In the last two years I got back into wargames, after a 10 year flirtation with roleplaying (& got fed up with block pushing board games; they're all overly complicated and tedious). Recently, after finishing introducing someone back to 2nd ed 40k, I found myself telling them how Legion sounded like exactly the game I wanted to play as a kid; stormtroopers & Jedi! I want to make lightsaber noises whilst I wipe out rebel scum! Lo, a few weeks ago I found myself buying a box of Imperial scouts and then ended up ordering enough for 500 points. Oops.

Never having played (yet!), I just brought what I thought looked cool & seemed interesting based on a read through of the rules or two. What I've picked up is Krennic, death troopers, shore troopers & that box of scouts. I've decided to paint them all in a desert scheme reminiscent of shore troopers, hence the Tatooine Expeditionary Force. Looking forward to dew backs coming out, I've already decided that I want 2. I've found some players nearby at home and I'm on a work trip to Australia for a couple of weeks soon and think I've found someone to give me a run through whilst I'm there.

I decided to try out contrast paints with these guys. I'm using wraithbone as a base coat for all of them with skeleton horde for armour panels and wyldwood for cloth. Snakebite leather for, well, leather. My first attempt with scouts on Saturday came out OK. Although I wasn't tidy enough with the wyldwood and I think I should have given them an all over coat of skeleton horde first and then used a narrower brush for the fatigues, rather than do the fatigues and then pick out the armour. I'm thinking of respraying them and starting over. Does anyone have experience with stripping PVC minis? I'd usually just use acetone-free nailpolishing remover, but I don't want to melt them. Or I'll just give them a zap with the rattlecan without worrying about stripping.

Tonight's progress was much better. I bashed out an squad of death troopers in a couple of hours! Contrast are great. Here's a couple of photos, this is after spraying with wraithbone and picking out a few details with snakebite leather and a dark metallic for weaponry.

And then after a coat of black templar:

I used blood angels red on their right bicep, as I'm going to use shore trooper-like markings on everybody. And then I picked the ridge on their left shoulder out in white. Just the bases to go. When I've got my light box out I'll try for some better photos that aren't so exposed. I found the models quite challenging. Whilst they're basically the same size as I'm used to, their details are generally much finer. The contrast paints are interesting. I was worried abut it pooling on the top of death trooper helmets and reworked them a bit, so they've come out darker. I like the colour variation, though, as it makes them more visually interesting.

Your deathtroopers are looking good (although I admit the black armor and red armband are a bit too reminiscent of history for my taste).

As far as stripping, I use something called simple green. Leave them in it over night then scrub with a soft brush. Methylated spirits will work fine according to most everyone. I might stay away from acetone - although I’ve never tried it. The contrast paints are easier to get off than most paints or washes though so you might want to start with just a soapy water scrub and see what happens.

Did you pick up a core set? You are going to need a lot of that stuff to play. In addition to the dice, measurement tools and various cards, your force will need at least 3 “corps” units and right now you only list Shoretroopers among your minis.

I didn't notice the historical connotations of black & red armband until you pointed it out. Now I feel a bit dumb...I think it will blend in OK with the shores & scouts having the same markings, though. Unfortunately, the cold hard light of day has shown me that I didn't get the wraithbone down has smoothly as I thought last night, so the armbands look a little rough. From tabletop distance they look fine. The armour also looks a bit patchier than I thought Rather than trying to make them perfect, I've decided to content myself with looking half decent from tabletop distance as a squad and not try to make them all perfect individuals.

Can't seem to get simple green in the UK. But I swear by Superdrug's acetone free nail polish remover! I'll try you idea of a quick scrub first, thanks for the tip.

I decided I wanted shores as my corps units, so eschewed the core set. I managed to find all the gubbins at a decent price on eBay, however, so I'm all set now. To get up to 800 points & 3 corps I just need another box of shores, which'll give me 4 in total, and those lovely dew backs.

