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Last time I wrote about how “The Colony” Special Project came to life. A road from a tiny speck of an idea to a fully developed gaming table is a long one and I just begun my travel. I have gathered almost all of the items required to build my terrain set. I have revised my ideas and made peace with some circumstantial decisions. I was ready to start the construction process!
It all happened so quickly. One day I was engaged in my usual activities, painting miniatures, checking out facebook, writing articles… The other I got up to find myself knee deep in bitz, terrain elements, empty glue bottles and with my hands thickened with too much of dried out glue. It was as much glorious as scary. I couldn’t stop. Half kneeling on the ground, due to my workdesk being currently occupied with THIS – I felt like a child playing LEGO. Well – when inspiration comes a man is gotta do what a man is gotta do – I let myself be swallowed by passion and worked till all the buildings were ready to enter next stage.
So – this is what I had to work with. My ‘white boxes’ in all their glory. So many different sizes, that excluding six thin ones, no two are alike! I really love these boxes. Thanks to them I was able to play a lot of Infinity games and they received a really good feedback from my oponents. Of course I adorned them with different smaller terrain pieces for the purpose of quality gaming. Still these are my favorites and I can’t imagine gaming at my place with a different buildings set. That was the main reason why I choose to expand their properties instead of exchanging the whole set…
Fortunatelly for me both ReyCast and Micro Art Studio delivered a variety of cool pieces required to evolve my ‘to be’ buildings. It wasn’t easy and took over twelve hours to achieve, but I prevailed – I sorted all the pieces, counted them, divided them into groups (a separate group for each building type), marked my ‘white boxes’ for their corresponding rooftops and started putting walls together. A single test building at first, then whole set. I knelt on the ground, surrounded by a gaming table comming to life all around me…
Test building,
Mass production,
Somewhere about twelve hours, five Army Painter’s Super Glues spilled on my hands, their fumes stuck firm in my nosdrils, thousands of MDF pieces put together, dozen back hurts, hunders sporradic insane scientist’s laughters and one sympathetic look on my wife’s face, later – I was finally done! Done both literally and methaphisically, as my evil slavemaster – the muse – pushed me into yet another task. Battered, with my hands dirty and glued, with my head being dizzy – I started to write the first part of this article. I wasn’t even sure if it will be interresting to other hobbyists – just needed to write it. Couldn’t stop. Some of you know this feel for sure. But I’m starting to miss the topic – My gaming table was finally taken one step further on a road to it’s ultimate form.
Base layering stage is now complete. The buildings are ready to enter next stage, which is external layering along with addition of some cool looking details. Unfortunatelly I can’t proceed before receiving my order from the Titan-Forge. I don’t mind it, as except for the muse nagging me to work on this project, there’s no reason to rush things. At least I’m able to game on my good ol’ gaming table, taking advantage of all these cool new features. I just can’t wait to test these buildings next week. I’m sure they will not dissapoint me! If I’m lucky – delivery will come right after next game and I’ll be able to proceed to “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT part three. Keep your fingers crossed for me 😉
Hello there my awesome readers! As some of you may know – I play Infinity the Game. A new form of global Campaign is currently on the run – you can check it out at OPERATION: FLAMESTRIKE, but for now I invite you to read my latest blog entry – a Battle Report from my Campaign game against Yu Jing army!
LOCATION: Zhurong Power Plant
SCENARIO: Engineering Deck
ARMY: Nazroth – Corregidor vs Garran – Yu Jing,
This time I took my Corregidor on a ride to a Chełmża city, close by. There’s a strong gaming community there along with an arsenal of terrain and a pretty awesome gaming place – “Chełmżyński Ośrodek Klutury” (Chełmża’s Culture Center) – CHOK. I game there from time to time, participating in a local Infinity league. We all agreed in advance to use Flamestrike rules so this time I was prepared, with my Camera being on standby, notes and destined scenario at hand. I arrived just in time to form a pair with a local Warcor – Garran, which happend to be a great coincidence, as we haven’t had chance to game against each other yet! We both agreed to fight for Zhurong Power Plant. (I was eager to finally play a scenario that I failed to pick last time while Garran is a Yu Jing player – so the choice was pretty obvious.)
Along with some small talk we have exchanged our open information and rolled Wip’s. My Leutenant failed (as usual) and I was thrown into defensive by Garran’s decision to keep the initiative. (I actually like to play second as both my roster and game style are mostly defensive. Playing a rather ‘shooty & tricky’ army I tend to deny the field to enemy, covering vital movement/shooting corridors with Koalas and firepower. Once my Reactive turn is over I move to eliminate high value threats with precise amount of offense power. It works for me most of the time.)
