Raiden Senbutai Conversion

After playing around with the ArmyBuilder for Japanese Sectorial Armies (JSA), I found out that it is pretty tough to use up enough special weapon cost (SWC) points with the current range of Yu Jing JSA models. Sure, one could throw a couple Aragotos with spitfire down, but there's only one model, and in my opinion fielding duplicate models is a big fax-pas in games of Infinity.

So with a donated Pan Oceania spitfire (sweet looking weapon) from Lost Cateran, I set about trying to affix the damn thing to a JSA model. The only viable candidate was the Domaru Butai with chain rifle. I'm not a fan of these close-range specialists anyway and the model fit the part - he's a heavily armored samurai.

I went to work with my knife, saw and clippers. In the process of removing the chain rifle, both the bloke's left hand and his right shoulder-pad were badly mauled. Luckily, a small supply of Magic-Sculpt had recently arrived in the mail. The reconstruction began.

Boy, sculpting is hard! First lesson I learned is that saliva is your friend. Second lesson, let things cure a bit before trying any detail work. Thirdly, don't be afraid to start over. I sculpted a shoulder pad, was unhappy with it, and then completely ripped off the putty and re-did it with better results.

Well, enough chatter. Here he is!

Next step, file down the edges so they are sharp and affix some katanas.

More to come...

NOVA Open 2013: Friday Night Hunger Games

So, Friday night I played in Hunger Games. I wanted to bring a thematic fun list, and my first love in Infinity has always been for Caledonians. So the list I brought, while not "optimized" was certainly a lot of fun.

 CALEDONIAN HIGHLANDER ARMY
──────────────────────────────────────────────────
 GROUP 1 (Regular: 1/Irregular: 2):
 CATERAN Sniper Rifle / Pistol, AP CCW. (0.5 | 25)
 HIGHLANDER GREY Boarding Shotgun T2, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, CCW. (28)
 CAMERONIAN 2 Chain Rifles, Grenades, Smoke Grenades / AP CCW. (22)
 0.5 SWC | 75 Points
ARMY CODE: eNozNlJVNTdVNdAzVTVSM1IzrDFWMwGSFmqGaoaqZSYAYJMGaw==

The group of us 13 players was split across two tables, which I think made the game go a heck of a lot faster. Knowing Roboute from my local game store (Victory Comics) and as he an I were both playing Scots, we decided on a temporary alliance.

I'd say the most memorable action was when, as the Yu Jing players on my side of the board were circling each other on turn one, my Cameronian came around the crates and Chain Rifled every last one of them. That made up the majority of my 168 point count by the end of the night.

It was beautiful!
 

Some player brought Cordelia and Scarface with him, and shot at me unprovoked, so I had to make a point and shoot Cordelia in the face with my Cateran, while Roboute took care of Scarface.

It was only a matter of time before Roboute would betray me, so I began to maneuver my Cateran and Grey to counter him. Unfortunately, he got off first shot, and knocked out my Cateran and, after squaring off for a few rounds, my Grey as well.

The Scots square off (the Scots Guard is on the stairs, my Grey in the foreground)

Roboute made it to the final round, against the guy who eventually won both 1st place in Hunger Games as well as Bloody Handed (most points killed, not sent unconscious). I was a little upset, hoping that I would win Bloody Handed having killed 168 points, but apparently he had a total reaction remote and a great spot from which to pick everyone else on his table, so he picked up a whopping 228 points.

Overall, I think Hunger Games ran really well on Friday night. Definitely something I would do again, with minor changes.

Topo Solitario Terrain for Infinity Campaigns

I just noticed that Corvis Belli has campaign terrain developed by the guys over at Topo Solitario. As a big fan of papercraft terrain, I highly recommend checking these out, even for non-campaign games:

Infinity Campaign Terrain

Airbrushing Infinity Miniatures

Airbrushes have come from the realm of scale model painting to a well-established position in the tabletop miniature hobby, and rightly so. Airbrushes not only help speed up the process of painting, they also lay down such gentle and thin layers of paint that don't obscure the delicate detail of Infinity miniatures.

I typically use an airbrush as a beginning stage to lay down my foundation color on large areas of the miniature. Join me and I'll take you through my 5-step process that gives me a nice base-color with a little shading and highlighting as a basis for the rest of my shading and highlighting work.

