I had the opportunity to sell my collection of gold school Forge World and GW Imperial Guard models over the holidays and jumped at the opportunity. Of coarse, that bounty had to be used to buy more minis! Fantasy Flight decided to release a game to “make” part with my new found bounty. That, and the fact I found a whole bunch of big sales on Star Wars Legion over the holidays. With that I was in! I actually looked at the game when it came out and considered picking it up. However, the pricing was a little high for my taste and I was not too interested in original Star Wars ground combat. However, once the Clone Wars version came out, I new it was just a question of when not if. I liked the ground combat look of the prequel movies and the Clone Wars series, so I was at the edge and finally pulled the trigger.
I managed to purchase a number of sets for the game and now just have to finish painting them all! I decided to start with the mark one Clones from the basic box game. You basically get two full squads with two heavy weapon options. These come in semi hard plastic and are in mostly fixed poses. The arms and heads are separate, so you can build in some variation by just doing them around a bit (which is what I did). They glue together easily with super glue, with no gaps to worry about. There is a little bit of flash the has to be removed with an Xacto, but that goes quickly.
The base game comes with Obi Wan Kenobi, so I figured I would paint my clones as belonging to the 212 Legion. I did not want to go early period full while, so I opted for a little later when the different legions are shown with their own formation color scheme. Since I am going with the 212, that means a yellow orange scheme over the white armor.
I started by spraying the bottom of all the models with grey primer. I then painted the top with white primer to give some zenith highlighting. Once it came time to paint, I pulled out the GW white contrast paint and hit all the models. After that, I pulled out the GW black contact paint and hit all the gaps where the cloth was showing in between the armor plates. I also applied the same black to all the weapons and some equipment. Next, I went back and brightened up the plates with white paint and hit others with highlights to give some depth. This was followed by some orange yellow details on various plates. From looking online, it seems that there is general variation, so I did the same with my models. I then hit the weapons with a medium grey highlight. This was followed by some contrast brown on the few straps that the command figures had.
I decided that I wanted to try something different on the bases. I was thinking of an arid effect with some light vegetation. This would work well for both desert and green battle boards. So, first I painted the bases dark brown (I will spray these separately in the future to save time). I then hit the tops with the GW technical earth tone and waited for that to dry to show the crackly effect and was not disappointed. Once I was sure it was dry, I dry brushed everything with some Vallejo Iraqi sand. Next was some tall tufts hear and there. Everything was sealed with some Krylon Flat coat spray.
I now have my first units for the game! Painting white is a bit of a pain, but I have to say that the GW contrast paint does make it a lot easier. I’m pretty happy with the result and know how to proceed with the next clone models. I believe I heard a voice and it said – “You have taken your first step into a larger world.”
- Manteuffel