Thursday, 24 December 2015

Infinity - Making an ITS List

Welcome to (a long overdue) part three about unit roles and list building for Infinity. If you haven't already then you may wish to check out parts one and two before reading on.

This final article in the series is going to be about putting together a capable list to take to an ITS event. It will include some general rules of thumb, strategies to look out for and common mistakes to avoid.

Once again there is a disclaimer: These aren't hard and fast rules and the suggestions below aren't set in stone - but they are a good place to start. They are just the musings of one person, so if you think I'm wrong about something (and I may well be)

All examples are assuming a 300 point army built for ITS missions and with no Spec Ops.

All image in this article are property of Corvus Belli.

Saturday, 5 December 2015

Battlefleet Valkyrie - Group Shots

You know what it's time for? Full fleet shots!

I went to a mixed 40k/BFG event last weekend and got a couple of really fun games in on a very pretty table. Of particular note was the custom built planet which was designed to look like Armageddon, although in this case it represented Ichar IV, and was the main focus of the games.

More pictures after the jump.

Battlefleet Valkyrie in all its glory.

Sunday, 29 November 2015

Rounding Out Battlefleet Valkyrie

Over the last few weeks I've been adding some final elements to round out my Battlefleet Gothic fleet. I think I'm sitting at over 3,500 points including static defences and the fleet contains most everything I'd regularly use.

This it not to say that I've got everything painted, a big box of unpainted models is evidence to the contrary, but that I have 'enough' for now. There will still be some occasional additions such as a Long Serpent, Avenger, another Dictator, a Rogue Trader cruiser and a bunch of escorts but I'll be trying to focus on some other old Warhammer/40k models and Infinity over the holidays.

So enjoy this influx of spaceships while it lasts!

The Overlord class battlecruiser Vanguard and the Lunar class cruiser Senator Albrecht supported by a CAP.

Wednesday, 18 November 2015

BFG - Missions and Advantages

A friend and I had a chance to play some Battlefleet Gothic a couple of weekends ago and to mark this special occasion (we don't get to play too often!) I wanted to try something a little bit different.

This 'little bit different' manifested itself as a set of Advantage Cards which give minor perks to the players during the game and a set of Mission Cards for use with a modified version of the Escalating Engagement scenario. You'll find rules for both of these below.

Are these cards fair? Probably not, but we had a fun, tense game that came down to a 6-5 win for the Chaos forces (boo!). There were some really memorable moments and it was interesting trying to adapt to the rapidly changing circumstances.

A Mars class Battlecruiser escorts a pair of transports as they try and reach a dock at the far side of the planet.

Wednesday, 4 November 2015

Strike One, Strike Two...

Welcome back to another episode of "did I really need to buy these?" this time featuring the iconic Space Marines Strike Cruisers.

I love the way Strike Cruisers look. The tall spires combined with the really flat prow is really distinctive and looks sufficiently different from other Imperial vessels to stand out. Even though Strike Cruisers are individually unimpressive I'm hoping that squadroned as a pair they'll prove to be effective.

As I mentioned last time I was planning on going for Imperial Fists unless I could come up with anything better and... I couldn't come up with anything better. So bright yellow it is then.

Two Imperial Fist Strike Cruisers deploying for battle.

Sunday, 1 November 2015

More spaceships...? More spaceships!

Hello again Battlefleet Gothic fans. I've still got the painting bug so there has been a decent turnaround on new ships including my take on the Enforcer Class light cruiser from the Additional Ships Compendium.

A friend and I are demoing BFG as part of a store open day next weekend so I want to make sure we're going to have lots of interesting stuff to play with and this update is a big part of that. On a related note; if anybody has a cool scenario system, missions cards or a multi-player format to share then please do let me know.

An Enforcer guards a convoy of transport ships.

Tuesday, 27 October 2015

Running Infinity Tournaments 101

I've recently been asked for advice on how to run a successful Infinity tournament. I was definitely flattered by this as I still consider myself an amateur in terms of organising events! I still have a tendency to forget things now and again (especially table numbers - thanks Ian!) but hopefully this will serve as a useful check list for future events.

While writing my reply I realised that there was really quite a lot to say on the subject and that these musings might be of interest to others as well. There's a lot here, and I'm sue a lot of it will come across as rather obvious. If you think I've missed anything though then please do let me know.

Monday, 26 October 2015

BFG and Necromunda Update

I've had all kinds of odds and ends cross my painting table lately. This always tends to be the case once an army or faction reaches a certain size and I begin adding the more esoteric elements in order to add some variety.

The main addition was a set of miniatures from Brigade Models that I picked up at Blast-tastic! earlier this month. Yes, I managed to assemble and paint a set of models within a month of buying them. Impressive I know.

