Wednesday 17 December 2014

Random Wednesday // First game of Infinity N3 last night

So I went down to the Exeter Inquisition club last night for some infinity and although I was disappointed not to get the new N3 rulebook yet I still got a game of the new edition in using the pdf.

We played a 200pt game using the Annihilation mission in the rulebook however as we were both pretty new to the game (never mind N3) we played with open objectives instead of classified ones.

Overall really enjoyed it and loving some of the changes in the new edition, figured I'd just slap some random thoughts down here.


  • The "Strategic" use of the Command Tokens are awesome, this went completely unnoticed by us until we got the pdf and read through. My opponent chose deployment zones and made me deploy first, then as he was going second he used one of his Command Tokens to make me lose 2 regular orders on the first turn. Really makes the choice of first turn a choice rather than automatic now in my opinion
  • Co-Ordinated Orders are fantastic, you can get around the board so much faster which opens up a lot of new possibilities. I used all 4 of my tokens on these orders and they were great, you get to activate up to 4 guys for the cost of 1 regular order and 1 command token, I didn't use them for attacking so much as repositioning and getting 3 Ghulams with their shotguns into advanced positions so early in the game was great.
  • Hacking seemed a bit meh to be honest although we may have been playing it wrong. It was great to have all these options and I had a TO hacker in range of a glut of targets, with a TR HMG Remote, an expensive HI, and a Hacker and was planning to go to town. I looked at my options and I had loads of choices, eagerly rolled the dice and succeeded (after a couple of orders) and then went to re-camo, only to find that as I was still inside his ZOC (obviously as I had hacked him) he could ARO anything I did with a "Reset" which meant on a normal roll of 13 he just ignored anything I'd done to him.
  • Suppression fire - we basically didn't use this all game. It looks good, we just didn't think to use it and as he had 2 total reaction HMG remotes he probably didn't need it!

In the end the game was a draw at 4-4, he beat me 2-1 on kills, 2-1 on surviving, but I had secured the HVT for 2 Objective Points so we ended equal which seemed about right for the game.

In case anyone is interested the list I used was:

Ghulam lt
Ghulam
Ghulam FO
Ghulam FO
Naffatun LFT, grenades
Naffatun LFT, grenades
Hunzakut FO
Hassassin Ragik Spitfire
Tuareg Hacker
Jannissary Doctor

I also picked up some more goodies to flesh out my Haqqislam and complete my scenery collection:

MAS human consoles
MAS Objective Room
MAS 3 story building
MAS Roofs/Floors
MAS Interior Walls
Nomads Hellcat HMG/Hacker
Saladin
Hassassin Farzan
2 Hafza
Odalisques boxed set

Monday 15 December 2014

Preparing the way // Infinity N3 // Christmas Schedule

Christmas Schedule

Hi Guys, wanted to check in and apologise for the lack of battle report on Friday, I've been doing a bunch of Christmas related stuff and had little time to get it typed up whilst trying not to fall too far behind on my painting schedule.

On that note until the New Year this will likely be a weekly update of hobby progress and unlikely to include any battle reports until things get back to normal in the New Year.

Apologies for those who were enjoying the battle reports but they take several hours to type up which I can't really commit to over the next few weeks.

Infinity N3

For those of you who are interested, Infinity is getting a new version (N3) which I should get my hands on tomorrow.

I'm really excited about this and having been playing with a 2.5 ruleset since I started playing a few weeks ago, it'll be really good to get stuck into the new version in full.

I'm really interested in seeing what the points recosts will mean to my Haqqislam lists and will likely include a post at some point with my reworked lists as well as letting you know my thoughts on the new edition once I've got some games in.

From what I've seen so far my Janissary goes considerably down in cost which may mean I get to field him for the first time ever.

I've also got a Nomad list I'm putting together after expanding my Operation: Icestorm Nomads with the Corregidor Starter, an Iguana, and a Wildcat Spitfire. I'll let you know how my experiences go with these, I'm hoping to get them painted up to the best I can to try and stretch myself (still not great I know!)

