Saturday 17 December 2016

The Humble Irmandinhos

Today's topic of conversation is the humble Irmandinho. In real life the Irmandinhos were a a group of Galician revolutionaries around the fifteenth century but in Infinity they are Smoke-toting Engineers with a complete disregard for their own well-being.

I've been waging a personal crusade to get some recognition for what I feel is an underused unit (although this may just be because their sculpts are seriously dated) and finally have gotten round to jotting down my thoughts.

So let's take a look at what they can do.


Sunday 11 December 2016

Infinity - Unreleased models

Following on from my article about limited edition miniatures (now mostly up to date again) I was contacted by many players keen to share other oddities with me. So it seems that it's time to venture into the world of even rarer miniatures - those that have never been released to the general public at all!

None of the models in this article were made commercially available so their numbers are extremely limited. Generally they were early or test versions that weren't considered suitable for general sale but very few have been given away by Corvus Belli to mark special occasions or victories in particular tournaments. It's unclear how many of each there are floating around, but 8 is probably a fair guess as that is how many would typically be on a master mould.

The six sculpts below are those that I am aware of but if you know of any more, or have further info or corrections about any of them, then please do let me know and I'll be sure to add it in. Also, if you happen to own one and are looking to sell then don't forget about me!

My thanks go out to a number of players without whom this article wouldn't be possible including Cervantes, Yasbir, Fithavil and Admiral JFJC. Information was also taken from a related Data Sphere thread that is now somewhat out of date!

The unreleased Ninja and Highlander (left and right respectively, for those wondering).

Thursday 8 December 2016

Tactica: Deployment or Initiative

So you've won the Initiative Roll and now have to decide whether you want to Keep Initiative (choosing whether to go first or second) or Keep Deployment (choosing which deployment zone to take and forcing your opponent to deploy first).

What do you do?

At this point in the game I've seen experienced players (including myself) all but melt down into a puddle of indecisive goo. Not only do you have to choose whether to Keep Deployment or Keep Initiative, but you then have to decide which Deployment Zone to take or whether to take the first or second turn respectively.

The entire flow of the game is going to hinge upon these two questions, but how do you decide which options to take?

Friday 2 December 2016

Tactica: Dodge in, Dodge out, shake it all about.

Good morning class, it's pop quiz time.

Can anyone here tell me exactly what Dodge, Engage, Change Facing, Alert, Warning and Reset do, where they are different and when/why you would use each of them?

No? Well frankly neither could I. So I did a whole load of research, picked through all the rules, FAQs and forum threads I could find and wrote it all up whilst dispensing tips and suggestions as I went. Hopefully it'll be an interesting read.

Warning: Thar be many words ahead!

Thursday 24 November 2016

D&D 3.5 - Population/NPC Generator

In my spare time I've been working on a tool which will quickly generate semi-random populations of NPCs, split by class and level, for Dungeons and Dragons 3.5. Not only that but it will then generate largely ready-to-use profiles for the NPCs too.

Now I've finally got it to the point where I'm happy to release it to out to the general public - a terrifying step for any burgeoning programmer.

Be aware that this workbook uses numerous macros and so it will need to be downloaded and macros will need to be enabled for the functions to work. It has only been tested on Windows so far, although it *should* work fine on Macs too. You can find notes and a brief user guide after the jump.


Population Generator Home-Page

Monday 31 October 2016

Of Math and Medikits

The MediKit is an unusual piece of equipment that is found on all Paramedics and many Doctors across all the factions in Infinity. As the Paramedic skill can be commonly found as a profile option for basic infantry units you may well have come across it before.

I've recently been finding myself using MediKits more often, likely due to the lack of competent Doctors and Servant Remotes in Ariadna, but I've encountered only limited success with them. I'm not sure that I should even bother trying to make use of them.

It's always difficult to work out odds on the fly, so I thought it'd be interesting to spend some time calculating some different probabilities so I can be better informed for future games.

Warning: There be charts ahead!

Sunday 30 October 2016

USARF Recruitment Office - Part 4

The latest additions to my USAriadna force are a pair of Traktor Muls.

