To INFINITY and beyond - Day 15

Hello people,

A bit more of gap between posts but as I head back to work on Thursday things ramp up much as they often do. Since last time various bits of progress have been made.

First I kind of cracked down at Dark Sphere last Thursday and made a number of "relevant investments". First up I picked up a couple of Micro Art scenery pieces that give me a complete 4x4 with a number of options. The security tower should fit on top of the administrative block for an extra bit of hight. I'll keep my eyes open for extras but I'm happy with the set so that one's sorted.

Whilst digging through their scenery stock I also came across a set of WarArsenal acrylic silhouette markers which I couldn't resist. Adding a laser pointer means I now have rules, army lists, tokens and accessories covered off.

I've also spent some time researching list options, as in what I've got versus what I'd like to run at 300 points. Part of this has meant looking at some of my duplicate figures having doubled up on Op Icestorm. Specifically my two Grenzer snipers will be painted up as a Spektr and an Intruder respectively. One of my Spektrs will become a Zero, a Reverend Moria a Tunguska Inventnor and a female Aguacile becomes Ms Balboa.

I'm not sure that such proxies are entirety tourney legal but that's not too huge an issue for the moment. Picking up the support pack leaves me looking for a few remotes to round out my options for a good while. I'm also going to pick up a KR case for storage.

To that end my Attack Wing Klingons have made it onto flea bay along with along few X-Wing Rebel alternate art and crew cards.

Last but not least the Nomads have had some brush time and now that I'm into the swing I'm confident of getting everything done before heading back to the grindstone.

A clear weekend remains as backup ; )

Just the two of us

Hello people,

As a variation to the recent Infinity theme myself and Nigel G, aka The Dark Destroyer, took a trip to Dunstable for 5 rounds of flying casual. As a challenge we swapped regular roles Nigel runing a swarm while I went with a two ship build of Soontir Fell and Admiral Chirpy both loaded to the gills.

I'm more than happy with Soontir and have had previous success with the decimator. It's a bit of a notorious net-list which I would normally generally avoid up curiosity won out. Despite having experience with both elements I felt shorn of my  customary swarm.

In short I ended up with a 100-nil win, a 100-nil loss, two close losses and a nil-nil draw which supports the belief that even net-lists need to be well flown.

Generally I know where I went wrong and what I forgot at times. I flew Soontir well but I kind of had to as I let Chirpy died too quickly too often, though dice did play their part at times. I'd been advised that with two ships ALWAYS play the safe option but a few moments of red mist proved crucial.

Overall it was good to give a two ship list a go. It increased my understanding playing with and against such lists, the day was pretty much dominated by them. I can see why Decimators have dropped down the meta list which itself makes me want to see what I can do with a similar list. Kenkirk has done well for me previously as has the Pope-Mobile so there are a few options

We can make it if we try ☺

To INFINITY and beyond - Day 10 prt 2

Hello people,

So technically I've slipped into day 11 but hey not by much and these are my guidelines I'm bending :)

 As below I've finished up 10 of Rob's Tohaa. I went pretty much the box colour scheme, other than turning them all ginger for a bit of a focus colour. As with my Brigada I've discovered that Infinity figures really benefit from as clean a paint job as you can manage. That pretty much reflects the sculpts themselves which are what I'd call a "true" scale rather than "heroic", clean and crisp without becoming busy.

Once I'd worked that one out they paint up pretty quickly whilst still rewarding attention to detail. It makes all of that construction pain well worth it, more or less. Another 20 Painting Points in the bag and I reckon I can get everything finished before heading back to the grindstone......more or less ;)

To INFINITY and beyond - Day 10 part 1

Okay, so another missed post but that kind of gets me back on track, kind of!

In the intervening period there has at least been some decent progress.

First up a £30 kids construction kit from Toys R Us has been a major find providing a mobile crane, dump truck, digger, JCB, skip, oil drums, signs and stop boards. Re-sprayed grey they'll be detailed up a fit the industrial theme well.

Quite a bit of it got onto the table last night as well as various extras. Below is an objective crate, objective civilian, base markers and a pair of repeaters.

As well as all that I've, eventually  (with Charlie's tech support) got the printer set up and sorted out all of my tokens.

On the brush front Rob's Tohaa starter set is just awaiting highlights which I hope to post up later. Until then it's back to earth taking the car for its MOT. Delight!

To INFINITY and beyond - Day 7

Hello people,

Yeah so I missed a day but that was always going to happen at some point a day I have actually made some progress 😊

First up Richard dropped round yesterday and my setup got its first run out. In short I didn't have as much scenery coverage as I thought! Even with two basic sets plus a few extras moving up from 3x3 to 4x4 was bigger than I thought, that extra 3sqft makes a big difference. The AT-43 tiles do well a day I'll continue with the industrial theme. I need a few bigger, taller pieces and extra scatter. A visit to Toys R Us is on the cards.

The game itself was a convincing win for Rich though I got to do a bit of hacking and it gave me plenty of ideas for future lists, tactics and matching the two. Infinity is a brutal game but all the better for it. I shall be investing in some drones imminently!
Another bonus was having my list up on the tablet which made life far easier.

Today I slapped together the tokens I got from Op Icestorm  backing them on to acrylic crafting domes picked up via E-Bay. Tomorrow I'll set up the printer to sort out a bunch more.

Major bonus of the day is actually getting in some brushwork, though I've done the usual and gone straight for the boss models in the form of two Mobile Brigada. I W's keen to keep them similar but with individual heraldry and I'm pretty pleased with the resultsame.  First Painting Points in a while too.

They were fairly quick to paint being finely sculpted figures but not hugely busy. Nice paints :)

Tohaa tomorrow!

