Star Wars Legion Massive Imperial Update (including AT-ST!)

Hey all, just popping in with a pretty big update for my Star Wars Legion "Hoth" project. Basically I've finished all of the Imperial models I have on hand so just wanted to post on that. My little component of "Blizzard Force" is pictured above.

Part of the update is just Snowtroopers - two more sections are complete, making three sections for the Snowtrooper platoon! (I have another seven-trooper section on the way - those are custom 3D prints that I'm really looking forward to painting). These ones are done in the standard style - cloth bits Rakarth Flesh washed with Agrax Earthshade, then re-highlighted with Rakarth Flesh, and white bits Corax White highlighted with White Scar. So easy and simple. 

And while I'd posted the Imperial officer and comms trooper before, I finished the medical droid and astromech to complete the support section. 

Here's the medical droid and astromech.

Another addition to the support section comes from the "Cassian Andor and K-2SO" box, in the form of this KX-series security droid.

Rather than fit the arms from the rogue droid K-2SO's appearance in Rogue One, I set the droid up "unarmed" as I assume that's how it would normally appear.

Lastly, I finished the Legion AT-ST. What a superb model this is. So easy to assemble (it comes already partially assembled from the "factory") and super-detailed - it's just awesome.

I equipped the model with the optional light blasters on the LH side of the crew capsule and the concussion grenade launcher on the RH side. 

Painting was pretty straightforward - basecoat of Mechanicus Standard Grey, highlighted with Administratum Grey and Dawnstone. I did some streaking with Nuln Oil in a different sort of technique - I loaded a large brush with Nuln Oil and dried most of it off, then brushed it downwards to simulate some kind of water streaking. I also applied Nuln Oil to joints and on the legs before lightening it all up a bit with some drybrushing.

Then I went over with the sponge chipping to create some wear and a bit of blaster damage. 

So that's Blizzard Force nearly done, except for some custom 3D-printed goodies that are on the way. I think I have enough models painted now to have a game, so I'll try to put something together on that front in the next couple weeks!

Painting Challenge Submission 13 - Empire Handgunners for Warmaster

A unit of Empire handgunners for "Warmaster"

I was away last week, so could not get very much painting done for the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge. I did get home in time over the weekend to crank out one more unit for my Warmaster Empire forces.  This is a unit of handgunners, very useful "missile" troops in the game for the Empire player in the Warmaster game.  Their shooting is harder to stop, and any wounds you can stick to the charging units of your enemy will really come in handy.

Astonishing variety and character in these small sculpts - incredible stuff.

The colours are really loud as before, and they are from the province of Hochland, red and green.  Once again I went with brighter colours to really make them "pop" (I hope).  And although they are of course imaginary, these troops are clearly inspired by the forces of Renaissance Europe, and I believe some rather bright colours were often employed in that era.  So the province of Hochland may have to deal with dark, brooding forests and the scary Middle Mountains, but dammit, their contingent in the army will look bright and fun when they march forth!

GW's Warmaster figures are a joy to paint, these were no exception.

In an ideal world I would include several of these units in my Empire force, as the stopping power of the handgunners is very useful, particularly when confronting cheese-bag overpowered forces such as those marshaled in the name of Chaos (*cough* Chaos Knights *cough*).  The Warmaster game, however, is long-cancelled, and the figures are found only in online aftermarkets.  Handgunners in particular figures seldom appear on Ebay, so this unit will remain a little lonely for now, although fellow Challengers have suggested several alternate sources for 10mm troops which might be useful, so I will check those out.

The yellow feathers...maybe too yellow? Oh well.

Once again I must rave at just how awesome these sculpts are from GW.  Just frigging brilliant, a true joy to paint.  Man, I can't wait to get a game in again with this stuff...haven't played Warmaster in like eight years or something...

The handgunners take their place in the ranks...not to worry gents, I'm sure those Knights behind you will hold off and not trample you or anything like that.

Of course I have to include the obligatory progress shot of the overall force, which has grown from a neglected little smattering to a healthy-sized, full force ready for a game! I'm fortunate enough to have a few more units to add (included some nice recent Ebay scores, even if I can't find many handgunners) but I think, for now, this will bring my recent Warmaster painting run to an end, although with my butterfly attention span, who knows what next week might bring?

The Empire forces for Warmaster! They even have  house to defend now! I wonder if Byron could be convinced to 3D print more of that village stuff...

