Getting back into that Infinity Groove!

Instead of blogging I've been busy with a number of different games related projects. Some of them are too early to talk about but one that I have been focusing on is just lots of fun to share - I've painted a bunch of Infinity minis and played through the Red Veil intro campaign with my buddy Claes! Woop!

I think I've mentioned earlier that we split the Red Veil starter last year and were planning to use it as a way to get (back) into the game. It would be a completely new introduction for Claes and for me it would work as a kind of recalibration as my brain shifts from N2 to N3. Our initial goal was to paint the minis before starting playing, but as things weren't moving much I thought we'd flip it around instead and play first to get our inspiration for painting!

We actually played the first two missions back late last year so it took us almost six months to get to mission three. And even though I said we'd just go on and play with unpainted minis inspiration struck as I started re-reading the Red Veil booklet and I sat down to paint my two Yaokong remotes and my two Yaozao that have been in a semi-painted state for years! After that I went ahead and painted the complete Red Veil starter and I even built and painted terrain for my own Infinity table. A frenzy of Infinity related activity in May and June as it were.

I've told myself that I'll go back and take proper photos with a camera, but who knows when I'll actually get around to that! So phone pics are better than no pics. Let's start with the Remotes.

I wanted to continue the kind of police-looking colour scheme that i started with my Guija and I thikn it worked out nicely! I even updated my painting method to make it easier and quicker to paint. These are of course magnetized so I can switch loadouts at will - even so I think I might get two more. They're just so cool! Some of the best old school Infinity models for sure.

The Yaozao were super quick to paint, using almost only whites to make them stand out. Just wish I had posed them a little differently!

Just had to take a family picture with my mech-engineer and her robotic buddies. Considering all of these minis are from the early years of Infinity it's amazing how well they still hold up! Of course, I won't be able to resist that new Guija sculpt forever... and then this guy can work as a O-Yoroi proxy until that gets a resculpt. Hehe!

Next up we have the Red Veil minis, which I finished in batches.

I started with the light and medium infantry. The new Zhanshi are a great step up from the old ones and they've certainly taken their growth hormons as the scale has creeped up a bit. Really like that there are two female and one male sculpt in this box, as it's usually the other way around. Part of me would like to get the SWC box, but another part whispers at me to just use Keisotsu instead.

The Tiger Soldier has also got a great face lift, although this particular sculpt can sometimes be hard to "read". It's a cool, very dynamic sculpt, but also a bit all over the place.

Love painting the new heavy infantry! As you can see I've changed the colours I use for the HI compared to my old stuff. I liked the white recipe I used for the remotes so much that I wanted to use it for the HI, leaving the blue-grey armour for light troops and making HI white to stand out. The Hsien got a grey collar thoug, mostly for the back spikes to have something to contrast against.

The Zuyong is one of my favourite Yu Jing sculpts as it looks like he's peaking around the corner while communicating to the troops behind him. At first I wasn't sure about the relaxed pose of the Hsien, but after painting and playing with him I've actually come to like the cocky style of it. I also gave him a red faceplace, which I've wanted to do since I saw it on Tim's (of The Tau of War) Shang-Ji back in 2011! I think it really helps bring focus to the model.

Last out was the ninja who was quite quick to get done. She's very monochrome since it's all just different shades of grey, but since it's a ninja I think it works pretty well. I have another couple waiting in the painting queue.

And here's a group shot!

And another one with some additional friends!

As you might have noticed I've mixed Micro Art Studios' Urban War bases with Antenociti's Hex bases and they look similar enough for it to work fine. The Antenociti bases has the advantage of being thinner but doesn't look quite as nice as the MAS ones, and doesn't have as much texture. I thikn I'll continue to mix bases, and maybe add the tri-hex bases as well, as greater variety is a good thing.

Now, let's have a look at the terrain. I mentioned Test of Honour in my last post and that it has inspired me to build some proper feodal Japanese terrain. However, I also wanted to do this as it would cross over well and work for my planned Infinity table as well. I ordered some model bamboo and trees and other stuff but when I actually got it I felt it would just be silly to start with a completely new project before I had a playable table for Infinity.

