Not dead yet!

We are still here.  We promise.  But between work, family and other commitments, it has been a while since any of us have sat down to write things up!  Sorry!  Hopefully in the next month or so things will settle a little more and we'll be able to show you some of the games and terrain and cool stuff.

Okay?  Thanks!

Cork buildings basecoated

Greetings!

Just a couple of photos to add of my corkboard buildings.  I've added a rim around the edge of the previous one, where once the roof was fixed in place, to support a removable 'lid'.  It will be made of cardboard that has been corrugated.  The larger two pieces are the one building, which will be joined together (very soon, I hope).  They represent a mechanic's workshop or similar.

As with the cardboard buildings, there's a lot of work to do in the detailing.  I'm not sure just specifically what my approach with these will be, except to add the roofs, and inner floors for the larger building.  I'm thinking the section above the entrance (the two bigger doors) will be relatively open, with a walkway around the top.  I'll have to see how it turns out when I get to work on it.

But... so far so good.  I've enjoyed the projects and am looking forward to playing games on tables that sport these buildings!

Cheers!

Working hard

 Okay, so this post will be mainly pictures.  I've been working on terrain, on a bunch of buildings and today the accoutrements I bought from Antenociti's Workshop arrived. I ordered some computer panels for various hacking points, some door panels for each of the buildings and some interior furniture.  The other thing I ordered was a set of planter boxes.  I'd like to move away from the grimdark feel of GW's terrain offerings.

In fact, the look I'm aiming for at the moment is an outpost of some description, most likely something along the lines of mining exploration.

None of the buildings pictured are finished, merely basecoated.

So.  I might not get many games due to studies, work and family, but by George I'll have a good looking table when it happens!

Cheers!

The Migrant Fleet Approaches!

Hey all! Lowie here, been along time since i posted; living under a rock and all (and kept failing my PH rolls to lift said rock). After a rage quit from PanO's last failed game i have looked at what i can do within the game. I discovered that i actually really like the Nomad models and decided to build a list based on the Bakunen Jurisdictional Command. Some Moderators for a LINK team, 3 Sin Eaters to be auto-turrets. Two infiltrating glue guns and some other useful bits and bobs (don't want to give away all my tricks to potential opponents who read this :P). Overall synergised well in tonight's game against Cohen where we played a mission, the name fails me at this stage. At the end of the game Cohen had 1 model left and it was still a draw! (Mrs Cohen would have damaged me if i kept her husband away from the house any longer i think :S ; but of course I kid for effect.)

once the new job starts to produce more funds for me i shall purchase my metal warriors and start showing painting. Until next time!

...More games!

The games we played a while back were interesting.  Still at 150pts, I played both Skorpious' Morat Aggression list and Lowie's Military Orders (MO) list.

Skorpious' list was something like 2 Morats and a Morat paramedic (linked), a Yaogat with sniper rifle and a Yaogat with Combi Rifle and panzerfaust.  The thing that's confusing me about that is that it's only 125pts, so I'm missing something.  I chose the table edge (the top of the picture) and put all my guys behind cover, one Line Kazak (LK) on either side to protect my flanks, and one more LK in the centre with the HMG and the Veteran Kazak (VK).  My Chasseur and Foxtrot Ranger were awaiting Infiltration deployment.  Skorpious deployed his sniper (whichever it was!) up in the two-storey building next to the landing platform, the other Yaogat in the centre of the board (visible in the first picture, and the three Morats on the far right side, just visible.  My Chasseur deployed behind the green street sweeper, laying a mine out between the yellow truck and the cork building.  The Ranger deployed on top of said building, right on the half-way point.  Both were in Camo.

Quickly both Skorpious and I saw that the Ranger was exposed and he tried to discover her.  As a reaction, she ducked out of view but they'd seen her.  She was trapped now between the Suppression from the sniper and from the other Yaogat on the ground.  The Morats moved up closer.  My forces moved up, sticking to cover as much as possible.  The LK on the right moved up and lay down Suppression Fire to a firing line along the edge of the board to block the Morat advance, the LK with HMG doing the same from the edge of the big building.  The left-side LK ran up, aiming to flank the sniper.  The VK also moved up, but with very limited visibility to the other side of the table.

The first blood of the match was to me in ARO when one of the Morats came into LoF.  He went down, dropping the Morats out of their link team mode.  The Yaogats manoeuvred a little, the sniper hugging cover more closely and the Yaogat on the ground trying to get a bead on the sniper.  Suppression fire was renewed.  I renewed my LK's suppression, kept my flanking LK on the move (in cover) and pushed up the centre with the rest.  The Ranger restarted her Camo and went prone, moving up to the edge of the building and avoiding the Suppression fire from below.  The Chasseur crept up closer too, still in camo.

