Painting Challenge Submission #7 - Imperial Shore Troopers

More members of the Scarif garrison ready to deploy.

After a delay caused by the move, I am (mostly) back the painting wagon again, and for my submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge I returned to a favourite subject from last year - Star Wars and the Scarif garrison from the movie "Rogue One". We have a group of Shore Troopers to bulk out the garrison. These are 28mm figures (yes, they still are, even if they are big), a mix of "official" figures from Fantasy Flight Games (not called that anymore, but I have lost track of what they are now called) and 3D print designs from DarkFire.

Shore Trooper squad from Fantasy Flight Games.

The Fantasy Flight Games figures comprise a regular squad of Shore Troopers, an officer and five troopers, including one with a heavy weapon. These are lovely sculpts and I really like the poses of the troopers, a nice mix of action, firing and moving among the group.

Squad leader and corporal, ready to deploy.

I love these firing poses...

The action poses are fantastic too - great sculpts.

Moving into the 3D prints, we have two support groups that are rounding the garrison out nicely. One is a sniper team (cue the jokes), comprised of a marksman and a spotter.

Imperial Shore Trooper "sniper" team - we know all the jokes about Imperial soldiers and their inability to hit anything in the films...but in actual table top games, the Imperial soldiers can indeed hit targets!

And to provide some leadership and direction for what is now a platoon-sized Shore Trooper force, we have a senior officer and a communications trooper. 

Command team for the beach!

Another view of the officer/command team.

I have applied my own interpretation of the various colour schemes I have seen online - and in the film - for the Shore Troopers.  The senior officer has the greatest variety of colours - between that, his pose and his pistol armament, and the flunky with the comms unit following him around, he is all set to look the part on a gaming table and lead an Imperial garrison in response to terrorist acts carried out by the so-called "Rebel Alliance". 

The Fantasy Flight sculpts of these figures are awesome, but the 3D prints are tremendous too - Dark Fire Designs is just great, and if you like Star Wars, I really recommend checking out their STLs. Conscript Dave V is the one who inspired me to look more into the 3D world of Star Wars figures, and wow, is there a lot to choose from. I find Dark Fire to be one of the best. They have a number of licensed printers too, so you are spared from actually having to contemplate owning one of those !@#!@#ing things yourself :) 

Anyway, that is all for now - thanks for reading, and watch for more progress by the Fawcett Conscripts through this edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge!

Painting Challenge Submission #13 - Director Krennic and Death Trooper Guards for Star Wars Legion

Director Krennic and his Death Trooper body guards - figures from Fantasy Flight Games

Rounding my recent run of "Star Wars" painting for Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, we have the antagonist from the film "Rogue One" - Director Krennic, accompanied by his bodyguard squad of sinister Imperial Death Troopers. These are all figures from Fantasy Flight Games range for Star Wars "Legion". 

One of the many things that make "Rogue One" so awesome is the non-supernatural nature of the protagonists and antagonists. I mean, it is still clearly a sci-fi setting of course, with all that can entail, but Ben Mendelsohn's portrayal of Director Krennic, leader of the Death Star development program, was so well done, creating a relatable antagonist amid a fantastical setting. The Death Star or the Galactic Empire do not exist in the real world (at least, not yet), but Director Krennic types are everywhere in our increasingly futile-o-crat bound society. Krennic is a pencil pusher, a super bureaucrat, adept at navigating and climbing in the bureaucracy of the Galactic Empire. Never mind The Force, he has a Program with a Budget. Never mind Order 66, Krennic could have simply buried the Jedi order with TPS report audits. 

Director Krennic, prepared to sort out a few bureaucratic SNAFUs personally...

Sure, he is working on a genocide-level terror weapon, but for him it's all about getting the credit - even after Vader nearly strangles him! Will the Emperor be told I did a good job? Switch out "Death Star" and replace it with "Winnipeg Regional Health Authority" or "Competition Bureau of Canada" and his movie dialogue is depressingly close to real-life. Death Stars and Sith Lords are products of our imagination, but there are Director Krennics all over the place, right now, in our world, working on a program that will "fix health care" and accumulating a defined benefit pension obligation that your taxes will have to fund somehow.

