Long time ago...

 ...in this very blog...

...I used to paint (and even play!) the long forgotten Imperial Assault game. You know, the kind of Star Wars dungeon crawler, before the times of Legion (and of course Shattered Point). Even before those days, Knightmodels produced some really beautiful 28mm Star Wars minis.

I was there. 

I still had some of them, unpainted, forgotten, waiting for years and years for their moment to finally come.

Well, better late than never. While I'm working on some other (titanic) projects, I've been putting some time on these, just to breathe within project stages.

I'll start with the Knightmodel minis. They were really, really sweet. I only managed to get a few of these second-hand, and honestly, I totally regret not buying more back then. I was caught up in other projects at the time and figured I could just get them later. But unfortunately, Knightmodels lost the license (same thing that happened later with the Lord of the Rings line), and the minis stopped being sold. Real shame, really.

Here you have them. Han Solo and Chewie carrying poor dismantled C3P0:

Space scoundrels

It was kind of a reedition of this post of ancient times, though I had totally forgotten the recipe for Chewbacca's fur, so I had to improvise a little.

The other couple is our favourite and most famous twins (apart from those from the Acolyte TV show, of course -sarcasm mode off): 

Ebony and Ivory

 There's really little to say about these. They are true 28mm, well scaled and proportionate, so they can pose a challenge to all those who, like me, are so used to GW and their kind of minis. To better illustrate what I say, let's compare them to the Imperial Assault ones: 

They are beautiful and really well sculpted

Of course they are enormously cool, don't take me wrong

But I think you can see what I'm talking about

The Knightmodels ones are delicate and are of a different scale. They are white metal, traditionally sculpted. They are not as clumsy or random as a 3D sculpted mini; an elegant miniature for a more civilized age...

Here you have them all:

Rebel fanfare sounding now

I also took this shot of the Knightmodels minis only, with the other one I had from long time ago:

Sigh, still so very few...

 It's been ages since last time I played Imperial Assault (or any other thing). I’ve gotta admit, painting these has totally reignited my urge to do some Star Wars projects and play something—anything, really. I don’t think I’ll be able to right now, but hey, the idea and the itch are definitely floating around out there...

 

Master Kenobi... you again...

A quick break today until I start new projects. I had this Obi Wan Kenobi from KnightModels awaiting  for some months. I made a quick job on the mini, one of these things you need to do to take some fresh air and get  the feeling of doing actual progress on something.

I don't realize how awful my pics are until I see stuff like this

Pretty straightforward paintjob, standard colours and a little mandatory OSL for the lightsaber.

I should take more risks and make more (and larger) layers. For now this is it.

It's not the first time I paint an Obi Wan, some years ago I showed the 72mm Kenobi, also from Knightmodels. I solemnly regret not hoarding the whole 30mm ranges when KnightModels released them, but I didn't expect them to drop the license so abruptly. Finding these minis (for a reasonable price) today is quite a challenge, but I take a look on the internet from time to time.

For the moment I think I'll use him for Imperial Assault, here you have a couple of scale comparison shots:

Seriously, man, I thought we were over this

One day you fight along them, the next day you fight against them

They are totally into the same scale, so it's a deal. That's another reason why I took this quick paintjob on the mini (one night's work), I was thinking more in having a tabletop ready mini than any other thing. I know some people playing the old WEG game, so I'm in fact curious about the possibilities. Shamefully the old 25mm minis don't match these new 30mm ones (or the other way back, you know), but anyway I'd like to have a look at the game and run a few skirmishes.

Ahhh, all in due time...

For the moment I'm just keeping my mood up for next week's Rogue One release :P

Playing Imperial Assault

Just as promised, here I am with an Imperial Assault AAR. Just played it last weekend, but couldn't post about it til now. OK, I guess that a full report talking in detail about the mechanics and so is quite out of place right now; the game has been rolling for a while and it's hardly new by now. I bet that everything regarding those things has already been discussed (way better than I could) in many other places. Shame I don't know them, so I'm talking about the game just my own way :D

So first things first. To play this game you'll need... your original trilogy OST for background. No, not the other trilogies. You need the original trilogy, of course. That's out of question :P

Once we've established our minimum requirements, we can go on the game itself. The quickest way to describe it is... well, Descent with Star Wars minis. Yup, it's essentially the very same game (you had a review of Descent here, so I may refer you up to that post for the insights of the game).