Step 1 - Choose your colors.
You need your base color, a shading color, and a highlight.
In this case, my base color is the now out of production (OOP) Hawk Turquoise from Games Workshop.
To shade it, I chose OOP Dark Flesh from Games Workshop.
Side note: lately I haven't been using black to shade my models, but instead choose a color opposite of my base on the color wheel for shading. More on that at another time.
The third paint I chose was Vallejo Model Color Pale Blue, which is a really nice Turquoise with a little more green and white in it than Hawk Turquoise - perfect for highlighting.

Step 2 - Base Coat.
Mix your base color with some thinner (whatever you use - I use a mix of water and isopropanol) in a cup and load your airbrush. Apply a decent coat over the entire model as I have done below.

Step 3 - Shade

Mix your shade color into your base color and add some thinner. Don't over do it, you don't want your transitions to be too stark. In my case, I added OOP Dark Flesh to my OOP Hawk Turquoise in about a 1:2 ratio.  

This is where the fun begins. Apply this color only in the lower parts of the model and the areas that would actually be shaded. If it helps, try to spray from an angle underneath the model, shooting upwards. This is why I have attached my models to these old paint pots as I can handle the models well spray and get different angles that I need. 

See below. 

Stage 4 - Highlight

Pull out your highlight color. In this case, I didn't mix my highlight into my base color, since they are already very similar hues of color, but different values. 

With the highlight, I hold the models at an angle and spray downwards onto them. I do this from varying degrees until I am happy with how it looks. At this stage, the contrasts will be a little too strong so we are going to tone it down a bit. 

Stage 5- Tie it together

As a final step, I mix my base color with a lot of thinner. I want a translucent coat to go down, that won't remove all the work I've just done. 

Now what I do is spray the model all around at a 90 degree angle, hitting the models mid-section and lower. I leave the brightest highlights alone at the top of the model. See how it looks below. 

And that is how I get a nice foundation of my base color, shaded and highlighted before I break my traditional brush and go to work. I'll still do a fair amount of shading and highlighting - especially some hard-edge highlighting, but at least this gets me 75% of the way there. 

I hope you've found this useful and inspiring. Get out your airbrush and see what you can do!

Tohaa Technology and Special Rules

If you're someone who obsessively checks the Infinity the Game website like I do, then you've noticed that the new rules, new weapons and some of the new profiles are available for download. They are not a complete set of rules yet, as you cannot access the complete Tohaa army list or rules for the campaign system, but the downloads give you a lot to chew on.

Today I'm going to take you on a little review of what's in there for the Tohaa, their technology, special rules, weapons and spikey hair.

Tohaa Triads
While the Tohaa do not have any sectorials armies at present (personally I doubt they ever will), they still have the ability to form special linked teams, called triads. Triads are 3-man linked teams with any combination of troop types with the special rule 'Fireteam: Tohaa.' They can only have 3 members, hence the name, triad, but they can mix units into the teams. This means you can have a linked team of a Tohaa Ectros, a Tohaa Kamael and a Tohaa Sakiel, unlike sectorial armies, whose fireteams must contain units of the same type. Furthermore, the Tohaa are not limited to one fireteam per army but an unlimited amount depending on how many troops with the 'Fireteam: Tohaa' special rule (they should have called this special rule 'triad' instead of the long winded one they chose.)

Swarm Grenades
For what we can tell from these downloads, Tohaa have the unique access to Swarm Grenades. These are grenades which can only be hurled at a target model (not a piece of ground), causes shock damage against BTS (no ARM rolls) and remains in play, creating a low-visibility zone (ignored by all levels of multispectral visors). What potential. Essentially this is a weapon that can be used offensively while creating a defensive zone against advancing troops. However, so far no revealed Tohaa units have any multispectral visors that would truly create a nice combo.

Symbiont Armor
Symbiont Armor is definitely unique to Tohaa and features some important advantages and disadvantages.

So far, two released models wear symbiont armor, the Ectros and the Sakiel. The Ectros is an HI model while his symbiont armor is functioning, yet only ARM 3, but maintains a high MOV rate of 4-4. The Sakiel is an LI with ARM 2 and, again, MOV rate of 4-4. So Symbiont Armor does not seem to slow its wearer.

It's main advantage seems to lie in its ability to preserve its wearer longer than traditional armor.
Its wearer has two profiles: active and inactive. Its wearer uses the active profile from the start of the game until he reaches 0 wounds or the unconscious state. However, instead of going unconscious, he changes to his inactive profile with 1 wound, so can continue fighting with a new, weaker profile. In a way, you have to kill the wearer once, then he gets a new lease on life, at a weakened state. Neat!

Its disadvantages lie in that it is vulnerable to fire, which kills him outright with a single wound caused. Fire weapons are becoming more numerous, too, so this could be a big potential drawback to playing the Tohaa. In fact, their swarm grenades are also vulnerable to fire so the Tohaa players are really going to have to be mindful of what fire weapons the enemies carry.