More fire was exchanged through the building, with another Morat dropping, but revived by the paramedic.  One side of the battle was focussed through the buildings (the cork one, mid right) and finished with the Vanguards on that side down (crits for the win!), and one of my LKs.  The other model lost there was the Chasseur, who found himself open to attacks from behind, fire coming in from the Morats prior to them going down.  This was another of the rules that I found tough to deal with.  The Chasseur is being shot at, but until the bullets actually hit him, he doesn't turn around.  On the forums it was described as too much noise in the surrounds, or silenced weapons, but the more I think about it, the less I like it.

The other thing I'll have to do is house-rule the windows on the buildings.  If Skorpious and Lowie agree, we'll make them see-through-able, but not able to be shot through without either breaking the window first (short skill?) or shooting it out.

The final part of the battle consisted of a lone LK flanking and shooting down the Yaogat (who on consultation wasn't a sniper but an HMGer!) and the Vet Kazak taking the last Yaogat full on.

The second game was against Lowie's list: 3 Order Sergeants with Combi Rifles (linked), a Spec. Sergeant with Sniper Rifle, a Teutonic Knight with Combi Rifle and a Magister Knight with Panzerfaust (basically just the starter).

I'll describe this one in a little less detail, since time is short!  I deployed at the bottom of the picture, my Vet Kazak centre, two LKs and the HMG on the left in buildings or near the crates and a lone LK on the right covering the flank. My Chasseur deployed just inside the halfway mark, behind the green truck, laying a mine 8" farther out.  The sniper rolled for and got prime position in the bombed-out two-storey building in the upper left.  Lowie deployed his meagre forces within his zone, the specialist sergeant (SS) sniper with TO Camo emerging on top of the grey bombed-out building at upstage centre.  His link team of Order Sergeants (OS) came down the flank to the right.

The Magister's first move took him in contact with the mine, taking a wound and attracting a shot from the sniper.  The TO sniper took out my sniper quickly after that and proceeded to dominate the centre of the board.  The Chasseur kept up the pressure in the centre, but didn't do much else.  The action was on the right flank, with the LK there killing off all three members of the OS link team.  This left the flank wide open and after a few turns of dying in the centre of the board, I was able to move my Vet Kazak and Chasseur to threaten the remaining minis - the SS and the Teuton.  Concurrent with that, the LK on the flank simply ran around the edge of the map (much as in the previous match) and ended up taking out the sniper with sheer weight of fire.  It was glorious!  The Teutonic Knight died soon after.  I'd had to sacrifice my Chasseur, but it was worth it, as was the flanking manoeuvre.

So there you have it.  Two battle reports, two wins.  I've played two more games since then, one scenario game with Skorpious (who's described it well) and another with another friend to show him the game.  I left my HMG Kazak on the top of a tall building and he died turn one.  After that it was pretty much down hill!  I lost that game to a man.

Cheers!

The Cult Grows With More Games

  It's been pretty quiet around here over the last week but we have been busy spreading the gospel of Infinity. Lowie, Cohen and myself have had a few games at our local gaming club and it's been generating quite a bit of interested.  We have another person interested in a PanOceania list, built around a Cutter, as he's really drawn by the mecha-style of the PanO TAGs.  Then we have two interested in Aleph, one being my 14 year old nephew who has put in an order for the Aleph starter set through Slave to Painting (who has an amazing sale on at the moment of 35% of the Infinity range).  The other Aleph player has also ordered through Slave to Painting, but his already ordered a sizable batch of models, to make a 300 point list.  There is also another gamer who really likes the Ariadna Highlander aesthetics.

  I'll give a quick run down of the games I've had since my last post and share some of my thoughts at the end.  I haven't really taken any photographs just yet, because to be honest they would be quite ugly.  My Morats are still not fully painted and our terrain is still in the construction phase.  Cohen has been banging out some really nice buildings, but they are still brown cardboard colour at the moment.  So hopefully soon, I'll be able to start posting up some pretty mid-battle photos to bring you all the action in full colour.

  So in the last week I've had two games against Cohen's Ariadnans, both at 150 points.  I used a Morat Aggression Force in both.  The first list was a HMG Sogarat, Yaogat Lieutenant and three Vanguard Infantry.  I got caught up using suppressing fire from my Sogarat and Yaogat to keep his Ranger's head down, which gave Cohen time to flank me.  Then a string of luck for him (three criticals in a row!) saw my poor Morats gunned down.  I'll let him cover the game in more detail as he took a few photos and was planning to write up a brief report.

