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!

First Painted Space Monkeys and Spec Ops!

  So I received my Combined Army miniatures last
week and quickly assembled them within hours of receival.    They had very little flash on them and I was very happy with the quality, although I knew to expect lovely miniatures from Corvus Belle.  I decided to assemble my Sogarat differently to the 'at rest' pose displayed on the Infinity webpage.  Instead, as you can see in this picture, I made him hoisting his HMG one-handed, in total contempt of his target, nonchalantly blazing away at them.


  Here is a group shot of my Morat force.  The total is 282 points at the moment.  Not sure how often I will use all four Yaogats, but as there is no Morat Aggression Force starter and I wanted a pure Morat army, I had to buy the full box of them.  I do love the Sogarat and can't wait to use him in a game this coming weekend.  I look forward to having Cohen and Lowie trying to work out how to crack open this ARM 6, W 2 beast.

  Anyway, I have begun painting.  Now I am not a great painter or a fast painter.  I have over 20,000 points of 40k miniatures and barely 3,000 of them are painted to a gaming standard at best.  But with starting Infinity and the smaller army size, I decided I would paint them fairly quickly, so I can play with a fully painted force.  No excuses.  I'm happy with having gotten two done in a week with a busy schedule including trips to the city to see Ice Hockey (but that's another story).  So here is my finished Sogarat and Yaogat with Spitfire.  

  I've gone with a dark blue (old GW Regal Blue), with light blue highlights (old GW Enchanted Blue + Skull White) and green underarmour/patches (old GW Goblin Green) for the armour itself.  I painted the Sogarat's helmet in a stylised Morat scheme, with the white crest to simulate their white hair and red faceplate.  I will continue this helmet scheme with the other Yaogats who have enclosed helmets.  Their guns have a darker look with a lot less colour on them, but I like it as a contrast to their stark white hair and bright faces.  I'm happy to hear what you guys think, or any tips on painting these guys.

  As I was writing this post, I also saw Corvus Belle has release pictures of the new Spec Op miniatures.  I am not really smitten with the Morat one.  I think it's the pistol.  Although apparently it comes with alternate weapons.  If that is the case, he wouldn't be a model for a Vanguard Lieutenant.
  But I really like the Haqqislam and Ariadna ones.  Intel, the Ariadna Spec Ops, looks particularly bad ass, as though his about to use that combat blade on some poor unsuspecting sap.  Also the alternate heads for the Nomad and Aleph ones look awesome as well.  I may have to look into expanding into an Ariadna force later...

Tokens, Templates and Tents... Well, Kinda

There are a couple of things you need a lot of to play Infinity, or so it seems.

The first is the biggest one, and that's terrain.  If there's been one thing that has stood out in those first few games, it's that open sight lines will kill you.  With that in mind, I've had some corkboard lying around the house for some time, and with a quick trip to the general store to buy the smallest nails they sell, I took the time to carve it up and make some buildings, watched by Master Cohen, my son.  He avidly used my few Space Marines as scale markers and fought an epic last stand on the bombed-out building once it was complete.  I'm proud to say: my son is a wargamer in the making.  I win.

Cork is an interesting material to work with.  It is perfect for carving ruins out of, since the crumbling of the edges looks great when painted.  But I also think it's good for more solid constructions.  I have some more ideas I'm looking forward to trying out, like an L-shaped building a little taller than the ones in the pics here.  The debate this arvo was whether or not to make the roof removable to facilitate thru-play in the buildings themselves.  I'm still undecided.  What do you think?

All in all they turned out well, playable at the very least.

The second thing you need lots of is tokens and templates.  I ordered a lot of 100 25mm slotta bases from eBay (some seller in the UK... it was a great deal!) and they arrived very quickly, quickly enough that I now have 50+ tokens for wounds and camo and the various other things one needs.  I got the rulebook printed, spiral-bound, at a local printer, and with that I also acquired the tokens sheets printed on 100GSM gloss paper.  They looked really purdy once printed, but cutting them out proved almost their undoing.  The gloss paper and the printing on it peels off if not careful.  I was also to get a permanent marker and redo the edges; they've turned out alright and will certainly be functional (and certainly cheaper than 'official' ones)  I used some old CDs to support the explosion and smoke templates and laminated the flamer ones.  I'm waiting for some 25x50mm cavalry bases to mount the Suppression Fire tokens on, but they're on their way.

The other thing that is visible in the picture is my ol' faithful Focus markers from my Warmachine/Hordes days.  These will stand in as order markers for the time being.

The question remains though: do I have enough?

Time will tell!