Looks good so far. We tend to be a little too critical of our own work sometimes. Like the idea of giving your squad a Shoretrooper tie in theme. I look forward to seeing more posts.

I actually did my first squad of core set Stormtroopers in a "Survivors of Scarif" theme, having them wear a piece or two of the armor with a small back story of how they are dead set on extinguishing the rebels who had destroyed the first Death Star because the "Survivor" squad wanted to exact their revenge against Grand Moff Tarkin themselves. (They can be seen in my painting thread)

12 hours ago, C3POFETT said:

I actually did my first squad of core set Stormtroopers in a "Survivors of Scarif" theme, having them wear a piece or two of the armor with a small back story of how they are dead set on extinguishing the rebels who had destroyed the first Death Star because the "Survivor" squad wanted to exact their revenge against Grand Moff Tarkin themselves. (They can be seen in my painting thread)

I would love to see these, unfortunately all the pictures in your thread no longer appear.

On 2019年10月14日 at 10:17 PM, rdennett14 said:

I would love to see these, unfortunately all the pictures in your thread no longer appear.

Sorry I will look into it and replace them.

On 10/14/2019 at 5:11 AM, Achinadav said:

I didn't notice the historical connotations of black & red armband until you pointed it out. Now I feel a bit dumb...I think it will blend in OK with the shores & scouts having the same markings, though. Unfortunately, the cold hard light of day has shown me that I didn't get the wraithbone down has smoothly as I thought last night, so the armbands look a little rough. From tabletop distance they look fine. The armour also looks a bit patchier than I thought Rather than trying to make them perfect, I've decided to content myself with looking half decent from tabletop distance as a squad and not try to make them all perfect individuals.

Can't seem to get simple green in the UK. But I swear by Superdrug's acetone free nail polish remover! I'll try you idea of a quick scrub first, thanks for the tip.

I decided I wanted shores as my corps units, so eschewed the core set. I managed to find all the gubbins at a decent price on eBay, however, so I'm all set now. To get up to 800 points & 3 corps I just need another box of shores, which'll give me 4 in total, and those lovely dew backs.

One of the central truths about contrast paints is that they will always look immediately better than a simple base color and never look as good as a base, wash, and highlight that you spend hours doing. That’s just the nature of the beast - especially if you are skinny large areas. Faces tend to come out great but it’s tough to police the looking and highlights and get a perfect look on an entire figure. Having said that, I think your death trooper looks better than mine, which I attempted to spray black and then highlight a bit with lighter grays. You might want to just let it sit and come back to it I’m a couple of days and see how you feel.

I know you aren’t a new painter, but when I started about a year and a half ago I painted three stormtroopers from imperial assault, hated them, stripped them, then repainted them again. And they looked exactly the same. So I generally recommend stripping models only after you have no other painting to do. By the time you come back from painting everything else in your list, those original models probably won’t look quite so bad.

edit: I’m also firmly of the opinion that miniature photography is a blessing and a curse. It allows us to share our painting with people all over the world who might appreciate it, but it also allows us to agonize over blown up details that will never be witnessed by the human eye. With only a few exceptions, the models that I am most disappointed with in my collection look good on the tabletop. Sure, there are some people who produce amazing art using miniatures as their medium of expression. But most of us just want cool looking armies and I haven’t seen any Painted minis anywhere that don’t beat gray plastic.

This is all good advice to be reminded of now and again, thanks folks. I'm away from home for work for a couple of weeks and have brought my Legion minis with me to fill idle moments. This afternoon I popped into the local Warhammer shop and had a chat with the staff about contrast. I left with a bottle of contrast medium (& White Dwarf, well, it was right by the till...Aussie prices seem staggering until I remember they aren't in GBP).