Interestingly, the rules indicate that the Tohaa TAG will wearer symbiont armor, have wounds instead of structure points and will be vulnerable to fire. Hopefully this will lessen the points cost of fielding one, as it would be the only TAG in the game that could be killed outright by a single wound from a flamethrower.

Viral Weaponry and Poison
Tohaa are the first army to have access to viral combi-rifles. Only two of their released units have them - again the Ectros and Sakiel, but combined with swarm weapons, they will have a distinct advantage against units with low BTS values, like Ariadans and most line and medium infantry troops.

The Ectros has the rare poison special skill, which grants all his CC attacks the shock special rule. In addition poison causes a DAM 9 hit on opponents whenever the bearer suffers an unsaved wound in close combat. Not terribly powerful, but interesting nonetheless.

Spikey Hair
Nuff said.

Conclusion
The Tohaa will be a unique army to play. I believe they will be fragile but hit hard - an example of glass sledgehammers. Viral weapons and swarm grenades will put a serious hurting on their enemies, especially those LI and MI models. Symbiont Armor can help them last longer, but instant kills from fire are going to really hurt.

Yet, we're still only able to look at 4 units that have been released so how knows what the full Paradiso book will reveal as it comes out...I'm guessing regeneration and metachemistry models will be somewhere in their list...we'll just have to wait and see. Anyone know when that book is coming out?

Technocubes from Bostria

Terrain is on of the challenges and joys of the Infinity hobby. You need a decent amount of it and it needs to be different than 40k terrain - which is readily available.

When I first started looking at this game, something caught my eye. It was these green technocubes made by Bostria on the Infinity forums. They were smooth and high tech, and the green was very pleasing to the eye -  just like Infinity. 

I looked them up on-line but could only find templates for one of 3 different models, but I found all of the wall texture files. After about a year of meaning to do something, my office was throwing out a whole bunch of foamcore and being the dumpster-diving terrain builder that I am, I plucked out the choice-pieces and brought them home to begin my work. 

You really need a T-square and very sharp exacto-knife for this kind of thing. And you've got to have patience and go slowly. Measure, then measure twice. Cut once lightly, then again twice more very gently to get straight even lines on your foamcore. Then you have to measure out your sides and print your wall textures to fit. It can be slow going and it's precise work. I'm not sure if this is less effort than painting them yourself but it requires far less skill. Anyone can make these. There are no special skills required. 

Final pics will be posted, along with instructions and image files for the wall textures. 

Techno-crates

I finally finished the batch of techno-crates that I started many months ago.  They actually turned out better than I expected.  They're almost too pretty to run on the game board.  Anyway- after distributing a few to the other RP dudes and keeping a few for myself, I decided to cast as many more as I could before running out of resin and/or burning out the mold.  I've got a few left and I'm offering them for sale via Remote Presence.  Shipping/Handling between $3 and $7, depending on quantity and delivery location.

The photo pretty much sums it up.  If you are interested, you can email me at kkovarcik@gmail.com.

Weekly Infinity Update

What've I been up to?

After Adepticon, I got bitten by the building bug big time.  Also got bit by another sort of bug that caused persistent and uncomfortable respiratory issues (but we won't go there).  As a result, I didn't really make any progress on any figures.  Right now my workbench is covered with two magnetized IG Hellhounds, an IG Demolisher, an IG Valdor, 5 Future Cars, and 10 Technocrates.  So- in regards to the Infinity stuffs...

 The Future Cars from Antenocitis Workshop (see earlier post) were coated with Mr. Surfacer 500.  This served to even out any imperfections and also provide more tooth for the subsequent coats of acrylic paint.  Resin loves to chip off weak paints (read- without solvents!).  After the Mr. Surfacer I went ahead and used a brown gradient for all the windows.  It took about an hour, start to finish, with my airbrush and Tamiya acrylics.  Each car was then sealed with Testors Glosscoat.  The windows were then masked with painter's tape and the Spinners painted with Taimya spray blue and the Future Car painted with Tamiya Mica Red.  The Spinners then got two lighter highlight coats of blue.  As expected, once the tape came off, so did some of the paint beneath.  Fortunately it wasn't too bad and I was able to touch it up.  I've only pulled 5 of the cars out of the 10, and right now I'm adding black washes to the panel lines and black paint as a base coat for the tires and undercarriage.