So instead I set about using part of the material for building up my Neon Lotus based table for Infinity. What's missing in the pictures here are many more Warsenal planters (as they're awaiting flowers), the actual Neon Lotus paper terrain (as it's awaiting foamcore reinforcements) and a bunch of scatter terrain I just got from Zen Terrain. But you can see the kind of vibe I'm going for. Of course, the aim is to gradually phase out the Neon Lotus terrain in favour of stuff from Zen and other manufacturers.

Sakura trees are awesome for setting the mood! Oh, and I got a MAS ITS objective set as well that I'm slowly working my way through. I have enough built and painted now to be able to play Infinity Recon, which I think will be a good next step after Red Veil.

It's great fun getting things painted and built, but the best thing about this whole project has been that Claes has gotten more inspired and is now actively working with this minis. I hope to see the first brush strokes on his Haqq fairly soon...

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Gūijiă TAG Finally Done!

Gūijiă with a Gŭiláng sniper for scale.

Any of you elephants out there reading this blog might remember that I said that my Gūijiă TAG would be finished next week, back in November last year. Well, here we are nine months later and my baby is finally done! Hehe! Actually this is somewhat of a habit of mine when it comes to painting larger Infinity stuff. Both my Aragoto and my Sù-Jiàn were left half finished for months before I finally got around to squaring them out. Generally, I get tired of painting large models that require lots of detailing. My Dust Warfare mecha I knocked out in an evening or two, but those were also just spray, wash and drybrush - easy. For Infinity I want to try to do better than that.

Gundam decals for some extra detailing. Should get some more sheets, they're very useful!

Anyway, here she finally is. I think the Gūijiă is my favourite Infinity TAG design, it's not my favourite execution (that would be the Gecko) but I do love the Masamune style landmate thing that it has going for it. Many are turned off by the large flat thighs but I think that's most definitely a feature! There are however some problems with it. The two things that jump out at you from the get go is the ridiculously oversized gun and the sword. Really? A sword? When you have a gun that big?! I thought long and hard about modifying the gun, loosing the sword and then changing the pose so both hands would be on the gun, but it just seemed like too much work when I'm sure we'll see a resculpt of the Gūijiă sooner or later (perhaps sooner considering the upcoming Invincible sectorial). So I bit the bullet, glued on the sword and the four meter long gun and went to work!

I've taken inspiration from some other Gūijiă paint jobs I've seen as well as the works of Shirow Masamune. I wanted to get faaaaar away from the orange horror that is the studio paintjob (sorry Ángel!) and make it look more like a working machine than some cartoon... blob. The idea behind the colours is to evoke a kind of police/SWAT feeling and I think it workes fairly well.

That gun... *sigh*

With all of these large flat spaces this model really cries out for some nice airbrushing, but since I still don't have one I had to go at it with the old brush. I'm not entirely happy with the gradients as my feathering isn't good enough to do the thighs justice but, meh, what the hell. It looks good enough I think. I might go back and redo the sword some day though as it's pretty bland at the moment.

In any case I'm happy simply to finally have a TAG painted! Granted it's not one of those fancy "trick TAGs" like the Cutter with its TO camo or the Yoroi with its cute ambulatory mines, but it has solid stats and can bring a heavy grenade launcher and that is all I ask for. :)

Next up painting wise is probably some spaceships for Jovian Chronicles, but after that I think I might just get cracking on my remotes. Now that I have figured out the colour scheme...

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Quick TAG work in progress

Gūijiă TAG for the Yu Jing faction.

Last month I felt it was finally time to get working on my Gūijiă TAG. It had been lying in its box since I got it back in 2011 and I felt a little bad for that. The Gūijiă is an older Infinity model and one of the oldest TAGs around. When I first saw it I wasn't really sold, even with the close resemblance to Shirow Masamune's landmates. But as I started seeing it from new angles and, especially, seeing it with different paintjobs than the official one I started to soften.

While some of the old models show their age, many of them still hold up very well. Just take the old (right side) Gŭiláng I painted last year - it's an awesome model!

Gŭiláng - Ghost Wolves.

