Grammar Check

Hi again all

Just a note that it's far easier for me to keep Instagram up to date than it is to write a blog post, so if you're interested, have a look here: @loftybloke

Cheers

Eventful

Still quite sombre I'm afraid. I felt a lot of pressure to provide updates to this blog, whilst also feeling a lot of the time like I was talking to myself. On top of some recent things that have happened, this wasn't really helping.

Going forward there wont be any structure to posts, I'll just add something when I feel it's worth writing about.

I'm attending two events in May:
Infinity - Northern open 13 in Leeds May 19th.
Dark Age Nationals at Element Games May 12th.

I'm going to be focused on getting both painted and ready for the events and will share progress here when I have it/feel like I can share. I've set up a Trello board to try and use my time better and plan out the painting required etc.

Dark Age is a game I've admired the miniatures for for a very long time, but my gaming buddy of nearly 3 decades has 'only got room in his life for one skirmish game'. It's also not something my wife is really interested in, and none of the guys at work really need a second game whilst they are getting into Infinity.

Anyway, I decided to do something other than regret never playing this game, even if it is only a few games a year or something. I reached out to the community on Facebook, and there is a decent player base in the UK but the play space is being refurbed at the moment. The UK rep for the game got in touch and told me about the Nationals event in May, and that new players would be welcome, and I wouldn't be the only one with few to no games played before then. It took me a long while to get off the fence and sign up after deliberating transport and model costs. The Event organiser said I would be able to borrow models for the event but I decided to spend some of my recent pay rise backdate pay and grab everything I would need to play, which is hopefully coming before the event from Element games! There are some issues with EU supply of the models i'm told.

I chose the Kukulkani (K3) as my faction after spending a lot of time considering the Prevailers/Forsaken. The models are really nice, and distinct, and some of you may know how much i hate playing human races in fantasy/sci-fi/roleplay. I'm already a human, where is the fun?!
The list I have is below.

Kukulkani Faction Starter
- War Captain
- Honor Guard
- Warrior*3
- Harvester *3
- Ah'Chu'Kuk
Cabrakan
Devoted Priest

I fully intend to expand this force eventually so that I'm not reliant on one powerful model, but playing a few games at the event will help me decide what I would like/need next.

I'm hoping to put my airbrush to good use here but after recent experiences i'm a bit skeptical. I will probably end up buying airbrush dedicated paints at least to rule out my own thinning methods as a problem causer.

The Cabrakan is a large 80mm base model centerpiece, and also handily 200 points which allows me to get to the 750 point requirement a bit more easily with the 500point starter and ironically more cost effective than buying unit boxes of lower point value.

The infinity event came about after some coercing from my friend at work, and I decided 'why the hell not', as it will be a day of games even if I place poorly, I enjoy the game and seeing other peoples models, and it will be a great learning curve.

Below is the list of models I will be using and want to be fully done by the event. There may be some extras done alongside these, but at a lesser priority.

Lastly I have assembled my Orlock gang and have started teaching my friends the rules in preparation for our campaign. I'm also looking forward to the new Forgeworld extras for gangs and will be expanding my crew in the future.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

I'm going to be taking a break from blogging for various personal reasons.

Maybe short term, maybe long term, maybe forever.

I just want to say thanks to anyone that has read the blog, benefited from a write up, or just stopped by to look at a picture.

Keep on hobbying.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Gone Fishin'

I stumbled across a great blog recently with a Facebook page chock full of beautifully painted Infinity miniatures, and one post in particular featuring a bag for taking models to an Infinity Tournament.

https://scarhandpainting.com/fishing-bag-rather-a-tournament-hobby-bag/

I have been taking just the models I need to work in a small biscuit tin crammed into my regular work bag. Something like this would be great, and works better for taking a larger force, or everyone at once if need be.