These versatile remotes are a mainstay in many Ariadna armies and so it was inevitable that I'd end up wanting to use them eventually. I was somewhat dreading the assembly though as there were a couple of criteria I wanted to meet.

  1. Those large, metal missile launcher pods had to be attached to the central 'head' securely by a fairly small surface area.
  2. I should be able to field any combination of a Katyusha, Uragan or two Minesweepers using only these two remotes. This would allow me to field any reasonable combination of their profiles.

Monday 19 September 2016

USARF Recruitment Office - Part 3

My painting table is still awash with tiny, patriotic Americans. 

I finally got round to finishing off my second Devil Dog team as well as another Foxtrot and the King of USAriadna himself - Van Zant!

Sunday 11 September 2016

Interplanetary 2016 After Action Report

Wow, what a weekend that was. So as you may have noticed, I recently attended the third Infinity Interplanetary tournament held in Vigo, Spain.

This is a hundred-player event featuring five missions over two days. It's a great opportunity to play against some of the best, or at least craziest/most dedicated players from around the world. Last year I took my Steel Phalanx and placed a respectable 33rd, this year my plan was to try and not do worse. You can read about the lists I took here and my exploits from last year here.

So how did I do? Read on!

Warning, lots (and lots) of words ahead!

Some of the prize support being given away on the day!

Saturday 3 September 2016

Interplanetary 2016 Staff Round Table

Okay, final seminar write-up from the Interplanetary. Honest!

This is actually the first seminar that took place over the weekend and was a discussion about the creative process for Infinity and also included a Q&A portion with the staff. There was a wide range of topics covered and it's clear that there were a lot of questions that the community was just dying to ask.

Among other things, the seminar covered art design, release schedules, the delays with the RPG and entirely too much information about Dog Soldiers.

Friday 2 September 2016

Interplanetary 2016 Angel's Seminar

Angel Giraldez, CB's master painter, hosted a seminar at the Interplanetary about his upcoming book - Masterclass volume 2 - and a new project called Luxumbra. Once again I set about making as many notes as I could, particularly as I was interested in what the new limited edition miniature would be...

Apologies for the low image quality, such are the issues with trying to take pictures of a projector on a sunny day and I'm still getting to grips with a new camera and image editor.

Tuesday 30 August 2016

Interplanetary 2016 Manga Seminar

There were a number of smaller seminars at the Interplanetary, including one about the upcoming manga, which seemed very interesting.

I didn't know much about the project before attending so I busily took photos and made (rather scribbly) notes throughout. The panel had Kenny Ruiz (illustrator) and Victor Santos (writer) on it alongside the CB staff to talk about their work and the character designs.

Please be aware that because this seminar was done during the daytime many of the pictures came out looking quite washed out on the projector. I've therefore increased the contrast to make them more clearly visible but this might not be completely accurate to the final product and minor details may be lost.

WARNING: This post contains a lot of large images - mobile users beware.


Interplanetary 2016 Table Dump

Like last year I found the time to take pictures of all the tables at the Interplanetary before the tournament started.

There was an excellent selection of scenery on show and the all-card tables from last year were noticeably absent. Several tables had special terrain rules including woodland (cover or saturation and difficult terrain) and mountainous/aquatic areas (difficult terrain) but there didn't appear to be any very difficult terrain.

Generally there was a good mix of terrain density, although some of the tables definitely look a bit too 'even' which reduced the value of picking deployment zones. There were a couple that seemed a little lacking in scatter, but nothing outrageous.

The tables are all presented in numerical order (from 1-50) and there are two pictures of each table, one from the front and one from the right side.

WARNING: This post contains a lot of large images - mobile users beware.

There was also some life-size beautiful scenery in Vigo!

Interplanetary 2016 Bostria Seminar

Last weekend I attended the Interplanetary tournament in Vigo, Spain. There will be a full after action report coming in the next week or so, but first I wanted to to share a lot of the pictures I took at the event.