What I've decided to do is use the DTF-16 (?) mini to try glazing some of the patchy panels with a mix of black templar and medium to see if it evens the colour out a bit. As I plan on getting a second box at some point, and she's unique, it doesn't really matter if I completely mess it up! I'm also going to repaint her weapons leadbelcher and just wash them with nuln oil. I think that will give a more interesting counterpoint to the armour. I can give the others in the squad the same treatment if I'm happier.

BigBadAndy, I also tried your advice of scrubbing the one of the scouts with a toothbrush. A bit of warm soapy water, and even toothpaste!, certainly lifts the contrast from the high points. Its difficult to work it into the crevices to remove them, and I think the toothpaste might have lifted the primer a little. I'm going to recoat the one I scrubbed with wraithbone and a big brush and go from scratch again. I can compare it to the one I took to the bitter end already and then decide how to handle the others.

In my hands, two coats of the black contrast paint looks pretty flat black. So make sure you use plenty of that contrast medium if you want to keep any highlights on your death troopers.

15 hours ago, BigBadAndy said:

In my hands, two coats of the black contrast paint looks pretty flat black. So make sure you use plenty of that contrast medium if you want to keep any highlights on your death troopers.

My first attempt with a 1:1 mix of black templar & medium was actually slightly too thin for my tastes. A couple of thin glazes on the large panels certainly darkened them a little, but not as much as I wanted. I'm going to try a 2:1 mix when I've got a chance.

I played my first game ever on Sunday! A friendly local was wiling to a show a visiting Pom the ropes. I lost horribly. It was awesome Here's a couple of snaps:

This is at the end of my first turn, maybe. My scouts rushed forwards to claim the objective, my shore troopers (& their mortar) all but wiped out a unit of stormtroopers (you can see the remaining survivor at the top right). And my death troopers have clambered up to overlook the vaporator. After this things went rapidly downhill! These chaps popped out from behind the big building and fried my scouts:

I tried to get my revenge with my shoretroopers, and everybody else, but the flamer chap was still alive. He proceeded to roast my shoretroopers. I made all sorts of blunders and was left with my mortar at the end of the game, who had been newly promoted to commander, and nothing else. Even he was wounded. But I had a great time and really enjoyed the game. I can see how important synergy (& aim tokens!) are now. Looking forward to my pre-order of 2 dewback and another box of shore troopers showing up at some point so I can reach the lofty heights of 800 points.

After the game I was feeling all pumped up and bashed out my scouts. Only took about 20-30 minutes per model. Given the speed of the contrast paint job, I'm quite pleased with how they've come out. There is some pooling that I could fuss over at some point, and the shoulder pads are broad and smooth enough that contrast isn't great on them. But I decided not worry too much. Here are the normal dudes:

They've got red on their right bicep armour and I need to summon the courage to try and put some black & white stripes on their left shoulders. And here's the sniper team:

I appear to have cut out the mine chap. For some reason I painted their belly armour brown. I think my thought process was that it would break up all the armour.

Thanks for looking.

Sorry @Achinadav but I don’t see any pictures here. Glad you had a good time though. EDIT: I see them now.

I typically use the black contrast paint without diluting it so one coat is plenty dark. It’s not “fire and forget” stuff - you have to be pretty careful in your application and there’s a long time between application and when it’s dry that you can’t touch it or you mess it up.

@BigBadAndy Weird. I wonder where they went? I've decided to use the scouts as training for the shore troopers and not worry. I'll probably end up with more death troopers at some point and these guys can also be designated as practise

They look great! And I also like the way you write, I can feel the enthusiasm.

I am also using contrast paints and can relate to the time gain by using these paints.

Keep sharing photos 🙂

On 10/23/2019 at 3:35 PM, YellowSkin88 said:

They look great! And I also like the way you write, I can feel the enthusiasm.

I am also using contrast paints and can relate to the time gain by using these paints.

