His Majesty's lead pile

The only truly tangible project I have on the go at the moment is in Flames of War, the miniatures game set in the Second World War.  Being a romantic chap and a sucker for the land of hope and glory I'm rolling with a late war British Rifle Company for the Italian Theatre, for use with the Fortress Europe and Cassino source books.

I may very well use these miniatures as New Zealanders which is perfectly acceptable given the identical colour schemes, though there are some very nice Commonwealth Infantry produced by Battlefront.  In terms of ease of painting I should perhaps have chosen the mid-war desert theatre or late war France for British Infantry, as those theatres would require a more limited palette and therefore require less of my very scarce painting time!

I picked up 1x Mortar Platoon and 1x HMG Platoon of late war Italian theatre British quite cheap on trademe.co.nz about 5 years back, so I've made a start on the Mortar Platoon as you can see below.

As you can see I need to practice photographing miniatures, and they could do with some matt varnish over the top of the gloss!  I'm pretty much block painting on bare colours and relying on the Army Painter Quick Shade "strong tone" to pick out the detail and provide shading (it also varnishes which is handy).  While I think that I could fairly be the target of criticism for my use of Quick Shade as a "cop out", at this early stage of my painting career I don't think I have the skill or the patience to shade/highlight manually, and I also have very little inclination to do so on 15mm miniatures!  I'll explain my reasons for this in a future blog post.

I'm actually pretty happy with the results and I think that the Quick Shade has worked quite well with the Italian theatre palette.  I'm hoping to pick up the pace with my painting a bit by batch painting larger groups at a time.  Fairly shortly I hope to have accumulated enough bottle caps to be able to "working base" a whole platoon at a time.  By utilising a wet palette successfully (I've found it to be a useful technique so far) I ought to always have something ready to paint without having to wait on an earlier coat or an adjacent colour to dry.

Reinforcements

With the pace I've been setting so far, the prospect of what I have left to paint for my British is quite daunting.  I have something in the order of 140x little men, 4x 25 pounders, 3x Churchills and 1-2 as yet unselected and unpurchased support options to go before I can field 1500 points in flames of war.  Italy may have to wait a season or two for liberation, I think...

His Majesty's obvious intention was for stiff upper lips when faced with a lead pile

Into the wormhole...

Even for a wargaming magpie such as myself, Infinity made an impression on me very, very fast.  I'd like to share what lead me to venture into the wormhole, never once considering how I was to get out again...

Earlier in the year Garth and I started looking into skirmish gaming; we'd realised that mass-battle wargaming was going to be a long-term investment, and decided to look for something with a significantly lower buy-in cost and figure number requirement so that we could get games on the table relatively quickly.  We'd played a lot of Mordheim "back in the day" so we started looking into picking it up again.  I soon "digressed" into looking at Necromunda, given a commonly-held opinion that it possessed a superior campaign system to Mordheim.  However, it didn't take us long to realise that there was little support for these games from GW other than an incomplete line of overpriced miniatures.  Given that none of the original rule-boxes were still in print and the original terrain was only available at huge prices on e-bay, we decided that there was no particular advantage to taking up GW games over any other systems, especially seeing as though they are essentially dead games from GW's perspective.

In the course of my search for a skirmish alternative I ventured onto various forums until I came to the Dakkadakka "Malifaux, Infinity and other skirmish games" (or some such) forum; it didn't take me long to find a link to the Infinity site.  I was thoroughly blown away; the Infinity website is incredibly professional, well designed and themed.  However, the website was a minor attraction compared to the impression left on me by the miniatures.  They were (are) beautiful, and very simply among the best miniature sculpts I have ever seen - and here a whole range of them.

I spent a week or two looking at the miniatures and reading reviews of the rules on the internet.  I sifted through the community forums and glanced through the free online rules.  Blown away by the miniature, I bought the Haqqislam Djanbazan sniper.  Not long after I bought the rules and really the rest is history.  It wasn't a flawless experience, but the rulebook did really cement my initial impression of the game and of Corvus Belli as a games company.

