Hobby | Black TIE Event

Thanks to Andor season 2 (seriously go watch it) I've had a strong desire to finish up my Star Wars backlog. One of those projects that's just been sitting there is this pile of First Order TIE Fighters (TIE/fo) that I've had lying around. I had a total of eight of them, which unless I'm going to play Epic (I'm not), is more than I'd ever need for a standard list which can only support a maximum of 8 models. However, I only have a single special forces TIE Fighter (TIE/sf). So I've been letting these guys sit while I waited for an idea to strike on how to achieve the conversion. I finally decided that there's not a whole lot I'd have to do to make them look the part, so I just went ahead and experimented with a couple of materials to make them into budget TIE/sf.

Hobby | Blue Squadron Standing By

I can't let Dave have all of the Star Wars fun. I was originally intending for this to coincide with May the 4th, but life being what it is I was a little late. I've had a great time with Andor Season 2 (seriously, go watch it), so I've been in the mood for all things Star Wars. I've hade these 3D prints for New Republic E-Wings laying around for a while, and I have a plethora of spare X-Wings, so I went ahead and started painting Blue Squadron. 

Review | X-Wing Battle of Yavin

Not a lot of photos, and a bit of a short one, but I squeezed in a game of X-Wing. We played a 3-player game of the AMG scenario, Battle of Yavin, with myself as the Empire and the other two taking command of the Rebel forces looking to destroy the Death Star. 

Space Din-O-Pinions | RIP to Star Wars Armada and X-Wing (Season of Scenery 2024)

This will be a sort of weird hybrid post. I'll be talking about my thoughts with the recent announcement that Armada and X-Wing are ceasing development, but nobody likes a wall of text, unless you're into books. But this isn't a book, and pictures are required, so I've gone ahead and interspersed my ramblings with photos of my painted Armada squadrons. So it does double duty for the Season of Scenery challenge as well.  

Gaming | Star Wars Armada

2024 seems to be the year of variety, what with Mordheim starting up earlier in the year and now Armada. This is the 3rd game that I've played, but the first this year, the first to the full 400 point standard game, the first with the Rebels, the first with upgrades, and the first against an opponent that I'm not related to. Lots of firsts as you can see. 

We could, in fact, repel firepower of that magnitude

Hobby | 3-D Printed Star Wars Armada Squadrons

While November has been a slow month for me, hobby-wise, it hasn't been entirely devoid of minis. I enjoyed my foray into unofficial Star Wars Armada territory, so I gave it another go, this time with some of the squadrons: a Republic LAAT/i Gunship, Naboo N-1 Starfighters, and CIS HMP Droid Gunship. 

Hobby | Separatist C-9979 Transport

Picking up where I left off with the Arquitens from last post, the Separatists also get a custom little space ship. This is the creatively named C-9979, which first showed up in the Phantom Menace. It's primary purpose is really troop transport, but hey, there's a few ships like that in Armada, so I see no reason not to include it. 

Hobby | Republic Arquitens

I seem to have a tendency to pick "dead" games: Pirates CSG, Star Wars Miniatures, and now, Star Wars Armada. Unfortunately for the Republic and Separatist factions, they didn't get a full release, at least when compared to the Empire and Rebels. I also have a penchant for customizing things, and just because Armada is generally regarded as a complete and balanced game by the competitive community, I'm here for the lore damnit. And the Republic had the Arquitens before it was cool. 

A smaller angry triangle for your small conflict needs. 

Paint Recipe | A Menage a Tie

Sadly, my pun is off by a bit, as there are more Tie fighter varieties in this post than three. I let myself sleep at night by telling myself that the bomber doesn't count as a fighter, and the Decimator is just kinda... a thing, and the Tie Phantom is there. The other three are actually fighters. Pun saved. Anyways, I'll do a quick paint recipe of these guys. Because they don't need much, and are honestly a little boring to paint. But, it's the classic scheme, and it needs going over. Eventually, I'll get to cooler color varieties. 

Paint Recipe: Rebel Squadrons

It's time for some of the OG, most iconic squadrons in all of Star Wars, the Rebel alphabet soup. Soon to be followed by the much more grey, much more annoying to paint Empire. In this post I'll cover the paints I use to bring color to the X-Wing, the Y-Wing, the B-Wing, and the A-Wing.  

Hobby | Separatist Reinforcements

The Republic has had their time in the sun with a fancy new Star Destroyer, so it was only fair to turn my attention towards their nemesis, the droid filled CIS, the Separatists themselves. I painted all four of the squadron types available to them, as well as some Gozanti-class Cruisers that they gained access to in Rapid Reinforcements I.  

Hobby | Republic Victory-Class Star Destroyer

As I come to grips with Armada and it's mechanics, I've been learning about all of the various launches of ships and how they affect the game. I also learned that at some point, ownership of the game went from Fantasy Flight Games to Atomic Mass Games. AMG hasn't released any new models, but they have released print and play expansions that allow you to use old ships in new factions, which I think is neat. They've also used some lore justifications for this instead of just willy-nilly adding things, which I think is neater. However, that means you end up with situations where an Imperial ship in Imperial grey colors is flying alongside Republic ships in the egg-white and maroon colors of the prequels. Which isn't neat to me. Luckily, I am an ok painter, so I was able to do something about that. 

