The Nerds at the Regiment have all had a blat at Infinity over the years, and we played the RPG at the end of last year and loved it. Infinity is an awesome universe to play in and Corvus Belli have been making some of the best 28mm models on the market right now. But we've also hit the same problems as well - the Rambo characters in Infinity are a pain and the special rules bloat works fine in the RPG but is hard to manage on the tabletop without a lot of practice.
As a result, we've all mostly parked our Infinity collections. When fellow Nerd Pelarel discovered the Zone Raiders Kickstarter and, more to the point, the First Encounter demo rules, we decided to give it a go because a lighter version of Infinity is something we're keen on. The demo rules are 50 pages long with some fluff, some rules, 3 scenarios, a basic post-game and a QRS! Hell yeah! Props to Fractal Basilisk for a cool company name (!) and a great introduction to what they're working on.
What's a Zone Raiders?
Set in the Matrioshka, a domain built on lost technology, Zone Raiders are teams who scavenge the layers of the Matrioshka, avoiding the perils of the zone as well as other crews to eke a living out of the actively hostile environment. It's miniature agnostic and is written to allow players a super-flexible way to play a character driven, sci-fi skirmish campaign focused game. From what the website and Kickstarter suggests, the complete rules and extension funded will include more factions, rules for robots and hacking and giant armoured suits and stuff - all the cool stuff we want to use.
How did our game go?
Quickly! It took maybe 90 minutes from set up, play through, end game and pack down.
Pel took the TechNomads and I took the NthGen Robots. Pel's crew (based on our game experience!) was heavily armed and armoured and highly mobile. Mine was equally heavily armed, less well armoured, but led by a very high quality leader. Pel's crew quality was even across the board, my best model was noticeably better and the quality declined quite quickly.
We played the first mission from the First Encounter - a scavenging run. There were 9 scrap tokens on the board worth 2VP each and an irradiated zone dominating the centre of the board. The idea was the first person to loot 5 counters and extract them wins.
We spent the first couple of turns running around grabbing the easy counters and extracting them. Suddenly, on turn 3, we discovered shooting each other and it all went downhill very quickly. Pel took out one of my robots and I dropped his leader in response. The shooting mechanic involves hitting, armour saving and then a damage roll. Pass and you take a wound (which impacts your ability to take actions in subsequent turns). Fail and you are down. The first four casualties all did that.
Over the turns 3, 4 and 5 Pel shot down another of my robots while my leader, the best shot on the board, rode his luck to take a couple of aimed shots to take out two of Pel's TechNomads while my weaker robots moved to get the last couple of loot counters. When I knocked out the fourth of Pel's Nomads, he elected to flee so we could do the post-game.
What do we like?
It looks like a game of manoeuvre and from the get go, that's how it was. Being able to wall run, leap and grappling hook around the board is cool! We genuinely wondered if, after 2 turns of looting the board, we were ever going to engage each other. Then Pel worked out that as each counter is worth 2 VP and since there were 9 on the board, and three of those were in the middle, we were going to have to fight eventually.
Being shot at is genuinely bad. We managed, between us, to pass one armour save and one damage roll. Our dice were dire, but neither of us were all that well armoured. My boss man topped out at 17. Pel's dudes were in the 10 - 12 range and mine were 10 and below.
A couple of cool things stood out. Characters can 'summon' an extraction zone and in our scenario, they could throw their loot into that extraction zone to confirm the VPs. That was a cool little thing given that going down or bottling out meant you dropped your loot. It looks like you can also drop your dudes into that zone and be extracted from the game, which is probably a good thing in a campaign if you're wounded but not downed. Armour Piercing rounds destroy your armour in this game too. Given that your mobility especially is dependant on the suit you're wearing, that's really problematic!
Any downers?
None to speak of.
Our dice today definitely made the armour saves and damage rolls feel a lot worse than they probably are. Pel was failing 10 or less rolls on a D20 routinely. TBH, given the game is intended for campaigns and in the post-game, your characters who are down are not dead, merely badly wounded or incapacitated. They play no part in the post-game but they are not dead. Super important in a game that intended for campaign play.
Verdict?
Excellent. We'll both pick up a copy of the game when it comes out. The Kickstarter was very well funded and seems to be moving on really quickly. I'm genuinely looking forward to working out a) how to use some of my cooler Pan-O Infinity models that I've never put on the park in Infinity because they weren't good enough to make the cut and b) playing a more fulsome game and campaign.
Next Week
Some more painting! I'm working on a Command Squad for my Imperial Guard and, if I can get off my butt and finish fixing up the turret on a very old Chimera I've been trying to un-wreck, you might get to see that too.
Showing posts with label Infinity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Infinity. Show all posts
Sunday, 24 March 2019
Thursday, 8 December 2016
For the first game of Gamesmas Modiphius gave to me....
the Infinity RPG!
For our first game of Gamesmas this year, we bring you the soon-to-be published Infinity RPG from Modiphius and Corvus Belli. Pelarel has backed the Kickstarter and since we definitely enjoyed our last outing (especially Tank and his flame-thrower!), this latest canned mini-adventure was too much to pass up.
I feel like maybe at this point I should say, if you are on the Kickstarter and haven't played this yet, spoilers!
Dramatis Personae
Pelarel as the Evil Bonespurs
Scotty as the Nomad Reverend Moira
Tank as the Yu-Jing Bosozuko
McBeth as the Haqqislam Assassin Fiday
McZermof as the Pan Oceania Father Knight of Santiago
Pooch as the Ariadna Dog Warrior
<Flashback>
Investigating the death of a famous Arista on one of the Galactic Circulars, the O12 agents have tracked a gang dealing in a Silk derivative back to their starship having shaken down one of their dealers and made more than a few Circular travellers more than a little uncomfortable, especially that guy in the Tiki Bar.
<Enter cast>
We rejoin our intrepid band of O12 agents as they sneak their way up the docking umbilical toward the cargo ship crewed by the evil, drug dealing Bonespurs.
Our Bosozuko used his excellent palm implant to disable the security system, our Moira confirmed that there was nothing to worry about so the Assassin Fiday confidently broke open the door to the star ship. This is about where we learned that Tank and Scotty both rolled....not so well as an automatic sentry gun (the drone you can see in the distance) opened up on our lightest of light troopers. Some spectacular John Woo-style action from the Bosozuko shredded the sentry gun but not before giving both of them a bit to worry about.