Anti-shipping missile defence system.

Thursday, 22 October 2015

BFG - Converted Vengeance Class

My current conversion project is finally done (pending basing and a bit of tidying up) and I couldn't wait to share it.

A few months ago I converted up an Exorcist Class grand cruiser and got a lot of helpful advice from the Battlefleet Gothic community. The clearest bit of feedback was that people were not keen on the chunky Imperial prow on the ship, so with my latest build I tried to find a way around that.

This version is meant to represent a slightly earlier design of grand cruiser again, without even having the first vestiges of the frontal armour. The colour scheme is slightly cleaner and brighter to show that it has been mothballed for a long time and finally given a new coat of paint and pressed into service.

The re-commissioned Vengeance Class grand cruiser Tempest with Diligence in the background.

Tuesday, 20 October 2015

BFG Support Ships

I've been busy preparing my fleet for a tournament between Vanguard (my local club) and Hackney Area Tabletop Enthusiasts (HATE) at the end of November. It'll be a mixed 40k and Battlefleet Gothic event in which I'll be playing three rounds of Planetary Assault with, as yet unknown, additional rules governing the victory conditions and also not knowing which side I'll be fighting on! Engagements will be at 750 and 1,500 points.

The interesting thing about planetary assault is that it gives you free transport ships or (a random amount of) bonus points to spend on planetary defences depending on whether you are attacking or defending respectively. This means I'll need at least 6 transport ships and 180 points of defences in order to be ready for the event and the downside is that these models are all relatively obscure or hard to come by (read: expensive).

Fortunately I managed to pick up some as part of a collection a while back and a couple of other odd bits off eBay. Others I'm going to find proxies for (Spacefleet?) or try and acquire through trading groups. I love these more unusual vessels though so really this is just the excuse I've needed!

The cruisers Drake and Aurora, assisted by the defence monitor Fervent, guard a transport convoy.

Beastman Naming - an Oldhammer Oddity?

When I get hold of some new (to me) Oldhammer models I like to take a long hard look at them. I enjoy turning them over in my hands, noticing all the little details that are easy to overlook when they are just images on a page. In particular the Chaos miniatures all have wonderful features, mutations and accoutrements that set them apart beautifully.

There's also information that's otherwise hidden on a painted and assembled model, or obscured or destroyed by glue, putty or overly-vigorous filing - namely that which is on the slotta tab.

Generally there is some indication of the manufacturer and a copyright date or date of production. But what I found curious was the name on the other side of the tab. Surely, they'd all just say 'beastman', right?

Thursday, 8 October 2015

BFG: A Sense of Scale

Realism and consistency have never been considered to be strengths of the Warhammer 40,000 setting and Battlefleet Gothic is no exception. No wonder then that the games designers and story writers play quite fast and loose with silly concepts such as size and distance.

One thing that I've always enjoyed about the game however is the sense of scale. There are space-faring cathedrals the size of cities that traverse the warp and are defended by high-tech shielding while they attack each other with... conventional cannons mostly. Yet these cannons are actually surprisingly accurate because they are able to hit targets, relatively frequently, from vast distances. But just how vast are we talking?

I'm going to try my best to tackle this question. Make no mistake that my guess is no better than anybody else's, but I like having a logically consistent setting to play in so this is mostly for my own benefit.

A Blackstone Fortress. The 40k equivalent of the Death Star.

Wednesday, 23 September 2015

New Mobile Brigadas and Nisse HMG

Alright, one more post about the Interplanetary and then I'm done. Honest!

This post is later than it could be because I needed to get some of the pics approved first. There's a lot more that I'd love to show you such as [redacted], [redacted] and the new [redacted] but I lost the deciding combat. Oh well.

True story.

Sunday, 20 September 2015

Infinity at Colours 2015

Last weekend I had the pleasure of running a small tournament at the Colours even hosted by Newbury and Reading Wargames Club at Newbury Racecourse. Colours has always been a staple event of the wargaming calendar for me so, given that it didn't run last year, I was very keen to attend.

Due to logistical issues, mostly my lack of ability to transport large amounts of scenery a long way, the even had to be capped at a dozen in the end. With some last minute cancellations we ended up with ten eager competitors battling it out on the day.

I really wanted to put on a smoothly-run event this Saturday, partly because of the strict time limits on the venue but mostly because we had so many players who were completely new to the tournament scene. It's always great to see fresh faces around and I sincerely hope that everyone enjoyed themselves.

Colours 2015 Prize Pool

Friday, 11 September 2015

Aleph - Totally Reactive

I just thought I'd share a list with you that I took to a recent tournament held at Pigmar. This isn't a tournament report because, frankly, my notes were shoddy and I didn't take many pictures. You can see shots of all the tables and the final rankings over here though.