I used the opportunity to pick up the Deployment Zone, and asked Garran to deploy first. He covered both sides of his Deployment Zone with specialists and the Yao Zao’s. He also hid Kuang Shi’s and set up a Rui Shi in the center of his Depzone. Now was my turn to do my tricks…
Seeing a rather symmetric deployment I choose to keep left flank covered with my Alguacil Link. They had a really nice, covered spot there and were deployed to ARO one Cuang Shi and Rui Shi at the first sign of movement. Having Rui Shi covered I deployed my MSR Intruder on the high spot, far to the right – adding an ARO punch against Rui Shi if needed and covering the whole right side of the table. HMG Intruder is both my agressive unit and backup in case of Sniper’s death so I deployed him in the middle of my Depzone along with a Daktari and one Smoke-giving Jaguar. While Daktari was close to one Objective Console I choose to cover another one with Alguacil Hacker, hidden just around a corner on the right. Moran Maasai Hunter infiltrated a nice spot outside the Objective Room, with both Koalas being spread wide and in cover. I also hid my last Jaguar behind a small piece of cover and hoped for the best.
Garran made a wise decision and deployed Su Jian from reserve onto my right flank (far away from my death dealing Link).
I responded with a counter-unit, hiding Lunokhod behind a high wall on the same flank as Su Jian. I made my prayers and let him enter the sloughterhouse…
G Garran 1st turn:
– I use a Command Token to restraint Su Jian’s wild charge (-2 Orders from the 1st Combat Group).
The game then started for good with Garran’s Impetous units.
– Firstblood went to Lupe Balboa for obliterating Shaolin with a short burst from her Combi-Rifle.
– Soon after one of Kuang Shis followed to the land of the dead, guided by missiles from Alguacil’s HMG.
(I have deployed after Garran so I covered these miniatures with ARO’s from both girls.)
– Su Jian used the first order from it’s group, moving ahead. MSR Intruder reacted to this fast moving targed with a single round. A burst from Su Jian’s Spitfire was not enough to overshoot my “Sniper’s” Critical Hit and it lost 1 STR.
– Not intimidated, Su Jiand moved along it’s selected route and closing in for better distance against my Sniper. This time more ARO’s replied as Su Jian’s movement took it throug a path covered by HMG Intruder and one rearguard Alguacil. Let’s say that NWI state was the least punishment it could have received.
Battered and a bit helpless Su Jian Cosy cuddled behind a medium piece of cover for the time being and the action moved to the other side of the combat zone.
– Hac Tao appeared out of thin air. Both of my linked Combat Beasts (Lupe and HMG Alguacil) replied with fire, overshooting Hac Tao and peppering him with holes. One Panzerfaust hit and Hac Tao was halved in W attribute.
– Still Hac Tao is a tough bastard. Regardless of his wound he shrugged and sprayed my girls with another burst. One shot vs Lupe missed, while HMG specialist got hit with three rounds. I laughed loud while she saved all three of them. Garran not so much 🙂
– With persistence worth a commendation Hac Tao tried his best to eliminate my Link once more. This time tho HMG Alguacil went freenzy like Blain from Predator the movie and cut him down screeming!
– At that point I was pretty sure that Hac Tao’s reing has ended, but Garran corrected me with a successful heal delivered to the fallen warrior by a Yao Zao standing in base contact, just behind a short wall. (“not again” – I thought, seeing this behemoth of steel rising up from the ashes and threatening my Alguacils once more.) For the worst of it – a successful healing provided Garran with a Victory Point as he choose ‘Experimental Drug’ as one of his Hidden Objectives!
– The sounds of fire begun anew whith Hac Tao shooting three rounds against my HMG specialist and one vs Lupe. Both girsl survived and I decided to fail Guts Roll and let them rest behind a cover for a bit. (Shame to loose them at this point, where one solid burst of 5 could cut down that Hac Tao bastard for good at my turn).
– I turned out that Garran was waiting just for that, as soon after he moved his Rui Shi and forced my ARO’ing MSR Intruder into a defensive.
– A bit late, still Celestial Guard Hacker buffed Rui Shi with Marksmanship L2, thus increasing it’s chance against my covered long-barreled killer. One Critical Hit later my MRS Intruder was a memory as his headless carcass fell to the ground.
– Free of his terror Su Jian came to life once again, leaning out of cover and shooting against second Intruder, who replied with an ARO but achieved nothing.
– With most of my forces occupied by hiding behind cover the field was clear for Garran’s forces to advance. Keisotsu Paramedic choose this moment to climb the stairs and connect a Console (YJ table half, on my right flank).
– Last ‘Irregular’ Order sought my Jaguar being slain by advancing Has Tao, as Garran exchanged it for a Regular one with a Command Token.