So look, he makes an awesome character for a Star Wars game! And Fantasy Flight did a great job on the miniature. In particular the sculptor captured Krennic's near-constant annoyance with his subordinates, best captured in his exhortation/command to deploy the garrison on Scarif...

Krennic-types may lurk all over, but the Imperial Death Troopers, on the other hand, are thankfully NOT a common feature of our real world (for now). I believe the idea for these Troopers came from one of the Star Wars FPS video games from the 90s? I'm not certain on that, but they sure looked cool in "Rogue One".

No need to panic! The Death Trooper are here!

Not only is their armour black, sleek and sinister, but they are festooned with all sorts of different blasters - which they carry with them everywhere! The "Rogue One" film handled them brilliantly - I mean, sure, a small child DID manage to out-whit them (they didn't seem too intent on burning up calories to search for young Jyn Erso, did they?), but notice how the Death Troopers never have any silly Stormtrooper-esque dialogue (i.e. "they're over there!" or "get them" or whatever). Rather, when they are present you catch the faint audio snippets of some kind of closed-channel radio chatter, and that's it. They are communicating with each other, but the only message they'll send to you will come from the barrel of a blaster. I find it makes them more sinister.

I love these poses - Curt described them as having a real "special forces" look, and I think that description is perfect.

Finally, when they are sent to combat, they actually hit pretty hard, exacting a heavy toll on the brave Rebels making the raid on Scarif, and sealing the fate of the diversionary ground attack.

A handy DLT-19D blaster on the left, while the fellow on the right prepares a grenade...they are going to clear that room...

Great firing poses - they might actually hit something!

Once more, I have to hand it to the sculptors employed by Fantasy Flight Games - they really nailed these models. The blasters, the grenades, the grenade launchers, the harnesses, the cool helmets, it's all there.

Now painting these all-black sinister SOBs was a bit of a head scratcher....how to capture the look? Maybe this called for some grisaille? Hah! Hell no. In the end, I did my best with grey highlights and a lot of black washes. Thankfully GW's new "Nuln Oil" is not as f*cked over as its new "Agrax Earthshade", so still has applications on subject like this. I also added some red for the eye lenses and scopes, and touch of green on the helmets. I considered attempting some kind of gloss varnish, but decided against it in the end. 

The garrison deploys...

 It was fun to take this little run on Star Wars figures - and great to knock out so many boxes of figures from the "pile of shame" in my basement. The Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge continues - we are nearly 2/3 of the way through - so keep watching this space for more submissions, and thanks for reading.

Painting Challenge Submission 18 - Jyn Erso's Team from "Rogue One"

Ready to take a chance, until all of the chances are spent...

For my final submission to the 12th Edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I went with a selection of 32mm figures for the game "Star Wars: Legion". The figures are a mix of "Fantasy Flight Games" miniatures and 3D prints sourced via Etsy.

I caved in to temptation and started "Star Wars: Legion" last year. The rules are so baroque and overly complicated that I find them to be barely playable - but the miniatures are generally great, and since there are a lot of other rules options with which to use these figures, I have been diving more and more into it. The range of figures from Fantasy Flight (or Atomic Mass, or Private Equity Tools, or whatever they are called these days) is fairly complete, and includes a number of character figures from the "Rogue One" movie.Even better, there is an amazing and talented community of 3D-print file designers out there filling in the gaps - and in this submission we find both kinds of figures.

Nearly all of the "Star Wars" films made under the Disney banner have been very poor. The three sequel films in particular were a tour-de-force in appalling film making, ranging from "very bad film with lazy writing that somehow makes the prequels tolerable in comparison" to "human excrement rendered as a digital HD experience". But there is one exception amid the Disney film wreckage - "Rogue One". It's awesome, just a great film, and certainly my favourite film of the whole Star Wars bunch. As DaveV introduced me to the 3D-printed-figure world for "Star Wars: Legion", I immediately ordered some characters inspired by "Rogue One".

So we have Bodhi Rook, the "brave defector" - this is a 3D printed figure.