I couldn't quite find the same kind of bag, and I checked my local Lidl supermarket to no avail. Whilst looking though, I ended up on a site which I used exclusively for foam back in the day. KRMulticase are fantastic, good quality and low price alternative to Battllefoam/GW cases and a really nice guy to boot. They have a bag with Dropzone Commander logos on for half price which fit what I wanted after seeing the blog post above. It was out of stock and not planned to be restocked, so I ended up with a generic version of the same bag. I did some measurements and the old cupcake carrier combo will fit in this with room to spare. I was worried that TAGs would be too tall for the box and I'd have to work out a solution, but the Raicho fits in fine and I believe he is one of the taller Combined army TAG s as the rest look rather hunched

The bag allows me to carry my minis, and lunchbox etc for gaming at work, and should be a lot more secure than the biscuit tin in a backpack setup that's on currently. It also has plenty of room for tokens and books and all that fun stuff :)

Thanks for Stopping by
Lofty

Wednesday Warzone

This is it, what we've (I've) all been waiting for.
300 points of Infinity. A full game.

We are playing at the house of the chap that is teaching everyone at the moment after work tomorrow, and my friend who recently picked up nomads is joining us as spectator to hopefully learn something :)

We decided on Frontline as a mission, as it's relatively straightforward and kill based, but also has the simple extra of controlling zones further up the board. I ended up with the below list after some feedback and further tweaking:

The second group will be relatively autonomous due to all the orders they are generating between impetuous and irregular, and the other combat group will have a Morat link for order efficiency, allowing the TAG to rambo a bit more.

It was a whole lot of fun. I did a lot of second guessing myself during deployment etc. I ended up deploying my Hungries link in a good position only to have an MSV Nisse sniper staring down at them, I should have picked deployment order better. Needless to say, as smoke couldn't save them they got picked off before being in anyway effective.

Raicho and Dr Worm were MVP by a long way, the former for being an all round tank/damage dealer and the latter for stitching his arms back on! I didn't use the Kurgat at all, which is annoying as he is an expensive order generator, and the link team didn't achieve much due to my lack of ability to utilise cover effectively.

All in all it was a very fun first game, and not as one sided as I anticipated that it might be!
Here's to many more

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Air of Authority

Had some more mixed airbrush results recently. I was working from home on Friday so I had some time after logging off and chose to get as much of my Combined Army as possible undercoated with the blue colour I've chosen to start from.

No matter how thick I had the paint mix, it seemed to not be sticking, and pooling on the miniatures... This of course was after I filled the reservoir with a whole heap of blue, only to realise that it was the wrong blue... I persevered, thinking maybe another coat would do the trick once the first was dry but it didn't seem to help at all.

Later that night I tried to salvage some of the models with a mix of the blue base coat and Lahmian medium to attempt to make the finish a bit more matte.
In the cold light of morning the next day, the salvaged models looked fine. Great news. So did all the others though, so they never needed salvaging in the first place.
There are a number of things I think that went wrong here -
Poor light while airbrushing
Wrong temperature - I had the window open to vent the airbrush booth, maybe too cold
No glasses - They don't fit on my face with the respirator mask

I was completely downtrodden when I packed everything up on Friday night, but seeing the basecoat dried on those models I managed to undercoat makes me feel like I will do this again at some point to get everything undercoated, and some blending on larger models too perhaps, and OSL

We played our weekly Malifaux game on Sunday, and I think Titania finally clicked for me. Supporting Barbaros and Nekima is easy! They both had Fears Given Form which i felt a little bad a bout. At one point poor Cojo had to test for Titania's friendly scheme marker rule, and two lots of fears. He didn't make it...
We played Mark of authority, which was a lot of fun as well. Good game all around, including a couple of new scenery pieces :)

I'm currently planning out 300 points of Morats for a game after work on Wednesday so watch this space!

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Thursday Throwdown

Infinity Thursdays is turning into a regular thing at work, which is great. Today we are using smaller lists ~100 points in order to get more turns completed and to fit into the hour better. Also, one of our spectators from last week's game has just invested in a decent amount of Aleph and is getting his intro game today as well :D

Yes, I lost (yes again shutup), but it's always fun. I should have taken an extra body instead of a HMG, or maybe a raktorak. Hey ho

There is talk of sorting out a proper escalation league at work during lunches/after hours as well which will be great once all interested parties are ready to start playing.

