General Grievous Painted

It's been a while since my last update but I have been painting some more Legion models. One of them being General Grievous. I like the multi pose options that come with this model. Although I like the four lightsaber wielding Grievous I gave mine the DT-57 'Annihilator' pistol and cloak. 

Droidekas Painted

Star wars Legion Droidekas

They were very hard to put together but pretty easy to paint. A lot of metalics with a wash, than just the eyes and done. I painted the "shell" armour with a dark bronze and after I washed them with aggrax earthshade I also gave them a very light purple wash.

B1 Contrast Fun

Star Wars legion B1's painted

After I finally assembled 4 units of B1's and the upgrade expansion all I had to do was paint them. I read a lot of players used the recently available Games Workshop Contrast Paints. I tried it on 1 test model and I was blown away with the results and how easy and quick I could paint them up. I did tweak the recipe a little.

Sorry I''m late for the group shot

I mixed the Skeleton Horde with some Aggaros Dunes contrast paints in a 3:1 ratio. For the guns I used Black Templar contrast paint. When the models had dried I lightly drybrushed them with some Vallejo Iraqi Sands but any light bone colour will do. To finish them I added some weathering with the sponge technique. I sponge on some dark brown paint and late stipple some Runefang steel in the same place to make it look the B1's have some scratches.

Count Dooku Painted

Star Wars legion Count Dooku Painted

Count Dooku is the fearsome leader of my Separatists army. I liked this charachter in the movie and I love this model. I think the pose is great. Painting him up was pretty straight forward. I had a look online for the right colours and had him done in an hour. the only difficult bit is his face.  I painted the lightsaber to match the lightsagers I did before but I might go back and change them all one day. 

Looking very much forward to see how he plays.

Legion Count Dooku Face Close-up

Painted Jyn Erso

Painted Star wars Legion Jyn Erso (click to enlarge)

When I had just painted Jyn I took her to a tournament as my rebel commander. She has some nice tricks up her sleeve but at  the three games I played with Jyn that day she never really came through. I was looking forward using the infiltrate special rule but I think is rule good but also dangerous. I overplayed it and Jyn was stuck in the middle of the board and had to stay out of sight for the first three turns. I really have to learn how to play her best.

I love the Rogue One movie and have seen it plenty of times. The painted model goes nicely with the pathfinders. I'm currently painting up her lover Cassian Andor so when he is complete they will make a nice set in my display.

Painted AAT (CIS)

The Droid invasion on Corellia (click to enlarge)

After a year of silence I have resurrected this blog with a post about the mighty AAT (armoured assault tank).

I have always liked the sleek look of the AAT and the different aproach to a tank from other designs really made me want to paint this model. I now have a small droid army but the repulsor tank makes  a nice centerpiece. It's hulking size alone strikes fear in my opponents.

Painted Star Wars Legion  AAT (click to enlarge)

I picked up a new core set, I wanted two but couldn't find more than one. I got some additional units but because of the Corona crisis and FFG current shipping circumstances I can't get all the units I want. I'm still looking for some B2's.

CIS Droid AAT invasion (click to enlarge)

I painted the AAT as in the phantom menace when the Trade Fedaration invade Naboo. I always liked that colour scheme and it fit's in nicely with the rest of my army but more of that later.

Rebel Specialists Painted

Rebel Specialists
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

It's been a while ago that I bought this expansion, they have been on the painting shelf for some time but other projects always got priority. I don't really believe in the generic commander and the comms specialist. I did use the command cards at my last tournament and I think they are pretty decent. better than the basic command cards from the core set. Since you can use them without taking the generic commander from this expansion I will probably use these more often when I make lists with only special commander.

The bots will probably get some more play as they have more use, they are a solid points investment and I have seen other players use them with good results. I will try to add both at my next game and see how they work for me.

The humans on the other hand will probably not be used unless I will play some narrative games. I really like using the special character commanders because of their abilities and command cards. They were fun to paint though and complete my Star Wars Legion Rebel collection so I had to have them anyway..

Pathfinders painted

Are we blind?? Deploy the garrison!
(Click to enlarge)

The Pathfinders have landed on Scarif. When this expansion was released for Star Wars Legion I just finished watching Rogue One for the fourth time. I really like that movie so I wanted to paint this unit to match the original. The only change I made was with Corporal Maddel. She has blond hair in the movie but I gave her red hair. The contrast looks better in my opinion.

I have played a few games with the Pathfinders but I'm not a big fan. They have some nice abbilities but overall I'm not convinced. 

