Star Wars Legion Geonosians - TO DONE! 🔴

Afternoon and OH BOY am I happy with the finished Star Wars Legion Geonosians. The colours are insane and utterly scratch that high-contrast super saturated warm look I love so much. However, their completion was not without drama. 

They were finished in all but varnishing and sat on a small tray in my photo-booth. The hobby shed is a bit untidy at the moment and after a power cut my wi-fi plug no longer worked. While trying to fix it the photo-booth tipped up spilling the tray with 4 or 5 models breaking apart in some way, from just a 2 foot drop.

So instead of fixing the wi-fi and getting them varnished I had to give up and spend an hour or so gluing them back together. The having glued and pinned one of the champions I turned in my chair, my jumper sleeve snagged it off the table where it fell, snapping a wing and the leg I'd just fixed!

So more repairs, a bigger pin and so much super glue it looks like it's wearing 80's aerobic leggings. It was traumatic at the time and although I was super proud to take them to the shed I couldn't help undermine my satisfaction with this last minute trauma.

However, weeks later I'd practically forgotten all that and although dredging it back up has forced me to relive it again somewhat I think, with time, all that will remain are these glorious pics and the insanely bright minis.

The lime green for the weapons was obvious and just aligns perfectly with the pink, purple and cyan.

The second from left is the Champion that broke its leg/shin. You should be able to make out just how weirdly chunky it is from the layers of superglue piecing it back together.

Not sure how convincing his wounded eye is but it'll suffice. Although most of the metals are 'rusted' I thought it's be fun to do the spear blades gold. Not sure the reasoning but I like it.

They are all great together.

I must admit I have NEVER got my Red Planet BASE! 🔴 so vibrant.

It could be the absence of the bonewhite chips, the use of purple wash for some of the shading and the smoother basing material.

Using texture paste meant the highlights were smoother which I think gives a better finish.

I'm not sure if it's something I will adopt across my 40k armies.

But it's definitely something I will keep in my back pocket if I want to be a bit more vibrant.

So, there we go and no doubt Liam will want to print more for me to paint but we'll need to see how they play in game first.

And with a few more weeks of Adeptus Titanicus ahead of us, as well as some other things that will get in the way who knows when these will see action...

A Great Big Chrome Stamp of Approval according to my spreadsheet this is worth 14 points. Therefore, this brings me up to 220 points for the season so far.

 

 

Star Wars Legion Geonosians - Shading, highlights and magenta

Afternoon and with the basecoats done I'm adding in the purple shading on the faces, hands and feet.

Although the black rims on the bases are slightly helpful in keeping the models in order for pictures it does make me want to paint them all. But I only did them to use up black paint on my palette and they look so good with it. Am I converting to black rims?

With the shading done I painted the white highlights for the lips, nose, eyes, knuckles, toes and fingertips. I also heavily drybrushed the wings to make them much lighter than the bodies.

Having not used Nihilakh Oxide for the wings the basecoat had been just a smidge darker than the test model but after the drybrush it was almost impossible to tell. Despite the simplicity of the scheme and eagerness to get them done I did have a couple of nights where I couldn't bring myself to paint.

Sometimes, despite the mojo and making things eminently achievable you just don't 'wanna'. And that is OK!

Because eventually you do. You get motivated and another stage is done and you feel so close to the end it's like it's all downhill from here. The momentum kicks in and it's freewheeling all the way to the bottom.

The fluoro magenta did its job but I think by batching them I'd been a little less subtle with my previous white highlights and I think there is much greater contrast and less blending between the purple and the pink.

As a group it's not much of an issue - you're only going to see the high contrast from a distance anyway. But when I compare it to the test model I can see a reduction in quality, perhaps 10% [I've always had a weird way of trying accurately quantify conceptual variations that do not lend themselves to numerical measurement]. But yeah, 10-15% reduction in quality that I can see. But no one else would so that is OK. Again, being comfortable with [nearly] finished not perfect is a great way to get stuff done. I may still get crippled by indecision sometimes. But it's definitely worth celebrating those times I can beat the voices in my head saying it's not quite good enough. 

 

Star Wars Legion Geonosians - Test model and basecoats

Afternoon, when last we left the Geonosians I was deciding on colours:

• yellow contrast, blending into red for the hands, feet and faces
• horror show - pale sking akin to my Goblin Town, but with a lot more Tamiya clear Red X-27 blood effects on the hands feet and face
• Contrast Aethermatic Blue, Stormfiend and purple washes on the hands feet and face, with the wings in Nihilakh Oxide

And as you can see I went with the last option - Aethermatic Blue

With Nihilakh Oxide on the wings, but the difference is so minimal I may just go fully Aethermatic on the whole model. Now prepare yourself for a big jump...

