Help with my 15mm Star Wars project

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Greetings LAF’ers,

With so many of the forum members starting/or continuing Star Wars projects (Sgt_T and FifteensAway I blame you!) and many of the LAF’ers being fans I could do with some help on my current project: Star Wars in 15mm (for CoC, Tomorrows War and maybe Spectre Operations).

For Christmas my darling wife bought the stormtroopers I needed and my brother in law kindly bought me some GZG RANG troopers to use as rebels. Whilst they are humans I figured I’d sculpt some alien heads (thank god so many of the species are bipedal and human sized ) to add variety so………

What mix of Aliens/humans would/does YOUR rebellion force have? Any favourite species? What biome would/did you choose for basing? (Desert seems a little overdone and was thinking Jungle so I’d have an excuse to start WW2 Pacific finally ). Are the rebels locals or are they shipped where needed? Whilst I grew up with Star Wars I don’t know a lot of canon I’ve just been drawn back in by the recent spin offs.

So far I’ve made a Twi’lek platoon leader, a Mon Calamari driver (blue or red?) for my speeder and a Sullustan RPG operator and intend to add more. I may even be lazy and paint a few humans with a different skin colour.

Thank you in advance for your time and help folks,

Stay safe

Andrew
Balm

[FifteensAway]

Well, since I'm partially "to blame", here is my take.   

Setting for me will be a Tatooine like planet with a dose of Endor (soft spot for Ewoks, you see - I'm adapting Tolero to be my Ewoks).  Still not fully decided on basing but probably just use good old clean playground sand (I bought a 50 pound bag years ago so have far more than enough) - perhaps with a modest mix of Woodland Scenics blended turf, the not so green one.

Aliens - non-sentient are hard to find but there are a few here and there including preprinted 3D resin.  I really, really want to locate some 15/18 mm wild Bantas as preprinted since I don't have a 3D printer and not getting one (there is 3D print but it has riders and reins and such).

As for 'canon' aliens, those are pretty hard to find, too, especially as one-offs though see below about JS.  So, what I did was just order every metal alien I ran across from all the various Sci-Fi 15mm ranges.  I will divide these up into units of armed aliens and unarmed aliens.  I find most of the aliens easy to adapt but some of them look pretty fiddly to construct and make strong enough for table top use.   

If you are not already familiar, JS Wargames Printing gives some good options and I've availed myself of some of the offerings.  And the service is really good in my experience.  Here is a link: https://wargamerprinting.com

Hope that gives you some of what you are looking for. 

And all I ask in return is if you find cool aliens out there to let us know - in 15 mm, of course!

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Thank you FifteensAway, and I apologise for partially blaming my magpie like miniature obsession on you  . I may go for something not seen in Star Wars - a planet with more than one biome so I can play around with it a bit….. I’m sure inspiration will hit me at some point.

I shall check out that printing service as that may cover aspects I couldn’t easily sculpt. I’m happy for models not to be ‘canon’ (or my own take on it) and the more I rewatch the various films and series the more diverse and varied aliens I spot.


Not a great picture, due to the size, but I think it looks about right (the eyes are a little too forward but there does seem to be variance in the MC seen in the media).

Thank you again Fifteens - your thread (whilst not responsible!) has been very inspiring.

Andrew
Balm

[Malamute]

Nice sculpting, he looks great.

In our SW games we’re using Nevarro as the basis for the game. Dark brown earth bases with a few rocks and dried golden coloured grass tufts.

[FifteensAway]

Still working with the company - very early stages but seems amenable - to get some product in 15 mm from GetOfFenris, has some cool Star Wars stuff to add to options, especially Ewoks!  Not sure how the prices will work out yet.  That will be a HUGE determinant of what I order from them.  And certainly likely to be of interest to the Legion scale Star Wars modelers here on LAF.  Here is a link: https://www.etsy.com/shop/GetOfFenris?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=1234892194&page=1#items

Anybody have experience with them, GetOfFenris, and know where they are based?  Thanks!

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Thank you Malamute, I’m quite pleased with him (her?) even if it’s a little rough, just need to get it painted so my poor wife doesn’t have to listen to me gargling “It’s a trap!” in an attempt to teach it to my parrot.

Did you choose Nevarro just because it’s barren and rather sparse thus less scenery? I’m guessing it was the sheer possibilities presented (by it’s recent appearance in Mando) and then volcanic minimalist terrain is just a plus.

FifteensAway: I have seen GetofFenris on Etsy and messaged them and a couple of other sellers about the possibilities of printing in 15mm but sadly no-one got back to me  . When I’ve exhausted my other options I may try again.

I have to admit that if I wasn’t so set on 15mm (and Rod’s trooper sculpts are great) and didn’t feel the need to reduce my 28mm for space and interest reasons I would have bought into Legion heavily (especially with all the 3rd party sculpts now available). The great thing about 15mm is the models are big enough to have character without crowding the board and I can hopefully sculpt anything I need that isn’t available.