I rather play a unit of wookies that really do well for me but maybe it's just my play style. The Imperials had a unit of deathtroopers released as a mirror unit but they are a lot better. I guess they will look nice in my display cabinet...

X-34 Landspeeder painted

X-34 landspeeder painted
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

I just finished painting the rebel X-34 Landspeeder. This has been my favourite unit to paint so far. I have used my airbrush to paint the landspeeder and painted the three figures by hand. I wanted to paint the model up like Luke's landspeeder from the original trilogy but the striping was a bit to hard for me so I went with a simular paint scheme but my own design.

I really love the figures riding on the landspeeder's back. Unfortunately the Twi'lek had a varnishing mishap. For the very first time in 15 years of painting the varnish frosted. You can see this in on the left arm, Rocket launcher en left foot. I need to figure out if I can still fix that. I did like painting the Twi'Lek.

Both riders on the back are magnetized so I can take them off if I want. I think most of the time I will leave them on because they look so good. I think this is an amazing sculpt . The figures are painted so they match the rest of my rebel army. Makes it look they hopped on in the heat of battle.

You can see where the magnets are but I tried to hide them as good as I could. 

Battle-worn painting tutorial (Barricades)

I've been asked a few times how I paint the battle damage and rust effects on my Barricades. Because I had a second core set I had to paint up more barricades and made a tutorial out of it. The techniques are really simple and anyone can pull this off if you know the trick.
Below I will take you through each step.

I used an airbrush to prime the model, give it some pre-shading and then put a thin base layer over it. If you don't have an airbrush just paint the whole model grey. The reason I use an airbrush on larger flat surfaces like that is that I can pre-shade and that gives more depth to the model. The effect is very subtle so you don't have to do this step.

You can see the barricade on the left after I have painted the base layer over it. Here you can see the result of the pre-shading. a subtle effect. The barricade on the right is where we apply the next step. I dry-brushed the whole model with an ivory color paint. This adds an edge highlight to the piece.

To create more depth and contrast to the barricades I got out my number two favourite paint or actually wash (agrax eartshade is my number 1 if you were wondering). Get a small brush and let the wash run araound all the edges of the model. Make sure not use too much wash because it will pool. You can make a few oil leak streaks on the model coming from the grill bits using the wash. 

To add battle damage or worn look to the barricades you get a dark brown color, I used Black Brown and you get a piece of fine sponge. Get some paint on the sponge and dab it on a piece of kitchen towel first then dap it on a few place on the barricade. As you can see in the picture above you can achieve this look in just a couple of seconds. If you want to do this with a brush it would take you much longer and would be a lot harder to achieve. If you want to add extra detail you should get a small brush and some light grey/white paint and paint a few lines right underneath some of the pathes. This gives the impression of the paint chipping off. I didn't do this on my barricades however.

So far so good and most painters use the sponge trick so nothing new there but very few painters use oil paints as we always use acrylic paints but for the next step you should get some oil paints. Get a color that looks like rust (or maybe two) and put a few tiny dots on the model that you want to be the top of your rust streak. You can see it in the picture above but you'll have to look hard.

Because oil paints dry really slow you don't have to rush. You should also get some odourless white spirit that you can get in any hobby/craft store. Wet a large flat brush with some white spirit and and run it from top to bottom over the small dots of oil paint in the direction that you want your streak. You will instantly see the streaking effect. Because the oil paint doesn't dry quickly you can really work it. Pushing it around and if you make a mistake you can just whipe it off and start over. It's really easy and gives a great result. If you have done this on one of you models you will probably want to experiment with other colors to make other effects. (white oil paint for water streaks and black for oil stains for example). Even if you don't like the results the next day you can take a swab with some white spirit and remove it with a few rubs. Oil paints will just be another tool in your toolbox.

As a final step I have taken some metal color paint to add to the areas that we used the sponge technique on. It will make it look like fresh scratches. You can see it in the picture above but you'll have to look closely, I didn't want to over do this effect.

Now your battle worn barricades are ready. The barricades have a computer panel and some flashy lights on the back that you can paint but I'll leave that to you. On the left a bit of inspiration from my barricades.

Emperor Palpatine painted

Emperor Palpatine painted
CLICK TO ENLARGE

This miniature marks a new era for my Legion gaming. I have been painting rebels till this point and it only seemed fitting to me to start my Empire army with the big boss himself. I started the Rebel army with Luke Skywalker.
In the movies you can witness his transformation from the much loved senator from Naboo (sheev Palpatine) to the dark lord of the Sith (Darth Sidious) during the first three episodes. On the painting desk it took less then 3 hours start to finish.
Although painting this miniature meant using a lot of black and grey shades it was still fun and pretty quick. (I know the emperor should have a black cane but I wanted to make it look like wood)

UNLIMITED POWER!!!!