Bodhi Rook, ready to help engineer a landing in a captured Imperial shuttle.

We have Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, the displaced guardians of the Jedi temple. These are also 3D printed figures.

I love the pose on this sculpt - amazing to see what the 3D printing folks can do these days...

Love that weapon!

We have a team of Rebel Pathfinders - these are from the box set of the same name from Fantasy Flight Games. These are lovely sculpts, but the plastic-resin used in the manufacturing is bendy and crappy. Once you get the paint on them, they are not too bad, but I have ordered some additional Pathfinders from a 3D print supplier to expand this force later on.

Love that door-gunner character...only downside is that it makes the Pathfinder box very bespoke...hard to add variety when all of the figures are so specific. But lovely sculpts.

The Pathfinder team, ready for action!

And last, but not least, we have the amazing Jyn Erso, the young rebel who sets aside bitterness, cynicism and sadness to challenge the evil of the Galactic Empire head-on. This figure is from Fantasy Flight Games. I'm hoping Jyn will be an acceptable figure for a ride on Sarah's Star Yacht!

The sculpting is nice...Jyn is ready to break a knee to make her points...

Prior to the Challenge, I had painted Cassian Andor and the sincere-yet-tactless droid K-2S0 - both figures from Fantasy Flight Games. They won't count for points here, but it seemed wrong to leave them out of the group photo...

Ten people, ready to fight like a hundred...

Cassian and K2 lurking in the back of the group photo...

This was my final submission to AHPC XII. Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment, and congratulations to all participants, particularly my fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscripts, who have made huge progress against their unpainted figure piles. All the best to everyone!

"You don't know the power of the Dark Side!" - Challenge Submission #3

 

Star Wars: Legion has a very nice injection-moulded plastic model of Anakin Skywalker as he appears during The Clone Wars and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith. There are optional parts for a couple of cool poses. However, I decided to paint Anakin in a kind of "What if...?" scenario, as a somewhat older Darth Vader, who came out of his original fight with Obi-Wan in better condition, and does not usually need his armoured suit.

I assembled the pose with Anakin holding his lightsaber in his right hand, and casting a Force power with his left. The only gaps needing filling were across the shoulders of his tabard. I also set aside for use the head option with a more neutral expression.  

I black primed with Chaos Black, and airbrushed the lightsaber with Vallejo white, fluorescent orange, and red. I laid in zenithal highlights on the head with Vallejo Dead White. After affixing the head, I underpainted Anakin's face and left hand in Vallejo acrylics, with details and blending in artists' oils. I gave him greying hair, and made the sculpted facial scar fresh using Alizarin Crimson. 

I painted the tabard, right glove, and boots with Vallejo Grey Black. Light highlighting and details were added for his clothing and gear using artists' oils.

This is a similar project to my last year's submission of a young(er) Count Dooku, modeled when Jedi Master Dooku had just left the Order to defend his home planet. In Star Wars: Legion, the Anakin Skywalker character is part of the Grand Army of the Republic faction. I plan to use this version of Anakin/Vader as part of the Empire faction, using the rules for Vader’s Operative form.

Scoring: 7 points for a 40mm figure, plus 20 bonus points for Istvaan V: Betrayal; Heretical/Heretics or Loyalty/Loyalists. In either his canonical or this AU guise, Anakin betrayed his master and murdered countless innocents. Total = 27 points.

SW Legion - Cassian Andor and K-2SO

Cassian Andor and K-2SO - figures from Fantasy Flight Games "Star Wars Legion" range.

Well, there was a slight diversion there, but it did not take long to squeeze another "Star Wars Legion" bit on my painting desk. Here we have Cassian Andor and K-2SO, characters from the excellent "Rogue One" film. These are plastic figures from Fantasy Flight Games' "Star Wars Legion" game. 

"Why can't I have a blaster?"

