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.

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'.

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!

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.

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.

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

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