Infinity Battle Report

I fought an Infinity game with my friend Harry this week at the Christchurch Crusaders club.

We played a 250pt game, Harry with his Haqqislam and me with Yu Jing.

HAQQISLAM
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GROUP 1 (Regs: 10/Irrs: 0):

GHULAM Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife (13)

NAFFATÛN Rifle + Heavy Flamethrower / Pistol, Knife (12)
  
GHULAM Doctor Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife (17)
 
2x GHULAM Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife (13)

MUYIB Rifle + Light Grenade Launcher (Normal and Smoke Ammo.) / Pistol, Knife (23 | 1)

DJANBAZAN Doctor Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW (32)
  
DJANBAZAN HMG / Pistol, CCW (36 | 1.5)
 
JANISSARY Doctor AP Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW (49)

RAGIK Hacker  Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, CCW (42 | 0.5)
  
250 Points | SWC: 3

ARMY CODE: [code]eNozMVQ1VbNQM6wxVAPCGlM1czBpACfNwOKGhmomEArMM1EzAlFGasZqhgDnkQ6L[/code] http://www.devilteam.com]Army Infinity v.3.0.

My list was  a bit different to last week, although there were some familiar faces.

YU JING
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 GROUP 1 (Regs: 8/Irrs: 2):

CELESTIAL GUARD Lieutenant Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife (13)


ZHANSHI Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife (11)

CELESTIAL GUARD MULTI Sniper Rifle / Pistol, Knife (27 | 1.5)


CELESTIAL GUARD Spitfire / Pistol, Knife (20 | 1)

ARAGOTO Spitfire / Pistol, Knife (29 | 1.5)


SHÀNG JÍ Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower / Pistol, Shock CCW (42)


DÀOFĚI MULTI Rifle / Pistol, Shock CCW (60)

NINJA Combi Rifle / Pistol, EXP CCW (38)


2x SHAOLIN Chain Rifle, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, Shock CCW (5)



250 Points | SWC: 4

ARMY CODE: [code]eNozNFQ1VjNXM6wxVDMAksZqxmDSBEhaqBmCxA3AEoYQeSNjNSMQZQpWB6EA8sEOtQ==

I've since realised this list is not legal as you can only take 2 celestial guards, so the list should have a Zhanshi lieutenant instead.

It was quite a treat this week as Harry jointly owns the Warmill terrain company was game testing some prototypes for some new terrain, so we were using one of the club's urban boards instead of the trench one from last week. This is a shot of deployment with markers indicating where we set up

My ninja has Thermo-Optical Camo, so deploys completely hidden from my opponent at the start of the game - he doesn't even know I have a ninja, let alone where it is!! The Daofei in the bottom left conversely is deployed as a marker saying "camo" my opponent knows there is something there, but not how hard it is (it could only be an anti-personal mine, but is in fact a hard-as-nails heavy infantry!)

We were playing a game someone else introduced me to, so I might have messed up all the rules, but basically there is a civie + 2 bodyguards in the middle of the table who will receive a data download at the end of turn 2. Both sides have to try and get this data. If there is any combat within civie's LOF he will spook and run. If this happens before end of turn 2 he will not get the data (so everyone loses!). Once spooked he moves towards the side of the table. Info can be got by synching, interogating (short skill WIP), or short skill WIP to remove his memory cube after death. Whoever gets the Info has to make it off own board edge. 6 turn limit.

 

Turn 1

Cagey movement was the order of the day, the Yu Jing spent most of the orders on the impetuous troops to get them far forward. The Celestial spitfire made a silly move-move order into the large hab unit on the right of the picture, the second move order revealing him to a Djanzaban for a long-range ARO*. One shot, one kill.


