Small Scale Star Wars for Fistful of Lead Galactic Heroes

Now I know I've already painted up some of the old 28mm WotC Star Wars minis for Galactic Heroes/Fistful of Lead, (here and here), but while continuing to excavate the lead pile I found some old  smaller scale Star Wars minis. I remember collecting these, probably in the 90s, and sticking them to 20mm washers for use in the Star Wars RPG.

The minis are 20mm and have an acceptable paint job. They were released in packs of nine, later eight, or in threes alongside vehicles. These vehicles were of no consistent scale, though I find I have a couple of speeders that seem about right.

Fine, but certainly not anything worth doing anything with, given that I've already got the 28mm minis, and lots of them. Then I saw a picture on the Fistful of Lead Facebook page, 15mm sci fi based three infantry to a stand*. But I knew these were no longer in production, and I didn't have enough. A search on evilbay suggested I wasn't going to be able to get any more.

Then I found another box of the micro machines, and remembered that they were called that! Evilbay does have some, and I reckon just a few more would see me right.

Prequel Trilogy minis

Imperial forces

Rebels and Others

Fortunately Merlin/Bodvoc likes the idea, and so here we are, this is my Classic Era Imperial force. We'll use the standard Galactic Heroes rules, treating one stand as one mini. Troops are based three on a 40mm base, the Specialist has two minis on a 30mm base, and Leaders and Galactic Heroes are individual minis on 20mm bases. 

We aren't going to get much more for this project. I probably have enough of the Echo Base rebel troops and rebel pilots to make an opposing force, and if I see some more Stormtroopers, it would be nice to have more options, plus I have another Galactic anti hero to lead them.

I've also got some Phantom Menace minis, but not really enough to do the forces I want. The Battle for Naboo will have to wait.

Anyway, on with the painting. I had hoped to simply add a few highlights, but some of the minis, the Stormtroopers in particular, had bad mould lines, especially across the helmet. Removing these left a stripe of dark plastic, so I decided to start these from scratch. I used the same method as the Clone Troopers, and despite the smaller scale, it seems to have worked fine. 

The two Imperial Navy Troopers were given a drybrush of VEO Heavy Charcoal on the uniforms, the boots were given a base of Charcoal and then a black wash, and the helmets, originally a gunmetal colour, were painted black. Faces were VEO Dwarf Flesh with an Army Painter Flesh Wash and highlights picked out with VGC Pale Flesh. 

Darth Vader was given a light Charcoal drybrush, then a black wash on his inner suit. The original paint job used gunmetal for the chest plate, so I redid it in black. 

The Imperial Officer had his boots and gloves painted Charcoal, then washed black, the uniform was perhaps the most difficult bit of the whole project as I couldn't decide what colour to paint it. Research suggests that Imperial Naval officers wore uniforms of at least two different shades. In the end I went for a colour that mimicked the minis original colour, a mix of VEO Heavy Charcoal and VGC Khaki, mixing in more khaki for an overbrushed highlight. 

Leader, Specialist and Galactic Antihero

These have been a fun project, I'll try and scrape together enough extra Imperials for a second force, or at least give me some options.

The weather has delayed finishing minis recently, though I've kept up with the painting.  I keep my surplus basing materials in the garage, and its just been to cold to venture in for long, at least not without full Hoth protective gear.  I wanted a finer grade of sand for the bases and didn't have any in my normal stash.  Similarly, varnish, especially gloss varnish seemed to take an age to dry.

Both Bodvoc and I have puzzled over the bases, after all, there could be an enormous range of planets to be fighting on, not to mention space ships.  In the end, a fairly neutral sand seemed to cover most options.  Not ideal, but it will do.

*I understand these are actually for the forthcoming Big Mechs version of FfoL, another game I'm looking forward to playing.