We paused briefly in the hub of the star ship to bring forward the wall of meat and armour (viz the Father Knight and the Dog Warrior) and after some clever hacking by the Moira to give us a sense of who was on the ship and where they were (they were carefully counted by the Father Knight), we cracked on.
The two Bonespurs guarding the armoury went down in a hail of Combirifle and Chain Colt (woot!) fire and the two in the Ready Room on the top deck were pink-misted by the Dog and the Knight. We bounced into the cargo hold in zero G to deal to the last of the Bonespurs.
This is the point where the O12 team started to fully understand how the Momentum system works and the pink misting got....even worse as the Hassassin's Graze Blade delivered a ludicrous amount of damage to one o the poor Bonespur mooks. In the last cargo pod we found the drugs lab and the Moira turned off the gravity in the lab since that seemed like it'd be funny. She attempted to turn it back on but without much success.
The Dog Warrior and the Father Knight introduced the Bonespur guards to Teseum blades (yep. Pink mist.) while the Hassassin and Bosozuko used their crafty stun weapons to capture the Haqqislam Heisenberg who was making the Nitrocaine substance before we delivered him to the onboard security and posed for Maya pictures.
<Roll credits>
So Infinity RPG is still cool. We'd done a really good job giving the GM loads of heat in our last session and as a result, we copped it pretty badly in the start of this game. Once we got the basics of the Momentum mechanic down though, the tables were evened pretty smartly. We all agreed that our playing with the online character builder was getting us characters that worked better than the ones that were created for the scenario and we're definitely looking forward to getting properly stuck into
So welcome to Gamesmas 2016. This year the Regiment will be playing:
- Battlestar Galactica
- Flames of War
- Bolt Action
- Frostgrave
- And some other things yet to be revealed......!
Sunday, 11 September 2016
Pooch's Painting- August
So, another month gone, another late post. And not even much to show for it!
I am working on more things (honest), but all I actually got finished in August was two figures for my Infinity Aleph army, a second version of Achilles (to be Patroclus) and an Ekdromoi. I did an arm swap between the two, my usual helmet swaps and put the spitfire into Achilles' hands, rather than it being slung over his back. Very easy conversion, but enough that I don't have two models looking exactly the same.
The two models were finished for a competition that Pelarel ran a few weeks ago of 300 point Infinity. I had 4 games of Infinity the club meeting prior to the competition, so I was really feeling like I knew just enough that I wouldn't make a complete idiot of myself.
So how did the competition go?
Well, I learned a heck of a lot about Infinity, that is for sure! I lost two of three, and was resoundingly thrashed in the third. But I do like the game. And am already working on my next project for it. So can't ask for more than that!
A few pics I took over the weekend...
Well, that's it for this month.
More next time, probably....
Pooch
I am working on more things (honest), but all I actually got finished in August was two figures for my Infinity Aleph army, a second version of Achilles (to be Patroclus) and an Ekdromoi. I did an arm swap between the two, my usual helmet swaps and put the spitfire into Achilles' hands, rather than it being slung over his back. Very easy conversion, but enough that I don't have two models looking exactly the same.
 |
| Front |
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| Back |
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| Achilles 1 and Achilles 2 |
The two models were finished for a competition that Pelarel ran a few weeks ago of 300 point Infinity. I had 4 games of Infinity the club meeting prior to the competition, so I was really feeling like I knew just enough that I wouldn't make a complete idiot of myself.
So how did the competition go?
Well, I learned a heck of a lot about Infinity, that is for sure! I lost two of three, and was resoundingly thrashed in the third. But I do like the game. And am already working on my next project for it. So can't ask for more than that!
A few pics I took over the weekend...
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| Run Tacbot Run |
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| Guns out! |
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| My building. Mine. |
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| The Ekdromoi has landed |
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| The Asuras sneaking around |
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| Running Tac Bot |
More next time, probably....
Pooch
Sunday, 21 August 2016
Ohh You Lucky B...........
Well I feel very lucky - I won a competition on Facebook! The new laser cut terrain company (Kiwi based) BattleKiwi had a prize draw for a Scifi dumpster, and in true form - I won the rubbish bin. But what a bin it is. It went together really well - some parts very tight fitting - and it is a terrific addition to my Infinity/city terrain table.
A big thanks to Oli - see its even customised.
Here it is in the rest of the infinity terrain. Some would say the perfect camo for a Kurgat :)
Thursday, 30 June 2016
Hussies, Remembering and Infinity
Hi all,
Infinity
Last week neither Pelarel nor I could make it out to the club, so we decided to play a game of Infinity in Pelarel's basement instead!
We played a 252 point game (because that was all I had) of my Haqqislam against Pelarel's Yu Jing. It was my first game of Infinity V2 and Pelarel had not played many recently so alot of time was spent reading rules. To help, I had McBeth Junior no.2 rolling my dice. As it turned out, his ability to roll exactly what was needed (and therefore scoring a critical hit), turned the game completely in our favour.
The highlights of the game were;
In the end, the mighty forces of freedom loving, enlighten Haqqislam triumphed over the evil corporations of Yu Jing.
Hussies and Remembering
When Nick passed last year, our friend Nichole was keen to get a memento from Nicks collection. One of the things she would laugh about was that the Napoleonic wars had units of Hussars, or Hussys, as she called them. Unfortunately all the Hussars Nick had painted were put into a job lot of his Napoleonic French so there were none left over for Nichole.
As I was going through some of Nicks left over stuff in my basement, I found a sprue of the Perry French Hussars and a thought occurred to me - why dont I paint them up and mount them for a display for Nichole. It took me a while to complete the work, but I was really happy to present Nichole with the finished product earlier this week. I hope she enjoys it.
Infinity
Last week neither Pelarel nor I could make it out to the club, so we decided to play a game of Infinity in Pelarel's basement instead!
We played a 252 point game (because that was all I had) of my Haqqislam against Pelarel's Yu Jing. It was my first game of Infinity V2 and Pelarel had not played many recently so alot of time was spent reading rules. To help, I had McBeth Junior no.2 rolling my dice. As it turned out, his ability to roll exactly what was needed (and therefore scoring a critical hit), turned the game completely in our favour.
