New additions to the Empire and a few pesky Rebels (Star Wars Legion)

Work did not cease on Star Wars Legion. Up first , some time last summer was the Occupier tank for the Empire. Even though vehicles are often a dead end in Legion these days (since they can only score on some missions), I really liked its look in Rogue One, so this was a must have for me. Just like the AT-ST I did before I wanted it to have a worn look. So it received a good amount of faded and chipped paint, streaks and grime.

Up next on the list was Bossk. Not much to say about him. I as with the other minis, I went for colours based on the movies.

Last year, there was also a very fine gentlemen named Mathew Y. who had and extra Han Solo and Chewbacca and who was giving them away for free, as long as the recipient promised not to sell them on but paint them. By sheer luck I was the first to contact him and these minis started their long journey from Alaska to Germany. All in all these were nice models to paint, but also quite a challenge. It took me quite some time to find the right brown tones for Chewie.

Han on the other hand was easier (I went for the colours he wore on Endor), but his face was a challenge as well. Always felt that this mini looked more like Nathan Fillion in Firefly than Harrison Ford. But in the end he turned out fine.

The faces on the newer Star Wars minis are far better and this clearly showed on the Jyn Erso I painted at about the same time. Finding the right colours for her clothes was more of a problem though, since the light is quite different for ever sy planet Rogue One took place on, making the colours look different on every one of them. In the end I found some prop photos which helped a great deal.

Then there was quite some time when I did not paint any Legion problems. The retailer of my choice accidentally did not reserve my shore troopers and still has not received a restock. When it came to the Dewbacks, FFG delivered the first batch with the wrong size of bases. So I had to wait for them to restart delivery. Again I went for the classic movie colours. There are some really fine Dewbacks in alternative colours out there, but I still went for the classic green lizards.

And last are the new Stormtroopers upgrade. Again classic colours. Painting the these, I just wished that that FFG had added Pauldrons to the heavy weapon troopers in the starter set as well, since they really add some contrast to the minis.

May the Force be with you!

 

Tarkin, Krennic, Imperial Specialists and Death Troopers

As you might have noticed, I am quite keen on Star Wars: Legion these days. So I continued to complete my collection.

Up first is Grand Moff Tarkin. The model is by Alternative Gaming Miniatures. So far he has. I stats in the game (although I hope we will see them one day), but Infound the mini too nice not to paint it.

Up next is Director Krennic. It is really nice to see that the character minis for the game are getting better. In the past I have often said that their Han Solo looks more like Nathan Fillion in Firefly and that General Veers looks like Gordon Ramsey, but this one looks the real deal and as a result was a real joy to paint.

Up next are the Imperial Specialists, namely the Officers. The one on top is by Alternative Gaming Miniatures, the lower by Fantasy Flight Games. The FFG offering is quite boring, so the AGM version will be a good substitute. I know that technically their uniforms should be black for Stormtrooper NCOs and officers, but I wanted some other colours on the table in addition to black and white, so they got the green-grey of the Imperial Army.

The two droids above are not the ones you are looking for. No honestly, the one on the left is the medical droid. Since there is no sample in the movies, I let myself be inspired by the interrogation droid in Episode IV, although I went for a metallic finish. The Astrodroid on the right was partially inspired by the R5 droids that can be seen in some of the scenic shots in both Episodes IV and VI.

The communications officer above is a bit bleak , frankly there is not much you can do to lighten him up with his dark uniform and equipment.

And last are the Death Troopers. I loved their sinister appearance in Rogue One and simply had to have squad or three 😗 of them.

They gave me some headaches. At first glance they appear to be wearing black body armour, but giving them a closer look, especially on still photographs, it becomes clear that it rather seems to be a grey or dark metal looks under numerous coats of black tinted varnish. So primed these in Panzer Grey, gave them a top down spray of Burnt Iron and followed this up with a coat of Black Ink. Personally Infeel it looks quite good. Unlike the communications Troopers they allowed for some more contrast with the green lights on their helmets.

Last is the group shot. I have to say, I am happy with them. Especially taking into account that they were about a weeks work (one Sunday and five evenings).

 

Next batch for the Galactic Empire (Star Wars Legion)

Still in the process of catching up with minis I painted in recent months. This time it is Star Wars Legion.

Up first is the E-Web. The model did not really do to much for me at first, but once it was based I really liked it. Biggest problem was matching the colours to those of my Snowtroopers. I had never expected a heavy weapon for SW Legion and did not want a second set of Snowtroopers, so I had not written down the colours used. Still did not somit this time. So given my average luck, they will do another unit based on Snowtroopers one day. Still not 100% sure what to make of them in the game though. Played them twice. In the first game they got annihilated pretty fast due to a stinking to hit roll from my opponent and a botched Safe by yours truly. The other game they actually did pretty good.

