Imperial Assault

I haven't posted for a very long time. I haven't stopped gaming, or painting. Just posting.

 

Late to the party, as usual, I am painting and getting ready to play Imperial Assault.

I'm also 3D printing some of the may available gameplay aids, more to follow!

Marine Captain conversion

My merry band of Corvus marines are going to need a commanding officer. Captains are popular, the ranks in the Space Marines seem to skip from Captain to Masters with no other ranks in-between.

This captain will be assembled from the following parts:

The head used is from the Victrix 1807-1812 French Infantry set.

The bandy RTB01 legs need cutting and pinning to allow the figure to stand up straight.

The right shoulder is a rogue trader power fist with a recent assault squad arm and force axe.

The left arm is a cut and re-positioned original with a helmet held in hand. These helmets seem to get lost in combat with astonishing regularity.

At this stage I'm just using pins (made from paper clips) and poly glue to hold it all in place so I add the beginnings of a cape on the back to brace his wobbly legs.

He will eventually have a heavy cape, tabard and some sculpted iconography and articifer armour details.

Beaky Marines update

I've got a few of the Rogue Trader marines finished now. In addition I kept some WIP shots of one of them.

Glueing and pinning stage.

After filling and finishing with Green Stuff a Grey undercoat is applied followed by Bestial Brown and Black (for any metals).

 

A beige is applied to the armour leaving gaps brown. The coating is intentionally patchy, this is just a base to improve the look of the yellow in the next stage. 

 

Sun Yellow is applied over the beige.

I use three different washes at this stage (Nuln, Agrax andBaal Red) before chipping the armour with the tip of a fine brush in black and white/yellow before finally painting any icons or markings.

The rest of the finished pics follow.

Rogue Trader band wagon...

...I have jumped on it!

Special credit for identifying the head used on this conversion.

I have seen many, many forum posts by people who are collecting and re-painting Rogue Trader era figures. I can resist no longer.

I sourced some plastic 'beaky' marines on eBay. These weren't mint on the spruce, they were badly painted, badly glued and required considerable effort to clean up with some dettol and a sharp knife. As I was planning to convert them anyway this wasn't an issue and more importantly they were cheap.

I'd always been a fan of the Corvus marines but thought that the plastic kit marines were limited in the poses available and tended to look a little hunched over and ape-like.

There is also a metal librarian that I've had in my bit box for a while.

I'm painting them as Imperial Fists and should have between 15-20 marines once they've all been cleaned and converted.

Chewie's ongoing conversion

Just a quick update, I've given the Chewbacca figure some more attention after a drastic 'knife job'.

Stage 1

Stage 2

Still not completely finished but I'm in two minds about whether the top half requires any Green Stuff.

Is this the Droid?

Some finished pieces, 3 Sandtroopers and an R2 unit, including my conversion who is a Jedi killer, veteran of the Jedi Temple Massacre.

Let the Wookie win!

Some more Star Wars goodness, I've started converting one of the Sandtroopers, a bit of simple Green Stuff work. A cape (possibly Jedi), a fur pelt (possibly Wookie). I'm imagining this Sandtrooper is a grizzled veteran of the 501st who kept the cape as a trophy after the battle of the Jedi Temple in ROTS, I may even give his armour some blue highlights to hint at this.

As the Green Stuff for the cape was so thin, it needed to be built up in sections.

A Grey undercoat always shows off the sculpted areas nicely

Still a work in progress.

I've also finished painting one of my favourite characters,R2D2. Dirty and a bit worse for wear, this is definitely Tatooine Artoo.

Finally I was a bit concerned that my Wookie was a bit on the small side.

Drastic action was required.

A bit of pinning and glueing and he's looking a bit more like Chewbacca, I'll fill in the gaps and maybe even give him a makeover.

Finally he's towering over Han and the others as he should.

Look sir, droids!

I've been slowly getting back into the hobby after a long hiatus. I've had a change in employment that was a little unexpected but turned out well in the end. Now that things have settled down a bit, I am able to start dipping a proverbial toe into the waters once more.
For Christmas my family bought me a few of the Hasbro Star Wars Command toy packs which are 54mm Star Wars army-men in essence. Like most army-men type figures, the scale is a bit up and down but as you can see in the image below the are about right for 54mm.

Each pack has a theme and a selection of figures and vehicles, although the vehicles are of a different scale entirely.

Each pack also has some character figures, which are generally painted in a metallic finish, I managed to get an Imperial pack that has a particularly comedic 'jazz hands' Emperor.

Just like that!

The bulk of the pack is made up of soldiers or combatants that are aligned to the Rebellion, Empire and some neutrals such as the Tusken Raiders and Ewoks. Sculpting is of a good standard but there are are very minor casting detail differences from model to model, even of the same figure. They are cast in a 'soft plastic' similar in consistency to most 'army-men'. Not as firm as the new Airfix 54mm figures but not as soft as Reaper Bones figures.

The figures take paint as well as any other plastic figure I have ever painted, remember to give them a wash before painting etc. Here is the first test figure, a sandtrooper with suitably weathered armour. There is plenty of reference material available online, mostly from re-enactors and cosplay costuming tutorials.