With my impulse purchases over the last six months I've read a lot of rules.  I have difficulty sitting down and reading rules books, I'm not entirely sure what the issue is!  It could be something to do with what I do for a living.  I read rules and other such dry material every day during my working week.  I also read and write a lot; my days are filled with letters, legislation, survey plans and planning documents.  It is perhaps because of this that I really struggle to read rules books; particularly if they're poorly laid out (sequentially and on each page), dry, overly complex with too many qualifications, or poorly illustrated.  Now, while the Infinity rules probably aren't perfect, for me they managed to largely avoid the above pitfalls, even with the obvious translation issues (which personally I think gives the language a unique style and isn't necessarily a flaw).

Unlike all of the other rules I've read recently, I really got the Infinity rules as I read through them.  Once the fundamental concepts of the opposed roles and ARO were established (both elegantly simplistic mechanisms in themselves and very well illustrated in the book) I could instantly see how other concepts fitted within that framework.  While I certainly haven't memorised the rules and I'm no where near having a full appreciation for their tactical nuances, I do feel as though I've got a grasp on how the game works after reading a little bit of the book every night.  This is much more than I can say for the other rules I've read, though to be fair they are of varying degrees of complexity given that they represent engagements between forces above the skirmish level.  I think that I can now conceptualise how most forseeable actions will work out within the rules mechanisms in a "cinematic" way; because of this the rules appear to me to be quite organic and logical, and I find this pretty valuable in a set of rules.

Not only has Corvus Belli produced a fine set of rules, but their approach to their product as a whole is well thought out and thorough (keeping in mind that I'm speaking five or so years after the rules' release, though they must have done something right to have survived this long).  Their production values across the board are top notch.  The website is well designed, the forums equally good looking and functional, and the rulebooks well bound in glossy hard back with good quality paper.  From what I've seen so far (on my one miniature in hand) the casting quality is high, though my sample was hardly comprehensive!

The key to it all, though, is the quality of the miniatures; they really sell themselves and the system.  I'm certain that Corvus Belli know this and have modelled their business appropriately.  They offer the basic rules for free, with the "extra" fluff to be obtained through purchase of the hard copies.  And once you've fallen in love with the miniatures you will want to have the fluff so as to place that beauty in context, trust me!  The added bonus is that because Corvus Belli have provided the basic rules and lists for free, they can provide a high quality, functional and free army building tool online.

Army Infinity v3.0 by Devil Team - and my Djanbazan sniper!

All of this goes to show that a company does not have to compromise its commercial viability in order to give the customer what they want, and it seems to me that a healthy business anticipates what the customer wants and evolves their business model accordingly.  The concessions made by Corvus Belli in making the rules available free really are an investment in the medium term I think - I've certainly bought the book and the miniatures!  Well done CB.

Incoming! Infinity campaign book?

This isn't fresh news, so I'm certainly not going to pretend as though I'm breaking it; however it is something that has already got me looking at where I'll get the money from, so I'll write about it anyway!

Our intel indicates that CB will be releasing a campaign and scenario book late this year. From a quick Google search I've found a couple of reports that do differ slightly. The sdtaylor blog suggests that it will be another expansion book along the lines of Human Sphere, but with a lot of campaign and scenario content. However, the poster at infinity-ireland.org reckons that CB will be releasing the campaign book and then another "human sphere" expansion. I'm pretty happy either way - either one big beautiful hardback or two slightly smaller ones; while I'd buy both, perhaps each topic would be given more thorough attention if the subject of its own volume. Then again, a campaign book placed in the context of an expansion might very well enhance the experience.

By the way, infinity-ireland attributed their information to a post from Janzerker on the infinity forums, so thanks for sharing with us. In his forum post Janzerker provided a link to the source of his information, an interview with CB on the website "Cargad" in the Spanish language (translated).

The first part of the interview was very interesting in that it was a brief conversation about the origins of corvus belli, the nature of the company and how they see themselves in the miniature wargames market. This was interesting to me as being a very recent follower of infinity I know very little about what the company is about. Having read this I can say that, on top of being producers of a fantastic product with quality subsidiary support services (free downloadable rules, an official army builder program and fine community forums), my impression is that they've made some very smart decisions with the direction they'be decided to pursue with Infinity. Very impressed!