The only place you can really add some detail is in his face so I tried my best on that. I mixed in grey with skintone paints and then washed it with agrax eathshade, repainted the raised areas and washed the eye sockets with reikland flesh. then just worked my way up using lighter paints with each coat.

I'm looking forward to field him in games together with the imperial royal guard.

Rebel AT-RT Painted

The AT-Rt is the rebels's workhorse. It can be fitted with 3 different types of weapons and had reasonable good melee although I wouldn't advise to get your AT-RT's that close to the enemy. My favourite weapon so far is the rotary blaster which puts out decent damage but when you have a feeling you might be up against vehicles you can equip it with a laser canon.

I have played against another rebel player that had two AT-RT's with laser canons and it made me keep my own AT-RT's back and behind cover to block line of sight. It is that scary.

The At-RT is good value for points and a auto include in any list for me. That might change when more units for the support slot are released.

I haven't used the heavy flamer option yet because I don't like putting my AT-RT's within range 1 of my opponent's units but the potential damage it can do is great and a good deterrent in objective areas.

I have two AT-RT's from the two core boxes I have bought. I haven't changed the AT-RT's itself so they both have the same pose but I did use some green stuff to model the shooting arm of the pilot to make it look different. I also changed the color scheme and skin color of the two pilots and did a quick and easy head swap. This way they don't look like twins to me. What do you think?

Princess Leia Organa Painted

This is a personal favourite of mine. I loved the princess (General) Leia character in the movies, all of them. The options that she brings to the Legion game a pretty good and I include her in most of my lists. The model itself is not that great but it's ok. Painting the face was a bit of a pain but I like the end result.

Leia is a cheap commander option for the rebel army and her command cards are good. The benefit she gives to units around her make her really good. What better way to start a game than rain down a orbital bombardement on your opponents sniper teams.
Usually the only upgrade I put on her is the esteemed leader card to make sure she lasts longer under attack. This makes her a cheap pick for the army. The facts she dishes out a lot of dodge tokens and removes suppression is good. Her sharpshooting blaster is quite deadly with pierce 1 and remove cover.
I let her run up with a unit of fleet troopers which have range 1-2 as well to keep her safe.

T-47 Airspeeder painted

Star Wars Legion T-47 Airspeeder
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

One of the most debated units in the Star Wars Legion game is the T-47 airspeeder. The wave 1 "Heavy" rebel unit sure is a cool model but it's point cost is so high you rarely see any in a competitive army list. They usually only feature in scenario plays or taken for their "fun factor" in casual games. It's a shame really because it's a nice unit to use. The damage it put's out doesn't seem too high or unbalance.Here's my painted model. I painted mine in between my rebel trooper units and it was good fun painting it and a nice change from all the trooper uniforms. I didn't use the orange striping you see on most other T-47's but instead used the same red-brown color that I use in the rest of my rebel army. It ties the army together nicely I think.
The sad thing is I have never used it in a game. The unit is so expensive in points and dies fairly quickly there are just many other and cheaper options that seem more viable.

Star Wars Legion T-47 Airspeeder
(CLICK TO ENLARGE)

Rebel Fleet Troopers Painted

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
Click to enlarge

The fleet troopers are basicly the unit that pulled me in. Just before I went on holiday last summer and saw a unit of fleet troopers painted by a fantastic painter (Mattijs Pels). I really liked his models and I was hooked and started looking for more Legion stuff. Unfortunately that shop didn't have the core set but before I was off on 2 weeks holiday I managed to get a box. That holiday I put together the models, removed mold lines, read the rules and looked for information and battle reports on Youtube.  Back from holiday I started painting up the models. I was still looking for fleet troopers for my own rebel army but I couldn't find them anywhere. Legion isn't a big game in my region so there are not that many players or shops selling the game.

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
Click to enlarge

A couple of months ago I finally got a box and quickly painted them up in the classic color scheme. I have since then played a couple of games with them. I find them very handy for securing an objective close to my deployment zone. Keeping them back a bit keeps them alive. I also sometimes let them run up with Princess Leia as a personal bodyguard to pass off wounds from her to the fleet troopers. I once played them agressively and they ended up dead within a turn so I probably won't do that again.

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
Click to enlarge