I recently bought the board game Star Wars Imperial Assault which came out in January of this year. I was really looking forward to getting it for three reasons: A) I'm a huge Star Wars fan, B) it looks like a fantastically fun game (and after playing it I can say it is endless fun), C) there were dozens of miniatures to paint. I had done some game miniature painting before for a Life game and Risk 2210 but this was a very ambitious endeavor. For starters there are lots of them and I had to paint them all, unlike Risk 2210 where I only painted the commanders (and that was just touching up details). Secondly, there are organic figures like Nexu and a Wookie with fur and shading, not easy at this size. Undaunted I dove right in. I had read that these figures took the paint better if they are primed so I followed the advice not wanting to risk messing up. Another trick I picked up is to use putty to hold the figure to a bottle cap which gives you a nice grip to hold the figure without risking a wet paint job. You can also put the cap on a partially filled water bottle and it becomes a stand for spraying and steadying the figure.
My first project was a set of three storm troopers, chosen because of the relative simplicity. First I primed them then painted them an over-all white, then picked out the black joints and details. Because it is necessary to differentiate between units in the game I added red unit markings to the pauldrons, the next units will likely be blue and green. Of course one of the troopers is painted differently to be the unit commander.
So far I am impressed with the detail and quality of the Imperial Assault miniatures and I look forward to painting the rest of them soon, especially the massive AT-ST model!
Here is the storm trooper in four stages of completion: out-of-the-box, primed, white, and finished.
A finished storm trooper front and back still tacked to the bottle cap base. The figures base has not been finished here and will probably be metal deck plating or something similar.
The finished trooper group and a pair of Imperial guards in full red regalia. I hit them all with a top coat of matte clear to dim down the gloss paint and protect them from constant handling.
