Painted Miniatures for Heart of the Empire

Heart of the Empire was the fifth expansion for Star War Imperial Assault and was released in 2017. Although at one point I was a goggle-eyed fan of Imperial Assault, by the time Heart of the Empire rolled around, I was beginning to lose patience with the game and its maker, Fantasy Flight Games. The pace of new miniatures and expansions had slowed, and the announcement in 2017 of Star Wars Legion made it clear that Fantasy Flight Games was detaching from Imperial Assault. The total lack of compatibility or transferability between the two games (including the use of different scales for the miniatures) was a nasty example of planned obsolescence. 

By this point, I was also realizing that there were better options if I wanted to paint Star Wars miniatures. Gorgeous 3d-printed knock-offs and repainted plastics from Wizards of the Coast were (and still are) a source for limitless characters from every era of the Star Wars universe. All of this led to a sudden drop in enthusiasm for painting Imperial Assault figures -- something that I had once been nutty about. All of which is to say, it took me 7 years or so to finally getting around to painting the miniatures for Heart of the Empire. And even then, I did it less from love than completionism.

Well, enough of my salty reminiscences -- after all, this isn't a guest post by Geriatricus. Let's get on to the miniatures!

The biggest and most impressive miniature in Heart of the Empire is the AT-DP walker. All Terrain Defence Pods were introduced in Star Wars Rebels as a garrison vehicle used for crowd control and counter-insurgency. I rather like this model, since it derives from Joe Johnston's 1979 concept art for The Empire Strikes Back. 

Heart of the Empire also features four Sentry Droids. These droids that (like the AT-DP) first appeared in Star Wars Rebels, further cementing the connection between that show and Imperial Assault. Who doesn't want more big, bad robots?

Then comes Riot Troopers. God I hate these miniatures. Stormtroopers are supposed to be an elite and ruthless military force, not police. Why would they be wasted on crowd control or given non-lethal weapons? Why would they need riot shields when they're already wearing armour built to resist blaster fire? And why do the riot shields have heat vents and access plates on the front? None of it makes any sense.

The only unit for the Mercenary faction is Clawdite Shapeshifter. This is a character derived from one of the prequel movies, which is an almost fatal impediment to me forming any attachment to it. 

I did use spare-parts to kitbash a couple of the Clawdite Shapeshifters into wasteland bounty hunters. I think I like these better than the originals:

Finally, we arrive at the three Rebel heroes contained in Heart of the Empire. The heroes were always my favourite part of Imperial Assault, but I have to say I found all three of these fellows a little disappointing. First up is the conehead alien Ko-Tun Feralo. He (or she? or they?) is (or are?) an expert in logistics. With all respect to the very important arm of the real military that is logistics, I feel like we are beginning to scrape the bottom of the creative barrel when our space-opera heroes specialize in... acquiring and storing equipment. I mean, what?

Second, we have Jarrod Kelvin, the obligatory Wolverine knock-off that games always generate when they run out of better ideas:

And finally, we have Drokkatta. Kudos for finally producing a female wookie! And even better, her name means "Drunk Cat" in Icelandic (at least according to Google Translate). But why is she about to throw a grenade with her right hand when she's holding a gigantic grenade launcher in her left hand? 

Maybe this is a Geriatricus post after all? Am I turning into Geriatricus?