Not all leaders are...inspiring to look at.

 o/

Yes, it is almost Independence Day, and no this is not a political post. 

Not quite a Hutt...

I'll come right out and say it: I absolutely LOVE this model! This is modeled after Hermie Odle, and somewhat oddly, is a remarkable improvement visually. Like Saw Gerrera, not all Rebel leaders are pretty. Indeed, I would say that with this guy/gal (how can one tell?) in charge, the troops following are more likely to be of the less noble and more criminal sort of Rebels. 

He/she could easily pass for a sack or shrub from a distance.

Vibroaxe, best to keep your distance!

Am sure there is a pistol tucked away in the burlap...somewhere.

I've been on a bit of a Battletech kick here of late, but have a few other minis in progress. So hopefully it won't be too long until the next post. For my fellow Americans out there, remember to let the sober people play with the fireworks tomorrow! The rest of you just hang back and guard the keg from any wayward explosives. 

Leaving the droids for a bit.

 o/

My CIS army is just down to just assembling and painting my 2 Droidekas, a task I failed miserably at the first time I tried it a year or so back. Thus, I took the only sensible approach to the problem and ignored them to work on other Legion projects. Here they are in no particular order of completion:

Rebel Veteran Mk II Medium Blaster gunner(s), a.k.a.: when furries attack! This was an Etsy purchase that took what felt like forever to arrive and no time at all to paint up.

I've never felt the need for the Ewok trapper, so it is now a bit of basing decoration

I like making these larger bases almost like little dioramas. 

I'm particularly pleased with the how the fur turned out on this model. 

In hindsight, the hands are a bit human like and furless, but whatever. I'm not going back and changing it now. 

I put several ferns on this base as I recall lots of those in the forest scenes of Endor. 

Also in the support weapon realm, I have my Imperial Shoretrooper DF-90 mortar gunner. While a vastly inferior weapon to the Mk II above (it is essentially a direct fire mortar which...isn't really a mortar), it is nonetheless a cool looking mini. 

Finally! The last of these infernal Shoretrooper models! Well, sorta. You'll see what I mean in a future post. 

Rather than ferns, this guy's has chosen to camouflage his mortar by setting it up amongst monstera and a multitude of weeds. 

I'm curious as to how the round mortar charges exit the rectangular barrels of the mortar. It is likely one of those 'shrouded in mystery...' things, I'm sure. 

Most of what was completed here recently is for The Empire actually. Next up is my (almost) finished Imperial Scout Trooper squad. I still have the Saboteur left to finish. 

Thank God for The Mandalorian series! I really like the dirty Imperial Troopers look over the pristinely clean ones from the Return of the Jedi. 

Cool factor aside, Scouts sadly have an all-to-frequent tendency to just show up and die. 

Meaning that oh-so expensive DLT sniper upgrade is likely to be used sparingly, if at all. 

As for the other random Scout trooper, I'm never going to field a separate strike team, so that model was carved up to enable me to convert the Imperial Agent below.

This 3D print was a generic Jedi that I never really knew what to do with. So, I lopped off the hand with the already bent light saber and replaced it with a gun hand from the aforementioned, Scout trooper. 

I think his camo cloak came out pretty good. 

As the Scout was already down a hand, I figured taking his head off for basing material was a viable option. 

He didn't complain.

Three more across the finish line.

 o/

I've been making progress on all three Star Wars Legion armies. First up, my Imperial Scout trooper's squad leader who also serves as my stand-in Imperial agent (since the FLGS can't seem to get the official one in).

As you can see, he has skillfully chosen a tactical log that has been concealed by vegetation.

In keeping with my vaguely Imperial Remnant army and general preferences for all things miniature, his armor is fairly dirty. 

I opted for a red shoulder to mark him out as being of senior rank. 

No doubt he is using the scanner to locate his retinue squad, which in my last game, I stupidly deployed on the opposite side of the table. 

Next up, a second Shoretrooper squad leader. This one came out better than the first one, I think. The last four Shoretroopers are base coated as well. Still not a fan of painting these models but am glad to be almost done with them.  

He's probably just standing on the beach, taking in the view...

Were it not for the rifle, this guy may have been promoted to Imperial officer. 

Especially as he has a close combat baton strapped (somewhat awkwardly) to his pack. 

Lastly, my Rebel comms chick agent. She came with the specialists pack that I bought to get the pilot & astromech for the speeder in my previous post. My original intent was to use her as a squad leader, however after realizing that she had a second pistol strapped to her pack, I decided to use her as an officer/agent (FLGS can't get that model in either). Given that Rebel officers/agents have the option to fire two pistols, I think she will be of much more value in that role. 

Wait, shouldn't it be: Ladies first?

While simple, I was pleased with how her camo coat/smock came out.

Pistol # 2, for use when not calling in an orbital strike are starfighter support.

Not to leave the droids out, I've assembled all of the B1 battle droids, which when combined with my original horde gives me enough for 4 full super squads (13 + support weapon droid). 

To quote Screech: 'That's a lot of Clankers.'

Each squad as both the rocket launcher and E-5C gunners, plus a lone rad gun droid in the event I want to give someone radiation poisoning. There are a handful of extra squad leaders and rocket droids left over that will likely suffer the fate of basing material. 

Star Wars Legion Landspeeder proxy

 o/ 

Once the leader of Rebel armies on the tabletop, this poor guy has been reduced to a mere taxi driver. 

Cutting a not-so-wide berth around the local wildlife. 

