Monday, December 28, 2020

Jyn Erso And Friends Star Wars Legion



I figured I'd just go ahead and post up all the Star Wars models, terrain, and games I've been working on in one go instead of posting a couple at a time like I had been doing as I've got a pretty big project that I'm going to focus on for January and February as part of Dave Stones "Paint What You've Got Challenge" - if you're a Star Wars fan I highly recommend checking out his blog, he's doing some incredible custom work on everyone (and when I say everyone, I literally mean everyone lol!) from the cantina in A New Hope amongst other great projects.


Jeff and I have been on a wee bit of a Star Wars binge at the club for the last several months now, getting ourselves ready for a campaign game using a variant of the Shadows of Rangers Deep rules but set in a galaxy far, far, away called Rebels of Space Deep - a bit more on those first two games way below.


Here are my two characters for the game, Tarm Jordana (Erso) and Caldicott Ceesay (Andor). I didn't particularly care for the original pose for Jyn so I did some modifications - though I have since got a new 3D file version of Jyn in a different pose which will get some paint on it soon.


I've been on a bit of a kick with painting up droids lately. These two models are from the Legion crashed escape pod set and were purchased well before the wonders of Jeff's resin 3D printer was bought, so it was a pretty expensive purchase for what was essentially only the C-3PO and R2-D2 models .


I decided to go outside the norm with 3PO and paint him red like the droid from the Empire Strikes Back. So here is R-3PO.


Conversely I went with the normal R2 paint scheme we all know and love.


I was actually quite pleased with how he turned out - those little details can be difficult to paint.


Something I absolutely wanted was a mouse droid, and thankfully there was a 3D file for one. Lots more of those little guys to come.


One of several Grogu models we bought as well - this is the easiest way to get yourself put on "the list", don't you dare point your blaster at that baby!


Our nanny droid.


As I'm pretty well obsessed with almost every character from 'Rogue One' I had to get Chirrut Imwe - Baze Malbus is also primed but yet to see any other paint.



Orson Krennic and my favorite droid, C1-10P, better know as Chopper from Star Wars Rebels - voice babbling done by none other than sir Dave Filoni himself (yes, that man deserves a knighthood!).


I like this pose much better than the official Legion release.


I absolutely love the twisting of the black leather gloves.


And I really like those caps too - for Imperials I'd much rather have my models wearing caps as opposed to nothing on their heads like the official Krennic release.


The file for Chopper came with three different poses so there be some more of him coming in the future.


A couple of generic Rebels, all painted with Citadels new Contrast paint line, from the specialists Legion release.


Pretty happy with the results, especially considering how quickly they were completed. I had initially thought that this would be one of my two characters for the game, but after customizing Jyn I went with her instead.


Medical droid, first seen in The Empire Strikes Back.


And the grandest of them all, Grand Admiral Thrawn.


Hands down there is no character I am personally looking forward to seeing more than Grand Admiral Thrawn in the live action Ashoka series coming to Disney+. Rumors of Benedict Cumberbatch possibly playing Thrawn has me grinning ear to ear.


I grabbed a couple of Dew Backs off of Amazon for cheap as they were always a really neat creature in my eyes, especially with a Stormtrooper as a rider.


Now we have Two-Backs. 


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The scale details on these models is amazing, and the contrast paints really make them pop with very little effort.


What's nice about the Legion models is they usually give you options for making the model itself.


Like here, even though it's the same exact box I was able to make each model different with the weapons the Stormtroopers were outfitted with.


Another project finally finished was this huge lot of unbuilt MDF. This was a Kickstarter I backed from Battle Kiwi, like two or three years ago. 


Lots of paint still needs applied to all the exposed cut edges - an unfortunate part of any MDF kit.


This is an absolute beast of a kit, and this angle really shows that. There is much more that I forgot to take pictures of, like the Endor bunker and the shield generator - but at least everything is all built.


Jeff also printed up a Legion scaled Lambda Class Imperial shuttle for our game - another beast of a model.