I hadn't played vanilla much this year as I'd been leaning heavily on my Steel Phalanx, but for this tournament I wanted to try out something a bit different. In particular I wanted an army with lots of big guns and table presence, both things that Phalanx can easily lack.

Wednesday, 9 September 2015

Vroom, Vroom!

I've recently come back from holiday in Madrid, where I spent a few days soaking up the sunshine (and failing to get any kind of a tan) in celebration of becoming a year older. No doubt you are asking yourselves what this has to do with wargaming

Well, I think I had unrealistic expectation of how expensive the holiday would be, so I found myself with a decent chunk of change left over on the last day. This raised the important question of what it would be spent on.

There were the usual options of tacky souvenirs such as football shirts, 'Roy Bom' sunglasses and other odds and ends. I even scoured the local market for interesting items, picking up a few old GW paints (Enchanted Blue, Kommando Khaki and Red Ink) for a couple of euros, but I still didn't feel like I had hit the jackpot.

At least not until I properly looked in the window of a corner-shop just down the road from our hotel...

The Madrid motor pool.

Monday, 31 August 2015

Seeking Retribution

I've still been working on my BFG fleet - Battlefleet Valkyrie - as and when I've found myself with spare time. My initial goal was to get up to 2,000 points and I've finally done that with the addition of a Retribution Class Battleship, the Indomitable Will, and another three Sword Class Escorts.

Common wisdom is that Imperial fleets are always best served by an Emperor, but the Retribution is just so intimating! It has an imposing, dangerous-looking sleekness to it, with the weapon batteries set flush against her hull. In comparison the Emperor just looks slow and ponderous.

It does mean that I'll need to work on adding some more carrier support from cruiser sized ships later, but that's a small price to pay for such a marvellous craft.

Indomitable Will (Retribution Class Battleship) - held aloft by 3mm brass rod.

Thursday, 27 August 2015

Interplanetary News and Rumours

Yes, this is a third post about the Interplanetary event. This may seem like a lot, but it was an incredibly packed weekend so there might even be a fourth showcasing the new HQ building, but I'm awaiting go-ahead to publish some of the pictures.

I've held off doing a post about the seminar that was held on the Saturday evening because I assumed (hoped) that someone had snapped better pictures of it all than I had, or at least had paid more attention with their notes! As that seems not to be the case, I'll present the seminar as I recall it.

Apologies for the potato-quality pictures. The projection screen was set right at the back of the stage and my poor old camera was struggling to take passable images with that much zoom. I didn't even have a tripod to help stabilise.

Also, sorry if some of this is commonly known from Gencon or other seminars. I haven't kept much up to date so there may be repeated info.

Showing how the 3d models are built around a human 'core' to ensure realistic proportions.

Saturday, 22 August 2015

Interplanetary AAR

Wow, what a weekend that was. I'll do a proper post about the trip, rumours/info and some pictures of the new Corvus Belli HQ in the next couple of days. For the time being you'll have to make do with some battle reports!

You can read about the lists I took here.

Warning, lots of words ahead!

Robin, Stuart and Ian outside the new Corvus Belli HQ.

Tuesday, 18 August 2015

Interplanetary Table Dump

This is barely even a blog post really, but a lot of people seem to be interested in how the tables were set up at the Infinity Interplanetary tournament this year so I thought it would be interesting to snap pics of all of them and host them here as a resource for when someone asks what their tables should look like.

Last year they were considered to be slightly more open than usual terrain-wise, presumably due to resources being stretched a bit thin, but there was no such issue this time. If anything the tables were a little on the dense side overall, but the vast majority were in what could be considered a 'normal' range. Most importantly they almost all looked gorgeous!

The pictures below are presented in no particular order and were taken before any games were played on them. I believe that all the pictures were taken side-on.

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

Filing into the venue on Friday morning.

Sunday, 9 August 2015

List Building for Vigo

I've been a bit quiet for the last couple of weeks because I've been busy painting and preparing for the Infinity Interplanetary tournament in Vigo later this month. Also I've been playing Path of Exile and it's stupidly addictive....

Vigo is a really substantial event. At one hundred participants it's by far the biggest wargaming tournament I'll have attended and at five rounds it is the longest too. Not only that but, judging by last year, the standard of competition is likely to be very high. I'm pretty awful at deciding on lists at the best of times and none of these factors were helping.

So, today I'm going to talk about what I'm taking with me and why.

Spoiler: There may be missile launchers...

Monday, 13 July 2015

Operation Firestorm

Apologies for the rubbish quality pictures in this post, I stupidly left the SD card for my camera in my computer so was stuck with just my phone for the day.

