Hoth is coming...

 o/

As hot and humid as Charleston is currently, painting something to look frozen seems like wishful thinking. 

I am still on the Star Wars Legion terrain painting kick. My buddy Nick 2.0 scaled up my caverns terrain STL files and has started cranking them out for me. These are now big enough for my Legion minis to fight amongst the corridors. Infantry sized bases only, but I am hoping to eventually have enough of these to at least play some recon sized games. Scenarios will have to be altered, but we'll figure it out, I am sure. 

I am also looking for a home for my original cavern collection since I've never been able to use them. I've posted on the eBay-lite discord channel on a low country South Carolina to see if anyone is interested. No bites yet, but they'll require a large box and will cost a good penny to ship. 

Anyways, here they are so far: 

Not exactly Echo Base defenders, but they work in the interim.

Looks very chilly, or so I hope. 

I have some proper Snowtroopers arriving Monday. Unfortunately, I am out of white (non-Krylon) primer. So, I'll have to order some which will delay their painting.

11 tiles currently. Each side is approx. 3" wide, and each hex is approx. 6" wide. 

Storm troopers for scale. 

At some point this chamber was open to the sky and some vague plant life briefly was able to grow and thrive before freezing into oblivion.

Wampas get all the attention but beware the little abominable snowmen chucking snowballs in the deep, dark, and frozen recesses of Echo Base. 

The same Etsy seller that most of my other Legion terrain that I have, sells Echo Base interior pieces. I'll get some of those as well to populate these hexes. 

Anyways, that's what I have been up to here of late. 

Imperial Remnant Stormtroopers

 o/

Following the fall of the Empire, the standards of unit kit were...relaxed a bit.

The latest across the finish line for my Star Wars Legion hordes is a squad's worth of Remnant Stormtroopers. I say squad's worth because I will be divvying these 10 up amongst the three squads that I Currently have (2 squads painted, one still in progress). Hence the differing colors of the bases' rims.

Some of these guys don't seem to trust Remnant logistics and instead carry extra gear on their own initiative.

In the future, Wet-weather/Mimban Stormtroopers will be released. Unless their rules are amazing (am not sure what a poncho will actually add to game play), I will just be mixing those up into my existing squads for a further motley appearance. 

Lacking the large orange shoulder pauldron, these two squad leaders have had to make do with a mere shoulder pad stripe and bandana for visual reference. The orange flowers on the one guy's base is purely coincidental. 

I don't use the Imperial Remnant battle force rules as they are too restrictive vs. my collection, to be able to even reach the point limits for Recon-sized games. I also do not know why Shoretroopers are required for the Imperial Remnant since they made no appearances in the Mandalorian series on which said battle force is based. 

Just a closer detail pic for this bunch showcasing everything from cracked helmets to starfish and crustaceans on their bases. Speaking of, I couldn't resist putting white flowers (in lieu of snow) all over the base of the guy with the Snowtrooper helm. 

Up next I have more terrain is on the painting docket, though I may sneak in a mini or two to break the monotony. 

The log on this guy's base is originally from the Ewok trapper that I used here. 

Imperial Bunker for Star Wars Legion

 o/

Imperial control has been established.

While fairly generic, the darker grey color scheme gives this a strong Imperial vibe. I modified it slightly adding a different pintle mounted cannon than the one it came with (though I don't know if that will ever be used as such). 

I guess they shoved those empty containers out of the roof hatch and over the side, leaving them there to rot...

The cannon I believe comes from the 'Bus' model kit. I won an eBay auction of spare weaponry and this piece fit on here perfectly!

Adding a multitude of tufts and laser cut plants to the bases is becoming one of my favorite parts of painting nowadays.

Nothing to see here citizen. Move along, move along...

A squad of 4-5 guys could fit in here easily. 

Command consoles and monitors.

While visually interesting, this floor would be hell on anyone stationed within. Either there is a thin, not visible mesh covering the gaps in the floor, or else all station crews no doubt suffer from a multitude of foot and ankle injuries. 

I also finished my second destroyed Rebel gun emplacement. This one is a little narrower than the previous one I painted, but in the end was done in the same style and came out nicely, I think. 

This one got a bit more torched than the last one.

It is however, also being taken over by vegetation.

The interior of this one is now the realm of weeds, rather than gunnery crews.

At this point all I have left to paint terrain-wise is one more Massa'dun-styled building, and 3 more of my custom POIs using the old moisture evaporators and priority supplies pieces. 

Terrain, terrain, terrain!

 o/

Floyd's discount droid repair is open for business!

I was off on a staycation last week with my dad & stepmother visiting for the first half of it. It was a good visit with fun had by all. The second half of the week I had more or less to myself where I did a fair bit of hiking as well as miniature painting, terrain specifically. 

The wing tower is a separate piece for ease of storage & transport.

While the interior is lightly detailed, I glued the roof on as I couldn't fathom any troops fighting within the tight confines of the structure. Plus painting the interior was proving troublesome (which is the real reason I glued the top on). 

I recently bought several 3D printed pieces off of Etsy and have been worked on them thru the latter part of my week off. I used the Krylon filling primer which mitigated the worst of the print lines, though some are still visible. Overall, the print quality is really good considering all of the curved surfaces.

Like so many of the outlying Outer Rim worlds in the Andor series, I opted to go for the dirty & grubby look. Shocked, aren't you? 

The print lines are most visible on the roof panels, but nothing too terrible.

I tried priming over the Krylon but while the black GW spray seemed to go one fine, the Vallejo spray primer rubbed off a bit during handling/painting giving some of the surfaces a bit of a granular appearance. Not too big of a deal as this building is of an adobe-like construction, but I'll omit that step in the future.

This turret has been out of action for so long that plants have already taken root inside the wreckage.

A few flowers, maybe a lick of paint and she'll be as good as new!

I have another house in this Massa'dun style, as well as a bunker and two destroyed turret emplacements that would look right at home on Hoth. However, as I am not painting any of my forces like they are on Hoth, I have based my first wrecked turret for a more temperate climate. 

I actually got these pieces late the week before and put 'em in game the next day, straight out of the box, not even primed!

My droids suffered a thorough drubbing in this game, aside from Grievous who proved impervious having made 8 consecutive armor saves in a row! Poor Tom was tired of trying to kill him at that point.

Black on Black!

 o/

You know the ISF are the bad guys when they are trampling someone's flower beds. 

As much as I loathed painting the Shoretroopers in their actual colors, I had no issues painting the remaining four up as a squad of Imperial Special Forces Troopers. Honestly, if there was any challenge, it was dry brushing them lightly to lighten them up somewhat without getting them too dirty (well, boots aside). 

I was pleased with how the dirty boots came out. 

But other than that, a lot of the detail is lost in the super dark color scheme. 

The guy with the red stripes is the squad leader

The official models for this unit are Tie Fighter pilot minis. However, after painting up Iden Versio a year or so back...well, she looked kinda like a bobblehead. I think these models work much better. Recently the ISF got a points reduction meaning they are likely to be a bit mediocre. However, as a mediocre player myself, that ought not bother me too much. 

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.