The scenarios are always modular, so you can have quite a good rate of different configurations with the board pieces. We played this one first:

Three rebels against the Empire

In this scenario, the rebels must destroy all four comm stations on the board. The Empire will be receiving reenforcements as turns go by.
Each character has a couple of actions, they can move up to their speed value and attack/defence work with the funny colour dice. Depending on ech character you'll roll different dice, the numbers on them stating the distance the shot can reach and the symbols determining how much damage it inflicts. The defence dice work quite similarly, each symbol displayed reducing the harm in one point. Besides, special features (the lihgtning symbol) can appear, each one depending on the character (i.e., extra damage points in attack, reroll a die, etc.)

So the action begins!

But you know... the Empire strikes back

Rough start, that's a hell of a firefight

Not only for the Imperials, the rebel veteran has 5 wounds

 Rebels were not doing bad, but they weren't fulfiling their objective at all! This was not about killing Stormtroopers, but destroying those stations! This game was to be 6 turns long and we had spent two of them!

Time to push forward!

Imperial reenforcements. All officers enjoy poking eyes!

Finally some harm is done to the first machine!

The station is destroyed and the rebels advance

The door is also destroyed! Free pass to the Imperial outpost...

No! The door blocks again and new reenforcements arrive!!

Things are getting pretty difficult...

The rebels realise they are not going to achieve their objective, so at least they kill everyone they can

The door is finally destroyed, but that's no good news for the rebels!

Last act of defying heroism. Whatever

So the end of the sixth turn arrived, and the end of the game with it. The rebels had failed to meet their objective, but they had given a hell of a fight. Well, that's something!

So first impression... I had forgotten the pros and cons of Descent, and Imperial Assault has them all. Once you get into the game, everything is quite easy going; but until you reach that point, all the preparations and different cards, tokens and stuff are rather overwhelming. Gasp. Approaching the game for the first time can be slightly disencouraging, as the learning curve is a little bit steep. However, the game experience totally pays off after a couple of turns.

In fact, as the game was quick (not more than half an hour maybe?), we run another scenario! Rebel Fanfare!!

We used the other three rebels, so we could see them all in action. Fun thing about this one is that we could get to use an AT-ST... but operated by rebels! The Bothan in the party has gone frenzy and has taken control of the machine. But the Imperials are not defenceless. They have a Royal Guard Champion and Darth Vader himself!

Well... this escalated quickly

This is going to be bloody

So the firefight starts! There we go again!

The Champion proves himself to be a tough nut to crack. Darth Vader... No comment

The rebels focus their attacks on Vader... until he falls!

But the Imperials do exactly the same on the AT-ST

Until it's finally destroyed!

By now, the three rebels were severely wounded (when a character receives as many harm points as their life value, the mini is not taken from the board; the character stat card is flipped and the rebel keeps on playing with decreased stats and skills, showing that has been injured). So the Imperials had imposed their rule again!

The Imperial March sounds while the Rebellion is being crashed. Maybe next time we will have... a new hope (the Force theme sounds smoothly on the desert...)

So, in conclusion, the game is fun and swift once you get immersed into it, but getting to that point for the first time will require some of your undivided attention. Oh, and a table to deploy the hundred cards you need! :D

Storming the game

This is an important step in any project. The day you finish... the core of it. No, I'm not going to say 'the day you finish the project'. That doesn't exist, for goodness sake! But today I can say I've finished the Imperial Assault core game. Weee!

The only minis I had left were the Stormtroopers. I've left them for the end on purpose, as I really dreaded the perspective of having nine absolutely identical minis and not having a clue of how to make them different. For me, the most logical solution was... buying more Stromtroopers :P

I considered purchasing some bendy WotC minis, in order to have some different poses which I could combine with what I had. But I finally opted for the own Imperial Assault expansion pack. Three identical Stormtroopers, but different from the other nine.

Three like the left guy, nine like the right one. Yikes

OK, at least I had two different models. Then I just needed my blade and the rest would easily become multi component minis! I left the two from the pic above untouched and begun to combine poses, arms, head repositionings, etc. on all the others...

Not easy to work with that pose, you know

The pointing finger was the hardest part here

Looking for droids

Here you have all of them, including the one I already had:

Truly Imperial entanglements

So here we are. The full core game finished, plus some extra minis. I guess it's time for the mandatory family pic:

This is it. I haven't taken the card pieces out of the box yet...

