Don't You Want Me

Poor Hector, Tamer of Wild Horses, Defender of Troy, and the first of the recent big-screen Incredible Hulks. He was purchased amid a way of excitement following the listening of Mayacast's Homerid heroes in Infinity podcast and a quick online rereading of Rosemary Sutcliffe's classic 'Black Ships Before Troy' along with the new Shock Army of Acontecimento boxed set. The aim was to effectively finish the great PanO for the time being and start my new Steel Phalanx force based off the Trojans (no Achilles/Ajax/etc) with Hector, Penthesilea and the other dude with some Myrmidons and others. I was excited, Hector was excited, even Ben and Sean were excited for the latest round of paddlings I was going to be handing out to them. I actually heard Ben say how much he loves facing ODD without any decent MSVs...

Just look at how hopeful and excited Hector and Marvin the Martian are. And the Shock Army are all geared up for war too. What could go wrong? (Wait, what's that behind the Acontecimento Regulars...?)
EBay.
EBay is what could go wrong. No, my account hasn't been hacked again. There's not been a repeat of the 10 square metres of leather, ball-gag and ass-less chaps fiasco. But what has happened is that I was randomly slinging bids across EBay at anything that I could stick money to. This included a Tohaa army, some Haqq and some random Combined Army, The Tohaa were halfway tempting, the Haqq could be turned into my Kum force and the CA were a flighty choice with loads of random choices; there were a few boxes of different stuff. Then the usual EBay curse struck and some dude cracked out his Barrett .50 cal and took potshots at all my auctions, running out of rounds on... the Combined Army starter set (effectively the Onyx Contact Force starter set). This gave me a solid starting place, and like the Shock Army starter it's quite loaded with SWCs (Multi Sniper Rifle, Umbra with an empty hand that can ANYTHING I WANT, the Fraacta drop trooper with the option of being a hacker) unlike the Corregidor/Corridor suppression force (everyone with a combi rifle). So naturally I was restrained and didn't spent any more money on them.
At all.
And that was that.
Bullshit.

The usual monetary restraint was displayed and a couple of minor things were added. An Overdron Batroid, the Morat Aggression Force, a Krakot Renegade, a Kurgat Engineer (in the post), a Malignos hacker (unbuilt), and Kornak Gazarot. It must be said that at first I was totally unconvinced by the CA but I think this is because the last range of them had some dreadful models. Plus I hadn't read the background so assumed that they were just the stereotypical alien bad guys. Now that I look at them I really like the Halo aesthetic and having read their background I really like them, the misguideness of the EI (but not outright evil) and I've got a good idea how to paint them (glossy black or purple, a la Halo). They look like they play very differently to the PanO; no Knights, a lack of heavy infantry, some really cool different units (especially the Shasvastii), and some very interesting Link Teams. Oh, and plasma weaponry. I find that plasma always brightens up both players days, regardless of the game. Nothing excited me more in online Halo than seeing my opponent's plasma rifle overheating. Albeit this was generally after mercilessly gunning me down and the overheating was from firing his gun in the air shouting 'Aaaaaaarrrrhhhhh' but hey (you have to watch me playing Halo against other players to appreciate just how bad I am. It is a huge consolation to me to know that not matter how bad I am at tabletop wargaming, i will never be as bad as I am at online shooters). Don't get me wrong, I love my PanO, but a change is good too. I am hoping to hit the tournament scene next year, which will be with my PanO, so knowing some of the enemy will be an advantage. I will trying them out next week, a Vanilla CA list to see how they play.
All of this makes my Aleph very very sad indeed.
And so the Trojans buried Hector, Breaker of Horses
(and abandoned the PanO to fight the Combined Army on their own out of spite...)

Well pass me my stuns, my boarding shotgun and that 6-pack it's mission time! I go away, and come back and find my fellow gamers are finally playing Infinity. I should be happy, I am. I just wish they had started earlier. I wish they had started when I did, 18 months ago when I was painting Inifinity figures all by myself. You can paint by yourself, but I am too old to play by myself. Anyway no inunendo on this blog. It gets exhausting.
I also come back to find the usual lack of monetary restraint (Martin), and fevered multi-army purchasing (Ben) and the real life tacticool option being persued (Sean). Arms races, mission creep and military details.

