Star Wars - Rebel Infantry - Star Wars Legion Set

 

Firstly, Christmas greetings to you all!  I hope you are having a splendid day and getting time to unwrap your presents and have the joy of more things to add to your projects. Will it jump to the front of the queue in the lead/plastic mountain?  The big question!

Secondly, it feels like Christmas as I have finally had time to sit down and complete something.  This time the opposing Rebel force for the Stormtroopers in my last post.  I have been a way for much of the last couple of months, and when I haven't been away, I have been preparing to go.  Life seems to be a case of packing and unpacking all the time but there we go, I cannot complain as it pays for my hobbies.

These are from the Star Wars Legion Boxed set.  It is a fine boxed set too, with many figures inside and three Star Wars machines, a walker and two speeder bikes. Everything is really well sculpted and it all fits together really well.

I decided to use the Army painter washes to do a lot of the work for me.  They really are excellent and it only leaves a little further lowlighting, highlighting and touching up after the block painting.  I think choosing the colours for the equipment was the hardest bit. I had to do some image searching on Google and make some best guesses for colours, but I think these are not too far off.  There was a lot of Vallejo Iraqi Sand paint in use!

One effect of the wash was to show some of the  moulding seams that I had initially missed. These are always apparent in our figures so its something we are used to, but some of these were quite thick and ran deeply down creases, needing some good work with a sharp blade.

I really like the poses of the figures. This officer (of which there are two in the set) is excellent. I love the way the great coat is lifted by the wind as he walks.  The only thing that troubles me with the figure is that his rifle muzzle is in the ground or just touching it. Anyone who collects firearms or is ex/serving military is going to be constantly bothered by this and wanting to yell at the figure! 

I was asked by Jonathan Freitag in my last post to tell more on how I intend to use these figures for Chain of Command Rules.  I have wanted to play a land-based Star Wars game for years and I am still amazed that no-one has produced the Battle of Hoth as a commercial game in 6mm or similar. That would be superb! I imagine it is all about copyrights etc.  When I saw these Legion figure sets it got me thinking. I liked the idea of playing a game with them, but I was put off by the huge number of cards and special attributes to remember.

I just wanted a game where the command decisions of the commanders were what really mattered, ok and with a few Jedi tricks for the right 'movie feel'.  Chain of Command I like a lot as a set of rules and I wondered how I could modify it. When I gave it more thought I then wondered if it had been done by anyone else.  The answer....oh yes!  There is even a Facebook group set up just for this.  If you don't have Facebook as it is a sapper of time then set yourself up with a silly name and subscribe with that so that no-one you know can send you links about amusing kittens etc, and just subscribe to the group.  There are downloads of all the data you need to modify Chain of Command for Star Wars.  The group link is here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2038080069817639  or just search 'Star Wars Chain of Command' and it should come up.

Hopefully that will be of use.  I am looking forward to adding more to this collection over time. I have been given the wonderful present of 3D printed Ewoks for Christmas, compatible for Star Wars Legion (an Etsy purchase).  This should give plenty of variety of play. I can imagine Ewoks being great in the woods, but awful at running in the open and very squishy should the walkers get them.  Lots of fun all round!

For anyone wondering, the different colour bases are just a way I keep track of my command figures at a glance. I could even do my different sections in different colour bases but I might just use dots or numbers as per my WW1 Chain of Command collection.

The 12 basic infantrymen follow in the pics now. There are two of each pose in the set.  Nice poses, lots of interesting kit and two figures with blue heads which remind me of the 'Blue Man Group' that entertaining music band.

I have glued a small round magnet beneath each stand to enable them to stand up and not move on the magnetic sheets in their box. This saves me the expense of having to buy their special boxes with individual cut outs.  I don't plan on taking these anywhere anyway but at least they won't rattle about when I pull their box down from the shelf.

I'll stop here and let you scroll through the last remaining pictures.  I think I will be going back to proper history figures again next. I feel the need to do something of the redcoat and tricorn period.

Have a wonderful Christmas!

Best wishes,

Jason

Star Wars - Imperial Stormtroopers - Star Wars Legion Set

 

This has to be my first non-historical post!  Though I will use the reasoning that 'Little Wars TV' used to explain... Star Wars...it is history. It just happened a long time ago in a galaxy far far away!

I must confess, I always liked the first 3 Star Wars Movies.  I saw one of them at the cinema when it came out (Return of the Jedi, I think).  I have always been baffled as to why no one has brought out a full battle set of the Hoth battle in miniature. It would be great fun. A missed opportunity I think.

Anyway, I gave in to temptation. I bought the Star Wars Legion set as I have been having so much fun with Star Wars 'X-Wing', I am opening my mind a little bit more to Sci-Fi type games.

The Imperial Stormtroopers were my starting point. I have painted MG34's and Sterling SMG's before so I felt a bit more on familiar ground!  

The Star Wars Legion boxed set also contains a squad of Rebel troops, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, an AT-RT walker, 2 x 74-Z Speeder bikes and some barricades. In addition there are loads of markers and tokens and cards, as well as dice.