I want to get a blue basecoat done this weekend by hook or by crook as I keep ending up with other things to do when  plan that in. Once the blue is done, the rest of the paint scheme is simple enough so this will help a lot with getting things table ready :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Weekend WIP

I finally got around to painting some Infinity stuff. I've been nervous about painting them for a while after chatting with the guy at work who encouraged me back to the game as he is pretty handy with his airbrush. With my experience so far and what turns out to be pretty shaky painting hands I'm not sure I'm going to achieve the same results for a while... I'm happy to use it for mass basecoating though to save time and work from there.

So I got a 'test model' painted. Vanguard hacker who I wouldn't have minded having to strip the paint off as I can't see it being very commonly fielded. I really like the way it has come together, other than wanting to start from a darker grey to highlight up next time.

The backpack, and power nodes on larger models will get the OSL treatment from the airbrush, which I'm going to practice on something else next time I get everything setup :)
I'm not sure if anything else needs doing to the base, like a different colour in the gaps between hexes, but I will be coming back to do some weathering at least.

Which leads me onto the next picture.

These are the two bases for the remotes which I'd never be able to paint once when were based :) I originally had them quite a blue grey which I wanted to shade down, but decided on a contrasting colour for the blue armour, and plumped for the yellowy brown. I've added some scratches and sponged on some dark brown weathering type effects. I will highlight some of the dings and scratches and maybe add some rust or something similar as well :)

I'm looking forward to translating the colour scheme to the larger Morats and adapting it for the Unidrons etc as well. Hoping to get some airbrush time in either on Wednesday evening or at the weekend to get everything blued up

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Acrylic Paradise

Being a bit of a magpie, combined with the number of different markers/tokens used in Infinity, it was inevitable that I would end up with a few bits and pieces.
I started off with a simple order token set from my favourite token shop Chimeric Designs. After playing a few games, I got the feel for what other tokens I needed for my Morats. I also added a purple Lieutenant order to make it easier to differentiate from the regular orders.

From left to right - Irregular, Impetuous, Spearhead, Link leader, Harris link, Command, Prone, Regular Order, Lieutenant order (later replaced with a purple token), Suppression. There is also a ruler which is handy for movement skills rather than the tape measure.
I love this shop, the guy that runs it is always really good, and the suppression tokens weren't available, he mocked up a design and added them to my list of other tokens and then invoiced me for everything :)

Next up, I wanted some Silhouette markers and found these via a quick wesbearch. I really like them, and they match the colour of the other blue tokens I have. They also had some generic infinity tokens which happen to have the Combined Army Symbol on them for whatever reason, but I couldn't really say no :)

Lastly I wanted some weapon templates. I knew that the smoke markers are the large blast template but the websearch which gave me the templates also had a nifty feature for smoke markers. The marker goes down, and then fits inside the large template if the zone of coverage needs to be checked. Very handy :)

I almost regret getting clear weapon templates, but I wanted them to match the smoke and they look nice at any rate.

That should be it for now, I cut out the card markers that came with the drone box as I don't really know what they are or when they would be used but if it turns out they are required a lot for the drones, I will pick up some acrylics from Chimeric Designs.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Canned

I recently picked up some scenery that I have been on the lookout for a while. I saw these bad boys, and later these but was reluctant to order something fragile from overseas and risk damage after paying a decent amount in shipping/customs. I dismissed the idea pretty much entirely until I stumbled across this ebay listing. At that price, I couldn't resist and bought a set of 3 plain ones and a set of 3 with the walkway.

Don't get me wrong, I'd much prefer the Promethium Forge kits, but at this price, these are absolutely fantastic. They were a little tricky to assemble, and the 'instructions' were just pictures of the parts and the finished product, but once I had done one of each, the rest was fine. I really like the look of these, and have some green stuff fans and vents cast up from instamold ready to embellish them with as well as ideas for painting and weathering for the cans.