And so is the Gūijiă. However, the official paintjob is bad and only serves into making it into an orange blob. After seeing some very different looks for the TAG I decided it was time to try my hand at it.

The idea is to go with a blue/grey/white theme that I hve running through most of my Yu Jing models but combine it with a kind of police/SWAT look to bring out the badass landmate feel of the Gūijiă. I was actually considering replacing the head with something more Guges as that would fit sooo well, but in the end decided against it. Another idea I had was to replace the barrel assembly of the Multi HMG with a brass 1/35 minigun kit from RB Models. Unfortunately it was a bit too delicate to go well with the look of the rest of the model. I might try assembling to try it out anyway, but as it looks now we have a stock Gūijiă to look forward to.

And here is where it's at right now:

Gūijiă TAG work in progress.

As you can see it's sans head at the moment, don't mind that. The base is also just quickly block painted to get get away from the black undercoat and get a better look at the overall colour of the miniature. I'm quite happy with the colour scheme, but I think the dark blue-grey need to come up a little bit in terms of lightness to make the model pop more. On the other hand it is often the final details that tie everything together, so perhaps a darker base colour like this is the right way to do it.

While in Japan I bought a sheet of Gundam decals that I'm planning to use on my Yu Jing TAGs and remotes as well as perhaps some 15mm stuff further down the line. It's a pretty good mix of warning texts and more general symbols that should work well. A few of those on this guy will also help to make it unique.

I'm glad I got started on this as I want a similar colour theme to run through all the TAGs and remotes and now that I have it nailed down it should be easier to continue with the two baggage remotes I magnetized earlier:

Magnetized Pangguling remote for Infinity.

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Infinity Painting Update!

Hello my fellow Mayanauts! It's been a while since I had any painting updates on the blog so I thought I'd show you a couple of models I actually finished in June last year. In preparation for the Paradiso campaign I decided to paint a Doctor, an Engineer, two Yaozao servant remotes and two Pangguling baggage remotes. Actually, I think I mentioned as much in this old post.

Anyway, I haven't really finished as much as I wanted but things are slowly progressing. Up top you can see the Yisheng doctor and Goncheng engineer. They are both part of the older Infinity sculpts but I they still hold up well I think, the only thing looking a bit off is the very large combirifle the doctor is holding. I tried to experiment with some OSL around the doctor's eyepiece and the engineer's googles and although it could be better I think it comes across reasonably well.

The reason I've waited with posting these guys is because I wanted to show the finished Yaozao servant remotes at the same time, but they're still not finished and I think I've been holding off for too long already. I've finished the bases but have yet to paint the actual miniatures (which is a shame considering how quick they would be!). Anyway, here's the state they are in now:

You should see these guys all painted up fairly soon I hope! Neat little models although I think I should have played around with their poses a bit before gluing them down. Oh well.

I've also assembled and magnetized my two Pangguling baggage remotes as that's something you definitely want to bring to the table if you play the campaign! Although I prefer the Yaoxie/Lu Duan a bit more the Pangguling are still pretty cool looking little robots. Normally I would have painted the base before mounting them, but I think there's enough space to get a paintbrush in underneath them. I magnetized the combirifles and the EVO repeater antennas so I'd be able to field them as the minesweeper variant as well if I wanted. It works really well!

For my next purchase I'm debating whether to get some Shaolin monks or the new Bao troops. Hmm... decisions decisions...

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A Delayed Update

Twilight Imperium in full swing!

Hello out there! Sorry for the lack of updates recently. You might remember I said I'd post a tactics article on how to play the with the Rebel fleet in X-Wing. Unfortunately I chose to type it out in Word for some reason and I ended up deleting it by mistake when it was pretty much finished. This made me a bit frustrated and I couldn't find the energy to blog for a while. Plus I'm simply lazy. Haha! Don't worry though, the tactics article will make a re-appearence further on once I've absorbed the new Wave 2 ships. I have been busy playing games though so I thought I'd post a quick round-up of my gaming and geeking activities this past month.