(* - An "automatic reaction order" lets your troops react to orders given to enemy troops in their own turn, its a little like "overwatch" in old versions of 40K, but everyone has it all of the time)

The second Djanzaban was taken unconscious by the rampaging Aragoto spitfire

View from the Haqq side of the board

 Celestial Sniper provides cover

In turn 2 the Haqq forces again moved into prime positions to intercept the courier and to provide covering fire, the Janissary doctor healing the Djanbazan who had got spitfired in turn 1. The Yu Jing impetuous troops again dashed forwards. The monk on the Yu Jing left got shot as he attempted to throw a smoke grenade, but the right flank exploded into life, the Aragoto went on a suicide run gunning down both Djanzabans and taking a wound off the Janissary doc without taking any return hits. Crucially though both Djanzanbans were only unconscious not dead...* The monk on this flank ran up to support and the ninja revealed himself as a marker and ran up to support as well, eventually being discovered by the Janissary as he closed in.

(* - In Infinity most models have 1 wound, when you lose that wound you go unconscious,and can be healed by doctors or some special skills. If you lose another wound while unconscious you die)


In the following Haqq turn the Naffatun ran forward and flame everyone, killing the monk and aragoto and burning the Thermo-Optically Camouflaged ninja who passed his armour roll (but lost his camo abilities due to the flames), he then attempted to flame again, but the ninja succeeded in his dodge roll and dodge into close combat with the janissary!

Things then got even more complex! A ghulam popped up from the central building and shot into the combat between the ninja and the janissary, the ninja electing to dodge. The ghulam missed by miles, but the ninja made his dodge. We then weren't quite sure what was supposed to happen as a dodge in CC seems to take you OUT of CC in the rules. This is the way we applied it, so the ninja dodged back, promptly got shot in the face by the janissary who then healed both Djanzanbans with his doctor skill!!

The suicide mission had cost a monk, a ninja and an aragoto for no Haqq losses! However it had cost all 7 of the Haqq orders this turn to deal with the threat.

Turns 4 & 5 - the Haqq Ragik dropped down at the back of the board to threaten the Yu Jing firebase (A ragik is a type of airborne deployment troop), but was taken out in the Yu Jing turn when the lone Zhanshi ducked behind the shipping crate and shot him.

The Janissary, Djanzabans and Naffatun made their way towards the target who was rapidly approaching the board edge.

Meanwhile the Daofei moved rapidly from left to right across the middle, driving ghulams back into cover, but not causing any wounds. The celestial sniper tried to pick off the Djanzaban HMG but was taken out in ARO instead!

The Haqq forces dispensed with subtlety as the clock ran down, the naffatun ran forward, round the right-hand crate and flamed the target, killing both bodyguards, the twice healed Djanzaban ran forward into cover and was promtly shot in ARO (unconscious #3).

The Daofei again ran to the right, taking out both the Djanzaban HMG and then last wound from the Janissary in consecutive turns, both to fully dead. He ended in touching distance of the target, with the Shang Ji in support.

The Naffatun ran forward and tried to flame the target and the Daofei who elected to stand and shoot, resulting in all 3 going unconscious. The Djanzanban regenerated, but was promptly shot with a critical ARO from the Shang Ji (unconsciousness #4!) he then regenerated a second time and attempted to reach the unconscious target and was again wounded in ARO! (unconsciousness #5!!)

In the Yu Jing turn the Shang Ji flamed the unconscious Naffatun and Djanzaban to put an end to his regenerating antics. The Muyib attempted to take him out with repeated speculative grenades* and although some were on target no wounds were caused, it also allowed the Shang Ji to move into full cover and into base-to-base with the unconscious target.

(* - troops with grenades can launch them parabolically to drop down on troops they can't see)

At the end of the Haqq turn we realised that Yu Jing didn't have enough orders to get the target's memory cube off the board (& were in retreat due to their losses) and Haqq were unable to retrieve the data so we declared a "winning draw/minor victory" for Yu Jing.

