WIP Infinity figures...Crazy Russians and surrender monkey French

Been working on my Inifinity figures this weekend... made some progress I am pleased with, some I am not so much... also made the move to throwing my stuff up on the Infinity forums...make a name for myself there or get laughed off by 'real' painters lol!

This is my second Tank Hunter from the Ariadna faction, he also has no arms..I am taking the bold approach of painting it seperately in an attempt to get all the detail done..

My tried and tested method is not to bother painting where I won't see!!! This is quick and easy, but I am trying for a better overall paint job than in my 40k armies and I think I am achieving it...
Although I was very disappointed earlier when I positioned his HMG and found half the chest detail was obscured.. :(

Overall, not so happy with this chap. He is a French Moblot, heavy infantry man, but I just couldn't get the chest piece right..

I am leaving it for now and will come back to it next week, since this pic was taken I have painted his arms and glued them into position, overall...happy enough for the tabletop, but not enamoured..

will do better..

Next and finally for now is another of the French Sectorial special forces, the Loup Garou...

He just has a wash over 3 thinned out base colour coats...

God I love Devlan Mud!

Began to play around with his visor a bit..

Does anyone have any ideas on how to make that visor reflective like a shiny glassy thing?

I like how Sorrowshard paints the face plates on his dark eldar.. but am not good enough to do that!

Easy hints and tips appreciated!!

Hope you have enjoyed this brief Sunday afternoon update. This is what Sundays are all about..chilling out, catching up on the shows, spending time with the fiance...and of course, painting..actually quite enjoying it..

WIP Ariadna Kazak Tank Hunters and Terrain

This is the Infinity style. Anime inspired to my eye.. and I like it. I have been working towards getting a painting style that fits with this sort of art, and it is proving tricky. Rather than try and work in a 'grim dark' 40k look, I have been using a brighter and more colourful approach to my Infinity painting. So far I think it is working ...........

 This is a WIP Ariadna Tank Hunter. 

He currently just has 2 very thin base coats on (over grey primer), a wash of Devlan Mud (the greatest wash ever) and then 2 very thin coats of the base colour over the top to bring back the colour to the majority of the model...  

Roland asks, Ven answers: Infinity Army Building

Roland Durendal of 3++ fame asked me to have a look at some of his army lists..the easiest way to respond to these, rather than in long winded comment form, was to post up a new article for them.
I fully take on board that this post has a very limited appreciation level, Infinity in general not being anywhere near as widely spread as 40K. However, what the readers want, the readers get…and yes, that means more 40K in the very near future.

So onto Roland’s lists. He has provided 5 lists, but as I am myself still new to the game, I will keep my responses fairly short to each as I have yet to develop a real depth of tactical awareness and list building skills.

In addition, I think it is really important that we note, straight away, that the golden rule in Infinity army building is this:

“It’s not what you bring, it’s how you use it”

Every unit in Infinity has a use and can be used to lethal effect. Whilst there are some units that seem over costed for what they add to the force, they can still be used effectively. But of course, 40K philosophy tells us that this is not an efficient use of points!

Included below each army is the code for inputting into the Online Infinity Army Builders.

Infinity: Modifiers

The probability of an outcome is, like any miniature wargame, determined by a combination of the result on a dice roll and the statistical ability of a model at any given action.

This is no different in the game system, infinity.

However, there are a number of additional modifiers that can alter the likely outcome of an action.

This system can exist due to the wider spread of results available on a D20 dice. We have discussed the D20 previously (see Infinity page top bar).

I want to discuss the variety of Modifiers that can affect you in game.
Modifiers exist in 2 broad categories – Cover and Range. Both of which are equally important.

WIP Ariadna - Tank Hunter Kazak and Moblot

Some shots to see what you guys think of my new Infinity Ariadna force. I am trying to move away from the gritty 40k style, with realistic weathering etc.. and instead I am trying to embrace the anime inspired and highly stylised Infinity paint jobs I see around the place..always drawing most of the inspiration from the artwork to be honest.

From rear you can see his back pack detail, such that it is..

So here we have the Veteran Kazak (Russian) Tank Hunter. He is WIP of course, but I am working on smoother paint coats, heavily thinned and then layered highlights, no wet blends although I am applying the next layer pretty much straight away, the nature of the thinned coats however means they are drying almost instantly.


I have tried with this guy to paint the weapon seperately, something I know a lot of guys do anyway, but something that I have personally never really done - when that Launcher gets attached, we can't see the detail underneath anyway!!

As you can see, with his WIP Adhesive Launcher the grenade packs are covered up by the weapon.

As is some of the detail on his leg...

Could have saved myself 5 minutes. Lol

Moblot on left with just a couple of coats, next to the Kazak for comparison

But, I am almost done with this guy, I am not happy with the head and the way I have highlighted it, I know that from a real light source it'd be the top of his head bathed in light, but I wanted to just highlight where I wanted to.. I've starter work on the next guy as well, in order to maintain my momentum, which,as any of you that know me can attest, is tough - my love for painting has traditionally been low, primarily due to the mass produced nature of a 40k army, with 10 models in Infinity, I can really try some things out..

