“Mayday! Mayday!” Star Wars Campaign Game 4

Thursday night, I  ran Game 4 of the ongoing Star Wars campaign for my fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscripts, using the Galactic Heroes sci fi skirmish rules set. 

The Imperials were about to take off in a small free trader starship, when a Rebel strike force boarded them. The goal of both sides was to  control BOTH the engine room and the bridge. Anything else would be a draw. 

The Rebels were led by Ahsoka Tano and Sabine Wren. Each led a squad breaching one of the ship’s two airlocks. The Imperial Navy crew was joined by an Inquisitor, the Second Sister (the former Jedi, Barriss Offee) leading some Deathtroopers. The photo at the top of the page are the various leaders used. 

The Navy crew set up in the bridge and engine room, and others set up in the main corridor as a reserve. The medical droid was in the cargo hold riding shotgun on an occupied bacta tank. 

With a good card draw, the Inquisitor stood Ready at the main airlock. As Ahsoka opened the hatch, the Inquisitor Pushed against the crowded Rebels, throwing some back but receiving some Shock herself as she faced her former friend, Ahsoka. Failing to draw any red cards, Ahsoka attacked anyways. The resulting epic lightsaber duel lasted a couple of turns, but Bariss eventually went Out of Action with a severed left arm. 

Ahsoka managed to clear out the bridge, rolling successive natural 10+ die rolls. Her accompanying Rebel Troopers mixed it up with the Deathtroopers in the corridor. 

Meanwhile, at the stern of the ship Sabine survived a couple of shots to the face (hooray for the Queen of Hearts!) and engulfed the entire engine room with her flamer. The flamer shot caused only Shocks, then the affair devolved into a series of Multiple Combats as figures moved into the engine spaces. Here, Sabine and the Medical droid had the advantage, being the only ones armed with close combat weapons (respectively, a vibroknife and surgical instruments). 

Back in the corridor, both sides took losses as another Multiple Combat mid-corridor was fed by successive activations. Ahsoka joined the fray, but she dropped her short shoto lightsaber and was then knocked out cold by a rifle butt to the head. 

By the 7th turn there were only two Imperial models left on the table. A Deathtrooper was down and wounded in the corridor facing a trio of blaster armed Rebels, and a double-shocked Navy rating stood outnumbered 3 to 1 in the engine room. The Imperials threw in the towel and we called the game. 

In the immediate aftermath of the game, the Rebels took off in their stolen ship. Sabine unceremoniously shoved the bacta tank out the cargo hold into space, eradicating whatever Imperial clone experiment lay inside. Ahsoka will have some time to recover from her concussion, and also to nurse Barriss back to health and try to convince the former Jedi healer to come back to the Light. 

xxxx

Thanks to Bill, Frederick, and Hugh for playing with me, and to Dallas for stopping by to hang out and show off some new figures from Sqaumous Miniatures, including a squad of Hoth veterans for me!

Painting Challenge Submission 18 - Jyn Erso's Team from "Rogue One"

Ready to take a chance, until all of the chances are spent...

For my final submission to the 12th Edition of the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge, I went with a selection of 32mm figures for the game "Star Wars: Legion". The figures are a mix of "Fantasy Flight Games" miniatures and 3D prints sourced via Etsy.

I caved in to temptation and started "Star Wars: Legion" last year. The rules are so baroque and overly complicated that I find them to be barely playable - but the miniatures are generally great, and since there are a lot of other rules options with which to use these figures, I have been diving more and more into it. The range of figures from Fantasy Flight (or Atomic Mass, or Private Equity Tools, or whatever they are called these days) is fairly complete, and includes a number of character figures from the "Rogue One" movie.Even better, there is an amazing and talented community of 3D-print file designers out there filling in the gaps - and in this submission we find both kinds of figures.

Nearly all of the "Star Wars" films made under the Disney banner have been very poor. The three sequel films in particular were a tour-de-force in appalling film making, ranging from "very bad film with lazy writing that somehow makes the prequels tolerable in comparison" to "human excrement rendered as a digital HD experience". But there is one exception amid the Disney film wreckage - "Rogue One". It's awesome, just a great film, and certainly my favourite film of the whole Star Wars bunch. As DaveV introduced me to the 3D-printed-figure world for "Star Wars: Legion", I immediately ordered some characters inspired by "Rogue One".