Preparing the Way

Not particularly exciting update but I've been busy making sure I've closed off the rest of the Haqqislam I had sitting around in boxes so I made sure I assembled and primed everything I had left so at least it's ready to start putting paint on when I feel like it. I sold some of my Tyranids so I've some more bits coming tomorrow including a box of Odalisques, Saladin, a Hassassin Farzan, and a pair of Hafza that I think for now at least will complete my Haqqislam as it'll put me around 750pts (Far more than I'll ever need for a game but I have tons of options)

While I had the airbrush out I also had a play at trying to use it to do Tarik Mansouri's cloak but I wasn't really happy with how it turned out (I've a lot to learn about the airbrush I think) so I went back in with a brush and changed a good amount of it. I've included some random shots below for anyone interested.

Ready for Priming

After Airbrushing (Not sure how to add more depth, it seems like it's just basecoated!)

I even got some Sewing in!

Lovely weekend with my daughters

Bit more done on Tarik but overdid it with the washes so will need some Cleanup

Rear view of Tarik after washes

Monday 8 December 2014

Busy Weekend and Lack of Progress // Space Marines with Fire Raptor vs Wych Cult 1750pts

Hi guys,

apologies but little to update you on today, I had a work Christmas do on Friday which was... messy... and spent most of Saturday recovering before a 40k game on Sunday night.

I'll write up the game from Sunday night and I hope to have this up by Wednesday, with another Infinity Battle Report up on Friday.

Just as a preview the lists we used were:

1750pt Realspace Raiders

Succubus
 - Archite Glaive, Parasites Kiss, Haywire Grenades

4 Incubi
 - Klaivex
 - Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons

8 Wyches
 - Hekatrix with Agoniser and Haywire Grenades
 - Hydra Gauntlets
 - Raider with Dark Lance and Night Shields

8 Wyches
 - Hekatrix with Agoniser and Haywire Grenades
 - Hydra Gauntlets
 - Raider with Dark Lance and Night Shields

8 Wyches
 - Hekatrix with Agoniser and Haywire Grenades
 - Hydra Gauntlets
 - Raider with Dark Lance and Night Shields

5 Kabalite Warriors
 - Blaster
 - Venom with 2 Splinter Cannons

Razorwing Jetfighter with Disintegrator Cannons and Splinter Cannon

Razorwing Jetfighter with Dark Lances

Razorwing Jetfighter with Dark Lances

6 Reaver Jetbikes
 - Arena Champion
 - Blaster with Cluster Caltrops x2

3 Reaver Jetbikes
 - Heat Lance with Cluster Caltrops

5 Scourges
 - 4 Haywire Blasters

------------------------------

1750 Space Marines

Reclusiarch in Terminator Armour

5 Assault Terminators with 3 TH+SS and 2 Lightning Claws

Librarian in Terminator Armour with 10 Devastators (4 missile launchers with Flakk)

2 x 5 man Tac Squads with Heavy Bolter (Razorback with TL Assault Cannon)

2 x 5 man Tac Squads with Missile Launchers and Flakk (Razorback with Las/Plas)

Dreadnought with 2 x TL Autocannon

Aegis Defence Line

Fire Raptor (AV 12 Flyer with  4 Hull Points, has an Avenger Boltgun on the front, 2 waist mounted TL autocannons on each side and 4 StormStrike Missiles. Has a nasty rule that allows it to shoot at 4 targets a turn as well and has BS5 against ground targets.)

Thursday 4 December 2014

Battle Report Friday // Infinity Report // Guard House Scale

Quick update, I was going to schedule this for Friday but as a scale picture of the Guard House had been requested I didn't want to delay it when I'd already got the bits ready so it's a day early this week.

I've never written an infinity report before and I'm afraid I don't know of any map type program that I'd be able to use, as terrain plays such a huge part in Infinity I can't just botch it with "similar" pieces.

Unfortunately I didn't take many pictures during the game either so I figured I'd just throw a quick overview up.