Anywa, please let me know any hints or tips, any areas where I have completely ballsed up or could improve...meanwhile, I've got a game or two of Infinity to play tonight with the recently landed Kabalite (hope for more articles from him in the near future)

Peace x

New Infinity Page

As part of my continued hobby push into Infinity I have added an Infinity page to the blog with a list of incredible resources available.

These include the full rules for the core book and for the Human Sphere expansion, which include all the factions from rules, equipment, skills and of course army lists.

Also on the page is a cracking wiki space link, which has pretty much everything you need to play on it.

I've included as well a catalogue of Sons' posts for playing the game, which I'll update regularly - but I won't include all my army lists etc at this point as I'm still learning the game.

It's been a quiet week as we are all incredibly busy, but I have some Terrain building stuff coming up and some painting/WIP stuff for over the weekend, plus of course the Sons will be at Games Day UK and will break you a load of new pics and hopefully a few surprises....

“Do you think this A stands for France?!”

Marvel quote of the decade from the Ultimate universe Captain America, thing is though…yes it does!

Infinity like all wargames has multiple factions. When starting out it is hard to pick. My instant reaction was to go for the cool ninjas of Yu Ching (a unified Asian block), then to try out some Myrmidons from Aleph (mythical greek/AI cross breed) and then Nomads (Intruders are awesome Medium Infantry!), Haqqislam drew my attention but Kabalite is returning from overseas and is looking to run a Hassassin-themed army, next it was Ariadna.

I’d skipped Ariadna because Bringer runs a Caledonian/Scottish force from Ariadna and we wanted to keep, where possible, distinctly different armies.
But when I was researching my Link Teams piece (linked Dzanbans from Haqqislam? Dirty.) I realised that the so-named Sectorial Armies where essentially distinctly different themed armies from within each Faction.

In fact, the Force Organisation Chart (for want of a better term. What? I’m hung over..) is different for each one, making it possible to run very different armies.
So I looked at the Ariadna models again, primarily because Bringer got his delivery of dudemen in and they look sch-weet!

Then I saw this and I was hooked: (its below the line!!)

Terrain: How much is right for Infinity?

Shown in the rules, dense, multi-height buildings are cool! 

I’ve been playing Infinity for a few weeks now with my good buddy Bringer of Death or BOD, Bringer…maybe BODhi…anyway, and we’ve been really enjoying it.
Aside from the mechanics of the game, the fact that it’s a skirmish game and that’s its not set in the grim dark…one of the key differences from 40k is the relationship the game has with terrain.

In 40k we work on a 25% coverage, mixed between LOS blocking, ruins, buildings, hills, trees etc…with a little bit of everything. We know that the mixture is key to avoiding gun line dominance and a boring game.

For Infinity, the terrain plays a truly key role. Too little and the mechanics break, with AROs (Automatic Response Orders) flying everywhere. I’ve explained ARO’s here, a quick reminder is that when an enemy model moves/shoots/uses a skill, any of the opponents models that can draw LOF (Line of Fire) to that model may act against it, commonly by shooting at it.

So without properly positioned and suitably dense terrain, the game doesn’t work. Bringer and I started out using standard 40k terrain, but just using much more of it. This didn’t work right, so we upped the amount of LOF blocking terrain, making the game both more tense and tight.

Infinity: Link Teams? Crazy useful?

Link Teams in Infinity are a way of coordinating movement and improving the performance of some of your units.

3 – 5 miniatures activate together as part of a “link team” for the cost of ONE order.

The guys can all move together, but only the one, nominated leader may use another short skill, such as shooting. This seems bad but there are bonuses to being part of the team, including an improved rate of fire and an increased ballistic skill to represent the fire power of the whole team.

So what if I buy 3 or 4 cheap, crap dudes and then another with a decent special weapon?

The special weapon dude becomes the leader of the link team, therefore the one that benefits from the stat boost.

The rest of the team all move with him, as they must stay within his Zone of Control (ZoC) of 8” in all directions, but we only use up one order from our order pool so that the special weapon can fire.

Not only can we only spend the same amount of orders as if we had just moved one dude, we can shoot with an improved stat line.

Bonuses to stats from being part of a link team:
+1 Burst
+3 BS
Sixth Sense skill

These apply for a team of 5. A team of 3 just gets +1B, 4 gets +1B & Sixth Sense, a team of 5 gets all of them..

In Yu Jing, the linkable troops are:
Keisotsu Butai
Domaru Butai (And Domaru “Neko” Oyama)
Haramaki Zensenbutai
All troops that I have looked at, but never really considered...until now!