TURN 1 SUMMARY: Lost: Shaolin, Kuang Shi, / Killed: Intruder MSR, Jaguar Chain, / Objective: 1 Console, 1 Hidden (experimental Drug),
N Nazroth 1st turn:
With order count of 8/4 and two miniatures lost I was sure to hit back hard. Advancing enemy forces were exactly where I wanted them – with their fronts turned to my forces. Both Hac Tao and Su Jian were bleeding out with a single hit required to send them flying. Discarding these two, only Rui Shi was posing a threat to my strike units (Lunokhod and HMG Intruder). I waged my options and opened with a gambit:
– I moved onto the board with a Tomcat Engineer (left flank, behind Hac Tao and Toketsu Engineer) forsing them to either turn around or face certaind doom. To my surprise Engineer failed to face the newcomer, while Hac Tao turned a bit just to see my Tom’C if he decided to climb the building wall and get him.
– I then moved the action onto the central part of my Depzone, where Jaguar crawled a bit and smoked the way for HMG Intruer.
TURN 1 SUMMARY: Tomcat Engineer, / Killed: Celestial Guard (KSCD), Rui Shi, Tokusetsu Engineer, Hac Tao (u), / Objectives: 1 Console,
Garran: Lost: Shaolin, Kuang Shi, Celestial Guard (KSCD), Rui Shi, Tokusetsu Engineer, Hac Tao (u) / Objective: 1 Console, 1 Hidden (Experimental Drug),
Nazroth: Lost: Intruder MSR, Jaguar Chain, Tomcat Engineer, / Objectives: 1 Console,
G Garran 2nd turn:
– Loss of Leutenant saw Garran’s forces in dissaray. Impetous warriors moved and lost yet another of their brethren due to HAM Alguacil’s fire.
– Toketsu Doctor moved Yao Zao risking G:servant’s life in an attemt to heal Hac Tao. With a final effort Yao Zao bringed Hac Tao from the verge of death, then his lights went off ang he stop moving himself. Both Alguacil girls made surethat it won’t heal anyone else.
– The dance of death begun anew as Hac Tao tried his chances vs my girls with no avail, as my indestructible ladies rolled saves, laughing wildly. (One Irregular Order exchanged for a Regular with Command Token.)
– Garran made his last attemt so silent my Linked heroines, exchanging his last Command Token. This time HMG Alguacil had no mercy and cut Hac Tao’s body in half with a concentraded fire from her Heavy MG’.
– An order later Su Jian avenged his death by slaying my second Intruder.
– Having nothing better to do Guilang opened the door to the Security Room.
TURN 2 SUMMARY: Lost: Kuang Shi, Hac Tao, Yao Zao (doc), / Killed: Intruder HMG, / Objectives: Objective: 1 Console, 1 Hidden (Experimental Drug),
N Nazroth 2nd turn:
Left with no Intruders I had only one universal assault unit at my disposal – the Lunokhod. With order count of 7/4 I left the things be and started activations.
– I first tried to eliminate a potential threat to my Lunokhod in form of enemy Hacker. I used my own Hacker to do that, shuffling him behind cover and sending a burst meant for the hostile unit. He dodged and hid from LOF.
– Now I could move Lunokhod from behind his initial cover, so he went straight for Su Jian. I kept him hidden, occasionally shooting enemy Hacker once he was revealed. First attempt failed as Lunokhod’s Heavy Shotgun range is rather short, but I hit the mark during another activation. I also los a Koala, who was careless enough to cross Su Jian’s line of fire.
– Third Lunokhod’s activation took him out into Su Jian’s ARO but Heavy Shotgun prooved to be enough to finally slay the beast.
(Enemy in retreat and with Loss of Leutenant – I moved to gain advantage in Objective Points. Zhurong Power Plant and Nomad’s wellbeing were on the line!).
– I cleared the path killing a Guilang FO with a single Burst of ‘5’ shot by Alguacil HMG specialist.
– Path cleared, Moran Maasai Hunter broke into the Security Room and Connected central Console at second attempt.
– Alguacil Hacker followed, moving forward and connetcing the Console on my right flank.
– I was left with no competitive options, but to try and complete my Hidden Objectives which was “Experimental Drug” (lol, yea, whatever) and “HVT: Designation”. I went for the last one, first leaning Mooran out of the Security Room and targeting enemy HVT, then using him as a repeater for Alguacil Hacker and Spotlight’ing the target with my final order.
TURN 2 SUMMARY: Lost: none, / Killed: Celestial Guard Hacker, Su jian, Guilang FO, Objectives: 3 Consoles, 1 Hidden (HVT: Designation),
Garran: Lost: Shaolin, 2x Kuang Shi, Celestial Guard (KSCD), Rui Shi, Tokusetsu Engineer, Hac Tao, Yao Zao (doc), Su jian, Celestial Guard Hacker, Guilang FO, / Objective: 1 Console, 1 Hidden (Experimental Drug),
Nazroth: Lost: Intruder MSR, Jaguar Chain, Tomcat Engineer, Intruder HMG, / Objectives: 3 Consoles, 1 Hidden (HVT: Designation),
G Garran 3rd. turn:
Garran’s forces were in Retreat along with a Loss of Leutenant. (Which was the missfortunate Guilang FO.)