I've digressed a little here. I'd like to finish by explaining why the idea of a campaign/scenario book appeals to me. Firstly, as Garth can attest to, I'm a real sucker for pretty hardcover rule books (and I must say that I'm very impressed with the Infinity core rulebook, even with the translated style - but enough, that's very definitely enough of a topic for its own post). I should probably put a "bookcase" sidebar on the blog to show the rulesystems I have. I've certainly bought a fair few in the last six months; I suspect I've spent my wargames money on rules out of a fear that I'll accumulate more models than I can paint. I'm very wary of the lead mountain, as I'm quite a slow painter!sidebar

The other reason is that I'd very much like to have the benefit of having designed balanced scenarios to start off my infinity games with. It's enough of a mission learning all of the rules, accumulating terrain (and learning how to set it up in a balanced way) and learning effective list strategies and tabletop tactics without the added complexity of designing scenarios. Time is very much a factor for me at the moment too. I'm also dead tired of the old "pitched battle" routine after years of WHFB and 40k back in my wargaming youth. I'd like my start with infinity to be as dynamic and themed as possible within my strict time limitations. Anyway, if anyone as any more up to date info on the campaign book, or has any corrections in respect of what I've said above, please let me know. Cheers!

Team Effort

It looks like Garth can't help himself and has "impulse bought" the job of contributing to this blog!  Expect updates and photos of the painting of his Flames of War Fallschirmjager and musings on his newly purchased Nomads for Infinity the game.

Penemue's Newbie Primer to Infinity Posts

http://www.infinitythegame.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=6202

For those of you new to Infinity, check out the Newbie's Primer to Infinity Posts by Penemue on the Infinity community forums. It's an inclusive response to the kinds of questions frequently asked by new players on the forums. Because of this it's probably a great place to start; certainly much easier than trawling through the boards or asking such questions yourself.

The points I took away from it are:
1. Keep things simple to begin with;
2. If you like a miniature, use it; and
3. Worry about list comp once you've got a few games under your belt. I figure you won't be able to make informed decisions until you've got a feel for how the game plays anyway. This really leads back to #1!

Haqqislam list building

It will be a while before I get my first Infinity game in, with Garth being the only one of the mates looking at starting it, and his being roughly 600km away (at least in the near future).  I have started to think about lists though, as its one of the things I enjoy most about wargaming and some thought will after all be necessary prior to buying miniatures!

As a first step I will have the following models, to go towards a 150 point force:

• 3x Ghulam with Rifle & Light Shotgun
• 1x Hunzakut with Sniper Rifle
• 1x Naffatun with Rifle & Light Flamethrower
• 1x Jannissary with AP rifle & Light Shotgun
• 1x Djanbazan with Sniper Rifle

I'm planning on running a vanilla Haqq list rather than a sectoral, and I'll only going to take miniatures that I like.  I'm prepared to compromise efficiency for the aesthetic, at least this early on in my Infinity career.  Despite this, I am willing to use proxies until I have the models I need!  Here is a starting list I'm thinking of running:

• Ghulam Lieutenant (R&LS) - 13pts 0swc
• Ghulam Doctor (R&LS) - 17pts 0swc
• Djanbazan (SR) - 33pts 1swc
• Djanbazan (HMG) - 36pts 1.5swc
• Hunzakut (Rifle, Light Grenade launcher, AP Mines) - 21pts 0.5swc
• Naffatun (Rifle, Heavy Flame Thrower) - 12pts 0swc
• Naffatun (Rifle, Heavy Flame Thrower) - 12pts 0swc

Obviously a wee bit of proxying there to begin with, though it may be I'll have plenty of time before I get my first real game in.

My thinking behind this list is that I wanted a fair number of bodies for the order pool (6 universal orders with 1 order limited to the Hunzakut as he is irregular).  I opted for the Djanbazan support weapons over using a Jannissary as the lower points and support weapon costs allowed me to get a few extra bodies and hopefully gain some flexibility.  I also love the Djanbazan models; I purchased the Sniper Rifle miniature before I was seriously considering getting into Infinity, and certainly before I purchased the starter set.

I really wanted a light grenade launcher in the list, as I like the thought of pinning my opponent in cover with the HMG and sniper rifle, allowing me to hopefully hit their static positions with the grenade launcher.  Another benefit will hopefully be to give me a means of fighting back in the event that I myself get pinned - offensive and defensive flexibility all in the same model!  The advanced deployment may also help with grenade range issues, and the antipersonnel mines will hopefully be useful in denying areas of the board and channelling the opposition into kill areas for my support weapons.  Obviously a proxy to begin with; I'll have to wait until my net is uncapped so that I can see whether a model is available for the LGL variant.

