Infinity Round-Up, Part 2

Sorry for the delay dear readers! This week has been riddled with bad job scheduling, a rollercoaster cold and some general malaise. I wanted to make an Infinity October Releases post, but I think I'll simply mash it all together in this huge round-up so I have a clean slate for future releases (and paint projects).

Last time I talked about what we can expect to see in the new Paradiso book. Most of the rules are now available for download at Corvus Belli and the book is out in the wild. I made the mistake of pre-ordering my copy from Maelstrom Games who are now in the process of implo-collapsing (get in touch with your bank or PayPal if you have any outstanding orders and want to get your money back) so I haven't received mine yet. I hear it's pretty neat and I can't wait to get into the nitty-gritty of the scenarios!

Today I want to talk about all the new miniatures though! There's been lots of cool stuff released so I won't go into detail about each and every one of the, but rather look at each batch as a whole.

August
In August the new Spec-Ops models were revealed, one for each faction. They come with two different head options and three loose weapons (Woo! Conversions, here I come!) each. They are all fairly non-flashy from a model perspective but try to embody the typical characteristics of their respective factions.

The Aleph Chandra Spec-Op. 

The Ariadna Intel Spec-Op. 

The Combined Army (Morat) Treitak Spec-Ops. 

The Haqqislam Husam Spec-Ops. 

The Nomad Vortex Spec-Ops. 

The Pan-O Indigo Spec-Ops. 

The Yu Jing Gui Feng Spec-Ops.

All in all a pretty cool looking bunch of guys! My favourite is probably the Gui Feng because of the slick mix of light and heavy armour (back spines!) and his suave "Chinese James Bond" look. The Ariadna and Haqqislam ones are really great looking as well. I definitely have a soft spot for the contemporary-ish look of those two factions. The ALEPH and Combined Army ones both look fine although none of them really jump out at me (the Treitak does look brutal though). I was a bit disappointed with both the Pan-O Indigo and the Nomad Vortex Spec-Ops. The Indigo because it simply looks a bit too much like a regular Fusilier and the Vortex because of the boring about-to-sit-down-on-the-loo pose and the teeny-tiny combirifle. I'm all for down-scaling the guns but in this case it looks a bit off.

I'm eager to get my Gui Feng so I can prep it and get ready for some campaign play! Which means I need some specialists and baggage remotes as well of course. ;-)


September
This month we saw the releas of the Tohaa starter as well as a couple of models from the new book.

The Tohaa starter box.

The mercernary/Haqqislam Kaplan Tactical Services.

The Shasvaasti Corax Spec-Ops. 

 The Tohaa Diplomatic Delegate.

The Nomad Wildcat.

So yeah... the Tohaa. Like I mentioned my first thougth was that they looked like the Drell from Mass Effect (not a bad thing, just an observation). I've been looking at them and I quite like the models we've seen so far, but I don't think the idea of the Tohaa in the Infinity universe has sunken in completely with me yet. I need to see them on the table and hear how they perform before they really start feeling just like "one of the factions". They do look cool though and the sleek yet cluttered look quite appeal to me.

The Kaplan has a very distinct look and I like the design of him, however I can't help but think something more exciting could have been done with his pose. The hunch pose is a bit boring and spoils some of the neat armour details. The Shasvaasti Spec-Ops is a bit over-burdened with weapons and I'm not sure I like the "female Shasvaasti" we've been saying lately. Not a bad model though. The Tohaa Diplomatic Delegate was discussed at lenght on the Infinity forums, but has been revealed to be basically an objective marker for several of the scenarios.

For some reason I keep thinking Spider-Man when I see the Wildcat. It's something about the pose that feels superhero-y to me. It fits the model very well though and it looks all kinds of kick-ass! He's no slouch in-game either with a solid stat line and not too expensive.


October
Wow... what a month! Two boxed releases, Uxia and a weird but awesome looking new alien bio-robot? Yes please! Ok, I can't resist making some more detailed comments about these releases.

I read a lot of comments from people who didn't like this model for various reasons (wrong dynamics, braid too big, ugly face etc) but I think Uxia looks absolutely awesome! To me it seems like she's just sliding into cover after having gunned down a couple of Pan-O mooks. I might very well get her just for the cool model alone. :)

Likely the stats will change so I will refrain from commenting on them.

The Pan-O Crusader Brethren on the other hand received a lot of praise and while it's certainly not a bad model it's a bit too generic and a bit too busy looking for my tastes. The design jetpack (or whatever) is cool looking though so that gets thumbs up from me.  Don't know the stats for him yet, but it looks like a fairly heavily armoured jump trooper to me.