This Saturday I braved the rail strikes in order to attend Operation: Firestorm held at Firestorm Games in Cardiff. The format for even was 300 points and the missions were Transmission Matrix, Seize the Antennas and Frontline.

The event was organised by Callum Wright (Flipswitch) and the venue could not have been better. If you haven't been down to Firestorm Games before then I highly recommend it, they have a great selection of stock and a fantastic gaming space. I can't believe that I hadn't been to visit before.

Is this what heaven looks like?

Sunday, 12 July 2015

BIG the Second

Last weekend I ran another BIG Tournament in Bristol and this time sixteen intrepid Infinity players showed up from as far away as London and Exeter to take a crack at the competition.

The size of the event was definitely a surprise to me as there was another tournament happening in the Midlands that same weekend which a fair amount of 'regulars' were attending. In fact I had only planned for a dozen players and had to hastily request extra tables for us!

There was a decent distribution of players for this event with a mixture of seasoned veterans as well as those playing their very first event. Most importantly, I think everyone had a good time!

Side art on new winner's box.

Friday, 26 June 2015

Questions from Google

One of the interesting parts about having my own blog is seeing what routes people have taken to get here.

Most readers are either regulars or follow links from Facebook or the Infinity forums but some chance on here via Google while on a quest for answers. One nice feature is that I can see what these people were searching for when they clicked on one of my links.

So I've gone back through the blog history a bit and picked a few questions to answer from among those that people have searched for. Hopefully this will help out the next lot of intrepid Internet explorers!

At your service. Image is property of Corvus Belli.

Saturday, 20 June 2015

The Humble(r) War Correspondant

Following on from my article about the Thorakitai Forward Observer I thought it would be a good time to shine the spotlight on another underrated unit that I try to field often and tend to get asked about a lot.

Infinity has a lot of units that are excellent without being overtly strong and therefore are overlooked in favour of more obvious options. This is especially true when these units have been improved in N3 in some way or are new units outright so people don't have experience with them.

So I'd like to present to you the cheapest trooper in the game. The-equally-humble-if-not-humbler War Correspondent, or Warcor for short.

The normal and limited release Warcor minis. Picture from Corvus Belli.

Monday, 1 June 2015

Infinity at the UK Games Expo 2015

This weekend I returned to the UK Games Expo in Birmingham, albeit with a very different motive to last year. In 2014 I attended and fairly successfully took part in an ITS tournament which was well run and a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

This year I had the privilege of running it instead of playing though and I had a lot to live up to, not to mention that it's also the biggest tournament I've run so far and the first I've run so far from home.

To top it off I'd had a couple of rather late nights before as I had been rather enjoying the rest of the convention and being involved in the open gaming. For those interested - Concept, Coup and One Night Werewolf were the most popular games of the Expo.

No pressure, eh?

Warning, this post is very image heavy!

Infinity Expo 2015 - The games are under way.

Friday, 29 May 2015

Carrier has Arrived

I've been busy working on the reinforcements for my Imperial fleet - Battlefleet Valkyrie. Last time I asked which way I should expand the fleet and the Exorcist & Dictator option won handily which I was pleased with as the lure of all those launch bays was very tempting.

Now the tricky part was that I didn't have an actual model for an Exorcist and didn't fancy buying one - they aren't cheap and I should probably focus on painting what I already have anyway.

What I did have were some rather abused plastic cruisers that I'd picked up as part of other trades... If only there was a way to convert them into something I could use as a grand cruiser...

Two new Capital Ships - The cruiser Ranger (Dictator) and grand cruiser Diligence (Exorcist).

Monday, 25 May 2015

BFG: Battlefleet Valkyrie

I've got something a little bit different to show today.

Over the last few months I've gradually been picking up more and more Battlefleet Gothic ships via eBay and various trade groups. I've always enjoyed playing the game and was involved in a campaign a few years ago which was great fun but since moving to Bristol I haven't had anybody to play against. So I've just been buying ships on a whim without having the motivation to actually get them painted.

Until now.

Battlefleet Valkyrie

Sunday, 17 May 2015

The Humble Thorakitai FO

The Thorakitai Forward Observer (FO, for short) is probably the best unit in Steel Phalanx - possibly even in Aleph as a whole.

Yes, in a faction with ODD-equipped Heavy Rocket Launcher wielding lunatics, Ballistic Skill 20 Snipers, four-armed murder TAGs and even Achilles himself, this simple 13 point model is unrivalled in value and stands out as a pinnacle of efficiency.

This is a bold claim I know, but one that I think I can back up. So let's take a detailed look at the profile and see if I can really justify this bold claim.