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| The table: Pelarel's Infinity table is coming along nicely |
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| Freedom! Enlightenment! Haqqislam! |
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| Boo. Ninjas. |
The highlights of the game were;
- My Djanbazan sniper being shot twice, but with two wounds and regeneration, popping back up to shoot and kill the ninja who shot him with his shock rifle,
- The mook (Ghulam) who, upon spotting a door being opened 24" away and taking an ARO to shoot the said door opener, rolled exactly 5 on the die (the score needed to hit) and with that critical, took out another Asian corporate enforcer, and
- The showdown between the Martial Arts L5, CC 22 ninja and my Martial Arts L3, CC21 Asawira, where as both had already lost a wound each, the Asawira rolled the exact score of 18 to crit the ninja and finish him off.
In the end, the mighty forces of freedom loving, enlighten Haqqislam triumphed over the evil corporations of Yu Jing.
Hussies and Remembering
When Nick passed last year, our friend Nichole was keen to get a memento from Nicks collection. One of the things she would laugh about was that the Napoleonic wars had units of Hussars, or Hussys, as she called them. Unfortunately all the Hussars Nick had painted were put into a job lot of his Napoleonic French so there were none left over for Nichole.
As I was going through some of Nicks left over stuff in my basement, I found a sprue of the Perry French Hussars and a thought occurred to me - why dont I paint them up and mount them for a display for Nichole. It took me a while to complete the work, but I was really happy to present Nichole with the finished product earlier this week. I hope she enjoys it.
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| Nicks Hussies |
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| Hussies gonna Huss. |
Monday, 11 April 2016
Pooch's Painting- March Part One!
Goodness, three months, it is a whole quarter of the year gone!
I am cranking through the painting, managing to finish a number of big (ish) projects this month.
First, something small. Two units of AWI British Light Infantry for our big Blackpowder game over Easter. The Light Infantry performed in my usual style, being over aggressive and consequently being wiped out. So... that was fun!
Next up, we have my Aleph force for Infinity. Prinny will attest that I bought these off him last year, or maybe the year before- regardless I got them through the magpie grapevine!
The Infinity Aleph models have a very cartoonish-anime style, alongside some very Greek names. My inspiration for the robots in the army came directly from the movie Chappie, (blue and orange). Once I had them sorted, I was a touch stuck on what to do with the human models. The anime style heads just weren't doing it for me, so I set off on a magical journey across the internet to find some I liked. Anvil Industries provided me with some awesome looking futuristic helmeted heads, which I then applied the tried and true NASA spacesuit colour scheme too!
And the results? Turns out I quite like painting orange....
I managed to paint something from the cupboard of sad and unloved model kits. This time, it is a patrol of Irish (converted Radio Dish Dash ANZACs) and their UN landrover, replete in it's dazzling white paint scheme.
On to Page 2.... for Bolt Action and Impetus!
Pooch
I am cranking through the painting, managing to finish a number of big (ish) projects this month.
First, something small. Two units of AWI British Light Infantry for our big Blackpowder game over Easter. The Light Infantry performed in my usual style, being over aggressive and consequently being wiped out. So... that was fun!
 |
| Look at us all in a nice line |
Next up, we have my Aleph force for Infinity. Prinny will attest that I bought these off him last year, or maybe the year before- regardless I got them through the magpie grapevine!
The Infinity Aleph models have a very cartoonish-anime style, alongside some very Greek names. My inspiration for the robots in the army came directly from the movie Chappie, (blue and orange). Once I had them sorted, I was a touch stuck on what to do with the human models. The anime style heads just weren't doing it for me, so I set off on a magical journey across the internet to find some I liked. Anvil Industries provided me with some awesome looking futuristic helmeted heads, which I then applied the tried and true NASA spacesuit colour scheme too!
And the results? Turns out I quite like painting orange....
 |
| The whole Aleph force as it currently stands |
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| Achilles- I went with a dark "black-ops" style for him |
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| Nagas, showing off the orange |
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| Chappie? |
I managed to paint something from the cupboard of sad and unloved model kits. This time, it is a patrol of Irish (converted Radio Dish Dash ANZACs) and their UN landrover, replete in it's dazzling white paint scheme.
 |
| jeez- how neat is that lettering? |
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| Not as neat as the other side.... |
Pooch
Wednesday, 20 January 2016
McZ's Magpie Resolutions
#shamelesslyfollowingonfromMcBeth
I had a pretty good year keeping the magpie at bay in 2015, amazingly. I started one new game (Frostgrave) and bought a sum total of zero models for it. I picked up maybe half a dozen releases for my Warmachine Protectorate army and mostly spent the whole year staring at my assembled, but unpainted Teutonic Order army and used that as the lever to not spend more money on anything else!
So, like McBeth, I'm making a list for this year to try and tick off. I kind of hope that, come the 2016 Christmas holidays I'll be able to post a bunch of photos or links to posts with all this stuff in it. Am I going to get it all done? Probably not. But that's not a good reason to at least have a crack eh? I also blame Pooch for making me actually look in the boxes in the cupboard in the games room and finding things that I now want to do stuff with!
Warmachine / Hordes
I basically own one (or two...) of every model Privateer Press has released for the Protectorate of Menoth. Currently I plan to pick up three unreleased models this year - Pyrrus - Flameguard Hero, the Hand of Judgement and an Indictor. I doubt I'll ever buy a Colossal for Warmachine, but if I do, when the Revelator comes out this year, I'll make a call one way or the other. My real project this year is two 50 point armies for the Hordes Minions Faction, specifically the Farrow pact. I like the organic / mechanical mashup they do so there's lots of opportunity for some nice warbeast conversions.
What's to do:
I love this game. Love. It's fun to play, relaxed, silly and the other magpies are great to play it with. I've really enjoyed painting some old Warhammer Fantasy models to use for it and have been quietly painting new warbands for no really good reason other than the occasional game.
What's to do:
Flames of War
Unlike the rest of the magpies, my time playing FoW has not reduced to near zero! I had some great games with clubmate Richard (check out his blog here) last year and will be keen to play more games with him in 2016. What we'll play is something of a mystery although we do both have quite complimentary collections so anything's possible. My Flames collection is mostly painted and so forth so this is all pretty low priority given everything else on this list but if Panzerschreck in July is Early War, some of it might come screaming up the priority list pretty quickly.
What's to do:
Italians
Team Yankee
We've blogged one game of TY so far and played a couple more. Suffice to say, I'm keen. I've got most of the models already and enjoy playing Flames of War. So I have already ordered (yep) a few bits and bobs to make up the options for TY that I want to use. It'll give me a couple of understrength tank companies, some recce, some artillery and an infantry option that'll either be in BMPs or be landed by Hind Ds. This, especially, is cool.