In particular there was a seminar from Bostria about upcoming releases that you may find interesting. There was some overlap with stuff that was shown at Gencon, so I've tried to show mostly things that I believe are new, or at least that I wasn't aware of!

These are mostly photos of their projector, so there may be clearer images from the livestream somewhere, but this should be a rather complete set of pics. Enjoy!

WARNING: Lots of images!

Saturday 27 August 2016

ALIVE

Help me.


Are you ALIVE?


The INFORMATION must SPREAD.

A_LAB_SECRET
LIGHT IS TRUTH, AND TRUTH IS THE UNION



NOW IS THE TIME TO REVEAL THE TRUTH 

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW MORE 

FOLLOW THE PUPPETEER

jofrejoyrleft




KLEINMANN

Wednesday 24 August 2016

Questions from Google II

Welcome back to another Questions from Google where once again I'll be trying to answer the questions that have brought people to my little corner of the Internet.

As before, all of the questions below are search terms that individuals have used to land on this blog but likely haven't been answered. Some of these I have had to interpret a little as the question was somewhat unclear or vague.

Hopefully these will again be useful for you lot!

Tuesday 23 August 2016

USARF Recruitment Office - Part 2

More USAriadna? More USAriadna!

The army is coming along nicely and this next batch adds a lot of variety for my infantry. I'm still loving painting these guys and am looking forward to picking up the Maverick box soon too!

Hardcase, 112, Grunt with LGL, Dozer and Airborne Ranger

Sunday 14 August 2016

USARF Recruitment Office - Part 1

I've kind of fallen behind with uploading pictures of my USAriadna army and I've been working on them at quite a pace recently!

I'm still really enjoying painting the colour scheme and look forward to playing the faction a lot once the Interplanetary is over. I'm hoping to give them their tournament debut at the Exeter team tournament towards the end of the year.

Anyway, here's the first of the batches that were completed recently.



Wednesday 10 August 2016

List Building for the Interplanetary 2016

Can you believe that it's been a year already? Yep, it's almost time for the Interplanetary tournament in Vigo, Spain again.

For those not in the know, the Interplanetary is a 100-man tournament held in the home-town of Corvus Belli and it marks the end of the ITS season. Last year I took my Steel Phalanx and came a fairly respectable 33rd. My goal this time is to not do worse. Given my lack of tournament practice over the last year this is going to be a challenge!

My initial plan was to take a freshly painted USAriadna army with me, but after discovering that the tournament was not a Spec Ops event this year (at some point it was changed and the players weren't advised until near the deadline) my list prep was in tatters. In particular I was concerned about the faction's ability to complete Highly Classified reliably.

So I went crying back to all-knowing Aleph and once again took control of the Steel Phalanx.

Saturday 6 August 2016

Exeter Summer Challenge 2016 AAR

Last weekend I attended the Summer Challenge in Exeter which had a rather unusual format.

It was a three round campaign tournament with 12 starting XP, perma-death and panoplies which you could loot for weapons/equipment that would persist between games. It had all the potential for making really ridiculous combinations of skills or equipment and it didn't disappoint!

I was incredibly unprepared for the event and, if I'm honest, I almost flaked out at the last minute as I was feeling pretty rough that morning. I hadn't even decided on what faction to take until I was already on the train to the venue! Despite the potential flexibility of vanilla Aleph, in the end I settled on using my ever-reliable Steel Phalanx given the rather bloodthirsty mission selection.

Fortunately for me, it all worked out better than I had expected.

Monday 1 August 2016

Infinitely BIG IV

A couple of weeks ago we held our fourth Bristol tournament at Bristol Independent Gaming.

Once again it was a pleasure to run as everybody knew what they were doing and swiftly got into their games. Unfortunately the turn-out wasn't as high as for our last event due to some players who had to cancel in the last few days leading up to the tournament, so in the end we had twelve people battling it out for the opportunity to take home a Krakot Renegade miniature.

Infinitely BiG IV prize pool - including the wooden 'spoon'.