I'll conclude with a photo from our visit to California last week.  We visited the Palm Springs area, and while much of the trip was taken up with important activities like relaxing by a pool, sipping drinks and shopping, we also went hiking in Joshua Tree National Park, home to a surreal and mesmerizing landscape.  What an amazing place...can't wait to visit again next year.

The Barker Dam at Joshua Tree National Park in the USA...there had been some rain two weeks prior, so there was water behind the dam...it was a peaceful and beautiful place to visit, and a lovely hike...

There 24 castings 10mm in size for this submission, so this should get me 24 points.  Trudging toward the goal of 1000 - still a ways to go, but the goal is in sight. Stay tuned for more next week (I hope).  It's another "theme round" weekend and those can be a little dodgy for me...

Be sure to check out the ongoing excellent entries at the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, including more stuff from Byron, who is apparently running a painting factory...

Submission 11 To The AHPC - Warmaster Empire Knights

Two units of Empire Knights for GW's "Warmaster"

Since I let the Warmaster genie out of the bottle, I can't seem to put it back.  These figures have been neglected, unpainted and unloved for more than seven years, and since I started working on them again a few week ago, I want to make the effort count during Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge.  Here are two more units for my Empire army in Warmaster, both units of Empire Knights, my 11th submission to the Challenge.

This unit is sporting colours from the Empire province of Hochland

I tried to use bright colours to create a contrast and a "pop" on some of the features

While I am often wary of, and frustrated by, painting horses, I still love using cavalry in a game.  The heavier, the better, and in GW's Warhammer Fantasy setting, the Knights of the Empire are at the pinnacle of heavy cavalry fun.  The Empire Knights are fantasy cavalry at its finest, at least for me - not fancy, flighty horses or silly magicians, but men and big horses covered in enough armour and barding to bring down a panzer division.

These gold coloured Knights are inspired by the "Knight of the Blazing Sun" from the Warhammer Fantasy setting

These sculpts are just total home runs - some of GW's finest work

In reality, armour imposes burdens on warrior and mount that can limit its use.  People and animals can only undertake so much activity wearing all that steel. But in the fantasy setting, we can just toss those worries into the bin, and the malleability of the Warhammer Fantasy Old World as a setting offers limitless possibilities.  Obscure Knightly orders? Sure. Elite guards for the Elector Count or the Emperor? Sure. Collection of well-financed, bad-ass nobles? Sure.  All together in the same force? Why not?

A closer shot of some of the Hochland lads

Some fellows in the gold armour for comparison

I know history offers some amazing examples of very heavy cavalry (man, I wish I could figure out either Byzantines or Persians so I could paint Kataphracts) but the Empire Knights in Warhammer Fantasy really fit the bill for fun heavy cavalry on the table.

Keen players of "Hail Caesar" and "Pike & Shotte" (like Curt and the gang in Regina) have noted the resemblance of these sculpts to the heavy cavalry gendarmes seen in eras such as the Great Italian Wars.  I'm hoping to try painting some figures similar to these in 28mm...not so sure I have the courage to yet tackle something like the Italian Wars, but maybe it's time to finally start an Oldhammer project...

Some serious armoured power for the Empire army!

As I have been saying while painting these figures, I find GW just absolutely hit it out of the park with these little metal sculpts.  They have tons of character - in the case of the Knights, beautiful barding, large plumes of feathers and massive lances with wonderful pennons - dramatic, flashy and bad-ass.  I painted two of these units this past week, but these are so nice, I could paint ten more before I got tired of them...so of course I've been scouring Ebay for more...

Obligatory overall photo - the force is getting pretty serious now!

In the Warmaster game the Knights are the Empire player's hammer, an integral part of the force.  For the Empire commander to be successful the halberdiers, crossbowmen and artillery will hopefully hold the line, while the Knights must charge home at the right time and deliver a blow for the forces of their Elector Count.  It will take some time to get some enemies painted, but I hope these Knights will get to make some kind of big and carefully thought-out totally reckless charge in a Warmaster game later this year.


This submission included 24 mounted 10mm figures, so that should put another 48 points on the pile, the drive to 1,000 points in the AHPC continues.  I have more Warmaster figures in the pending pile, but I think some more 30k stuff beckons. Hope to share more next week!