Again, for the price I love these kits and think they look great. I'll probably set them up in pairs or threes to mix up the two different types. These will also do just fine for either Infinity or Necromunda.

I'm going to start grabbing bits for an infinity table each payday hopefully, to spread the cost a bit. This ebay seller is going to be doing kits for vertical cans so I hope they look like what I'm after and I will probably grab those too. Especially since I have pretty much all the Morats I want (for now!) and definitely have enough for a lot of choice at 300 points.

Thanks for Stopping by
Lofty

Sunday Showdown - Gaining Grounds

We threw down again on the tabletop this weekend, just my wife and I though.

We played GG18 for the first time in order to try and start getting used to the schemes & strats. I took Titania again in order to further cement the rules and intricacies in my head. I was facing down Marcus in a (shockingly) beast heavy list.

I thought I was being clever taking a Waldgeist in order to slow the progress of the supply wagon, only to later realise that it is unaffected by terrain. This did however allow me to clog the path of the wagon with the Waldgeist's extended melee range when in contact with his germinate markers.

Barbaros once again earned his keep, with his challenge aura and Fears Given Form, but it's still Titania I feel that I'm not getting maximum use out of really. Practice makes perfect and all that :)

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Into the Thick of it

It feels like a great start to the new year! I'm very grateful for the encouragement of my work colleagues and our nascent Infinity community :P

We got another learner game on Thursday with our newly interested member and that was great fun yet again. I think we are suffering a little now from the size of the available play area (one of the mototronica mats) but time and space are a limitation to do anything bigger so it's fine for now while we get a proper handle on the rules.

Next game I'm going to take a link team of vanguard to see what the rules for fireteams are like, I know vaguely about a few rules but only from watching reports on Youtube so it will be good to get some first hand experience and cement the rules in my head properly. I tried running the Oznat/hungries link team in our recent game but decided in the end to use them un-linked to make things more streamlined, but they were pretty good on their own :)

I picked up some more markers which I will be showcasing once everything has arrived, but so far I have some Silhouette markers which I really like, and I have some non-order tokens coming from one webstore, and some smoke & weapon templates coming from another, so watch this space for a review/picture gallery on those :)

I've got my Remotes on my desk at the moment, basic assembly all done but I'm working out how best to magnetise them which may require some new magnets of a specific size. I really like the idea, rules and look of the remotes so I hope to include them a fair amount in lists, especially with Dr Worm and his minions. The basic remote is 8 points which I think is one of the cheapest orders available to the Morat Aggression force, and the TR HMG option is something I'm very much looking forward to putting to use! I have everything except the remotes assembled at the moment so I will do a family photo at some point soon as well.
I've also started collecting scenery for a home table for Infinity, but I've started with a couple of items which will also pull double duty for Necromunda terrain, again watch this space for photos and review!

Lots coming up in the next few weeks, but work is throwing me a curve ball with a couple of 4am starts for out of hours deployments coming up regularly for a month or so, so i'm not sure what kind of state i'll be in for decent blog posts and reviews, so bear with me!

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

The Living Infinite - Payload

I feel like I was quite restrained on Payday:

After a pretty good weekend of assembling and base prep, I got to the below stage with Unidrons ready for magnets, Vanguard weapons team ready to be pinned to bases for detail to be added, and Sogarat, Doctor Worm , and Raicho Pilot all ready to be attache to bases and then detailed.

I did take a look at the Drone box, but there are a lot of components in there and I couldn't face it after cleaning and assembling the rest so they are a project for this week.

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty

The Living Infinite - Drop it like its hot

We played our second Lunchtime session on Tuesday, but this time it was me versus the spectator from last week, who has since gone on to buy the Nomad starter set! I'm obviously such a great opponent, how could anyone resist getting into the game after that :p

The formats were repeated from the previous game with one round of three v three which I lost, and one round of 6 or so guys versus the same. I used the Morat starter set plus a Fraacta drop troop as I had just finished and based it to bring. The drop troop did very well, and I like the model to boot so this was great. I lost heavily to a Morlock rampaging down one side of the board and chain rifling with abandon, and my Morats were lined up along the back of the building just asking to be template weaponed to death :(

I really need to think about deployments, I could have been prone on top of the building that I was hiding behind. I don't really mind for starter games where I tend to play 'in character' for the Morats anyway, but this will really hurt me when I start playing 'real games'.

