Showcase Photo

I finally got around to taking some decent photos of the miniatures and terrain we've been using for our games of Infinity.  Hopefully I can post one "showcase" photo per week.

Floor tiles are from Zombicide, car is from Antenocitis Workshop.  Other terrain is scratchbuilt (covered in previous posts).

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…

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. 

Game Gallery

We still haven't mastered the combined art of Gaming, Drinking, Taking Photos, and Recording Movement. 3 out of 4 ain't bad. Without further ado- here's some eye candy from a game between OSH's Yu Jing and Morgrim's Pan-O armies. I give you- "the Battle for District 8".

Techno-viking orders Pan-O to "Obey", and they oblige!

...but Yu Jing is well protected

...and ready to deliver long-range death.

"Cover me..."

Any moment now...

Pan Oceania Cutter Showcase

Here it is. The Pan Oceania Cutter for Infinity the Game. The TAG came out really well. I'm still trying to get a handle on photographing miniatures so parts of the model are out of focus. 

 For the color scheme I basically followed GW's Space Wolves scheme. It's always been one that I've admired and copying it on to a model from a different manufacture really renewed the look. I've made some tweaks but essentially I've stuck true to it.

You can see my attempt at Object Source Lighting, or OSL. I looked up a bunch of OSL tutorials on-line and found a very good one from Massive Voodoo. I haven't mastered it yet and looking at these pictures now I can see some areas that I need to re-touch. 

What a nice crotch! I actually wanted to share this part because it was in focus and because it displayed some of the Non-Metallic Metal or NMM I produced on this model. NMM is always something to improve upon as it is such a time consuming and difficult technique to master. The important thing is making sure you highlight all the way up to white without it looking choppy or showing any brushstrokes. 

OSL

More OSL. 

Here you can actually see an area that needs to re-worked. The light should be reflecting on his biceps and his upper forearm a little more. 

Constructive feedback and criticism is very much welcome. He's still a work in progress so I can make any amendments as needed.