Hey everyone! I am so excited about legion! My 6 year old son is a huge Star Wars fan and he was practically dancing for joy when I showed him the "little stormtrooper game". I thought for quite a while about what I wanted to do for terrain. There are a lot of cool iconic places in star wars but there is one place in particular that I have loved ever since the moment I saw it: Lah'mu.

For those that don't know, Lah'mu is the planet where the Ersos were hiding out at the beginning of Rogue One. The real world location is a beach in Reynisfjara, Iceland. It has dark sandy soil and bits of green grass. Lots of nice flatland and volcanic foothills. Lah'mu is a world that is out of the way and not on regular hyperspace lanes. It is inhabited by somewhere around 500 people. They are mainly agricultural homesteaders. As an Agricultural Scientist myself this place seems awesome to me.

I want to go for black soil with a slight olive tinge, bright green crops and grimy white buildings.

There are not many images of the exterior of the Erso home. I have been able to find exactly one in the Rogue One Visual Companion. It is a half buried white dome with some antennas and porthole windows. There are storage tanks and moisture vaporators and green fields.

So really there is not a whole lot to work from so here is my plan:

I want to create a Lah'mu Homestead that is a little more well established than the Erso Home. Maybe even a crop export base/trade post. I plant to use dome structures but maybe not buried ones. I figure the Ersos were trying to be low key so people who were not interested in hiding might have exposed structures. I want the buildings to be distinct from tatooine style buildings but to still have a stone/concrete look to them. I also don't really want the crops to be direct sown into the soil. I am thinking of some sort of raised bed hoop house grow areas with built in moisture vaporators. These should provide some nice "chest high walls" for stormies and rebels to hide behind. As for buildings I want:

-A large main flat topped dome building with railing/cover on top with a small comms tower

-A raised landing pad with cargo crates

-A machine shed

-Several water tanks, generators and moisture vaporators

-A droid/machinery maintanance shop

-Several smaller dome dwellings

Great theme for a Legion table. Your ideas for the buildings are many and varied, providing lots of visual and tactical appeal.

Really looking forward to seeing this build progress

Amazing idea! The only advice i can give is build that deep sand color slowly. Keep the paint watered down and apply a bunch of times. I did a bunch of samples, and this process produced the most realistic dark soil.

Look to this thread for ideas & inspiration from official Star Wars sources. Lots to see that you can adapt or modify for your purposes.

48 minutes ago, Force Majeure said:

Look to this thread for ideas & inspiration from official Star Wars sources. Lots to see that you can adapt or modify for your purposes.

Wow! That one image with all the propaganda posters is amazing!!

3 hours ago, AldousSnow said:

Amazing idea! The only advice i can give is build that deep sand color slowly. Keep the paint watered down and apply a bunch of times. I did a bunch of samples, and this process produced the most realistic dark soil.

Years ago I had a couple of gallon bags of black sand that I brought back with me from Hawaii. That stuff was awesome! I used it for basing and didn't even need to paint it. For this board I will probably pick up a bag of sand at Home Depot and paint it with watered down cheap acrylic craft paint. I am going to try to do some samples this week.

Ok. After a few trips to hobby lobby and spending a few evenings working with my son on a few rough drafts of buildings I think I need to approach the Lah'mu dome buildings differently. I finally found a still image of an exterior shot of the Galen homestead:

So the problem I am finding is that plain dome buildings have a few problems:

1. Domes are not particularly useful as cover since they have no corners.
2. While submerged domes look really cool, exposed domes not as much. They look a little too "Jetsons" rather than star wars.
3. It is easy to find hemispheric shaped domes (half spheres) but star wars architecture seems to rely more on domes that do not have a vertical slope where they meet the ground.
4. This is another problem since it really just makes it so that troopers can casually walk onto the roof.