I have some WotC and Knightmodels minis that will also be part of this project. But first things first. All the necessary minis are already painted... This demands a game!!

(Hopefully) quite soon!

Rebels for the Rebellion

Pushing again on the Imperial Assault front. After so many Imperial stuff, I think it was time for the Rebels at last!

The minis are sweet, nicely designed and sculpted. In fact I decided not to put any additional work on them. I have sometimes gone to the point of not only converting generic, identical troopers, so I don't have two minis the same, but even to the paroxysm of retouching singular characters, so I get unique minis. Though I got the temptation, I thought I wouldn't really improve them or get any more interesting poses, they were more than good enough. So that makes it easier, just had to spill some paint on them.

They all are characters specifically created for the game, let me introduce them:

Gideon Argus, Valiant Commander. That's what the character sheet says

 Totally in the aesthetics of the original movies. The coat, I believe, is what gives him the touch.

Jyn Odan, Smuggler

Quite an unusual pose, I love it. Absolutely unsatisfied with my brushwork, she'll most probably need some additional work.

Gaarkhan, Fierce Warrior. Don't you say.

Not much to say, this wouldn't be the same without a Wookie.

Mak Eshka'rey. Bold Renegade

In my opinion, this mini gets away from the 70's aesthetics I talked about before with the first mini. It moves towards a more modern-like vibe.

Diala Passil. Haunted Exile. Vader's still trying to contact her though Facebook

Quite dynamic. I reposed her waist a little to reenforce that feeling.

Fenn Signis. The Veteran. That's it, the veteran

When painting the mini I couldn't stop thinking that the only real distinctive element in the mini is the helmet. I mean... If one was prone to, let's say, build a Rebel army, would only need modern troopers (Empress? Eureka? Hasslefree?) and little greenstuff work on the helmet. Ahem...

The other day, FourEyedMonster (seriously, why aren't you following his blog?) asked about the scale of the minis. Well, I've taken this pic:

I raised the minis to level them up with the slotta bases

So in the 28-30 mm. range. Hardly compatible with the old West End minis, but manageable with the bendy plastic Wizards of the Coast ones. The OOP KnightModels range was sweet, but good luck finding reasonable prices nowadays.

I have a little bit of each, so I think I can also take some comparison shots. But that's it for today. More stuff coming soon.

I see double

Back to regular activity again (as desperately slow as it may be), I thought I needed something quick and easy, to raise morale and keep on with my other more complex ongoing projects. So I chose a big, monochromatic element, the AT-ST from the Imperial Assault game:

Another wobblehead

 You can see I wasn't looking for any complication or cool effect, just having it tabletop ready. The production value here is that, thanks to a friend from a forum... I got a second one! Yay!

Don't know if you can use two of them in the game but... who cares! I have two! :D

Super easy work, all made in just one evening (well, bases took the whole night to dry, you know). So the kind of stuff to cheer me up and get back to greenstuffing muties and improving the railway infrastructure of my board ;) Besides, this helped to keep this whole Imperial Assault project alive!

More stuff coming soon :)

Screws and tendons

I may have already told this, I don't remember. Just in case: My original plan involved having my Imperial Assault finished by the release of Ep. VII. By now, I'm quite confident of having it for the Rogue One Episode VIII release. Maybe.

Ahem.

Today let me show some apparently easy stuff that proved challenging in the end. First of all the Probe Droids. Challenging? How could these models mean any problem? You just had to paint them monocrhome, that's all!

Sorry. By now you should know it's not that simple. Oh, well, that proved right for the first model:

Unmodified

But I couldn't have three identical models! Could I? The problem here was how was I supposed to innovate in any way with the most static minis ever. My only chance was repositioning the limbs:

Not sure if attacking, free hugs or robot epilepsy. Haters gonna hate

The third one was the real challenge. What else could I do after that one? I'm afraid I took too much risk. I tried to depict it in the precise moment of leaping on its prey, so it should look really dynamic. But...

Apparently now droids take samba lessons

Anyway, here you have the three of them:

The drunken droids

The other kind of model I chose was the Nexu. Another almost impossible to convert model. Given the circumstances, I thought this was the best apporach I could take:

Nexu Rampant

So the unaltered model was left like this:

What big teeth you have!

While the other now looks like this:

Meow! Ehrm. I mean... Grawr!

So here's the two of them:

Now bring the ball of yarn

So well, that's some progress! I'm a little closer to finishing the whole game! Soon... Soon...