My Infinity Christmas Parcel

Now that the fortnight of food, drink and merry-making has come to an end, and very pleasant it was too, it's time to get back to some blogging.

The enjoyableness of my festive period was increased greatly by the fact that my copy of Infinity N3 arrived on Christmas Eve, which meant that I had plenty of time to start reading through it and getting to grips with the changes.

I'm not going to go into the rules changes now, I need to have some more practical experience with it first, but I just want to take the opportunity to show off my new toys. :)

My preciousss....

DecemberMunda

This is going to be a super quick post about the outcome of the campaign hosted by Geoff just prior to New Years. You can find loads of pics and a bit of a write-up on his blog. Seriously, go take a look, the gangs and terrain look great.

The Emperor's Reeves performed marvelously and you can find the updated gang roster on Yaktribe. I rolled up a fine smattering of advances and skills throughout the half dozen games played and managed to avoid taking any casualties, mostly by being a sneaky git and letting other people do the fighting.

Of particular note is Constantine becoming hard as nails (yay), the Heavy only getting a Strength and Weapon Skill advance (boo) and my Ratskin being a complete and utter badass. I even managed to convert my Old Ruins into a Settlement using an isotropic fuel rod. Happy days!

But my most important success was capturing an Escher Juve from Geoff and, in roleplay terms at least, converting her to my side. So without further ado, let me introduce you to Jett, the newest member of the Reeves.

Jett, the Wonder Juve 

The Gang's All Here

Much to my own surprise I've actually finished a painting project this year. In record time in fact. This is definitely not what I'd expected to happen as normally my productivity drops off as it gets colder and darker (than usual). But with a Necromunda campaign starting early in the New Year I've had to crack on.

A Cawdor gang definitely was not what I expected to be working on this Christmas as it is a recent addition to the collection, but the rather simple and charming sculpts means that it got bumped up the queue quite considerably. I've got most of an Escher gang that needs some TLC and a fair sized bundle of Ratskins that really ought to have some colour splashed on them, but the Cawdor models were just so delightfully easy to paint that I couldn't resist!

The Emperor's Reeves are now ready to take the fight to heretics, mutants and wyches everywhere.

The Emperor's Reeves in all their glory

The Emperor's Reeves

"And there we were, just me and the big armoured bastard in the middle of 'ese ruins. The rest of the gang had scarpered off or been killed and it was me and 'im left."

The sump bar was silent, the patrons gathered close around Constantine as he spun his tale. The Reeves had gone outside to smoke some hivegrass, they'd heard it all a thousand times before anyway.

The grizzled gang leader took another long swig of wildsnake. "So I looked him right in the eyes, stared him down I did. I wasn't scared lads 'cos this was what He put me 'ere for. Killing the heretics in 'is name. Praise be to the Emperor." 

Another swig. He climbed up onto the table and unholstered his autopistol. "And I drew my gun on him and he raised his Boltgun at me. We both fired. BLAM!" He emptied a few rounds from his pistol into the ceiling for emphasis and the crowd jumped back. "My bullets caught 'im dead between the eyes and his bolt smashed up my face something proper."

"That's why I wear this mask now, 'cos the scars are too terrible to see. None of you'd ever sleep again if you saw. You'd be too busy pissing yer'selves and crying for your mamas." He pulled back his cowl, revealing a thick leather mask that covered most of his face. "I took 'is bolter as my rightful reward and it does the Emperor's work now. Good thing none of you is heretics is all I can say."

He took his seat again, revelling in the rapt attention of the assembled drinkers. "Now, someone buy us another round and I'll tell you about the time with the Wyrd Spiders in the ruins of Scraptown."

Constantine - Reeves' Gang Leader

Infinity Autumn Challenge 2014

A couple of weekends ago I attended the Autumn Challenge event run by Ian 'The Wargaming Trader' Wood. The weekend was designed as a casual event where we'd be trying out all of the N3 rules spoiled so far with changes to Camouflage, Impetuous, Infiltration, weapon ranges, silhouettes and so on.

Unfortunately, as the weekend was a fairly unusual format - casual gaming on Saturday and 150 point non-ITS doubles tournament on Sunday - the event was not particularly well attended compared to others in the Challenge series, but I still had a really good time and appreciated the chance to get a bit of a preview of N3 and test out some new toys.

Speaking of new toys, there is always an excellent array of Infinity boxes, blisters and scenery for sale at these events and I picked up a copy of the new Dactyl for my army as well as a bunch of 55mm MAS Urban Fight bases for my TAGs, Remotes and Bikes.

Spoiled for choice!

List of the Week - Combined Army 'i0003 Style'

With Infinity 2nd edition getting the boot in the next week or so I thought I'd take the opportunity to write about one of the defining lists of the UK tournament scene.

Robin, i0003 to some, has blazed a trail across England this year and has posted excellent tournament results consistently. His force of choice? The Combined Army (...and Haqqislam ...and Yu Jing).

So now that ITS 2014 is all but over I thought I'd ask him to share with me a typical CA list from a recent event so I could try and break down the choices made and why the list works. Do note that this isn't a 'cookie cutter' force. I don't think the exact same list was ever played twice and tuning for the missions in a given tournament is important.

Ewww - weird hand-feet! - Image from Corvus Belli

List of the Week - Stuck in a (Ma)Rut

A while back on the Infinity forums I chimed in on a thread about getting the most out of the Marut in ITS at the 300 points level.

The Marut has always been tricky to fit into a list. It's expensive (122 points), is an obvious Lt (due to Strategos) and is part of an elite and expensive faction where you don't have cheap rifle-toting troops to provide orders. This can make supporting it properly, whilst still having sufficient specialists for ITS, a challenge. Needless to say it doesn't get much table time.

I was initially going to write up a 300pt Marut list for ITS, but my heart wasn't in it. You can read most of my thoughts about it in that thread anyway. Long story short, just use an Asura instead and save 50 points.

Then fate intervened and I received a PM from Urian on the forums asking for help building a 400 point Marut-lead Aleph army for an upcoming Spanish Spec-Ops tournament. The catch was that he really needed to submit it that day. After a lot of discussion, here is the list he used.

Look behind you! - Image from Corvus Belli