In infinty I collect and painted Nomads (deliberate mix of tenses). I haven't played yet. I still have more to paint. I play Corregidor, but I would like to collect all three.
Some pictures below. More in future days when I find them, and then more as I paint more and as I loose to the other three who have played more games than me. Still that's what cubes are for; to upload, try again and get painted all over the wall.
My current development plans are to get some cheap infantry, maybe a bandit, get some JC-Tags and then prepare for Tanguska, or maybe Bakunin if the former is a long way of in the development process.
Below is a stop gap picture, until I find pics of the rest of my models.

Inifinity was the first time in a long time that I paid careful attention to skin tones and cut the GW-metalics from figure-painting - although I used it on the bases. After 20 years, it was also the point at which I decided I would not undercoat in black anymore. It was also the first time I discovered the joy of not painting 20 figures at a time, and realised that big-headed heroic models make detailing easy, but that tiny heads look better. Good times. That is good times18 months ago when I first wanted to play Inifinty.
Peace, love and safety off mission is go, go, go!
BlauJ

By Jurisdictional Command

I've been a bit backed up with my battle reports at the moment, having played a load of games, aiming at a minimum of one a week, with Uni I'm struggling to get round to writing them up.

Despite this I have started to spot trends, normally in my defeats. I have been using Vanilla Nomads, this in part was a choice to move away from the USAriadna (and the necessity to use a sectorial to utilise their available miniatures), and also partly as I had been buying an array of miniatures for the Nomads from different sectorials and I wished to try all my models out.
Although the vanilla list allows me to try out all my models (albeit sometimes only in limited numbers) it has prevented me from trying out Fireteams, and having been on the receiving end of them in the last few games, I have started to notice how brutal a defensive fire team can be. I faced a team of Ghulams, who for most of the game pinned down my flank of a SWAST and Reverend Healer, keeping them at range and ultimately preventing them from having an impact on the game. Frustratingly, those 5 orders worth of troops didn't have to actually spend their orders for most of the game, rather in defensive positions with good fire lanes to ARO, whilst allowing 5 orders to be used by the rest of the army.
Partly my difficulty in dealing with them comes down to a lack of some of the tools that would have benefitted me, I need to add some smoke generating models, either Jaguar's or Morlocks (I have Lupe, but would rather access to some cheaper options), also I didn't have any models kept back in AD to try flush them out. However I feel that I am coming up against fireteams more and more, and often I have little answer to them...so if I can't beat them, I may as well join them!

No, I'm not changing faction again!

...Rather I'm going to concentrate on a sectorial. This is two fold, one so I can try out Fireteams and a more thematic my selection, but also so I have a more focussed purchasing schedule.
I have found that I have been buying whatever I can find, either in store, or on eBay, with then a smattering of orders in between based upon models that take my fancy or that I read good things about. Although this has allowed me to get some of the really cool Nomad models, it doesn't necessarily give me the best army selection.
One of my issues with the USAriadna, when I was collecting them, was the limited number of options available in the sectorial. This is something I have been pondering as to whether it is a good or a bad thing. I feel in their circumstances, it was a bad thing, as they were missing models for some of the key profiles, which are slowly coming out by the sounds of things.
For the Nomads, I don't feel this is an issue, with Bakunin and Corregidor having access to all the profiles (as far as I can tell), and as Tunguska aren't out yet, they're not an problem.
The more pertinent issue that I will face is, which sectorial?! My list of models looks like this so far:

Bakunin:
Reverend Moira's box (2 painted, 2 built).
Reverend Healer (1 painted, 1 built).
Reverend Custodier (1 painted).
Clockmaker (painted - which can be used in either).
Riot Grrl box (2 painted, 2 built including Missile Launcher which is part painted - hopefully finished in next few days).
SWAST (1 painted).
Lizard & Pilot (unbuilt).
Bakunin Starter Set (en route).
Cassandra Kusanagi (en route).