The boxed set is very nice indeed. I was impressed by all of the plastic figures and assembling them was fun.

The figures are close to 40mm in height and are substantial and well detailed.  There is lots of character about them.

When researching what colours the various equipment should be, I used Google a great deal and was surprised that there are re-enactment units who recreate all of this in great deal.   The images they used helped me enormously

There is as you can see, a lot of white. I realised that I would have to take some care to lowlight items or they would just become amorphous white blobs and appear too toy-like.

I undercoated with Vallejo Dark Sea Grey and applied matt white as a semi-wet application. I did this twice where it needed it.  When dry I applied a wash of Army Painter Dark Tone over the whole figure to assist me in giving lowlight.

White was re-applied.  The black areas and weapons were painted and dark sea grey was applied as a dry brush.

Final touching up was applied.

I finished with 2 x coats of hand applied Vallejo Gloss Varnish and then when dry, matt varnish on the dull items.

I used my usual method of applying a sand/acrylic paint/water mix for the basing.  This was painted brown and gradually lightened. A few random tufts were added to add interest.  The idea being that the terrain could double for tundra/desert/ grasslands.

I toyed with the idea of painting the grass blue or purple like it was an alien planet...but I think that would have just looked too weird.

All in all I am quite happy with these.  I have made progress on the Speeder Bikes (which are again, lovely models).  However, I came to a stop as I just needed to paint some 'proper' historical troops. 

I will get back to doing these again soon though.  I don't plan on having a massive Star Wars collection, but more something I can do skirmish games with, and almost play to a narrative.

I'm inclining to playing these with 'Chain of Command' Rules as there is a group on Facebook who have already produced a lot of excellent information.   I already like the rules and it has the advantage of not needing to cover the playing surface in cards and tokens all over the place.  It might even be that 'Muskets and Tomahawks' can be adapted well, I'm open to trying anything and having some fun with them.

More to follow...!

28mm - English Civil War - Earl of Caernarvon's Regiment of Horse

 

Back to my favourite period of history this time.  If there are figures that I really enjoy painting, it is the English Civil War range by Bicorne Miniatures. 

I bought a lot of these when they were first produced and each time I see the Bicorne stand at a show, I saunter over to take a look at the figures.  I nearly did this again at Attack at Devizes in July, but thankfully before leaving I  had got my lead box out of the loft to find around £500 worth of unpainted figures still stored.  I decided against buying any more...yet!

I have had two terrific games with Ian in the last two months.  The Battle of Babylon Hill of 1642 and the Battle of Chalgrove Field of 1643.  Both of these battles are fairly small scale affairs and ideally suited for 28mm on an 8 x 4 foot table.  Both games were superb with so many things happening as occurred at the actual battles.  If I can find the time to to do full write-ups of these then I shall do so.

As I work through the excellent Scenario books published by Caliver Books, I realised that I needed some more cavalry for both sides.  Therefore I was very pleased to put brush to figure to produce another regiment of horse..

I wanted to paint up a regiment that had seen a good number of actions, as I like to to try to use the actual regiments as far as possible, for the battles that they were involved in.  Essentially though, only the standard really ties the figures to any particular unit, indeed they could be used for either side as only the command figures wear a 'scarfe' showing their allegiances. 

I mainly focus on Waller and Hopton's campaigns in the West. With this in mind I started studying unit histories.  One stood out in particular.  

The Earl of Caernarvon's Regiment of Horse had been in the West Country and in the Oxford Army.  As well as being in the West Country, there was a local connection in that they appear to have formed the garrison at Eynsham in West Oxfordshire and were also at the skirmish at Bampton in the Bush.  They would have therefore had ridden on the road going past my house many times (my house not existing at the time though), in their patrolling and marching with the field armies.

The excellent BCW-Project website provided flag information and more unit history.  The Regiment also served at Southam, Edgehill, Lansdown, Roundway Down, First Newbury and after the death of Caernarvon at Newbury, under their new Colonel,  Richard Neville, they also served at Cheriton, Cropredy Bridge, Lostwithiel, Second Newbury, and Langport among many other actions.  

The BCW Project gave details of the flag which enabled me to paint at least one of the Troop standards.

I tried different techniques again to try to give more depth of colour and to try to speed up my painting.

I also glued the rider to the horse before painting.  I think I spent too long previously, painting saddle details that never get seen.  

The Bicorne miniatures really are great to paint. The detail stands out crisply. I was able to use washes which fell into folds really well.

The trumpeter was good fun to paint too. Normally I saw trumpeters as a necessary evil, but this time I just wanted to make a good job on him and make him stand out. More time was spent on lace than I usually do.

I have to admit that I don't think I spent any less time than I normally spend painting, even with the increased use of washes.  I just enjoyed applying the colours.and trying to make a good job of it all.

Bicorne figures have really good faces. Lots of detail but without 'silly' faces - no heroic massive chins or gurning expressions. These are all quite believable characters.

These took about 3 weeks of evening and some weekend days.  I suspect that they are going to see a lot of action.  Now I have painted these up I feel like doing more, maybe for Parliament...but again, we will see. So many projects to do!