Keep sharing photos 🙂

Thanks! I have a lot in common with out Labrador/Collie cross; we're fellow enthusiasts ruled by our stomachs. He tends to chase more balls than me and I can't sit comfortably on the floor anymore

I played my second game of Legion yesterday. My opponent very kindly suggested I borrow some of his models so that we could play an 800 points game. I added a second squad of death troopers, with DT-F16, two squads of storm troopers with DLT's and a pair of speeder bikes. I really like the Legion way of choosing deployment and mission. We had clear conditions and deployed in L-shapes up two sides of the board. I was blue player and had to repair some vaporators. Here's how my deployment looked:

Because we got a scout move after deployment, and I'd chosen recon intel for my scouts, they got all the way inside that compound heading towards the central vaporator. One squad of storm troopers are ready to move up in support, because on the other side of the compound are some imperial royal guard, a squad of snow troopers (whose flamer I learnt to fear in our first game) and Palpatine himself. Having read a tactics article on him this week I was a bit worried...Second storm trooper squad ready to get to the vaporator along the wall of the compound and the mortar to back everyone up. Just out of the bottom of the shot I've got the loaner squad of death troopers and Krennic. Meanwhile, on my right flank

There's a vaporator behind the shipping container, so my shore troopers are carefully hidden out of shot of that big snow trooper crewed cannon (never did catch the name) and my snipers are ready to clamber up that building. Turns out, they would win the prize for Most Poorly Positioned Snipers in the History of the Galactic Empire. They literally couldn't see anything for nearly the entire game!

On my left flank, Bossk and a squad of storm troopers are hiding behind the power generators and there's a second squad of storm troopers by the big gun. They both have medical droids, who I learnt to hate. There's also a sneaky sniper team being sneaky behind the big building on my left

My half baked plan was to use my bikers to try and get to Bossk whilst my death troopers offed the snipers. Then Krennic and the second squad would follow up to get to the vaporator. In the centre the scouts and storm troopers were going to hold the compound whilst my shore troopers were going to push forwards and see what happened. After the first turn I was getting ready to spring the trap

My scouts suffered at the hands of the snow troopers, who you can't see tucked behind the storage containers. The imperial royal guard are also tucked in behind them. I think my bikes were the only thing that fired and managed to off a storm trooper. Bossk had run behind that big black tower with a cowardly refusal to be shot. My snipers and shore troopers were manoeuvring on my right

The snipers got hit with four suppression from my opponent's command card. My whole right flank was poorly thought out from the beginning. Discovering that my snipers couldn't see and were completely out of range of anything was a bit disappointing

My speeder bikes continued their suicidal course and closed in on the bad guys

Their shooting really messed up the storm troopers, but they got wiped out in return thanks to that pesky medical droid bringing Jimmy and Frank back to life and Bossk's contribution. This happened in the centre

My storm troopers beat a hasty retreat thanks to their standby token when the snow troopers popped out from behind the containers. Over the course of the next turn, or so, things went from bad to worse in the centre. Stuff died

My scouts did put a wound on the royal guard, but that didn't stop them getting slaughtered in melee. And the retreating storm troopers just delayed the impossible. I think my mortar has also retreated underneath the arch at this point. He promptly got offed too! Things did go better on my left. My flanking death troopers and Krennic downed the snipers. Using the long range config of their blasters, I was also able to finish off Bossk. He'd climbed to the top of the tower and used his command card to be a pretty formidable sniper.

In the closing two turns, I repositioned my shore troopers with a commando roll underneath the partially raised doorway. They'd been working their way forwards under cover, but the enemy storm troopers had reached the vaporator behind the storage container and they were so outnumbered I thought I'd make things worse by letting Palpatine and the snow troopers kill them

Having dealt with the shore troopers, the snow troopers pootled out of the archway and killed my storm troopers by the vaporator. Meanwhile the royal guard shot over the wall and tried to assassinate Krennic. They suffered three wounds from the clamber, which was pretty hilarious. And that let Krennic survive long enough for my death troopers to come to the rescue

Death troopers are wicked! Their red die in melee let them finish off the royal guard and I at least got a taste of sweet revenge after my centre completely collapsed. My other squad of death troopers finished the game trying to shoot the enemy storm troopers that had got to the vaporator at the bottom of the big black tower. The game ended with another convincing victory for my opponent. I had managed to put some damage on one of the vaporators, but three others had been repaired. There was a lot more blood spilt and I had a great time! I really do like this game and am starting to get the hand of synergy, etc.