It was a cracking game with loads of fun little talking points, the Djanzaban regeneration/doctoring was great, real relentless intent. I found it pretty funny when my sniper who had spent the first few turns passing up ARO's and shots to avoid spooking the target finally got a clear shot on the HMG in the open, missed both double-action shots (special ammo) in their excitement and got killed by the ARO! The prototype Warmill buildings played really nicely, good balance between cover and "permeability". Hopefully a version of them will be available to buy in the near future.

Thanks for reading!

Undead Army - 28mm

I thought I'd show you what I've been working on for most of the past year. I started a new Warhammer Fantasy army based on the Mantic Kings of War range of figures. Their undead range is really nice and much superior to the Games Workshop one for around a 1/3 of the price.

This is the army as it stands at the moment including all the unpainted/WIP bits and bobs

It comprises (Mantic names in brackets):

Vlad Von Carstein

Konrad Von Carstein
Blood Dragon Vampire

Necromancer Lord (Mhorgoth)

2xWight King (Revenant King)

Wight King Battle Standard Bearer

3x Necromancers

Necromancer on a Corpse Cart

40 Skeletons
20 Ghouls
82 Zombies
10 Dire Wolves

10 Black Knights (Revenant Knights)

40 Grave Guard (Revenants)
5 Wraiths
5 Blood Knights (GameZone)
9 Fell Bats
9 Bat Swarms
2 Balefire Catapults
2 Spirit Hosts

The stuff in blue is what I am still working on, so I'm getting there with it. I've actually only used the army once as I don't get to play much Warhammer. I do enjoy painting up units and armies though (odd I know!) so its been fun collecting it. All of the Games Workshop models were purchased from ebay, mostly in unpainted condition, so that saved me a lot of money, in total it costs me ~£225 for the lot. When you compare to GW retail prices of £62 for 40 skeletons and £61.50 for 5 Blood Knights it starts to look like an incredibly cheap army.

I'll post up some unit pictures over the next few weeks but in the meantime I've got a shot of the painted portion of the Mantic Kings of War army and one of the skeleton units to get us started.

Mantic Kings of War Army

Mantic Skeleton Regiment

I painted these over an undercoat of Army Painted Skeleton Bone primer. This stuff is fantastic for painting undead and lends itself to a quite unique painting technique. By using very thin paint for the basecoats the undercoat shows through, however as the thin paint naturally pools in the recesses and the undercoat showing through is light it effectively provides a basecoat and shade in one step. By careful colour selection these can be painted really quickly.

I used Vallejo French Mirage Blue for the cloth, GW boltgun metal for the weapons/armour, Vallejo US Field Drab for the leather and GW Foundation Necron Abyss for the shields. The helmet plumes were just given a heavy wash of GW Baal Red wash. The wooden shield backs were just glazed with dark brown ink over the undercoat.

The entire models were then washed liberally with GW Devlan Mud and then everything but the metal was drybrushed with Vallejo Iraqian Sand (like a lighter GW Bleached Bone).

For the weathering the chips on the shields and dirt on the banner were added with a sponge and GW Khemrian Brown. Then a couple of stages of rust weathering powders were added to the metal (MIG Old Rust, then MIG Rust) by mixing them with thinners and just randomly dabbing it on with a paint brush. I think the weathering powders give a more realistic texture to rust than using orange paint, for probably less effort.

The last stage was to wash the eye sockets with a couple of coats of GW Aysurman Blue wash and then pick out the eye balls with Vallejo Pale Blue to give them the appearance of glowing blue eyes.

The bases were painted GW Cathyan Brown, drybushed Vallejo Iraqian Sand and then covered with patchy dead grass. The grass is Steppe Grass from Antenociti's Workshop. I think its parched, dead look works well with the undead.

Mantic Skeleton - shows the effectiveness of the brown ink wash over the bone undercoat on the shield back

Mantic Skeleton

I'll post up some more units soon.

No More Room in Hell - Battle report

One of the many things I've been busy with this past year is getting figures and terrain for a skirmish game called "No More Room in Hell". It's a light hearted 28mm zombie survivor game which draws heavily on popular zombie films like the Evil Dead and Day of the Dead etc.

