Rebel Troopers, Star Wars: Legion

I had resisted Star Wars: Legion for a good while, frustrated at the initial reports that the miniatures were not compatible with those that I was amassing with Imperial Assault, also by 'Fantasy Flight Games'.  However the idea of playing fully fledged skirmish games in a galaxy far, far away was always going to prove too much of a temptation. 

It wasn’t until Mike, ‘The Dark Templar’ Reynolds succumbed and bought the core box that I finally found my own resolve falter.  Mike has always had a thing for the dark side, and so what better excuse did a chap need to start a rebel force than to halt this evil oppression in its tracks?

The core box was duly ordered for what I thought was a reasonable price only to be told that there were not enough miniatures to field a full army list, really?!  There was nothing for it, but an additional box of troopers had to be ordered!  Assembling was straightforward enough given the designers attention to detail, each arm, leg or torso had a different homing slot to reduce mishaps.  I had been forewarned about the material used and the need to use superglue, so all in all a successful start.  There were one or two gaps at the joins, but these were easily filled with Greenstuff, although I have subsequently found out that matt varnish has the same effect.

When it came to painting them, try as I might, I couldn’t see past the Rebel Commandoes, led by Han Solo in the Return of the Jedi.  Once again the incredibly talented Sorastro came to my rescue with a tutorial that explored creating camouflage patterns, by layering washes on to areas of water, allowing the colours to bleed and run into each other.  It is well documented that my attention span is not of the highest order when it comes to batch painting, but fortunately there was enough variety in the effects used to keep me on track.

Still smarting at the scale discrepancy between the two ranges, I couldn’t bring myself to use the unnecessarily tall bases included in the core box.  I can’t explain why, but I have taken against them, perhaps because I prefer to base my wargames miniatures on a lower profile to fit better with the terrain?  Whatever the reason I made the decision to base my efforts on my usual 25mm MDF disks from ‘Warbases’.  I happen to think that they look better and given that I am unlikely to be entering any tournaments, I am not overly bothered what anyone else thinks!

So with a final coat of varnish my first completed miniatures for Star Wars: Legion, a full three squads of core troopers.