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!

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.

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!