What's to do:
Infinity, Infinity, Infinity. It's a game I love playing. I love it's complexity and the world that it's set in. I hate the fact that I am almost always undone by lucky crit rolls because I don't know how to play the game that well. It needs to be played more. I've painted most of my Chinese Yu Jing army already and basically haven't bothered to finish it because we've not been playing enough. So, I figure if I get it done, and get a table made over the winter (see below) there is more chance I'll play it more too.
What's to do:
The end is in sight. I have painted, at the time of writing, 8.5 of the 15 bases of models I have for my Teutonic Order army. That's really quite exciting for me, given how long they've sat unpainted because I was too scared to paint all that white.
What's to do:
AWI
Like a lot of the magpies, I am painting stuff for the big Brandywine game. No idea if I'll actually play in it, but it seemed like a nice little project for a change of pace. The assembly is done, but I've been focussing on painting my Teutons while I have the mojo to do it so it's next off the list.
What's to do:
Bolt Action?
I think I'd like to play BA this year. I think this will be my one serious project that doesn't involve models I don't already own. But I am having a hard time deciding which army to paint - there are too many cool options. It was going to be Italians until I decided I don't want to paint more Italians and then it was going to be Aussies (using Warlord's lovely Chindit models which were on sale at Dat Ape) until they sold before I got to order them. Now I'm back to the drawing board. Tempted by Early War French, Marines, Rangers, Blitzkrieg Germans, honestly......MAGPIE!
Terrain
I have been meaning to put together a decent table for Infinity for a while, partly to encourage me to play it more. Dat Ape has some really nice options that I will invest in some time this year. Either the Plastcraft stuff or the really sweet looking modular bits from Mantic. Not sure yet. I'd also like to finish making up a few other bits to go with my GF9 ruins to make a good set of terrain for both Warmachine and Frostgrave and finally, my 15mm European terrain needs a bit of TLC. This is a winter project I feel.
Stuff that's been done
Yep. I have actually already done some stuff. [smug]
I had a pretty good year keeping the magpie at bay in 2015, amazingly. I started one new game (Frostgrave) and bought a sum total of zero models for it. I picked up maybe half a dozen releases for my Warmachine Protectorate army and mostly spent the whole year staring at my assembled, but unpainted Teutonic Order army and used that as the lever to not spend more money on anything else!
So, like McBeth, I'm making a list for this year to try and tick off. I kind of hope that, come the 2016 Christmas holidays I'll be able to post a bunch of photos or links to posts with all this stuff in it. Am I going to get it all done? Probably not. But that's not a good reason to at least have a crack eh? I also blame Pooch for making me actually look in the boxes in the cupboard in the games room and finding things that I now want to do stuff with!
Warmachine / Hordes
I basically own one (or two...) of every model Privateer Press has released for the Protectorate of Menoth. Currently I plan to pick up three unreleased models this year - Pyrrus - Flameguard Hero, the Hand of Judgement and an Indictor. I doubt I'll ever buy a Colossal for Warmachine, but if I do, when the Revelator comes out this year, I'll make a call one way or the other. My real project this year is two 50 point armies for the Hordes Minions Faction, specifically the Farrow pact. I like the organic / mechanical mashup they do so there's lots of opportunity for some nice warbeast conversions.
What's to do:
- Paint two warlocks - Midas and Helga.
- Purchase, convert and paint the three heavy war beasts required for both lists
- Purchase and paint one or two units
I love this game. Love. It's fun to play, relaxed, silly and the other magpies are great to play it with. I've really enjoyed painting some old Warhammer Fantasy models to use for it and have been quietly painting new warbands for no really good reason other than the occasional game.
What's to do:
- Purchase and paint a wizard / apprentice for my High Elf warband
- Purchase and paint an apprentice for my Tzeentch Chaos warband
- Convert and paint a box of old Chaos Warriors for my Tzeentch Chaos warband
- Purchase some cheap daemons (hopefully from TradeMe) to make up the numbers!
Flames of War
Unlike the rest of the magpies, my time playing FoW has not reduced to near zero! I had some great games with clubmate Richard (check out his blog here) last year and will be keen to play more games with him in 2016. What we'll play is something of a mystery although we do both have quite complimentary collections so anything's possible. My Flames collection is mostly painted and so forth so this is all pretty low priority given everything else on this list but if Panzerschreck in July is Early War, some of it might come screaming up the priority list pretty quickly.
What's to do:
Italians
- Purchase and paint a CR42 Falco
- Paint my Lancia da 90mm trucks
- Finish assembling and painting my Late War StuG company
- Tidy up the infantry and paint camo stripes the vehicles in my Early War Pionier company
- Paint four Panthers for Late War Panzerregiment Franz Bake
Australians
- A tidy up of the basing and some TLC is required for these guys - they've been a bit knocked about.
We've blogged one game of TY so far and played a couple more. Suffice to say, I'm keen. I've got most of the models already and enjoy playing Flames of War. So I have already ordered (yep) a few bits and bobs to make up the options for TY that I want to use. It'll give me a couple of understrength tank companies, some recce, some artillery and an infantry option that'll either be in BMPs or be landed by Hind Ds. This, especially, is cool.
What's to do:
- Paint 5 T80s, 10 BMPs, 3 HAIL21s, 3 2S1 Carnations, 2 Hinds
- Rebase infantry to be identifiable for TY and possibly paint a few more LMGs
- Rebase vehicles
Infinity, Infinity, Infinity. It's a game I love playing. I love it's complexity and the world that it's set in. I hate the fact that I am almost always undone by lucky crit rolls because I don't know how to play the game that well. It needs to be played more. I've painted most of my Chinese Yu Jing army already and basically haven't bothered to finish it because we've not been playing enough. So, I figure if I get it done, and get a table made over the winter (see below) there is more chance I'll play it more too.
What's to do:
- Finish my partially completed Shaolin Monks, Yaozao Remote and Su Jian IAU
- Paint my Celestial Guard Link Team
- Paint my Authorised Bounty Hunter
- Purchase and paint a Terracotta Warrior and one (or possibly both because they are such nice models) Yan Huo Invincibles.