Not many options with both Kuang Shi being far away from combat, and near to all specialist troops gone.
– Garran took a final attempt of earning Victory Points by mowing his regular Keisotsu into my HVT’s Zone of Control. The plan failed by Keisotsu being shredded with ARO fire from my Alguacil Link.
No need for further actions – we shook hands of one another and counted our remaining points.
TURN 3 SUMMARY: Lost: Keisotsu, / Killed: none, / Objectives: 1 Console, 1 Hidden (Experimental Drug),
Garran: Lost: Shaolin, 2x Kuang Shi, Celestial Guard (KSCD), Rui Shi, Tokusetsu Engineer, Hac Tao, Yao Zao (doc), Su jian, Celestial Guard Hacker, Guilang FO, Keisotsu, / Objective: 1 Console, 1 Hidden (Experimental Drug),
Nazroth: Lost: Intruder MSR, Jaguar Chain, Tomcat Engineer, Intruder HMG, / Objectives: 3 Consoles, 1 Hidden (HVT: Designation),
I got back home around 16:30, sat straight to this Battle Report. It’s past 23:00 now so as you can see – writing something like that is a lot of work. I really respect the work of guys from Corvus Belli and other cool content authors, as right now I want only to take a bath and ‘Reset’ 🙂 Hope you like my article – be sure to ‘Commend it’ at Flamestrike Campaign official site 😉
First of all I would like to announce that this project is huge. It is wast on a scale not seen here at Scarhandpainting.com ever before. The genesis of this project reaches January 2015, yet back then, I didn’t knew how things will go for this particular concept. To think that it started with a bunch of hardboard boxes being sprayed white makes me wanna laught. Right now some of you may recall ‘white boxes’ from my Tutorial: ‘Do it yourself’ Gaming Terrain. That is the right course of thinking as that gaming terrain and this Special Project have a particular thing in common – “Infinity the Game”. The hero of this article is none other than INFINITY GAMING TABLE: “THE COLONY”.
At first it was supposed to be, a cheap and easy to make, gaming terrain set. Me and my friends were hyped for Infinity and needed a proper table with a variety of terrain pieces. I am a man of action so in few days I had my first Infinity Gaming Table fully thinked through and half way done. The terrain set expanded steadily throughout the year to finally crystallize into a fully developed and densely packed gaming table. That was the end of stage one and a beggining of an entirely new concept. In the late 2015 I was pretty much sure that my gaming table is very playable. I got a lot of feedback from more experienced gamers and got to know Infinity as much as to make a final decision – I decided to use both my financial and material resources to transform my gaming table into a new and extraoridinary form. Once again I was overwhelmed by the need of creation and started to work…
The easiest and most effective way to improove my existing terrain was to prepare a template for basic pieces and then use them to decorate my ‘white boxes’. The ideas came to me one by one and it took less than two hours to cut a sample for each type of piece needed. As they say – “One’s man trash is another’s man treasure” and that is more than true as I supported myself with some trash left out of Micro Art Studio’s bridge set. All the basic pieces you now see, were made using just a couple of HMD leftovers and a hobby knife. This way I prepared two major templates:
Walls: Designed as 7/11cm pieces to let me decorate each and every ‘white box’ from all sides. Some additional fillers were also designed, to fill the space, if a box happens to be too long for a certain number af wall pieces. I hoped to keep wall pieces separate to let players position their miniatures in selective cover, move with causions movement etc. Once these were done I used some Warhammer 40,000 bitz to see how the overall will look before painting. It passed the test.
Bridges: It seemed that all the bridges in the market lacked something. In my opinion they were either cool looking and not very playable or playable but ugly. Left with no other choice I designed my own bridge to fit into my new gaming table theme and provide a good cover.
Now the only matter to attend was to copy these templates a dozen times and more. At that moment I knew that to achieve my goal I will need some help…
1 REYCAST
I went forth and back through Facebook in search of possible allies. An obvious choice appeared in form of ReyCast.pl who evidently had hype for Infinity terrain and seemed to be an honest guy. Not only he prooved to be just that but also joined me in my quest for glory. Once I provided him with my prototype he took the burden of drawing and then producing a Bridge. He also designed roofs that would later be used for my ‘white boxes’ and all for a really fair price.
My initial drawing and prototype:
Final product:
ReyCast did a magnificent work for me and I was very satisfied with the results. The one thing he couldn’t provide was quantity. I required only couple of bridges and roofs but the walls – pieces varried in quantity from thirty up to four hundred with a total of over one and a half thousand pieces! We both decided that it would be better if I try and find another provider for these.
