Infinity AAR - Landing Strip Battle

 What's this? A proper miniatures wargame in Casa de Ski? It's been a while, that's for sure. Zig and I got together Saturday afternoon for a game of Infinity. I put some of those recently painted Starco minis on the table for a first go against Z's ever-present Pan Oceana military orders. I set the table up for a 300-point, 48 x 48 Domination scenario set at the maintenance area of spacecraft landing strip. There are four Consoles (marked in the picture) at which players can earn extra points if they successfully interact with them.

Mobile Bragada heavy infantry behind the red cargo container and a Salyut Zond (robot) hidden in the bushes covering my right flank.

A fireteam of Alguacils, Brawlers and a Daktari on my right, with a Tsyklon Sputnik backing them up.

The very cluttered landing strip.

And a view from the other side.

I opened up by having the Tsyklon with a Feuerbach (think nasty auto cannon) zip up the silo and get a bead on the Knight Hospitaller with the Heavy Machine Gun. I personally have a grudge against that Knight, he's killed so many of my forces over the years that any opportunity to shoot at him is a good one. To my delight, the 'Bot knocked that rotten knight down. The Medic Knight who'd done a better job hiding, confirmed the kill a few moments later. 

My chump fireteam on the left spreads out across the tarmac, using fuel canisters as cover, because why not? My Tsyklon on the silo has accounted for two more PanO oppressors. The kid at the controls of that thing was obviously using some cheat codes. Notice that I have a third 'Bot in the mix; that's a Reaktion Zond with a Heavy MG by the gate in the lower center of the picture. I was moving that up to help control the middle.

My Mobile Bragada team was moving up to the enemy side of the tarmac, heading for the console on that side. Note the scary black figure with a missile launcher in the distance next to the brown shipping container. The Knight medic actually got his shit together and started healing stuff I'd knocked out earlier in the engagement. 

And sadly I didn't take any more photos. In a nutshell, the Starco mercenaries took control of this section of the landing strip. The Mobile Brigada Lieutenant was knocked out in a shootout with the Knight Hospitaller 1LT. The decider was a terrific burst of shotgun blasts from a Brawler at the other end of the strip, catching a recently healed hacker with the Auxbot as well as a couple members of the Order Sergeant fireteam hidden behind that brown shipping container seen in the last picture. Having lost four models in a single action and flurry of shit dice, the Pan O forces backed off.

The new Starco team member performed very well and they're great additions to the crew. That Tsyklon bot was amazing, but that was as much a function of his positioning and weapon as much as anything. Be well and good gaming!

Adding to Infinity

 Plus six this time around.

I picked up some additions to my Infinity Starco group a few months ago and finally got around to assembling and painting them over the last week. Assembly was slow, I was patient since the models were a bit fiddly. I've matured in that respect. These models are Mobile Brigada (the four human-sized models) and Tsyklon Remotes (droids). As always, picked up when marked down with a 50% discount! The whole Starco group has been procured at well under retail.

I could resist a group shot of all the Starco remotes together while I had them out.

Painting!

 I got a large (in Infinity terms anyway) batch of Infinity minis completed yesterday. This lot has been in progress for a few weeks, the distractions of Southern Front and other models slowed progress a mite. Well, they're done now and I'm happy to have them in the collection.

The models themselves are from the Morat Aggression Forces Action Pack. Of course I needed more minis like I need a hole in the head but the price was nice and the assortment was good since it included a few troop types I didn't already have. 

Painting is fairly straightforward block painting and highlights followed by a heavy black oil wash. The light box photography shows the colors much more brightly than they appear normally.

July Update

Happy weekend. Just posting a few pics of things I've been working on recently. 

I churned through 40 pikemen for the Ventians and Spanish over the last couple weeks. I've been painting very sporadically. These guys probably spent three weeks on the popsicle sticks. They're being based today. Finally.

On that note, my wife and I tested some massed combat rules I put together last weekend. Just a simple mechanical play test and the end result proved that the basic rule mechanics are sound. Now comes the challenge of codifying it all. 

I ordered these two Infinity models after our last game of Infinity. They're for the Starco mercs, a TAG (heavy armored mecha) with the red shoulder bits and a Mobile Brigada heavy infantry (with the yellow) who can lead the group. Frankly, that troop type is the only lieutenant option available to the Starco mercenaries that is even remotely threatening. The other options are cheap chumps that don't deliver a lot of "oomph" whereas the Mobile Brigada is a real threat.

I also picked up a couple of boats for Blood and Plunder a little while back. 

Just a dugout Canoa for the natives and a Piragua for whomever needs it. It purposefully left it very neutral, no flags or other markings so it will fit in with any operator. The sails are 1/8 inch flexible hobby foam sheet from Michaels. It's easy to cut to size, stays in shape and takes superglue well. Some thread loops and done. Rigging is for display pieces, not game pieces. I have a Sloop incoming as well, but it's a preorder and I don't think it'll arrive before September. 

I've also taken possession of some 1/300 planes for some commission painting for Wayne.