The game ended with a nice cinematic of my Sogarat shrugging off ARO fire to climb the steps of the objective building, missing all his HMG shots and getting pretty much cut in half by a Brigada with boarding shotgun (he needed 19s to hit me at that range!)

I'm going to keep on reading the Infinity wiki to learn more rules, and I've started ordering the rest of the tokens I want in lieu of payday tomorrow :)

Lastly, and with no small amount of shame I'll admit to dropping my entire box of models (all my assembled Infinity mans that I'd taken to choose from that day) on it's top when I was taking it back upstairs to the study/game room :(
I was very nervous of opening it to check the damage, but more than luckily the only damage was a few chips to basecoats.
The irony though is that the Fraacta that I was so impressed with in the game took a real beating to it's wing/drop pack and this needed snapping off , filing down and pinning...
All's well that ends well I suppose, but I feel beyond stupid!

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

Sunday Showdown - First of Many

We christened our gaming room this Sunday when our friends came over to play Malifaux :)

I faced off against Kirai while my friend and my wife played Mcmourning into Marcus respectively. The strategy was Extraction and I took Dig Their Graves and Quick Murder.
My list was:
Titania
-6cache
-Aether connection
-An audience with the queen
-Behold my Glory
Barbaros
-Malifaux Provides
Nekima
-Fears Given Form
Thorn
Tooth
Primordial magic
Mysterious effigy

Barbaros and Nekima were definitely MVP in this one, challenge Aura sitting in the middle of the board can ruin a lot of plans. I didn't manage to combo it with Titania's Behold upgrade, but having it next to Fears Given Form was a good stack. Nekima did cause more points of damage to friendly models than I care to admit if I'm honest :p especially Titania herself.
I scored full for quick murdering Izamu, full for dig and dropped a point in turn 5 when I moved Titania to stop scoring from Claim Jump. The final score was 9-7, I struggled vs accusation as I don't really know how to prevent it happening to be honest. I still feel i'm under utilising Titania herself, but feel like I'm getting the hang of it, and feel like this crew was very well suited to the strategy and was succesful to boot.

Lots of fun and a great way to start with the new gaming space :)
My (Mcmourning) friend was also very interested in my Infinity models in a strange turn of events and was asking about game play and mentioned Nomads, so who knows what will happen there. I'm going to plan out some scenery/gamemat purchases so that my work friends can come over to play eventually, as well as it being usable for both Necromunda and 40k at a push :) I also want a few more pieces of Malifaux scenery as well to fill out both boards.

Thanks for stopping by
Lofty

The Living Infinite - Rule of Cool

Running with the momentum from the intro games last week, I sat down and started on the next couple of additions to my force. The Oznat did well, with smoke being useful, and the Vulkan shotgun being impressive. The 'Hungries' are models that filled me with dread when I unwrapped them from eBay as they are very spindly and wouldn't be able to be realistically pinned to the bases due to the small contact points. However, they were well assembled so I left them how they were and re-attached the two missing heads.
I took inspiration from Ash Barker's basing method for Infinity models from his blog as this would fit pretty well around the awkward attachment points

I added plasticard in layers, and later clipped/cut/sanded it as flush as possible to the bases, I also later added the white texture paste from Vallejo that I've been using a lot recently, although that isn't pictured. This also helped mask sloppy joins in between off cuts of card.

Also featured here is my Evil space wizard Umbra Legate, who I'm looking forward to painting, even though he doesn't really fit into a force currently. He can however form a Harris link with Xeodrons...
I seem to have got the hang of the press mold for the Hex bases, and the other half of the base will be made up in plasticard and texture paste like the others.

