Star Wars: Legion – Luke Skywalker

Continuing on with the Star Wars: Legion core set; it’s the turn of Luke Skywalker, and boy, did he cause me some painting issues!

Overview

As the leader of the Rebels I think they’ve done a fair job at capturing the essence of Luke Skywalker, an agile, courageous, and often-deadly individual.

A glance at his unit card tells us he has jump 1, charge, deflect, immune: pierce, Impact 2, and pierce 2 – all for the cost of 160 points. Not quite the 200 that you’ll pay for Darth Vader, but no small wonder as he’s not the killing machine Vader is, or quite as robust.

Jump is an interesting one, and takes an action to use. Basically, it is a move that ignores terrain of height 1 or lower, so may only be useful in certain situations.

Charge on the other hand is a big bonus, enabling him to take a move action and then a free melee attack – you can see him leaping up onto some terrain obstacle using jump, and then immediately striking his foe down; pretty thematic I’d say!

Deflect gives a defensive surge if you spend a dodge token, and if his attacker is using a ranged weapon then they suffer 1 wound for each surge rolled.

Impact 2 enables him to change 2 normal hits to critical hits if attacking a unit with armour.

Pierce 2 cancels up to 2 block rolls made by the defender.

He also has an attacking surge conversion, changing surge results to critical hits!

His lightsaber is a die colour down from Vader’s but still rolls 6 dice, so he’s going to dish out plenty of damage. He also has a blaster pistol giving him a ranged weapon.

To upgrade, Luke can use 2 Force and 1 gear upgrade. When it comes to gear there really isn’t any choice in the core set, it’s targeting scopes or nothing!

If you have points to spend, and don’t require them for anything else, then you may as well add it to Luke – he then gains precise 1 (spend an aim token to reroll an additional die.)

There is, however, more choice when it comes to force upgrades.

Being able to choose only 2 makes it a difficult choice, and one that will really come down to your preference of playing Luke. Personally, I like Force Reflexes as you can gain a dodge token as a free action, which can then be used with the deflect ability. Of the others it would either be Jedi Mind Trick, forcing an enemy unit within range to take suppression, or Battle Meditation, giving him the ability to issue an order to any friendly unit on the battlefield.

Painting

All paints Vallejo Game or Model, unless otherwise stated.

As with my previous Legion posts, Luke Skywalker was painted with reference to Sorastro’s painting guide – though I have deviated quite bit with this one as I had a few issues matching colours!

Firstly, I primed the mini using a mid grey, and then added zenithal highlights in white.

In painting Luke I was introduced to a technique I’d never really explored before. Normally, I’d basecoat the whole of one area a single colour, wash it to give shade, and then add highlights. So in this case I would have normally painted the whole of Luke’s suit say in Deck Tan, and then shaded and highlighted it, but this time, following Sorastro’s lead, I painted the top, brighter part of the suit in Deck Tan, and the lower, darker areas, in… well, that’s where the problems began!

Sorastro adds a very small amount of black to what he used for the brighter tone, and used this for the areas of shade. When I tried this the colours just didn’t work together at all, and it took me three attempts before I came up with something I was happy with, and that was adding Cold Grey to a small amount of the Deck Tan.

The two colours work quite well together, unfortunately, as I look at it now, after adding the wash I just didn’t go back and highlight it enough, and it has turned out too dark and dirty looking – in fact that’s how the entire figure has come out!

The face and hands, going back to where I started, were painted half Tan (Light side) and half Heavy Skintone/Tan in a 3:1 mix (Dark side). This was later washed with Fleshtone Shade Wash and highlighted using the original base colours. I used Ivory for the whites of the eyes, and dotted them with German Uniform.

The hair was also painted in two parts, Earth mixed with Imperial Blue, roughly 5:1, for the dark side, and Desert Yellow for the light. This was later washed with a 50/50 wash of Citadel’s Nuln oil and Vallejo’s Umbar wash, and then highlighted with Desert Yellow, gradually adding in some Ivory to the mix.

I used Charred Brown and Heavy Sienna, 2:1, for the leather, and Gunmetal with a small addition of black for his pistol. These were washed with the same as above, and lightly highlighted.

The saber was basecoated white and then an even coat of Electric Blue applied. I then ran a line of white along the leading edge, concentrating the pigment towards the base of the saber.

The boots and wraps were done using the same colour as the darker part of the suit, but with black added to darken it further. This was washed in the same manner as the suit, described below.

Once I’d finished his suit it was washed in a mix of Nuln Oil and Vallejo’s green wash, with a little Glaze medium added, about a 2:1:2 ratio. This is where I think things went really wrong – I over did the wash, or at least I should have removed it from the lighter parts of the suit.

I also tried to add some Object Source Lighting (OSL) by adding Glaze Medium to the Electric Blue until it had a really thin, wash like appearance. This was then applied in layers over the areas that would be lit by the saber’s glow. Again, the final effect was disappointing, and once more looked rough and dirty.

Finally, the mini was based as per my Stormtroopers, and varnished using Vallejo’s Mecha Matt Varnish, applied using an airbrush.

Okay, it’s fairly obvious I’m not happy with the final result, so why haven’t I done something about it?

Well, two reasons really.

1 – I got so frustrated with myself whilst painting him that once finished, I couldn’t bring myself to rectify him at the time. Otherwise he may have ended up as Luke ‘flying through the’ Skywalker!

2 – Sometimes it’s good to show how things can go wrong, look at the reasons why, and learn from our mistakes.

I also find that when using the alternative Vallejo Washes, instead of the suggested citadel ones, the colours just don’t match up very well. I also find that the Citadel washes give a slightly cleaner finish compared to the very dirty resultant of Vallejo’s – I really need to bite the bullet and get myself more of Citadel’s washes.

Things are looking up though, my next Legion post will be the AT-RT, and I’m mighty pleased with how these (I also have one from an expansion) have turned out!

In Pictures…