Hey everybody,
After getting the Rebel Alliance starter set for Christmas, I have finally managed to get the whole thing fully painted up, and also managed to get in my first game of Star Wars Legion last weekend!
I’ve got two squads of Rebel Troopers, a squad of Rebel Commandos, a Rebel Commando Strike Team, two squads of Wookiee Warriors, all led by Luke Skywalker. It’s an impressive force, and I have really enjoyed getting them all painted up – well, maybe not the Wookiees…
I have predominantly used contrast paints here, and while I don’t have a huge selection of them to choose from, I think that has really worked in my favour. The Rebel Troopers are modelled with a somewhat loose uniformity to them – they’re not all wearing the same jacket, but it’s close enough, etc. But by having a somewhat broad colour spectrum of different browns, greens and greys to choose from, I’ve been able (I think!) to make them look like a proper sort of rag-tag force and not like they’ve all been to the quartermaster for their standard-issue Rebel Alliance uniform.
I absolutely adore the Trooper squad, and have been seriously contemplating picking up another box of them because I would love to paint some more up. They just look so incredibly good, and have the Star Wars look about them. The first squad that I got painted up, I was so pleased with them that I began to write up a backstory for them!
The Wookiees are a different kettle of fish. I think the contrasts method really didn’t suit these, and instead they would probably have benefited from a standard black undercoat and then using drybrushing to get a better look. I didn’t enjoy painting them, and took longer on these than any other unit. Indeed, I almost didn’t hit the self-imposed deadline of getting the box finished by the end of March as a result.
Finally, the Commandos. These guys were okay, but I think I struggled to differentiate them from the basic Troopers, as they’re broadly the same in terms of the bodies, etc.
At any rate, I’m really pleased to report that I have got all 36 models painted in the three months that I had given myself. There’s still plenty that I could go back to try to improve, but as a cohesive force, I’m really pleased.
I’m going to talk about the game in another post (spoiler alert: I lost), but I want to mention something that I got quite excited about when I was looking at the Legion road map again the other day. The stuff they talked about at Ministravaganza last year included mention of a Rebel Trooper upgrade expansion (alongside battle droids and stormtroopers) for Q4 of 2026. Now, they’ve already got Rebel Specialists (alongside the other factions) listed for reissue in Q2, which was the original box that included stuff like the Captain, medical droid and so on. Currently, I think these are all things that can still be added to a squad, though if like me you’re only buying the new plastic stuff, there isn’t a new version yet. I would love to see a box to expand the squad like this, so I hope that’s still on the horizon!
Though after the reveals shown off at Adepticon, I am seriously thinking that there will be Mandalorians in my future…
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