Friday 15 July 2016

Infinity - Dealing with Impersonation

The use of Impersonators in Infinity can be quite a divisive subject. Complaints of unfairness are frequently levelled against them because their unique rules seem to break so many fundamental aspects of the game and they bypass many conventional defences.

At first they may come across as unstoppable monsters who can go where they please with impunity, picking off valuable targets (such as an all-important Lieutenant) with complete disregard for their own safety, much like human-shaped guided missiles. However, in practice they are far from unreasonable - they might even be fair!

Learning how to deal with them effectively only comes with practice and experience, some of which I hope to share with you in this article.

Have a nice day!

Sunday 12 June 2016

Infinity at the UK Games Expo 2016

Last Sunday I was back at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham to organise an Infinity event for a second time. Once again we ran the event with 24 players and even had the privilege of playing indoors, rather than in the marquee like last year, as the trade section of the Expo had been moved over to the NEC.

We had great help from the Expo staff who had set up tables/cloths ahead of time for us and provided me with all the things that I had left at home (paper. duct tape etc.) as well as three trophies to hand out to the players.

Information on the final rankings, prizes, armies and tables are all below. Be aware that there are quite a lot of images.

Trophies for first place, runner-up and best pained army.

Friday 27 May 2016

Tournament Results Slips

Small update today. I mocked up some Infinity results slips for use in the 2016 ITS format and thought I'd take the opportunity to share them with other organisers.

The slips fit six to an A4 page and you can download the PDF from my Google Drive here: Result slips download.

Sample result slip

If you are running a tournament for the first time then do also check out my article for advice on organising a successful event.

Monday 23 May 2016

Infinity - Limited Edition Models

There's one aspect of Infinity that has always struck me as poorly documented and that is the limited edition miniatures that were released over the last five years or so.

I've seen many discussions about them and read lots of requests for information but I've yet to see anyone attempt to catalogue all those that have been available. So I'm going to step in and try and set things straight! Frankly, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing so it's definitely my forte - I just can't help buying into whatever rare toys are made available!

The Limited Edition miniatures can be broken down into four broad categories; tournament rewards, pre-order bonuses, celebrations and 'others'.

Please note that this does not include anything from the general Bootleg range (such as Penthesilea), out of production/unreleased miniatures or the starter-pack exclusives, but do let me know if you think I've missed any!

(Left to Right): CSU, Maverick, Joan, Gogo, Bounty Hunter

Friday 6 May 2016

Making USAriadna Great Again

Having finished my first USAriadna box set I did what any self respecting player would do and immediately bought a second one - all for the princely sum of £35 (thanks Simple Miniature Games!)

I just couldn't resist given that it's currently the only source of many USAriadna units although this does mean that my painting queue has become rather full once again...

The new recruits

Friday 29 April 2016

Play the Game - A Case for Intent

This topic has long been a bone of contention in the Infinity community and has had people split down the middle with a lot of passion on both sides. It's a heated issue that I've been loath to get involved with until now.

I've been made aware of an article which aggressively refutes the suggestion that intent is a legal (in rules terms) way of playing the game and there was a significant conversation in the UK Infinity communities about it too.

These two things combined have spurred me to throw my hat into the ring and write about the topic as well. My strong belief is that 'intent' is in fact the correct way to play the game and that it is fully supported by the rules.

In this article I'll be trying to clarify my definition of 'intent', my understanding of the rules and will be making some suggestions on how intent-based game-play can work without falling into common pitfalls.

Woo, more USAriadna ready for battle! I intend (ha!) to get a lot of games in with these guys!

Wednesday 27 April 2016

Story League: Episode 4!

Welcome to the final episode of our Story League. Thanks again to those of you who submitted results for the previous mission as it resulted in a major victory for the attackers!

I've also now uploaded a PDF of all the missions for easier reading.

In the last episode an unmarked interplanetary transport vessel carrying Amelia Khan and Snowfall's cube suffered a "terrible accident" following a routine stop-and-search by a Yu Jing customs vessel.

