Vanilla to Ramah: do we need sleaze with that?

While Vanilla Haqqislam is much maligned in N4 compared to N3… ah shucks I have nothing that insightful to say. I have only ever played Infinity on kitchen tables. So painting.

I have painted up a sleazy biker bar and figures to give me a chance of fielding a Ramah army, instead of Vanilla Haq. You see I played lockdown Infinity; 200 point or Recon+. In that Haq were very chilled in vanilla/sectorial and also good; take 3 characterful gunfighters, take 3 specialists with Wip 14+ take 3 midfield sneaky git tricksters and 6-9 other fun things for ARO or makin’ orders.

But all the cool kids (Fisher King and Ben) are taking fireteams now. So while Infinity is a game about rolling D20s and just going with the random wildness of it all. And while its about enjoying those wild swingy things that happen in the mod-stacking, crazy krunchy rules layered madness of an even now very much for the“grown ups” (or grown up with it) game system. Sometimes Infinity might be about winning, or having a chance to win. Fireteams help with that? I’m asking internet. I don’t know, do fireteams help you win?

Any way. Painting. I asked Fisher King, should I paint two sensible two-storey tower blocks or a sleazy biker bar?

FK: Sleazy biker bar.

BJ: Should it be super sleazy?

FK: You mean neon nudey signs?

BK:Yeah that kind of thing?

FK: Yes, I think it should have neon mammary glands visible.

BK: You realise it’s a building?

FK: You asked if it should have them not me.

BJ: I think this imaginary exaggeration of a conversation has gone too far now, in its accusatory tone.

FK: Yeah, its not needed, I accept all your neon lifestyle choices for buildings.

BJ: And me also your 28-32 mm modelling choices and asthetic, whoever suggested them, and however large and unrealsitically perky they might be.

So first up is Carmen and Batard. Carmen is 95% done she needs mat varnish and her fire arc fixing. I wanted her to look heroin-chic, rather than pin-up. I just felt life threw her some bad shnizzle, then she made some bad life choices. Not facial tattoo level of bad, like the nomad jaguars bad, but bad. I painted some of her boots as jeans, but didn’t correct the mistake. I imagine Carmen long legged, and stylishly smoker thin. I like how the model even has loose jeans and top, and an overall vibe that lets you know she slept in her clothes, rode in them, then repeated the cycle for a couple of weeks and that flower might be rooted in that mop of hair. Overall I hope I made her grubby and gangrel, but am afraid she’s gone a little “grim dark”.

Batard I want to be a blonde haired Viking-like troll. He is less finished needs blue eyes and more strawyness and scraggliness in his hair More scraggle, and less mop..

I wanted them to look the opposite of Equipe Mirage and Duroc. We will see if they ever meet up on the board. I think this is unlikely as they will presumably be opposite ends of the board, doing similar kinds of violence, showing its not how you get there that counts, its what you do at the end of the journey (unskilled violence and placing templates).

Next are the Janissaries. Another Infinity old school, cheesy name appropriation from History. I wanted these to stand out so they are bright. I intend to use them as an ARO Haris – to put 2B AP sniper rifle and Missile rounds down range, soak up some orders, hand out some dissapointemnt, then mosey out to the midfield late in active turn 2. Perhaps missing a man and a wound, but with an HMG or a multi pistol to cause a bit of trouble.

Last is the product of Ben’s stripping – a Kum biker. Plus a hacker and an HMG that had been partly done for ages. The point of sectorials is that a line troop HMG can become good. These guys are my standard haq colour – more khaki and less green than stock. The biker will be used as an SMG bounty hunter in Ramah. It was one of my favourite models to paint. Such a simple cool sculpt with sufficent detail a skilled person, better than me, could really work with.

So there it is. I painted Haq for a Ramah sectorial, and have nothing clever to say about it.

 

Peace and Bunnies

BlauJ

So I've turned to stripping...

 With BlauJ's nefarious plot to get Martin and I back into Infinity, I have fallen into my old curse of buying a new army per week (sometimes multiple armies)!