The technocrates are proceeding pretty well.  I'm something of a perfectionist (read- anal retentive) so I really want this to come out nicely.  As with the Future Cars, I scrubbed the crates prior to priming.  Since they're less delicate, I literally scrubbed them, using a toothbrush and Simple Green.  Then I washed them in soap and water.  Then I hit them with Mr. Surfacer.  Then I used Armory Black paint.  Overkill?  No.  After airbrushing the basic grey color and some blue/gray highlights on the top panels, I masked off areas around the horizontal panels with low-tack painter's tape, airbrushed the colors I wanted, then CAREFULLY removed the tape.  Result?  Still lost a few chips of paint even after all the prep work.  Honestly, just a few tiny specs, so I can say I'm "OK" with it.  I'll probably have to airbrush the short ends the same way as the long panels, but that's for another day.  I'm thinking- decals for logos and insignia, but here's what I have thus far.

The photo shows my resin crates under the papercraft templates.  I've got about 20 resin copies that I'll be offering for sale in the near future.  My hope is to have the cars, the crates, and all the other bits and pieces of terrain ready for action at the NOVA Open.

Yu Jing Works In Progress

 I've been working on a couple Infinity figures from an earlier generation - with some scale differences. Apparently these were some of the early models to come out for the Infinity Yu Jing range. They weren't the first though - there is one god-awful Shaolin Monk model that was included in the first Yu Jing starter pack. This one is a later sculpt. Seems that Corvus Belli was working on a heroic scale in those days and has since scaled down to more lifelike sculpts. This monk stands a whole head taller than current models in power armor. I'm not bothered though, he's a great model. 

Even though he could be passable as a finished model, I'm not satisfied with a couple things, like his flowing orange robes and his chain rifle, so I'm going to be working on those before declaring him finished. His companion below is an odd model. She's doing a flip, which seems like a good idea but as a model, it's a bit strange. See most models have a focal point - the head. This is where a lot of the character sits and provides the viewer with a centered point. This monk model has no focal point so your eyes sort of wander and get lost. You're not sure where to center yourself. And the painter has nothing to really embellish with detail. 

The Gui'Lang Skirmisher on the other hand is a great dramatic sculpt. I've painted him in muted tones with Khaki and Chocolate brown. He's almost done though. In games he's been doing ok, but he isn't the hero I thought he would be. Armor 1, even with Camo Level 2, does not provide much protection when the bullets start flying. Though I expect him to be a regular sight in all my lists. 

Everybody was Kuang-Shi Fighting!

 Another post celebrating a awesome time at Adepticon.  First- a photo of (some of) the players and organizers.  John, the TO, is second from the far left, with his back to the camera.  Two of our regular crew are also pictured here.  Sure, we didn't get the giant conference hall / ball-room, but we also didn't get gamer stank.

Next batch of armies-  This is Tim's Yu Jing force.  Sadly, the vivid green boxtop made it rather difficult to get a good photo.  Bad Tim! Bad Tim!  Doesn't make much difference, since his Su Jian has already been featured on the blog.  He just needs to post pics of his more recently completed figures...

Lost Cateran brought his Aleph army... no, just kidding, it's his Ariadne force.  Check a few posts back to read his battle reports.

Kevin G brought his Nomads.  Good natured to the end, G took the far opposite of first place and walked away with an Inquisitor Sketchbook and Warhammer Fantasy paperback for his pain.  He seemed quite pleased, though on the Infinity Forum he posted a photo of a baby seal...

Adepticon Infinity Armies

First and foremost, I have to say the Infinity tournament at Adepticon was great fun.  Kudos and thanks to John and Co. for running it so well.  I won't bore anybody with battle reports (yet), but will go ahead and post some photos of the armies that showed up to play.

My first opponent, Andre, brought his Nomad army all the way in from Germany.  Andre teaches demo games back home and was helpful in setting me straight with some of the rules that I had been fuzzy on.  I had to apologize several times for being so slow in round 1.

In round 2, I faced off against Milan's Kazaks.  I learned the hard way how tough Dog Soldiers can be, and how chain guns can burn Kuang Shi out of trees with relative ease.  See that hot medic in the middle of the photo?  Sexy, but deadly- to her own troops.  Apparently Milan lost not one, but two of his own troops to her failed medical rolls.

Final opponent was Brian, the younger and more devious brother of Lost Cateran.  I played this game a bit more aggressively, but wound up losing due to a crap close combat roll by my Ninja and really awful deployment of my Yaokong.  Oops.

This was the army I took.  Their performance was middling, but apparently their livery was well received.

