Star Wars: Shatterpoint Minis

^{review by Alapai}

Star Wars: Shatterpoint is a miniature skirmish game from Atomic Mass Games. In it, you control a group of characters from the Star Wars Universe and do battle against another person with their own strike team. As with my other reviews, this is a review of the minis more than it is of the game, which I do not play.

I had three different kits that I worked on for this, the Kit Fisto Requesting Your Surrender Squad Pack, the Hera Syndulla Make the Impossible Possible Squad Pack and the Kanan Jarrus Stronger Than Fear Squad Pack. This is because Shatterpoint’s first major selling point for me is that I get to build models of characters I care about. In this case, I’m a big fan of Kit Fisto and the Star Wars Rebels cast, especially C1-10P, aka Chopper, and so was excited to be able to build models of them.

The next thing that I really like about Shatterpoint minis is that there are a lot of dynamic poses for the models. While there are some boring poses like Hera or Nadhar Vebb, there are much more interesting ones like a Clone Tropper charging into battle, Sabine jumping away from an explosion, Kit Fisto leaping in the air while brandishing his lightsaber and force pushing and Chopper who is blasting off over the wreckage of other astromechs.

For the most part, Atomic Mass Games has some of the simplest assembly I’ve seen. The sprues are all clearly labeled with model specific numbers and the pieces are easily identifiable. For assembly, you generally have to build the torso out of a front and back, connect the two legs together, then put the arms, head and legs onto the torso. There you go! You now have the basic instructions to build most Atomic Mass Games minis! There are some additional steps on occasion, like having to put a couple pieces together for the head like with Kit Fisto or Hera or some accessories like Ezra Bridger’s pouches. There are also occasionally terrain pieces which might require a couple extra steps, but generally that is all you have to do. Now, you do want to make sure the figures are securely attached to the base as some like Kit Fisto are only attached to the base by a foot connected to some terrain, but their models generally have pretty good pegs and holes that make the models pretty sturdy once assembled.

One thing to note about Shatterpoint minis is that they are larger than minis from a lot of other games. A positive of this feature is that I was able to get in some more details like painting Kit Fisto’s eyes where I am often more reluctant to try and paint things that small. One negative is that the bases are also larger than other mini bases such that a standard Shatterpoint character’s base cannot fit on the regular Citadel painting handle as it’s just a little too big. They do fit on the XL handle, but it feels a little awkward there as the minis are only slightly larger than other minis.

For painting, I wanted to get them as accurate as possible. Like my Fallout minis, I wanted them to look like the characters as I got them because they were already characters I cared about. The first thing I did after priming my models though was to make sure I could make a good lightsaber. I found that a very simple way to get a good looking lightsaber was to paint the blade white and then paint it over with a fluorescent color. So for Kit Fisto, I was able to get a solid looking lightsaber with just some white followed by a fluorescent green.

In painting these models, there were some highlights that I had. First, when I was painting Kit Fisto, I couldn’t quite get the green skin to pop, but I then applied a Citadel Shade and it made the model look so much better that it actually made me a little angry because how dare one simple paint application make it look as good as it does. With Hera, I tried out a new painting tool and used some paint markers that each come with their own paint in them. I actually really liked how it applied to the model with the orange going on well with a tool that felt more natural to me as someone who didn’t paint much as a kid, but loved to draw. With Chopper, I had to paint some fire as he is firing his rocket to fly on his model. A tutorial I found a while ago when painting the Unmatched Ghost Rider taught me how I can paint fire effects and I feel like it is a pretty simple way to paint fire, starting from the darkest, furthest out color and working your way in to the lightest color (red to orange to yellow to white in this case).

While I can’t speak to the game itself, I do really like the Shatterpoint minis. Being a little larger than similar wargame minis means you have a little more leeway when painting and can get some more details in. Coming from Atomic Mass Games, they have simple instructions and some cool poses. Now the main downside of course is that they are not only designed for a game, but also a licensed game. Both of those add to the costs of purchasing the minis. Also, the bases being as large as they are can make a little more work in painting (like having to get an XL painting handle) or storage, but I don’t find it to be a breaking point. If you do like Star Wars and want some minis to paint, these are some really fun minis that I enjoyed painting and am looking forward to finishing up all the minis from my boxes.

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