Rebel Troopers for Imperial Assault

As some might have noticed, some friends and I have been playing Imperial Assault for a while. For a certain amount of time I had the idea to follow the releases to bring the whole Star Wars universe to live but luckily for my wallet Fantasy Flight Games (and in Germany Heildeberger / Asmodée) were too fast for a slow painter and volatile hobby fellow like me. Thus my efforts ended with those sets which are represented in the Imperial Assault app meaning the first wave at the moment.

Therefore I had a set of three rebel troopers lying around and somehow I felt it was time to splash some paint on them. Rather soon we want to continue with our campaign and we might need those allies to fight the fierde forces of the Galactic Empire.

 

The set contains of three troopers in the well-known uniform featured in the iconic opening sequence of episode IV. They are all nice and clean casts although all three figures are identical.

Colourwise I left the greyish 1970s schene a bit and went for the more colourful blue and khaki scheme wich the computer game Star Wars: Battlefront delivered.

After all those models were truly fun to paint. The details all crisp and clear, the facial expression easy to follow and a simple uniform which allowed a quick painting style.

As usual I used Vallejo paints for most parts of the figures and the Wargames Foundry skin coulours for face and hands.

Only the bases are bit of a problem. Imperial Assault may be set in various surroundings from the wooded areas of Endor to the dark and grimy hangars of an outer rim space port. Therefore I didn't find a good solution for shaped bases and left them greyish. So I applied some dark grey and added a series of lighter splashes.

 

Nevertheless I'm still pondering about changing to clear acrylic bases but I haven't brought myself to re-basing my whole Imperial Assault collection yet.

Cruel Seas: Schnellboote ahead !

Lately I presented a some Vosper MTBs for Cruel Seas and of course they need some enemies to fight with. Although a friend of mine started to collect some German navy boats I had a couple of E-boats lying around from the starter box. So why not paint them to have some stuff for both sides ready...

The starter set comes with two sprues with two E-boats each. One S-38 design and one better armed S-100 version. Firstly I painted the S-38 boats in a standard greyish colour scheme. Somehow I wasn't in the mood for fancy camouflage. We had a game scheduled two days later so time was precious.

The boats are armed with a 20mm gun forewards and a 37mm gun sternwards. Pretty heavy compared to the British Vospers which are employing a 20mm gun only (besides some machine guns which have the German boats as well).  In addition the boats are faster than their British opponents. But more expensive in points as well.

The later S-100 version has a armoured bridge section and is better armed since it comes with an additionol twin 20mm gun midships. In addition it has the option to mount either the 37mm gun or a quad 20mm gun sternwards. But here Warlord really blundered. The E-boat sprue comes with only one 37mm gun which you tually need to equip the S-38 boat with. But then there's no 37mm for the S-100. Looks like somehow hasn't thought really deeply while designing that sprue...

Nevertheless those boats are as nice models as the Vospers are. As you see I painted the S-100s with a darker deck based on a picture I found in an Osprey book.

Torpedos los!

Cheers

Stefan

Cruel Seas: Armed Trawler

The fleet boxes for Cruel Seas really provide a nice selection of models. The Royal Navy for example come with the mandarory Vospers, some Fairmile MTB and an Armed Trawler. After rushing through the Vospers and E-boats I took the trawler as a more special model and painted it during the last days:

It's a large ship (though 'large' in 1/300) that comes in resin with metal parts. Overall the parts fit very well. Only the masts needed some deeper holes to fit in the hull proberly. A really nice add-on is the metal crew. They come in strips of three seamen but can be cut into single crewmembers or pairs easily. Since there were more then enough seamen for the trawler I transfered two of them to one of my Vospers to man the bridge appropriately.

The flag is again from the generic Royal Navy flag sheet by Warlord Games. But this time I used the Red Ensign instead of the White Ensign. Although I know that the Red Ensign is appropriate for British merchantmen I didn't check it on historial material. I just followed Warlord Games example...

Anyway, the ship comes with two 3" guns and appears properly armed to scare some E-boats. The guns are nice metal pieces as well and have crew figures on them. Very nice little bits. I'd wish to see them available individually to have them available for the plastic boats. Making the guns available individually would - by the way - solve the problem with the missing 37mm gun in the German E-boat sprue...

As usual I used mostly my trustworthy Vallejo paints. Starting with a basecoat of Uniform Grey spray primer (by Armypainter) I applied VMC 70.924 Russian Uniform WWII. It's a rather light greyish green because I wanted to try a different colour scheme on the trawler. On some Warlord Games pictures their trawler looks slightly greenish so I chose this colour. Anyway the result looks even greener then desired but I'm happy with it anyway. After the colour was dry I applied some of the AK washes to get some shadows. Then drybrushing with VMC 70.821 German Camoflage Beige and VMC 70.884 Stone Grey. Finally some more AK washing for weathering especially on the lower parts of the hull.

That's it for now. I hope you like it.

Cheers

Stefan

Star Wars Legion: AT-ST Walker

It was about a year ago when Star Wars - Legion caught my attention. First I was annoyd because Fantasy Flight Games chose another scale than their Imperial Assault game has. But afterall I wasn't able to resist the seduction of airspeeders and full-scale Imperial walkers. So I acquired the starter box as well as an AT-ST. Although I assembled it a while ago it sat on my to-do-shelf for a pretty long time. Now with the first bonus round of the AHPC themed 'Reconnaissance' what could be more obvious than a vehicle bearing 'scout' in his name?

This interpretation of the well-known All-Terrain-Scout-Transport is a huge beast. Therefor some 32mm stormtroopers for size comparison. It has a hight of over 20 centimeters with slightly bent legs. It has more or less the same size as the good old 1/48 kit by Bandai.

For painting I used my airbrush gun to apply a medium grey base colour and light grey highlights. Afterwards I applied a selection of washes: Nuln Oil by Citadel and several of the thinner based washes by AK. As a finish I added some rusty brown and charcoal black pigments at several places. E.g. the feet (dust) and the shoulder gun (grime).

For the basing I wasn't able to decide which theatre of war I'd use the walker for. Star Wars has so many interesting places which reach from the icy planet Hoth to woody planets like Endor or desert worlds like Tatoine. So how to base a model properly to suit all these different requirements? For me it became crystal clear when I checked some aftermarket articles and stumbled over some clear acrylic bases offered by Sarissa. So I ordered enough for a small Imperial invasion force and some appropriate heavy armour.

Well that's it for now. I'm lucky to have contributed something to this first bonus round between the bunch of ACW and Cruel Seas stuff I'm working on. Hope you like my humble contibution.

Cheers

Stefan

Cruel Seas: Vospers and eels

Ahoi Jack Tars and Landlubbers,

finally my first entry for this year's Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge:

Vospers and eels

Shortly before Christmas Warlord released their new WWII naval skirmish game Cruel Seas. Frankly for a long time their wasn't a release that I was so much looking forward to. Anyway my pre-order didn't arrive in time and more than two weeks of desperate wainting overshadowed my december. Anyway shortly before Christmas the starter set arrived and I couldn't resist painting enough boats for the first couple of scenarios. So here we go with the Vospers first.

Actually the basic games comes with six Vospers but until now I've painted only four of them. They are all in 1/300 (6mm) scale but very detailed. Due to the thick plastic they appear a bit bulky but nevertheless really nice models.