I plan on using the Naffatun with their large flame templates defensively.  I hear they are quite good in this role, but I definitely want to do some reading up on the Infinity forums for advice as to how to use them.  I'm thinking at this stage of using them to cover the flanks/rear of my support weapons.

I don't have much of a strategy in mind for selecting my lieutenant.  I figure a Ghulam is as good as anything as I'll have the model and I will have a reasonable sized lieutenant pool for him to hide in (2x Ghulam, 2x Naffatun as my understanding).  I also opted for a Ghulam doctor as I understand that so far as the fluff goes Doctors and medicine are Haqqislam's strength.  I'm happy to oblige the fluff, and hopefully the chap will come in handy.

I may make some changes to the list before my first game, though in theory I'm pretty happy with the composition.  Options are perhaps dropping out the Djanbazan Sniper and a Naffatun in favour of the Jannissary with APR & Light Shotgun.  It may be that I'll need some kind of anti-armour, something that I may not have covered off well in the above list.  Units that I'd like to try in the future are the Khawarijs and the Hassassin Lasiq with Viral Sniper Rifle.  I love both of the models, and while I hear that the Khawarij isn't necessarily effective I'm willing to give it a go purely for the beautiful sculpt.  I've only heard good things about the Lasiq, so I'd love to give it a go in the list; perhaps I could drop out the Djanbazan sniper and try the Lasiq instead.

I don't think that I've mentioned this yet, but Garth will be rolling with the Nomads.  He's found a way around his distaste for the Alguacile models (by selecting something else), and is quite smitten with the more recent Nomad releases.  I'm pretty impressed by the Lizard TAG (probably my favourite TAG in the game), and do wish that the Maghariba Guard sculpt was more inspiring.

Anyway, that's my preliminary take on Haqqislam and my theory behind my first attempt at list building.  I imagine that I'll learn the error of my ways soon enough :)  I'll try and write in the next couple of days about my plans for a Infinity table and a bit of a list of my favourite models.  If anyone (of my few page views so far) has any advice or comments in respect of the above, do please leave a note; I'd appreciate advice on list composition and things to watch out for with the Nomads, though I'll definitely be reading up on these topics over the next few weeks.  I'll also try and add some colour to the page with some pictures once my net is back at full capacity.  Cheers!

Welcome to Digressive Maneuvres!

The nature of wargaming is such that you spend an inordinate amount of time imagining, conceptualising and painting; at least for me, far more time than I've ever spent maneuvring about a table.  Its fortunate that so many of us enjoy talking about our hobby.  Without rich imaginations projecting finished projects onto the table and the pleasure we take in designing forces and "theory-crafting" the metagame, I think only the most patient of us would see light at the end of the tunnel (and e-bay would see a whole lot more lead less enthusiastically painted than purchased).  I'm hoping that this blog will help to sustain my enthusiasm whilst I try and get through the painting in front of me; I suspect that some of these miniatures will see another winter unpainted.  However!  One of the advantages in digressing all over the place is that I'm unlikely to get bored anytime soon!

A little bit about myself.  I hail from New Zealand and currently live in the Waikato.  I started gaming in early highschool on the usual GW fare.  More games were had with paper than with pewter, though by the end of it all I'd flitted from option to option and managed to accumulate a fair amount of paper-weight.  Come senior high school and university the miniatures were sold in favour of drinking, cafes, girlfriends and an unfortunate dalliance with massively multiplayer online gaming - you can probably guess the one.  I studied law and a Bachelor of Arts in History.  Law was the meal ticket, History the mental health relief.  I'm now graduated, qualified, gainfully employed (though that was a wee journey in and of itself), and have time (limited) and money (some) available to me.

My love of the Napoleonic period as brought alive by O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series of novels and a common interest with my old high school mate Garth rekindled my interest in wargaming.  I can afford it, I don't particularly care what people think, so my reasoning is why not do something that I always enjoyed!  A "postponed" attempt at Napoleonic wargaming has lead onto various other projects, all of which I hope to talk about here.  I will digress from time to time; be patient with me!  I've very much enjoyed reading others' wargaming blogs; I hope that you will get something from mine.