Having looked through the available models and factions, I had settled (for about 30 seconds) on O-12, and subsequently ordered myself them before I could change my mind. 

Shortly after when perusing the Corvus Belli advanced orders I spotted Crimson Stone, which was too tempting to pass on, and after convincing BlauJ to split it (don't think it took much convincing), I had a fledgling Kosmoflot force. Not quite my favoured Caledonians (but we'll get to them - all in good time), but still had my favourite character in Infinity - Uxia MacNeill, as well as the stunning new Equipe Mirage - 5, so onto a winner. (I will do a post on both the O-12 and the Ariadna in time).

Following on from this I was happy with my choice of forces, O-12 as the main option, as I felt they had all the aspects of Infinity, with Tags, HI, cool characters, Hackers and a good range of equipment (MSV and the like), which would give a balanced force to use alongside the Ariadna, which had some really cool stuff but often lacked the full range that made Infinity Infinity.*

However as a never settling hobby butterfly I made the mistake of checking eBay, one too many times, and found a Steel Phalanx army going for an affordable amount, for pretty much the full range. The first Infinity mini's I bought were a few HaqqIslam mini's (I think maybe a starter set and the old Kum bikers), as well as the Sophotect, which looked unlike anything I had owned model wise before, and although I had no idea what I'd do with them, I loved the look of it, but never managed to decide how to paint it.

The army came painted, which I have a bit of an aversion for, as I do prefer choosing my scheme, and whilst often a slow process, painting the army to make them mine. I have recently bought a lot of second hand Warmachine mini's and have been experimenting with mixed success, paint stripping them, and as such I felt that this may be achievable with the Steel Phalanx too.

Thankfully I won the army unopposed, as having been working on night shift the night before I had to slap a max bid on, and hope I wasn't sniped. 

This is what I got: 

Ignore Dart, as she wasn't included in the listing. 

The whole transaction was great, with the models arriving promptly and well packaged, and I set about my attempts to strip them. 

Firstly I had watched a few different videos on suggested fluids to use, and thanks to Geek Gaming Scenics, I ordered some Cellulose Thinner from Amazon (I will put the link here - no affiliation, but certainly worked a treat), unfortunately although ordered on same day as the army, the army turned up first, so instead I used IPA in a Ultrasonic cleaner for a day or two, and some Dettol (wouldn't really recommend), which did help to shift a lot of the paint. Once the thinner turned up however, it was on a different scale. 

This is the result of overnight in the Cellulose thinner (I split into two batches, which would recommend as think it would have taken longer the more I added in), I reckon that I would have got the same results in an hour or so, but I had been working late shift so was away anyway, but also the thinner seemed to take a bit longer to loosen superglue to make it into a jelly like paste that could be easily removed with tweezers. 

I did have the joys of trying to work out which piece went with which mini, but thankfully there are some unboxing type photos on google for most of the minis, so wasn't an issue.

This is everything built (there is a Bounty Hunter which was already ours that I was using as a test model for stripping, as well as 2 Ekdromoi and Thamyris the Aoidos, both of which I ordered to add to the collection).

Bases are 3d printed toppers from Sync Ratio Systems which Martin and I are using for some of our armies. Unfortunately the weapons are missing from the remote and the right arms are missing from the Devabot's, I will look to print arms to replace these, and not quite sure my plan for the remote.

The collection is just about complete, I have ordered Patroclus and Penethisilea (older version) from Norway, which will hopefully arrive next week, I own Hippolyta for my o-12, and will order Hector, Andromeda and the Rebots come payday. I need to decide if I want to add the new Thorakitai, as they are AVA 6. If I can find someone selling the old Probots, and can pick up some Yudbots, that should be the full collection. 

As an aside the listing also came with some non-Steel Phalanx Aleph, which are pictured below, not sure what will do with them, maybe allow another army...

*I perhaps also one a small HaqqIslam force which I am not quite sure what to do with as yet. 

To Infinity (again) and beyond...