The Disney sequels for "Star Wars" are awful. I don't mean to dwell on that here - there are many other (better-written) sources for that sort of content online. But I found first one was so vomit-inducing that it caused me to ignore anything "Star Wars" that emerged from the sh*t pit of the Mouse Empire. This stubborn attitude, in turn, caused me to ignore "Rogue One" when it came out in theatres. Wow was that dumb on my part! Years passed, and I finally watched "Rogue One" on TV, and loved the film. So when I finally tilted over into collecting and painting "Star Wars Legion", I was pleased to see a number of characters from the film were already featured in the game's miniature range.  

Very nice sculpts from FFG.

There are different options to equip both Cassian Andor (either pistol or rifle) and K-2SO (either unarmed, or carrying Jinn's blaster). I find this latter option to be nicely on-the-nose, given K-2's complaint about not having a weapon during the movie. I nonetheless decided to leave K-2 unarmed, with the idea that the figure could represent an actual Imperial Security droid, or even K-2 sneaking in as part of a Rebel op. Plus I just like to imagine K-2 complaining to Cassian about not having a weapon.

Ready for deployment on a gaming table...

While we all know how things end for the Rogue One team in that movie, the idea of gaming battles featuring the characters and troops from the film is certainly a motivating one - not only the fateful battle on Scarif, but other "what-if" operations as well. I know a lot of other "Star Wars Legion" players are motivated by the same notions, so my approach is hardly original, but nonetheless it will be fun to paint them up. I'm particularly pleased to have K-2, such a great and fun character. More of the characters from the "Rogue One" film are available from various 3D printing aficionados out there (thanks to Dave V for pointing me in the right direction), so watch for more "Rogue One" content to appear in this space as the winter arrives.

That's all for now - thanks for reading, and happy painting! 

SW Legion: Father And Son

The most complicated father-son relationship to be found in a galaxy far, far away...figures from Fantasy Flight Games.

More Star Wars Legion? Of course more Star Wars Legion! Here we have the final two figures from the Fantasy' Flight's "Legion" Core Set - Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. These are plastic 28mm size figures from Fantasy Flight Games. 

Are you choking on something?

I love the pose on Vader...one can instantly imagine the direct "motivation" being provided on the scene...

These characters are pop culture icons - not much I can say about them, other than it's great to have them available for any "Star Wars Legion" games that might happen out here in Northern Ontario.  

Luke, striking a defiant pose...

Trusty blaster on his hip as well, in case the light sabre is not the right tool for the job...but really, when would that be?

The sculpts of these iconic figures are excellent, but they are let down by the crappy bendy plastic that FFG opted to use in the manufacture of the figures. BOTH of the light sabres were quite droopy, and no amount of hot water or other tricks would straighten them out. I did my best to sort things out, but at a certain point, I figured "f*ck it" and just painted them up the best I could. But to be clear, bendy plastic is just the sh*ts when it comes to wargaming miniatures.

Galactic Empire figures from the Star Wars Legion core set.

One other thing you will notice immediately is that there is no OSL-type effect on the Luke and Vader figures. I simply cannot wrap my head around that process, and the odds that I would have managed it even close to properly on these two figures are zero. You can search elsewhere on this blog for figures by Dave and Dallas to see how cool OSL can be when done right...maybe I will try it one day. But for now, plain old colours to represent the light sabres!

Rebel Alliance figures from the Star Wars Legion core set. 

With Vader and Luke finished, I have now managed to complete all of the figures from the Core Set! That is a decent-sized small force for each side of the conflict, already bolstered by Rebel and Imperial Specialists! This will bring a halt to the Star Wars Legion painting run for now, as I move back to some other projects, but I'm sure it won't be too long until more Star Wars figures are under my brush - especially with Curt's next "Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge" on the horizon. Thanks for reading!

Star Wars Legion: Imperial Scout Bikes

Imperial Scout Troopers on speeder bikes - here comes fun!

November has arrived, and so has MORE painting for "Star Wars Legion"! Here we have two Imperial Scout Troopers on 74-Z speeder bikes. These are 28mm plastic models from Fantasy Flight Games, and came as part of the Imperial forces in the "Star Wars Legion" core box.

Gun that engine, before the rebel scum escape!

