Star Wars Legion – B1 Battle Droids take the field.

Part of my bounty was, of course, a large number of B1 battle droids. Once cannot think Clone Wars without them! I started with the B1s that came with the basic box game. That only gave me a small start, so I bought extra boxes of droids, as well as the heavy weapons box sets. This gave me enough to fill out six squads and have weapon and special model options. Now, time to build the force!

All these sets come in hard grey plastic with multiple spurs per set. The models are very nicely sculpted. With all the separate heads, arms and legs, you can make many variations on poses, so no two models are exactly the same. They glue together easily with plastic glue, with no gaps to worry about. Some of the parts are a little fragile, so you need to be a little careful when removing the parts from the sprue. It’s not difficult, but just be careful. There is a little bit of flash the has to be removed with an Xacto, but that goes quickly.

I started by spraying the bottom of all the models with tan spray. I then painted the top with white primer to give some zenith highlighting. Once it came time to paint, I pulled out the GW skeleton hoard contrast paint and hit all the models. After that, I dry brushed the models with some Vallejo Ivory. I also applied GW contrast black to all the weapons and some equipment. This was followed by some orange yellow details on the squad leaders, followed by a bright yellow. I decided to do three extra droids as security droids, so added dark red piping, followed by bright red highlights. various plates. I then hit the weapons with a medium grey highlight.

I decided that I would keep consistent with the basing I used on the clones. So, first I painted the bases dark brown (I will spray these separately in the future to save time). I then hit the tops with the GW technical earth tone and waited for that to dry to show the crackly effect and was not disappointed. Once I was sure it was dry, I dry brushed everything with some Vallejo Iraqi sand. Next was some tall tufts hear and there. Everything was sealed with some Krylon Flat coat spray.

I now have my core squads of droids for the game! I’m pretty happy with the result and was able to crank these out and will proceed the same with any future B1 options that may come out (I’m talking about you CIS Specialists). Now, where did I put those B2 boxes….

• Manteuffel