Star Wars Legion - “Rebel Sabotage!”

In August I ran my first in-person with the (fully vaccinated) Fawcett Avenue Conscripts in almost 18 months. I introduced the boys to Star Wars Legion. I had originally planned to start a narrative campaign, set during the Galactic Rebellion era, back in the spring of 2020. Then came the lockdown. Conscript Greg was back in town for a few days, so Dallas suggested that I run some Star Wars to celebrate.

A Rebel band led by Princess Leia was trying to destroy a pair of power generators, while the Imperials tried to repair them. Concentrating on their mission, the Rebels managed to destroy one generator as the Imperials shot at them unmercifully. The AT-ST caused the most casualties of any unit in the board.

This was a tactical tie, but a minor strategic victory for Leia.

For the next game, Luke Skywalker will be leading a strike team across the same city as this scenario, trying to hack a communications net. The loss of one generator will hamper the automated Imperial defenses those Rebels will be facing. Will Darth Vader appear to try and stop his wayward son? You betcha.

It was great to catch up with everyone. Thanks to Dallas for hosting and providing the generators. And,

Bonus, I got to show off the cool figures and terrain I have been collecting since the fall of 2019.

Star Wars Legion - "I am no Jedi!"

 

There is no official figure in Star Wars: Legion for TV fan favourite character Ahsoka Tano. So, I used the soft plastic figure from FFG’s Imperial Assault board game to fill that gap. She is smaller than the ~1/47 scale figures that are standard in SW:L; Ahsoka is noticeably shorter than most other characters in The Clone Wars cartoon, so I am fine with it.

 

After re-basing the figure on a 27mm base, I used my usual zenithal highlights, acrylics, and then oils for blending and detail. I went with a very limited palette, similar to how Ahsoka appeared at the end of the final season of The Clone Wars. I differentiated the harder texture of her armour by using sharper, point highlights.

 

I plan to use the figure in Rebellion-era games. However, white lightsabers looked merely unpainted to me, so in the end I went with blue blades. Weirdly, I found the most difficult parts of the project were cleaning off mould lines from the soft plastic, and painting her lekku (head tails).

More Hoth Rebels for Star Wars Legion

Well, Legion escalation continues unabated as I work through the small hobby-shop's-worth of boxed sets piled up on the sideboard. Today it's the turn of some more Hoth Rebel Veterans (and one unlikely addition) to be shown off - along with some old terrain.

You've seen all of the Hoth Rebels I've painted before, and these ones are very similar. I did, however, swap one head - the Sullustan's - just for the sake of something different. Here are the two versions of the crouching Rebel trooper, with different heads. I may repaint the top half of the Sullustan's face to look a bit more grey.

And here's the other trooper with swapped head. Although Sullustans are described as "diminutive" they apparently range in height from 1 to 1.8m and this one is a regular human-size, unlike his famous compatriot Nien Nunb who was noticeably shorter than the average human male.

Gotta have droids! Unfortunately the hero droids are only available in an expensive box set with a crashed escape pod (currently on the painting table), but they're still a must to pick up. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out.

The Legion Chewbacca is a great model as well, and obviously a snap to paint!

Here's the oddball - Cassian Andor painted as a generic Rebel commander. The box set of this model and K-2SO seems purpose-made for Hoth - Andor is wearing a parka and cold weather gear, and K-2SO can stand in as part of the Blizzard Force. I decided to paint Cassian with a brown jacket as an homage to Han's original screen garb.

I also added a Hoth backpack with slung rifle in place of Cassian's supplied gear - the backpack was an extra that came with the Rebel Radar Laser Cannon, I think. Fantasy Flight's error worked out well for me. In any case he'll fit in nicely as a commander-type for the Hoth Rebel force.

I also tuned up the paint on some of these WotC laser turrets that I got for the old Star Wars Miniatures Battles game. I had to replace the bendy gun barrels (used a ballpoint pen refill) but I think they look OK with some weathering, and the size is not bad either.

These should work OK eh! Plus it's always nice to update and reuse models that are in the collection already.

Next - more Imperials!

Battle of Stonne - Early-WW2 Bolt Action Battle Report

So last week I hosted an in-person game here at Conscript Towers - Bolt Action. I'd been wanting to do an early-war game for some time, so I picked a likely-looking scenario out of the early-war Bolt Action book, Germany Strikes!. This was the Battle of Stonne, basically a meeting engagement coincident to the battles for Sedan. The tabletop is pictured above - village of Stonne at centre with the long table edge at the top of the photo being North. The French entry is along the south-west, south of the east-west road and west of the north-south road, while the Germans enter along the short eastern table edge. Victory would go to the side that held the crossroads, with no enemy units within 6".

  

German forces: three sections of infantry each in a Sdkfz.251/1, one Pzkpfw. 38(t), two Panzer IIs, one Panzer IV, one MMG team, one 37mm AT gun and crew, led by a Hauptmann (captain) and command section in a Kubelwagen.

French forces: three infantry sections each in a truck (models are Solido Simca-Unics), one Somua S35, two Renault R35s, one Char B1 bis, one MMG team, one 25mm AT gun and crew, led by a Capitaine and command section in a light civilian car.

The French force quickly moved onto the table on the southern road, trucks with infantry in the lead.

The French tanks and AT gun turned to face off the German Panzer 38(t) just out of picture to the right. The French blazed away at that tank for several turns but the dice had abandoned them - or maybe the crews skipped gunnery practice??

 

To the north, the Panzer IIs and Sdkfz. 251 moved around the village.

The rest of the German force moved directly towards the crossroads at the centre of the village.

The Germans moved into the village from the north and east, and methodically began to clear the buildings of French defenders, assisted by some hot rolling. Meanwhile the last French R35 rolled into the crossroads to prevent it being taken by the Germans.