I sold my last landspeeder after a bit of an early rage-quit of the game about a year ago. This came after saying up front that I am really new to the game and being faced with a meta-optimized leaf blower list. Clubbing baby seals is not how you grow a gaming community. 

If the model above doesn't look too familiar, you can see the vehicle it is based off of here, between the Millenium Falcon and the X-Wing.

However, I have since found a small group of opponents who are fun to play with, which makes Legion much more appealing. Like 40K, SWL has its own 'that guy' population, which since the rage-quit game mentioned above, I have avoided. It just takes a bit to figure out who to play, and who not to. 

The rifle gunner adds a negligible amount of additional firepower, but she only costs 1 point, so why not?

There is some room alongside the astromech in the back in case I find a spare rocket launcher gunner at some point.

As such, I started looking around for a landspeeder replacement. At the time the speeder was/is? out of print, getting ready for the new box art, updated cards, more or less same sculpt and higher price tag (the GW tendencies of Legion is one of the issues I have with the game).  

What the hell? Lady, do you mind?!?

There were a few things I did not like about my old speeder too, the basing, I put a big, multi-frond fern directly under the speeder which made it barely visible. Also, the stencils didn't work out too well, being meant for airbrushing vs. a rattle can (or maybe just me with a rattle can...). 

A better view of the dashboard. 

This 3D printed Hoth hanger skiff came with the trailer which I have used as a terrain piece. The skiff with trailer, the base and shipping costs (from 2 different sellers) altogether were about $20. I picked up the old rebel specialists set for about $30 with shipping, with the old officer and astromech being added to the skiff as crew. The rifle gunner came out of one of my old sculpt rebel trooper squads. 

ol' Bluey may not look all that unhinged, but looks can be deceiving...

I'll just count the two forward guns as a Mk II medium blaster. Being more of a on-base taxi that a proper speeder, I figure I will only make compulsory moves with this, leaving the other two actions for aiming and shooting. The only additional movement may be coming out of the unhinged astromech shenanigans, though I am much more likely to use that for an extra round of shooting. 

Moroff

I had a mini of this guy previously, but sold him off with my Rebel army as he was little more than a glorified Z-6 gunner. Wait 6ish months and the build-your-own Officer/Agent combo kits are first revealed, and then finally released and suddenly Moroff has a viable build! So I ordered another one and he is now ready to go.

Chewie and his laser crossbow can suck it!

Not that he is able to use them, but his pack has 2 spare blasters for just in case!

The big guy is equipped with everything but a kitchen sink!

No, that is not a terrible print line that you are seeing around his head, that's the line in his fur left by the headband holding on his voice translation mask. 

Plot armor for the win?

 

Uti...nn...(gulp). 

I played Jake at the FLGS (The Gamer's Guild SC) this past week in another recon sized game, which is all I can muster currently. The mission was close the pocket, surface scan and we didn't add any advantages.

My army with Juan Solo & the speeder just out of frame. 

My Rebels were lead once again by Juan Solo. I also had two super squads of rebel troopers with Z-6 gunners, The Jawas (Ewok slingers), the AT-RT with a laser cannon and my new T47 Landspeeder.

The FLGS owner in his natural habitat.

Jake had Vader, two squads of Stormtoopers, one with Del Miko, a squad of Scouts plus a sniper team, and the AT-ST with mortars. 

Here is how the game went to the best of my recollection:

The battlefield with my Jawas already on the board.

Even with low profile, cover, a dodge and surge tokens, the arrival of the AT-ST killed two of the little guys!

Jake's scouts moved up aggressively, and my first rebel squad to arrived, rolled a bucket of dice and deleted the scouts out of existance!

The AT-RT & T-47 meanwhile took a good chunk out of the AT-ST, forcing Del Meeko's squad to move up allowing him to repair 2 of the walker's wounds. 

Juan along with my second squad of Rebel troopers overload the right flank...

Rolling the same bucket o' dice as their sister squad and they wiped out the Scout sniper team. 

...and things were going so well. 

My Rebels dumped into Vader inflicting a few wounds. The T-47 hammered Vader as well, but he shrugged off all of the speeder's shots. 

Vader moves into engage the Rebels, killing about half of them. 

As Vader mauls the one squad, the other hoses down the Stormtroopers on the other side of the wrecked AT-AT, reducing the squad to two. 

Who are summarily finished of by the Jawas!

Vader uses the Force to pick up & slam down the first Rebel squad, killing one. He then moves into engage both squads. 

The AT-RT whiffs when shooting the AT-ST which returns fire, crippling the little walker. Del Meeko & friends meanwhile wipe out the infernal Jawas. 

Juan moves up to get into potential scoring position while Vader continues to grind thru Rebel troopers. Meanwhile the Speeder bootlegs around and finishes off the AT-ST. With only 3 models still alive (while reaping an awful toll, Vader was down to 2 wounds remaining), Jake ran up the white flag and the Rebels win!

*****

Well that was fun, if a bit lopsided. The 10-strong trooper squads, even without aim tokens were brutal. Rolling 15 dice each due to the Z-6, left Jake's smaller squads with little hope of survival in the face of such onslaughts. The T-47 did well, and probably deserves to be painted, having almost single handedly taken down the AT-ST. We didn't do a great job of scoring the mission. 

On turn 2, I think it was 4-3 in my favor. Jake lost both of his scanners, and...well, with both of us being newer players we focused more on killing each other rather than scoring. 

My post game impulse buy.