2 MICRO ART STUDIO
Thus I went straight to my good old friends from Micro Art Studio. We have a history me and MAS – For long time we gamed Warhammer 40,000 together at many tournaments. At some point I used to order a lot of different things from them including gaming tokens, bases and designs ‘for demand’. The final product they provided was always of the best quality and good price. Now I wonder why didn’t I go to them in the first place – but, spur of a moment – ReyCast was there, he was eager to cooperate and I was in the middle of my creation battle rage. I do not regret it as ReyCast did a hell of a good job for me and hopefully not for the last time. So I sent my project to Micro Art Studio and well… must say that they delivered in a crazy, fckn’ awesome way!
My initial drawings and prototype:
Final product:
And the package… I felt like if I had my tenth birthday. Let’s say that the guys from MAS bought my eternal loyalty and gratitude.
3 TITAN FORGE
For the final set of pieces – an enormous quantity of ventilators, electric boxes and other stuff used to decorate, I went to my friends fom Titan Forge. They possess both the technology and expertise needed to provide me with such quantity. Unfortunatelly I’m still waiting for this gargantuan order to be fulfilled – but hopefully I won’t be waiting long.
In modelling you never know what you will need unless you stumble upon it by accident. For me it happened during a local Infinity Tournament where I stumbled upon a gaming table designed by Zen Terrain. Soon after that, I purchased a set of sweet looking Neon City Signs and Planters. Surely I could have made my own but Zen Terrain has a unique desing that I just fell in love with.
I also ordered a set of plants to use in the end step of decorating my gaming table. As it happened the courier delivered these in less than two hours after MAS’s package came in. I was just finnishing a test building which can be seen in the picture below 🙂
After two months of waiting I was finally able to lay my hands on most of the items needed to continue my project. I managed to wall-up all the ‘white boxes’ which from now on are no more boxes, but buildings. All bridges are also done. I’m eager to share some pictures, but it is really late and I’m weary after over twelve hours of terrain making. “This projecs it huge” and it deserves at least three entries as much as I deserve some sleep. Let this building be a glorious end of the first part of this article. See you soon in “THE COLONY” SPECIAL PROJECT part two 😉
In this tutorial I will show you a shortcut to some awesome Terrain Making. Together we will plunge head on into the distant future of ‘Infinity the Game’. We end up knee deep in terrain pieces, surrounded by half cheved bitz of plasticard, with our fingertips bleeding, clothes devastated by super glue and wallets full of unspent cash! A truly manly adventure awaits us and that’s why I’ve prepared some Terrain Making theory to prepare you for what is to come and remodel the way you think about it.
Terrain Making is a topic to write a book about. There is just so many different aproaches a modeller can take on a road to create some awesome gaming terrain. I would be lying if I told you that I am able to cover all of that here, in this tutorial. Instead I will concentrate on some key points of Terrain Making that I keep in mind whenever I happen to make some scenery.
The first thing to do is planning. I’m not a big fan of this part and usually skip it, still some key points of planning take place almost unconsciously. Just sort the ideas, prepare funds for eventual purchases, set a theme and go for it!
– Price of beauty. Long years of gaming and terrain making showed me that a nice looking table may look even better if pumped with some pre-made stuff. Just throw some money into this project and see how much it changed when it comes to how it looks. Think of a sum that you would like to invest in your gaming table – have in mind that except for some necessary stuff like paints, glue, spray, your gaming table can still be built with 0 cash involved.
– Avoid Expensive stuff. I just told you to spend some cash but be thoughtful with that. Try to pinpoint the most expensive elements of your future gaming table and substitute them with some cheap alternatives. This way you not only save some cash but also will not brind huge visual diversity to your terrain set. [A good example of an expensive terrain piece that could be easily replaced.]
– Be a pragmatist. Keep it fast and simple to build. I too had a boner when seeing this gaming table but hey – it’s like a billion € and countless hours spent on putting these things together. Remember that cash equals time and vice versa. If earning cash to purchase a terrain piece and putting that piece together will take you less time than making one yourself – just go for it. Otherwise it’s worth to keep it at speed. A nice looking gaming table can be built and painted in less than 16 hours!
– Select a theme. A ravaged battlefield, futuristic city, space hulk hallways, huge magazines, train station, rich district – what you will choose will affect the materials you will need and a level of complexity ergo ‘time’ you will need to build your gaming table. A good theme is an average between price, time of build and LOOKS. Low on cash and time? Try out Magazine space full of barrels and containers. Plenty of cash and time? Go for a pristine Rich Quarters with fountains, streets, bridges and detailed buildings.
In order to create a gaming table you will need a lot of different materials. Plasticard, cardboard, thin wood are considered to be ‘common’ while bitz and parts of particular shapes are more difficult to obtain.