First Games, Part 2

  So as Cohen said, we played a couple of beginner games this weekend.  My game was 150 points with my Combined versus Lowie's PanO.  With only a quick run over the rules this was a very much, hands-on learning experience.  I found the idea of cover and the requirement of being in contact with it to get the bonuses, difficult at first.  I am use to True Line of Sight cover rules from other miniature games, so we decided to play this first game using True LoS.  Afterwards we decided to play the rules as written, and to give it a chance despite any apprehension.
  So I used my 150 point list I mentioned in my last blog.  A Yaogat Lieutenant, another Yaogat with boarding shotgun, three Vanguard Infantry and a Kurgat with autocannon.  Lowie infilitrated his Specialist Sergeant with a clear bead on my Yaogat Lt. which was a bad oversight on my part straight off the bat.  My Lt. managed to survive Lowie's first turn, so I quickly moved my Kurgat across the street that seperated them, to get a shot at the enemy sniper.  The Kurgat struck straight, taking out the Specialist but was in turn shot down by Lowie's Teutonic Knight.
  Our lines seemed to turn on an axis, as I took out the PanOceania's right flank, as they smash me on the left.  Sadly though I lost my more expensive troops, my Yaogats going down to Lowie's Teutonic Knight and Magister Knight, despite putting up a brave fight in melee.  With my Lieutenant gone and down to one Vanguard Infantry against Lowie's two Knights and one Order Sergeant, the battle was all but over.
  In hindsight, I made a few grave errors in this first game.  Moving my Kurgat out to take out the enemy sniper wasn't really a good trade, I should have moved my Lt. and reduced the sniper's targets, forcing him into my fire lanes.  I also shouldn't have let the Knights get into melee.  I was confident in my high CC, but with them both having two wounds, it was an uphill battle (one I nearly won with some lucky rolls).
  All in all, it was a good game, and I look forward to getting my revenge soon.  I'll have some pictures of my Morat Aggression Force up soon!

Doom!

Hey there!

Just a small update today.  I went shopping at the local Kmart and found some interesting things...

These two bags held some interesting stuff.  I'd been keeping an eye on them (read: coveting...) for ages, mainly the construction set one, and mainly for a game called Pulp City (which can be found here: http://pulp-city.com).  It's a great little game, smaller than Infinity in terms of both model count and board size, since you can play with 2-4 minis on a 2x2 board and still have a decent game.  Finally I've caved and bought the two bags - it's cheap Chinese plastic stuff, but there are things in there that will fill a board.

I divided the two packs into stuff I could use and not (see the pics below; usable on the right, unusable on the left).  There was almost a whole bag of stuff that was the wrong scale or just too bad to use.  The mountain in the right picture is pretty cool, or would be if it was made of sturdier plastic.  But, for the price I paid, I didn't go too badly!  (Mrs Cohen might disagree!)

This should be enough to further populate our tables with some LoF blocking items, meaning that the units in the battle will be able to move around a bit more freely.  There are a bunch of brick walls, sandbag walls, rocks and some objective-like pieces, like the artillery cannons and the missile launchers.  I think we can come up with some decent scenarios to make use of them!  There were also a bunch of tall lamps and traffic lights which might be useful on urban tables.  I've got some cork tiles that I was thinking of using to make buildings from... now's the time!

I thought I should save the tanks, though, for my Flames of War playing colleagues.  What say you, guys?  Are they good enough for Flames of War?  Okay, so maybe not!  The other amusing items were these two feet.  I couldn't actually find the figures they belonged to, so I'm assuming they are there for scenery use... maybe to mark mines or something?

'Til next time!

First Games, Part 1

First games have taken place, one with the starters from the Quick Start Rules (QSR) with Lowie and myself, and then a 150pt game between Skorpious and Lowie.  I'm sure there were things we missed, forgot, did wrong, etc. All in all though, "a good time was had by all."  (And the barbecue lunch helped too, I'm sure!)

Initially it was a matter of setting out the terrain.  The first picture is the table in its entirety.  Sadly, we were using all the terrain available to us, and I have a feeling that it would have played a little differently if we'd used more stuff.

The left side of the board is pretty open, and there are lines of fire (LoF) that stretch from one side of the board to another!  This obviously has repercussions on how figures move and fight.  Playing Ariadna, I had two figures that could Infiltrate (start anywhere in my half of the board, further if I wanted to make a Physical (PH) roll... I chose not to) and so positioned a Camo'd sniper on the double-storey building in the middle of the table (just inside 24").  The other was my SAS trooper, who deployed near the giant tree stump, also Camo'd.  This advanced threat helped enormously.  The other two are visible in the pic in the lower right quadrant.

When Lowie deployed, he put a sniper in the two-storey building in the top right of the pic, and then the rest of his minis spread out across the table.  No infiltrators though, so that was a plus for me.

As we were playing, I've got to say I found the QSR very limiting.  We're all quite well versed in miniature wargaming, and so the lack of options presented was tough to work with.  But we managed, with input from Skorpious who can be seen here leafing through the rulebook on the right.

One thing we questioned early on was the line-of-fire and cover rules.  True line of sight has been a part of our gaming for a long time, and so we opted to use it rather than the 'you must be in base to base contact with a scenery item to gain cover.' This became one of our first debates - could the Acontecimento Regular on the board see my sniper when she came out of camo? Only partially, but enough to take the shot through trees to an elevated position, so we agreed that true line of sight meant that she gained cover.  Having since read through the forum threads on Cover, the way it makes most sense to me (as written) is thinking about cover in a target-oriented way (if you're not hunkering down, actively making the most of cover, you're exposed) vs. a shooter-oriented way (if you're looking down the sights at someone and there is a bit of house, a bus and some bushes in the line of fire to the guy in the middle of the street, he's harder to hit).

We'll have to have a try at the rules as they are written next time, with a target-oriented mentality.

The game ended with an Ariadnan victory, with the SAS and Kazak HMG left on the board.  PanOceania went into full retreat after that.

I'm going to leave it there, and hopefully Skorpious and Lowie will post in a bit with their first thoughts.

Cheers!