Star Wars: Imperial Assault Minis with Flory Model Wash

I recently picked up Fantasy Flight's new Star Wars: Imperial Assault board game. It is full of little Star Wars mans. I usually avoid painting board game minis -- with the internal argument that they are "pieces" and not miniatures -- but these inspired me to start right away!

My goal was to get these painted up quickly. Near my house, there is a fantastic model shop called M&Models. They are an "armor" shop, and carry mostly military models. As such they have a fantastic selection of products that gamers don't often see at our local haunts. The owner recommended a new wash by Flory Models; it is designed for doing panel lines and detailing on vehicles. It is clay based, and has some really neat properties. I thought the stormtroopers would be a great way to try this out.

These are the Imperial probe droids. They each have different lens colors to differentiate them on the game board.

The Imperial Officers have different medal colors to differentiate them.

I painted the stormtroopers differently than my usual process, and I used a cool new product, so I wanted to show some in process shots.

I started with a white primer, then painted all the solid black areas with a very dark grey. I added color to shoulder pads to differentiate squads. At this point, I gave them a heavy gloss coat, and let them dry overnight.

After the gloss coat was dry, I slopped the Flory Models black wash all over the minis. It doesn't matter if it gets all over the white areas. Once this dries overnight, you can use a barely moistened cotton swab to wipe the wash off the raised areas, leaving it in the recesses and details. It wipes up cleanly with no work.

It took seconds to clean up each trooper. This is much like an oil wash, but is much easier, and safer. You have all the time you want to do the cleaning step. The wash never dries out until you seal it with a matte varnish spray.

Here are the finished stormtrooper scout gunners. After the matte varnish, I did some spot touch-ups with the white paint, painted the bases, and matte varnished them again.

After the matte coat, I went back with a 50/50 mix of satin and gloss varnish over the armor plates to give them some shine.

I was really impressed with the Flory Wash. I'm going to pick up the brown version also. One neat thing about it is that you can adjust how much will stick to surfaces just by using different varnish layers underneath. If you want a dirtier final product, you can use a matte varnish, which has more texture for the wash to adhere to.

I am really happy with these minis. They are very difficult to clean, but were really fun to paint. Expect to see more Star Wars minis as I work through the rest of the game box!

-- Josh, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member