First off, Ed from Two Hour Wargames sent me a review copy of the recently released 5150 Star Navy and I've managed to get a couple of games in. It's been an interesting experience since it's quite different from your run of the mill Full Thrust-esque game. It's more about the big scale stuff and just as much about what happens between battles as what happens during them. Some more games are needed before I feel ready to write a proper review though.

I realised that I had forgotten my GZG ships so we used figures from Twilight Imperium instead. 

Worked great!

Not only was it fun to play Star Navy it also resparked my dormant passion for spaceship gaming! I've been come to the conclusion that what I'm lacking the most right now is carriers and fighter craft, so my next order from Jon at GZG will include some for both the FSE and the UNSC. I have also been looking through my collection of Babylon 5 Earth Alliance ships and managed to get hold of some old Starfury fighters for them (although I think I might use them for my UNSC as well) so there might be some B5 in the future as well.

Great haul but... sad. 

In more spaceship news I got a whole box full of Lightning Strike/Jovian Chronicles models from DP9. Awesome... yes, but it was a bitter-sweet package to get as they've now discontinued their JC line of miniatures. Jovian Chronicles have been one of my great sci-fi/RPG inspirations since I got hold of the first edition book back in the late nineties. I've always wanted put together two proper fleets of Jovian and CEGA forces, but the large scale difference between the ships and the EXOs (mecha) and the price of the models you need most of have meant I kept postponing it. Now, in this final order I only bought ships as I couldn't afford enough EXOs to fill out a fleet.

Instead I'm planning to get fleet scale mecha from different sources. There are the Japanese fighters from GZG and there's a whole bunch of different variants on Shapeways (like these), besides Eli's sculpts available from 15mm.co.uk. I've even considered doing my own 3D models of Jovian Chronicles EXOs in fleet scale and print using Shapeways. I've always wanted to learn 3D modelling so this might be a good way to start. Expect to read more about Jovian Chronicles going forward, I'm not letting it go that easily!

Oh, and being inspired by both this thread on TMP and by watching the altoghether excellent remake of the original Space Battleship Yamato / Starblazers (Yamato 2199) I painted one of my Earthforce cruisers and have started working on other ships as well. I've just been using simple block colouring as it gives the model a bit more of a cartoon feel.

Hopefully the first of many.

As for the new anime series, I really can't recommend it enough! It's nothing like the absolutely awful live action film released a couple of years ago. Yamato 2199 simply modernises the original series and have made it more logical and removed some of the over the top sillyness. There are some additional characters as well and the space battles are gorgeous! Check it out!

Turn one. My fleet is lined up in formation to take over the galaxy!

Next up we played a six player game of Twilight Imperium which was a lot of fun! We haven't played it for close to a year I think as we burned out a little on it last time. I got to play the Yssaril tribes who are generally considered to be the best race, with their ability to skip turns and hoard action cards. It was a fairly close game with only the Mentak player lagging seriously behind. After having been at it for about nine hours we decided to end the game as if the Game Over card had been drawn. There were three of us sharing first place at eight victory points - me, Letnev and Sarr - but since I had the most completed objectives I was the victor. Yay! Now, don't let the nine hour play time scare you off. We take it very slow and this includes breaks for eating and lots of talking on the side. We do have another game lined up for next week that I'm looking forward to!

Finally... I've payed my first Infinity campaign game! You all probably know that I hold Infinity in very high regard, but the excellent rules and the beautiful models have sometimes feel wasted on simple deathmatch games like we've been playing up until now. Sure, there are loads of fan made scenarios, but having an official scenario/campaign book like Paradiso feels like the final piece of the puzzle being slotted in!

That's no Pangguling, I hear you say. Well, that T/O marker IS a ninja so... ha!

We (of course) played the first scenario, Data Recovery, and my opponent was the mercenary heavy Qapu Khalqi. He fielded a group of Kaplan Tactical Service, a group of Odalisques sprinkled with some specialists and a remote. I had a very diverse list featuring several different hackers (going from a Shang Ji to a Ninja) some light infantry, a couple of remotes, an Engineer and finally a Tiger Soldier and a Daofei to lay down the hurt.

