Sunday, August 5, 2018

A Trio of Baddies for Star Wars: Imperial Assault


Continuing on my Star Wars riff, here's a trio of Imperial baddies to help make our our heroes, well, more heroic.

I found these to be quite nice miniatures on the whole. Great animation and while they're a bit softly cast in a few places, they usually have fairly well-defined detail.  My only real caveat is that each set only offers one pose. So, in an effort not to bore you with a bunch of duplicates, here are a few single samples from three separate sets: an Imperial officer, a stormtrooper, equipped in desert gear, and a snowtrooper (or a 'cold assault stormtrooper' to the SW anoraks out there).



The officer is depicted in a 'commanding pose' which seems straight out of Central Casting: an outstretched hand pointing to some impossible objective which will probably get both him and his minions ignominiously ventilated. Come to think of it, he does look a bit of a dick.


I painted him in the classic olive green of the Imperial Navy. His two colleagues (apparently off camera, polishing their boots or practicing getting force-choked by Sith Lords) are done in black for the Stormtrooper Corps and white for the Intelligence Bureau.


Next up, I found the snowtrooper a doodle to paint: brilliant white armour with cream for the fabricy bits, then apply a diluted wash and finish up with a quick highlight using the original colours = done. 


I've always had a soft spot for snowtroopers. Not because they're necessarily that interesting design-wise, but because they're intrinsically linked to 'The Empire Strikes Back' - arguably the best movie of the whole franchise - cool in both setting and association.


The last figure is my favourite of the batch, a stormtrooper equipped for desert operations. I weathered him up a bit so he looks like he's been scrabbling around Tatooine for the past few days looking for droids. Definitely one of the iconic figures from the first movie.


I like how he's tucked right into his blaster rifle, ready to miss everything that's put in front of him. Really, you almost feel sorry for these hapless gits. They sweat their bollocks off galloping around the desert on huge lizards in scorching heat wearing armour that probably chafes like a sonofabitch, then they get completely played by a dusty old hermit, miss all the action at the cantina, only to get humiliatingly drilled by some small-time smuggler and his walking rug of a co-pilot. 

Good gravy, what a bunch of pathetic mutts.  

Nonetheless, even in light of all of this, they're still the cat's pajamas in my books - so go figure.



Next Up: Something for the Renaissance collection.

24 comments:

  1. Quality post Curt. Great figures, painting and the dialogue is superb!

    Cheers, Ross

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  2. Lovely work as always even on these minions of the dark side, Rennaisance? Sounds interesting!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain. I think you'll quite appreciate the next post.

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  3. Terrific work, Curt, the Force was clearly with you!

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  4. Very nicely done my friend! I'm not at all impressed with all the mono pose figures in IA but that's hardly your fault. Will you go on and collect the new game as well? A shame the figures are much bigger though...

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    1. Thanks Nick. Yes, they are mono but many of the poses they do have are very nicely done. I'm probably going to give 'Legion' a pass as I really don't like the scale they went with. I think they really missed an opportunity to do something interesting in a smaller scale, like 15 or even 10mm. As it stands with their models being close to 35mm how will they effectively model vehicles like an AT-AT Walker? The table scale is way too big. Too bad as I would have been a perfect target audience. :)

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  5. More fantastic brushwork dude, white is so tricky, but you make it look easy!

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  6. Impressive, most impressive...

    ;-) Cheers Sander

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  7. Sadly late to the party. Very nice work, as usual. What's the mini difference between Imperial Assault and Legion? Are they the same scale and interchangeable, or not? My brother-in-law is a huge Star Wars gaming fan, and really into Legion (bwahahaha evil plan working), so it'd be great if they are.

    On a tangent, what paints are you using for your whites, btw? It's a color I have been having real trouble with lately.

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    1. Thanks Robert. The Legion minatures are annoyingly bigger than the Imperial Assault models. Actually, I wish they had done Legion in 15mm or even 10mm as it would have allowed larger vehicles on the table without looking silly.

      As to the whites. For the regular stormtroopers I used GW Ceremite White, then washed it in Nuln Oil and then highlighted with Ceremite on the raised edges. For the white fabric of the Snowtroopers I used Vallejo Silver Grey, washed it down with a thinned coat of GW Seraphim Sepia and then highlighted with Silver Grey again, with a final highlight of Silver Grey equally mixed with Ceremite.

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