 More Tohaa! The Gao-Rael looks to be a lighter Symbiont armoured wearing trooper (like the Sakiel) but to me the snazzy coat implies some kind of cammo element to it as well (CB likes trenchcoated cammo dudes!). Not a bad looking model at all, although the pose look a little weird from certain angles. The Tohaa sniper rifle is interesting looking and the armour feels less cluttered than the other Tohaa we've seen so far. 

While I squeeled most abou thte Wu Ming, this Ikadron Batroid and Imetron was what first drew my eye. It's basically the new baggage remote for the Combined Army, but look how cool it is! Some weird alien thing stalking the jungle on stilts, with a backpack full of casualties and toting two flamethrowers! The Imetron is pretty good as well and remind me of the Elder Things. Another model to get simply for the models sake!

The Steel Phalanx is the first sectorial for ALEPH and is based around Achilles and his Greek posse. I've always been of two minds regarding ALEPH; I love some of their models while others simply don't do it for me. However with this new sectorial I might just get myself a second army. There's something about these bulkier ALEPH guys that I really like. In some way they remind me of really hi-tech versions of Haqqislam troops. Then there's the Myrmidon which I think looks great (although a little model pose-y) and Eudoros who is a little blocky but coole nonetheless. Will need to have a look at the rules, but I'm sorely tempted!

Yay! More heavy infantry for Yu Jing!!  While a box of (linkable) Shangji is at the top of my HI wish list, the Wu Ming come close enough for me to jump up and down and grin. While the Haramaki are spectacular looking minis they are very specific in the way they look: hi-tech samurai. The Wu Ming are a bit more generic looking but in this case I think it's a good thing. We get a box here full of fire power! An HMG, a light rocket launcher, a light grenade launcher and one E/mitter. Imagine the link team you could make up with these guys. Scary! To me the sculpts look a little bit sleeker than their original shotgun carrying college, but they look similar enough not to raise eyebrows on the field of battle I think. Really want these guys!

So is that it then? I've covered all the releases since July, right? Well, not quite. First off we have the mercenary TAG Scarface and its pilot Cordelia, and then there's Gogo Marlene - the greatest journalist in the Humansphere.

Scarface & Cordelia.

Gogo Marlene.

Scarface and Cordelia was/is (?) released as part of a deal when you bought an Infinity themed bag from Battlefoam. She will get a wider release later on but right now that's the only way of getting her I think. Now, Scarface is probably my favourite TAG so far. It looks pretty much like I hoped the O-Yoroi Kidobutai would look. I like that you can see the pilots arms and teh general proportions of the TAG look spot on. I would perhaps have chosen a different pose and I would definitely not have gone with the big machete in one hand, but that is easily modified. Cordelia looks pretty cool as well and gives me a kind of Deunan Knute vibe.

Gogo Marlene looks like something pulled straight from a ninetiees anime and is accompanied by a little bunny remote that I assume serves as her recording droid. It's an ok looking model, but I like the rules for including a journalist in your games (just as in Judge Dredd!) so will definitely paint her when I get my hands on her.


Now... I think I've covered all the releases. Phew! That's a whole bunch of good looking miniatures! Now I'm off to take a bath and consider my gaming budget...

Read More

6 comments

Infinity Round-Up, Part 1

I've had a few readers mention that there hasn't been much Infinity conent on Fire Broadside for a couple of months. Don't worry, Infinity is still one of my "cornerstone games". I've let it rest for a bit though as we got more heavily into Dust Warfare, played a lot of Descent and as we were waiting for the Paradiso campaign book. The idea was to wait until I had the book in hand and then make a post about my initial thoughts etc. but seeing as it has been delayed until some time in October and the September releases are out I felt a change of plan was needed.

So, I'm simply going to sum up all the cool stuff that is happening in Infinity at the moment in this post, and then I'll try to cover the new model releases in part 2! So what have been going on?

The biggest new thing is of course Campaign: Paradiso, a new book that doesn't only introduce new troop types, a new sectorial and even a new faction, but also introduce an entirely new campaign system. We have seen some of the new miniatures for the existing factions by now and they bring some neat stuff to the table. ALEPH have got their first sectorial which is Greek themed with Achilles in the lead. Then there's the Tohaa - a new alien faction. Although, even though they are new from a gaming standpoint they have been mentioned in the background and have been a part of the Infinity universe for some time. Apparently they are the only race (besides humans... hopefully) that have been able to resist the Evolved Intelligence. From what we know of the Paradiso campaign it seems like it will center around the Tohaa making contact with the Human Sphere and the conflicts and opportunities that arise from that.

This is all very cool stuff, but before we have a deeper look at all the neat models I want to talk about the featuer in Paradiso that I'm most excited about: the campaign system!

