Star Wars Legion – Grimmleigh's Lab

Star Wars??? During ORKTOBER???

Yeah, I march to my own drum, Timmy!

Actually, I needed a break from greenskins. My plan is to still have 100% of my current 40k Ork army painted and ready to rock by the end of October.

That leaves me half a squad of grots, a Painboy, a Weirdboy, a Bannaboy, a boss, a half-track, and a walker to finish in two weeks, but they’re all in some state of painted, so that shouldn’t be impossible!

With travel, my birthday, and some home repairs behind me, I should be able to lock in! First, though, I needed a palette cleanser.

I’ve been collecting Star Wars: Legion models pretty much since they came out, but I’ve also been selling off that collection pretty much since they came out as well. I decided to stop doing that, stop whining about the rules to the game that I don’t care about, and just paint cool Star Wars minis. Plus, with Pulp Alley, I have some ideas for a cool themed campaign I can run with the models as I finish them!

Anyone who has read Michael Stackpole’s Rogue Squadron books knows how good they are, and with those novels as inspiration, I’m building a Rogue Squadron crew. This will be some of the characters from the books, plus a few of my own for fun. My first three characters are going to be on a covert ops mission to get some information on an Imperial Remnant group and what nefarious plans they have in the ruins of a city that was bombed out during the Siege of Lothal.

Here are the first three operatives, with stat cards generated at this amazing little site.

Feylis Ardele

A recurring character in the Rogue Squadron books and comics, Ardele was instrumental in training rebel pilots in Imperial TIE fighter combat tactics. While never having actually enlisted in the Academy, she was trained heavily by her planetary militia, which used Imperial gear and munitions to prepare their best and brightest for service.

For game purposes she’s a Sidekick level character, which means she’s better than average, but not the biggest ass kicker out there. I wanted her brawling and shooting skills to be better than most, with strong cunning. She’s also pretty agile from her Imperial training, and can lay down burst fire in a gunfight.

This miniature is from the Rebel Operatives pack, and with blonde hair she’ll make a good miniature for Feylis.

Rook Ty’Fekk

Rook is my own creation and does not feature at all in existing Star Wars lore. He’s a Duros operative working Outer Rim missions for the New Republic, and in this case is helping Ardele search the ruins on Lothal.

Rook is an Ally level character, a little better than average shot due to his training. I’m using him as a sniper type to help Feylis stay safe while checking objectives.

Bait

B8-C4 is Ardele’s astromech droid, and has joined her on her mission after securing their X-Wing in the nearby forests. “Bait” doesn’t understand his nickname, and it appears that Feylis only uses it as a joke… although she does tend to send him out ahead of her to scout things out quite a bit.

Bait is a follower, pretty much average in all things. He doesn’t have any brawling ability, but has better than average dodge and finesse. He’ll run objectives and try not to get blasted.

I had to come up with B8 on my own since I couldn’t find any mention of her actual astromech unit. I still have the books, but I’m not quite ready to buckle down and read them all right now!

Gamma Squad

The Imperial Remnants left a small detachment of scouts behind to patrol the ruins, and they will stay hidden for the most part and only engage if the primary objective is uncovered by the Rogues.

In game the troopers are armored, which means they’re slower but a little more resilient in battle. They’re all Ally level characters, and I’ll be bringing in another trooper with Marksman and a Sidekick to lead them. There’s a team perk that lets you bring more level one and two characters and have them lead by a Sidekick character, which I’ll be doing.

I’m going to save the actual mission for the battle so that it maintains a little bit of mystery, but that should be done within the week!

Star Wars Legion

Star Wars Legion: Moff Gideon

Star Wars and I are old friends. I was seven years old when the first movie came out, and I really, really wanted to see The Rescuers. My dad really, really wanted to see Star Wars. Since it was his birthday, we saw Star Wars, and I was in a funk until that opening scene on the Tantiv IV hit my impressionable little brain, and my poor dad has probably wished we went to se The Rescuers ever since.

In all of the Star Wars media I’ve consumed, I’ve really only hated one installment, which I will leave out because if it’s your favorite I have no intention of harshing that enjoyment for you. But everything else I’ve watched had something in it that I genuinely enjoyed, whether it’s Baylon Skoll in Ahsoka or Boba Fett riding a Rancor in Book of Boba Fett.

My rule for Star Wars is a simple one: What would that kid in 1977 think of this? Generally, that kid would have been shrieking like a radioactive gibbon rampaging through a jungle gym.

The Mandalorian brough out one of my favorite villains in all of Star Wars, with Giancarlo Esposito bringing a fantastic level of mustache twirling to his portrayal of Moff Gideon. When he showed up with a squad of Death Troopers and his modified TIE fighter, that internal seven year old was speechless. TIE fighters can do that with their wings??? HOW FREAKING COOL IS THAT?

Moff Gideon also shit his pants when Luke showed up to take Grogu on a playdate to the Lil’ Jedi Temple of Doom. I would have done the same. What a cool, calculating, and cowardly when needed villain! Of course a Jedi would freak that dude out!

The old miniature that Atomic Mass Games produced for Star Wars: Legion was one of the first hard plastic kits they put out, and the likeness on the 35mm model is actually better than the Shatterpoint version. Plus, you get the option of pistol OR Darksaber, and since I like to have some general utility in my models, he’s packing his pistol.

I really took my time with him. Darker flesh tones have been a struggle for me, since in reality we’re not just talking about brown tones. There’s some cool purples and warm ochres in the skin, and I really wanted to do this sculpt justice.

He also has very pronounced eyelids, which this sculpt does a good job capturing. I wanted to make sure to show Gideon with that “bored but still going to kill you” look that made him so cool in the first place.

And, of course, I had to take some pics with him leading a couple of riot control troopers, I can’t wait to get some Deathtroopers together for him!

Star Wars Legion

Star Wars Legion: Empire Riot Control Squad, part two

Getting back to the Empire Riot Control Squad from Atomic Mass Games, we’re taking on the energy mace troopers today! Once again, I’m a huge fan of this entire box set.

These dudes remind me a lot of the electro mace trooper from The Force Awakens, so having two of them for this squad is pretty cool.

Painting them up wasn’t too bad, either. I went with a straight white undercoat, then used an oil wash to add the shading. The oil wash was two parts Payne’s Grey to one part burnt umber, then a liberal amount of white spirits to dilute.

Energy effects were a blue speed paint over silver, then general white highlights over the whole model after picking out the eyes and helmet rim in black. Some light damage effects on the shields, and I think I’ll call them done!

These guys look pretty cool with the KX Droids!