Lost Cateran Game 3 vs Corregidor

Game #3 was Holding the Prisoner, against Nomads. The goal was to rescue your own hostage being held by your opponent, while still holding on to your own hostage. The Hostage was Impetuous, Irregular, and belonged to their own Combat Group.

Game #3 Setup, with Hostages on either side

He had first turn, which he spent moving his Alguacile Linked team forward and discovering my Uxia McNeil. While she attempted to dodge, and get into cover, the Alguaciles finally took her out, as well as two of my Caterans (#2 and #3). He also pushed forward his Sputnik to back up his Alguaciles (I assume it was a Sputnik, since I never received a list from him).

I spent pretty much my entire turn picking off his Alguacile Linked team with my two remaining Caterans. I was also able to pull off a shot against his Sputnik, which killed him. I’m quite amazed as to how well my Caterans take out TAGs and Remotes. They’ve got quite the body count in that regard.

On his turn 2, he pushed his Tomcat onto the board, and proceeded to lay three mines right around the corner from my Galwegian #1, effectively hemming him in. He also put down suppressive fire with his Moran, and one Alguacile moved to my left flank.

My Wallace climbed up the platform with the helicopter on it (yes, that’s a helicopter) and shot at the Alguacile on the flank, killing her. The Moran’s suppressive fire hemmed my Cateran #1 in, so he moved forward to try to pick off the Tomcat. Instead, the Tomcat’s mine blew up, and killed the Cateran. Wallace pushed forward and proceeded to try to climb down from the roof of the platform. Rolled a 20 on his Physique roll, and he took a wound. He attacked the Tomcat in close combat and killed him.

My opponent sent his sole remaining Alguacile to kill Wallace, which wasn’t difficult as he had already taken a wound. This of course made all my troops impetuous, which proved to be a problem for holding the prisoner. The guard holding the prisoner is only allowed to make short movement skills- anything more and the prisoner/hostage is allowed to escape. Therefore, this allowed for my hostage to escape.

Well, I wasn’t going to have any of this. With my last turn, I allowed my Galwegian #3 to retreat, and shot at the hostage with a Chain Rifle from my Galwegian #2, killing the hostage. There was no way I was going to recapture the hostage with Irregular Impetuous troops, so I decided to gain the +25 points by killing the hostage, and deprive my opponent of his +50 points for having the hostage return to his deployment zone.

It was a tactically challenging game, and it was my only loss during the tournament. My opponent played a good game, and clearly knew what he was doing.

Lost Cateran Game 2 vs PanO

Game #2 against PanO was based on quarters, similar to the spearhead deployment of 40K. The obejctive was to capture quarters. My opponent was very good, and he knew what he was doing. He had some nice tools that made my life difficult, primary of which being TO Camo. In the end, however, it came down to my own stupidity that brought the game to a draw.

Game #2 Setup, with quarters superimposed

My opponent’s first turn was spent trying to shoot at my Galwegians, which I had foolishly left in the open. One Galweigan dodged successfully, but Wallace did have to take one wound. Thank goodness for No Wound Incapacitation. I was not going to risk his life again. He also tried to discover my Caterans #1 and #2, to no avail.

In my turn, I popped Caterans #1 and #2 out of camo and gunned down the ORC Trooper and forced the Fusilier to stay prone behind the rim of the building roof. My Uxia McNeill started just rampaging up his right flank, taking out the Fusilier at the bottom and his Fusilier on the roof in prone. My goal was to go around and start taking out his Fusiliers from behind. However, his Swiss Guard showed up out of TO Camo and proceeded to gun Uxia down. She earned her points back, I’ll give her that.

The next round was frustrating for both of us. My opponent and I proceeded to keep on trying to shoot one another from across the board with some severe negative modifiers. My Cateran had mimetism and cover, his Swiss Guard had TO Camo.

I was able to move Cateran #1 forward, in an attempt to try to grab some of the Fusiliers my Uxia missed. That’s when he revealed his Croc Man in TO Camo. With all the bad luck I had from shooting at the Swiss Guard, I got one lucky shot off with my Cateran, and the Croc Man fell in an order.

The Swiss Guard finally succeeded in killing Cateran #2, and moved his Fusilier into the top right quarter to claim that quarter for him.

My Galwegians with Wallace

Now, my last turn I completely flubbed up. I really wanted to kill that Swiss Guard, since I knew that he was making up ~80 points of his force. I sent my Galwegians on a futile mission to take out the Swiss Guard, but they were just not getting close enough to the Swiss Guard. Eventually, I had to give up. I also wanted to move Cateran #3 and #4 off the rooftop (still in Camo, thanks to Climbing Plus) and move them into the top right quarter, thus claiming that quarter for me. Afterwards, I realized mistakenly that I did not have enough orders left to get my Caterans into that quarter, so the top right quarter was left for him and his fusilier.