The end is in sight. I have painted, at the time of writing, 8.5 of the 15 bases of models I have for my Teutonic Order army. That's really quite exciting for me, given how long they've sat unpainted because I was too scared to paint all that white.
What's to do:
- Purchase and paint two bases of Livonian allied light horse and 2 of light foot
- Finish painting the 'change' base for the knight wedge (super low priority!)
- Apply transfers to tabards and shields for all the Teutonic foot and horse
- Make and apply banners and pennants for all the lances and foot banner bearers
- Build the baggage dice tower (this is a fun project I'm looking forward to)
- Base the whole army (which I have no idea on how I'm going to do at this point)
AWI
Like a lot of the magpies, I am painting stuff for the big Brandywine game. No idea if I'll actually play in it, but it seemed like a nice little project for a change of pace. The assembly is done, but I've been focussing on painting my Teutons while I have the mojo to do it so it's next off the list.
What's to do:
- Paint two regiments of Maryland infantry for Triple T
- Paint a regiment of Hessians for McBeth
Bolt Action?
I think I'd like to play BA this year. I think this will be my one serious project that doesn't involve models I don't already own. But I am having a hard time deciding which army to paint - there are too many cool options. It was going to be Italians until I decided I don't want to paint more Italians and then it was going to be Aussies (using Warlord's lovely Chindit models which were on sale at Dat Ape) until they sold before I got to order them. Now I'm back to the drawing board. Tempted by Early War French, Marines, Rangers, Blitzkrieg Germans, honestly......MAGPIE!
Terrain
I have been meaning to put together a decent table for Infinity for a while, partly to encourage me to play it more. Dat Ape has some really nice options that I will invest in some time this year. Either the Plastcraft stuff or the really sweet looking modular bits from Mantic. Not sure yet. I'd also like to finish making up a few other bits to go with my GF9 ruins to make a good set of terrain for both Warmachine and Frostgrave and finally, my 15mm European terrain needs a bit of TLC. This is a winter project I feel.
Stuff that's been done
Yep. I have actually already done some stuff. [smug]
- Finished my Savage Orcs for Frostgrave - I found a Forest Goblin Shaman in the bits box, so he got painted and that was the impetus to finish off the Savage Orc Boar Boy (just in case mounted ever comes into Frostgrave!), the Forest Goblin Fanatic (I made it for Mordheim, seemed silly not to keep it) and the Stone Troll (also for Mordheim) who's just part of the warband.
- Clean out my bits boxes - I have chucked a lot of random stuff, broken bits and pieces, failed terrain construction projects and reboxed all the things in my bits box into containers for different game systems. It was amazing what turned up. Some of that stuff will find it's way onto the blog this year, although what I do with an out of print 40K Callidus Assassin is a mystery. I'm open to suggestions on that one.
- Clearing my desk - it's already clear enough for me to go back to painting on the desk in my games room instead of on the end of my gaming table. Success!
[/smug]
Anyway, that list is slightly terrifying so I best crack one eh?
Tuesday, 19 January 2016
2016 - New Year Plan (McBeth)
Now that the 12 Games of Gamesmas are out of the way, I can now look at what the rest of 2016 will hold for my magpieisim! A long post follows...
There are several projects that I'm working on, or have an eye of starting this year. Pooch mentioned to us a while back that blogging a post like this will 'help with our issues' and 'lay out a path for keeping the magpieisim under control'.
Pffff. Whatever.
Anyway, a look for the future! Here is a break down of the things I want to do this year.
Our time committed to Flames has reduced to almost nothing this past 12 months. I'm running the ValleyCon16 Flames comp this year so don't have to paint anything for that particular competition, but I have an eye out for later in the year when we make our first post Nick pilgrimage up to Palmerston North for Panzershreck. I hear that Panzershreck may be Early War this year and will continue to be a 1000 point doubles competition. I have a couple of Early War armies (NZ Divisional Cavalry and a German Infanteriekompanie) but I also have the bones of a Free French French Foreign Legion rifle company in a box in the basement that needs to be painted. It would also be a great accompanying unit for the Div Cav for Panzershreck! I've also picked up some other units for my Late War 51st Highland Division rifle company that need to have some paint applied. 16 years of playing Flames (and getting paid in product!) has lead me to a point where there is not much more I want to do in regards to making more armies as my time commitment to Flames competitions winds down.
To do for 2016
Free French
Strip, paint and base:
2 platoons of Legionnaires
1 platoon of Sappers
1 75mm Artillery Battery
1 25mm AT Battery
These will join the already painted and based Australian 2pdr Portee Platoon, H35 Hochkiss Platoon and a veteran British Marmon-Herrington troop.
Scots
Paint:
Wasp troop
M10 tank destroyer
Purchase and paint
M10 Tank destroyer (a second one for the troop)
As mentioned in previous posts, I set the group on a path towards a large multi-player American Revolution game for a convention that is being held over the Easter Weekend in the Hutt this year. We have been smashing through the painting of troops and terrain in preparation for this but we still have a long way to go. I'm in command of the British and have been steadily painting units for them. So far I have completed the 3rd Brigade (15th, 17th (replaced with 45th because no-one does the flag!, 44th and 42nd), the 1st and 2nd Grenadier Battalions, the Guards Brigade (1st and 2nd Guards Battalions), a cannon and some brigade commanders.
To do for 2016
Paint and base:
6pdr Cannon
12 figures of Hessian Jaegers
2 Brigade Commanders
Purchase, paint and base:
54 figures of Hessian Grenadiers (will swap out one battalions worth for McZermof for some Rebel Scum so he does not go mental painting them!)
Add to that finishing off the terrain and that's me for the next 2-3 months!
Our new magpieism! I'm planning on doing a late war British rifle company for this, based on the 51st Highlanders again. Haven't really settled on a list or purchased any figures yet OR EVEN PLAYED A GAME but as the other are keen and I REALLY WANT TO PLAY 28mm WW2, I'll get involved as well :). Stay tuned on this front. Ideally Mighty Ape ('Dat Ape) will restock its Bolt Action stocks so I can spend some Xmas vouchers with them :)
McZermof and I played a couple more games of Frostgrave for Gamesmas and rekindled my like of this lightweight but very fun game. While I don't need anymore figures or warbands (Wizardbands? Wizgangs?), I have plenty of Perry Miniatures plastic medieval sprues lying around for me to make more mooks. As seen in the post for Gamesmas, I also dug out my copy of Heroes Quest so I can use the monsters in that game for Frostgrave. Those figures will probably get a lick of paint this year.