These Su-22s have some miscast noses, but they'll paint up fine. Wayne really enjoyed CY6:JA and ordered a handful of Cold War-era planes. Certainly enough to keep me busy a while. I'm looking forward to working on them. 

Two Additions

 Cranked out a couple more Infinity models over the last week or so. These are Combined Army Fraactas. Weird name, completely gorgeous models. I'm in love with the anime angel styling. Nothing too fancy, just some basic colors, black oil wash & wipe and some highlights here and there.

The 14-year-old has all of a sudden gotten a painting addiction. We picked up some D&D minis from the LGS and he's been steadily cranking since! It does a father's heart good. I'll get some pics of his work up here soon.

AAR: Infinity Saturday Night

 Zig and I got the Infinity toys out Saturday evening. It's been a few months, with being deployed in Germany and all. My recently-completed Starco Mercenaries would make their debut! I hunted around around and found a suitable scenario for a hot-as-blazes June day on the Corvus Belli website.

After laying out the tabletop, it became obvious that the "Revenants" mission would work perfectly for the setup.

The battlefield's most notable feature is the canal and stalled ship in the center. This lined up real nice with the Revenants prescribed zones which dictate victory conditions. Yeah, I need to put together a brownish-blue overlay for the surface of the canal when I use this table configuration.

The ship is quite obviously the center zone and the canal's edges are the neighboring zones.

The basic goal of the scenario is simple zone domination - points are awarded for control of the table sectors - 1 point for the middle zone closest to your own table edge, two for the center and four for the zone furthest away. Points are only awarded at the end of three turns. At the beginning of turn 3, all models which are dead or unconscious rise from their slumber in the form of Xenozombies and get back to fighting!

The lion's share of my force.

It's best not to ask how this Remote got on top of the building.

There's a better shot of the canal and boat.

In the early going, I get some LOS-blockers dropped - an eclipse grenade and a smoke grenade. Senor Massacre and co make their way up the building on the right while to Riot Grrls move forward.

The Riot Grrl with the missile launcher knocks out an Order Sergeant across the way. Having high-tech gizmos that let you see right through smoke like it's not there is pretty nice. That 'bot atop the building from earlier in the post also managed to catch an Order Sergeant with a Reaction Order just prior. Two substantial threats had been neutralized in record time!

Senor Massacre and friends continue their way across the bridge.

A short descent off the bridge and onto the ship. Note the Knight with an HMG off to the left. That jerk had my center occupied for a while.

A more interesting angle of the previous picture.

Hero Squad makes its way down to the deck, careful to remain out sight.

I didn't get any pictures of the action, but I got the Riot Grrls on to the ship. With a bit of an "oh fuck it" attitude, they burst from behind the Starlabs sign and quickly descended to ground level. The trooper with the rocket launcher exchanged fire with the HMG Knight across the way. Two, three, four firing actions were taken and we repeatedly tied eachother's dice rolls, resulting in misses all around! Note that the third turn had just begun resulting in Ziggy's losses rising from the dead.

The two black models are recently-risen PanO troopers.

With time running out and few order tokens, the Knights take a note from the Riot Grrls and storm the boat! Initially our shotgun-armed troops duked it out, but Ziggy's dice caught fire and he went on a streak of rolling nothing but critical hits, absolutely wrecking house. 

The third turn wrapped up and we tallied the score. Zig's PanO force won, 3-1. He was able to get the two point difference by dominating the center zone (the boat). That had been a really exciting game with plenty of back and forth and dramatic moments. Many times our games of Infinity are one-sided slaughters but this one remained competitive and in the balance to the very end. 

That Halloween scenario pack has a couple other missions in it. We'll give those a whirl over the course of our next games. Be well and good gaming!

Group Photos - Infinity Starco Mercenaries

 I finished up all the Starco minis I picked up and now have a nice new group to put on the table. Many of these models have been featured here prior, but I took a few minutes this morning to put them all together in the photo box. In game terms, there's certainly plenty for some force composition variety and includes some high-end fighters as well as lower-end "cheerleaders." The so-called "cheerleaders" are important in Infinity as each model provides an order that any model can use. Orders are a resource like any other and are quite valuable and there's a lot to be said for having more orders on-hand than your opponent.. Including some chumps to beef up the order count is always a good idea. Anyway... on with the pics.

And that translates to...

Reaktion Zond and Salyut Zond (big robots in the back)
4 Alguacil troopers (blue unis)
3 Riot Grrls with a Tinbot (white unis)
4 Brawlers (dark blue/gray unis)
2 Irmandinhos (camouflage)
Clockmaker and Daktari and their helper remotes (front row far right)
Avicenna special character doctor (front far left)
Senor Massacre (front second from left)

Looking forward to taking these knuckle-heads for a spin on the tabletop for sure. Ziggy made it back from Germany in one piece so I'm sure a game will be forthcoming. Next weekend is the Memorial Day Game Bash - very exciting!

And A Few More

 Four more Infinity models to the collection this week. These are Riot Grrls, upper-tier power-armor Nomad troops for the Starco Mercenaries band I'm assembling. 