Infinity: Smoke Grenades

Infinity has a great system for Smoke Grenades, they are an incredibly useful resource, but the use of them is vastly different from 40K.
This confused Bringer of Death and I on Tuesday when we played our second game of Infinity.
To try out this special mechanic, we both used forces with a good deal of smoke, so we could get to grips with it.
However, it was not until Turn 3 that we realised we were doing it totally wrong, far too influenced by our 40K mentalities.
We were throwing the smoke and advancing our troops behind it, confident that it would still be there in the enemy’s Active Turn. This is the 40K logic.
Smoke in Infinity ends at the end of your Active Turn.
So those troops? Yeah, they’d be exposed and out in the open. D’oh!
We figured it out, but still had other issues:
-Like making Intuitive Shots OUT OF the smoke using a weapon called a Nanopulsar.
-Can you really not see someone at all, even after they have shot out of the smoke at you? The only ARO being Turn Facing towards the enemy or dodge?
How does Smoke Work?
Firstly, lets cover this.

Infinity: Building an Army - Achilles and his Myrmidons

The Myrmidons...

I cant help it.
I just love to flit between projects.
A lot of the time this means that I do not get stuff finished…but hey ho.
My latest crush is on Infinity. Great game, incredible model range.
I started out with the Yu Jing – a great Asian mush, specialising in heavy infantry. I will still finish a force of them..but I have my eye on another race already.
Aleph.
AI and Myths.
Achilles and his Myrmidons are what truly dragged me over here, that and the cool link between AI and man..sort of blade runner crossed with …that game with the Norse techno-gods theme… I loved that…from a fluff perspective.
So anyway.. how do I go about building the Greeks?
This is the first Sons’ army building process with Infinity and hopefully will provide insights into the game system….

You can read the first 3 Infinity posts here:
Test Mini’s – DaoFei
What are Orders?
How does the D20 Mechanic work?

Infinity: How does the D20 work?

Haqqislam is burning...175 years in the future...

Next part in the introduction to Infinity the Game, my current, flavour of the month wargame…I say this, but I only play 40k and Malifaux…I don’t often wander off into new games. Infinity has really caught my eye though…

You can catch up on how Orders work in the game here.

Here we cover how the D20 works in the game, through it of course…the fates of every bullet shot and armour ricochet are decided…
Like most dudes, I am used to working with a D6. It is simple…roll above a 3+ and you’ve done your job…Space Marines hey?!
So the D20 used in Infinity has a few more sides.. thankfully the mechanic is very simple..

Infinity: What are Orders?

To help with my own understanding and to drum up a bit more interest in this awesome, action packed game I am playing, I thought I would talk through some of the game mechanics that make it different from other skirmish wargames.

I will talk through the D20 mechanic, Short/Long Skills, ARO’s, Army Selection and Orders…just not all at once!

I’ll start with Orders today, but there will be some crossover, particularly with Skills.

Ven's Daofei Test and Infinity Update

Ven's Virgin Infinity - Yu Jing Daofei model

Over the last 2-3 days I’ve been reading up on the Infinity rules. I’ll cover my first impressions in another post. I’ve also got a game lined up tonight to try out the rules, really excited about that..the sheer volume and variety of skills and abilities in the game really gets my inner geek going.


Weirdly, Parabolic Fire is my current stand out. Lobbing grenades over walls from your launcher as you’ve heard chatter or footsteps on the other side…firing blind into building windows to clear a room, your grenade shattering the glass...this just seems realistic and cool.
Although Camouflage and Hidden Deployment are cool too!

Anyway, I’ve picked up my first miniatures (just 3…I was being a frugal geek) from the Yu Jing faction. I loved the Invincible and Immortal warrior types…the models are great. But unfortunately, the model shop I picked up my D20 from didn’t have many in stock, so I picked up some other bits..

Remote Presence

It is just THIS cool!

'Sup. I've been a little bored with my 40k after turning play testing into a day job during my summer hols (remember..I'm a teacher) and whilst I'm far more confident with both my SW and my GK armies, I'm also a littel 40k burned out.
There.
I've said it.
So I've been playing a lot of Malifaux in the last 2 weeks..really getting back into that. With the 3rd book just arriving into out playing group and getting a game of Puppet Wars in yesterday I am still very excited about it.

But I need some futuristic, sci-fi action. This is the kind of geek I am.. so when I saw that Ol' Shatter Hands and some of his paying group had started an Infinity blog, I had to check it out.
It's looking great so far and has some excellent links to beginner tutorials etc.

This lead to me downloading all the rules, quick start references etc, which are all available for FREE from the website!

The cost is not prohibitive either, starter packs running at £27ish and individual miniatures at about £6 each all from Wayland Games (click the banner link at the top of the site and check it out)...
I;ll be spending my morning alternating between reading the rules and writing my best man's speech...for the 8th time..
Check out the links below:
Remote Presence - join the site and check out what it is all about
Rules Downloads - a couple of seconds to download all the rules? for free? OK, go on then...I'll have a look!