Thank you both for your help,

Andrew
Balm

[Malamute]

Did you choose Nevarro just because it’s barren and rather sparse thus less scenery? I’m guessing it was the sheer possibilities presented (by it’s recent appearance in Mando) and then volcanic minimalist terrain is just a plus.



Andrew
Balm

Pretty much as you say above and James of  OSHIROmodelterrain wanted to model the buildings.

See our stuff here for further inspiration.

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=139436.0

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Malamute: apologies your thread (and beautiful painting) is one of those that inspired me, I seem to have looked at so many blogs/posts/threads that I’m losing track (I doubt the inordinate volume of meds, that keep me barely ticking along, helped  ). I’m going to go back and thoroughly re-peruse it now.

I’ve also been reading Oshiro’s thread and snapshotting (stealing?) all of the great ideas on show. It is one of the few things pushing me to try and get to salute this year as I haven’t been for ages (covid) and would love to see it in person.

Thanks

Andrew
Balm

[Malamute]

Andrew,
Do come to Salute and say hello. We will be running a participation game using Fistful of lead Galactic Heroes on the Nevarro terrain.

[Oldben1]

I have dabbled in the 15mm Star Wars realm:

mando1 by oldben1, on Flickr

Clipboard02 by oldben1, on Flickr

Scatter terrain and miniatures! by oldben1, on Flickr
Mos Eisley 15mm by oldben1, on Flickr

[OSHIROmodels]

I’ve also been reading Oshiro’s thread and snapshotting (stealing?) all of the great ideas on show. It is one of the few things pushing me to try and get to salute this year as I haven’t been for ages (covid) and would love to see it in person.

Come along and hassle FFoL Jaye 

The sculpting on that 15mm figure is great 

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Oldben1: Thank you for posting, great painting and an excellent collection sir! I love your ship/shuttle it’s screams Star Wars to me. I admire your vision in building a compact but practical board to play on. I tend to get overexcited and overreach in my projects I clearly need to be your padawan, I have much to learn…

Oshiro: Thank you for your comments and inspirational projects. With my sculpts I’m trying to generally represent actual Star Wars denizens but I’m happy to stylise them so they’re recognisable at arms length/on the tabletop. If I can get to Salute I will as I miss seeing what others are up to in person (and was saddened to realise that Penarth Wargames excellent CRUSADE show has been permanently cancelled - it was an exemplar to all shows).

On that note here is a badly lit, bad picture of a Sullustan. It’s only blocked in and washed so a bit drab but I’m trying to get back to painting after a lengthy break and haven’t found my flow yet.



Thank you all for taking the time and helping, I’m slightly shocked there’s only four Star Wars fans on LAF 

Balm

[DivisMal]

Wow! A lot of good stuff in this thread. When I tried 15mm SW 3d printing wasn’t an option so after a while I got frustrated looking at all the nice stuff available in bigger scales and sold my stuff. 

I did however collect a lot of Micro Machines SW and while they were rather on the 20mm side, many worked as large 18ish 15mm. Especially with aliens you might get lucky. In any case you could cut off the heads and glue them on suitably posed 15s.

Admittedly, I don’t know what you might pay these days for Micro Machines…

[Malamute]

Love the Sullustan and the Mando

Cracking stuff considering they are 15mm

Do come to Salute and say hello, we might even let you join in a game of FFOl GH

[BeneathALeadMountain]

DivisMal: I can totally relate to that feeling. I also have that chap clad in Beskar and was considering going the mando way with him!

If I didn’t have loads of 28mm I need to disperse to more deserving owners I would have spent far too much on Legion. I’ve stared at the mythical Highlander studios 15mm stormtroopers for quite a few years but as they were in USA I just put it off repeatedly . Luckily my wife is awesome and bought them for me for Crimbo. I’ve looked at some Micro Machines but the scale and prices do vary drastically (although I think the trooper on a Dewback is 1:100).

If you need to check on scales use https://www.rebelscale.com/scale-lists/ as it is a great resource.

So far I have 40+ stormtroopers, an equal rebel platoon from GZG, the hard to find and ridiculously expensive (according to resellers on eBay - often listed from £100 to £400 and it’s really basic) Revell snap together 1:106 Lambda class Imperial shuttle, a 1:100 U-wing that was supposed to have light and sound but I ripped that up to make room for a cargo bay and gunners, two Jazwares 1:100 AT-ST’s (I love these sooo much it’s wrong) and some other miscellaneous bits and bobs. I’ll try and get a group (pile of WIP) shot.

Malamute: thank you I’m glad he’s recognisable, I asked my wife but had to show her a reference pic so she knew what she was looking at . Whilst most of my intended SW gaming was going to be platoon vs platoon I suddenly realised I hadn’t even considered Jedi! I will probably make my own but I don’t think they’ll work brilliantly in my chosen system so I’m now seriously considering FFoL as well. I’ll try and find a comprehensive AAR I can watch so I can get a feel for it (if nothing else I will probably pick it up to allow me to run multiplayer games at club).

Thank you for taking the time and helping to motivate me,

Andrew
Balm