The idea and main story focus for our game was that this was going to be the shuttle that the Rebels stole for the attack on Endor in Return of the Jedi, and our game was going to tell exactly how the Rebels obtained *wink wink* that shuttle. What was great was that the idea just developed organically out of Jeff and I talking Star Wars in our weekly meet ups at the club and about gaming something really fun and narrative that wound itself into the greater Star Wars story.


This was really fun was as well - as Jeff and I each completed models we would to add them to our hanger in the display case at the club, another 3D printed piece, though this one I purchased pre-printed from LV427 Designs


We were soon to learn you can never have enough casualty markers though.


As you can see, things got out of hand quickly as we continued to add the the diorama weekly.


Especially with the Imperial side 🤣


And last but not least the following are some photos from the first two games of Rebels of  Space Deep, different from what Jeff and I have planned for our own game as explained above.


These games are taken right from the Space Deep fan made campaign rules.  


We just wanted to get a feel for how these rules played and if there was going to anything we might want to change.


The first game had our team searching a Tatooine scrape yard for a missing droid that had plans in it needed by the Rebellion.


There were six droids hidden throughout the scrape yard that possibly held the plans and we had to locate the right one - there was a lot of "these aren't the droids you're looking for" moments 🤣


Lots of Stormtroopers fell during the game and it was then that Jeff and I quickly realized we were going to need to print lots more of those casualty markers based on their stats lol


It was a successful end to the game as our team found the missing droid and the plans it held.


The second game of the campaign had our team attempting to get both the plans and ourselves off Tatooine from our ship located in a hanger in Mos Eisley.


Our Jedi of the group got way too confident and got himself surrounded by a squad of Stormtroopers. 


A couple of bad rolls by the Jedi and a couple of great rolls by the bucketheads and no more Jedi lol!


This was Tarm getting around the last Stormtrooper to make it inside the hanger and safely to the ship with the plans. Apologies there aren't more photos from the games but that is something I always forget to do, and since I had so few I figured I'd just throw them onto the end of this post as opposed to making a seperate one - and many thanks to Jeff for running these first two games.

Wow! That was probably my biggest photo dump ever since I started this blog, so if you're still here all the way down here at the end, thanks!

I'd also like to welcome two new followers, Brutorz Bill and Billy Longino, really appreciate you guys hitting the 'follow' button.

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Chewbacca and R-5D4 Star Wars Legion


While on this painting binge I've been trying a lot of different techniques to try and improve my painting overall. And one of those new techniques has been wet blending.  The Chewbacca model from Star Wars Legion was the perfect choice for trying out this technique with all of his fur.


I was already basically finished with the model when I remembered maybe I should take a photo or two, so apologies there are no WIP shots - which, to be honest, thinking ahead to more future Star Wars posts, WIPs photos were something I totally forgot to do.


I watched several videos on wet blending and ultimately found Sorastro's guide incredibly helpful. If you're currently painting anything Star Wars I highly recommend giving his channel a watch. He's an incredible painter and has helped a lot in giving me new ideas to try.


The final highlights completed and the clear base attached.


I couldn't be more pleased with how Chewy turned out considering my history with a paint brush. I also painted up a few of the containers from the Legion battlefield expansion that look the business I think.


And as I've been painting in two's I also finished up R5-D4.


The droids are slowly becoming some of my favorite models to paint - despite me making a meal out of the orange line around the bottom of the droids head. I really need to touch up that spot on his left side.


And finally, just for the heck of it I entered my Samuel's Garage kit into a little contest that 4Ground were having a few weeks ago and I actually won?! A bit mad really but that felt pretty good. I won a 100£ gift voucher which I think is going to go to some 15mm buildings - I really only play in 28mm, but I've had a huge box of old Flames of War models sitting for years and I think I might want to give Too Fat Lardies "What A Tanker" a go using all those old tank models I have. A project for next year perhaps.

Until next time, thanks for looking!
Ivor