeber is who cares what the book shows as a color scheme its all open to your interpratation as to what a scout would wear. 

Im in the military as well and do get the logic. i wouldn't be scouting behind enemy lines in the desert wearing white either nor hot pink(which i have seen on a few scouts in my time). this thread makes me think a bit about an argument i had about the night lords exactly how sneaky and stealthy can really be with huge ass bat wings poking from your head. Well truthfully you cant but on an artistic and fantasy scale it works. 

When playing wahammer you cant bury yourself in reality in any way b/c there is alot the would never make any sense on a real battlefield in the first place.
Example
In this day and age you more than likely will never see a seargant carring a sword into battle nor whould you ever the heavy weapon guy not shoot just because the rest of the team moved or fire through freindly units standing at eye level. 
My point is its not real and you must let the imiganation run wild thats the problem with most people when they get older they tend to forget that not everything has to make sense. Reality sux and we must take a break from it once in a while.


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## Pssyche (Mar 21, 2009)

I'm sure that the reason for the Space Marines rejecting the use of camouflage was explained in Chapter Approved: The Book Of The Astronomican, or maybe in a White Dwarf at around the same time of its release. It was more to do with why tanks and personnel carriers were painted in chapter colours. It was something to do with the Space Marines proudly proclaiming their presence to their enemies and not wishing to hide from them because, in many cases that would terrify them and break them. 
I'm pretty sure that if the Space Marines are happy to trumpet the appearance of a Land Raider, Rhino or Dreadnaught they wouldn't give a monkey's about a pair of Scout's fatigues being camouflaged.


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## WarlordKaptainGrishnak (Dec 23, 2008)

Scouts uniforms (the pants shirts that they'd wear under their light carapace armour) for GWs showcase Ultramarine scouts are painted white/cream coloured, you could argue that it's because it's an easier colour to paint, or that its because most of the Ultras. insignia is in white. Not sure on the side that it is the 10th Company colour, as the codex states "No Heraldic Coloury" but it can be noted that usually the cloth parts on scouts are a lighter colour for darker armour, and darker for lighter armour to create contrast, example, with Space Wolves scouts, they have grey fatigues to contrast their powderblue armour.

And it could be a case of GW paints it this way therefore...

Grish


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## Asmodeun (Apr 26, 2009)

Alright, hopefully any of you haven't brought this up. Has anyone ever heard of the reasonable marines?


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## Inquisitor Varrius (Jul 3, 2008)

These ones?


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## TheSpore (Oct 15, 2009)

the ultra marine


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## Pssyche (Mar 21, 2009)

"the ultra marine"
That's reasonable...


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