All in all, I killed all but his Swiss Guard and a Fusilier, but that was enough for him to take two quarters and bring the game to a draw. The last turn was sheer stupidity for me. I should have split up the Caterans and sent one into the top right quarter. I was frustrated, but my opponent played a good game. And he ended up coming in at 2^nd place in the overall tournament, so I should not feel too bad.

On to Game #3…

Lost Cateran Game 1 vs. Ariadna

So, Game #1 was against Ariadna, and it was essentially Control the Terminals. As it was against Ariadna, neither of us had hackers, which put us on roughly a similar playing field. I would say, out of the three games, this was the most cerebrally challenging game. My opponent was a skilled player, and both of us knew the capabilities of the other’s list. My opponent was also a great guy, and I had a lot of fun playing him.

The starting lineup, to the best of my recollection

My opponent had first turn, so he moved his Galwegian into base-to-base with Marker #1 and claimed the first Marker. I made a tactical error in popping Uxia out of camo to try to shoot at the Galwegian, but he had his Loup-Garou there for backup and shot her to pieces before she could do a thing.

My first turn consisted of my pushing my Galwegians up the side of the board in a linked team, and breaking the team after three orders. Throwing some smoke grenades, I pushed on Galwegian into the fray. He took a wound in the process, so I continued to spend orders on him until the very end. He went berserk on the Tankhunter with ADHL and finally Chain Rifled the Line Kazak behind him before the turn ended.

At this point, my opponent was in Loss of Lieutenant, so he nominated a new lieutenant.

I proceeded to push my now unlinked Galwegians into the fray, aiming to take out that Viral Rifle that concerned me so much. My two remaining Galwegians died, one to a viral shot to the face, and one to a Tankhunter shot from above with an Autocannon (yeah, messy). The one up-shot to this gamble was that it revealed the second Tankhunter, allowing me to take him out with my Cateran #1.

My opponent proceeded to push up the middle with his Dog Warrior, which concerned me. My Caterans would not stand a chance against a dog warrior. After roughly five orders and him transforming into a dogface form, I finally took him out with Cateran #2 and #3. He also pushed his Loup Garou with Viral Rifle forward, threatening my Wallace, who was still behind cover.

Attempting to climb up the wall to get to Marker #3, Wallace failed to do so (a theme that would continue to repeat itself throughout the tournament, despite PH 14). However, I was able to take out his Veteran Kazak with two T2 Cateran shots from Cateran #3 and #4.



Caterans #3 and #4, with Cateran #1 in the distance (#2 is under the catwalk)

At this point, my opponent was in Retreat mode, with 2 Loup Garous and a Galwegian left. Wallace threw a smoke grenade, climbed up, claimed Marker #3 and got back down before the smoke went away, as he still had his viral rifle trained on Wallace.

After this final turn, my opponent and I called it. We had both claimed one marker, but I only lost 46 points, where he had lost 154. Still, it was a Minor Victory for me and a Minor Loss for him. I decided against trying to go for the middle marker, as it would have been risky to get Wallace in and out of there effectively. In hindsight, maybe I should’ve taken the chance?

All in all, great game against a great player! On to Game #2.

Lo pan's Su Jian Showcase

Lo Pan, fellow author, sent me this photo of his recently completed Su Jian, Immediate Action Unit. I simply love that orange! Plus the NMM is pretty slick too.

The Armies of Infinity: Pan Oceania

Pan Oceania is the largest, most advanced and richest society in the Human Sphere. Its culture is rooted in the former nations of the West - Germany, France, Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia- and forms a conglomerate power with the most planets under its control.

It's forces and model range include a large variety of units, including  plenty of TAGs and Remotes. Its heavy infantry are among the best in the game and even it's line troops pack a punch with their higher than average Ballistic Skill, granted them by the most advanced targeting systems and training, 

In today’s post I’m going to take a look at Pan Oceania’s strengths and drawbacks, and talk about some of the great ways to play a Standard Pan Oceania force. Pan Oceania has three distinct Sectorial Armies, that are drawn from different planets and regions. Sectorial Armies are basically regional armies, but today we are only going to look at Pan Oceania lists, non-Sectorial.