So while I am going to try to preserve the somewhat bunker like look of the Galen home design, I think I will need to do something almost like tatooine buildings. Currently I am thinking that plasticard panels on the walls, exposed cables and a little more "modern" looking elements will differentiate it enough that it won't just look like whitewashed tatooine buildings.

So new design elements going forward:

• Flat dome roofs on raised buildings.
• Buildings will still be somewhat short and mushroom-like but tall enough that they are not just interesting hills.
• A more specific idea of what I am creating. I have wavered between the idea of large homestead and shipping outpost for a while. I am thinking that shipping outpost provides more interesting options like a cantina, watchtower, homes etc.

So if anyone has some good ideas I am all ears. I will try to post some pictures soon of some of my early attempts.

Maybe keep the dome shape to almost ground level but placed on a short rectangular base to prevent troops using the sloped sides as a path to the roof.

It would also allow some cover for troops.

This way it maintains its bunker like appearance, but isn't just a squished half-buried sphere with roof access.

Did you check out Thorin's thread ?

If you combined the low dome from his towers with a squat octagon that tapers down, you could have corners (not sharp ones) and the dome shape from Lah'mu. If the proportions are right, you should be successful. Like if the building is 30 cm wide, and the walls 6-8 cm with the dome top very shallow, adding another 4 or 5 cm.

Additionally, if you built the structure on an inch thick foam base, you could make steps leading down into a partially sub-terrain building. Kind of like exterior steps leading down to a cellar, if that makes any sense.

Here's a poor sketch of what I'm trying to say:

That's actually a really good idea! In fact I could have an earth embankment surrounding the building with space to walk around and it could provide cover too!

Ok. I quickly drew out a main building idea. I think it will allow for interesting movement around it even without corners.

So it may be a little difficult to see but there is a "sunken" walkway/embankment around the building. It will be three domes joined together with three smaller domes on top. Add some comms equipment and paint it white and I think it will capture the feel of Lah'mu architecture. Force Majeure's drawing will actually be my basis for individual dwellings and this large building will be the sort of trade center.

Here is another. I took Force Majeure's idea and changed it slightly.

So not subterranean but still protected by the soil.

Hey, just stumbled on this thread because I'm doing a Lah'mu board too! Are you still moving forward on this? I am have a few things going including the Erso homestead. I'm looking for a way to get that blue-green grass. Also I used coffee grounds on a mat that I spray painted black. It's not covering quite as well as I hoped for that "carpet of soft volcanic sand" effect but I'm going to keep trying.

I've also made a few of those white boxes that you see in that scene out of XPS foam. But I wish a 3D printer would design them for purchase, they seem fairly simple to design if I knew anything about CAD.

Hi! I have decided to start with an urban lothal bordering grassland instead instead. I want to come back to lah'mu but I think that for the time being, building square box buildings is more at my skill level. When I do Lah'mu I think I will do an erso style homestead surrounded by those big volcanic rock hills in a sort of canyon.

(see post below)

6 minutes ago, Big Easy said:

Here's some of what I've done so far, hoping it helps you or anyone else that might be doing something similar.

Erso homestead plans
(excuse my caveman screenshot method). I sketched out the main dome from the still shot from Rogue One. I took as few liberties as possible. The tall columns you see will be moisture vaporators from Imperial Terrain, and I made the boxes from XPS foam but I may look to improve them. I made sure that the walkway around the base would hold a Legion mini base, and also made sure that they could see over most of the concrete and surrounding terrain (with a couple exceptions).

Work in Progress

After cutting an MDF base and a LOT of measuring and cutting foam, I got the outer circle and then cut the inner dome from a single sheet of foam. It was already the perfect height, which saved a lot of time (only the very top of the dome required a bit more height from an additional piece). I used a hot foam cutter to put a concrete slope on the inside of the outer ring, and a pen burning tool to make a rough trough to put rocks in (ignore the boxes I have stored in the walkway). It's kinda hard to tell from this angle but I used scrap foam and filler to create sloping terrain that goes from the top of the wall down to the mat. I also covered all of the "cement" parts in drywall filler for strength and to give it a good concrete texture.