They never stood a chance. With the generators destroyed and security forces routed the stricken transport ship was left drifting. A few demolition charges placed in key areas of the hull were sufficient to break the vessel up. There were no survivors. 

The formal report suggests an engineering failure in the starboard engine as the cause of the explosion and the blame has been laid at the feet of the port technicians, many of whom are now facing trials for negligence. 

Whilst the conflict continued in space, the Yu Jing judiciary revoked PanOceania's diplomatic status and demanded that any information pertaining to Snowfall be turned over immediately. Naturally, this request was denied. 

Ariadnan mercenary forces storm the grounds of the PanOceanian embassy.

Wednesday 20 April 2016

New Demo Kit - Salute 2016

Another Salute has been and gone.

Once again I used the event as motivation to update my demonstration kit for Infinity. This year I added the USAriadna Ranger Force to my pool of available factions - joining PanO, Nomads, Aleph and Haqq - and also updated my player handouts which can be found in PDF form here.

The new hand-outs were redesigns of what I've used previously, having taken on feedback from those I've played with and from my own observations. Things have been sufficiently tested, updated and tidied up that I now feel comfortable unleashing them on the wider world!

Player handouts - front view.

Monday 18 April 2016

Aleph in Human Sphere: Top 5(ish) Changes

My Human Sphere book arrived today and I immediately started poring over it to try and spot all the new changes and how they might affect my favourite faction - Aleph. Unfortunately there's just so many of them that it's almost impossible to mention them all.

So I decided to make a list. Everybody likes lists, right?

Human Sphere N3

Wednesday 13 April 2016

USA! USA! USA!

Despite having purchased the box set almost a year ago, I've only recently started getting to work on my USAriadna force for Infinity. The motivation for me this time is getting a 5th demo faction ready in time for Salute on the 16th where a group of us will be running games throughout the day.

Apart from sheer laziness the main reason that I hadn't made progress on this army was that I couldn't decide on a scheme. After initially testing a couple of green/brown/khaki combinations I realised that I hated painting those colours and I was really bad at it. My test models quickly got dunked in Fairy Power Spray whilst I contemplated my failings.

Fortunately sometimes all you need is a single colour to act as your inspiration and for me this came in the form of P3's Trollblood Base. This is a wonderful teal colour and it applied well, had excellent saturation, was easy to highlight and looked just on the right side of military. I was sold on it and began painting in earnest.

My USAriadna Ranger Force so far.

Tuesday 12 April 2016

Story League: Episode 3!

Welcome back once again to the Infinity Story League! Sorry this is a bit overdue but holidays, exams and tournaments have conspired against me.

Following the events of the last episode Snowfall has been killed by state-sponsored assassins although Amelia managed to survive the vicious combat. A minor victory for the attackers.

It was a brutal, if brief, battle. The close quarters fighting lasted only a couple of minutes until further security forces arrived but by then the damage had been done. Snowfall was dead and many of his security forces were injured or worse. Of their assailants there was no trace, bodies having been spirited away by state-sponsored conspirators.

What was not common knowledge however is that during his time at the embassy Snowfall had been implanted with a cube, a device which can be used to reconstruct someone's personality and memories even after death, and this had been recovered.

Amelia and Snowfall's cube, with all the vital information it contained, were hurriedly evacuated to New Shanghai space-port where they were put on an undocumented cargo ship heading out of system along with a substantial security detail.


Thursday 31 March 2016

Magnets, how do they work?

I finally decided to bite the bullet and shell out for an Adeptus Mechanic cruiser. It's a ship that I've been keen to acquire for a long time and it will hopefully be a worthy addition to my Imperial fleet.

It arrived ready assembled as a Tyrant class (all weapon batteries) but I wasn't convinced that this was the best use for it, nor was I willing to shell out for several vessels to have different configurations. After all, it would be a rare fleet indeed that would field more than one given that they take up valuable reserve slots! So I did what anybody would do and put the question to the BFG Facebook group. Which configuration should I go with?

The response; magnetise it.

Fine then.