It's a very anime aesthetic for sure and I've kept the colors bright and gaudy with this lot. With a rocket launcher and multi-rifle in the mix as well as the Tinbot which helps prevent enemy cyber-nastiness, they should be a solid fighting unit on the tabletop. I did hack up the rocket launcher mini a bit. The original has her foot up on a pile of rocks. 

 

That of course looks dumb against the metal grate basing I'm doing on this collection. I found a suitable weapon from the bits box, hacked it all up and, voila! A more suitable kickstand for rocket girl. On to the next lot. I have ten more minis in my possession for the Starco group. Two "named" special characters are up next. Unusual for me, that's for sure but so's the idea of me using a mercenary list. What the heck, right?

In other news, I downloaded the free rules for "Vanguard" from Mantic's website. It's a fantasy skirmish game that checks a lot of my requirement boxes. Looking forward to giving that a go. I've got a decent collection of fantasy minis and have been after a set of rules that agree with my tastes. Vanguard seems pretty decent at first read.

Some Recent Painting

 I finished a couple of Infinity models over the weekend. More additions to my Starco Mercenary company. 

They're Irmandinhos, Ariadna troops who'll work for anyone paying their wage. They're looters and have a knack for collecting useful kit and get random equipment upgrades at the start of the game. Of course I kept the "gang color" of turquoise on their hats. They've got friends in the painting queue. More soon!

To Infinity, but not Beyond

 I finished up a few Infinity minis that have dwelt too long in the queue. They were victims of both painter's block and "shiny-itis" when the Naps and FIW minis arrived. Since those cleared the queue, the Infinity models got their turn. Nothing ground-breaking for sure, these are a medic and engineer, or Daktari and Clockmaker in Starco/Nomad parlance. I think the engineer's floppy overalls are pretty hilarious. They are accompanied by assistant 'bots. These join the bigger 'bots I painted up at the end of 2021 as the starting point of a Starco mercenary force. It's primarily a Nomad force with access to handful of special characters and units of other factions. I'll use the Turquoise and White and the common colors for this force and as you can see I've gone for the window screen basing to give them more of an indoor / industrial feel as opposed to the dirt and grass that my Ariadna and Combined forces sport.

My bride and I will probably get in a game of Blood and Plunder this evening with the recently featured QAW models. Looking forward to that for sure!

Infinity AAR: Weekend (Weakened?) Warriors

 Zig and I got Infinity on the tabletop Saturday evening. It was a Supply mission with both teams trying to control as many supply objectives as possible. Us per the norm, Ziggy brought his Pan Oceania Knights. I used some newly-painted models, in the form of a Combined Army Onyx Contact Force. Not terribly much different from what I've pushed in the past but I always like to mix things up.

The battlefield du jour. My group would be on the right side, Zig's on the left.

New paint jobs on the left (a Hacker and her do-bot) while some hard pipe-hittin' space monkeys go right.

More new paint much further to the left. The mighty and brave robots of the Twenty First Programming Battalion!

There's a dad-blasted K-Night up the road with a narrow line of sight. Fortunately the range means his combi rifle is unlikely to keep my Rodoks from moving out. The move out and the groups exchange ineffective fire.

Sadly, a schlub with a rocket launcher (top center-left) walks out an fires the most accurate rocket in the history of rocketeering at my Rodoks One of my boys is knocked down, the others dodge outside the blast radius. My fireteam includes a paramedic who actually succeeded in patching up the injured guy!

 

In an effort to shut up the most-hated knights, Ol' Bluie is programmed to step on out and exchange gunfire. The bot and knight shoot at eachother for a couple actions until Bluie springs a leak and expires.

I send the Batdroids and the Umbra Legate big man forward to deal with the knight roadblock. It's GOT to work.

After losing their 'Bot with the Spitfire, the UL reveals plan "C" which includes the phrase "Hey robot, hold my beer, check this out." He bolts across the gap to fire at the rocket launcher dude across the way.

Yeah boy. That's doin' it right there! I did not get a picture of that rocket dude hammering the Robok team a second time, killing the medic.

The big PanO team ran to the protection between the tuck and building. My Rodoks began hammering them. Felt good because I was getting slaughtered elsewhere!

The Knights had moved up so I thought it wise to charge them with Billy Badass. Turns out ol' Billy was wearing his "dress up armor" and not the real stuff. As they say, two to the body, one to the head. My leader was down and the Batdroids were in deep kimchi.

To my delight, the knights went outside to flank me rather than simply walking up to an objective and taking it. Queen Hacker Bit hit the Knight leader with an Oblivion routine blowing his mind and shutting him down for the duration! Woohoo!

The Rodoks finish off the Order Sergeants.

I did not photograph the massacre that was happening elsewhere. Those two Rodoks in the last picture are the only two guys I had left at the end of the game. Amusingly, we technically tied since neither of us captured an objective, although I think my guys would have quit the field early due to casualties. Regardless of the outcome, the game was a lot of fun and we got to use a lot of the weird and fun stuff including hidden deployments, deploying and deactivating mines, and hacking attacks. Looking forward to some revenge!