As well as a wargaming I'm a keen (though not particularly competent) amateur footballer, hunter (fowl and bigger game), fisherman (fly-fishing preferably) and food critic (with more enthusiasm and practical experience at the business end of the fork, rather than qualification!).  I hope to also comment on these topics as well as my support for the Liverpool Football Club in the English Premier League, books, film, and even a little bit of travel - some not too far over the horizon!  I probably won't talk about work much though.

As for wargaming projects, I'm working on the following in descending order of tangibility:

1. Flames of War - I'm working on a British Rifle Company based on the Cassino and Fortress Europe lists for the Italian theatre.  Its a bit of a joint project with Garth - he has gone and impulse-purchased about 2500pts of Fallschirmjager for Italy and 2500pts of Panzer Lehr for Normandy.  I've got (optimistically) 1500pts of British Infantry in front of me; I must have learnt something since my teens as I have little desire to add to this until these are painted!  Being my first painting in 10 years, things are going pretty slow.  I'm using Army Painter's Quick Shade on these miniatures in the hope that the method will help me get them table ready much quicker.  And to be honest, I don't really have the energy or inclination to try to manually shade and highlight figures in 15mm!  I'm about half-way through my first platoon at the moment, and hoping to be done with the painting early next year.
2. Infinity - this is a very recent interest for me, but it is definitely consuming!  This is a small-scale sci-fi skirmish game with something of an anime (should that be spanime?) aesthetic.  The miniatures are probably the most beautiful I've ever seen, really stunning stuff, and the rules look to be tight, fast paced and hopefully good fun!  The rules are based on an active/reactive concept where the active player orders his units (from a limited pool) and the reactive gets to react to those actions with appropriate miniatures.  Apparently it leads to a fast, realistic game with a very cinematic feel.  I've decided on the Haqqislam faction based purely on the appeal of the miniatures.  Apparently this is a strategy that works okay in Infinity, as the game isn't so much about the metagame of force composition, but rather depends more on how you execute squad level tactics on the table.  I have a miniature already, and I'm waiting on the Haqqislam starter force to arrive.  Very excited about this one; for more information see http://www.infinitythegame.com
3. Force on Force - published by Ambush Alley Games, this is a modern theatre skirmish wargame based on similar action/reaction mechanics to inifinity and suitable for both symmetric and assymetric warfare.  The rules are lovely in hardcover published by Osprey, and it looks like the game is gaining quite a following.  I've got some grand ideas for building my Infinity table with modern desert terrain with removable sci-fi modifications so that I play both Force on Force and Infinity on the same (almost) table.
4. General de Brigade - this is where Garth and I got back into wargaming, with 28mm Napoleonics.  We didn't get anywhere with it, by the way, though we do have a fair few miniatures sitting there needing started (in my case) and finished (for Garth).  We've come to the realisation that we really want to have fully painted and decent sized armies before we attempt at playing this genre - especially with the General de Brigade rules.  This is always going to be a project ticking away in the background for us, but it is definitely going to be a long labour of love.  We'll see how I go at getting a 15mm army painted so that I'll have some idea as to how long it'll take me in 28mm!
5. Warhammer Ancient Battles: Age of Arthur - This is a particular interest of mine that Garth hasn't been anywhere near yet.  Bernard Cornwall's Warlord Chronicles really get this period going for me, and I'd love to game it one day.  Gripping Beast are releasing some lovely plastic miniatures in 28mm so it might well become a reality in the future - though I've got a few projects ahead of WAB in the priority line.

Things I'm watching:

1. Saga -A Dark Ages skirmish wargame by Gripping Beast, I'll be interested to see how this turns out.
2. Mantic - mass battle fantasy and sci-fi miniatures, sold at a substantially cheaper rate than GWs.  While I refuse to go anywhere near GW because of the rediculous pricing and service, I do miss their style of mass battle game at times - perhaps this might be an option in the future, though I do have my doubts.
3. Command & Colours: Napoleonics - This may be the alternative to Napoleonic miniature wargaming for me, at least until I have the time and the painting experience to dedicate to it!  I've been watching the game quite closely on the blog Joy and Forgetfulness and it looks like a fair bit of fun.  Perhaps if Garth moves up this end of the country I'll get into it.

More to come later in the week, cheers!