– Have an open mind. There’s plenty awesome items surrounding you all of the time. Most of them end up as trash while they might be used as modelling material of exceptional value. Just go to the kitchen and look around. Plastic bottle caps of different shapes and sizes, coffee jar lids – these are the tip of an iceberg!
– Ride the outside world. Home ‘trash’ is your brick and mortar when it comes to Terrain Making but true pearls belong to the world outside. Just outside your doors you can find some nice looking stones and sticks but further you venture the better your loot will get. Go ahead and visit a supermarket. Toys, hair utensils, cheap (crappy) plastic jewelry, tools section, decorations – these places are marked with ‘X’ for ‘treasure’!
– Be like modern China, steal blueprints. Many different companies created a variety of splendid gaming terrain. Once you type “Infinity Gaming Terrain” in google you will find a lot of great inspiration to draw your ideas from. You can even purchase some and use leftovers to pimp the visual effect of your home made terrains or go even further and rearrange purchased terrain to have some additional spare bitz left!
Finally a part of raw hard work! If you picked a theme that goes along with your funds and time that you are willing to invest – this part will be a lot of fun for you.
– Durability. Gaming terrain should be tough as otherwise you risk games ended up being forced to do some repairs. Try to create terrain that is well ballanced and easy to game with. I recommend that you base all of the smaller terrain pieces as this will improve their balance along with visuals. Just remember to never use cardboard for basing as it usually bends over time. The recommended materials are: plasticard, plywood (both can be seen in the picture above).
– Utility. Gaming terrain is supposed to be gamed upon. I know – some small, sweet looking, extremely detailed pieces makes me wanna cry with joy, but are they as playable as simple, angular blocks of terrain? The answer is NO and have that in mind. Additionally it is worth to measure some heights to better fit the miniatures. For example: A barrel of the same height as a miniature will usually force you to wonder if a miniature standing behind it has LOF to other miniatures? Well usually it does due to use of silhouettes so it’s better to build barrels that are half the miniature’s height. Etc.
[Once again a good example of an expensive and not very playable terrain piece.]This building is looking great but it is expensive, the cover it provides on the ground level is limited, it is too high for some miniatures to go to the roof in a single action forcing you to remember where the miniature is left hanging.
– Clusters. When it comes to small terrain pieces it is the best to keep them clustered on a single base. They will stay in place and provide a wide cover instead of falling apart and moving around the table each time someone ccidentally pushes it.
– Clones. I’m an enemy of a ruler. I just hate to spend lots of time measuring plasticard/cardboard pieces of same dimensions. I preffer to measure up one piece, then cut the rest using the ‘primary’ piece as a template. Even if some pieces get a bit different from one another this will only add some extra touch to the overall looks of my gaming terrain. [Use this technique at your own discretion.]
– Production line. Plan your work accordingly. Start by preparing all the necessary pieces, put them together and base all the terrain pieces. Do not start to paint before all the terrain is ready for it. This way your work will be a bit less rewarding but you will save a lot of time. Same goes for painting: Do not paint a single terrain piece but paint them in droves instead. Just as you end up applying a layer to the last piece, the first one will get dry and ready for the next layer.
So here’s a shortcut recipee for you:
– Prepare funds then cut the expensives off,
– Plan what to buy/build and how long it’ll take, (be a pragmatist),
– Choose a theme according to your capabilities,
– Pillage your house for free trash material,
– Pillage nearby supermarket for some key material pieces, [keep it cheap.]
– Use some purchased terrain and leftovers to create your own variations,
– Make your terrains durable, balanced and playable,
– Keep small terrain pieces based together,
– Save time while preparing particular bitz by using one as a template to cut the rest out,
– End one stage before moving to the next one,
I feel your pain. That wall of text above is probably as hard to read for you as it was for me and I read it more than thrice. Let’s go to the Practical part of this Tutorial with some examples and more pictures. I will use my own gaming table prepared last year as an example of how to do it in accordance to above tips.
Back then I was short of time and wanted to create a gaming table designed for Infinity ASAP. I love Micro Art Studio’s terrain and wanted to purchase a whole set of it along with some Spartan Scenics. Cash was not an issue but once a test purchase was delivered I almost dropped the project due to time consuming process of putting these terrains together. It was a hell of a boredome so I decided to go ahead and prepare my own gaming table. I choose something between Mass Effect ‘Citadel’ and Death Star outer surface style Theme and already owning a Micro Art Studio’s catwalk set I decided tu cut off the most expensive thing: Buildings. Small part of the surplus cash was to be used on static grass and a Battle Mat that would eventually pump the visual effect of the gaming table.