My opponent seized the initiative early and analyzed the first alien tech which revealed where the relevant data was located. Unfortunately for me my opponent had that area well covered by a Odalisque with a Spitfire. He dropped two Yuan Yuan who threw smoke all over the place and allowed his engineer to get close to the alien tech. The tide turned when I brought in my Tiger Soldier armed with a HMG though! With the greater range of the HMG and the Mimetism to make him harder to hit the Tiger Soldier pretty much cleaned house on my left flank, allowing my engineer to make her way to the alien tech and download the data. She made it back to the Pangguling remote but failed the upload roll. Grrr!

On the right flank my Shang Ji charged forward and torched a couple of KTS operatives. That meant my opponent was in retreat and his last few models ran off the table. This of course meant that I didn't have any more chances to try and upload the data and I won with a measly two points! Sometimes it doesn't pay to kill your opponent!

It was a fun game and playing a detailed scenario like this really shows off all the cool stuff in Infinity that you normally don't see in tournament style games. In most of these scenarios Baggage Remotes are either mandatory or helps you greatly if you bring them and although I've got a couple of Pangguling I hadn't managed to assemble them in time for the game. This weekend I took time to put them together and magnetise them though and they certainly are cute little buggers!

The total reaction version.

I need to put together my spec-ops model as well and then it's time for painting!

That's most of what I've been up to. Expect another post going through the new Infinity releases I missed last month as well as the new ones for February (Bao troops!!) tomorrow or so...

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Painting Plans!

With the preview of the new Yu Jing remotes over at Beasts of War and Angel Giráldez' blog I thought it might be wise to plan ahead what to paint. I was thinking mainly of Infinity, but naturally other games will pop up as well. Let's have a look at what we've got ahead of us!

First off, I've actually finished the Yu Jing doctor and engineer. They haven't been featured on the blog yet  because I want to finish their two servant bots as well first, but you should see them on Saturday or Sunday for sure. I wanted to get these out of the way mainly because they're good models to have available to your force, but also since the upcoming campaign/scenario book (damnit CB! Give us a title already!) seems to have scenarios where they are needed.

Same goes for the baggage remotes that were released a few months ago, the Pangguling. I'm all kinds of excited about playing proper scenarios in Infinity so really want to prepare for them! Also, remotes in general is someting very unique to Infinity and I simply want to bring some into my gaming force. I started on a Yáokòng last year, but it's been pushed to the back of the line by some of the new releases.

I usually get tired of painting large(ish) models like the remotes so after that I think some regular infantry is needed. The Kuang Shi are definitely the unsung heroes of my Yu Jing force as they're cheap enough to throw away recklessly but also have enough tricks up their sleeves to play havok with my opponent. So naturally I would like to try the Shaolin monks as well. They're similar but have different abilities like smoke grenades and martial arts training. I've held off because I wasn't too fond of the sculpts but with the new box released things have certainly changed! For starters I'll probably just do two of them as I don't think I'd be comfortable with more two Irregular models in my force. The chainrifle and one of the staff wielders are likely candidates.

Ok, I've got some specialists, some remotes and some smoke tossing skirmishers... what would work well with that? Well, a Hsien with a Heavy Machine Gun of course! The two Hsien models were among the first I got for Infinity since I both liked the look of them and they seemed brutal in game as well, but I still haven't played played with or painted one. This needs to change! I know just what they're going to look like and everything. Having a model with Multispectral Visor and a HMG coupled with models capable of laying down smoke is a nasty combination that I thought would be fun to try.

Finally I want to get some fightier remotes on the table and the new Rui Shi and Lù Duan (up top!) fit the bill perfectly! While they are just as big as the baggage remotes (meaning harder to hide) they look really cool and I simply want to have them scamper across the table confusing enemies with holo-echoes and gunning down camouflage troops thanks to their Multispectral Visor! Hmm... with all these new remotes I should get another hacker or two painted, for variety's sake if nothing else.

So that's my Infinity sorted for a while I think. I really want to get my Guija painted as well, but I won't try to squeeze it into the schedule quite yet. Now, what else do we have that I'm eager to get started on? To be honest there's simply way too much! But trying to focus on the games I play mostly at the moment there's Dust Warfare and Judge Dredd.

