Bleep Bloop goes the beat up Droid

Today we'll be looking at some Viper Probe Droids. Not only one of my favorite droid types in the Star Wars universe, but an amazing secondary threat during combat encounters in my Star Wars RPG sessions. Since they can hover, they can be placed just out of reach over a cliff keeping them away from pesky melee characters and hopefully forcing the Crew to split up their attacks.

They're fun to use in the Imperial Assault skirmish game as well. I'm always trying to get them adjacent to enemy units and then exploding them. Ha. It's kind of a double edged sword however, as it destroys my Probe Droid and gives Victory Points to my opponent. But no one ever said that I played smart.

The Probe Droids were originally attached to their bases by the limbs. Which I wasn't happy with. These bad boys hover, so lets get them some fun bases and make them hover! This required obtaining clear pins and some drilling, but I feel that the extra effort was worth it. I painted them up after my Stormtrooper units as another quick and fun (this is a lie. My memories of painting the Stormtroopers was not fun.) set of mini's to get me back into the swing of painting.

-Beep-Bloop-

I'ma explode you!

I tried to paint some scrape lines on their bodies to give the appearance that they were a little beat up. I've done this in the past with things like swords and shields. I'm not 100% satisfied with how it turned out this time around, but that's alright. I've come to terms with the fact that my miniatures will never look as good as the professionally painted ones. That being said, I'm still happy with how they turned out and if I keep painting regularly, the quality can only improve.

Below are a few miniatures that I painted a few years ago. The droid is from the Reaper mini line. I bought him when I was living in Vancouver. I was pretty excited to paint him, since it was the closest thing to a protocol droid that I could find at the time. I decided that he did the books for a junk hauling company. Hence him being all rusted and navigating through debris filled terrain (another useful tactic during RPG combat. Difficult terrain can slow down melee characters and provide some interesting narrative options. Difficult terrain doesn't need to just be broken glass on the floor. Maybe you're in a research office filled with bookcases and narrow passageways. Or a warehouse cluttered with open crates. How about a narrow hallway filled with steaming hot pipes. Or an air vent. etc. etc.).

Beside him is a smuggler from a WoTC blister pack, way back when they had the rights to Star Wars. I think it was from the Star Wars 3.5 era, not the much better (in my opinion) Star Wars Saga era. I had wanted to paint trees on his shirt. But I was happy with how the shirt turned out and wasn't confident enough in my fine detail painting skills to actually go through with it. Fun fact, the other half of his face looks pretty gnarly. Poor pewter mold lines, I think. Other than that, I was pretty happy with how he turned out. I think I'll leave him out so that he can get used in my next campaign. Most likely as an NPC. My Crew of players are too cool for Humans...

So a Human smuggler and a Droid walk into a bar...

Plans for the future? The next miniatures that I plan to show you were my Royal Guard Champion and Royal Guards (the miniatures that I had painted after the Probe Droids). James had read my previous entry and said that he would be down for taking some more pictures that show off my mini bases. That makes me happy and the only thing holding us back from taking more pictures is that elusive mistress known as free time.

Again, the nicely photographed pictures were provided by my good friend James Davis. The one with poor lighting was provided by my phone camera.