It involves some really nice mechanics for example new zombies are spawned from a "dice grave" which has a starting level but every time a firearm (or other noisy weapon) is used the "to hit" dice are put into the dice grave. This has the effect of rewarding stealth early on, but equally when it all goes down there is a nice build of pressure as the zombies reach a critical mass where the more zombies you shoot down the more are likely to spawn next turn.

It is possible to pick a gang of survivors who can swoop into each mission like Black Ops and carry the day, but far more fun is had from assembling a bunch of misfits contemporary with the start of most survival horror films. Indeed there is one class of character called "sheeple" who's only purpose is to get eaten by zombies as they pathetically fumble with a box of shotgun shells trying to reload.

I finally got round to playing a game recently with Jon, where we played a simple rescue mission. We both took a crew each of survivors and the objective of the game was to get to a central building, ascend to the roof, surviving whatever horrors were lurking inside to rescue a scientist, and then escape off the table with him.

As it was the first game we played with an odd mix of terrain and figures. I had picked up some cheap toy cars and a helicopter that were about the right scale, and we used an Infinity building I made with a Anisty pipefarm, some paper shipping crates and some of Jon's 40k ruins. Overall it was a pretty decent set-up considering.

The figures were mainly Hasslefree adventurers, with some Infinity minis and one I sculpted.

I started with Zombie Hunter Kev and 3 sheeple soldiers in the SW corner where they were hoping to approach the building from the rear through the Imperial Park (Jon has some odd terrain - A Space Marine arboretum being his pride and joy!)

Chainsaw wilding Ash took his band from the NW and Jon's crew lead by William came in from the NE. Keen to try and get their hands on some supplies both crews explored the "survive locations" nearby. However this didn't go so well. William found an old man hiding in a shipping crate who then proceeded to follow him round for the rest of the game preaching the end of the world and reducing the crew's Guts score. Ash faired even worse, firstly opening a shipping crate full of rancid offal, the smell of which drew zombies from all around, permanently raising the zombie threat level for the rest of the game. He then found a wise cracking kid hiding in the pipefarm, who also tagged along. No cool guns for anyone!

Jon's leader Harby had already got his crew to the front of the target building, but elsewhere things were starting to heat up. Zombie hunter Kev had got trapped in a long melee with several zombies and had lost all of his support crew and was now very alone and deep in hostile territory.

He's behind you!

The dice grave had built to a very high level (>30) and things were looking very grim, but as William explored the abandoned police riot van a loud explosion was heard in the distance, drawing the zombie's attention - the dice grave was immediately re-set! Harby took advantage of the lull to lead his crew inside the building and begin working their way up to the roof.

The rest of the crews tried to form a perimeter to keep the zombies out and leave a path to the board edge for escape. As Harby worked his way up Zombie Hunter Kev also made it into the building and barricaded the back door as a group of 6 zombies tried to batter it down.

Jon's favourite character, an old lady called Madge with a hunting rifle was picking off zombies at will, but Ash's crew were sucked into a melee with a zombie horde and all his men were dragged to their deaths before the zombies could be killed.

As Harby secured the scientist the zombies finally broke down the back door and Kev was quickly overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers. Ash quickly realised that only his chiselled chin and massive chainsaw could save the day so he charged into the building and began laying about him with his whirring prosthetic chainsaw limb. Outside the end had surely come for Madge as she and William were trapped in melee with three zombies, William killed two before he was dragged to his death, but against all the odds Madge punched the remaining zombie to death with her bare hands! There was more to this old lady that an antique hunting rifle and nerves of steel.

Ash cleared the ground floor as Harby came down the stairs but more zombies were already pouring in through the front. The two heros locked eyes and nodded, Harby escaped out the back door and Ash fired up his chainsaw and prepared to hold them as long as he could.

