I’ve been on a good painting kick, and to keep it up, I decided to let these Imperial Death Troopers jump the queue! I got these a long time ago, along with Director Krennic himself, when I first got into Legion. They just look so darn cool!
Honestly, we don’t have a great deal of lore on these scary looking troopers. We know they have some sort of body augmentation, and that they are the elite troopers of the Imperial Intelligence division. They do go on missions, and are trained in everything from guerilla warfare to unarmed combat…but are most often seen in current lore as bodyguards to Director Krennic, Grand Admiral Thrawn, and even Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin at times.
More tellingly in the films, Death Troopers hit like a freight train, and actually hit in the first place. They cut through unnamed rebels like a hot knife through butter, and even give the named characters a bit of pause.
With such hype, one might expect that I’d have painted them a lot sooner, but a bad prime job left them overly shiny and tacky. I left them for a few months, and they eventually dulled down and lost their stickiness. And I felt optimistic that I could get them done during this marathon of painting progress.
Lets have a look at them!
They posed a bit of a challenge, as they are predominantly black overall. In reference photos, very few details are not either a matte black or gloss black armour. I decided to go for a subtler drybrush then on my Imperial Special Forces units, to maintain that dark tone. While this leaves them hard to photograph, I hope that shows up a little.
I did their helmet filters in green as some of the action figures have, to add some contrast. I also tried out a different wash; instead of Nuln Oil, I used Biel-Tan Green to add some creep factor into the armour. This doesn’t show up on camera very well at all given my current lighting set-up.
They were all based as per my Imperial armies theme, the campaign on Mimban. Death Troopers canonically exist by 13BBY(Before Battle of Yavin, a common date nomenclature used by Star Wars) and therefore could see some action there in their intended role as commandos, not just as glorified bodyguards.
That being said, they will be used in-game as a bodyguard entourage by Director Krennic…so I guess that is still a bit contradictory. Legion is a much more ‘gamey’ ruleset then I’m used to, and lore and crunch must exist apart, not necessarily in tandem as I would in 40k. This is not such a bad thing, as the game does seem like a lot of fun from the couple games I have managed to play.
I don’t think I will need another squad of these death-dealing spooky troopers, so this was a fun little unit to get done without any worries about being consistent with a later unit.
Anyways, that is all I have for you today! I hope you all are staying safe, and Happy Wargaming wherever you are!
Not by Strength, By Guile 