Stuff I learnt

1) Speeder bikes are wicked fast! And I love their damage output.

2) Speeder bikes are fragile when they're out on their own!

3) Two squads of death troopers is really handy and they are tough.

4) Snow troopers need to die. Fast. That flamer is horrible.

5) Snipers need line of sight to shoot something.

6) Trying to get to all 4 vaporators was a bit dumb.

Boba Fett & Darth Vader join the TEF:

Following last weekend's game I decided that what my tactics were most clearly missing was lightsabers noise and Darth Vader impressions! Five minutes on eBay later and my own Dark Lord of the Sith was awaiting me upon the cessation of my peregrinations. Sadly my dewbacks (& 2nd box of shore troopers) are currently in preorder limbo. So with my dearly beloved away for the weekend, an ill-advised combination of jetlag & a couple of beers led to a Boba Fett arriving yesterday afternoon thanks to Amazon's one day shipping. Oops.

Despite some buyer's remorse yesterday morning, I couldn't be more thrilled! I loved every minute of painting Boba; he's gone to the top of my current Favourite Minis Ever list. I'm definitely getting the hang of contrast paints and I'm very pleased with how he's come out. I was wary about adding some blue to him, but I think the little accents help to break up the armour panels a little. The blue needs a bit of a highlight (as does everybody elses, I'll get to that when I finish the squad markings) and I go back-and-forth on the rocket flames. I'm resisting fiddling until I find my little pot of sand to do Tatooine bases.

Rather than use pure black on Vader, I used an all over coat of snakebite leather followed by an all over coat of black templar. He'll look very dark against everyone still, but the hint of brown will go nicely with their fatigues and tan armour. I'm pretty chuffed with him too. Lightsaber didn't quite work how I wanted, can't be bothered to fiddle.

Thanks to speed that contrast paints have lent me, I've pretty much finished all of the Tatooine Expeditionary Force! Today was a fairly mild November day and so I got out my can of Rustoleum crystal clear matte and got them varnished. I say pretty much finished because I thought I had another week until dewbacks got released. That led me to ordering a pair of speeder bikes, which I now need to get done by the end of the week. But at least Huey & Dewey will be here soon! Along with a 2nd box of shore trooper to actually give me a legal number of corp choices.

In celebration at having a, pretty much, fully painted & based army in record time (for me at least), I also busted out my little light box to try and take some decent photos. I'm generally really pleased with how the minis have come out. There's a few rough spots, largely I think because I'm still learning about the contrast paints, but nothing too bad. Here's Krennic, in his special desert uniform:

I decided to go with a pale grey cloak. Originally I was going to use a brown intermediate between his jacket and trousers, but decided that would be overload. The cloak is just apothecary white over wraithbone and I'm content with it. Had two attempts already.

And a few others of my Boba Fett. Still my favourite mini ever and very pleased with how he came out:

Really hoping for a Scum & Villainy faction now. I'd love an alternative pose/commander version of Boba to paint in his usual scheme. Or maybe just more Mandalorian minis, might end up with Sabine Wren purely for the fun of painting her.

The varnish and lighting has really brought the brown tones out in Darth Vader:

The extra glazes on the death troopers worked out well. I will end up with another squad at some point and I might do them the same way as Vader, or maybe not:

The crystal clear has lent these guys a bit of sheen (actually some of the others too). I think its worked out OK though.

