Wednesday 30 November 2016

Infinity Battle Report: 300 pts Nomads vs Bakunin - Armory


I took the opportunity to get in another game of Infinity at HATE. My opponent is just starting to get into the Bakunin Sectorial, and as I have some interest in the force, I thought it would be a good way of looking at the faction from another angle.

As I have a lovely pre-painted objective room from Right Arm Labs, I suggested a cheeky game of Armory to make sure everything got up in the mix.


I chose deployment, and my opponent chose to go first. I had really wanted to go second and holding the room, and thought my opponent wouldn't fancy deploying first and going second. I was right!

The Lunokhod holds down the left flank, with the TR bot my reserve model on the roof. My opponent's reserve model was advanced infiltrating camo token (Bran Do Castro, then) who you can see on the tall building just outside my deployment zone.

If you squint, you can just about make out a couple of camo markers (Zero Forward Observers) at the shipping containers. Pi Well was left a little exposed on the right, relying on his ODD and supplying some annoying AROs.

I've noticed a problematic bit of irrational behaviour. In an early game of Highly Classified, I simply couldn't get my opponents to shoot my remotes, as Test Run was one of the four known Classifieds. I since bought the Lunokhod so I had something to more aggressively push my remotes and force people to do something about them. This lets me put my remotes in dangerous situations so they can get disabled, allowing me to get the repair and Test Run.

But I keep doing it when I don't have the classified.

I keep putting my remotes in dangerous situations so I can get them shot and repaired - when that's not the mission! I had the Forward Observing one this time around. I really need to get out of that habit. I've kind of written it out to explain to you here to hopefully drum it out of my head...


So, my Bakunin opponent goes first. Immediately combat drops in a forward observer remote, clearly to start Observing everything so his smart missile launcher sitting at the back of the field can do horrible things to me. He places it near Bran Do Castro, in a nice spot to start really ruining Pi Well and the Zeroes . . . and fluffs the drop roll.

His dispersion roll (result pictured above) is not ideal...


The reactions are two Crazy Koalas, a Heavy Shotgun blast (I wasn't confident I could get the Heavy Flamethrower down without catching the total reaction remote) and a full burst from the HMG, although at an inconvenient range.

The only surprising thing about the end result was that it was only double unconscious, and not straight back off the table!

It turns out, this was the first outing of the Meteor Zond, so it clearly needed to get all its bad luck out of its systems...


Bakunin's turn then mostly consisted of moving, completely failing the rolls to hit with Pitchers, and someone thoroughly blowing a hole in my reaction remote. I forget who. It was either the Sin Eater firing in the active turn (when he's rubbish) or the Task Master opening up at a stupid range with his boarding shotgun.


The Taskmaster had taken up a careful position on the side of the objective room, covering my advance on that side. For those of you who know Infinity well, don't worry that the Taskmaster looks 'suspiciously' like a Gecko - the proper model is on it's way!


Not pictured, I discover and neutralise Bran Do Castro, who's blocking any safe route I have to advance up the field.

I start moving models up to the Armory, and a careless failure to check lines of sight means that the Killer Hacker Interventor gets picked off on her dash up the field.


One of the Forward Observer Zeroes opens the door, runs for a crate - and forgets to check line of sight again, getting blasted by some models just out of shot - the same ones who picked off the Interventor.

I pop Miranda Ashcroft just inside the door to score the points for holding the room at the end of the turn.


The Taskmaster decides to get involved and opens up on Miranda. A good dodge roll and ODD combine to get her out of there - dodging back outside the room.


My turn two starts with this as the position - my opponent won't be scoring the room again, but I should be able to get them - but there's someone peeking in the right hand door to see the supply crate, and the Taskmaster is covering the main room itself.

 
Things got a bit fast paced, but there's the situation at the end of the turn. The Mobile Brigada turned the corner and opened up with his flamethrower, running neatly down the line of troops there, though sadly not quite catching the remote at the end.

Miranda Ashcroft then ran around the left hand side of the building, where there was another convenient line of troops, and opened up with her boarding shotgun using the template shot, which she then rolled a crit on an 18 for. The result was predictably bloody.

Sadly, the Taskmaster had decided to tough it out and use his Pulzar, and a model outside the template had also got a lucky shot back, putting Miranda down for good (much to my opponent's relief).