The infantry in Dust Warfare lends themselves well to fairly basic painting techniques and I hope I can get an entire squad done in one sitting. Not quite sure about what kind of colour scheme and camouflage I'd like to go with yet. Likely someting similar to the studio paint jobs, but with some variations. I'll probably start with the Fakyeli close combat squad as I really like the look of them. Next up will be the Medvedi command squad and after that I would really like to try my hand on either a walker or a helicopter. However, for that I would need to use one of my friends airbrushes for the first couple of steps. We'll see how it turns out.

I must admit that I'm more focused on painting Infinity at the moment, partly because my friend has finally started working on his Acontecimento force but I think mainly because the Zverograd campaign book still isn't available. It's currently listed as "On the Boat" at FFG's site so hopefully it'll be here in time for Gencon and I imagine my motivation level will rise considerably when that happens. Then again, we might (please, CB!) see the Infinity campaing book then as well. Hmm...

Finally we have the Ape gang for the Judge Dredd skirmish game. I love these models! Perhaps not as technically accomplished as the stuff CB puts out, but competent enough and, more importantly, they are full of character! I think they can be a good middle-ground between painting Infinity and painting Dust Warfare. Being able to take a break from the serious business and get cracking on some monkey business seems like great fun!

First off will be this little fellow, since it's a basic "trooper" and since the scratching my head pose is simply awesome! I've been listening to old episodes of The Ricky Gervais Show lately so monkeys keep popping into my head all the time, this might be a nice outlet for it...


So, that's my plan right now anyway. I'm sure it'll change as we go along, but I will at least try to stick to it. Especially the Infinity bit. You guys have a general idea of what might turn up here in the next few months or so. Actually my vacation starts on Monday so I'll likely have more time for painting and stuff for a couple of weeks at least. Hopefully this will result in some more models getting finished.

Anway, expect some specialists in a couple of days.

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Guest Painting: Infinity Bagh-Mari!

Hello fellow Mayanauts! Last year me, my friend Anders and Martin3 bought an Infinity army deal each during Beasts of War's Infinity week. A little bit later another friend, Martin2 (aka Beast), got interested as well and bought two regular starters and a few extra minis for each. He bought Yu Jing, same as me, and the Acontecimento sectorial. The minis have been knocking about his drawers for all this time but now as he's home on parental leave he's finding the time to get some paint onto them. Thankfully he started with the PanO!

Beast (haha!) is an accomplished painter but doesn't have a blog of his own, so I thought it'd share his work with the rest of the world here on Fire Broadside! Here's the finished Bagh-Mari.

Now, this is a guy who's only experience of models outside of GW (as far as I know) is Flames of War and one ship each for Full Thrust and Firestorm: Armada. So assembling and painting an Infinity miniature was a novel experience. He had some trouble with the small antennas during assembly and thought it was a bit of a hassle to paint because of all the details on the figure. I don't think it discouraged him though, hopefully the other way around!

The first two finished Infinity figures. Congratulations and welcome to the party!

I remember having similar feelings when painting my first Yu Jing; I just kept running into small details I had missed and had to go back again and again. But it all fell into place by the time I had finished my second one. It's just a great experience taking your time with the miniatures and painting each individually (or in pairs sometimes). Certainly gives a greater feeling of personalization that I enjoy immensely. While I need to start tackle larger scale army painting for Dust Warfare it will not be anything like painting my Infinity minis.

Anyway, I think Beast has done a smashing job on this Bagh-Mari! I know he prefers more open areas as flat spaces is a strongpoint of his, but this looks great as well (WIP shot on the left). The green colour goes well with the brown fatigues creating a bit more earthy, naturalistic tone to the model compared to the studio paintjob. I like it as it does feel like something you'd find sneaking through the jungle!

Beast mentioned that he'd like to try out some OSL at a later point (good guide for it here) and I think it would help to bring more life out of the model. Next up we'll likely see an Acontecimento Regular possibly followed by a Knight of Montesa. I know he's been eyeing the new Mulebots as well, which would come in handy considering the upcoming scenario book.

