r/oldhammer • u/chebghobbi • Feb 21 '26
80s Slotta White Dwarf 123, and the earliest example I can find of a Dark Angel in green armour
The next example I could find was in issue 129, around the time that the RTB15 Space Marine Strike Force box was released. Are there any earlier examples?
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u/mintolley Feb 22 '26
In space marine 1989 the Dark angels share a color scheme with the salamanders, that being a black base coat with salamander green highlights.
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u/redcircle1313 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
This post made me realise that Dark Angels used to wear black armour! I’d completely forgotten that. There’s a cover of White Dwarf before number 100 (it was a loooooong time ago - I can’t be specific) which had a Dark Angel all in black. It’s only taken me 20 years to realise what was bugging me about Dark Angle miniatures. Thanks OP!
EDIT: As I said it was a long time ago. the cover I was thinking of was issue 117 and on closer inspection, that’s definitely dark green. I do distinctly remember the cover and assuming it was black so there we go
https://www.miniatures-workshop.com/lostminiswiki/images/c/c1/White_Dwarf_117.jpg
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u/surplus_user Feb 23 '26
Need the Umbrella Academy car meme of Imperial Fists painting their armour black in mourning of the Emperor passing Dark Angels having just switched out of black to green.
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u/Pukit Feb 21 '26
Wow, I remember sitting and reading that at my mates house. His dad had the subscription and I’d read it every month. I’d have been eight, amazing how an image brings back a memory!
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u/SoylentDave Feb 21 '26
Might be a good shout - certainly by issue #129 it was 'official' with Mike McVey offering an official painting guide (dark green over black, not much has changed there to be fair...)
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u/Victormorga Feb 21 '26
The first edition of the Space Marine board game is from 1989, a year before WD 123 came out; it features green Dark Angels in the box art.
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u/chebghobbi Feb 21 '26
They look black in most versions of that image that I've seen.
I've seen it suggested that one of the reasons Dark Angels began to appearing green is because the artwork in question was sometimes printed with a higher level of brightness (like here on the cover of WD117)), and that this led the miniature painters to think the DAs had green armour when they actually weren't intended to.
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u/joyrexj9 Feb 21 '26
Absolutely does not look black in any representation of that image I've seen in real life.
I owned Space Marine 2nd Edition which had this on the front as well as the issue of WD with it on. They are in dark green armour
This is a good representation of how that illustration looks
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u/friedeggbeats Feb 22 '26
I remember this being used as the cover of the D-ROK album back when WH had a record label.
Definitely always had a green tint, not plain black.
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u/chebghobbi Feb 21 '26
Looks black to me.
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u/Caramel_sanders Feb 22 '26
Just look where light is reflecting on the armor and its is very obviously green it’s just highly contrasted
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u/Victormorga Feb 21 '26
It’s true that the story goes that it wasn’t intended to look that way, but if you’ve ever seen that box art in person, it is absolutely green.
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u/DarthGoodguy Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
I’d love to know the exact process of the Dark Angels color scheme behind the scenes.
I feel like they briefly had Salamanders as one of the main four chapters (Space Marine paint set from 1989, a White Dwarf guide from around then, etc.), then swapped them out for DA.
I wonder if this decision was based on them wanting a green chapter for aesthetic/marketing reasons & the cover painting making the black armor look green was a happy accident or if they’d already started switching the DA over.
Edit - spelling
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u/Victormorga Feb 21 '26
I’m not sure when the salamanders were established as being green, their color scheme in RT was yellow and black, like an actual salamander. I don’t recall them ever being pushed as a main chapter; thinking back, I remember ultramarines, crimson fists, blood angels, and space wolves as being the “main chapters,” largely based on their appearances in artwork, which provided most of the lore / backstory back when there hadn’t been that much written yet.
This is just speculation on my part, but I think the dark blue armor color schemes felt appropriate to the design team, being the traditional color of the royal marines of Britain. Red is a prime color, was a favorite of John Blanche, and is also a very striking color on the table top, so blood angels makes sense. The space wolves were the first chapter to really be given a unique aesthetic in the model line, so they naturally took a prominent role.
I picked the DA as a faction back in the RT days because I thought the red and black looked cool. When that first green DA artwork came out, it came with the introduction of the Horus heresy story. I remember thinking the dark green guys must have been one side and the black and red guys on the other when the chapter split, probably because the models in the 1st edition of the Space Marine game were half dark green and half very dark, almost black, blue.
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u/chebghobbi Feb 21 '26
The Crimson Fists were only really a 'main' chapter for two months - they got the rulebook cover and scenario, followed by a second scenario the following month in White Dwarf.
When the Space Marine Paint Set was released (in 1989, I think?) it came with the appropriate paints and a guide for painting four chapters - the Ultramarines, Blood Angels, Space Wolves and Salamanders, with the Salamanders as the green option.
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u/DarthGoodguy Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26
I think they dropped the yellow & black color scheme pretty quickly. Like, the Space Marine Paint Set I was referring to has them green in 1989: http://www.solegends.com/citads1989c/index.htm
I remember I had a White Dwarf from around then (maybe 116?) with a green Salamander featuring dark sun (edit: skin) and light hair.
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u/mintolley Feb 22 '26
Sometimes I wonder if they “messed up” in the original run of RT, as when the salamanders do swap to green some of the models that are shown in white dwarf look exactly like the fire angels shown right beside the salamanders in the “badab scheme” section of RT.
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u/DarthGoodguy Feb 22 '26
That sounds plausible. Or they looked at it and were like “I like this scheme, but I like the other name more.”
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u/chebghobbi Feb 21 '26
Yeah, can't recall the exact issue, but Salamanders with dark skin and blond hair used to pop up a lot around that time.
There was never any attempt to explain it in lore - and white-skinned Salamanders would appear in artwork around the same time, but never in painted models that I can recall - it was just what it was.
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u/SoylentDave Feb 21 '26
That's Black Armour tinted green by the scene lighting; it's literally the reason people started painting Dark Angels green, but it's not the first example of them being deliberately portrayed in green armour by GW.
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u/Victormorga Feb 21 '26
It was a printing error, yes, but it is “the earliest example of a Dark Angel in green armor.”
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u/2ndnin Feb 22 '26
I'm sure for one of these DA in green things the artist said he painted them green because he couldn't get black to look right.
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u/MercuryJellyfish Feb 22 '26
Armour variants? Do they play away games?