To INFINITY and beyond - Day 4

Hello people,

The dreaded slump has hit early and there's not too much to report.

In short the game with Rich has been rainchecked and the brushes have been idle other than touching up undercoat.

On the positive I now have a wireless colour printer and a VERY clean flat. As such the assault on the painting tray commences at the weekend. As below it's a rather full tray!

As a result there shall no toy bribery in the near future. Having only painted one Infinity figure previously I'm not sure on timescale but I think I should be able to cracking on once I get into a groove.

There shall be blood, Blood Red :)

To INFINITY and beyond - Day 2

Okay people, welcome to the first update post :)

In the last couple of days reasonable progress has been made on almost all fronts with a little bit of Shasvassti bonus in the mix.

Construction, basing and undercoat of ALL figures WILL be completed tomorrow. I just need to finish my Shasvassti drones and reposition a couple of Nomad duplicates. The only fly in the ointment is that Rob's TAG is missing a shoulder-pad which will require a customer service interface :/

I've put together a box of relevant scenery from my collection though I need to track down some AT-43 bits which seem to have gone AWOL. Rich is dropping round tomorrow night for a game which will give me the chance to layout the majority of it.

I've also had my new Galaxy Tab 4 delivered today which I have setup, and upon which I currently type, downloading all of the rules and FAQ from the Infinity site and sorted out links to the online army builder. A colour printer is on the hitlist for lists and tokens.

A bit of everything but progress!

Tomorrow I need to read up on Hacking and then Thursday the brushes shall be unleashed. So, relatively small steps so far but a few of them. Walking before running and all that ;)

Old Beginnings

Hello people,

 

Yes it's been a while again for most of the same old reasons. Another reason has been that my laptop has, unsurprisingly, failed to sort itself out and so is currently at the mercy of PC World.

 

Yes I know but I'm immensely tech illiterate for a geek and it's the easier option. Having said that I have realised that if the situation is terminal replacing like with like might not be the best option. I haven't gamed on it for years so it's primary use is Internet,  email and occasional word processing. Surely a tablet might be a better option? I assume I can connect the right tablet to a wireless printer? Feel free to enlighten me :)

 

So, back at the point of the post I attended the X-Wing Nationals in Birmingham a couple of weekends back. It was my first proper weekend tourney for far too long and long story short I had a great time.

 

On the Saturday I went 4-2 with Boba Smurf to place 25th of 118 of which I'm hugely proud. All the practice paid off and with a  bit of luck I feel I outperformed the list which is testament to the balance and variety within the game.

 

On the Sunday I went 3-3 flying casual in the escalation event with a Soontir swarm that I learnt a good deal more about. The format also threw up some really interesting lists despite the much smaller field.

 

One downside was that by playing 6 games each day I saw nothing of Games Expo which was a shame though we had Infinity in with us on the Sunday which I strolled past a few times.

The other downside was drawing a few Win At All Costs  (WAAC) players,  two each day. I've found that these guys are definitely a minority within the X-Wing community and I suppose nationals were always going to attract them.

 

I don't feel there's too much to get funny about with X-Wing but there's still scope for quick rolling, nudges and bendy templates / arcs of fire. Otherwise there's the usual gamesmanship and general bloody mindedness ;)

What was slightly different was my second game on the Saturday saw me roll four double evades in a row with Boba at which point my opponent requested that I change my rolling technique. Apparently he wasn't accusing me of cheating except for the way he kept on about it. It has at least become a fun in joke for a couple of months :)

 

Two difficult games each day was hard work and did mar an otherwise excellent weekend. I won 3 of those 4 games but it felt so unnecessary. I have wondered if it's a tactic to frustrate people into making mistakes but each to their own. I was there to play my games in a positive manner and so was the vast majority of the field.

 

I've had the conversation with people that those affected with WAAC seem to have little else going on for them and it over compensation. It's almost a diagnosable condition but I'm not in healthcare at which point the short sharp shock method is my preferred option. Nothing rude but a couple of polite open challenges can work wonders.

 

It's hard work but to me if you don't challenge you condone. I've reversed a template placement, asked for dice to be left on the table for more than 3 seconds. Firm but fair. I imagine it's much like dealing with a five year old....... ;)

 

At the end of the day we all know they're out there. Let them have their version of OUR game but don't let them ruin YOUR game, YOUR hobby.

 

On that note I've really enjoyed stepping up my X-Wing game. Thursday nights at Dark Sphere have been a huge positive in so many different ways. To that end some of us will making the trip to Copenhagen for the Scandinavian Nationals and I'm definitely up for it :)

 

186 for the win ;)

New(ish) Beginnings

So do you see what I did there? Well I entertained myself at least :)

Right now I have two and a half weeks on leave from work. As is so often the case I'm setting myself some hobby targets while I'm off. For once I'm going to keep it simple as I've done this many times before and constantly underachieved by over-reaching.

Following KISS I'm simply going to "sort out as much Infinity stuff as possible". I will also post every other day in an effort to exhort / shame myself into further efforts.

Loose targets are as follows;

- sort out my Nomads
- sort out Rob's Tohaa
- sort out a scenery "package"
- sort out a rules & accessories "package"
- learn some of the rules and concepts that have been eluding me

None of these are too taxing individually and the intent is to avoid taking on a grand plan doomed to failure from the outset. I may bribe and corrupt myself along the way...... infact I'm sure it's almost a certainty..... probably with that Iguana TAG I almost bought at Dark Sphere Thursday night ; )

For now the Shasvassti will sit in reserve as I get the feeling that they're a bridge, or two, too far and will lead to ultimate defeat.

Today is clearing decks as I generally sort and tidy my life, go and play footy and then drop round to Rich's for a 300 point shootout.

Day 1 is tomorrow :)