Thorakitai - the real heroes of the Human Sphere!

Pretty in Pink

In my last post, about Chaos Hounds, I mentioned that I had a Marauder Beast Handler next in line on my painting table, and I actually got him done fairly quickly.

I also took the opportunity to try out some Vallejo Metal Medium as I'd never used it before and really wanted to play with various strange metallic colours if I moved towards doing Tzeentch and Slaanesh warbands for both Fantasy and Rogue Trader.

So this is my first attempt. I have to admit that after I'd put on the first coat of pink I picked up the model, giggled in an entirely un-manly way, and ran over to show Emma what it looked like. I may have even exclaimed that 'he looked as pretty as a princess'!

"He looks expensive." - Emma

Sunday, 10 May 2015

Bark! Grr! Woof!

I also considered naming this article Doggy Style, but I was concerned that it would bring in the wrong kind of traffic and would leave people disappointed...

My quest to complete my collection of Chaos Hounds has come to an end and they've all been painted and based now. You can find my post about the beginnings of the collection here.

Undead, Two-Head, Hound 3 and Hound 5 were a very thoughtful Valentines present from my girlfriend. It turns out that the way to a man's heart is via small metal soldiers. Who knew? The rest were sourced from the Oldhammer Trading Group so thank you to everyone who helped me out.

Overall I'm really happy with the final result and I'm looking forward to getting them onto the battlefield. In the meantime though they'll have to settle for prowling around my display cabinet.

"I have just met you and I love you!"

Saturday, 2 May 2015

Salute 2015

I haven't been to Salute for a very long time. I've always though of it as being just too big, with long queues and quite far away on the far side of London.

But this year I was invited down by a friend to run Infinity demo games on the day. So with free entry, no queues and the chance to coincide it with a visit of nearby friends and family I was set to go, and I have to say I'm glad I did.

It was a lot easier to get to than I remember and travelling on the Docklands Light Railway is always enjoyable actually. You do get some nice views of some of the shinier parts of London and the station is pretty much right next to the venue too.

The huge range of games and traders was very impressive, although I was disappointed to find that the bring and buy had been axed previously. Still, I'd recommend it to anyone who is on the fence about attending next year.

For a one-day event, Salute is freaking huge! It's hard to see, and impossible to play, everything there.

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Infinity - Secondary Unit Roles

Welcome to the second part of my series about list building in Infinity.

In part one I wrote about the primary roles that I tend to build lists around. If you haven't read it then I recommend that you go take a look now as I'll be referencing it quite a bit.

There are clearly many units that don't fit into the roles I've previously described, so this time I'll be talking about secondary roles which should cover most of the outstanding units. Understanding these roles and knowing why you are taking a particular unit can be very helpful for making a cohesive and competent force. Not only that but it can help you determine weaknesses in your opponent's armies too.

Once again there is a disclaimer: These aren't hard and fast rules and many units can fit into multiple roles or may not appear to fit any - but this is good place to start. All examples are assuming a 300 point army built for ITS missions.

Please enjoy some pictures of March's releases from Corvus Belli: Does anyone else find the cactus weirdly cute?

Tuesday, 21 April 2015

The Great Banner Search

With the one year anniversary of Lead Rising coming up in the next couple of days I think it's finally time to spruce the place up a bit.

I'm looking to commission a banner for the blog. There are a great many talented artists who are also wargamers so I figured where else would I turn to other than the communities I'm a part of?

The banner must include the name of the blog and ought to take aspects from the gritty world of the Realms of Chaos and the sleek, futuristic style of Infinity. Think gruesomely-mutated beastman squaring off against high-tech power armour soldier.

If you'd like to know more, or are interested in working on this, then please let me know by PM, Comment or Email (west.herts@gmail.com). I'll leave this open for a couple of weeks, or until I've made a decision, whichever comes first!


Secondly, as you may have already noticed, I've got a new look for the blog. The old design was only meant to be a place-holder and really was around for far too long.

Hopefully the new look will be easier to read and more pleasant to look at. This isn't likely to be the last change and you may catch me tinkering with the settings over the next few days so don't worry if things change again suddenly! Please do let me know if you experience issues viewing any of the pages now or something doesn't appear to be displaying correctly.

Monday, 20 April 2015

Infinity - Primary Unit Roles

List building in Infinity is hard. The mantra of "it's not your list, it's you" has gone up in smoke and, given the new 2015 scenarios, it's unlikely to make a comeback. For ITS (Infinity Tournament System) events especially, list building is an important part of playing the game.

A solid list won't win the game by itself, but it helps to have a solid foundation to build on.

