Marked for Censure - Ultramarine Sergeants

Ultramarine Sergeants have long had a distinctive red helm, handy for spotting troop leaders in the swirl of combat and making snipers' jobs easier since some time in the 1980's.

It is a nice distinction and has a practical gaming purpose. In fact, when playing games of Apocalyptic proportion I often find that it is simpler to try and keep track of the Sergeants than it is to try and remember the plan for each squad. They are certainly easier to find. 

With the growing fluff of the 40k universe, indeed thanks to the 30k setting and Brother Sargent Aeonid Thiel we have come to know a lot more about the origins of the red helm and in Gathering Storm III we get to use the original artefact as war-gear.In fact Gathering Storm has sent me back to my painting table and over the last couple of days I have produced the Brother Sargents you can see in this post. I have been trying to push up my normal standard of painting and I have spend longer than usual on these, making sure to highlight the models.

Some of the keener eyed among you might wonder why the Ultra symbol is on the wrong arm of the Sargent above. This is because the article white stripe with the inset Ultra is listed as a Tactical squad marking in the Index Astartes and I think it is nice to mix in the other symbols, marking out suits of power armour that may have remained unchanged since a specific feat in their history, or just more generally following the Codex rule of changing up the markings to confuse the enemy.