Begun, another Legion project has.

Using very little effort, I talked my brother into playing a game!  The terain is his, making use of some Carnevale and not-Star Wars kits from TTCombat plus some 3d printing.  Looked pretty good I thought!

He brought a Rebel list of things you might find pre-Battle of Yavin while I brought my Droids which I guess would be a remnant of the Separatists led by Maul and a rebuilt Greivous United in their hatred of Kenobi.  Or something like that. 😉

I started the game by over estimating the survivability of Droidekas in wheel mode, so lost them on turn 1!

I pulled it back with Maul wiping out a squad of Rebel troopers on turn 2 in a single attack.

We traded successes and failures over the next couple of rounds but the force was strong with my dice (which never seems to happen if I’m playing in any sort of tournament) and I pulled ahead with Maul securing one flank and Greivous on the other.

We ended on round 5 with Maul slaying Leia, presumably to get one over on Kenobi by killing one of his precious charges.

Strong is the dark side.

We had fun even if we were rusty as hell and had to constantly reference stuff.  We didn’t have many games under our belts even before the Pandemic so it was back to basics and relearning everything again.

I may have proceastinated a bit on these before deciding how to section them up.  The Clone Wars series had a few colour variations and they are not all particularly tactical, so I went with some colour.  As is my habit.

I am still experimenting with Black Templar contrast on the weapons and here on the abdomens and joints.  I still find that either looks a bit too streaky (like a heavy hanfed wash) if applied thinly, or goes opaque black with little highlighting when applied thicker.  So here I went over with a simple highlight of charcoal grey.

Darth Maul! Sadly underused on the big screen, hopefully he will have a better run on my tabletop!

Obviously, that face was difficult. The tattoo detail is sculpted but difficult to follow I found. I would have liked the lines a bit thinner but it will do.

He was however another chance to play with OSL do that was fun.  For the robe I used Shadow Grey to highlight and Charcoal Grey base coat, then pure black onto the deeper folds.  Gloves and boots the highlight was Cold Grey.

The probe droids are magnetised on the flight stands to make transport a little easier.

He came, he looked intimidating, ran off, talked a good fight, got killed up.  Perhaps he will fair better on the tabletop? What if I field him twice?

My pair of Greivouseses join the completed forces. One advantage of buying two core sets is that I got to build two versions of Greivous and play with some more OSL effects.

Two squads of Droideka join the Separatist forces!

Quite simple paint scheme on these.

Base coat Gunmetal, Nuln Oil wash, Plate metal highlights.

Tinny tin base coat for the bronze, drybrushed with Bright Copper.

Purple panels shaded and highlighted by mixing with a bit of black and white.

I then diluted Typhus Corrosion and spread some patches around and finished with a very light drybrush of silver on the panels for scuff marks.

Overall I think we have a lightly weathered but poppy looking rolling death squad.

Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger!

Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger!

Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger!

Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger! Roger-Roger!

All four squads of B1 Battle Droids are complete and rebased!  That is the backbone of the army ready and the biggest chunk of batch painting out of the way.  Phew!

I decided to go with squad markings on the backpacks and on the shoulders of the squad leaders.  In true Lloyd shot fashion, I should be looking at them for most of the battle so that made sense to me.

Just to satisfy my curiosity of how the clear basing was working out, I did a quick mat check and I think it is coming together pretty well. I haven’t tried clear basing before so that’s a relief!

Why would you start a Separatist army?  Why, to paint a tiny Christopher Lee of course!

I enjoyed this one and tried to push myself a little harder on the face, eyes and lightsaber. I usually wuss out on eyes entirely!

As this is an army game I’m trying not to be too precious on the squads but make sure the focal points look good.  This may be my best crack at OSL yet!

Following the dipping, drybrushing and sepia wash, I did some more highlighting by mixing Bonewhite with Ivory then going after some raised areas.

I feel like I have overworked this a bit by this stage, I think my drybrushing after the dip stage was too heavy.  I removed too much of the shading effect and could have probably made things easier on myself, but that’s a lesson learned for the next three squads.

I am using the purple as a personal touch to my army, I want them to be mine while sticking close enough to the source materials for everything to be instantly identified and feel like Star Wars.

Then I went in with the weathering.  I have used diluted Typhus Corrosion to grubby things up along with a light drybrush of plate mail silver for scuff marks.

All that was left then was to varnish and rebase onto clear acrylic.  I haven’t done this before and it was a bit nerve wracking!  I put the minis into the freezer overnight then (carefully!) popped them off the stock bases.

Using brush applied Gorilla Super glue, I dabbed a little on, waited a few seconds to allow fumes to disperse (this can cause fogging apparently) then put them down trying really hard not to let them slip around.  I messed up the first base but have spares!