I then ran a camoflagued Zero into the room to score the points unopposed.


My opponent now rushes as many people into the objective room as possible to grab the last turn five points. The Zero is easily discovered and shot to bits. They open the panoply once to even out the points and deny me the two victory points. I'm left with five orders to salvage the situation.


Up runs the Reverend Healer. She patches up the Mobile Brigada who runs into the room and opens up with the multi-rifle, one shot each.


Kusanagi, already with her ODD burned off and on No Wound Incapacitation, falls - but the Clockmaker and Custodier are still up.


The Reverend Healer runs in, goes for the shots, but can't quite take down either of them - while remaining upright herself. In the end, I don't quite have the points to retain the room, and that's me down 5-2.

It turns out, if I'd retained my Classified for area control, I could have won the game - but I chose not to in the pre-game phase. I had a Forward Observer Classified, but simply couldn't free up the orders at any point to get a good opportunity to claim it.

All in all, this was a brilliantly fun game, which gave me plenty of ideas for things I want to do next. I also need to be more careful about checking lines of sight and asking my opponent about them before I move. There were some sloppy mistakes here that cost me orders!

This is also the first time that aggressive plays on my part have come off, and short ranged weapons have done some serious damage. A critical hit on a boarding shotgun using a template is absolutely brutal. I'm certainly going to try getting some more short ranged troops / weapons to try in the future.

Monday 21 November 2016

Oldhammer Forum Challenge - Chaos Villager - Complete!


So, with the deadline on the Oldhammer Forum Chaos Villager challenge fast approaching, I sat down to quickly finish off the Chaos Blacksmith you saw in my post the other week.


To finish up the base, I drybrushed various different light colours onto the paving slabs to add some contrast - there's a lilac, a green, a blue and a couple of different greys all there. The piece of paper got a Steel Legion Drab base coat and a quick bone drybrush. I then dabbed in some Typhus Corrosion, wiping off the worst with my finger, to bring the stone back down a bit.

The anvil got a nice simple grey stone base with a plain Nuln Oil wash. Nothing fancy.


And here he is all together. Pleased oto have gotten a model finished, and had fun playing around with a few new paints.


Background wise, I'm thinking that his drive for perfection attracted the attention of Slaanesh, and his gold mask is riveted to his skull, driving him mad with visions of techniques and secrets beyond mortal comprehension. He uses those secrets to craft fine swords for the champions who sometimes pass through the village.


I basically took this photo to show the piece of paper behind the anvil. No other reason.

As a reminder, this miniature is available from Anvil Industry, should you want one of your very own.

Friday 18 November 2016

Infinity Battle Report: 300 points Nomads vs MRRF


So, it had been too long since I played Infinity, so I arranged a game at HATE. After a little bit of rescheduling and changing of opponents, I ended up up against some Merovingian Rapid Reaction Force. I've not played them before, mostly because not many people do play them!

I was a bit late in, so didn't get a perfect set of Infinity terrain. I had a go at setting up the terrain as above - fortunately, when my opponent turned up, they had a bunch of cardboard shipping containers to add some more line of sight blocking terrain.

The mission was "Supremacy", which means dominating the table quarters at the end of each turn, and controlling the consoles, which are the four white markers ina square you can see on the table.


I had to set up first. You can now see the bonus shipping containers. If you are interested in my army list, here's the "Army Code" for Infinity Army.

KwBgjAPgzCIRYCkUCcAmRYAsYSIIRZSJFabABsKBaGOx2KAHAWBSSAOyZZPv5RiWNGTDAo3fO1TdsWMvjTscs4Gjz5uqFnMlJUGbGAwABfeh4gF1LLB7AWJk0A==

On my left flank, I dropped my Lunokhod, Zoe, Pi-Well and the Reverend Healer. Pi-Well is hard to see but he's pretty far up the field on the level crossing. The Lunokhod is the big one, with it's two Crazy Koalas on either side, with the Reverend Healer next to that, and Zoe off on the far left.

I felt this was a pretty good group to hold the zone, given the strong area denial of the Lunokhod, the Reverend Healer's strong staying power, Pi-Well's ODD, and Zoe being able to pick up the two remotes and provide hacking support.


Meanwhile, on the right flank - two camo markers are the Bandit Hacker and a Prowler with a Spitfire. Two Alguaciles (including the Lieutenant) sit on the far right of the field, and an Interventor (the 'obvious' Lieutenant) hangs back behind the shipping crates.


