Played a 250pt game last night at one of the local gaming clubs so thought I would do a sort of battle report but only posting the highlights of the mission. We played a game that involved grabbing 3 objectives in the middle of the table and turning them on with a standard wip roll. At the end of each game turn who ever had the most bots powered up got points, and that's good as we all know points win prizes. 2pts for the most in your possession or 1pt each if it was equal. I was fielding my sneaky sneaky Nomad force while my opponent Kaylee was fielding her Pan Oceania force that had boosted its ranks with some of my minis to bump up the points.

  I needed to proxy a few models as I said I would mainly use the units that are in the Icestorm as Kaylee is pretty new to Infinity. Not to much sneakiness a few camo markers and a few mines were on the menu but other than that everything was pretty much bog standard. The main Idea was to plonk the Tsyklon on a roof top then send the Wildcat forward laying down some serious gunishment while the Spekter and Zero locked down the objectives with mines and ARO's boosted with camo.

As I just mentioned my opponent was pretty new to Infinity so I made her list using the Icestorm minis but also fitted in a few extra toys. I added a Palbot and an Auxbot so she could use two different types of Synchronization, as it turns out that little Palbot became a bit of a pain in the arse. I didn't know what Mini was going to be the Lieutenant but I did advise it needed to be one of the Fusiliers of the Orc troop as they cost no extra points to upgrade. 

Both our forces before the battle, the bases with nothing on them are used as camo markers, two of them have pink edges to represent TO.

Game set up: Kayle took the other side after I went bust on Lieutenants roll, I thought she would have chosen my side as it had the largest tower on the left but that was way to much trouble to move around. The Neisses still set up on a roof with cover instead of the tall building and it proved to be a winning play. the Auxilia and Spec Sergeant set up behind the building ready to jump out and grab objective 3. I had a pretty standard set up with my Zero and Spekter half way up the board to lock down objectives with mines. I put the healer on the right so she could protect the Brigada and Spekter but this game didn't see a single order go into my Heavy Infantry. I put my Lieutenant on the roof prone facing the hatch,making it completely obvious who he was. I had one Alguacil on the left facing the back board giving complete cover as I knew there was a Commando waiting in the sky with a bloody Spitfire. If she wanted my commander dead she would have to work for it.

A few shots before the battle.

 Turn one I choose to go second for two reasons, Kaylee had set up a lot in the open ( her second game remember ) and In my arrogance didn't want to just wipe out half her order pool before she got a go. And secondly so I could react better to objectives and snatch them up in the second game turn. This however was a really dumb mistake because her Neisses took one look at my Grenzer and blasted his head clean off without a second thought with one roll in the first order. I had stupidly set him up in not the best of positions and now I had to contend with a sniper at good range with a lv2 visor and mimetism that would completely negate my Zero and Spekter and I was planning on them doing most of the work this game.

Next the Auxilia moved up to the objective with the plans of setting my Spekter on fire and showing him what for, but I managed to get a lucky shot and took him out rendering the Auxbot useless for the time being.Considering its my most recently painted model it was doomed to die quick anyway. And Yes that's not a Remote as an objective but we can just pretend its some sort of laborer bot or something yeah. . . . . not a pleasure bot . . . .Definitely not.

In my first turn it was pretty uneventful I pumped half my order pool into my Wildcat with his spitfire. He pushed forward and took a burst at the Neisses and got twatted in the face but luckly managed to be protected by his mighty 2 amour! after a second of thought he did not try that again so took his frustration out on the Orc trooper staring him down. I pumped 3 orders into him as he shot back but managed to make him fall on the spot. Even though it took 12 dice to do so I was pretty chuffed. I then tried to lay a mine with my Zero to cover Objective 1 but the Neisses took one look through his camo and slayed him outright ( see a theme forming with this Nisses ). Jokes on Pan O though as this mine proved to be a lot of trouble as you could not get to the objective with it being there.

See that zero. No? Well me neither because shes dead alright!

Turn two was a slow push forward from Pan O, The little medbot managed to revive an Orc trooper and the father knight ( who was felled by my remote with spitfire ). He did however manage to kill the Auxilia so I no longer had to worry about and large flamer templates heading my way from the Auxbot. A little worried that the enemy had managed to revive about 70pts worth of Heavy Infantry back, I Managed to sneak forward with my healer and turn on the se . . I mean worker bot that was being guarded by the now redundant Auxbot. This was pretty close as it was done in the second half of my last order! I did have to get the Spekter to push forward first however, and make a rather brave Fusilier think about his decisions as he was watching the objective like a hawk out a first story window nearby. 

Events in turn two.