Hobby | Pint-sized Squadrons

In Star Wars Armada, all of the big ships come pre-painted. I've been adding some of my own details to the ships, which has been good practice. You see, the little ships don't have any paint on them, and so require you to come up the paint yourself (I guess if you don't mind bare plastic, you aren't required to do anything). I've taken a quick stab at two of the "squadrons" that I randomly picked out of the box of tiny Star Wars fighters: the Millennium Falcon, an Imperial Shuttle, Republic V-19 Starfighters, and Separatist Vulture Droids. More after the hyperspace jump.  

Hobby | Oh Boy Not Another Game System

If you told me the next post I would have written in the sci-fi genre wasn't going to be Warhammer 40K, the game I just spent two posts talking about not too long ago, I would have been surprised. Life has a funny way of working though. I was at a Flea Market at my FLGS, selling some of my wares, when the fine fellow at the table next to me suggested a trade. And that's how I ended up with an entire Star Wars Armada fleet. 

Custom Star Wars Miniatures

I finally got around to fixing up my Republic Commandos, who looked altogether too clean for the job they would be doing. It's amazing what some black wash can do, and adding small details here and there can really spruce up the appearance of a miniature.

Republic Commandos

Use of Terrain

So I put the building on one of the maps I own, and it blends into the map very well. I tried this on a variety of the maps, and the color scheme really lends itself to being on a wide swath of maps. I'm glad that I was able to meet that particular goal.

Star Wars Miniatures battle.

My next goal for now is cleaning up a few of the miniatures that I find to be poorly painted or could be made to look even cooler, so once those are done I will post them onto here!

Completion of Painting and Detailing

I've now completed the dry brushing of the building, and I must say I am satisfied with the way the colors came out. Adding the reddish hues gave the brown a nice warmth to it while adding some rusting effects, overall creating a nice tone. At the back of the building I added some tubing using a good old fashioned drinking straw, the remaining piece of the zip-tie, and some wiring. Using wine red mixed with orange gave a nice corroded look to the pipe, ensuring that it did not look too new.

The pipe. 

Eventually I felt that the back needed one more touch, so I painted a discarded felt tip marker cap to look like a chemical barrel of some sort, using the same paint scheme as the pipe and some wiring to give shape.

Much of the detailing is now very visible, with some clones for scale.

I'm glad this project turned out so well, and I'm looking forward to using it in some battles! I've gone ahead and posted some staged shots to showcase the look of the thing.

Clones enter the building to perform some scouting. 

The building gives them a great view of the battlefield, as well as slight cover.

An AT-ST attacks!

Painting Continues

After the texturing finished drying, I began layering on the base coat with a deep brown. The acrylic paint had to be watered down in order to preserve the texture, as I found that brushing it on normally tended to obscure the work I had done earlier. This took about three coats, and even though the building looked very dark with the occasional patchiness, that would be remedied with dry brushing. I also gave the interior of the hall and upper story some splotches of brown so that the next coating of grey would have some variation to it.

The base coat. 

For dry brushing, I opted to use tan with successively brighter layers by mixing in a light coral for warmth.

With highlights.

I decided to leave the top floor/roof a deeper color to provide contrast, and in some cases I drybrushed a small amount of orange to represent rust. If you look closely, there is also a door control panel to break up the color of the front a bit. I like how this looks, and I feel that it can blend into more types of environments using this color scheme. The next step is to add finishing touches and to seal the paint.

Details and Texturing

So I decided to clean up the upper story a bit as I decided it looked too square, so I added a top bar and some triangles to break up the appearance.

The improved upper story.

If you look closely around the door, I also cut some zip-tie strips to glue around the door, and with some dry brushing it should come out to look like grating. I've also done some scoring on the walls and edges to give the terrain a used look. The tower in the back has also gotten a few details in the form of wiring. 

Texturing!

After the detailing, I used filler to create texturing and too fill in the gaps, mostly around edges where individual foamboard pieces were glued together. Another key area was the dome, as I wanted to avoid the appearance of just having it be glued on. Using some filler the edges the sharp change was gradually converted to a sort of fillet. Next I'll have to let this dry and then get on to the base coat, which I'm thinking of using a dark brown so that the building can fit into more worlds than the Mos Eisley vibe I was thinking of originally. 

SciFi Building Work-in-Progress

After hashing out a few plans to finally make some terrain for my Star Wars miniatures game, I decided to go with a foamboard building that had a Star Wars feel to it but could be easily swapped into any other science fiction game. I still need to do some detailing, but overall I'm pleased with the way the piece has come out. For my first attempt at large terrain sets I think it went well.

Some Clone Troopers explore a newly created building. Inexplicably supported by an Imperial AT-ST (for scale).