Thursday, 6 November 2025

"Blast Them!" - Olley Empire Stormtroopers

It was inevitable that after painting up Darth Tevas, there were going to be Bob Olley stormtroopers. This six-strong squad is comprised of Kryomek Nexus SWAT troopers. They are classic Bob Olley sculpts from the early 1990s and are still available from Scotia Grendel.


The armour design seems to be heavily influenced by stormtroopers, although the helmet gives me scout trooper or even cylon vibes. Either way, they're nice crisp sculpts that are easy to paint up as stormtroopers. I momentarily thought about removing the SWAT lettering from their chests, but decided it would have been for minimal gain.



I painted all 6 models in a couple of hours using mainly Citadel contrast paints (apothecary white and black templar over a white undercoat). It was quite gratifying to get the full squad done in a single sitting.


I might add more troopers at a future point, but these six are enough for me to build a Stargrave force around by adding a couple of specialists.




17 comments:

  1. Outstanding! These are great menacing space-troopers just in general; I might have to pick up a few of these.

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    1. Thanks Bill. I bet they'd look great painted up in a sinister dark grey or black. Well worth grabbing some!

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  2. Kryomek SWAT troopers? Seriously? I completely missed those. Never paid Kryomek much attention. I should look over the whole range more closely. Had no idea Olley had sculpted for them. Fantastic!

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    1. Yep, so many good figures in the range. Scotia Grendel have a good selection for UK-based buyers, but MSD Games have a much more extensive selection, including a load of fantastic Bob Olley aliens and other trooper types that were originally part of the Simtac stable. Well worth taking a look!

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  3. I never knew that Bob Olley sculpted for Kyromek. I've got a couple of these guys. They're nice models, and the white scheme really works on them.

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    1. Cheers Toby. Glad you like the white! How did you paint yours up?

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    2. Bright blue for one of them, which works as a SWAT/police colour, I guess, and I've not got round to doing the other. I thought maybe a faded green. I was going to use them as armoured troopers for Stargrave.

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    3. Police-blue sounds great. As does the green TBH!!

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    4. I've just got to get around to it now - it's on the list somewhere!

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  4. Awesome. Great figure choice, I have to admit I had completely forgotten about Kryomek. Great paint job and an awesome project.

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    1. Thanks Kym! Well worth refamiliarising yourself with the range!

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  5. Wow, just contrast white and then the black! They look amazing, I love how good that white looks. Pretty cool job!

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    1. Pretty much - contrast white then a drybrush with GW white scar. But that's it! Thanks 🙂

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  6. Hmm...someone finished painting stormtroopers and didn't complain what a pain they were to do...? I found them very tedious...haha!

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    1. Haha! I definitely didn't love painting them - it was very much boring batch work!!

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