The good internal balance of Infinity and lack of combo-based gameplay means that it's hard to just make an army by discounting 'underpowered' units, spamming the best thing or building around obvious/deliberate combinations of profiles. There aren't really any archetypal lists for most factions and the idea of net-listing hasn't made its way into the game yet.

On the forums we've seen a lot of new players who are confused about what makes a cohesive force and tend to make (understandable) mistakes when shaping their armies. So I'm planning for this to be the first of a three part series, aimed at newer players, about list building for competitive games of Infinity.

The inspiration for these articles came from these posts on CritsKillPeople - so go have a read about Unit Roles & Misunderstood Roles.

You can find part two of the guide here.

Please enjoy some pics of new releases from Corvus Belli. Nazarova Twins: Don't the old mono-bikes seem so quaint now?

Tuesday, 14 April 2015

Infinity Weekender II - Spring Challenge

The second part of my Infinity Weekender was the Spring Challenge tournament in Exeter. I travelled down with Stuart (Fathi Amirmoez), Robin (i0003) and John - who were all also at my event yesterday!

I've got to admit, I almost didn't go to this event. We'd stayed up fairly late playing the X-Com board game and One Night Ultimate Werewolf, which meant I was somewhat lacking in sleep and feeling rough in the morning. But I dragged myself out of bed and piled into the car (cheers Robin for driving us!) - although I sleepily forgot my templates, army lists and rulebook. Oops!

Much to my surprise, this thirteen man tournament - my first ITS event of the year - actually went pretty well!

New Aquila Guard renders released this weekend - with what looks like a shoulder-mounted Panzerfaust?!

Infinity Weekender I - BIG Tournament

This Saturday was a big day for me as it was the first Infinity tournament held in Bristol and was the capstone on our escalation league. Ten Competitors showed up for a 200 points ITS event at Bristol Independent Gaming, all hunting for fame, glory and riches. Or at least some new toy soldiers and a certificate!

The prizes were from a pair of Tournament Packs, plus the obligatory wooden spoon, and were distributed as follows:
  • 1st Place: 3 blister packs and a patch
  • 2nd Place: 2 blister packs and a patch
  • 3rd Place: 1 blister pack and a patch
  • Last Place: Wooden Spoon (granting discounted entry to the next event!)
  • Raffle Prize: Armand "Le Muet" - Freelance Killer
Yep, First place was not going to be getting the limited edition mini. This was deliberately done because the event was going to be host to a mix of very new and very experienced players. I wanted to keep some excitement going right through to the end of the event as anybody had the chance of snagging a cool prize without having to worry about their score.

One thing that I didn't know at the time though was that the ITS Winners Pack (with Le Muet in it) also had a patch and badge stating "ITS Winner 2015 Season" on it. If I had known then I would have removed them and given them to first place also. Lesson learnt for any future events.

Not a bad prize pool for a £9 event I think!

Thursday, 9 April 2015

My Hopes for Warhammer 9th

As I'm sure many of you are aware, the Warhammer world has been exploded. Pretty dramatically at that. In what has been a fairly exciting six months, the fantasy world that many of us have grown up with has finally been pushed over the brink. Lizardmen have absconded in their pyramid-spaceships, Skaven have got fed up and left, the Estalians have been wiped out and all the elves are best buddies again (kind of).

What comes next is anybodies guess.

There are various rumours whizzing around of self contained chunks of land contained in warp-protecting bubbles that occasionally crash into each other and spawn conflict, complete reboots of the setting with a new genesis or even the survivors of the forces of good sheltering in a haven while chaos marauds all around. (I don't think I've ever written the word "marauds" before, and it looks really weird for some reason!)

I'd like to tell you what I'm hoping for though. A return to the Realms of Chaos.

Boom! - Image taken from RareWallpapers

Thursday, 2 April 2015

Oldhammer Warband Creator

Well, I haven't had much time for painting, but at least I've managed to get something gaming related done.

Now, like many of you I'm sure, I tend to daydream and plot what projects to work on next and what to paint up or collect in the future, and one of the driving factors behind my purchases are chaos warbands. I was also concerned that my, completely amateur, programming skills were getting rather rusty, so what better project could there be than making a warband generator for WFRP3?

My goal was that the program should create a warband with the click of a button and that it should have a number of settings to allow you to customise the output. It should follow the rules laid out in Slaves to Darkness and Lost and the Damned as closely as possible.

The project was completed in an Excel workbook with lots of VBA and some tables carefully copied from the source books. There is a lot more I could do to work on it, but I've decided it's stable enough to release into the wild for now - although there's always the temptation to just keep adding little features forever!

Please note that for it to work, the file will need to be downloaded and macros will need to be enabled.

You can find the Download Link here.
(Now on it's own page!)