Scouts! As you can see here, I went for the shore troopers black & white stripe markings on their left shoulders. It took ages and they've come out quite wobbly. So on the shore troopers themselves I just picked out the vertical ridge on their shoulders, because it was quicker and neater. Of course, my speeder bike riders will need to match these scouts or my brain will itch, so i've damned myself regardless.

I've proven a particularly inept commander of scouts & snipers so far. I do like scout moves, though, hopefully I'll get better with them.

And finally, shore troopers. Very pleased with these, I think the contrast practise really shows with these guys. Looking forward to the 2nd box arriving, just so I can paint more of them

I've kept the bases really simple. Couple of coats of Vallejo desert yellow and glued on Javis scenics desert sand & stone mix. It was very close to the armour colour at first, but when I put on a coat of thinned glue to hold it down it went an interesting red shade. That went away as it dried, so I hit the base with a generous wash of seraphim sepia. That darkened it down nicely and also gave a hint of reddish brown. Not bad for the time it took! Hopefully I shall finish my speeder bikes before the arrival of further reinforcements...

It seems like its been two and a half months since I looked at the painting section and checking the date of my last post I see it could well be! I don't know why because I look at the rest of the fora regularly. However, my paintbrush has not been idle! Whilst my duet of dewbacks are not yet complete (the truth is that I'm a little unhappy with them and thinking of starting again), and the speederbikes aren't done either, I have managed to crank out some more reinforcements. Firstly, I finished my second squad of shoretroopers:

Here they are guarding some of my favourite Star Wars novels (which are also some of the few the survived the Purge when I moved house 5 years ago. Throw away/donate to charity in haste and repent at leisure). They're basically the same as the first squad except I painted a blue stripe on their helmets. This is because when I held up the first one I declared finished next to his counterpart from the first squad it was really hard to tell them apart. The stripe is a really easy way to differentiate them on the table top, because from the visage of my 6'3" frame, all I can see is the top of their heads If I get a 3rd squad, the outer two sections on the top of the helmet will be blue and the hypothetical (who am I kidding I wanna a play a grand army game...) 4th squad will be all blue.

The next two expansions were purchasedt because I decided to enter a tournament! My first ever! At the great Wargames Workshop in Milton Keynes. Its an hour away and I wish it was closer. Whilst I had no illusions of winning, it seemed like a great way to get three games in on one day against diverse opponents. More in next post because I took pictures.. Anyway, I realised I "needed" a squad of snow troopers for the tournament and I also "needed" one of the command cards from the specialists box. So they arrived quite suddenly as if someone had ordered them oneline. Then I ended up off work with a bad back (I had no idea something could hurt that badly with no obvious injury) and got everything painted lickety split when I could sit upright. Priority supplies promptly turned up because I "needed" some of the condition cards "for the tournament." Here's my snow troopers, re-christened as HE/ET troops (Hostile Environment/Extreme Temperature):

I wanted a coherent scheme across the force and so I used the same paints in the same ways. I noticed a real difference in the ease of assembly with respect to the more recent releases, but I still really liked the minis and had a ball painting them. One blaster guy has got his right arm not quite in, which you can't tell, and I didn't quite manage to get the flamer guy's right in either, so there's a slight mismatch between the parts of the flamer. Probably because I stuck all the arms on after assembly and i was feeling cautious when it came to applying force because of the contrast paints.

And here's the specialists:

I haven't used any of these guys yet, although I probably will soon. I really like the officer and I'm toying with using her as commander to get me an extra activation. I think I could probably squeeze in a sniper team with her if I try hard. Will put tournament pictures up in a separate post.

The tournament I mentioned above was 3 Swiss rounds using 800 points. It was really fun and everyone was very welcoming and fun to play against. Of the 12 of us, it was the first tournament for three of us and one of the others had also only played twice. Wargames Workshop is a great store with loads of playing space; there was a >40 person Destiny tournament on at the same time. Initially the Legion tournaments started out as bi-monthly, but they got so popular that they're now going to be monthly! I hope to get along every couple of months. The 800 point events are going to be interspersed with 500 point skirmish and 1600 point grand army ones.