I'll be sure to share more of his stuff as they turn up!

As for myself, I sat down and started re-basing some of my Yu Jing. I haven't done it with any of my painted models yet, only basecoated or metal ones so far. I think some good varnish is needed first so I don't damage the painted minis too much during the process.

I'm not quite sure what to paint next for Infinity. I'm leaning towards my doctors and engineer though. I started painting a total reaction remote so perhaps I should finisht that instead. Hmm...

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Pair of Gŭiláng Finished!

The Gŭiláng, or Ghost Wolf, is a model I use in nearly all of my games. It's Yu Jing's cheap camouflage infiltrator and while he's not as cheap or as well equipped as some other skirmishers he often gets the job done. The basic version for 25pts is a good deal I think, although his stats are fairly average he does comes with a Multispectral Visor 1 and Antipersonell Mines. Upgrading him to a Minelayer allows you to deploy one of the mines at the start of the game and is something I always try to squeeze in to save on time and orders later on. The Forward Observer variant is interesting as well and I will probably try it out once I have some guided missiles or grenade launchers ready to back him up.

So far I've only used the Combi Rifle Gŭiláng in my games so it's fun having a sniper available as well. It's a great looking model, however I'm not sure how effective it would be on the tabletop. With the Infiltration skill the Gŭiláng can usually get in optimal range with his Combi Rifle anyway, although... he won't outdistance his opponent with it. Hmm...

The colour scheme is similar to the rest of my Yu Jing of course. I considered doing some urban camo on the coat, but didn't like how it broke up the great billowing effect (yes, that's the entire point of camo but they need to look good as well. Hehe!). It was interesting seeing all the small differences between the old style sculpt (Combi Rifle) and the new (Sniper); basically it has become more refined with more realistic proportions. The old one still looks great though!

I came across these old photo backdrops that my buddy Micke printed out for me last year as well. Great stuff! Makes a huge change for my crappy little camera (or mobile phone in this case) both when it comes to showing the correct colour and focusing on the miniature itself.

I'm starting to get the hang of painting OSL. I've still only done simple stuff like the holo communicator on his arm and the eyes, but would like to try something a bit more adventurous.

It was fun painting the coats! They go from black to Cold Grey to Off-White. Might have to do some more detailing on the top/left side of the Combi Rifle. 

Next up I'm prepping all the unpainted Yu Jing I have (should be about a dozen) and start working through them. Not sure what it will be next. Perhaps the Zhanshi doc and engineer + Yáozăo... or a total reaction Remote... or the Hsien... or Sforza! I do feel like I have all the staple models painted now; the stuff I want to always have available. From now on it's more about specialists and niche troops.

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February (Leap) Wrap Up

First off... Merry Leap Day!!!

Mini and Board Games

• Had a laid back board game night over at Anders' house at the beginning of the month. Micke came as well and we played Gears of War and actually won, for the first time! I think we've started learning how to play well. Once we were done we had some more time so looked at what Anders had available. We talked for a while but finally ended up with Talisman! Which was pretty cool since I hadn't played that in more than a decade. I played as the assassin and had fun harrassing the other players but in the end came in last while Anders walked away with the Crown of Command. I enjoyed this surprisingly much and wouldn't mind playing it again when the mood strikes.
• We also played another game of Twilight Imperium with the full six players. While I love the game I didn't enjoy this game as much as I ususally do. I tried out the Arborec but was hemmed in very early on by my two neighbours and felt very limited in what I could do. The very different playstyle of the Arborec naturally compounded the problem as I wasn't really sure on how to use them best. I think TI is best when you let it rest for a while between games so you can recharge your batteries as it were. Also, last time we played with a premade (balanced) map without Distant Suns and everyone were within two victory points of each other. This time we played with a player build (random) map with Distant Suns and the VP spread was much larger (between two and seven points). Coincidence?
• Finally today, on Leap Day(!), I played a couple of games of Infinity. At a local game store/club Infinity has become really popular with every Wednesday being scheaduled for Infinity. I went there to have a look around and ended up playing another Yu Jing player twice. The first game was 150 points and I included my new Aragoto, a HMG Tiger and a Guilang (among other things). It proved very one-sided with the Aragoto, with some help from the Tiger, wiping out his entire force in the first turn! High speed, Mimetism and a Spitfire is a deadly combination. The next game we upped the points to 200 so I added  my Su-Jian and a bunch of Kuang Shi. It went similar to the first, with the Aragoto and Su-Jian racing ahead and killing stuff. I had some nice synergy going with my Kuang Shi flushing out his Daofei allowing my humble Guilang to take him out from combat camo. So, two solid victories where I've really come to appreciate speed!