There's another guy at work who is interested in Infinity, and he came to watch our game last week. I think he is more interested in painting really more than anything but he is going to borrow some Nomads to play me in another learner game hopefully soon. More games for me, more Infinity friends altogether ^_^

I've been reading the Infinity wiki in lunchtimes/during my commute in the hope of getting the hang of things like suppression & fireteams. It's hard going but I think it's something that I need to see in action before it will really click. There's no rush though and no need to run before i'm done (re)learning to walk.

That said though, there is a tournament this weekend which my friend is going to, and another one in April for the Infinity Northern Alliance based here in Leeds. I'm tempted to sign up for the April one as a target to paint/learn for but I wondered about maybe the one after that as a more realistic target.
The Infinity tournament scene seems to be a lot more welcoming than any other I've participated in and is definitely something I want to participate in, even as just a way of getting some games in and meeting opponents :)

Thanks for Stopping by
Lofty

The Living Infinite - Morat Supremacy

We had our first lunchtime games today as a (re)introduction to the game. It was a load of fun, but I forgot to get any photos :(

The first game was just 3 grunts v 3 grunts on the Mototronica scenery from Icestorm. I took the first turn and managed to knock out two Fusiliers, leaving me an easy win on my second turn.

The system & rules started coming back to me quickly, so the second game we did 6v6 using my Morat starter versus 6 PanO guys, which I think is the vanilla starter set for them.

The second game we added an objective which was to control the building in the centre with the most points by the end of the third turn. I chose to take the second turn, and had some helpful tips for altering my deployment so as to use cover and not lose too many models.

I managed to stand my ground, and then in my turn use my Oznat to good effect, as well as my Sogarat soaking some sniper shots with his high Armour and 2 wounds. I got into the habit of making shots with AROs instead of dodging with the Morats high Phys stat which wouldn't be modified... I got a bit carried away/trigger happy but learned a valuable lesson :)

PanO turn two saw a couple of vanguard go down, and the drop troop came down on the side that my Oznat had made a brave advance down and unfortunately subsequently be sniped off with MSV.

the drop troop didn't last long after taking a heavy flamethrower to the face. I have to admit i made some remarkable dice rolls in this game, frequently declaring 'Super Morats!'

I decided to go hell for leather with my Sogarat on my second turn and diced down the lieutenant and a fusilier, leaving me able to claim the objective with my Raktorak and Sogarat. The Sogarat went down to the irregular sniper but was saved by his auto med kit in the last turn as I finished his forces off :)

I had a massive amount of fun, even though I stumbled over the plus/minus to rolls quite a bit, but we are definitely going to play some more intro missions with different troop types, and arrange a 300pt game for after work at some point.

I'm very motivated to get some painting done on these guys now and get some more troops ready for the table.

I also bought some order tokens, and will try and work out what other types of tokens are necessary for the models I have/like/will use and order those too :)

Thanks for stopping by

Lofty

Once More Around The Sun

I've never really been big on New Years. I know some people like resolutions and that kind of thing, but I just see it as a day like any other.

We have done the same thing for the past few years though which is to Play Malifaux at our friends house, and have a few drinks afterwards.
I played Titania again, and really stumped myself on scheme selection. 'Leave Your Mark' would have been far easier than 'Dig Their Graves' for example. Especially having The Primordial Magic to score late game. Anyway, another lessons learned game which is fine by me as I still really enjoy the master, and the knights from her box. I want to try and get my head around Titania herself as it's her I seem to use to least effect. I know there's a Schemes & Stones episode for her so I will check that out as soon as I'm able.

Following on from previous posts, I will still be listing Up & Coming items for the coming month, but they aren't targets to be hit or missed, rather what I want to be working on. As such they are subject to whim & whimsy, and are likely to change :)

So below is January's activity

-Update Project lists

-Add weathering to Hoffman's Constructs

-Get Nightmare Mccabe Table ready (should just be a case of getting wheels painted before I can pin them to bases and use them whilst the painting continues)

-Finish Titania's crew

Here's to a productive hobby and making happy memories this year

Thanks for Stopping by
Lofty