It is a bit all over the place I'm afraid but I figured I'd put it up just in case anyone wants to read it, if not then don't bother and I won't get offended! :)

First of all I took a quick picture of my 150pt Haqqislam force before we played.



So that is 150pts worth for Infinity, and one of the reasons I like the game, I only have to paint 8 models! I do have more painted this than but with the list I'd written I didn't have two naffatun painted so I proxied it with the unpainted model here.

My list was:

Halqa - 16
Halqa - 16
Halqa Doctor - 20

These 3 kind of work together as they all have a rule called mechanised deployment which allows me to deploy them within each others "Zone of Control" up to half way onto the board rather than just the normal 12" for my deployment zone. I find this really useful as they can threaten straight away or gain a really good vantage point over an objective etc. The doctor with them can try and heal the other two up if they fall unconscious so is also very useful.

They cost an extra 3 points over the standard Ghulam light infantry for the privilege of the mechanised deployment but I find it very much worth it as you don't have to spend the orders getting them in a good position, they just start there.

Naffatun Heavy Flamethrower - 12
Naffatun Heavy Flamethrower - 12

These two can be either defensive or offensive, they have a very large 10" long template weapon that unless the opponent chooses to dodge rather than fire back they auto hit and go straight to an armour save. I can use this to run around a corner and flame things or just to stand in a defensive position and flame something coming around the corner. They're also my cheapest troops at 12 points.

Ghulam Lieutenant- 13

A little telegraphed in this list however I try and keep her out of the way at the back in total cover and protect the approaches with the Naffatun. (I could have a Halqa lieutenant however they're quite aggressive troops with starting halfway up the board so can be quite vulnerable)

Hunzakut - 25

Camo troop so deploys as a token rather than a model and the opponent has to discover him before shooting at him at all. Gets a +3 modifier to his first shot out of camo as well and once revealed opposing troops are at -3 to hit him due to the camo. 

Has a sniper rifle so although he can deploy up to half way onto the board with infiltrate, normally it's better to keep him back as he gets +3 modifier from 16" upwards while if an opponent gets within 16" he'll lose that.

Djanbazan Heavy Machine Gun - 36

Nasty Medium Infantry troop that has lots of cool rules. He has a Heavy Machine Gun which shoots 4 shots with +3 from 16" to 32"range in N3. (New edition of Infinity coming out December)
He also has a Multi Spectral Visor which sees through Camo and TO Camo so he can shoot these troops without the modifiers as well as seeing through smoke.
In addition he has an extra point of armour compared to my normal guys and can even regenerate if he falls unconscious.
He's also a slightly better shot than the rest of my guys with BS 12.

So with my list laid out this is what the table looked like: 

Blue scenery is Mantic Deadzone bits, MDF is Micro Arts Studio District 5 Guardhouse, Cardboard stuff is from the Operation Icestorm boxed set (Can't recommend this boxed set enough, it's awesome)

You can see my opponents list on the bottom left there, he had:

3 Fusiliers in a link team (nasty combination that until one of them goes down they get two shots in the reactive turn instead of one)

2 Order Sergeants with Combi Rifle

TO troop of some description with Combi Rifle

Teutonic Knight (Heavy Infantry thing with lots of armour and a panzerfaust!)

Order Sergeant with Spitfire

I won the roll and chose to go first, Dave chose to deploy on the left of the picture above and made me deploy first. 

We decided to play a similar mission to what we did at the Infinity weekender and said whoever has the most points on the centre building at the end of the game wins.

Deployment

I put the 3 Halqa on the Guard House using Mechanised Deployment with the 2 standard troops taking up firing positions on the parapet whilst the doctor hid prone behind them.

One naffatun was deployed on the left of the building behind the Guard House, whilst the other was to the right of the same building.

I deployed my lieutenant prone on the building in the centre of my deployment zone with my HMG next to her stood up.

My Hunzakut was held back until after I saw Dave's deployment but was deployed on the far blue building on the right flank, hoping to get some shots on Dave's link team.

Dave deployed his link team on the watchtower in the centre and his teutonic knight and spitfire behind the cargo container to the right of it.

