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