Next are the Scout Troopers. Looks wide they were always my favourites in the original movies (Episodes IV to VI). In this sense I really liked painting them. Game wise the sniper team has been doing well, although I am still frustrated to see hoy much better the Rebel Commando Sniper team is. The saboteur team has not been doing as well due to their weak saves, but with the Red Guards and medical droids our now, I might give them another run.

While not part of the Galactic Empire and still without stats, here is my Yoda. The mini is by Alternative Gaming Miniatures. In real life he is nicer than he looks on these photos and I really enjoyed painting him. Really hope there will be stats for him with the Clone Wars expansion.

And last is my favourite mini of the lot. Probably even my favourite mini I painted last year (yes I am really doing a lot of catching up).

The model itself is gorgeous, which is only emphasised by the fact that is is completely poseable. I also used it as a test piece for my Early War German armour. I was very happy with all the fading effects on its paint, so it became a successful template for its historical brothers.

I wanted a very dynamic pose on this model with a raised foot. With its long legs the model itself became a little wobbly and I did not want any supportwires to show. Since my Imperial troops are based for a jungle planet anyway I decided to have him wading through water, with the water running off the raised foot and water splashing around the other foot.

 

A game of Star Wars Legion

Last Friday night we played a game of Star Wars Legion. Not the first one, but I finally remembered to actually take a few photos.

For the mission we drew three random cards each and reduced them down per the rules. So we ended up with “Clear Conditions”, “Disarray” and “Intercept The Transmissions”.

Not the best scenario for my force which consisted of General Veers, three squads of Stormtroopers (with LMGs each and an Astro Droid in one of them), a Scout Trooper Sniper team, a unit of Speeder Bikes, an E-Web and an AT-ST.

Sven played a Rebel Officer, three squads of Rebel Troopers (with LMGs each and a Med Droid in one of them), a squad of Rebel Commandos with sniper rifle, two squads of Wookies and two AT-RTs.

On one flank one of my Stormtrooper squads, the Scouts, Speeder bikes and the E-Web faced off vs. the two Wookie squads and an AT-RT, which was later joined by another AT-RT.

The Stormtroopers moved into cover, but were outflanked by both squads of Wookies and died in the first turn, only dealing out a little damage of their own.

The subsequent turns turned into a shootout between the units, with one Squad of Wookies, already quite beaten up charging the the Speeder Bikes for little return. In the end the AT-RT was down to half it’s wounds (partially due to an orbital bombardment), one squad of Wookies destroyed and the at roughly half strength.

The Scouts perished when the second AT-RT charged them (it had been left weaponless by a goodby shot from my AT-ST when it moved to the other flank. The Speeder bikes and the E-Web had seen minimal damage by the end of turn four.

On the other flank the rest of our troops had faced off against one another.

This was a rather unenventful slugging match, where the high amount of dice from the Rebel LMGs took their toll.

This was off-set by the firepower of my AT-ST, but Sven was quite skilled at making the most of the terrain (pylons of the landing platform as well as the AT-AT docked to it), so that I could never concentrate my firepower from two units on any one of his and hardly ever was a given Rebel unit in a vulnerable position in two consecutive turns.

In the end this cost me both squads of Stormtroopers and Veers while my AT-ST was still I damaged by the end of turn four. At the same time the Rebel squads were all down to half strength.

But by the end of turn four Inwas down to the E-Web, Speeder Bikes and AT-ST, while Sven had only lost a squad of Wookies while virtually all his other units were at half strength. Since he was already well in the lead for objective points we called it a day here.

I have to say that if this had been a last man standing things would have been closer, but with the objectives it was a clear win. I was not too unhappy with the performance of my units, but they were never close to having a chance.

All that being said, it was a really fun game with quite a few lessons learned for me.

 

Star Wars Legion Royal Guards

To be fair… things have not progressed with the blog quite as good as I had hoped. Painted a lot, played a little but posted next to nothing. But I still want to keep it up, so let’s try to do some simpler posts now (although in the future I will try for some better photos).

So after a Holiday in Scotland earlier this month Inwanted something simpler to get back into the saddle and did some Royal Guards for Star Wars Legion this Sunday. As with the other Star Wars minis , everything was fast and simple. For a short time I had contemplated doing the armour, clothing and capes in different shades of red, but in the movies their tone for red looks quite monotone all over so I did them that way.

If anyone is wondering where there are five when the box comes with four minis… well I received two sets of legs for my heavy weapon trooper, but no torso. Fantasy Flight Games send me a replacement, but due to some computer error, that went to Ivory Coast. So they send another torso replacement but for the wrong trooper. Someone in a post office in Ivory Coast seems to have figured out that my address was in Germany and forwarded that package on (they both arrived virtually simultaneously). So I cobbled one of the pairs of legs I had together with the wrong torso, put on a lot of green stuff and painted it as well. I guess it will be largely useless in the game, since Incan not field that many troopers in the unit anyway, but I did not want anything going to waste.