Ballistic Skill

The first thing you will notice about Pan Oceania forces is that they have a higher average ballistic skill than others. This is because their technology includes advanced targeting systems that most other factions do not have access to. In the game, Pan Oceania have about one or two points higher in ballistic skill so they will make successful rolls to-hit about 5%-10% of the time. This advantage only gets enhanced when you arm your troops with weapons with a high rate of fire like HMGs and Spitfires.

TAGs

Pan Oceania is the undisputed king of TAGs. It has the widest variety and the best TAGs in the game. The Cutter is a complete beast, sporting a high armor value, a deadly weapon and thermal optical camouflage. The Jotum, which has just been released as a stunning new model, has one of the highest armor values in the game, and an impressive weapon loadout. Even the somewhat weaker TAGs have neat tricks, like the Seraph that comes to battle with an Auxbot, a small remote drone that protects it and carries a heavy flamethrower. Even the light TAGs with ARM 6 have things like Camouflage that make them stand out. 

Visors
Visors are all over the place in the standard Pan Oceania list. With a somewhat lower WIP than most armies, Pan Oceania makes up for it by access to multispectral visors of all levels, and even the rare, Level 3 visor which completely bypasses the WIP roll to discover camouflaged troops. In contrast, Yu Jing has relatively few units with visors, at times forced to rely on template weapons like flamethrowers and chain rifles to root out camouflaged enemies. 


Hackers
I mentioned that Pan Oceania has a slightly lower WIP score than most and this will come into play when looking at their hackers. Hackers rely on WIP to hack, and need a decent BTS to win face-to-face hacking rolls. Most Pan Oceania hackers have a WIP of 13 and no BTS value. Only the Kamau and the unique character, Father-Officer Gabrielle, have a -6 BTS and a WIP of 13 and 14 respectively. These are the two primary hackers in Pan Oceania and really the only ones worth selecting for your force. 


Smoke
With all those lovely visors, it would be incredibly awesome for Pan Oceania to have a good deal of smoke grenades, but this isn't the case. You see, there is this neat combo in Infinity of dropping a smoke grenade and ordering your troops with multispectral visors level 2, to fire through it, without the risk of return fire. Pan Oceania can't do this. Why? Because the only smoke grenades they get are Zero-V, meaning that no visor can shoot through them. So that is one very useful combo of which Pan Oceania cannot take advantage. 


Warbands
Interestingly, Pan Oceania has no warband units. Not having them isn't really a drawback, as they can be difficult to use at first, but it does mean that Pan Oceania has no access to cheap bodies, other than Mulebots at 8 points - which are pretty useless other than the order they provide. In other armies, Warbands can have their uses in disrupting the enemy for only 5 points a pop. A Pan Oceania player probably won't lament over this though, as Warbands can also die horribly before ever making an impact on the game. 

Units of Note
Nisses from Svalarheima. Equipped with a MS-visor Level 2, Mimetism, Armor 3 and respectable BS of 13, Nisses can take on-coming fire and dish out some respectable firepower of their own.


Knights Hospitaller. One of the few (if only) heavy infantry models with the Doctor skill (as opposed to the Medikit). Both a killer combat troop and a doctor - 2 for the price of 1. 


Aquila Guard. Has one of highest Ballistic Skills in the game, an MS visor Level 3 and access to some heavy weapons. Great for taking out camouflaged models. 


Cutter: A TAG with TO camouflage, how could you go wrong?


Magister Knights. Relatively cheap Heavy Infantry Models with Panzerfausts. Fast and deadly, a wicked combination. Magister Knights are the heat-seeking missile of the Pan Oceania force. 


Father-Officer Gabrielle De Fersen. Another dual use model - a fighter and a hacker, and a damn good hacker at that. 


Those are just a few of Pan Oceania's best troops, I'm sure you'll find others that perform beyond expectations (ahem, Swiss Guard). 


Conclusion
Pan Oceania certainly has its strengths - its forces are going to be fielding accurate firepowerand some scary TAGs with an ability to deal with camouflaged troops . They've got plenty of tricks of their own, like loads of Thermal Optical Camouflage, but they don't get it all.


Their WIP scores are lower than most, so they won't be making as many doctor or hacking rolls as you might think. Standard Lists have little access to good close-combat troops, not that they are that important in Infinity, but still worth mentioning. In addition, their hackers, with the exception of Father Gabrielle and the Kamau, are pretty weak. Pan Oceania do have some pretty amazing units though, like all armies in Infinity. 

Personally, I'd never field a list without at least one of the following - Swiss Guard, Cutter, Jotum, Aquila Guard or Nisse. These are some of the most powerful choices at hand for Pan Oceania and they all have beautiful models, which is a huge plus for Pan Oceania. Besides the Fusilier, most models in Pan Oceania are simply gorgeous and have a respectable Ballistic Skill in a shooting-based game, so you really can't go wrong. 


