Star Wars Legion: Inferno Squad and IG Assassin Droids

 

Just a small update this time: Inferno Squad with support Imperial Special Forces troops and the IG assassin droids.

All black uniforms can look rather dull and the details can be easily lost, so I did my best to add variation between the materials. Armor was highlighted with dark sea blue and given a satin finish, while  cloth was highlighted dark grey and leather dark brown, with flat finishes for both.

I'm no expert on Star Wars lore, but it appears that the Inferno Squad was just a select group of operatives, and that only three of the figures in Legion box represented then. As such, only those figures received the red stripe down the right of the uniform and the red helmet markers with the Inferno Squad logo. 

For the standard Special Forces troopers, most people use white Imperial icons. I didn't want to buy another set of decals (I purchased mine from Little Metal Spaceships; great decals, but poor communication and slow shipping), so opted to use the red imperial icons I had.  Unfortunately, there were none on the sheet that were shoulder patch size, so I used the Inferno Squad insignias rather than leave the spots blank. Hopefully the rest of the uniform differences will still be enough to distinguish them from the true Inferno members om the table.

For the IG Assassin Droids, I went with IG88 and IG11 for my builds rather than generic. Looking at reference photos, the major differences between them were the metal colors on them: IG88 was mostly steel and black tones, while IG11 had brass and copper tones on its limbs. I also gave them both some grime via washes for a worn look. The kit came with a few different arm and leg variations, so you could build figures a variety of ways.

With that, my Star Wars storage box is nearly full, so I'll likely call an end to this project for now. 

Star Wars Legion: Rebels and Partisans

I decided to take some time off for the holidays and the rainy weather spurred me to get a lot of painting done. Over the last few weeks, I managed to complete the rest of my unpainted Star Wars Legion Rebels. Some are official figures, while others are proxies available from various 3D printers. 

Standard Rebel Troopers from the game box.

Rebel Commandos with Orrimaarko (Prune Face).

Unofficial Rebel Irregulars from a wide variety of species, including the NED-B leader droid from "Kenobi." While the official figures are great, they are limited in terms of variety and I wanted more aliens on my table.

Unofficial Jedha Partisans from "Rogue One." Since I wanted to be able to use them both before and after the events of the film, I decided not to get Saw Gerrera and other charters that I knew didn't survive the Jedha attack.  The reference photos I found for Kullbee did not include a coat, so I took a guess and painted it blue to match the trousers he wore. 

While I found a good photo of the unnamed partisan on the left, the figure on the right was harder to track down. The only photo available was a black and white concept drawing, which didn't help with painting.  However, looking at screen captures from the movie, he appeared in the background (minus the turban) for a few seconds and was dressed in very dark colors with lights on his chest unit. Not wanting him to look completely like a Turkish Star Wars Darth Vader knockoff, I went with dark brown robes instead of black.  

I was really happy with the end results. I think Benthic and Moroff were my favorites out of this batch and will look suitably imposing on the battlefield. Now I just have to convince my teenage sons that dad is still relatively cool and they should turn off the Nintendo and sit down for a game with the old man.
 

Star Wars Legion: Imperial Army Mudtroopers

After over a year of painting moderns, I needed a break and decided to go back to Star Wars Legion for a bit. While there are lots of great official figures, there are plenty of interesting characters and units that aren't covered by official releases. I loved the look of the Imperial troops seen in Solo, so set about finding some proxy figures I could use.

With a bit of searching online, I found some 3D prints that fit the bill of what I wanted.  Not having a printer myself, I opted to have a printing service in Spain produce them for for me. While the sculpts were great, the prints themselves were covered in a sticky, white residue. Looking for an answer online, it appeared my vendor either didn't cure them long enough, or used a dirty curing solution. I was a bit frustrated, but decided I'd try to clean them myself before requesting they be reprinted. I put each figure into a bath of isopropyl alcohol and brushed them down with a swab and old toothbrush.  It didn't completely fix the stickiness, but the figures took the primer without issue. As such, I moved forward with painting.

Since I would likely be splitting my figures into two units for games, I ordered two officers to go along with the Mudtroopers. One looked like the officer from Solo, but I went with a generic Imperial field officer for the other. 

The Mudtrooper pack I selected came with two specialized weapons, a small rotary gun and what appeared to be a flame thrower. 

While the pack I ordered was supposed to only be standard Mudtroopers, one figure came replaced with Solo's Rio Durant in disguise. You can see the extra hand holding the cloak closed on the lower left figure, and a fourth hand is also present in back. Luckily, this wasn't too noticeable when you mixed him in his unit, so I let it go and didn't request a replacement.

Despite the issues with my order, I was happy with the final results.  The price I payed, while still expensive, was cheaper than some of the other online sources, and the vendor was willing to give me a free shipping upgrade to the US that included tracking. The figures themselves were beautifully designed and fit in perfectly with my official Legion figures.

Star Wars Legion: Tank and More Troops

I'm back with some more upgrades to our Star Wars forces for Legion.

First up is the TX-225 Occupier Tank from the Rogue One film. While the design itself is awkward and completely impractical as a tank, the kit itself is well done. The pre-assembled body and most of the details are hard plastic, with only the crew and heavy blaster being the same soft plastic used for the infantry.

Some people have painted theirs in subtle camouflage schemes, but I've opted for the common Imperial grey tones with a bit of wear.

Next up are the Imperial Death Troopers. Being all black, it was a bit of a challenge trying to make the paint pop, and I'm not sure I completely pulled it off. To get a variety of black tones, I opted to highlight the armor with dark sea blue, the leather items with dark brown, and the underarmor with dark grey.  They look fairly decent under sunlight, but most of the detailing differences get lost under standard interior lighting.  Oh well.