He had two order sergeants on and then behind the building to the left of the watchtower, and his TO camo marker was held back, but went down on the far left next to the blue deadzone building.

Turn 1:

I started with my Halqa and used a co-ordinated attack to shoot at the Link team and managed to knock one unconscious. My sniper took some shots at the Order Sergeant on the building and the HMG fired at the link team as well, killing the whole link team and the order sergeant. My naffatun on the left moved up slightly into a better position behind the guard house. Quite a brutal first turn!

In response Dave moved his TO marker around the side of the building and up to the shipping crate by the main objective building. My Djanbazan and Naffatun both tried to spot him as he rounded the corner and the Djanbazan succeeded however he was now back in total cover so re-camo'd and crept around the side to shoot at the hunzakut, succeeding in knocking him unconscious. The spitfire next to the Teutonic knight crept up to the corner and shot at one of the Halqa's, knocking him unconscious.

Turn 2:

I wanted to try and deal with the spitfire before it pipped off all my Halqa and also didn't want that TO marker close to the objective so I activated my HMG and shot the spitfire full of bullets first. My Doctor then activated and healed up the Halqa who'd been knocked unconscious in Dave's turn although he was still prone so wouldn't be able to threaten anything approaching the objective as he couldn't see over the parapet.

My naffatun ran forward from the building in the centre to run past the objective and flame the TO guy sat behind the shipping crate. The flamer killed him and he failed to hit me in return, after which I ran back around the corner and up onto the objective.

In response Dave didn't have much left but I was underestimating his Teutonic Knight! He charged around the corner taking out the other Halqa and then moved out from behind the shipping container to shoot his panzerfaust at the Djanbazan with HMG. The Djanbazan won the roll off and put a point on the Knight but he has 2 wounds so kept coming, second time round the knight hit the Djanbazan with his panzerfaust and he failed 1 of his 3 saves meaning the HMG was now unconscious. With his last order the knight moved up to the bottom of the objective building and shot at the Naffatun by the guard house, knocking her unconscious, she responded by flaming him but he passed the save.


The above is a picture from the end of my turn 2 (Infinity games are generally 3 turns long) You can see where my Halqa were deployed on top of the Guard House, one of my Naffatun has crept around to the bottom of the Guard House to guard against anything coming round that corner, while my other Naffatun has run up and flamed the TO troops that had taken out my sniper before taking a position on the objective.

Turn 3

 That turned the tables a little and now I have a problem unless I could get rid of that knight. I moved the naffatun on the objective around to flame him and although he failed his save this time he also shot down the naffatun meaning I had nothing left on the objective.

I charged my lieutenant down the ladder and over to the objective building, leaving her in the corner and said good game to my opponent thinking I'd tabled him.

Dave then pointed out he still had an order sergeant on the table that I'd completely missed, hiding behind the building just to the right of the watchtower all game. As he was religious he ignored loss of lieutenant and proceeded to walk around the corner, and shoot/kill my lieutenant for a draw!

Thoughts

Overall I really enjoyed the game and I'm loving Infinity at the moment (although I'm enjoying my Dark Eldar too) I thought I'd won the game first turn but that certainly wasn't the case and there were some really cool moments with Dave's knight being generally awesome!

There were loads of mistakes made by both of us but we're still learning and had fun so it's all good :)

I was also happy with the terrain, I think there was enough for a decent game and I was a bit worried about the deadzone stuff as it has a lot of holes in the ruined bits but it seemed to work pretty well.

Anyway, I'm sure this post isn't particularly well written but hopefully you'll be able to take something from it. I think in future, particularly for the Infinity reports if I'm not going to include maps I need to take a lot more pictures.

Rich

Wednesday 3 December 2014

Random Wednesday - Guard House Scenery // Reaver Jetbikes // Infinity tonight

Well quite a random post today, which was kind of expected from my Wednesday's as it depends what I've had chance to do, if anything, over the last couple of days.

I apologise for the particularly bad quality of today's pics, one was taken in the evening just as I'd finished it and the other quickly this morning before leaving for work. I'll work on getting better photos up in future.