Kaylees response to my objective grabbing in turn 2 was to drop her Commando down with his Spitfire. In my rush to grab some points I had left a lot of open spaces for him to drop down completely unopposed and start raining down hell behind my lines. Kaylee found a sweet spot right near my objectives but with my Spekter just out of sight behind some trees and with my healers back turned. As you can imagine It did not go well for me and I lost my last surviving specialist. All I could do now was guard this objective and try lock down the others with ARO's this did not seem to hard as a lot of them were out in the open so I could just hunker down and wait. But first I had to deal with the Sikh Commando who was being covered by The Neisses and he hunkered down in between two water towers. And that had me at a serious disadvantage.

With not that many orders left Kaylees forces all pushed forward, she had a Trauma Doc on the left hand side of the board who pushed forward to later get objective one when it was clear of mines.

Turn 3 was pretty entertaining especially for my Spitfire wielding Wildcat he managed to get 3 kills! Poking his head around a corner he pummeled more shots in to Orc trooper who had recently been pulled back from the light at the end of the tunnel and killed him outright. Then he stuck his head around again and pumped two orders worth of bullets into the Neisses. The odds were against me but weight of dice prevailed and I managed to finally get rid of the Nisses menace. Then I had to re kill the Father knight who has a mighty 5 amour! but he went to ground after loosing the first shoot out so proved no threat for the moment. Now I could deal with that commando. He had only got one kill but was a serious threat and something had to be done before he cleared me out.

 Next was a pretty entertaining moment I had to move forward to get close range but it was Spitfire against Spitfire with the same bs but 4 v 1 dice sounded good to me. I won the first few shootouts and the Sikh Commando kept surviving and dodging out the way. This moment really needed some Benny Hill music. Eventually I managed to get 4 hits and he finally died.

In the final turn the Pan Oceinan forces tried to grab some objectives, but ran out of orders just short. With nothing left to do as I had managed to get 6pts I decided to run my Spekter forward and assault the Spec Sergeant. The Sergeant fluffed his attacked and the Spekter sank his blade into him and that was that. We called it a game after that.

Remaining forces at the end game.

Man of the match for both sides.

And the wooden spoon award goes to these guys who both died as soon as a strong breeze came along.

Below are few of the other games being played at the Headingly Games Club last Thursday.

I'm assuming there is some rule that requires you to stroke your chin to play this game.

Think someone rolled a 1 in pathfinder.

I'm not sure who won this game but someone looks a little perplexed.

Why I love heavy infantry in pan O.

I started infinity with nomads, something about that zero that came with the old starter set really appealed to me. The way he got so close to the ground and the pose he’s in makes him look like one of the most sinister and clandestine models in the game slinking around ship corridors and storage rooms, snatching up all those lovely data files, especially when placed next to his older brother the Spekter who is in pretty much the same pose. But this post is about Pan O and in particular some of the HI I field for them. In complete contrast to the Nomads, Pan O are the ruling superpower and as such this is frequently represented in some of their models, especially the HI. Unlike the Nomad nation Pan O pumps funds and technology into its heavy fighting force for public display ( and points if you’re like me ) so to stay true to the cause I have decided to use lots of HI. So far I have three painted but plan on getting 3 Orc troopers and a father knight, who looks like he is using his sword as a baseball bat . . . . .what a guy. So far I have a Swiss Guard, Aquila Guard and a Knight Hospitaller.

The Knight Hospitaller was the first model I properly painted for my force. I decided on gold red and blue as my main pallet as these are all regal colours and represent power and wealth. I played around with a yellow colour scheme on a few models because I thought I would be clever . . .  but they looked awful so we don’t talk about them now. I think the contrast works well and still managed to keep some blue and keep true to the Pan O basic colours. At some point I do plan on painting a cross over the tunic and some heraldry on the shoulder pads probably a Maltese cross as standard and a little red medical cross on the other shoulder as I always field as a doctor so I can grab those objectives but I’m not overconfident with my freehand at the moment. This guy is Heavy infantry but has nothing that really stands out about him other than he is quite cheap as a specialist. Not an auto include but he does find his way into my lists quite often as he gets the job done for not many points considering.

The Aquila Guard, what can I say about this guy. Nice pose but keeps getting chipped, but that’s on me to be more careful with my toys. When I was making the base for this model I imagined his coat is all up in the air because he is either standing on a ledge gunning down some dirty enemies of the Pan O empire so I had him pointing down some rocks, or he has just hit the ground after jumping down from a wall or the likes of. I had a lot of fun painting the model, the cape does look dynamic but can be a complete pain in the arse to get the model into position half the time as it overhangs more than half the base. Stats wise this guy is a real heavy hitter I was originally going to get one with a HMG who looks awesome holding his weapon like he’s just come “straight outta Compton” but considering I already have a Swiss Guard with a HMG and am currently converting an Orc trooper with the same I thought this was overkill and if he has a multi rifle I can occasionally squeeze him in with a Swiss guard when playing 300+. Armed with BS15 and MSV L3 and a shock combat weapon  there is not much he can’t deal with especially with DA and AP rounds, in other words a tank.