 The second game, I used a Kurgat with Autocannon, the three Vanguards, a Yaogat Lieutenant and another with Boarding Shotgun.  We played a mission that had three AI pods scattered about the battlefield that we had to disable and recover.  Sadly the pods had HMGs with Total Reaction and we deployed them in a way where they had clean LoF to at least one other pod.  This meant to recover them we were going to have to disable all of them.  I quickly decided to hold back and let Cohen fight the pods and then I could swoop in and mop up, although not before I lost a Yaogat to a pod through careless movement.  Cohen disabled two pods, and I did take out a third.  I ended up losing my Vanguards and Yaogat Lieutenant, which saw my Kurgat who was hugging cover at the back of the table, leg it off the field, but at least Cohen was only left with three models in this game. 

  I also had a game versus Lowie's PanO Knights.  This game went to plan quite well for me.  His impetuous Magister Knight cross through some open game and got gunned down in a crossfire of my Sogarat and two Vanguards.  My Sogarat did take a Panzerfaust to the chest from his Teutonic Knight, but in my next turn, I passed my Automedikit roll and my Sogarat slowly regained his feet and shot up his Teutonic Knight (to my hummed version of the Rise of the Machines theme music!).  As the smoke cleared at the end, I had only lost one Vanguard Infantry and Lowie's force was wiped out.

  I must say, its been mostly a hard road for my Morats.  I've made a few mistakes in games with movement and such, but I think I've found in these smaller 150 point games, my low miniature count is really hurting my play style.  I usually only have five or six, but three of those are Vanguard Infantry.  I have been trying to use my Vanguard aggressively in a link team but they have lost one to AROs pretty quickly in the games so far, breaking the link, meanwhile my more expensive Yaogats and Sogarat are getting flanked and taken out.  As suggested by Solodice on an early post, I might try out a four-man Yaogat link team.  Their extra armour and extra body should make it less vulnerable to snapped off AROs in the start of the game.  And I am also looking forward to starting to play some larger games, so I can add more bodies and still keep some toys.  Also I plan to buy a Zerat soon, as both Lowie and Cohen are running a few camo'd guys, I figure I need to keep up!

  So with these thoughts, I've also been toying of the idea of getting a second army in the shape of an Ariadnan Merovingienne force.  I really like the look of the Metro miniatures, creeping through desolate city alleys in their civilian-esque armour.  In the list I have chosen for it, I have nine guys at 150 points.  So it should pay quite different to my Morats as well.

  I leave the delving into the FRRM idea fully for another post.  For now, it's time to finish off the paintjob on these Morats!

More terrain...

Hi there.

Just a short update as I'm really supposed to be studying today... ah well, can't be helped!

First up, terrain.  The local Big Smoke (which really isn't that big until you live in a town of 800 people...) has a Spotlight store, selling craft supplies, fabric, paper, scissors, bed linen, etc.  I was able to steal some time on my day off to go and browse.  So now, in addition to the corkboard buildings being created, I've also got some small cardboard boxes that I'm slowly but surely crafting into buildings.

The first one I tried was using a big cardboard planter box, cutting out some windows, doors and using an iPhone box as main entrance (which is visible in the full board setup I'll be posting soon).  The cardboard was relatively easy to cut, using a hobby knife, and I'd also bought some plastic crocheting sheets, which have made excellent grill windows.  Consensus was that I needed to make the interior playable.  Currently it's more a "display piece".  Lowie was also a little annoyed or disappointed that the space at the top was restricted, as his TO Camo'd sniper would've loved that perch!

The second thing I did was create a simple landing platform.  Using some of the odds and ends from the El Cheapo Máximo playset that I bought, I added steps to the front of it and a small antenna using a tank turret (so no FoW for that one!).  It's come out quite nicely.  Obviously all of these still need painting, but I'm going to wait for some warmer weather to do that.  I'm also hoping that the paint won't warp the cardboard as it dries.

The next step was to turn the other boxes visible in the first pic into something usable.  There were two 9cm x 9cm boxes which have become one room buildings with an annex (visible in the lower left of the full table layout).  Then these two buildings with interior walls (pictured with the glue still drying, roofs on and off).  I wanted something that would break up the sight lines a little more.  During the games, the windows through the buildings became excellent vantage points for tagging things with AROs.  It made the game much more unpredictable!  And fun, too, if I'm being honest.  I enjoyed the challenge of thinking through all the lines of fire that were possible before moving.  Having the roofs removable is interesting too.  I haven't ever had access to buildings that were usable like that before.

I have several more bigger boxes that will be used to create a few more multi-room buildings, and I'm looking forward to putting them together in the next week or so.

That's it for me for now.  I'll probably post up some battle reports later.

Cheers!