My army was led by Krennic (with strict orders), who was ably backed up by Boba Fett. I had two full squads of shore troopers with targetters & the attached mortars, my brand new HE/ET troopers with flamer and frag grenades, death troopers with DLT & comms relay (for turns when I used one of Boba's command cards to kick of the order chain) and some scouts. I'm not keen on Krennic 3 pip card, so I took Coordinated Fire instead, his 1 & 2 pip and all of Boba's. Can't remember the condition cards, etc, oops.

My first game was against a bunch of rebel scum. My opponent was a real gent and very generous with his advice. I learnt a lot, although I tried to stick to my bad choices because I'm stubborn We were playing breakthrough with battle lines and limited visibility. Thanks to an overwhelming brain fart I deployed incredibly badly (in cover instead of prepared to move into it) and then played Boba's 3 pip. Which I couldn't use because of limited visibility, grrrr. Here's some time in the first turn:

Two units of taun tauns rushing towards me was scary; I'd read all about them! My opponent had Han & Chewie in the middle and I, belatedly, put Bobas bounty on Chewie. Boba's been bouncing around, and I can't remember what I was doing with those death troopers...Some time later this is how things looked:

My shore troopers have moved up into cover to try and put those revels off. One squad of tauns had turned towards the centre and the second, out of shot, has continued towards my right flank. Can't remember what was going on over there. But by the end of the next turn:

I'd successfully dealt with one unit of taun tauns, meanwhile two squads of some sort of rebels and some fleet troopers had charged down my left flank. They wiped out one unit of shore troopers and at this point there was basically nothing opposing them. They would rampage around a bit. This was one of the incidents where my opponent's advice was brilliant! He explained about how to wipe those tauns out, basically by counting on my snows getting to active before them. It worked out and they got blown to bits by frag grenades This is after their annihilation:

We had another interesting discussion here about what to do. Basically, there was nothing I could do to stop the rebel units on my left making it to my deployment zone. But I could try and kill Chewie! By targeting him with my snows and Krennic, I was able to kill him with Boba and claim the bounty! I would have got the activations in the wrong order, so thanks to my opponent I at least got to claim a moral victory! I basically lost this game with terrible deployment and screwing up my first turn command card. After that there wasn't much I could have done. I should have put my snows and Boba over on the right flank, to kill off the rebels, as their combined flamer attacks would have been brilliant. I also placed Krennic badly, because he couldn't get orders to where they mattered and my shores/mortars were too far apart for order chaining. I also had some pretty hideous dice luck and made very few red defence dice saves. Great fun though!

More to follow on my next couple of games.

I really like the desert color scheme! Boba Fett really looks great with it.

9 hours ago, Sharkbelly said:

I really like the desert color scheme! Boba Fett really looks great with it.

Thanks; it worked out really nicely with Boba. I'm tempted to get another copy of him to paint in his movie scheme, because I had so much fun painting him. Or I could wait and hope for a commander Boba for a scum & villainy faction...

For my second game of the tournament I completely forgot to take any pictures, which is a shame because it was against the son of my first opponent and he had a lovely bright dewback and AT-ST (his Dad went on to win best painted support unit for the dewback). We were on the same table as before, with battle lines and I was even on the same board edge! (Scurrilous rumours that I couldn't be bothered to carry everything around the table to be on the other edge may or may not be true.) Our mission this time was key positions with hostile conditions (which did nothing; every unit that took suppression was on an objective). You can see the objectives in the previous post. One was on the big building in the bottom right of the first photo, the second was on the radio tower in the middle, and the third was on the tower in the top left of the third photo.