Maybe.
The real thing I want to do for Frostgrave is make some terrain to accompany the Big Hand Statue. I've plenty of cork board and MDF in the basement so I may try and yet again get the Junior McBeths involved and get some terrain done this year to flesh out a table of ruins.
To do for 2016
Paint:
Heroes Quest monsters (particularly the undead)
Make, paint and base:
Terrain - ruined buildings!
This is both the RPG and the table top game. Over theChristmas Gamesmas break Pelarel loaned me the rules for the tabletop game with the fluff book as well. The fluff really impressed me. I had played a few games a while ago but had never read the books or setting fluff to get what it was all about. Now I've read through it I must say Corvus Belli have done a fantastic job of creating a fully fleshed out universe. I have some Haqqislam figures already, but as people have already commented on their surprise that I did not start with Ariadna forces initially, I'll be looking to get a starter pack for them. How can I not run a force that combines my two favourite national forces; Scots and French!
To do for 2016
Buy and paint:
Ariadna sectoral starter pack
I started my first blogs on this forum with pictures of the 15mm Austrian army I was building for Napoleon at War. Since then interest has not waned, but time spent on the army has been marginalised. I have done some more work on them in regards to basing them and adding flags, but the AWI stuff has been more pressing.
To do for 2016
Paint and base:
2 battalions of Germans
1 battalion of Hungarians
1 squadron of Hussies
Finish the basing for the whole army
1 more 6 pounder to mount on the limber base.
There are only a couple of events that I want to get to this year. There is ValleyCon of course, seeing I'm the registrar, committee member, treasurer and am running the Flames comp. There is the historical convention run by Allen Yaxley which will be held over Easter where we will run the AWI game and there is also Panzershreck. Anything else would be a bonus, but most other comps fall at times during the year that other non-wargaming things pop up on as well. I may head over to Call to Arms this year and play Bolt Action or Impetus perhaps.
Right, now onto the things I would like to do this year!
This game looks cool. I wasn't a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy game, but the background fluff was interesting. With the death of Warhammer and the rise of the apparent abortion that is the Age of Sigmar, Kings of War has taken off in New Zealand. There are now organised events around the country and the size is growing. I've looked longingly at the Mantic stuff on Mighty Ape ('dat Ape!) and it is a very reasonable price. More so when you consider that as Kings of War uses a set base size for the different strength units (a'la Impetus) you don't need to actually put the right amount of figures on each base. You can go for using less and model nice dioramas and use the spare figures for more units!
I'm fascinated by the undead armies in these types of games so I would look at running an undead army of skeletons and zombies for Kings of War. Throw in a Vampire Lord on a frickin' undead Pegasus and I am in! I may have to paint the pony to look like this though:
This fell by the weigh side very quickly after we started playing it two years ago, but that is to be expected when we jump from one shiny to another shiny like some wargaming whore. I liked the cinematic feel of this game and Tank Engine has a sweet town set up that we should use more often.
Another 'silly' game in the vein of Frostgrave or Dead Man's Hand, but very enjoyable none the less. I have a British army and a Vampire force, plus I can repurpose my DMH desperadoes for a cowboy/villain list as well.
Pelarel and I did the testing for Battlefront's 15mm Vietnam book, Tour of Duty. Again, much like Team Yankee, we didn't like the scale that Battlefront went for (being company + scale rather than 15mm). For us, the Vietnam war was platoon scale. So, with some NVA, VC and ANZACs we are getting through painting and basing 15mm figs on individual bases for some Ambush Valley. We've played Ambush Alley and Force on Force a bit in the past so it will be interesting to see how it translates to Vietnam.
There are several projects that I'm working on, or have an eye of starting this year. Pooch mentioned to us a while back that blogging a post like this will 'help with our issues' and 'lay out a path for keeping the magpieisim under control'.
Pffff. Whatever.
Anyway, a look for the future! Here is a break down of the things I want to do this year.
- Flames of War
Our time committed to Flames has reduced to almost nothing this past 12 months. I'm running the ValleyCon16 Flames comp this year so don't have to paint anything for that particular competition, but I have an eye out for later in the year when we make our first post Nick pilgrimage up to Palmerston North for Panzershreck. I hear that Panzershreck may be Early War this year and will continue to be a 1000 point doubles competition. I have a couple of Early War armies (NZ Divisional Cavalry and a German Infanteriekompanie) but I also have the bones of a Free French French Foreign Legion rifle company in a box in the basement that needs to be painted. It would also be a great accompanying unit for the Div Cav for Panzershreck! I've also picked up some other units for my Late War 51st Highland Division rifle company that need to have some paint applied. 16 years of playing Flames (and getting paid in product!) has lead me to a point where there is not much more I want to do in regards to making more armies as my time commitment to Flames competitions winds down.
To do for 2016
Free French
Strip, paint and base:
2 platoons of Legionnaires
1 platoon of Sappers
1 75mm Artillery Battery
1 25mm AT Battery
These will join the already painted and based Australian 2pdr Portee Platoon, H35 Hochkiss Platoon and a veteran British Marmon-Herrington troop.
Scots
Paint:
Wasp troop
M10 tank destroyer
Purchase and paint
M10 Tank destroyer (a second one for the troop)
- Blackpowder
As mentioned in previous posts, I set the group on a path towards a large multi-player American Revolution game for a convention that is being held over the Easter Weekend in the Hutt this year. We have been smashing through the painting of troops and terrain in preparation for this but we still have a long way to go. I'm in command of the British and have been steadily painting units for them. So far I have completed the 3rd Brigade (15th, 17th (replaced with 45th because no-one does the flag!, 44th and 42nd), the 1st and 2nd Grenadier Battalions, the Guards Brigade (1st and 2nd Guards Battalions), a cannon and some brigade commanders.
To do for 2016
Paint and base:
6pdr Cannon
12 figures of Hessian Jaegers
2 Brigade Commanders
Purchase, paint and base:
54 figures of Hessian Grenadiers (will swap out one battalions worth for McZermof for some Rebel Scum so he does not go mental painting them!)
Add to that finishing off the terrain and that's me for the next 2-3 months!