In this case I managed to get the Guard House I picked up at the Infinity weekender built as well as getting some more done on my Reavers.

The Guard House took me a couple of hours to put together so not bad at all and no glue required, some initial hiccups getting bits pushed in (they can take some force) however in the end I got the knack of it.

One thing I would mention is if you are a bit of a fool like me and put one piece in upside down it can be really difficult to pull it apart without damaging the pieces so ensure you take the time to double check whether bits are facing the right way (etching on the outside) and aren't upside down.

I managed to pretty much fix up the bits I'd broken and there are a few spare bits in there (didn't realise this until I'd botched the bit I'd broken)  but if I put together another one I'm sure it'd be much easier.

Overall for a night's work I was pretty chuffed with the look of it and it's a good way to get some quick, cheap terrain down for Infinity (or 40k!) I think this one is about £12 ?


The Reaver's I've now got the basic colours down on the bike and done a bit of highlighting on the bodywork, I'm not spending too much time on the purple as I've some stencils I'm going to use once I've got all my vehicles/bikes ready which should make them much more interesting.

My schedule says these should be finished by Saturday however I'm probably a bit behind already as I've not started on the riders yet. I imagine I'll get them completed by next Wednesday so I can get started on airbrushing the first Raider.


Tonight I'm popping down to my local gaming club for some more Infinity and will be taking along my scenery and Haqqislam. I'm not sure I'll get a game in myself as there are three of us but it's a fun game to watch anyway and either way I'll take some pictures for a post on Friday.

I'm taking the following list in case I do get time for a game:

150pts Haqqislam

Ghulam Lietenant
13

Naffatun Heavy Flamethrower
12

Naffatun Heavy Flamethrower
12

Halqa
16

Halqa
16

Halqa Doctor
20

Hunzakut Sniper
25

Djanbazan Heavy Machine Gun
36

Monday 1 December 2014

Infinity Autumn Weekender - Doubles Infinity and Painting Competition

Little bit of a different post today as I went to an Infinity Intro Tournament over the weekend on Saturday afternoon / Sunday which was good fun so I thought I'd mention it here.

I enjoy playing Infinity and it is certainly less effort than 40k to get a force painted up which is fantastic as it means I can play with a fully painted army most of the time.

Anyway, I had a couple of games to try and refresh myself on the rules on Saturday as I've only played 3 or 4 times before, I lost both the games Saturday and then in then Doubles tournament on Sunday we won the first before losing the next two.

Bit of a shame on the Sunday that one of us had to drop out due to numbers (Had been expecting 12 and got 9 as 3 no show) which meant that Craig volunteered to miss the Tourney and hung around getting some new loot and playing some friendly games instead.

The prizes were handed out on a points system through the day though rather than the winners of the tournament itself so my doubles partner on the day came second in points (They were given for things like critting in ARO, missing with all 3 shots from a single order, passing 3 armour saves in a row etc.)

I came runner up in the painting competition with 3 of my models (Djanbazan Sniper / Hanzakut / Ghulam) which I was really chuffed with and picked up an extra faction badge and a set of Micro Art Studio bases which I traded with my doubles partner for a Tarik Mansuri that he'd taken as a prize for 2nd place points total.

A good friend of mine came 3rd on points with his Pan O Military Orders and got an Antenocitis Workshop police car and faction badge.

Overall I think the 3 of us who went down enjoyed the day and hoping to play some more infinity before the next tournament at the end of January that should be using the new N3 ruleset, on that note I've a game on Wednesday lined up against Dave (The chap who came 3rd) and will try and get some pictures of that for an Infinity Battle Report this week.

For those of you who're interested the list I took was:

Naffatun Light Flame Thrower
Naffatun Light Flame Thrower
Ghulam
Ghulam
Ghulam Lieutenant
Khum Biker with Chain Rifle
Khum Biker with Chain Rifle
Djanbazan Heavy Machine Gun
Djanbazan Sniper


Here's what I came back with from the weekend: