Klorophil’s Star Wars Legion Imperial Army

Sorry to say that I’m retiring from Star Wars Legion. I don’t like the rules and the way the game plays and there’s not enough variety for the Imperial faction. I don’t intend on buying snow/sand/scout/green/black/forest/cooking troopers to make my army more competitive or fun to play. FFG decided that it was going to be a pay-to-win game and I don’t like those kind of schemes. So the rebel scums have won as they should…

So I’ve finished one AT-ST. I should start the other one soon. I’m pretty happy with the result. My only problem is that the varnish I used cracked because I sprayed it in too cold an environment. I used my non-heated workshop for spraying it and it’s already winter here so… Lessons learned.

Otherwise I used a pretty basic technique. Once I was happy with my undercoat as described below, I used Citadel’s Agrax Earthsade to wash the entire model. I mixed in about 50% water and flow improver to thin it down. Once that was dry I did a pin wash, of 25% Nuln Oil to 75% Agrax Earthshade. I used that only in the deepest recesses. I also used that for the grills and added some streaks and drips where I thought they would appear on a machine.

Once that was thoroughly dry I drybrushed a mix of 50% AP Matt White and P3 Ironhull Grey all over. And that’s it for the painting part.

I based everything with flock etc. It was then up for the varnish with first a good coat of gloss spray-on varnish and then 2 coats of matt varnish to bring it back from down from the shininess.

And that’s it one AT-ST done.

So with my 2 squads of Stormies done I started one AT-ST. I primed everything black and then made a zenith highlight first with grey primer and then a lighter pass of white primer. I use rattle cans because I don’t have an airbrush yet.

Once that was done I applied successive coats of ever lighter Iron Hull Grey from Formula P3. Trying to lighten up only the parts that are closest to the eye or in other words those which would receive the most light.

I simply add white to get a lighter tone of Iron Hull Grey. I still have not finished this step, but I like the results enough that I decided to share them with you all. Enjoy!

Here is the final result with the weapons painted using the method below. I then based all of them.

So I had a bit of a difficult time with the method below. The problem was that I primed black and then added white. So I decided to try another method. This time I primed everything white and added a wash of Nuln Oil directly on the white primer. I then proceeded on drybrushing successive coats of ever whiter grey as below. And then finished with a very light coat of pure white.  This is the result, which I think is much more convincing. It also took me maybe 1 hour to do 2 squads. And so I have a fast method of painting tabletop quality Stormtroopers. Enjoy!

Once my color layer for the bases was dry enough I added the flocking. I simply used PVA glue thinned with water. I would say maybe 25% water to 75% glue, but I pretty much guessed it by eye. Then it’s just a question of dunking the mini into the flocking and tapping off the excess. Here what it looks like. I might add different flocking later on.

And so they are bascially done. I added some tiny drops of white in the eye sockets and cleaned up some things.

I then added a layer of P3 Bloodtracker Brown on the bases. I did this to prepare for the flocking. By adding a layer of colour on the bases, anything that is not covered by the flocking will show as brown which makes for a nice soil effect. Just remember to let that coat dry thoroughly as it will be covered with PVA glue.

I used the exact same technique as Step seven for the rocket launcher and also the stock of the DL-44 blaster. So I won’t repeat myself. Here are the paints I used:

Basecoat: P3 Greatcoat Grey
Shadow: 25-75 P3 Thamar Black-Greatcoat Grey
Wash: Citadel Nuln Oil
Midtones: Greatcoat Grey
Highlights: 25-75 AP Matt White-Greacoat Grey
Edge highlights: previous mixture with more Matt White added

I painted the pauldron with P3 Khador Red Base. Then made a shadow by 2-brush blending a 50-50 mix of Khador Red Base with P3 Sanguine Base. I let it dry and then put a coat of Citadel Nuln Oil. Once that was dry I redid the midtone with Khador Red Base again 2-brush blending everything.

Highlights were a 50-50 mix of Khador Red Base and P3 Khador Red Highlight. I only did an edge highlight with this mix. I then used straight Khador Red Highlight to further highlight the edges.

The underside of the pauldron was simply painted P3 Thamar Black. Didn’t want to attract much attention there.

Here I basically cleaned up any Gunmetal that might have strayed on the black parts. I then added a highlight of P3 Ironhull Grey. Eventhough, it doesn’t show much on this picture, I then highlighted the black further by adding a small drop of AP Matt White in my previous Ironhull Grey.

And so I’m back.

Here you can see I added a medium drybrush of AP Gunmetal to all the weapons parts. I decided against painting them completely in Gunmetal because I wanted them to appear pretty much black as they do in the movies. However, just black appears too flat and dull so adding a little highlight of Gunmetal brings everything up. I often use this technique for my Bolt Action also and I like the results.

Once the light grey was dry I applied a second much lighter drybrush of pure Matt White. I then proceeded with blocking in all the black parts, especially the weapons and black bodysuit which all Stormtroopers wear under their plates. I used Formula P3 Thamar Black.

This is what it looks like. The grainy texture is less apparent in real life but still present. I guess only an airbrush could achieve a good blending. Still I think it will be enough for the tabletop. I don’t plan on winning any painting competition with these.

Cheers.

Now my minis were way too dark and «dirty». So I did another drybrush pass with the basecoat light grey. This is what I was trying to achieve on the first try. For my next squad I think I will prime everything white and go straight to Nuln Oil and then this light grey. Unfortunately, all of that doesn’t show very well on these two photos.

By the way if anyone has any pointers on how to take good pictures of your minis, I’m all ears.

So my so called drybrush didn’t achieve the desired results, which is letting the black take care of all the recesses and shadows, thus I added a single coat of undiluted Citadel’s Nuln Oil.

So this is my first step. A heavy drybrush, to be honest it’s almost painting it. I used Army Painter’s Matt White mixed with a little bit of Citadel’s Dawnstone. I did the color by eye so I can’t tell you the exact proportions. I would say 85% white to 15% Dawnstone. This is then roughly applied to the mini. I did two coats of that.

I’ve primed them all black and then will proceed with drybrushing them with successive layers of light gray to white. I’ll try and do a kind of tutorial here so keep looking.

Cheers.