The Adeptus Mechanicus cruiser Immutable Faith

Wednesday 23 March 2016

Infinitely BIG III

Last weekend I hosted my first tournament of the year at Bristol Independent Gaming.

We had a great turnout of 19 players (one player had to drop out) making this the largest Infinity tournament held in Bristol so far. In fact it could have probably been bigger still except that we had run out of allotted space at the venue!

All the prizes!

Friday 4 March 2016

Story League: Episode 2!

Welcome back to the Infinity story league!

It's been fantastic having people taking part, seeing all your tables and reading the reports. I couldn't be happier with the interest that has been shown in it. Results are still coming in but overall it is clear that a Defender Major Victory is the most common result.

Amelia's security detail successfully fought off her mysterious kidnappers and managed to extract information form one of the assailants as well.

The national media reported it as a terrorist attack. Nobody stepped forward to take responsibility for the act but the Yu Jing state was quick to point fingers at some of the more infamous nationalist groups.

The Yu Jing and PanOceanian governments issued a joint statement condemning the assault on the Sandbox the previous night and they promised full co-operation with each other in order to ensure that nothing like it would happen again.

Yeah, I don't believe that either.

PanOceanian security storm the nightclub as shots are fired by the mysterious kidnappers.

Wednesday 24 February 2016

Reinforcements have Arrived

Attending events and playing games is always the best motivation for me to actually get something painted. So it was a good thing that I'd signed up for the Winter Challenge in Exeter last weekend and felt compelled to show up with my army finished! What wasn't quite so good was still putting on the finishing touches late on Friday night...

I just couldn't bear the thought of showing up with undercoated or (gasp!) naked models. Again.

Group Shot

Wednesday 17 February 2016

ITS 2016: Tournament Pack Unboxing

They've arrived!

I've been eagerly awaiting the new ITS tournament packs ever since the 2016 season was announced and I'm pleased to say that eight of them showed up at my door yesterday. I now have the pleasure of cracking them open to see what goodies they hold.

The 2016 season has arrived.

Wednesday 3 February 2016

Story League: Episode 1!

My local Infinity group has been asking for me to organise a league for some time now but I've been putting it off because I'm not keen keen on the 'official' format and the ITS-lite style missions I used last time weren't as well received as I would have hoped. So I've decided to throw something together that's a little bit different.

I really want to take this opportunity to use some uncommon rules and asymmetric scenarios of the kind not really suitable for tournament play. I've got a rough idea for a story that will unfold depending on the outcome of the previous missions (decided by the most common result reported by those taking part) and a vague plan for how the missions will work mechanically.

The first part of this league and the basic rules are below and I'll hopefully release a new part every two to three weeks.

Malamir Khan is a high-profile PanOceanian ambassador currently visiting New Shanghai on the world of YuTang to discuss the defection and detainment of an Imperial Service agent turned info-hacker known only as 'Snowfall' who is currently residing in the PanOceanian embassy. 

Amelia Khan, his daughter who is probably better known by her stage name 'Lady Bay', is a P-pop sensation who is known for giving concerts in any cities her father is visiting at the time. 

This time she's playing a small, but packed, gig at a bar called The Sandbox. Normally these events proceed without incident but this time an anonymous tip has led to her private security being bolstered just in case...


Image property of Corvus Belli.

Saturday 23 January 2016

The Humble FO Remote

Following on from the Humble Thorakitai FO and War Correspondent articles, I'll be turning my sights (and affections) towards another unit that I think is undervalued by many players.

You may know them by many different names - Pathfinder, Guardian, Rafiq, Stempler, M-Drone or Daleth - but these Remotes have most of their properties in common. They are fast, cheap specialists that have a vast amount of unusual equipment at their disposal and come at a very reasonable price. I even named one as the star unit of my Interplanetary trip!

Their singular flaw is that they have too many rules so if you don't do research into what they are capable of then they can seem outright confusing and easy to overlook. So I'm aiming to cover all the information needed to use them effectively and I hope you fall in love with them as much as I have!

The Yu Jing equivalent is the Yaokong Weibing (Guardian). All images property of Corvus Belli.