Ninth Painting Challenge Submission - More Warmaster Stuff

More troops for the Empire in GW's "Warmaster"

Since reconnecting with my old Warmaster stuff I wanted to make more progress on them in the Painting Challenge before moving back to other things.  The Empire forces in the Warmaster game are built around crossbowman and halberdiers, so I added some more of these basic units. This submission includes two more units of crossbowmen and another unit of halberdiers.

The provinces of the Empire have different colours to set them apart, but as I started to work once again on these figures two weeks ago, I noticed I had selected a palette of blue and green which seemed to match...no particular province.  Maybe I had something in mind when I first started painting these like 12 years ago? Who knows?

No matter! It's a fantasy game after all.  So for the crossbowmen I just used variants of blue and green uniforms with a dab of red here and there, and popped some bright colours on the feathers to help tell them apart on the battlefield.

Empire crossbows - blue clothing, red feathers...

Perhaps the elector count fielding these troops has access to animals with a lot of different-coloured feathers...or maybe there is just a lot of coloured dye in his province...

More crossbows...green and blue this time, with yellow feathers

For the Halberdiers, I wanted to change the colours a bit.  There is one particular province in the fictional Empire - Hochland - which interests me (connected to another hobby project, blah, blah, not interesting at this point).  Their colours are red and green, which make me think of Christmas, so that's nice! It would also look suitably different from the blue and green.  A large Empire force in Warmaster would have troops raised from several provinces anyways, I expect, so good to have some different colours into the mix. I tried them out on this unit.

Halberdiers of Hochland

The red and green are a fun colour mix, one I hope to repeat on a couple more of the units as I continue to expand the overall force.

 I love these little sculpts - total home run by GW...

These castings are some of the best work GW ever did.  Painting the Halberdiers in particular is just a great treat, with all sorts of character and small details.  They are a total joy to paint. Getting back to these figures has been like reconnecting with an old friend. It has been so much fun!

Ready to defend the Empire! One poor chap in the rear rank had his halberd break off..hopefully doesn't stand out in the unit

The overall Empire force is a good basic size now - four regiments of halberdiers, four units of crossbows, two regiments of Knights and some artillery.  On reflection, I think I need some more Knights...there is always more, and no project is ever truly "finished" :)

A good basic force of Halberdiers for the Empire

My Empire army continues to grow...those Knights are kind of lonely now...and you can see there is still room for more...

These figures netted me enough points to get me half-way toward my goal of 1000 points of painting in the Challenge. I hope to have some more Warmaster stuff ready next week.

Eighth Challenge Submission - Warmaster Stuff

Empire troops from GW's Warmaster game

My eighth submission to Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge was connected in a way to the fantasy engineers in my last submission. I was rooting around my hobby pile to find them, and came across as exciting discovery of a long-lost "I'll get to this next week project" which has stretched into years and years - Warmaster!

Remember these fantastic rules?

Crossbow regiment in front, Halberdiers in the middle, and the Knights at the back (will counter-charge when these lads are run over...)

Yes, Warmaster, GW's ridiculously fantastic set of macro-level fantasy combat rules.  Remember Warmaster? The rules alone were fantastic, serving as the inspiration/basis for many subsequent sets of rules to follow.  But it was more than great rules. I also recall the figures - 10 to 12mm collections - that GW released to support these rules were also just tremendous. They had lots of character and variety. Warmaster was a lot of fun and there were many games played among our group back in its time.

I just loved the sculpts GW released to support this game...they captured the setting perfectly, with tons of variety and character - a (rare) example of GW getting something right

Great rules, and great figures...sounds like a recipe for success, right? Enter #lolGW. Warmaster was around for several years, but ultimately succumbed to GW's gold-into-coal black touch along with the rest of what were then called "specialist" games.  The prices for the models entered the stratosphere, so they didn't sell, so GW cancelled the game, because it wouldn't sell...

Really basic paint job on these Knights - hope to get more colourful and less grim with the subsequent units

When Warmaster first came out, I collected and painted a small Empire force. In 2010, I resolved to re-paint it up to a higher standard, and re-base some of the models. This effort lasted through some Knights and some characters and artillery pieces, but not much more - you can find the last blip in this effort in the dusty archives of this blog, back in February of 2010 - seven years ago!  Needless to say, other things distracted me, and the Warmaster efforts faded to the background, and these figures when back into storage.

Meanwhile, GW killed off the Specialist games.  So many Warmaster units I had hoped to collect - Kislev, or the super neat figures representing Araby! I settled for grabbing a few more units from Ebay, and have purchased a few more here and there since then, but in classic wargamer fashion, I have hardly touched the models. In the intervening years we moved to a new house, but these figures stayed in the box, gathering dust, or still in their blister packs, with the plastic turning yellow :)

My updated Empire forces, with these new units added...