A sample output using the Lost and the Damned rules

Wednesday, 25 March 2015

Pigmar "All Grown Up" Tournament

So I realise this blog has been fairly quiet lately. In fact, I haven't written too many words on here since I binged out three articles in one day almost a month ago! Truth be told I've been feeling a little bit burned out for the past few weeks.

I've spent so much energy preparing for Infinity events, painting demo armies, organising tournaments and running the local league that I just haven't found the time to properly unwind and work on some other casual projects - and believe me when I say that there are plenty to work on!

It doesn't help that the last few models I tried painting I immediately stripped again because I wasn't happy with them. That was a real downer and is a substantial reason for my lack of enthusiasm currently.

But I found the time to go to an event that somebody else was hosting (Thanks Darren!) to try out some weird and wacky lists.

Teucer - Good this be the mini that will break my painting drought?

Tuesday, 17 March 2015

Open Day at Bristol Independent Gaming

So I was down at Bristol Independent Gaming last Saturday to run demo/intro games as well as play a few casual battles as well.

It ended up being a really full day for me (I was pretty exhausted by the end!) but it seemed like everything was well received.

Adrian Wrenn was kind enough to take some photos on the day and I thought I'd share them with you lovely lot. :)

The stage was set for the clashes on the day

Thursday, 5 March 2015

Setting the Scene

Infinity is a strange game. The way the Line of Sight and Cover rules work means that you need quite a lot of scenery on the table - in fact there are many anecdotes on people spending, and investing, more on terrain than on their armies!

Suffice to say you can never have too much good scenery, especially if you have multiple tables to fill or are demonstrating the game to other clubs and stores. So I figured it was time for an investment.

At my local club there was a collection of Micro Arts Studio buildings that had been languishing in a plastic tub for several months. They had largely just been dry fit with a couple of the panels back-to-front or inside-out and pieces were loose or missing outright. Due to their state they were rarely used, people were somewhat worried about them falling apart of being damaged.

So I bought them up and decided to give them a new lease of life. I'd never really worked with the HDF material before and I didn't have an airbrush to use for the painting, but decided to just dive in anyway!

Infinity-Ville - Population entirely composed of Special Forces and shady Mega-Corporation employees.

Thursday, 19 February 2015

Command Tokens 101

If you played N2 at all then you may know that, back in the day, Lieutenant Orders had a variety of extra uses (forming link teams, auto-passing Guts rolls etc.) beyond just moving your LT and getting him or her shot. However these functions and many others are instead now covered by the new resource in the game - the Command Token.

Each army, regardless of points level, starts the game with 4 Command Tokens, although some characters like Sun Tze provide a 5th using the Advanced Command skill. These are a non-replenishing resource - once used they are gone - so be careful with them. On the other hand you don't want to be left with a pile unspent at the end of the game either.

In every game of N3 I've played so far these have been very important, so I think it's worth talking about them a little bit. I'm going to try and give a description of what their different uses are and how to make the most of them.

Again this is a 'game theory' article so enjoy some pretty concept artwork by Corvus Belli rather than my usual photos.

Sun Tze - 25% more commanding than everyone else

Icestorm Nomads Done!

Well, it's been a long... err... several months but my Operation: Icestorm Nomads are finally complete. They've been out for their first few demo games now and have performed admirably against their PanOceania counterparts.

There's not going to be too much blurb today, just lots of pics of painted models!

I thought they'd never be finished!

The Rise of the Reeves

Our local Necromunda campaign is continuing fairly swiftly and now that I'm four games in I think it's time for an update.

Despite doing rather well in all my games and causing substantially more casualties than I've received, I've managed to bottle all but one of them as soon as I had three down fighters while my opponents were passing back-to-back bottle rolls... *sigh* At least I can console myself with the knowledge that I've caused a fatality in every one of my games!

As you can imagine, this hasn't been ideal for gaining territories. On the other hand I've had nobody die on me so I haven't had to spend my meagre income on replacing people and have a decent stash saved up. But now that other gangs are gearing up it's time to join the arms race.

So say hello to Kip.

My name is Kip and I'm a local thug

Saturday, 14 February 2015

Infinity - Escalation League Round 3

Round two of the Vanguard Escalation League has come to an end now (with both a strong victory and a crushing defeat for me) which means it's time to step up to some proper games. This is the first round to be played at a 'normal' points value and with the full rules.


Hacking is the last part of the game to be introduced and has the potential to play a big part in games of Infinity because it serves as a way to keep the stronger units in the game (Heavy Infantry and TAGs) in check. I'm sure all the players will find creative uses for this new suite of abilities.

The round three missions are below.