 

Feedback requested (SW: Legion AT-ST)

I worked on this model last month and the only thing missing is the base. I am a bit torn here. The original plan was to have it wading through swampy water, with water running down the right foot. But I am a bit torn, since this would mean a.) break from the current basing and b.) I am not sure if I can even tape the base off well enough to cast the water. (The cut-outs for the movements tools could cause massive problems there.)

a.) could be solved by just doing a few future minis with both swamp and partial swamp bases, but I am still not sure about b.). So what do you think… worth a try or just keep with the current theme? Here is what it looks like now:

 

Contemplation lookout for Infinity

Today we have something from Infinity. While my Forward Base terrain is not completely finished yet, I am thinking about another table with urban terrain. There are two things that have me irritated about most urban tables for Infinity. And since urban seems to be the most popular table type for Infinity, most tables. The first is that most tables seems to be dominated by boxed shaped buildings with railing on top that are all on a single level. I will get into more details when I start more in-depth on my table. Which is what attracted my to Battle Kiwis Contemplation Lookout when I first saw it. So much actually, that I asked them about it when I saw their pre-release test model on a tournament photo. It provides a high lookout with cover, while on the ground level it has a very narrow footprint, leading to more open lanes of fire. At the same point it proves cover from shooters from above on other buildings. As such it should form a challenging centrepiece, or piece in the middle zone of the table.

Contemplation lookout

But the other thing that always irritated me is, that everything seems to be so clean, bright and nice. There is no soot, no dirt, no graffiti, no social underbelly. I can not imagine this to be the case. Even in the future of Infinity mankind is still at war with itself (and other races), so if it has not surpassed those habits, why should it have eliminated social inequality? Would the conqueror treat its new subject as good as his own people? I do not think so. So I want my urban table for Infinity to look that way. With graffiti, run down buildings, neglected municipal recreation areas, run down buildings and dirt.

Contemplation lookout

The kit itself come in a nice light off-white with protective film covering the parts. Which is nice, but did not fit my wishes, so I repainted it. A light grey seemed appropriate for a structure of this type, but I wanted a darker white, so everything was airbrushed with Vallejo USN Ghost Grey, which is a few shades darker and has very slight blue hint. The walkways and ramp were airbrushed in a German Panzer grey and highlighted with gun-metal while the upper railings were done in yellow. Here in Germany and many parts of Europe you often seen this on such municipal recreation structures where the designer felt they would look to bleak otherwise and I wanted to pick that idea up. I then painted on various graffiti. As strange as this might sound… while I have an airbrush, I find it easier to mimic graffiti painting by brush, which is what I did here for the most part. Some smaller graffiti were added using a paint pen. I tried to achieve a mix of more artistic graffiti, political or social criticism and the mundane ones.

Contemplation lookout

[/caption]Up next everything was given a very liberal wash with highly diluted streaking grime. When I hit the first graffiti made with the paint pen this caused lots of problems, since the white spirit used to dilute the paint reacted with the paint from the pen in that it washed it off. Since the ramp section had already dried, I could not change for a different weathering paint. So I used white spirit to wash those graffiti made with the pen off, replaced some of them with ones painted by brush using acrylics (although not all of them, so there is less graffiti here than planned) and carried on. After everything was given the base dirtying up, I returned to the model with the streaking grime, this time adding real streaks where the rainwater would flow down the building.

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

The display on the upper deck could hold an old smart photo to give an interactive display on the table, but I wanted to keep things simple, so I just added some desert like flora to it.

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

I did not glue the display to the platform. While this could in theory form a landing pad or the like, I just wanted to make sure it could be stored more easily. I was contemplating adding rain water streaks to the glass of the display, but upon assembly I felt it looked too nice. On the other hand it stands a bit out with the rest being so run down. What do you think… rainwater marks yes or no?

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

 

Combined Army Suryats need a lift

Just a short post today of some additions to my Combined Army I painted a few weeks ago… a unit of Suryats. While Iam getting ever more of a feel for the game, I do at times struggle with the units at my disposal. Most infantry seem to die too fast, so I decided to paint up a unit of Suryats. With two wounds each, I hope they will be a little more robust, but since I have not fielded them yet, it is still too early to tell.

Combined Army Suryats

The lift in the background is from Antenocities Workshop as part of their Forward Base range. I repainted it a little to give it more contrast than just the light grey and yellow. Quite happy with it (and the second one from the set). I was contemplating buying the set or not, since they are designed for the post Kickstarter version of the Forward Base, but it seems the Kickstarter version (which I have) and the post Kickstarter version both have the same hight and shape so they fit mine as well. Although I have to say that the lugs where you can fit the security barriers to the roof of most Kickstarter buildings are in the way of them really hugging the buildings. Except for some of the  larger buildings where there are spots where the lugs are further apart. But I can live with that.

