From AaronH - 34 Star Wars Legion B2 Battle Droids (170 points)

 This week's entry is 34 B2 Battle Droids from Atomic Mass Games for Star Wars Legion. These are 32mm sculpts, and these are all 3D prints. The B2s have been out of print for several months so the only way to have any at the moment is printing.

AMG released version 2 of the game last summer, though they call it version 2.6. It brought significant changes to the game. I am a big fan of the new version, though thoughts are decidedly mixed on that front across the community. I, however, have not had a bad game with the new rules and I definitely had games that were lost as soon as we set up in the old version.

One of the big changes in this version is that they added squad upgrades to core units. Core units are the tax unit, you are required to take 3 and can have up to 6 (or 8 in one of the droid lists). It used to be that you had a core size, 3 in the case of B2s, and could add a heavy weapon and one additional model. Now the B2s can add 4 B2s instead of 1. This means squads could be up to 8 models max instead of 5. Other units can go up to 10 or even 14 models in the case of B1s. They also raised the army size from 800 to 1000. This change seems to be much more popular as it lets us put more of our toys on the table.

As a result of these changes I've been adding bog standard models to all of my core across my armies. Last year I painted up two units of B2s (here). I needed to add three more models to each of those to make them capable of being maxed out.

Three bog standard B2s for Red and Blue squads.

Full Blue squad with the three new members in front.

Full Red squad. New 3D prints in front.

Next up will be four squads of seven each. I went with seven because I need to print a few more and you can't actually take six fully upgraded squads in an army, so I can always drag an extra from one squad into each of the others for now.

Purple squad. A lot of these prints have bases with terrain molded on.

Silver droid butts. Some of these prints are themed for mountain warfare and have extra gribblies on them.

Baby Blue squad.

Orange squad.

Green squad. This heavy weapon is different than the rest. There are two options but I, honestly, don't care so if there's a special weapon in the squad it's whatever upgrade is on the card. This one looks cool though.

Close up of the unit leader. He has gold around the colored section. It shows up better without the glare from the photo lights. You can see the large special weapon here. I painted them with color shifting paints and they vary between this purple and a sort of green depending on what angle you view them from.

All of the models painted for this week.

My entire B2 collection with the previously painted squads in the back.

34 32mm models x 7pts each = 238  points.

 

Sylvain: Wow, this is truly an unstoppable tide of metal, all shiny and well coordinated. I like your Tatooine bases, very evocative of the Star Wars universe, as well as your coding. I'm sure players won't be able to stop their urge to say "pew pew" when engaged in combat. Excellent paint job!

 

Regarding your points, the rules of the Challenge do not have a specific category for 32mm, so I will count them as 28mm (rather than 40mm) at 5 points each. 170 is still a nice bunch of points.

 

 

 

 

From AaronH - Star Wars Legion and final post (83 pts)

 Today's post is more CIS for Star Wars Legion. My youngest son is interested in playing Legion and he has chosen CIS. These models represent the final models to be painted for his first army list. With these completed he can show up for his first game with a fully painted army.

Ten models to complete an army.

This  is two more B2s to fill out the units to five each, a Dwarf Spider droid with all weapon options, a unit of Magnaguards and Cad Bane.

Magnaguards

The Magnaguards are a great unit in the game. they can only be brought in units of four but they are versatile, have two wounds and like to melee with force users.

The lightning on their staves was trickier than I expected but came out OK in the end.

The two B2s are the same as the last two units, just filling them out.

The Dwarf Spider droid is a great model in game. It's a vehicle so it blocks line of sight. It can take a variety of weapons and AI options, and it can explode when it gets near death and deal damage to all units within range 1 of it.

It looks like it  might be fiddly to build but it is actually really easy. Much easier than B1s.

This model is also nice because you can leave it's dome un-glued and switch out the weapons. Everything is tight enough to stay together until you want to switch it out.

All weapon options. Flamer, ion cannon and laser cannon.

The flamer is my favorite looking weapon option.

The final model is Cad Bane, the infamous bounty hunter. He's a powerful and tricksy operative who can wreck havoc if you're not careful.

This is my last entry for this year's challenge. I'm heading to the UK for work, and Rhys will be following next week for a week's vacation. I'd like to thank everyone for how welcoming you have been to him. It has meant the world to him for me to read your comments on his posts. I feel like his painting has improved as he takes in your advice. Your kindness has been remarkable.

That's ten models for the week, nine foot and 1 vehicle.

9 x 32mm x 7 pts = 63 pts

1 x 32mm Vehicle x 20 pts (it's small) = 20 pts

Total = 83 pts

Nice work here Aaron, I feel like you've personally accounted for a moderate-size hobby store's worth of Star Wars Legion stuff. It was great to have you in the Challenge and these droids look great, I especially like the Dwarf Spider Droid. Cad Bane is a polarizing character but you've done him justice here with a nice paint job. Safe travels to the UK and thanks to you and Rhys for participating this year!

Dallas