We have known for a long time that Corvus Belli was working on a new book for Infinity and that it would contain different scenarios you could play. Now this is one of my favourite games and even playing straight up skirmishes is lots of fun, but it has always felt like a lot of narrative potential got lost when doing that. The combination of a rich background and neat little rules, like being able to warn nearby allies about threats behind them, really screams for something more than head-on fights. What we got in the end though, was not simply a book of random scenarios, but an entire campaign system where these scenarios fit in! As I mentioned the campaign seems focused on the arrival of the Tohaa and apparently the Tohaa Diplomatic Delegate will play a vital part as an objective in several scenarios.

The campaign tree.

I won't try to go into too much detail about how the campaign system goes together but according to Carlos it is faction independant and it branches out depending on who won which scenarios etc. Beasts of War did an interview with Carlos where he explains some of the new stuff in the book so if you are curious check it out here. 

Apart from the campaign and scenario structure an experience system has also been introduced. Of course, Infinity is very finely balanced and messing with this balance by letting each model collect experience and get better, a la Necromunda or Judge Dredd, would play havock with the game. Instead Corvus Belli have introduced a new type of soldier for each faction (and sectorial army in the future) - the Spec-ops. In the campaign each player get one Spec-ops model for free and as you play you army as a whole collects experience based on a number of factors in the scenario. This experience can then be used to either boost your Spec-ops or to give your army as a whole an upgrade. The Spec-ops start out pretty much as a regular line trooper but can be upgraded to become a true combat monster... although if he dies you have to start all over again with a new Spec-ops.

The Nomad Vortex Spec-ops, courtesy of Beasts of War.

The upgrades you can buy for your army come in different categories like Logistics Specialty, Psi-ops Specialty and Mobile Reserve Specialty and there are four levels in each category. The things you get basically allows you to break the rules of the game in some way, like allowing you to see the entire of your opponents army list, or get an additional +1 AVA on one specific troop type. I think this allows you to customize your army to some degree without affecting balance to a detrimental degree. Having the choice between army upgrades and Spec-ops upgrades also means that different playstyles are catered for. I'm fairly certain that my friend Anders, for example, will concentrate most of his experience points into his Spec-ops.

The Tohaa.

The other big thing is of course the reveal of an entirely new faction! Something Corvus Belli had been very good at keeping secret as noone was expecting it. The Tohaa is an old human-like alien race that have been able to resist the Combined Army. Now, resisting doesn't mean defeating and it seems like they are making contact with humanity in the hopes of finding an ally. As always in Infinity there's no black and white though and the Tohaa are no different. They are not beneficial saviours but rather seem to try and figure out how they can use humanity to further their own agenda. They might be humanity's best hope, but that doesn't mean they are the good guys.

What sets a Tohaa force apart from the rest is that they mostly work in three-man fireteams. Not like the link-teams we're used to from Human Sphere but three different troopers can join up and form a team, something which makes them a lot more flexible. There's also no limit of only one team, the Tohaa can have as many as they want. The Tohaa also make use of something called Symbiont Armour. This is a quite interesting concept as it is very different from the heavy power armour we've seen so far. Instead of simply adding another wound and providing a high ARM value, you use an entirely different profile as long as the Symbiont Armour is active. So each model with this equipped will have two profiles, one with the armour active and one where it's inactive. When you loose all the wounds in the first profile the armour basically dies and you step out of it, using the second profile. Pretty neat!

The Tohaa delegate.

For lighter troops this might mean an extra wound and some extra ARM (so not much different to a regular HI), but the heavier Ectros has two distinctly different profiles, with boosted BS and PH with the armour active (not to mention a total of three wounds!). The armour is much more mobile as well as all Tohaa troops we've seen so far have a move of 4-4. So they're quick, they get boosted stats and they run around in three man fire-teams! Luckily they do have a large disadvantage as well... they're very vulnerable to fire. If a model using Symbiont Armour fails it ARM roll against an attack causing fire damage it will simply drop dead on the spot. It works like monofilament weapons to them basically. Good thing we get the new rocket launcher as it uses fire ammo.

When it comes to the actual Tohaa models I'm... unsure of what I think. Don't get me wrong they're beautiful sculpts and I do like the way they look. But they are very new and I'm not sure how they fit in with the rest of the Infinity miniatures. Well, that's for part 2 of this article, isn't it? They do remind me of the Drell from Mass Effect though.

As usual Corvus Belli have made all the new rules and new troop profiles available for download from their site, so you won't need the new book to play the Tohaa or any of the other new stuff. You will however need it to play the campaign. It seems the community are keeping busy as well and the new stuff is being added to the Infinity Wiki as well.

I hope this has given you a decent overview of the upcoming campaign book. Next up I'll talk more about the actual new models released. Oh, and I've painted a couple of things that I haven't actually shown on the blog yet, so expect to see those soon. 

Read More

3 comments