I started painting Fantasy Flight Games’ Imperial Assault last year in May. One would think I would have finished this project long ago, but my PADD (Painting Attention Deficit Disorder) constantly worked against me and I found myself juggling many projects at once, none of which were (or are) close to complete. Well, after my last post a couple months back, I decided to buckle down and finish Imperial Assault before doing anything else. My friends were exasperated with me for insisting on playing with painted miniatures, but at long last, the core set and several expansions are done.

Before we dive in, I would like to plug Sorastro’s Painting, a Youtube Channel that details the painting of most of these figures below. For the most part, I followed Sorastro’s method with only minor departures. In addition to Imperial Assault, Sorastro also has tutorials for Zombicide and Descent miniatures. He’s a very good painter with a lot of helpful tips, and the production standards of his tutorial videos are really  amazing. Check him out!

First up, the rest of the Imperial Faction. Above are the Nexu, some kind of nasty beastie that I think only appeared in Attack of the Clones. I seem to remember one of them from the arena scene even though I only saw that abysmal movie once. They’re pretty cool sculpts and to be honest, without Sorastro as a guide, my Nexu would have likely looked like crap. I like them now, though.

Up next are the Trandoshan Hunters. Sorastro wanted one of the veterans to be Bossk, and I liked that idea too. (Of course, now there’s a special Bossk expansion figure in the Bespin expansion, but whatever). I chose basic solid colors for the fatigues as I didn’t want to paint camouflage. All in all, I found these guys to be the least fun figures to paint in the core set, but YMMV.

The AT-ST was one of the easiest miniatures to paint, and once again, Sorastro gets the nod as he used a very effective method of washing and wiping to achieve the end colors. He also introduced me to my new favorite paint, GW’s “Typhus Corrosion”. I probably wouldn’t have bought this on my own, but I love the grimy effects it creates. The AT-ST was the only core miniature that I decided to base decoratively, because I thought it would look crappy on a plain gray base.

Our first Expansion Pack, General Weiss. Painted pretty much the same as the AT-ST above. General Weiss is a guy who likes his guns, obviously. Probably that’s because he’s got a bit of a Napoleon complex due to his unfortunate size. His body is so out of scale with the other humanoid figures that I considered building the modified AT-ST and leaving him off it, but in the end I decided to include him. Once again, I put some effort into the base because of the model’s size.

The next Expansion Pack is the bounty hunter, IG-88. Although he’s a popular character, I would have thought Fantasy Flight would have released Boba Fett in the first wave of expansions rather than IG-88. Still, he’s cool and fun and easy to paint, and he looks a lot cooler than using the cardboard token included in the core game.

Finally, the Dark Lord himself. Vader is technically another “Expansion Pack”, but he comes in the core set along with Luke Skywalker. FF probably does this to tempt you into replacing those tokens with actual miniatures (it works.) When painting this miniature, I departed from Sorastro’s tutorial significantly. Not because I didn’t like his result, but because it was too time consuming for me and also a bit daunting. Sorastro highlighted his Vader to death and added some cool lighting effects from the lightsaber, neither of which I wanted to do in order to save time. ( I had already taken enough time to paint this game!!!) His results are much better than mine, but I’m perfectly content with my Darth Vader.

Finally, the Rebel Scum!! From top to bottom, L-R: Mas Esh’karey, Gideon Argus, Jyn Odan, Ghaarkan, Fenn Signis, and Diala Passil. I found Fenn Signis to be the most fun to paint, and Diala the least. Once again, I departed from Sorastro on the lightsaber effects (i.e. I chose not to include them).

Some familiar faces: Luke Skywalker (included in the core game), Chewbacca and Han Solo. Chewbacca was a blast to paint and all three of these miniatures are terrific representations of these iconic characters.

Lastly, some generic Rebel Troopers. These were the last miniatures I painted and they took very little time. Sorastro hasn’t posted a tutorial for them yet, but they were easy to paint based on source material (i.e. Google).

The only wave one miniatures expansions I haven’t bought or painted yet are the Rebel Saboteurs and the Emperor’s Guard Champion, but they can wait. I’ve decided I probably won’t be buying any of the game expansions (like Hoth or Bespin), but I may buy some of the miniatures expansions (like Boba Fett and R2 and 3PO) just to paint them, or perhaps to use in skirmish play.

Now I can finally play the game!