Service in the army of the Galactic Empire has a lot of downsides, but it always seemed to be that the poor Scout Troopers seemed to have a particularly difficult time of things. Sure, riding around on those speeder bikes looks like fun, but things always seem to conclude with some manner of terrible mishap - if some Ewok didn't already steal your ride!

I really like the pose on this figure - plus it is easy to imagine him racing straight into something while not paying attention! Such is the fate of Imperial Scout Troopers!

The Scout Troopers do provide some pretty hilarious moments, too - with the discussions between the two Scouts that kicked off the finale of season one for "The Mandalorian" being a particular high point of hilarity and enjoyment!

Racing to battle!

I had been procrastinating on finishing these models...mounted figures of any sort are always a bit of a pain, and these speeder bike models were particularly tricky. You'll see that one fellow doesn't quite line up exactly with the front of his notched base...that is because I failed to realize the tiny plastic stem actually has a specific alignment to fit into the bottom of the bike, and this realization came only AFTER the super glue took hold. I didn't want to risk breaking the model, so I left well enough alone...

One other challenge, of course, getting the white colour right...I have used an acrylic extender to try and squeeze more life out of my "White Scar" paint, and this did not quite work out - the extender make the paint lumpy, and thus you can see in the photos that the white armour on these fellows has a not-very-smooth texture...I can hear Duncan Rhodes right now in a video, extolling the virtues of "two thin coats"...anyway....

Off to their next maneuver!

Zipping around at high speed on the gaming table will be fun - I certainly enjoyed that aspect of things during my first game of "Star Wars Legion". We knew the Scout Troopers would meet some manner of terrible end, their bikes crashing into something and blowing up - and we were not disappointed! But it is all good fun. These two will surely do their bit to restore order to the galaxy as they maneuver in support of the Imperial Forces on the gaming table in the future. 

Have to share a big "thank you" to Dallas - I really didn't have an idea of the Scout Trooper uniform beyond a very general notion of "white, you know, with black too". Dallas shared some great pictures, which made the painting process much easier.

That's all for now - but more "Legion" painting work should be along any day now...thanks for reading!

Star Wars Legion: Imperial Specialists

Imperial Specialists for Fantasy Flight Games' "Star Wars Legion".

The "Star Wars Legion" buildup continues! This update isn't as cool as Dallas' most recent posting, but progress is still progress...here we have some Imperial Specialists - the counterpoint to the Rebel Specialists I finished a couple of weeks ago. These are 28mm plastic figures from Fantasy Flight Games/Atomic Mass Games/Insert name of whatever a**hole PE fund controls the license.

The contents of the "Specialists" boxes are consistent - up first we have an officer from the Galactic Empire. That pistol she is carrying might have been used to guard a prisoner, fire on a Rebel terrorist, or perhaps to help focus the thinking of an Imperial trooper. She is also reporting something into the ubiquitous "communicators" we see throughout "Star Wars".

Imperial officer, ready to report into her communicator.

She has either just shot, or is just about to shoot, some unfortunate person or thing...

This is a very nice figure - a no-nonsense Imperial Officer, an excellent sculpt in my opinion.

Then we have the communications specialist. Looks like a bit of a hapless job...but then, so many jobs in the armed forces of the Galactic Empire would appear to come with a lot of downsides...again, a nice sculpt. I put some varnish on his helmet...wanted to give this guy the appearance of a rear-area support figure, which would call for more polish in terms of the uniform.

Imperial Communications Specialist.

View of the comms gear on his back.

Then we come to the droids. There is the "medical" droid which...looks like it is not coming to heal you, so much as to harvest one or more organs for recycling. Seems to project just the right "bed side manner" for the Galactic Empire. 

"Medical" droid on the left, and astromech droid on the right.

And what is it with the Galactic Empire? Even the cute astromech droids can look sinister when in service of The Empire - not as scary, perhaps, as the "medical" droid, but still...

As with the Rebel Specialists, these figures all bring specific roles and abilities to the "Star Wars Legion" game, but I am more keen just to have them as general characters, accent pieces or objectives for a Star Wars skirmish game of some kind. That's all for now - Happy Halloween everyone, and stay tuned for more. Thanks for reading!