Corregidor:
3 Alguacil's (painted).
Tomcat Dr & Zondcat (painted).
Mobile Brigada (painted).
Gecko box (built).
Iguana & Operator (built).
Lupe Balboa (built).
Corregidor Starter Set (en route).

Tunguska:
Intraventor Box (1 painted, 1 built).
Grenzier (1 painted).
Spektre (1 painted).

Currently the Bakunin are closer in terms of the models I already own, and they do have most of the models that attracted me to the Nomads in the first place. Although it will be a tough choice nonetheless, as I have decided I will challenge myself, to choose one of the sectorials and collect all of the options from it, paint them, and play with them exclusively until I have all the options finished. With this in mind I should have a good understanding of all their strengths and weaknesses, plus I will be able approach games in the same way as Malifaux, with the full range of options to mix things up and play lists aimed towards certain scenarios etc.

I'm still agonising over the choice, so hopefully more to come soon, and with any luck I will get a battle report finished soon!

In the mean time, here are some of my latest paint jobs:

Fields of Gold (and red dust)

It's been a few weeks since my last piece and lots has happened. The force is getting to the point that worryingly I'm close to owning the whole range. This leaves me with only two options: paint what I have and master the mighty PanO, becoming the living embodiment of the Hyperpower (bunny ears and all), or buy a new force.... (More on this later)
 One thing that Ben and I have been agonising over is our gaming board. We started with a motley mish-mash of TTCombat's city terrain, the Red Veil cardboard buildings and a series of mismatched boards that resulted in an unintentional two-tier board. Our intention was always to have a full 'proper' Infinity board, just as we do for Malifaux, with enough terrain that we could sub items out and move it around enough so that it didn't feel like we were playing on the same board every game. The beauty of Infinity is that there are many companies that support it, scenery-wise, and Corvus Belli are good at promoting these companies. Budget was a big factor, which ruled out Warsenal and Bandua instantly. We wanted a UK-based company if possible too, as we wanted it to arrive quickly without the potentially hidden costs of customs. We also wanted to use a range that could cover our entire table, rather than making a collection of lots of obviously different pieces that did not quite match up. This isn't as much of an issue for scatter terrain but we really were not keen on having 5 markedly different buildings. We also wanted them all to look the same when painted so we would either have to pick an unpainted range that we felt we could paint up or an entirely painted range. It also had to be hard-wearing enough. We contemplated Microart Studios but Ben had a fairly miserable experience assembling their Steampunk walkways so they were somewhat discounted. We were set on either TTCombat (http://ttcombat.com) or Zen Terrain (http://www.zenterrain.com) with their durable yet affordable MDF buildings, scatter terrain and supporting range. In theory we could even combine them as they were similar enough. One of the new GW Mars game mats would give us the 'table' and we were sorted. All we had to do was order it.
 Then we hit snags. £50 for the mat is steep to start with. Then I tried to paint an MDF building. Well over an  hour later and deep dissatisfaction was the result. It would need at least one more coat of Basecoat White, then probably 2-3 layers on top of that. The wood absorbed enough of the paint to make it really slow going, and that was a very small fast food stand. A bunker or heaven-forbid a multi-storey build would be undo-able without an airbrush, which realistically neither Ben or I had the facilities to use. Sean does but he lives far enough away that transporting the scenery out to his would be a chore. So, back to the drawing board. Then I saw Battlesystems kickstarter (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1621774283/battle-systemstm-sci-fi-ii-terrain). It looked perfect, even if I was wary of cardboard terrain. They have a couple of bits in ABZ which I've been impressed by. Then Ben found the flaw (of course!). August 2017. REALLY???? But there was a link to their website. We checked it out (Ben assures me that we'd done it before) and we were impressed. Originally we were looking at their sci-fi range; possibly thinking about fighting inside a space ship or station (PanO righteously invading one of the Nomads scummy ships...) but naturally this could prevent my heroic Akali from airdropping in (and my new Yuan Yuan, complete with the Ltd Ed one I stole off Ben) so we needed outdoor stuff. The urban stuff wasn't as appealing, we'd wanted a more futuristic look than that, didn't want to be fighting over Gotham City so it was looking dicey again. Then we saw the shanty town, It would allow us to make the Mars outpost that I'd been dreaming of, a sort of wild-west town in space/first temporary colony on a place; a bit like the scenery in the John Carpenter classic Ghosts of Mars, a piece of cinematic genius boasting such acting heavyweights as Jason Statham, Ice Cube, Clea DuVall and everyone's favourite alien Natasha Henstridge... Scandalously IMDb only gives it 4.9/10 but we know that those digits are simply the wrong way round. Seriously, stop reading and go watch it. Now.
Then we found that for $6.95 we could print out a gaming mat (http://www.rpgnow.com/browse.php?keywords=battle+board&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=) and attach it to wooden tiles. We priced it all up and were impressed. £6 for the 'mat', £20 for the boards (with plenty left over) and £70 for the terrain. We ordered it before we could change our minds again!
A week later it was all here and we began to build. The board was time consuming but not difficult, simply a case of cutting the paper very carefully and making sure it was attached properly. The terrain is tricky however. Battlesystems have a VERY clever way that combines slots cut in the cardboard and plastic clips to hold it together, and it requires very few clips. However, the instructions are online videos and don't show you how to assemble the sets to resemble the 'front of box' images, rather they talk you through the theory of building them and give ideas for games. It's great if you want to go crazy with your imagination, but not so grand if you end up using 3/4 of the clips to build 2 out of a potential 5 buildings. The £70 box will assemble 5 buildings, 6 at a push. You may need more clips though. We ordered a second pack of clips and another building (it all works on sheets, a building is between 1 and 3 sheets depending on size). It is pre-coloured and looks amazing on our board. We ordered the extra building (£18) as we wanted a dedicated Objective Room for ITS missions. We do not intend to take apart our buildings between games as we don't have the time to rebuild it all before we play. However we do have the option to if we feel that games are getting stale. The scatter terrain is awesome, we will likely use our TTCombat vending machines and crates to add a little more terrain to the board as we felt that we needed more scatter and less blocky buildings on our boards. We were finding that we had up to 12 buildings on our boards at times which just felt excessive and meant that models could spend the whole game achieving very little due to slightly off placement. I hope to finish the scatter terrain by the end of the week and then play a game on it soon. Here are some pictures showing it off (keep reading as there's more after):