Things started well; I didn't mess up my first turn command card and deployment was OK. My opponent had some scout snipers climb onto the tower with the objective with one slipping and falling. Hah! I splatted the other with a mortar, because tall objective+sniper=dead minis. His dewback then came charging across the open ground directly towards my shore troopers. My choice here was either to shoot at something else, or hope I got to activate before the dewback got into my lines. So I shot him. After that there was a bit of back-and-forth. I was winning at one point because although my opponent reclaimed the tower objective and had the other two. Then the AT-ST started stomping on things and Vader arrived at the bottom right objective...It ended up a draw, with me winning on points.

What I should have done: ignored the AT-ST completely, or concentrated on it. Instead I wasted Boba's 3 pip and then plinked away at it every so often. I should also have put Boba on my left flank. He would have had free rein to rampage around near the tower objective, as there was a 4-man storm trooper squad and some shore troopers that could have claimed it. It turned out to be the storm troopers and I reckon Boba's 2 pip would have seen for them. I think my opponent would have still backed up Vader with the shore troopers on my right flank. I pretty much ignored Vader and that worked out OK. I had three units that could claim the bottom right objective and by the time he got to them there wasn't enough time to off all of them. In fact, the reason why I won is that he only killed 4 out of 5 death troopers!

My third game of the tournament was against its organiser, who was playing droids. He had 6 squads of B1's, with various weapon upgrades (I think), 3 squads of droidekas and General Grievous. Once again we ended up with battle lines, this time with rapid reinforcements and recover the supplies. I was very pleased about this because it meant I was going to get to use Boba to bounce around and knick things Here's a photo from near the end of the game:

This is the centre of the field at the beginning of the final turn. My two squads of shore troopers had offered support to Boba, who jumped forward to grab the supplies from the little round thing at the top of the photo. They teamed up to eliminate droidekas with the aid of lots of aim tokens. Boba then jumped over to the big tall green thing and grabbed the central box before jumping back towards the little ruins that General G is by here. The scouts on the bottom right had grabbed a third box that I actually placed out of the frame here, before moving over to support everybody else. I'd put my death troopers and snow troopers for rapid reinforcement. This got my death troopers in the top of a tower with brilliant lines of sight. Sadly my red defence dice let me down and they died veyr quickly. The snow troopers tied up General G for a turn before they got thoroughly minced.

Over the course of the previous turn the law of averages played out; the horrendous dice luck I had in my first game was made up for by Boba tanking the entire droid army's shooting and only suffering 3 wounds! He had a massive pile of suppression tokens that I then managed to shed enough of to avoid panic and give him an action...Which he used to jump into the building in his next turn. The whole game was going to come down to whether General G could reach him or not:

He could. One attack later and I needed to save against two wounds. Thanks to Boba's Mandalorian armour I got to roll an extra couple of defence dice, and if last turn's luck held up he'd probably survive. Here's his defence roll:

One measly block! Which was pierced! He died, dropped the boxes and gave my opponent the victory!

I enjoyed this game most of all. Even though I was tired, I felt like I was starting to get the hang of planning my actions ahead by a turn or two and how to get things going my way. There are still things I'd do differently. I should have deployed Boba further over to my left and gone for the central box first. Then bounced sideways away from the entire droid army and got the one by the little round thing. My opponent generously thinks this would have won me the game, I think there are too many variables to know for sure. I should also have only put my snow troopers as rapid reinforcements. This would have allowed me to use my death trooper's comms relay to kick off my shore's order chain and meant that I had another unit firing at droidekas in my first turn.

This was the second game in a row that Krennic got squished. I need to protect him better. My current plan is to try out General Veers instead, who I think will suit my playstyle better. I've never actually used Krennic's compel and I struggle with his 3 pip. So I've got Veers on order (hopefully arriving today) and also ordered a Skullforge mini to use instead of the actual one, which is the only Legion mini I don't like (and why I didn't get him to start with). Thanks to a convenient birthday, I also have an e-web, which I plan to try out along with Veers whenever my next game is. My current plan is to use Veers' 1 & 3 pip with Boba's1 & 2 pip and coordinated fire.