Being a pragmatist I decided to use a hard cardboard boxes as the main bodies on the gaming board. Easy to obtain in friendly local hobby store, easy to prepare, light (transportaion), stable, very playable – the cardboard boxes prove to be an extrmely good pick. Some spare parts from catwalk set let me upgrade my ‘buildings’ with a nice set of futuristic ladders. The plan was to improve the visual effect by adding some facture with paintjob.
Once I was done with the buildings I moved to all the other stuff. Less futuristic but very playable and bringing some colour to my gaming table came Barrels, Trash Containers, Holograms, inner walls and some key terrain pieces. Here’s an example:
Barrels: Plastic bottle caps of coca cola, milk and water. I find the ones with less facture being the best as the paint looks much better on irregular flat areas. I drink a lot of Coca Cola Zero in addition to milk and water so I used most of the caps being kept in home 🙂
Trash Containers: Tic-tac pack upper parts. Some were additionally converted but looking past I think that I should leave them be as they have a perfect shape on their own.
Holograms: Old Warhammer 40,000 tokens, easy to obtain at second hand market and as these are rarely used – they come in cheap. I had some left from my own Warhammer 40,000 collection and purchased another set from a friend.
Inner Walls: Rectangle Chessex Dice packs being emptied and thrown away by a local hobby store. Some walls were also made of wooden blocks. Some have been updated with facture made of wooden spare parts left from Micro Art’s catwalk set.
All the leftovers were used to build this Relay Beacon, leaving not a single bitz unused.
This particular gaming board was made with rush thus I had to update it from time to time adding extra touch with new sets of scenery. Just recently I wandered into the Supermarket in search of some final pieces to strengthen the theme of Sci-fi quarters. I found these cool items:
Plastic hair holder / 1,5€is a masterpiese of both architecture and art. A fine centerpiece for my gaming table. I bought two of these and made them into this:
Decorative beads / 2€ will one day be used to make a set of awesome light globes all around my flat white buildings. For now they served as additional facture for new set of Trash Containers.
So here we are. My gaming table took less than 24hrs in total to complete and that if all the add-ons are being counted. The overall cost of this project is Micro Art catwalk set, Micro Art hologram banner set, Micro Art gaming mat, warhammer 40,000 tokens, two hair holders, a pack of decorative beads, a can of white spray, some paints, glue, brushes. It’s around 150€ + 24hrs worth of my work (which could be much less if I only made all these stuff in one go). All the other items I’ve managed to get for free. Now I have a very playable and rather nice looking gaming table, designed for Infinity and fully packable into a single box XD
! If i haven't purchased Micro Art Studio's awesome stuff the overall cost of this gaming table would be close to 50€
I hope that you will find this tutorial both helpful and inspiring. In case of any questions just leave me a comment in the comment section below.
PS: The pictures below were made couple of days ago in a local mall, which was modernized recently. Now it looks just as my vision of what this gaming table is supposed to represent 🙂 Welcome to the future – few years from now and we will see some Heavy Infantry in live action 🙂
Being a Wargaming hobbyist is not always related to miniature painting. Some of us just like to collect miniatures, others enjoy competitive play. There are those who do not feel joy of having a brush in one hand and a miniature in the other all the time. That doesn’t make them any less a ‘hobbyist’ than the actual painters. Needless to say that regardless of what makes us into true hobbyists we have one important thing in common: we love miniatures.
Having that in mind I’ve prepared something not exactly related to painting miniatures. It is a small Tutorial about Preparation before an ‘Infinity the game’ Tournament. A preparation that in my opinion is especially important from the ‘beginners’ point of view but will benefit all the players present at the evet, and here’s why:
The game lives on as long as it sells and it sells as long as it’s fun. ‘Fun’ is the principal of hobby, still a lot of players consider miniature wargaming tournaments of being ‘all about competitive play’. The fact that both sides should have the same amount of fun is pushed to back burner as once the adrenaline kicks in, there’s no thinking about ‘what the oponent feels?’ – only what he ‘thinks’ and only if related to the current game 🙂 Sometimes that leads to stressful situations or even unpleasant behavior. On the other hand there are players more interrested in throwing some dice and moving miniatures enjoying scenario flavor and nice looking scenery pieces. These happen to misstriger some reactions, forget rules or equipment vital to play the game according to the rulebook. So in order to bring fun to the tournament and have some fun ourselves we shoud both prepare mentally and grab some gear for the upcomming event.
Mental Conditioning: First of all try to think about what the opponent feels? Off course it won’t be fun to be massacred by some unpainted ‘tournament ready in 15 minutes’ miniatures of a guy who ‘must win this one to get to top 3’. Stone face and lack of sense of humour is your’s enemy as much as it is for your opponent, regardless of which kind of player you face. At the same time have in mind what’s going on in your opponent’s head while you shift back movements and can’t make your mind for what seems to be an eternity. Or while you whine about your opponent’s miniatures being unpainted and how ‘devoid of climate’ that is instead of facing this match like a man.