Yep, this is the finished model and unusually it's a test model. I don't normally do this but I just kept on going with adding the Stormfiend and the purple wash on hands, feet and face and then something wasn't right. The features were just indecipherable within the face and hands. So I decided to use my Vallejo fluoro magenta. I created white highlighted areas on the lips 'nose', and knuckles of the hands and feet. Then I added the magenta which blended well thanks to its inherent transparency. The eyes were yellow and I used rust effect paint on the gun, but a green glow emanating from inside. So I've ended up with some sort of synthwave palette, which I think is very cool.

The armour plates were just my usual black highlights. The wings got heavily drybrushed in white to be much brighter than the rest of the body. You may also notice that the base has a black rim. And I will admit it looks awesome. I had added a bit of purple wash into my usual Red Planet BASE! 🔴 scheme [as there were no bone chips]. So, the added contrast works really well with a black edge and all the other models in this force are on black rims so it seemed unnecessary to force my red rims into this space.

With the test model done and some ideas on how to make the process more efficient I basecoated the lot of them - Aethermatic blue for their bodies. Black for the armour and Vallejo Game Effects Dry Rust for the weapons.

If I had any paint left over, like the black I used it up on the rims. As the test model was done in a night I figured each step would be one night's work so I thought they'd be done in a week or less.

Although I had felt shanghaied with these inserted into my schedule I was actually enjoying the process. The test model convinced me these would look cool, despite looking nothing like the film Geonosians. So I would have 14 very cool models delivered quickly. Good hobby points, fun to do and great results. So not a bad deal afterall.

Star Wars Legion - Geonosians - Big Build & BASE - TO DONE!

Afternoon and Liam, and the rest of the gaming crew felt I should be repping some Geonosians for Star Wars Legion. Despite making it clear I want a Jawa [or at the least Sand People] force but will only consider that when they have their own rules and cards. Still he was able to print some of these for me and force their completion on my TO DO LIST.

However, they did indeed sit untouched for a good few weeks as I could not decide how I wanted to paint them. My initial thought was yellow contrast, blending into red for the hands, feet and faces. Then I considered a horror show - akin to my Goblin Town, but with a lot more Tamiya clear Red X-27 blood effects on the hands feet and face. 

But then I thought I could use the Contrast Aethermatic Blue, Stormfiend and purple washes to make some blue skinned aliens, with the wings in Nihilakh Oxide... 

Regardless, I primed them Red Oxide, then did the models white - that Primer is awful.

Whichever route I was going down this was the starting point. So the bases got Red Planet BASE! 🔴

And I got my Great Big Chrome 'BIG BUILD' BASE Stamp of Approval.

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 18/01/26

Afternoon and once again we're back at Otty's shed playing Star Wars Legion, Wookies and Clones V's Droids. Thursday night's session had been postponed until Sunday due to work commitments. I didn't take too many pictures of the board but once again my dice were on fire! 🎲🔥

So much so it was pretty much the talking point for the night. When you're rolling is so good folk want to stop playing at 9:20pm it's not ideal. But it's not like I can help it. Or, that Liam also had some pretty good rolling.

His red defence dice were keeping a lot of his B2 Droids. I might manage 6 hits, but he rarely lost more than one of them in a turn. 

So, despite finally getting to grips with the game we're going to take a break. We've got a refresher game of MESBG next week, so I can remember how to play my Goblin Town for the Midweek MESBG in early February.

Then I have a week off, but the next time we'll all play together it should be a big game of Adeptus Titanicus. Finally getting to use the Warlords and maybe Otty will have his Eldar on the board?

Battle record - Star Wars Legion - 08/01/26

Afternoon and we're back at Otty's shed playing Star Wars Legion, Wookies and Clones V's Droids. As is the case with battle records my recollection is sketchy, but one thing was unforgettable - my dice were on fire! 🎲🔥

In lots of our games the topic of complaint is usually OP units, rules or the system itself. But this time it was just how often I was rolling good results on white dice [notoriously the hardest dice to roll well on].

It was not just the shooting, which is a D8, but the saving throws on D6s. There was a lot of shade being thrown at my success.

We're still finding a lot of issues with the rules and how they're written. I think there have been some FAQ's to help explain some of them, but much like 40k's shifting ruleset this is quite frustrating.

That's why I think the dice rolling appeals to me so much, regardless of the rules built around them it's what lands face-up that counts.

Not to mention the snacks and the great company. I mean the first part of the evening was Ben and Otty finishing off a previous game before we set up this one. I didn't mind as the shed is full of amazing figures.

Even just staring into the cabinets with the background noise of an Empire striking back, is balm to a hobby soul.

Unfortunately the paramedics among us are on night shifts next week, so Thursday is out. Maybe we'll get a postponed Sunday session.

Until then "game on!"