- Bolt Action
Our new magpieism! I'm planning on doing a late war British rifle company for this, based on the 51st Highlanders again. Haven't really settled on a list or purchased any figures yet OR EVEN PLAYED A GAME but as the other are keen and I REALLY WANT TO PLAY 28mm WW2, I'll get involved as well :). Stay tuned on this front. Ideally Mighty Ape ('Dat Ape) will restock its Bolt Action stocks so I can spend some Xmas vouchers with them :)
- Frostgrave
McZermof and I played a couple more games of Frostgrave for Gamesmas and rekindled my like of this lightweight but very fun game. While I don't need anymore figures or warbands (Wizardbands? Wizgangs?), I have plenty of Perry Miniatures plastic medieval sprues lying around for me to make more mooks. As seen in the post for Gamesmas, I also dug out my copy of Heroes Quest so I can use the monsters in that game for Frostgrave. Those figures will probably get a lick of paint this year.
Maybe.
The real thing I want to do for Frostgrave is make some terrain to accompany the Big Hand Statue. I've plenty of cork board and MDF in the basement so I may try and yet again get the Junior McBeths involved and get some terrain done this year to flesh out a table of ruins.
To do for 2016
Paint:
Heroes Quest monsters (particularly the undead)
Make, paint and base:
Terrain - ruined buildings!
- Infinity
This is both the RPG and the table top game. Over the
To do for 2016
Buy and paint:
Ariadna sectoral starter pack
- Napoleonics
I started my first blogs on this forum with pictures of the 15mm Austrian army I was building for Napoleon at War. Since then interest has not waned, but time spent on the army has been marginalised. I have done some more work on them in regards to basing them and adding flags, but the AWI stuff has been more pressing.
To do for 2016
Paint and base:
2 battalions of Germans
1 battalion of Hungarians
1 squadron of Hussies
Finish the basing for the whole army
1 more 6 pounder to mount on the limber base.
- Competitions and Travel
There are only a couple of events that I want to get to this year. There is ValleyCon of course, seeing I'm the registrar, committee member, treasurer and am running the Flames comp. There is the historical convention run by Allen Yaxley which will be held over Easter where we will run the AWI game and there is also Panzershreck. Anything else would be a bonus, but most other comps fall at times during the year that other non-wargaming things pop up on as well. I may head over to Call to Arms this year and play Bolt Action or Impetus perhaps.
Right, now onto the things I would like to do this year!
- Kings of War
This game looks cool. I wasn't a big fan of the Warhammer Fantasy game, but the background fluff was interesting. With the death of Warhammer and the rise of the apparent abortion that is the Age of Sigmar, Kings of War has taken off in New Zealand. There are now organised events around the country and the size is growing. I've looked longingly at the Mantic stuff on Mighty Ape ('dat Ape!) and it is a very reasonable price. More so when you consider that as Kings of War uses a set base size for the different strength units (a'la Impetus) you don't need to actually put the right amount of figures on each base. You can go for using less and model nice dioramas and use the spare figures for more units!
 |
| *Mantic Games |
I'm fascinated by the undead armies in these types of games so I would look at running an undead army of skeletons and zombies for Kings of War. Throw in a Vampire Lord on a frickin' undead Pegasus and I am in! I may have to paint the pony to look like this though:
 |
| Undead my little pony. Seems Legit. |
- Team Yankee
 |
| *image copyright Battlefront Miniatures |
- Dead Man's Hand
This fell by the weigh side very quickly after we started playing it two years ago, but that is to be expected when we jump from one shiny to another shiny like some wargaming whore. I liked the cinematic feel of this game and Tank Engine has a sweet town set up that we should use more often.
 |
| *image copyright Great Escape Games |
- In Her Majesty's Name
Another 'silly' game in the vein of Frostgrave or Dead Man's Hand, but very enjoyable none the less. I have a British army and a Vampire force, plus I can repurpose my DMH desperadoes for a cowboy/villain list as well.
 |
| *image copyright Osprey Publishing |
- Ambush Valley
Pelarel and I did the testing for Battlefront's 15mm Vietnam book, Tour of Duty. Again, much like Team Yankee, we didn't like the scale that Battlefront went for (being company + scale rather than 15mm). For us, the Vietnam war was platoon scale. So, with some NVA, VC and ANZACs we are getting through painting and basing 15mm figs on individual bases for some Ambush Valley. We've played Ambush Alley and Force on Force a bit in the past so it will be interesting to see how it translates to Vietnam.
 |
| *image copyright Osprey Publishing |
Saturday, 16 January 2016
On the twelfth game of Gamesmas...
...an exciting game of Infinity!
You'll remember from an earlier blog post that we Magpies indulged in a game of the Infinity RPG well, this is the tabletop wargame from Corvus Belli that the RPG was based on.
It's the far future and man has reached out to the stars. The Human Sphere encompasses countless worlds, all controlled by various mega corporations who are nominally overseen by the AI, Aleph. In addition to the human corporate factions there are also 2 alien factions: the Combined army and the Tohaa and a group of rebellious humans who hate the idea of toe the line to an AI - the Nomads.
For those not familiar with the Infinity game, here's a very quick summary :)
Infinity armies usually comprise around 10 figures, one of which is your Lieutenant. Each figure generates an order, with an extra order generated by your lieutenant. These orders, with the exception of the Lieutenant special order, can be used by any of your models and a model can use more than one order in a turn. So you can activate all of your models once or one model 10 times in a turn!
A single order is broken down into two parts, generally you can have one move part and one action part (there are some exceptions but you'll have to read the rule book - you can download it for free form the Infinity website linked above - nice people these CB guys :) ) When you declare the first part of your order - the move or action part can be used in either sequence, move-shoot or shoot-move for example - any opposing models that can see the model can declare a response action - an ARO. the ARO can be to shoot at the active model or dodge an attack or a number of other actions.
Well, onto the game. We set the table up at Tank's and Scotty and I organised our 300pt armies.
we used Tank's Mars Attacks road tiles to give the board a bit more life - I really liked the effect so I think I'll be looking for a 4x4 road mat soon though preferably one where the roads are not parallel to the board edges. I just think it looks better that way :)
We chose the Annihilation scenario from the main rule book and rolled two classified objectives each. The main scenario was to kill as many points of models as possible of the enemy force whilst preserving your army.
the classified objectives are kept secret from your opponent, mine required me to perform one Coup de Grace against an enemy model and my second was to use my hacker to hack an enemy model. Scott turned out to also have the Coup de Grace objective and also a demolitions objective.