So, earlier I mentioned my dilemma. Where to go from here? Well, I ordered the Yuan Yuan blister to add mercs to my force. I intend to pick up Scarface and Cordelia too as I like them and he's cheap as anything. I'd like to add Avicenna too as her back story is awesome. Now i will paint everything up, fear not, but I fancy a small second faction. Nothing big, not a whole range (yet...) but just a change. You know, it'll allow me to get more of a feel for the game... that's the one, yes, experience more of the game! There are two options: 1. Haqqislam with the Kum (heheh) Chieftain, Kum Bikers (heheheh) and the female Kum Twins (heheheheh... and I'm spent), backed up by the Odalisques and some other stuff as they are awesome models. 2. ALEPH Steel Phalanx based on the Trojans, so Hector (my favourite character in literature) and Penthesilea with Myrmidons and some others. The Haqq would be VERY pricey whilst the ALEPH would not, which may well swing it. Plus, as previously stated, Hector has always been my favourite character (and my grandfather's name)so it is likely to be them. I've always loved the ALEPH range, and the Steel Phalanx does focus on what I feel are the best ones. It is a very small, elite force and will not play in my usual style, whereas I found that the Haqq had enough points for me to build the 'gun line with medics' and then add bikes. this could be good as I feel that it is easy to get caught playing in one style that can make you blind to key aspects of the game, which whilst it may not be an issue in one's Meta, can be very disadvantageous in a tournament. The new Mayacast podcast (check it out) focuses on them and is fascinating listening, and really inspired me. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, go watch Ghosts of Mars...