Let's Paint a Twilight Imperium Faction

Our first ever game of Twilight Imperium, The Assassination of Bug Jesus by the Coward Space Turtles, was won by the Barony of Letnev playing with the red miniatures in a very sort of sneaky, Dark Eldar-y fashion. I've decided to do the same thing as I've done with Scythe, which is to paint each faction, or in this case color, as they win. I enjoy painting board game miniatures, and I also feel that it's just so much more fun to play with painted minis. After all, my return to miniature hobbying was through painting Star Wars: Rebellion, a game very similar to Twilight Imperium. I've also been working on a lot of little ships lately. So I'm painting the red fleet.

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So, what we're looking at here is 59 units to paint. There are twelve infantry units, six planetary defence systems and three space docks, and the rest are spaceships: a flagship, two War Suns, five dreadnoughts, eight cruisers, four carriers, eight destroyers and ten fighters.

That's not even a lot compared to painting all of Rebellion in one go. As these are board game pieces, I do want to stick with red and avoid anything too dark, so as to make sure they stand out on the game board and are obviously the red faction. I'm thinking of something Word Bearers-ish, so a dark red.

I decided to start with the cruisers. They got a basecoat of Burnt Cadmium Red, with a drybrush of Dark Red. I then picked out some details in Gunmetal Grey, and painted the outer edges Dark Vermillion.

While I was working on the cruisers, I got an idea for how to paint the infantry bases: Gunmetal Grey and a Black Glaze wash, with red details.

I liked it, so I went with it, and added Dark Vermillion flags. I'm very happy with the result.

The Deep Space Nines space docks were fairly easy to paint.

For the war suns, I went with a very simple paint job that made them look a lot like Word Bearers Death Stars, which makes me happy. The models themselves, however, did not: they're so spiky that no matter how I tried to pick them up, some paint chipped off, even after a double coat of varnish. So I stuck them on 32mm bases.

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Next up were the carriers. I did the same as with the cruisers: Burnt Cadmium Red base coat, drybrush with Dark Red and pick out some details with Dark Vermillion. I also left the underside clearly darker than the top of the hull, so it's easier to tell which way is up.

I did a quick little paint job on the PDSes; I considered making the gun barrel metallic, but decided to stick with the board game esthetic.

Then it was time for the dreadnoughts, which, again, I kept very simple.

As well as the flagship.

I mean these are basically star destroyers and a super star destroyer, so that's what I went for, with the exception of the brighter edges to make them hopefully stand out on the board.

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I gave the destroyers a bit more detail, but they have the same overall scheme.

And finally, just in time for our next game, the fighters.

I went for a darker, slightly more Word Bearers scheme on them.

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So here's the red fleet!

This was fun to paint, and I even managed to finish in time for our next game! For someone like me, who constantly has about two thousand unfinished hobby projects going, it's very therapeutical to be able to actually start and finish something.

Let's Play Twilight Imperium: the Assassination of Bug Jesus by the Coward Space Turtles

"Since bombs are your means of expression, it would be really telling if one could throw a bomb into pure mathematics. But that is impossible. I have been trying to educate you; I have expounded to you the higher philosophy of your usefulness, and suggested to you some serviceable arguments. The practical application of my teaching interests you mostly. But from the moment I have undertaken to interview you I have also given some attention to the practical aspect of the question. What do you think of having a go at astronomy?"

 - Joseph Conrad, the Secret Agent

We like epic board games. Last year, we finished our massive play-by-email Here I Stand, and played a six-handed Game of Thrones. It's now time to tackle Twilight Imperium, which has sat on my shelf for years, what with the pandemic and everything. Six of us got together; none of us had ever played it before. How hard could it be?

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The first difficulty became apparent as we started setting up the game: it's gigantic. We have a fairly large gaming table, and we couldn't fit everything we needed for six people on it. Various auxiliary surfaces were in use and it was still a bit of a struggle. I'm glad I didn't get the Prophecy of Kings expansion, as we'd never be able to use it!

We eventually managed to get through setup. Of the six starter factions, ironically enough I ended up with the University of Jol-Nar. I had the green ships; to my left was the Barony of Letnev in red, and to my right the Federation of Sol in blue.

Probably the most difficult thing at the start was picking the strategy cards, but we got things going and started expanding into nearby systems. 

We had our first battle when the Tyranids Sardakk N'orr decided to eat an Xxcha fleet.

The Battle of Saudor ended in a bug victory, and kicked off a whole war between the Sardakk N'orr and the Tau space turtles. One of the great incidents of this war, which gave the name to the whole game, was an action card exchange where the bugs were hoping to recruit some infantry and played Rise of a Messiah, but the Xxcha countered with Sabotage. Thus the game will be known as The Assassination of Bug Jesus by the Coward Space Turtles.

Here's the situation at what I believe was the start of the fourth turn. While the bugs try to eat the space turtles, the rest of us are building up our fleets and advancing slowly on Orion Mecatol Rex. I had arrived at a border settlement with my right-hand neighbors, the Federation of Sol, which I cemented by using the Trade strategy card to good effect.

Meanwhile, the Xxcha recaptured Saudor.

Things also got a lot more interesting in the drive on Mecatol Rex. One of the public objectives was having a ship in two systems adjacent to Mecatol Rex, and while several factions maneuvered to set this up, the Hacan launched a surprise attack on the monkeys I mean Federation of Sol!

Here's the game from my point of view as turn 4 starts. On my left, the Barony of Letnev have scored the new public objective, and are making a play for Mecatol Rex. The other four factions are fighting each other.

On the fourth turn, the Barony grabs Mecatol Rex!

The war between the lions and the monkeys is going full tilt as the Federation deploys their flagship and makes a strategic strike on Arby's.

I wanted Mecatol Rex, dammit. The University fleet at Jethro Tull attacks, destroying the Letnev carrier, but our ground forces fail to root out their infantry.

In the third battle of Saudor, the Sardakk N'orr drive the Xxcha fleet back, taking heavy casualties, but fail to dislodge the space turtle ground forces holding the planet.

At the end of the fourth turn, we enjoy our first ever agenda phase, which was very silly and also fun. However, it was getting late, and we decided to call it a day.

That means that with five victory points, the Barony of Letnev has won our first ever game of Twilight Imperium!

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So how long did it take? I set up the map beforehand, and we got started a little before two p.m. Setup then took something like 45 minutes, for a start time of about 14:30. Our last turn finished a bit before ten. So our four turns took us about seven hours, with everyone new to the game, and the game was won with five out of the maximum 10 victory points.

More to the point, we had an excellent time. This is another one of those games like the Fallout board game, that looks bewilderingly complex, but once you get going, it's quite easy to grasp. It helps that many of the mechanics are familiar from other Fantasy Flight games: activating systems works the same way as in Star Wars: Rebellion, and the fleet size limits and control tokens are very much reminiscent of Game of Thrones. Even with the agenda phase and everything, Twilight Imperium is a lot easier to grasp than it appears.

Our objective with the first game was pretty much to establish whether we wanted to play more. The answer was a unanimous yes, and in fact we've already got a date booked for our next session. I certainly enjoyed myself, and am very much looking forward to playing again.