In future posts, we'll take a look at some of the Sectorial Armies, but up next we're going to look at my personal favorite, Yu Jing. Stay tuned. 

Holoboards and Power Fields

or "She blinded me...with SCIENCE!"

After working on the modular wall project a few months ago, I thought it might be nice to get a bit fancy and add holoboards and power field walls. Since both endeavors were "in progress", I never posted anything here. I thought I had... but apparently not. Anyway, I went online to see if I could find transparent fluorescent acrylic sheets that could be used in the aforementioned capacity. I was lucky, and found Inventables online. They have some really nifty stuff that would work wonders on any futuristic terrain display.

First up was the simplest project- power fields. Using fluorescent orange acrylic sheet, I cut out small sections and carved in a criss-cross pattern using the back-edge of an eXacto knife*. These power fields will be integral parts of the wall sections, so I had to create appropriately sized brackets from sheet styrene and rod. All the walls and brackets are current out for painting, but here's a shot showing the concept and a finished field.

The second project was a bit trickier, and to be honest- I cheated. I used fluorescent green acrylic sheet for these, and cut out blocks of similar size to the power fields. However, knowing that I wanted more than just lines going back and forth, I left this project alone until I was able to find somebody who was willing to do some laser etching for me.


I got lucky. That being said, I still expect at some point to do hand carving, but in the mean time... well, damn, but these just look good. They'll need their own support structures, and I'm thinking that something that fits on top of wall sections or can stand on it's own is what I need. Soon...

*eXacto knives are very sharp. Use them carefully. Have bandages nearby just in case. Just sayin...

Builder vs. Collector

You ever reach a point where you realize that you've managed to accrue more models or miniatures than you'll ever be able to build? That's the point you shift, officially, from a Builder to a Collector. I hit that point years ago with my scale model collection, but now I'm approaching it with my wargaming collect...uh... backlog. Since starting Infinity about a year ago, my 40k stuff has been put on hold. What stuff? A whole Death Korps army, a bunch of Space Marines, and a few Tau XV9 suits. And 2 titans, but we won't discuss them.


Here's a current photo of my workbench. You can see at the top of the picture there are two XV9 suits ready to be painted. Next to them is a great bag of human skulls from Secret Weapon Miniatures. Further to the right is a Gang from Necromunda (displaced from their foam by the forces of the Jade Empire...). To the left is a stack of 4 new Yu Jing blisters (plus Sforza...). The work area is occupied by my "second round" of Infinity minis- Celestial Guard special weapons, some Ninjas, a HMG Hsien, some Yaozao, a Sophotect, a Su-Jian, and a Garuda. These guys (and gals) are about 90% complete, but I know sooner rather than later I'll wind up with another stack in the background...

Vallejo paints are scattered on the bench- I've started transitioning from GW to Vallejo because there is more variation and also the paint containers are far more practical. Anyway, just another post to remind everybody that we're still alive and kicking. Maybe I should shoot to complete the 3rd batch by the time we hit 100 followers. LOL

Yu Jing Tiger Soldier and Airborne Deployment Thoughts

My latest Infinity model, the Tiger Soldier; Medium infantry, Airborne Deployment L3, combi rifle, flame thrower, mimetism, great statline. Mimetism probably makes him one of the best Airborne Deployment units in the game, as does his BS of 13. 

I often like to drop him down using L3 deployment (deepstriking), but occasionally I'll switch to L2 (outflanking) which is a little safer. Even if you use a combat drop, he has a 60% chance to land where you want him. 

Airborne Deployment is great for flanking the enemy and creating less clear lanes of advance. A crossfire effect is pretty nice too. Sometimes he'll be positioned in such a way that the enemy can't do much without taking AROs from multiple sides. 

He's been painted with GW paints, Vallejo paints and old school GW inks. 

Showcase: Sun Tze

A bit of eye candy. Since our weekly game got snowed out last time, and I've got nothing worth sharing from the "in progress" catalogue, I thought I'd post a few photos of Sun Tze.


I entered him in an online competition via the Infinity forum back in December. He didn't make the final cut, but that's fine- he does fairly well on the game board with Stragegos L3 and some other nifty features.


The mini features some freehand details on the cloak and shoulder pad, and for fun I tried doing some OSL on his gauntlet.


The only thing I'm not happy with is how a relatively thick mold line runs right down one of his eyes. I just couldn't get rid of all of it.