The Securitate Paramedic is further forward, extending the hackers ranges with her repeater. Deep in the ruin is another Alguacile as another fake lieutenant candidate. The Mobile Brigada joined here as my reserve placement.

I forgot to take photos of my opponent's deployment, but roughly, there were a bunch of camo markers up the field, a sniper at the back, and a few infantry dropped off with Mechanised Deployment.

I had the Mobile Brigada wander out and fill the sniper full of holes, and grabbed my near console on the right hand side. Pi-Well headed up to do the same on the left, but failed his WIP role, leaving me with only the one console.


So, first up, the French air drop a Werewolf onto me, throw smoke, and murders some poor Alguacile Forward Observer to death.


Next a rifleman of some sort puts holes in the Mobile Brigada, which is just rude!


The Werewolf then decides to potter up and take out the Bandit, but misjudges it, and takes a skilled martial arts enhanced "Double Action" blow to the face, and down he goes.


Up comes a Zouave who opens up with their assault pistol on the Bandit - critting the Bandit, but also putting three shots into the unconscious werewolf, killing him stone dead.


A Chasseur then popped around the corner and took out the Prowler.


My turn! The Securitate bravely pops out the corner to shoot a Zouave. I can't roll for toffee...


It got bloody, and I forgot to take pictures, so here's how it looked at the end. The Zouaves had managed to wipe themselves out from AROs from the Alguacile in the ruin. Margot came on from the edge to try and hold the table quarter, then my Interventor ran out and shot her down with a Combi Rifle... The console had been grabbed on the way, though, so was contested.


Meanwhile, on the right, Pi Well managed to activate the left hand console, but in turn went down. The Reverend Healer had to pop out and plugged a Moblot Heavy Infantry.

In the end, I had two specialists with WIP15 left up, but they both rolled poorly and the contested console went to my opponent. I'd managed to Forward Observe someone for a classified and gain a point, so it was something like 8-2 or 7-2 when the scores were counted.

So, what did I learn? Well, the list didn't have enough to push up the field in a game where I needed to be able to move out of my deployment zone. The Heavy Infantry did OK, but standing around in the open is not survivable, even for the guys in power armour. Deploying first will leave you a little on the back foot, but you need to formulate a plan to work proactively to achieve the objectives, not wait to see what their plan is and react to it.

All in all, a fun game, and I'm glad to be getting back into playing Infinity.

Monday 7 November 2016

Playing with paint


So, with a Chaos Villager to do for a painting challenge on the Oldhammer Forum, and the deadline looming, I dug out the assembled and undercoated model to do something with it. I pinned it to the miniature holder I'd picked up from Hobbyzone, because I wanted to do the base separately anyway (I had no wish of trying to paint the lower half of the model with the anvil in the way).


 I was a bit stuck for ideas, so decided to play around with a few things. I went with Darkstar's Tarnished Steel. I was a little disappointed so moved on to other bits, in particular, basing the leather with XV-88, as I couldn't find my beloved Steel Legion Drab. Like, seriously, I can't find it and it's really bugging me.


I then tried a bit of a wash with a P3 Chestnut Ink I originally got to experiment with water effects and hadn't used since. It ended up with a really nice rich colour, but with too much of a gloss finish for what I was trying to do - there are totally leathers that would suit that, but I wanted this to be a more dull flat colour, so I'll need to bring that back again.


I then put a Nuln Oil Gloss wash over the leg plates, and some sort of dark wizardry occurred. They suddenly looked amazing. I need to tidy up the bits where I got brown ink on them now, because otherwise they're pretty much perfect.


The anvil had been based with the Forge World Iron Hands Steel paint, though it seems to froth up into bubbles whenever I shake it. I don't think that's meant to happen.

OK, I'm back from mailing Forge World to ask them if that's meant to happen. I drybrushed the anvil with the Tarnished Steel, then did a Nuln Oil Gloss wash. Still want to play with it more, but liking it so far.


The metal bit of the base, I did the same as the anvil. I'm wanting to play around with colours a bit more, so I'm planning on really playing around with the cobblestones once the matte Nuln Oil wash is dry on that.

Oh, if you want this miniature, you can totally get it from Anvil Industry.