The scenarios last 3 rounds. this doesn't sound a lot but, with the ARO mechanic, you're always engaged with the game and a hell of a lot happens!
I went with my usual Japanese Sectorial army:
Domaru butai with Chain rifle (lieutenant)
Kempai (chain of command)
Raiden with Spitfire
Keisotsu with combi rifle
Ninja Hacker
Ninja Sniper
Ninja with combi rifle
Tokusetsu Eisei Doctor
O - Yorio TAG (big red stompy robot and his two little Krazy Koala bomb bots :))
Scotty used his Nomads, I can't remember exactly what he had in there but there was a Sin eater with a Spitfire (nasty piece of work) a Reverend Moira a Mercenary and a load of dudes :)
well we kicked off. Scott elected to choose board edge and I chose to go first.
After deployment, my first order of business was to drop my Ninja Sniper out of TO Camoflage and take a shot at the Merc standing on top of the building. The Merc tried a dodge ARO but my sniper rolled better and drilled the guy where he stood :) Yayy, a great start to the turn.
the Merc is just at the end of the far walkway :) (if anyone can figure out why Blogger ignores the rotation correction I put on my images and how I can get around it please comment below! :( )
the rest of my turn involved moving my O-Yorio and Domaru Butai up my right flank and the Kempai and Keisotsu up the left whilst moving my still hidden ninjas over the roof tops towards the enemy. My ninja with the combi rifle took a shot at the demolition guy and took him out. I had just enough movement to get to him but not enough orders to deliver the Coup de Grace.. next turn...
In Scotty's first turn, his Sin Eater ran to the three storey building, up onto the roof and hosed my sniper with his Spitfire!!!
Not a great start - my ARO was particularly ineffective and I'd managed to move the rest of my models into positions where they couldn't see him.
Scotty moved his reverend Moira onto the low roof with my Ninja standing over the unconscious demo guy..
and proceeded to blow him away! She managed to cause 2 wounds to the ninja, killing him instantly and denying Scotty the opportunity to Coup de Grace him.
Scott was starting to get ahead on points..
My turn 2 started with me moving back my O-Yorio to hose the Sin Eater with it's HMG, but I'd forgotten that the Sin Eater fires at full rate of Fire in ARO, not the single shot like everyone else! He was a priority target sitting up there but I rolled some appalling dice and Scotty didn't and the O-Yorio went down in a burning heap!!! I was seriously behind in points now!
It was getting late and the remaining turns are a bit hazy but essentially my Domaru butai wasted a couple of orders trying to throw grenades up onto the roof with the Reverend Moira before he remembered that he had a chain rifle that auto hits and 2 woulds so was likely to get the better of her anyway! He did and was able to deliver the Coup de grace to the demo guy before retreating along the walkway. After his final turn, one of Scotty's grunts took a shot at him but was still in range of his Chain rifle's template - the Nomad missed then failed his armour roll and another one bit the dust.
in the centre, the Sineater moved away from the edge of the building to get a better bead on the Domaru but then I noticed my Ninja hacker had LOS and managed to get an ARO shot off which killed the Sin eater!
My medic earned his keep on my final turn by running up the building to the Ninja Sniper and reviving her!
on his last turn Scotty moved his sniper and tried to put my sniper back down but the ninja got the better of him with the ARO and dropped the Nomad sniper instead!
A real game of ups and downs, we ended up both killing roughly the same number of points of each army - just under 150pts. this gave us 1 Scenario point each. Scotty was unable to achieve either of his classified objectives but I managed to get my Coup de Grace in for a second scenario point and a win! BANZAI!!! :)
A great game and I'm really looking forward to playing more infinity this year...
Thursday, 24 December 2015
On the 3rd game of Gamesmas
The magpies gave to me:
An rpg from the world of Infinity
And a liberal amount of Sake to smooth the flow of the game :-)
Most of us have been enjoying the Infinity tabletop game for a while so, when Modiphius put up the kickstarter for the RPG I had to put my money where my mouth is!
As part of the development, Modiphius put together a quick start taster of the system as a free download.
The system is an interesting one where the addition of your stat and skill set a target number that you must roll equal to or under to get a success on a D20. The difficulty for the task is set by the number of successes you need to roll. An easy task would require one success whilst and epic one would need 5! The base roll for a skill only has 2 dice but you can spend infinity points to gain successes or give the GM heat points to buy extra dice. The GM can then use heat to trigger abilities for antagonists or boost rolls.
The scenario was a simple "body guard the alien ambassador" on a space station above a war zone. Needless to say, things go south quickly.
We really enjoyed the 2D20 sysyem and felt the combat was fast and reasonably deadly - as it should be!
Definitely looking forward to my KS rewards being delivered in February/March.
An rpg from the world of Infinity
Most of us have been enjoying the Infinity tabletop game for a while so, when Modiphius put up the kickstarter for the RPG I had to put my money where my mouth is!
As part of the development, Modiphius put together a quick start taster of the system as a free download.
The system is an interesting one where the addition of your stat and skill set a target number that you must roll equal to or under to get a success on a D20. The difficulty for the task is set by the number of successes you need to roll. An easy task would require one success whilst and epic one would need 5! The base roll for a skill only has 2 dice but you can spend infinity points to gain successes or give the GM heat points to buy extra dice. The GM can then use heat to trigger abilities for antagonists or boost rolls.
The scenario was a simple "body guard the alien ambassador" on a space station above a war zone. Needless to say, things go south quickly.
We really enjoyed the 2D20 sysyem and felt the combat was fast and reasonably deadly - as it should be!
Definitely looking forward to my KS rewards being delivered in February/March.
Monday, 7 December 2015
To Infinity and Beyond!!!
Anyway, Prinny decided to shift off a few of the Microarts Studios MDF buildings so I picked them up. Thankfully they were already assembled so I just had to crack out the airbrush to get them on the table. Rather than the same grey that I'd used on my buildings, these ones have been brought out with a little splash of colour. I managed to get a game with them with Mr Snook - dastardly Haqqislam invading the territory of the valiant Yu Jing (no prizes for guessing who was who ;o) )
In spite of everything, the Yu jing manage to see off the Haqqislam by hacking 1 console to none - a ninja hacker on the right flank hacked a console on turn 1 before being gunned down by a sniper!
All of the buildings have been given an MDF base and a lucky search on Trademe located a 0.5" Hex stamp - worlds most tedious jigsaw ensues!!
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