Harby makes it off the board with the scientist in tow

As they fought their way free of the handful of zombies baring their way Harby and the others heard the unmistakable sound of a chainsaw splutter and then die as it ran out of fuel...


Jon and I had loads of fun playing this game, it really is one that doesn't take itself too seriously, but the basic mechanics are intuitive and work well (and dare I say it realistically). There are some really nice touches in the mechanics, I've already mentioned the dice grave, but the way the hero characters get weaker as they get injured particularly in melee is good (basically Wounds=Attacks). Using D10's also helps to give more gradual increases in skills and abilities between survivors. This is not a game where the good guys always win, we got the impression that the standard horror film ending is about the best you can hope for - one or two plucky heros make it to the chopper and freedom, everyone else gets eaten, as happened here.

From end to end it was about 2hrs playing time and it was only the second game we had played (the first being a quick free-for-all practise right before) so it plays pretty quick. Will definitely be trying it out again and I'll try and get my University club interested as well.

More Lead - Spartan Hoplites

Or should that be plastic?

I've long been an admirer of the Immortal Miniatures range of 28mm classical greeks. The owner and creator of the figures had let the line slip a little over the past year, distribution had been transferred to North Star Military Figures and most of the metals were no longer available, so it was a welcome bit of news a couple of weeks ago to see that Warlord Games had bought the lines up and were going to start producing them again.

I'm a follower of North Star on facebook, where they often post news of limited bargain deals they are doing. This week they announced they were selling off their remaining Immortal stocks at knock-down prices. A box of 24 Spartan Hoplites for just £7.50.

Now these figures are cheap enough anyway (RRP £12), but I couldn't resist this deal so I decided to snap up 3 boxes for the princely sum of £22.50 for 72 figures! They arrived the next day, which was frankly incredible at this time of year, but when I opened them I quickly realised the Spartan frame was not an upgrade, but an additional frame to the basic 24 hoplites, with 8 bodies and various right arms and heads. This meant each box in total contained 32 bodies well over 50 right arms and heads, but only 24 shield arms.

I'm therefore planning to use Instantmold to make 18 additional shield arms from greenstuff, and then make 6 slingers using the remaining 6 spare bodies, making sure they are the ones in tunics and no armour.

I'll use these guys in Hail Caesar as units of 18, giving me 5 units of Hoplites and 1 small unit of skirmishers. I've had a long look at Hail Caesar and the unit sizes don't really work for me, so I've scaled them down, I'll detail it in a future post. I'll probably make up 2 as Spartan/Lacedaemonian elite hoplites and 2 as levy hoplites and maybe the last lot as allies. 96 figures and a 200pt HC army for £22.50.

Yet another project and a big pile of plastic, I've already got a pile of over 100 28mm celtic types to do something with...

Big range expansion for Governance of Technology

I've been a huge fan of Antenociti's Workshop; Jed Norton's terrain and lately miniature website, for a long time. It introduced me to Infinity and really upped the stakes in my terrain scratch building. Although slightly off-topic, this is one of my creations using some of his terrain elements.

gothic corbels and window frames

window frames, ivy and dead leaves

barrels and kegs

His newest project is a joint miniature and terrain line, called "Governance of Technology" (GoT) which has been going for about a year now. It is set in a dystopian future where an all powerful technology board strictly controls each planet's access to technology, thus keeping each civilisation in stagnation.

It's a bit of a strange beast, in that there is a website with loads of background, quite well defined factions and whatnot, but its not actually a miniature game in its own right, so ostensibly it is just for figure collection. I know Jed is a regular on the Infinity forums and plays the game, so to me it is surprising that there are not proxy rules for GoT figures using Infinity rules, but maybe he is playing the long game and there are developments in the pipeline to turn it into a full-blown skirmish game?

