Emperor Palpatine painted

Emperor Palpatine painted
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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.

DIY Cargo scatter terrain

Let's make some terrain pieces, Cheap and quick guide.
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In this tutorial I'll show you how to make your own Space Cargo scatter terrain but you can really do this for any wargaming scene you like. Since this is a Star Wars Legion Blog it wil be Space Cargo and will be mixed with my other space cargo. It will look good on the Tatooine markets or Space ports. Let's get started.

One of my favourite things in this hobby is making things myself. I ussually get an idea and then simply have to make it. I want to make my Tatooine buildings look a bit better by adding some tent cloth here and there. I haven't done that yet because I also had another idea for  using paper napkins and lots of glue.

These pieces can be created in just a couple of hours and it isn't a lot of work. You can really easily do this as a side project because you work on it for a bit and then have to wait a lot for the glue, paint and washes to dry. This is a project you can leave to dry and then come back to it again.

This is what you'll need:
-Foam
-PVA Glue
-Thin cardboard (I used a pizza box)
-String/cord/wire
-Paper towel/napkins
-Bitz to make it more interesting(optional)
-Knife
-Scissors
-Brushes
-Primer
-Paint
-Washes
-A SWLegion miniature (to check heights and measurements)

So as you can see these items will hardly cost you anything. You'll probably don't even have to go out to buy anything as most wargamers have plenty of this stuff.

Basic shapes for the cargo pieces done

First you start by cutting the foam in basic shapes like you can see in the picture above. I glued them to a piece of cardboard from a pizza box. The cardboard will be the base of your piece. just make sure that the piece of cardboard is large enough to fit the foam and some space around it that we will use for draping the cloth over. It's handy to have a legion model at hand to check the seize and heights of the pieces your making. you'll want some to hide your models behind completely and some that they can shoot over from behind.
in the picture above you can also see that I added some spare bitz. I used some pegasus hobby components and some wooden crates that I still had. These will make the pieces look more interesting but aren't necessary.

Once your basic shapes are ready you can start with the glue. I mixed my PVA glue with water so it will be easier to use. Put glue all over the piece where you want to add cloth and then drape a paper towel/napkin over it. You then cover the whole paper towel with more watered down glue. Make sure you get all the creases and folds just the way you like.
Then take a piece of string and put that around your piece so it will look like a rope securing the cloth over the cargo.
Once this is done you can leave it to dry. after a couple of hours your piece should be dry and you add another layer of watered down PVA glue over the whole piece including the ropes, leave to dry and later add a third coat of glue. This might seem a bit overkill to you but what it will do is make your fragile piece rocksolid and firm. It will feel like a piece of plastic.

As you can see in the picture above I added some more wooden crates (1). These will look really good on your pieces. As you can also see there is still some of the pegasus hobby panels visible from under the cloth. not necessay but will all add to the piece.
When you look at the lower bit of the picture (2) you can see I trimmed the cardboard base to an organic shape, just as the cloth is draped on the ground. Your piece is now ready for painting.

looks a bit shiny and white because of bad lighting

The PVA coat makes the piece very shiny and smooth so I advise you to use a primer before you paint it. I used Vallejo primer and then painted everything in it's base colors. When dry I washed the whole piece with watered down Agrax Earth wash. Then I did a heavy drybrush with the same base colors and then a light drybrush with a 50/50 mix of the base color and white. you can now pick out a few details if you like but the piece is done and can be used on the table.

Here are some pictures of my pieces used in Legion games:

Space Cargo....any smugglers dream!

The Alliance Tournament Legion's First

Last weekend I went to the Alliance tournament, a large scale 40K tournament which had a Star Wars Legion small side tournament. The venue was great. Under an hour drive from my house which was nice for a change as most of the wargaming convetions and tournaments are usually over 2,5 hours drive from my house. The venue itself was great. The Schiphol hotel felt very luxourious compared to the gaming stores I normally go to. The tournament had 120 players for 40K and a whole whopping ........4 for Legion. definately something we need to work at promoting our game. I think we can draw more people in these tournaments when we ditch the whole tournament setting and name. Let's just call it an "event day" or "campaign". there aren't a lot of hardcore players for Legion and most people shy away from these tournaments because the feel inadequate and don't know the rules well enough. Most of the players in the tournaments however are more then happy to help new players and coach opponents through any game situation.  

There were 3 tables set up for legion. I had offered to bring my Tatooine table and so I came to the tournament half an hour early to set it up. The other tables looked good as well so we were set to have a lot of fun.

The organisation of the 40K tournament was great. all tables had a lot of nice looking scenery on it, every round started of with a very nice mission briefing video, there was a website with live updates of the player rankings, we all got water bottles to stay hydrated and the buffet...oh wow, that alone was well worth the ticket price. I'm definately going again which I believe will be May 4th for a special star wars themed event day.

This table on the left was set up by Tabletop Kingdom as a star wars legion demo table. It looks great and has a lot of nice looking line of sight blocking scenery on it. Over the event it even drew some attention from the 40K players curious about the Legion gaming rules.

The second table as a snowy cargo spaceport table. The lay out of the table was good but it had lot's of wide open spaces.

Table 3. My Tatooine table
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The third table was my tatooine table. The gaming mat was supplied by the tournament organisation. I got a lot of nice comments about the table and the players had fun playing on it. Having other people enjoy using my terrain give me a really good feeling so I'm hoping to add some more terrain to the "Mos Alta" table and continue to work on my industrial space table so I can bring two tables to the next event.

Below are some random shot's of my gaming table and below that some pictures of how my games went.

I tried out a new list which I never played before. I decided to field the wonder twins for the first time. I had Luke and Leia in the command slots, a sniper and proton strike team with a unit of wookie warriors filling out the special forces slots. Than a unit of fleet troopers and 3 units of rebel troopers each with a Z-6 and extra man in the unit.

For my first game I was watch up against Frank's imperial forces. He had a list with palpatine, royal guards and Boba Fett and filled the rest of the list with 2 sniper teams and storm trooper units. 

All I can say aboout the game is that I had a plan and everything went my way in this game. My units were in the right range all of the time. The timing of my command cards played out wonderfull and the fact that Frank rolled really bad with his red defence dice helped a lot too. I rolled up his army in round three. The plan worked and I was very fortunate with my dice rolls. 

My second game was against Joost who also had an imperial list with Veers, Boba Fett, double speeder bikes, an E-web, sniper team and couple of bare storm trooper units.

For this game a didn't really have a plan. I layed down a lot of fire towards his speeders and Veers but I was unable to criple any of them. On the other hand I lost most of my trooper unts pretty quickly and ended up with only my commanders, Luke & Leia with the Wookies at the last turn. My opponent outscored me on objectives and the game was lost.

The last game was against Hielke, an opponent I had faced before. In the previous tournament I had beaten him because I payed attention to the objectives and the clock. We had to end that game before it was turn six.

This time we started our game half an hour late and I had to quit half an hour early because I had other things to do that evening. We took 15 minutes to deploy and then only had an hour left to play. Because that's really short for a game of Legion we both made descicions we normally wouldn't. Both armies raced to the middle and all caution was thrown in the wind. 

It was really cool to play against a beautifull painted army on my table and I still enjoyed it even though it was too short.

I would like to thank the tournament organisers and tabletop kingdom for making this possible and hope we can grow our Legion-event-days from here. You guys are great, thank you! If they ever need any assistance in the future with other Legion events I will happily help them.

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
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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
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Rebel Fleet Troopers Painted

Star Wars Legion Fleet Troopers painted
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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
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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
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