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).
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.