 Picture the scene dear reader, if you may... It is a quiet Sunday evening in our house when BlauJ visits and we are content in our gaming world. We have Kings of War armies nearing painting completion, War Machine forces on display (mostly constructed), and Pike and Shotte battalions under construction. Life is good, and there is no time or space for new games/models. We are happily discussing wargaming and Magic: The Gathering when Blau makes an offhand remark about playing Infinity with his son (who is older than we thought!! Time has flown). This provokes a comment from myself where I happily recall plugging a hapless Mobile Brigada with an ORC trooper, and Ben recalls the joyful experience of placing many camo markers and watching me fail many a discover roll. The conversation slowly but surely snowballs, and I find myself almost unconsciously reaching for my 'phone and opening the Corvus Belli homepage; just to see what there is, I hope you realise..? 

There's a new 300 point Military Order PanOceania (all praise the Hyperpower) boxed set, and also a new Military Order Action Pack that looks similar in size... Well it would be rude not to download Infinity Army to see how many points it is, wouldn't it? It's about 265 points (give or take a few depending on the load-outs), in case you're wondering. And there's a new Knight of Montesa model, on a motorbike with a dismounted option too, which takes that to 300 points (the standard for a game). As Ben looks, he spies a new boxed game, Crimson Stone, which comes with Ariadna and Nomads (his two weaknesses). BlauJ laughs, his work is done, and then he departs, having sown the seats of temptation. If you check more recent printings of the Book of Genesis you'll see the image of him beneath the tree, a box of miniatures in hand, tempting a surprisingly masculine-looking Eve...

Shopping lists are written, gaming tables are planned, suppliers are sourced, and by Thursday orders are placed. Goblin Gaming and Ashdown Gaming are able to provide us with the vast majority of our order, and Wayland Games has the extra scenery we needed. We ordered the Kaldstrom scenery packs, 2 of the main and two of the expansions, and the Underhive gaming mat (4' by 4') by TTCombat. But what toys did you order Martin I hear you cry?? Well, the Military Order 300 point army was very tempting, but it was comprised of several models I'd previously owned, whilst the Action Pack had 9 brand-new models so that was the starting point. I ordered the Knight of Montesa to bring it up to 300 points and the paint set. Ben generously added the Order Sergeant box to the order (comes with a Hacker, a Heavy Rocket launcher, a lady with a combi-rifle and an Auxbot with heavy flamethrower), which gives me some options if the boxed set didn't quite work out. Ben, after suggesting it might be Ariadna or Nomads, ordered O-12, which were a faction I'd never heard of, causing some extreme consternation as I looked at their range and rules. Had I picked a lemon?? He got the Action Pack, booster packs Alpha and Beta and the paint set, which similarly gave him 300 points plus some serious options in the form of Hippolyta and some fancy other troopers.

Our first game was 150 points and nearly didn't start when we realised in our haste to buy toys, we'd forgotten to buy the rules... Eventually we managed to download them, despite Sky internet's best attempts to thwart us and we were good to go. I foolishly deployed my medics side-by-side and lost them both to Ben's Gamma with Feuerbach before I got my first turn, failing the dodge rolls and being ko'd. Luckily my Knight of Justice (which appears to be N4's version of the Father Knight) stormed up the table, cutting down the Gamma with his sword (because in the far future, despite anti-matter guns and bio-chemical rounds, the best way to kill someone is to get a 14th-century cosplayer to hit them over the head). My biker survived a lot more than I thought he would, especially after I needlessly made him Impetuous (not understanding how the new rules worked I didn't realise it was optional).I managed to table Ben's army, although only the Knight of Justice (on 1 wound) and a single Crosier were left standing. 

The scenery requires a special mention. It looks stunning once it's all built and on a proper mat. It is an absolute bastard to get together however. Everything is incredibly snug and some of the slots do not line up (the top of the tower's wall being the part in question, as detailed by people on YouTube). We have enough for a very dense board (as previously stated, 2 of each Kaldstrom pack), and it is likely possible that you could manage with one of each if you had some scatter terrain.

Tune in next time to see what else I've bought, how my first game against BlauJ went, and hopefully to see some painted models.