October Releases for Infinity!

"Er... October releases? That was two weeks ago, dude!" Yes, yes... I went to Japan for a bit and it took a while for me to get back up to speed. I was thinking better late than never, so here we are with the October releases for Infinity.

Oh, if you actually come visit my little corner of the interwebs you might have noticed things are looking a little different around here. I thought it was time to do a bit of a clean up, as I tend to do every other year or so. Going to try a light background this time around which feels fresher, but at the same it's quite far from the darkness of space that I've always had in mind for this blog. Also, I'm still hammering things out so expect details to keep changing for a while.

Anyway... Infinity! October saw the release of the Dire Foes boxed sets. Each containing alternative Spec-Ops models for two different factions plus a civilian for use in scenarios. This time around the special operatives are named characters and come with their own little backstory which is kind of cool. In the box we also get a scenario featuring the operatives in question as well as their respective stat lines. Overall I think it's a cool little iniatitive, and I might pick up one or two of the boxes, but it's certainly not anything critical to the game.

So let's look at the Dark Mist box first. In it we get the Yu Jing Keisotsu Gui Feng Yuriko Oda, the Ariadnan Volunteer Intel Isobel Macgregor and a civilian Comm-Tech. Three good looking models! Yuriko has a nice look that combines the look of the regular Gui Feng with the baggy pants (tobi trousers!) of the Japanese Keisotsu. To me her legs look a little long, but perhaps that's only because of the combat high heels. Hehe! Isobel is dressed more like a punk rocker from the seventies which is all kinds of awesome in itself! Her pose is very similar to Uxia McNeal's but it looks good so I'll let it slide (ba-dum-tish!). Finally we have the Comm-Tech who look fairly unassuming, which I actually think is a really good thing as it's fairly rare in Infinity. Besides the "I need to go pee"-pose she looks like a cool tech worker. If I was more into JSA I would pick this up for sure. Right now it's a maybe.

 Next up is Train Rescue featuring Treitak Anyat of the Combined Army, Fusilier Indigo Bipandra of PanO and the civilian(?!) Fusilier Angus. I was a little surprised that the CA model was not a Shasvaasti as we already have a Morat spec-op. This time it's a female though and although it's technically a great sculpt I'm not really a fan of the model overall. I'm not sure if it's the catwalk pose or something else, but it's not my style. Bipandra suffers from the same problem the first PanO spec-of suffers from, namely that they're both too similar to a plain old Fusilier. It's a good looking model with a very Infinity-esque pose (blowing a kiss?) but to me it needs to stand out more from the normal rank and file. Finally there's Fusilier Angus who's been an inside joke among Corvus Belli and the Infinity Community for years and I would have expected something different for him. Mike over at Project: Toth suggested a big shit-eating grin and yes, that would have gone a long way! :)

 The third box is called Fleeting Alliance and contains the Nomad Alguacil Vortex Lupe Balboa, Chandra Sergeant Thrasymedes of ALEPH and a civilian Marine Engineering Officer. This is hands down my favourite of the three sets. Lupe is miles ahead of the very boring looking Vortex Spec-Ops and in fact looks kick-ass with the sword and that dragon perched on her shoulder (say... who does that remind me of?). Thrasymedes is also a clear improvement of the regular Chandra Spec-Ops who felt a bid bland. This guy looks the business and the pose has the feeling of the opening stance in a duel. Very cool! Finally we have the civvie and her I quite like! She looks like a flight attendant or something and I think she is the only one of the civilians who really look the part. The other two could easily be mistaken for some kind of light infantry.

 Another box! This time there are no dire foes in it, but instead an old school TAG! The Mercenary(?) Anaconda! This model was released as a limited edition during Gencon but now it's here for all of us. As the story goes it's of Nomad origins but have done works all across the sphere for different contractors (although seemingly with Nomad backing). It's not quite clear who will be able to field this beast, but Nomads and Merovingians look like safe bets. Anyway, it's big and brutish and certainly looks to be of an earlier generation than the modern PanO TAGs we see today. It has no visible ranged weapon, but a damn big sword and a head that looks like a crusader helm. Considering the pilot carries what looks like an HMG I'm guessing that the TAG will carry one as well. Speaking of the pilot she looks like quite a determined woman. For some reason I really dig her hairstyle. Weird I know. So yeah, another big, great looking, stonking mecha to add to your army! I really like how different it is from what we've got so far (although with some similarites to the Iguana).

Finally we get to the only non-boxed release this month, the Tohaa Gao-Tarsos Unit with an HMG. To make up for the smaller package this Gao-Tarsos consists of pure awesomeness! You might remember me going on about the first Gao-Tarsos when it was first released back in January, but this guy has him beat. The armour, the pose, the Gundam-esque flight pack. I love it all! If I didn't already have other plans for a second faction I would get a bunch of these guys together. In game (yay, we have stats!) he's a solid AD trooper that, thanks to the symbiont armour, almost works like heavy infantry. Dropping two Gao-Tarsos behind enemy lines could cause a lot of havoc!

A little late, but there we are. My favourite single model in this release is the Gao-Tarsos, followed by the Anaconda and the Nomad and ALEPH spec-ops. Although I'm eager to see this months releases that won't be full of Dire Foes, I'm still glad we got them. Especially as Thrasymedes have given me an idea of how to paint my Steel Phalanx, if I decide to go down that road. Which is looking more and more likely... hehe!

Until next time!