The Rebel Trooper Upgrade Pack gives you some nice new aliens and weapons to add to your standard rebel units.  You get an Ishi Tib captain, Gran specialist with a standard blaster, Theelin sniper and Ithorian with a shogun style scatterblaster. If you don't want the specialist weapons, alternative arms with standard blasters are available for the last two figures. Overall they figures are well cast, though the arms attach with round rather than fitted pegs, so I ran into a few issues with alignment during assembly.  This resulting is some of the guns flexing a bit at the end, particularly with the sniper (though I may have used the wrong left arm for her). Luckily I don't think it will be be too easy to spot on the table unless you're looking for it.  

Star Wars Legion: Rebel AT-RT and Operatives

Back with some more Star Wars figures.  First up is the rebel AT-RT from the core set.

I did some experimenting with sponging and washes to give it a worn look. The was my first time using the sponge technique (usually I dry brush on my wear marks), and though its not perfect, I think it's ok for a first try.

Next up are a couple of Operatives: Sabine Wren for the Rebels and Bossk for the Empire. Both figures are really well designed, and I like you get a few options to select from when building the figures.

Having only seen one episode of Star Wars Rebels, I don't really know much about Sabine Wren, but I though the miniature looked cool. Searching online, it seems the painting on her armor changed on a regular basis, which created a lot of challenges/opportunities when selecting a paint scheme.  I ended up going with one that was credited to the 3rd season. 

It was definitely a challenge trying to get all the details painted and I'm not completely happy with the owl insignia on her shoulder armor, but it was the best these aging eyes and hands could accomplish.

On the Imperial side, I had the choice between Bossk and Boba Fett at the shop, and thought Bossk was the better looking of the miniatures.  Plus, I've always loved the menacing appearance of the character since I saw Empire Strikes Back as a kid.

His skin tone came out a bit darker than I planned, as the original paint scheme didn't have enough pop when it came to his scales and I ran a sepia wash over him to better highlight them. However, I think the trade off was worth it and I think he's my favorite Legion figure that I've painted so far.

Star Wars Legion: Power Generators and Cargo Dock

I'm back with the last of my terrain for Star Wars Legion. First up is a set of power generators produced by TTCombat.

These are very nice kits that I was able to assemble and paint over the course of the day. Overall, the build was fairly straightforward other than Step 5 on the instructions. For these side pieces, there are actually 3 slightly different sizes used on the construction of the curve, but it's not called out on the frame or the instruction sheet. As such, I would dry fit everything before gluing. I also recommend painting as you build, as it will be difficult to get a brush in some of the areas after assembly.

The size is listed as 28-32mm scale, and it looks suitably large enough next to a Star Wars Legion miniature.

Next up is the landing pad and cargo dock set from Sarissa which seems to be inspired by Scarif from StarWars: Rogue One.

Though the set is listed as 28mm, Sarissa advertises it in their Sci-Fi: Legion 35mm area, so I assumed it would be large enough for the Star Wars miniatures.  Unfortunately that is not the case. A human will just squeeze under the roof of the cargo bay, but larger figures like wookies are too tall.  A 28mm figure looks fine (this example is from Reaper).

The monorail tram also looks woefully undersized next to Legion figures.  Why they didn't scale these items by about 120%, I have no idea, but I consider it a misstep on their part.

Luckily, the cargo boxes, communications array, and landing pad look suitably large.

Another thing I found disappointing in this kit is the lack of details. This is the front door to the cargo bay, but there are no door controls to add on, or other details engraved into the MDF.  A good portion of the kit is also card rather than MDF, so the details printed on them are fairly shallow and not conducive to dry brushing.

The drawing of the kit also suggests a good length of monorail track is included, but as you can see, that is not really the case.  It's only about half the length I expected.

As I mentioned above, a good portion of the kit is actually card: the outer shells of the building, monorail track, tram, and cargo containers. To bring out the details and keep everything from looking really flat, you will need to ink all the seam lines, which is a time consuming process.

When folding the card, I found it was difficult to get really sharp edges (even with scoring) that fit on all the MDF pegs properly. As a result, many items, particular the cargo containers, had large gaps where the the card portions met.  Luckily they were on the bottoms, but they still had to be sealed with glue and hidden with paint and ink.

A major area of concern in terms of durability,is the bottom of the monorail tram. Not only are large areas left completely open, but the sled area for the track is made from card and has minimal support. As you can see below, the corner flanges are already bent and tearing just from assembly and painting. I fully expect this to eventually break from storage and play, and cannot understand why MDF was not used for this part.

My final verdict is the the TTCombat kit is well done, but the Sarissa kit is mediocre at best and has a lot of deficiencies and missed opportunities.

Star Wars Legion: Rebel and Imperial Command

Back again with some more Star Wars figures.  Theses are the Rebel and Imperial command add-ons.

For the Imperial officer, I went with the green-gray worn by senior officers in A New Hope rather than the black worn by lower ranking officers. The Rebel command uniforms came in a variety of brown variants, but I opted again for the tan New Hope version with yellowish rather than rust colored shoulder patches. 

The Rebel comms tech wasn't panted according to any particular on-screen uniform; colors were chosen to match other troops in my force.  The Imperial comms tech is based on the standard black Imperial uniform.  To keep everything from looking too uniformly black, the tunic was highlighted with grays, the leather with browns, and the helmet with blues.

The astomech droids were painted as the classic R5-D4 from A New Hope and R4-I9 from the Star Wars Force Attax card game.

Finally, we have the two medical droids.  The 2-1B uses The Empire Strikes Back color-scheme.  I couldn't find a photo reference for the FX-9, so just opted for an overall dark metallic appearance.