First time poster on the Legion forums and I probably won't be doing it terribly often, I'm mostly active on the X-wing side of things.

Now, if you have seen my X-wing work, you would likely know that I often tackle oddball projects and this time is no different. Here's some Legion scout troopers on bikes for you to take a look at. Except they are not Legion models.

These models were actually produced by Wizards of the Coast back in 2004 for their Star Wars game. Now the models are not the best, the sculpt rather lacking in details, but more importantly the material used is a soft, almost rubbery, plastic. As can be seen in the last two images, it didn't hold up very well.

In any case, my job was to improve and rebuild the old models into something more pleasing and quite frankly I think I've succeeded. There will always be a slight case 'polish a turd' with these models but compared to before it's a rather stunning difference.

Impressive! That's quite a difference in the 'before' and 'after' shots.

Nice save. God they are horribly manufactured

Exceptional recovery Sir! Well done. Reaper miniatures manufacture a budget range they call “Bones” which are the same rubbery plastic. True they don’t get broken when you tread on them, but they dont hold detail either and get all distorted too! Did you use boiling water to reshape them?

I have some upcoming WotC AT-RTs that have gone through the same treatment and the difference there is even more pronounced. Just a little something to look forward. 😉

On 5/12/2020 at 3:29 AM, Alan Noir said:

Nice save. God they are horribly manufactured

Yeah but they are durable. Leave them in an unpadded box, grab them by the handful, put them on a table for a RP encounter, throw them callously back in the box, grab more 20 minutes later... They'll never look any WORSE than the day you bought them!

On 5/14/2020 at 6:51 PM, TauntaunScout said:

Yeah but they are durable. Leave them in an unpadded box, grab them by the handful, put them on a table for a RP encounter, throw them callously back in the box, grab more 20 minutes later... They'll never look any WORSE than the day you bought them!

While true that you really have to struggle to make them look worse than their original state, it's not like the bar was ever particularly high.

Anyway, here's the AT-RTs I teased earlier

Let's count all the things I've done:

• Re-positioned the legs considerably so the models stands straighter and taller
• Added some pistons to the legs
• Added an antenna array
• Moved the entire top pod forwards
• Added footrests
• Removed the original gun and mounting point
• Replaced the gun mount with a new one with a magnet added
• Scratch built / kitbashed all three gun options and of course magnetized them
• Replaced the original pilot.
• Replacement pilot needed extensive work to legs, feet and arms in order to have the right position

And I think that's everything. Unfortunately I didn't remember to take some good before and after photos of these, best I've got is two pictures from when I was in the middle of converting the first one. Something that doesn't really come across in those pictures is how badly the model was originally leaning over to the left.

Much better! Well done. I think I might do similar when I pick up the clone version. Thanks for sharing 🙂

10 hours ago, BlueSquadronPilot said:

Much better! Well done. I think I might do similar when I pick up the clone version. Thanks for sharing 🙂

If you pick up the same type of model as I started this project with then I strongly advise that you at the very least straighten the legs. That alone makes a huge difference.

Here's some snowspeeders for you to enjoy. Unlike the walkers and bikes, these two do not originate from Wizard of the Coast, but are certainly not official Legion models either. These were made by Revell, and were part of the easy kit line, basically fairly simple plastic kits for beginners that does not require glue to assemble. The scale is reportedly 1/52 which is very close to the (rather fluid) 1/56 scale that many miniature games use.

The one advantage these models have over the Legion version is the inclusion of a transparent cockpit canopy , interior detailing and pilots. Unfortunately, the pilots are NOT to scale, as can be seen in the last image. To the left is a fairly standard 1/56 model (one of the AT-RT pilots) and to the right is a Flames of War model (1/100 scale). So yeah, I estimate the pilot to be about 1/90 scale. Still, the visible pilots are a neat feature and on the battlefield the scale issue will likely not be noticed.

Interesting that the vehicle and pilot would have such a disparity in scale. As always, sir, fine work!

On 5/28/2020 at 1:43 PM, SFC Snuffy said:

Interesting that the vehicle and pilot would have such a disparity in scale. As always, sir, fine work!

Yeah its commonly assumed that the snowspeeders are as big as snub fighters but when you watch the movie its only about as big as a car

The toy from the 80's was a lot bigger than it should have been. I had one, and I'm always surprised when I re-watch Empire how small thay really are.

Awesome Speeder!