Finally the Swiss Guard. This guy is complete monster, I mean seriously his stat line makes him a man tag. Armed with a big gun, the best camo in the game and a huge weapon ( HMG or Rocket Launcher ) this unit dominates the battlefield every time. Being able to set up with no one having any idea where you are can definitely have its pros. I have seen this guy used as both a defensive ARO machine armed with a rocket launcher sitting on the of of the board, going back into camo in the active turn just to re appear and hand out some lessons to anyone brave enough to venture forward, and as an offensive Rambo unit just walking up the board smashing everything in its path with a HMG. with a beefy stat line and heavy amour on this guy is definitely a force to be reckoned with, but does come in at a price at 64pts with just a combi rifle but well worth every penny. Oh and she also comes with an AP CCW, you know . . .  just in case ranged weapons don’t cut it for some reason.

For those of you who have a keen eye or play Pan O you will have notice the HMG on the Swiss Guard looks somewhat different . I’m really not a fan of the skinny HMG. About two years ago I ordered some weapon upgrades to beef up all my death guard bolt guns but like most 40K projects end up in a cupboard for years and forgotten about. I kept my Nisses pretty much the same when holding the HMG but thought the Swiss Guard Needed something more heavy duty. The Drum clip makes it look like it has a serious amount of rounds and the handle on the side give a great image of being held at the hip as whoever is wielding it kicks in a door and holds down the trigger until nothing is left in the clip or the room after the smoke clears. I couldn't find the exact image but when playing border lands I was lucky enough to get a really decent drop early in the game that game that gave me a red rifle that looked just like the one the model Is holding and I really wanted to recreate the image as it did me to about Lv20.

To represent Total optic camo I painted the models feet the same as the rocks to show how she takes on the colour of whatever she’s standing next to, it came out OK but is definitely something I need to work on. Good job for me I plan on having a few Croc men hiding about.

Dice and downloads: 1 - Gaming board.

  So here it is . . . finally I got myself around to posting the first installment of Dice and Downloads. A blog dedicated to all things table top and video gaming. With this first installment I’m going to briefly show the start of my 4x4 board used for infinity. For those of you not familiar with infinity  It’s a skirmish game set a few hundred years or so in the future where man has colonized the stars and factions compete with each other on the sly for galactic supremacy. So none of this open pitched battle business, were talking small strike teams kicking in back doors of corporate offices to grab documents or 10 men trying to break into a factory to steal the newest Tec before it hits the open market. Like most projects I start  ( and might I add and never seem to finish due to something new and shiny coming along and distracting me ) I had a sit down and think about what theme I wanted the board to be. As this board was mainly going to be for infinity I checked through the usual suspects that design infinity terrain Antenocitc Workshop, Bandua Wargames Micro Art studios etc . . . but taking into consideration I come from a background of at least 15+ of grim and dark I could not help myself from making something a little less pristine and craved something a little grungy, also making the table suitable for Necromunda. I eventually decided to go for some sort of toxic/waste processing plant that had been abandoned. This gave me the creative licence to paint lots of nice stains and grubby marks all over everything but most importantly have everything covered in moss and plant life giving a very Chernobyl/Fallout feel. A plus side was also not having to model lots of tables and equipment inside the buildings and I can assume the whoever decided to close the facility for whatever nefarious reasons would have taken all computers, files and desks etc . . but in some dodgy manor left a lot of waste barrels behind ( who needs health and safety in space right ) that can be dotted about each time the table is set up.

Here are a few images and games that I drew inspiration from.  

So as with most painting projects I started from the ground up like normal. Fortunately I had three 2x4 boards behind a sofa that were used for 40k. I started off by painting the whole board Brown. I went to my local paint store and they scanned some Rinox hide or Charred brown for those of you who use Vallejo, and made a 2 liter tub of the stuff that most of their customers would paint a wall with. I then got a bag of sand from the pet store used for fish tanks and generously mixed it with the paint slapped it on the board quite generously. When it was dry I had to give it another coat to make sure there was enough grit on the board for the dry brush to pick up on and try avoid large brush marks. After this I heavily watered down black, red, brown and bright green paints to add toxic spills and patches all over the board. I had to do this in about three layers making the stains more dominant towards the middle. This made the board look a little chaotic but when the grass was put down it looked way more believable and natural.

                                                                    

Looking slightly chaotic and bare at this point.

When that was all done and was completely dried I gave quite a heavy dry brush of some cream colour that was the closest I could find to bone. Deluxe to really good tester pots for about £1.50 so it should last quite some time. After that did the standard patches of  grass that had managed to grow back. You can’t tell from the photos but in the middle of grassy patches I put static grass to make it look thicker and give more tones. I added a light cover of watered down PVA over the board and scattered the flock everywhere after this, to gave a more natural look of grass sprouting through instead of standard patched looking way to vivid and planned. When this was dry the base board was done!

Below are just a few of the buildings I have been working on that I will cover in my next blog.

Only a few tiny touches to these building before they are completely done.

Sneaky Spekter.

Almost feel bad for that zero. . . . .almost.