“WE STAND HERE AMIDST MY ACHIEVEMENT, NOT YOURS!-Director Krennic, Rogue One.
Ever since I saw Rogue One, I wanted a miniature of its primary antagonist, Director Orson Krennic. The role was fantastically played by Ben Mendelsohn, and honestly was my favourite character in the film. Mendelsohn added his native Australian accent to the character, adding a bit of variety instead of the normal British RP accent so popular for Imperial characters. Krennic is so deliciously evil, so driven by ambition, that it is hard to dislike the character, even as you cheer on the Rebellion.
In Star Wars Legion, Krennic adds a lot of flavour to your lists, allowing you to take a detachment of Death Troopers as his entourage unit, not using up your special forces cap, His command cards, used to win initiative and add flavour to each turn, are full of theme. The model as well looks great, with great facial detail and wearing his distinctive white uniform and cape.
Therein lied the issue, his whiteuniform. White is a notoriously difficult colour to paint, and I had previously had issues with it with my Black Templar Terminator I had painted a while ago. Lets see how I got on!
I used a combination of Contrast Paints from Citadel, and traditional brush work. I used Grey Seer, then applied Apothecary white across the entirety of the white uniform. I then drybrushed over with Vallejo Off White.I then picked out the details such as the Rank Plate, belt and cape buckles, and blaster. I used two ‘black’ paints, Abaddon Black and Eshin Grey to do his belt and pants. This was to add some visual variety.To go with my mud basing scheme, I dabbed on some mud onto his cape. White uniforms don’t stay clean!His face is well sculpted but I’m not up to doing eyes yet. Working off a white base made the Cadian Fleshtone work really well to brighten up his skin tone, and a wash of Reikland Fleshshade finished it off. His hair was done in Dawnstone, as Krennic is getting on in years as of Rogue One.
All in all, I’m particularly happy at how he came out. This white recipe might work also for Stormtroopers, and I’ll need at least three squads so it was a good idea to try it out first. Director Krennic will lead my list more times then not, so I’m glad he stands out so well. My hands cooperated and it seems I am picking up ways to paint that make my shaky hands less obvious.
Next up, I might do some more 40k models. Practice appears to make perfect, so I’ll keep at this painting streak I’m on and see if I get any better. Ten guardsmen at a time could easily be done, so hopefully some Praetorians will be featured in my next article. But until then, Happy Wargaming wherever you are, and stay safe everyone!
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.
Death Troopers hit the beach on Scarif in this still from Rogue One!
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!
I purposely went with a subtler drybrush then on my Imperial Special Forces, as these guys in every reference photo I’ve seen look very dark.
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.
Here you can see the lack of colour variation. I tried to at least get some contrast in, but it was minor. I wanted to retain that dark, menacing palette.Here, the drybrush shows up more readily.
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.
I did the weapons in Eshin Grey and the muzzles in Leadbelcher. This adds some visual interest, along with the green helmet filters.Another trooper aiming down sights at some Rebel foe. The DLT-19x adds some heavy firepower to the squad. It might be a trick of the light, but I hope you can see the greenish hue I tried to impart.
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!