I don't often just put pics of new releases... but damn I just want to paint this guy! - Image from Corvus Belli

Monday, 9 February 2015

A Change of Scenery

Caught up in a moment of madness I made a dreadful mistake. One that, in the months since, I have come to regret. I based all my Chaos forces using brown flock. What in the Realms of Chaos was I thinking?

The original idea would be to make them seem more 'evil', as if all life near them simply wilted away. But I have quite a gritty (unkind commentators might say 'dingy') painting style as is and I appear to have forgotten how much I needed the brighter basing to make the models stand out.

I also want to be able to freely move models and units between my different armies so having a cohesive basing scheme for all my troops would be beneficial. Especially as  now have some foundry humans that I want to be able to move freely between good and evil forces.

Meet my metaphorical guinea pig, the Chaos Hero Sally Forth.

Sally, say hello to my readers.

Sunday, 1 February 2015

Infinity - Escalation League Round 2

The first round of the Vanguard Escalation League has been well received with 8 people having completed the first round missions. It's been great to have people down playing (multiple times) each week and everyone seems to be getting to grips with the game.


A lot was learnt by new and experienced players alike. In particular Stealth and Suppressive Fire have had huge impacts on all of our games and finding ways to to deal with these abilities has been key.

So with the new round kicking off on Monday, I present to you the Round 2 missions.

Two new Alguaciles join the fray and a Spektr lurks in the background...

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Painting the Enemy

This is embarrassingly overdue, but I've finally started painting up my Nomads from Icestorm. I want to get the entire force completed for the Excelsior Infinity Day I'll be running on 7th February where it will be one of the available demo armies - along with my Aleph, Haqq and PanO. If you are in the Bristol area on that day then please do come down and say hi!

I started work on the female alguacile first because she has a more 'open' pose, with her arms outstretched. The two male models have their guns held in both hands across the front of their bodies which makes painting trickier.

Sorry that the gun is a little out of focus though - it was a bit of a photography fail and I used terrible lighting. I'm going to get a lightbox of some kind sorted out soon. Also, I managed to leave a horrible mould line on the front of her right boot which I hate myself for a bit...

She needs a name, any ideas?

Saturday, 17 January 2015

Medic!

Vanguard's Escalation League is kicking off on Monday which means I've got to get some painting done on the Haqqislam that I'll be using. I want to make a commitment to having a fully painted force at each stage of the Escalation League.

That's a fairly gently pace of painting that will hopefully give me enough time to also paint more stuff for the demo games I'll be running at Excelsior Bristol on the 7th of Feb. I've got a bit of a head start as I have a few troops already painted, but there is no time for complacency.

Haqqislamite doctors are known to be the best in the Human Sphere and so I really wanted her, and her little robot buddy, in my starting force. Hopefully being able to patch up my troops fairly reliably will make up for my lack of Heavy Infantry.

A fireteam of Ghulams on patrol.

Thursday, 15 January 2015

N3 Aleph at a glance

The long awaited N3 PDFs have finally been released. Of course the first thing I had to do was check out how Aleph were shaping up in the new edition. I've listed all the profile changes I've spotted below the jump and then I've done a write up of the biggest winners and losers of N3.

Where I don't mention a profile, it is unchanged.

Infinity N3 is here - everyone crash the servers!

Monday, 12 January 2015

List of the Week - No SWC Aleph

Well, it seems like the N3 profiles are a little way off yet so rather than delay this series any further I thought it might be interesting to push some list creation boundaries.

A while back myself and some friends had a discussion about whether lists without any SWC (special weapons cost) were viable. It would have to be a list without any minelayers, hackers, HMGs, Spitfires, Sniper Rifles, Chain of Command, Rocket/Missile launchers and other neat toys that we would otherwise take for granted.

On the other hand you have things like Fidays, Multi Rifle HI, monofilament mines, link teams and most specialists still to work with.

This list has been on the back-burner for a little while, but with the N3 buffs to shotguns and combi rifles I think now might be the time to bust it out...

Artwork from Infinity: Human Sphere

Wednesday, 7 January 2015

Infinity Escalation League - Round 1

In a couple of weeks time I'll be kicking off an escalation league at Bristol Vanguard. It's a really exciting time for Infinity in the area as the release of N3 has caused an explosion in the player base with communities rapidly expanding in clubs across Bristol and Bath.

We've got around ten people, including myself, at Vanguard who will be participating in the league and using it as a way of learning the game, getting armies painted or acquainting themselves with all the rule changes.

Personally I'm going to take this opportunity to really get to grips with my Haqqislam troops. They've been completely sidelined by Aleph for the last couple of years, but a new edition and tournament season is a great opportunity to try something fresh.

Our mascot - the Vanguard bear