Star Wars Legion at Nottingham Board and Wargames Club

This guy was pretty straightforward. The main colours are the brown (P3 Bloodstone) and Grey (P3 Coal Black). I really love these 2 colours. I’ve then just varied the washes used over the top: The trousers have a black wash (GW badab black?), the undershirt is a dark brown wash (AP dark tone), and the coat is the new AP flesh wash.

But really that just sets the background for the blue, which draws the eye so much. I knew it had to be good. I used a couple of shades of AP blues, with extra white mixed in for the top highlights. And a single careful coat of AP Dragon red for the eyes (steady, steady, careful now…… nailed it!).

Vallejo matt varnish brushed on all over to bring down the shine of the washes.

Started assembling Stap riders now.

We’d played a few learning games at the club in jan-feb 2020, but 14th March was time for my first Legion tournament. At nearby Sanctuary, I wrapped up warm and took Dooku and his boys for a proper test. As the player with a fully painted army I took a default best painted commendation, and everyone liked the look of the droids and approved of the clear bases for competitive use.

First game against operative Darth Vader, snow troopers and imperial royal guard. A tense finish to hold the terrain objectives as Vader was down to his last wound and Dooku was already dead. We tied for objective points, but my opponent had the upper hand on points killed due to the status of the commanders. I had to choose between taking down vader, or killing someone holding an objective, so i played the mission. So a losing draw there.

Second game against Rex, 3 squads of clones and the Sabre tank! It’s huge and rolls a lot of dice with fire support. I decided to ignore the tank, and put lots of suppression on Rex so he never got a shot off and then fled the table. Dooku waded into the clones with light stick and lightning before getting punched one too many times. This left the droids to finish off the last clone troopers and hold the centre for the WIN! Yey!!

Game 3 was a big challenge from the start. Some challenging snowy cliff terrain meant awkward deployment, and a big advantage for the flying Boba Fett. Meanwhile a fairly static AT-ST kept pumping out heavy fire. I again decided to ignore the big vehicle, and go after the tiny fighting men since they only numbered 7 models. Dooku killed half of them in turn 3, but then Boba got the last wound with his pistol and claimed his bounty, and the droidekas could only hide from the withering AT-ST fire. A solid loss here, but a tense tactical game.

A fascinating day of learning about the varied enemy forces and tactics. I cleared up a few rule understandings too, and had to keep remembering to use my AI rules correctly. I’d played a friend with Solo and Chewie on the Monday of that week, so had a good taste of all the factions now. Loving this game, it’s really got me hooked. Finished 3rd of 4 players on the day, and now all the clubs are shut it was my last hit of gaming for a while. I’ll be painting more droids to be ready for 800pt games in the summer.

Here are some close ups of my finished skirmish force. Dooku, two units of B1s and 2 units of droidekas.

Dooku has come out very nicely. Primed black, basecoated with Vallejo heavy skintone, army painter skeleton bone highlights and soft tone wash, P3 coal black highlights for the uniform, Vallejo heavy red, AP chaotic red and dragon red for the underside of the cloak (same for the light sabre, with AP pure red highlights). Hair and beard are just a couple of shades of AP uniform grey over the black primer.

The B1 droids, after washing, were highlighted with the Vallejo middlestone, then skeleton bone on the top edges. The guns were black, with coal black highlights and edged with AP gun metal.

The droidekas were primed with Halfords red primer, gun metal over the chassis and a mix of P3 Molten Bronze with heavy red for the armour plates. Darktone wash all over and edge highlight with the base colours.

Clear bases from ‘just lasered’ on ebay.

Today I’ve been working on my droids painting.

I’ve primed with Halfords Grey primer spray first, then Halfords Rover Ratten Beige for a good bone colour on most surfaces with just a little grey left in the recesses (first picture, looks a little dark due to lighting).

I’ve gone over the whole model (except guns) with Vallejo Middlestone to give a darker sand colour. Then an army painter soft tone wash all over the model to shade the recesses. You can see the before and after wash stages in the second picture.

Third picture showns the B1 droids finished off with middlestone and skeleton bone highlights.

We’ve moved to Geek Retreat in Nottingham to get some intro games going. Gary has brought his part painted imperials and matt has brought fully painted rebels (he cheated by starting before this weekend). We’ve got some terrain to represent a civilian outpost where the conflict will take place, we’ll divided this into 2 3’x3′ tables.

Ian has completed the build for the droid half of the clone wars core set. There are a lot of small pieces on these models which can make assembly tricky. There is an assembly guide to download from the FFG website to help. The quality of the components is exceptional, the quality of the molds and the fit of components. Superb.

And I’m dressed for the occasion!

To expand a little on what’s going on with the droid bases, I’m assembling them on spare deadzone bases ready for the painting stage. They will then be transferred onto clear bases for gaming (shown on the right, protective film still in place).

Tonight at our regular Thursday night Hobby Hangout, club members Gary, Matt and Ian began putting together our imperial storm troopers, republic clones and separatist droids, and look forward to a heavy weekend of hobbying with the On Table Top community.