 

General Veers, Snowtroopers and Luke Skywalker

Continuing my quest to get my forces for Star Wars: Legion together… here are some more.

Up first is General Maximilian Veers… or as like to call him General Gordon Ramsey. As good as they seem to be with the uniforms and so on, they seem horrible with faces. The face o this mini rather reminds me of Gordon Ramsey rather than Julian Glover. (BTW: Looking at the preview pictures of Han Solo, that mini rather reminds me of Nathan Fillion playing Cpt. Reynolds in Firefly than Harrison Ford.) Anyway, here he is:

General Maximilian Veers

Up next are the Snowtroopers. Since I decided to keep my bases in a forest / jungle theme, I did not want to do them in snow theme. The background story for the unit rather has them as hazardous environment troops rather than dedicated snow troops. So I went with tan coloured clothing and coats instead of white. For a while I contemplated moss-green coats, but decided against it, since I wanted them to still look as light coloured as possible. Which I think I pulled off. But it proved to be harder than I thought. For one I was unsure about the looks during the whole process. Which lead me to do something I rarely do, that is paint one mini as a sample. Only when I was happy with that finished product, did i go back and paint the rest of the squad. And it all took me longer than I had wanted. I had always planned to keep the Star Wars minis simple and only do fast paint jobs, but with these it did not work out. I think they all took a little over twice as long as seven Stormtroopers took me.

Snowtroopers (Unit leader and heavy weapons)

Snowtroopers

And last is Luke Skywalker. His uniform matches the one worn on Bespin in the Star Wars movies, so i painted him that way. Again, the face does not really look like Mark Hamill, but it can not be helped.

While painting him I was wondering one thing. Points and abilities wise he is no match for Darth Vader in the game. But since his looks match Luke Skywalker on Bespin, when he was not as skilled as he was later on,… will Fantasy Flight games later release a more powerful version of him, matching the Skywalker at the time of Endor?

Luke Skywalker

 

Battle Kiwi Star Wars terrain

When they announced the Star Wars Legion game late last year, I knew, that I had to play it. And I knew that I needed some terrain for it. When I saw the Battle Kiwi Kickstarter I knew that this would be great for the game and I bought into it. And I was not disappointed. All the buildings went together very easy and required very little effort to make them even better. Plus they are super versatile.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Endor bunker

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Endor bunker

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion consoles

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion consoles

Up first is the bunker. It has a good level of detail, provides cover to the minis standing atop the roof. I like the fact, that it has opening doors and that you can take part of the rear wall out, to give you the ability to connect it to different buildings they are planning to release later on. The three consoles that come with the bunker offer some nice cover to the minis inside. I repainted these dark grey and picked out the buttons and screens.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion tech work area

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion chief switch

The tech working area is a nice homage to the ending areas on Scarif in Rogue one. The containers suffer a bit from the problem you have with all MDF terrain… you see a lot of the edges on small pieces. So I repainted these. Which was easy enough. Since the Battle Kiwi terrain is pre-painted, I took the paint really well. With the control console I simply picked out the buttons and details while painting the the antenna in gunmetal.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Shiled Generator dish

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Turbo Laser turret

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Turbo Laser turret

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Turbo Laser turret and Shiled Generator dish switched around

Now on to the big models… the dish for the shield generator on Endor and a Turbo Laser turret. The are really great in that they provide great LOS-blockers for both infantry and vehicle sized models, while being really scenic. I made some minor improvements in that  I picked out some of the cables in dark grey and painted the turbo lasers themselves in gunmetal grey. Since you can interchange the tops of both models, it gives you even more versatility and makes them easy to store.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad with Lamda Class shuttle

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad (low configuarion) with Lamda Class shuttle

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Power generators

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion entrance to Pylon

Now this landing pad is undoubtedly the absolute centerpiece of the whole range. As you can see it really towers over the minis. That being said, it is easy to store, since the pylons are separate from the landing pad, which is itself is two parts, with the railings and light pylons coming off as well. As you can see, you can also do a lower landing pad and add some stairs to it and place some power generators on the pylons, or use the generators by itself. I only made some minor alterations to the model, by painting on landing lights and doing the openings into the platform itself in gunmetal grey.

The biggest problem with the model is, that it looks a bit bare by itself. So it was screaming out for a shuttle to be landed upon it. Since there is no model of a Lambda Class shuttle in the right scale, I could count myself lucky, that Martin has a 3D-printer and printed one out for me. The model itself is a bit simple, but as a terrain piece it is doing fine.