I have seen today on the South London Warlords site the GoT range will expanded quite a bit at Salute with:
* 7 new GOT Figures
* GOT-Trooper Suad-packs x3
* Nova-Rus Light Tank 28mm
* Nova Rus APC 28mm
* UK Firefly Light-Gunship 28mm
* Terminus Police Dodge-Tata MATV 28mm
* GOTA - APC 28mm

The vehicles are really something to look forward to as his Nova-Rus "Bear" is a great looking kit and has been selling faster than he can cast it.

Nova-Rus "Bear" 4x4 Jeep

 There are currently 37 figure types (some packs of two poses of same model) and 1 squad pack in the range, along with 8 vehicles, so an expansion of 7 figures and 5 vehicles is relatively a pretty big one.

I'm looking forward to seeing these new models a lot and hopefully in the next month or so I'll post up my first building tile for GoT/Infinity which I've been working on.

Meanwhile, back in the land of 10mm Ancients there is another Salute announcement on the website that is of interest from Magister Militum:
"We have three new 10mm buildings which will be out for Salute, a Roman villa/farm, slave/workers quarters and barn."
Quality 10mm ancients building are in short supply, with only Kerr & King's Jerusalem and Total Battle Miniatures' Dark Age settlement springing to mind, so this is very exciting news as well.

Infinity Competition Entry

I managed to get another Infinity miniature painted for a competition on the official forum for the game. The competition is simply for the best painted mini as voted for by the forum community. It is a pretty tough crowd and even when just posting pictures of minis on the forum you are doing VERY well if you get any serious positive feedback. A lot like the "Cool Mini or Not" site.

Last time I looked among public votes I was languishing back somewhere around 10th out of 18 entries. The top three get a prize of some new terrain from Microarts Studios for Infinity.

This is my entry as a composite image. Its a fairly big picture, so click on it to enlarge.

This fella is a Wu Ming from the Yu Jing faction in the game. The base is a custom one made from a bit of plasticard for a pavement and a drain-cover from the GW 40k basing kit.

He was mainly painted with Vallejo paints. I used a very light grey colour to paint the white and then shaded it with thinned GW's Badab Black wash just in the recesses. And then basically water with a very small amount of BB wash in to shade/wash all the "white" areas. It was then tidied up with more of the base colour in many very thin layers. Before highlighting the raised areas with more of the base colour and finally a few thin layers of Vallejo gloss white.

What I've effectively done is used the thin layers of grey to make the faint wash underneath show through progressively more towards the recesses. This way you can shade the white, but also it keeps the finish smooth. Too often its easy for white to look grainy or rough and this avoids that.

For the gun I'm painting all my Infinity models without metallic paints; its not "Non-metallic Metal" as I'm not trying to paint it like metal, but instead like reflective plastics, or painted surfaces. To do this I just use very thin paint to give nice blended layers with final, quite bright highlight lines on edges.

Any questions, or if you like it, please drop me a comment below.

Learning photoshop

A bit of a departure for the blog this time. I've managed to get a copy of corel paint shop pro through work and I've been trying to learn how to use it. One of the things I really wanted to be able to do was combine two or more photos of the same miniature into a single image. You often see these on proper blogs and painting sites so I thought I'd see if I could do the same.

It proved a bit tricky on my old computer, but I've attached my first attempt. I'm going to use this technique to make composite images for entry into the Pendraken painting competition, in order to get more views of the same thing into my entry.

Tiger Soldier

This is a miniature I painted for the Corvus Belli game Infinity, which is a 28mm skirmish game. This guy is a Tiger Soldier. The composite image is seriously large, so I recommend clicking on it where you'll be able to see the figure in excruciating close-up! (And see all my mistakes!!) I'll probably post up some more photos of a few Infinity figures I've been working on as well as my Mantic kings of war figures, which have been seriously distracting me from Warmaster.

However, never fear, there are Carthaginian Heavy Cav, Roman Auxiliary bowmen and Roman Auxiliary cavalry in the pipeline, as well as my Pendraken painting comp entries.