So we have Bodhi Rook, the "brave defector" - this is a 3D printed figure.

Bodhi Rook, ready to help engineer a landing in a captured Imperial shuttle.

We have Chirrut Imwe and Baze Malbus, the displaced guardians of the Jedi temple. These are also 3D printed figures.

I love the pose on this sculpt - amazing to see what the 3D printing folks can do these days...

Love that weapon!

We have a team of Rebel Pathfinders - these are from the box set of the same name from Fantasy Flight Games. These are lovely sculpts, but the plastic-resin used in the manufacturing is bendy and crappy. Once you get the paint on them, they are not too bad, but I have ordered some additional Pathfinders from a 3D print supplier to expand this force later on.

Love that door-gunner character...only downside is that it makes the Pathfinder box very bespoke...hard to add variety when all of the figures are so specific. But lovely sculpts.

The Pathfinder team, ready for action!

And last, but not least, we have the amazing Jyn Erso, the young rebel who sets aside bitterness, cynicism and sadness to challenge the evil of the Galactic Empire head-on. This figure is from Fantasy Flight Games. I'm hoping Jyn will be an acceptable figure for a ride on Sarah's Star Yacht!

The sculpting is nice...Jyn is ready to break a knee to make her points...

Prior to the Challenge, I had painted Cassian Andor and the sincere-yet-tactless droid K-2S0 - both figures from Fantasy Flight Games. They won't count for points here, but it seemed wrong to leave them out of the group photo...

Ten people, ready to fight like a hundred...

Cassian and K2 lurking in the back of the group photo...

This was my final submission to AHPC XII. Thanks to everyone who took the time to leave a comment, and congratulations to all participants, particularly my fellow Fawcett Avenue Conscripts, who have made huge progress against their unpainted figure piles. All the best to everyone!

Challege Submission #15 - Another Smattering of Special Challenge Targets

 

One of the special challenge targets was to paint a Superhero figure. I didn't have any miniatures that were easily identifiable as a specific superhero, although the figure with the helmet and gun has a bit of a 'Peacemaker' vibe to him. I don't even know where I got these figures from or who manufactured them. They all stand 30-32mm in height, so they are slightly taller than the usual 25-28mm figures. Perhaps the Hive Mind can provide some clues.

They were first primed with black, and then painted using Vallejo acrylics. I used some GW washes on the skin areas, and on the hair. The colours chosen for two of the figures were based on suggestions from my wife, who used to collect Marvel and DC comics before we got married. The colours for the 'Peacemaker' figure are based on images of that superhero found on the net. So I give you 'Blue Moon' (named for the frequency of his appearances), 'Omega Dude' (named because of his fancy wristwatch), and my version of 'Peacemaker' (who is wearing his holster on his right side, but shooting left-handed. 😕)

 

 

Diving into my box of unpainted Sci-Fi miniatures, I found three West End Games Star Wars Snowtroopers as they appeared in 'The Empire Strikes Back' during the attack on Echo Base. They were primed in grey, and then painted using Vallejo acrylics. After the bases had been painted white, some AK Diorama 'Snow Sprinkles' was applied  While not as fancy as some of the newer Star Wars: Legion figures out there, I think they still look pretty good. 

I didn't have any robot miniatures in my 'big box of shame', but I had some wooden figures from the local craft store that were designed to be painted up as nutcrackers. I also had the book 'Boilerplate - History's Mechanical Marvel', by Paul Guinan and Anina Bennett, and I thought I might be able to do a conversion to make an 'old robot'.

 

An image of Boilerplate from the book

 

My starting point

 

I rummaged through my boxes of collected bits and bobs that I use for building terrain features to find the right pieces to convert my nutcracker figure into an old robot. Doweling of various diameters, tubes from dry ink markers, old chopsticks, hollow plastic sucker sticks, thin copper wire, and some epoxy putty were all pressed into service. In the end, the only pieces from the original figure that were incorporated into the build were the arms and legs. The end product stands 80mm tall (pictured below standing on a hockey puck, the Canadian standard for both size and mass). If I were to do another, I would make his head a bit shorter  his helmet a bit wider, and his arms a bit longer, but I am satisfied with the final result.

 

 

Thanks for reading.