This is pre-painting, I've only thrown a base coat on the surrounding mud but I will be using an ivory color on the structures/walkway and then applying a lot of dirt weathering, as well as detailing the dome structure with its slats/vents etc. My finished product should be a bit more impressive, but this shows the process a bit.

Lah'mu Mat

Basic mat that I did the same as my desert planet one, but I used coffee ground for this texture and spray painted most of it black, leaving a bit more brown further up the near side as topsoil (it's in very bright sun, indoors the brown is much more muted). I still plan to do a bit of drybrushing on the larger bits in gray.

Scatter

Finally, a bit of rocky scatter. I need to bring down the intensity/yellow of the green a bit and darken the rocks. My first plan is to just hit the whole thing with a weak black wash.

The pics broke for anyone else?

29 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

The pics broke for anyone else?

yup

Sorry, updated:

Here's some of what I've done so far, hoping it helps you or anyone else that might be doing something similar.

Erso homestead plans
(excuse my caveman screenshot method). I sketched out the main dome from the still shot from Rogue One. I took as few liberties as possible. The tall columns you see will be moisture vaporators from Imperial Terrain, and I made the boxes from XPS foam but I may look to improve them. I made sure that the walkway around the base would hold a Legion mini base, and also made sure that they could see over most of the concrete and surrounding terrain (with a couple exceptions).

https://imgur.com/EKM2HF4

Work in Progress

After cutting an MDF base and a LOT of measuring and cutting foam, I got the outer circle and then cut the inner dome from a single sheet of foam. It was already the perfect height, which saved a lot of time (only the very top of the dome required a bit more height from an additional piece). I used a hot foam cutter to put a concrete slope on the inside of the outer ring, and a pen burning tool to make a rough trough to put rocks in (ignore the boxes I have stored in the walkway). It's kinda hard to tell from this angle but I used scrap foam and filler to create sloping terrain that goes from the top of the wall down to the mat. I also covered all of the "cement" parts in drywall filler for strength and to give it a good concrete texture.

This is pre-painting, I've only thrown a base coat on the surrounding mud but I will be using an ivory color on the structures/walkway and then applying a lot of dirt weathering, as well as detailing the dome structure with its slats/vents etc. My finished product should be a bit more impressive, but this shows the process a bit.

https://imgur.com/Y3fthgC

Lah'mu Mat

Basic mat that I did the same as my desert planet one, but I used coffee ground for this texture and spray painted most of it black, leaving a bit more brown further up the near side as topsoil (it's in very bright sun, indoors the brown is much more muted). I still plan to do a bit of drybrushing on the larger bits in gray.

https://imgur.com/tJX7lQH

Scatter

Finally, a bit of rocky scatter. I need to bring down the intensity/yellow of the green a bit and darken the rocks. My first plan is to just hit the whole thing with a weak black wash.

https://imgur.com/L6oeio7

dude...cut one of these up for patches of grass
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MS6NE9Z/ref=asc_df_B01MS6NE9Z5392957/?tag=hyprod-20&creative=395033&creativeASIN=B01MS6NE9Z&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198106292047&hvpos=1o5&hvnetw=g&hvrand=13487965836170031064&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9001910&hvtargid=pla-318912205329

Another technique to differentiate the stereotypical Tatooine/Hutt dome from your Lah'mu architecture would be a skylight or rooftop garden. I realize it's a bit of a departure from what we see on-screen and in the Visual Companion, but I think it represents an agricultural or in-touch-with-Nature feel. Tatooine is all about hiding from the suns, not inviting them in.

Agh you're making me rethink doing a Lothal board @devin.pike.1989 . How am I ever going to decide when I keep seeing all these awesome ideas.

I've also gotten a lot if inspiration from Iceland, where the scene was filmed. Not just natural, but architecturally too (after all, the Tatooine buildings are just Tunisian buildings).