Painting and Modelling

Yes! Back to painting again and I'm enjoying it immensely!

• I added some support weapons to my EarthSec army. I have some another squad half finished, but Infinity has gotten in the way. :)
• I also got an order from GZG containing colonial shacks and some more Crusties. I'm really looking forward to putting together my very own Martian shanty town! John was kind enough to include some additional robots and a shipping container. Thanks!
• So, you've seen my Aragoto and my Sù-Jián already. I'm almost done with my two Guiláng (WIP above) and have some other stuff lined up; Hsien, Yáokòng and Sforza to name a few. It's fun coming back to Infinity miniatures as they really are a joy to paint. My friend Anders has also started working on his Nomads, which is really awesome! He even ordered some Windsor & Newton Series 7 brushes and new paints from Vallejo. Good stuff!
• Got a couple of orders incoming from Ravenstar Studios and Hasslefree as well. Plus the space mat from Hotz Mats.

Video Games

• During the first half of the month I played the demo for Starbreeze's Syndicate reboot a lot. At first it just looks like another sci-fi shooter. Sure it looks nice and cyberpunk always works for me, but how is it different? Well, there is a large co-op part of the game where you work as a team of four agents against the AI in different missions and once you get it it's spectacular! There are all the cool guns and upgrades you can get of course, and teamwork is essential, but what really sets it apart is "Breaching". This is what Starbreeze calls hacking in the game and it allows you to do all kinds of stuff, from healing your team mates to hacking through doors to disabling grenades as they fly in the air towards you! Some of the game's tougher enemies requires you to breack/hack their armour as well or you won't be able to damage them. Once you start understanding how it all goes together you realise there's almost a kind of MMO metagame going on where one can act as the "tank" while another heal and a third exert "crowd control". It's a really neat game with great visuals and audio and the closest we have to an Infinity video game. Check out the demo at least!

Other Geekstuff

• As I mentioned last month I didn't want to jump straight into The Naked God when reading The Night's Dawn trilogy, but instead relaxed with Goliath, the final part in the Leviathan trilogy. It was pretty ok, just as the other two books, very light but fun with steampunk and Darwinist creations. I wouldn't mind recommending them to young teenagers. I also read The Sharp End which is a Hammer's Slammers novel. It doesn't feature huge amounts of hover tank combat but is instead a bit more intimate, reminding me of a mix between Yojimbo and Shichinin no Samurai if that makes sense. I like the Slammers books... gritty though they are. Now I've just started reading The Naked God and things are certainly ramping up. Anders has started reading The Reality Dysfunction so I look forward to being able to discuss it with him.
• I watched Fincher's version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and I thought it was quite good (click the link for the trailer, it's spectacular)! With all the hoopla around the Millenium trilogy of books/films here in Sweden I've been a bit... tired of them and not really felt motivated to watch or read them. However, Fincher is Fincher and I wanted to see what he made of it and sure enough, he turns out spectacular work. I liked Daniel Craig in the role and Rooney Mara was great... very alien. Although it's been debated in Sweden whether she's being portrayed weaker than in the Swedish version. She really reminded me of Molly from William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy; interesting to examine the parallels.  The Swedish accent(s) are all over the place though! Not as bad as Skyrim, but sometimes a bit jarring.
• Also started re-watching Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (which is awesome) and tried to get going again on the second season of The Walking Dead. We'll see about that last one as I think I've had my fill of zombies for a while. Oh, and been watching an unhealthy amount of Invader Zim as well. Muahahahaaa!

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