Having encountered this little stash of models once again two weeks ago, I figured the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge would be a fine time to take another crack at this.  So I dove in, and have been sawing away with the brushes on figures that haven't seen sunlight, much less paint, since 2010. I painted a unit of halberdiers and a unit crossbowmen, a did a touch up on an old unit of Knights. I have also spent some time re-basing models I had already touched up, so I can have a sense of coherency among figures which have a seven-to-ten-year interval between painting!

The Knights take their place...and a wizard is on hand

That Crossbow regiment is a little lonely - will need at least one more for the basic Empire force requirements

Empire hero on a griffon - he'll finally have a force to command after almost 10 years!

Various heroes and officers, ready to lead the Empire army to battle!

This submission included 60 foot models and 12 mounted models in 10mm.  However, the Knights were a touch-up job, not a real paint job and didn't count. This submission counted for 60 points in the end.


Another five or six regiments and this will be a fine 2,000 point Empire force, fit for a good-sized game of Warmaster with the group at some point.  I think Dallas has Dwarves, and I have unpainted Orcs and Chaos figures...hopefully we can get a game in this year.

Seventh Challenge Entry - Warhammer Fantasy Empire Engineers

Two Engineers of the Empire from GW's now-defunct Warhammer Fantasy Battle

My submissions to this edition of Curt's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge have been rather focused in their theme - ll 30k, all the time. The means I have been able to get a fair bit of 30k stuff completed.  This level of focus is rare for me, bordering on unhealthy, but I do genuinely love that setting and the Challenge is always a great spur to get models finished.  The side duel helps as well! Two of my fellow side-duellists in the 30k race, however, have taken a more varied approach to the Challenge, submitting some fantasy models as well - Iannick with some neat halflings, and Jamie with some menacing dark elves as a couple of examples. 

Trying to set up that perfect shot...

This figure was a ton of fun to paint...

One great aspect of the Challenge is the opportunity to connect with fellow painters and hobby folk elsewhere, and to be inspired by their work.  The fantasy submissions from Iannick and Jamie got me to thinking back to when we used to play Warhammer Fantasy ourselves around here - quite a bit in fact - but not so much recently.  I have an Empire army stored away somewhere in my place (not even out on display, for shame!), and the last record I could find of it seeing any action is the summer of 2014...which is just like...almost four years ago? Wow.

Handy instruction book on hand - engineers are always prepared...

I'm not sure exactly what happened to the interest in Warhammer Fantasy in our group. The rules got more difficult (or seemed to be so), the sculpts were getting goofier, and then "Age of Sigmar" happened...we haven't tried it yet.  Some folks seem to really enjoy it, so maybe we will give it a go at some point.

Also, Dallas manages to fill our Fantasy interest with very cool dungeon crawls and his excellent Otherworld Miniatures. 

Love this poor little guy "assisting" with the firing process - what a fun sculpt!

Bottom line, though, is that Fantasy was a lot of fun, and no reason it still can't be!  The fantasy stuff from Iannick and Jamie inspired me to turn my brushes to some GW fantasy figures and take a bit of a respite from my mad 30k painting tear.  I went rooting through my hobby horde and found these two figures - Empire Engineers, the subject of this submission.

Loved this model - has a bit of an "explorer" look to him!

These figures don't seem quite so old to me, but they are proper metal figures, so are probably older than I want to admit!  The Engineers are fun figures to have in an Empire army, injecting some unique character to the force, helping with artillery, and using some funky-looking firearms.  The long rifle, with the hapless little assistant "helping" to support the gun looks particularly fun.  I hope to use the model one day to pick off some obnoxious elf wizard or evil skaven...I always had a particular, immature joy in seeing powerful magic users and game-owning monsters crushed by Empire artillery or shot apart by Empire firearms...and then crushed under the hooves of Reiksgaurd Knights!

Nice multi-barrel firearm on the back - love some of the goofy firearms circulating in the Empire...

A fine-looking mustache to bring it all together!

These two 28mm figures netted me ten more points towards my goal of 1000 points in the Challenge. A special thanks to Iannick and Jamie for inspiring a fun diversion - because these two figures were not the only GW fantasy bits I found in the horde...stay tuned for more fantasy fun!