View from the south. The Germans have taken the buildings to the north of the road; Panzer II manoeuvering around the buildings.

And that's how the game pretty much ended - victory conditions were a draw, as neither side had clear undisputed control of the crossroads. As far as tiebreakers, the Germans were ahead, as they destroyed far more enemy units than the French had.

Early war games are an interesting challenge for both sides. French tanks are heavily armoured (making them hard to kill by German AT) but they also have weak AT guns and are slow. German tanks are relatively lightly armoured and also have light AT weapons, but are faster and more manoeuverable. The problem with this scenario is the emphasis on the crossroads as the victory location - this draws every single unit on the board towards that location and reduces the potential for movement. This game was fun though - it was great to get all the early war stuff out again (including the newly painted early war German infantry) and see the boys for a game. Until next time!

Star Wars Legion: Rebel Troopers

Rebel Troopers for "Star Wars: Legion" - plastic miniatures from Fantasy Flight Games.

Even more "Star Wars: Legion"? Well, why not? I'm making more progress on components from the core box set - here are the two squads of Rebel Troopers that come with the base game. These are 30mm plastic figures from Fantasy Flight Games (or Atomic Mass Games, or whatever the f*ck they might be called by now). Each squad is comprised of seven figures.

Squad one - ready to raise the rebellion...

Squad two, ready to take on The Galactic Empire...

While the soft plastic is something of a challenge, I did really enjoy these figures overall. They look great, and paint up pretty nicely.

Support weapon options for the squad.

In "Star Wars: Legion" think each basic Rebel squad is meant to be four troopers strong, and you can add to them from there. So the Core box gives you some options - you can bump the squad up to five troopers, or to add a trooper with a support weapon.

I could not figure out what, exactly, the sort of Ghost-buster-style backpacks were supposed to be...so I just went with black...

I went with a fairly generic palette of khakis, browns and greens for the uniforms on the troopers. I tend to think of desert terrain when it comes to a battle with Star Wars infantry, but these paint jobs could fit in fine with a wide assortment of terrain backgrounds.

Squad leader in the middle at the front.

Not sure if/when these will see action on the table, but at least the Imperial Storm Troopers now have adversaries. That's all for now - I hope to have some more "Legion" content to share before long. Thanks for reading!

Storm Troopers for SW Legion

30mm Storm Troopers from Fantasy Flight Games' "Star Wars: Legion" game - these are the fellows from the Core Box starter set.

More Star Wars Legion on the blog? Why yes, of course! "Star Wars" content is hardly new to this blog at all, but painting it is new to me. I have finally been sufficiently tempted to dive into Fantasy Flight Games' "Star Wars: Legion" myself. The figures seen here are my first (pretty uneven) attempts at painting some figures from the range. These are the Storm Troopers that come with the Core Game box, and I finished them off this week.

While I dislike the soft-ish plastic, the figures are nice sculpts - they really capture that awkward pose the Storm Troopers always seem to manage (right before they get drilled).

As someone prone to diving into new wargaming projects, I guess that is odd, in retrospect, that I held off so long from starting on these figures. There are a number of reasons - the odd scale, the strange, soft-ish plastic, and then there is the fact that the "Legion" rules themselves leave quite a lot to be desired. The game is overly complicated.  To take just one example, Legion requires different bespoke rulers for both movement of units and measurement of distances, trying to structure the rules such that "distance" and "range" are different concepts. This is, at best, absurdly complicated and a little grifty, while leading to rules that read with the same flow of a post-modern gender studies paper. And this is before you get into the cards...and from there, the small galaxy full of tokens that pollute the board..."Legion" makes any skirmish rules written by the Too Fat Lardies look like "Tic-Tac-Toe". Without the passionate - and very, very patient - guidance of Dave V, I never would have made it through my first game of "Legion"

Storm Trooper carrying a support weapon that looks an awful lot like a spaced-up MG-42...

But the main reason, I think, I have avoided "Star Wars: Legion" is because, well, the rest of the Conscripts have the period and setting so thoroughly covered. Looking through the blog, you will see many, many games set in the "Star Wars" universe, from fleet battles to skirmishes. I have been spoiled for years and years...I did not have to lift a finger to enjoy "Star Wars" with the Conscripts. So many great memories - although I have to say getting the opportunity to zap C-3PO with an orbital strike remains a great highlight. I love "holo-Veers"...

A view showing some the rear detail on the Storm Troopers.

Of course, that has changed now that I have moved. I can no longer take "Star Wars" gaming for granted. If I still want to enjoy "Star Wars", I'll need to get into it myself. So, here we go...I thought I would start with these Storm Troopers from the Core Box. I mean, if you can't blast a bunch of Storm Troopers, what kind of "Star Wars" game - regardless of rules - could you realistically expect to ever enjoy, right? I also find that (finally) having some "Star Wars" figures of my own completed serves as a nice reminder of the many, many great "Star Wars" games I have enjoyed over the years with my friends in Winnipeg. Even if takes a while to get a game in with them, I will enjoy having them on the shelf for that reason.

Another view of one of the squads.

The Storm Troopers were harder to paint than I expected, although in retrospect I should not have been surprised - they wear armour that is a very pure and bright white, with an undersuit, weapons and accessories that are all black - both notoriously tricky colours to paint, and in particular, the flat surfaces are not a great match for my painting style. But I stumbled through it, and now have a nice little start on the Imperial forces for "Star Wars: Legion". I am moving on to the basic Rebel infantry before trying to screw up the courage to tackle the biker scouts - with their ever trickier mix of white armour and black underneath - up next...

That's all for now - Happy Canadian Thanksgiving to folks out there. Thanks for reaidng!