– You play against ‘non competitive flavor snail’? Even when you behave nice and point out some vital rules, that your opponent may to forget, try adding a joke or some short battlefield anegdote to smooth the atmosphere. It is possible to win literally obliterating oponents army and still to achieve fun for both sides. Try to keep your adrenaline glands dormant as once they flare up you only worsen the opponent’s reaction time.
– You play against a ‘rookie’? Keep the atmosphere calm and friendly having in mind your own first tournament experience. Try not to use tournament slang and abbreviations – your opponent nodding does not have to mean he understands what you said. Tutour your oponent (ok, do it after some actions have been taken so he learns on mistakes) to help him understand what did just happened but also to become a better opponent for the future matches. This way you also become a better player.
– You play against a ‘tight ass pro’? Don’t treat some rules as not obligatory, for example be thorough while moving your miniatures (don’t steal some vital inches due to being lazy). Be calm and accurate but at the same time try to decide fast even if it costs you a loss of confidence on the table. Better to loose and learn from your opponent than to win and stagnate without evolving your skills. Remember that once you estabilish an accurate form of contact you will be able to ask some vital questions thus fastening the game and having less difficulties with making important decisions.
– You play against ‘Luck’? Don’t be angry at dice. This game is all about RNG, also luck is a bitch. You will take your time to position a sniper in full advantage just to be taken out by a stupid pistol’s ARO while at the same time some Combi Rifle grunt will multikill on a spree! Infinity is just ‘that kind of a game’. Deal with it or move on to ther systems;)
– Clock is ticking! Keep track of time as you may be the one overthinking too much.
– Hands off! Under any circumstances do not touch opponent’s miniatures unless he lets or asks you to.
– Obtain certainty! Ask your opponent for any ARO’s or other actions available to him so that he won’t misstriger. Have in mind that the harder it is to win the better player you’ll become.
– Buckle up and disengage! When game ends just pack your stuff and report results to a judge. Then transfer your things to a neutral place (parapet, empy table…). Most people tend to leave their belongings scattered around the table and dissapear to be late for another round. In that case you being late and unprepared means that four players, yourself included, will be awaiting while you chaotically collect your stuff from around the table.
– Keep noting! Write down every major choices so that there won’t be any doubt about them. For example which Camouflage Marker reffer to which miniature etc.
! Additional tip - Read the official Infinity Tournament System rules and Scenarios that will be played at the event.
Gear Preparation: Gaming is so much easier when you don’t have to borrow stuff from all the peeps at the tournament. Usually it’s also much faster! Being professional does not mean that you go straight for Power Gaming, it means to play according to the rules thus reducing a number of conflicts to a minimum.
Pro: If you consider yourself a Pro then I don’t need to tell you of how important some of this stuff actually is. You probably own your personal tournament set and know your own ways of waging war.
Rookie: One of the reasons why Infinity is such a great game is that you don’t have to spend a lot of cash on a bunch of useless items (say ‘hi’ to Games Workshop from me) and can focus your finances on miniatures instead. Rulebook, Unit Profiles, Unit Silhouettes, Tokens and Markers are all printable. Just fallow to Download section at Infinitythegame.com. Even the Classyfied Objective Deck is not obligatory as rulebook includes a special table that you may use instead! That leaves you with some vital stuff like Tape Meausure, Dice, Templates and off course Miniatures to obtain. So regardless of what kind of Tournament Gear you have – it’s time to pack it correctly.
– Pack your bag! Try to pack your bag/box to the optimum. An optimal packed bag will let you move swiftly on the tournament ground, embark your miniatures fast after the game (to let other use the same table) and unpack them rapidly when facing next opponent! Some vital stuff will be within reach all the time also!
– Print an Army Roster! That goes both for your’s and ‘Courtesy’ one to show it to your opponent. A printed roster is easy to apprehend and will fasten the ‘game preparation’ process. Also you will be able to decide on strategy easier when facing plain enemy roster yourself. Did I mentioned that wothout it you won’t be able to participate?
Use ARMY program to prepare your army list and don’t forget to print ‘Courtesy’ roster for your opponent.
– Templates (‘teardrops’), Blast Markers (‘cookies’): Must have, just don’t show without them!
– Precise Measures: Precise Measure is in my opinion the most important tool of precise gaming so I recommend you bring one. It comes in handy while moving miniatures and checking their Area of Control. It makes the game a lot more pleasant.
– Tokens: Wounds, Unconsious, Prone, Regular Orders, Impetous*, Irregular Orders*, Camo*, Command Tokens (*if your army uses these) are vital to the game performance. These are must have and if you lack some cash to purchase fine versions of these – you can always print and cut yourself.
– Objective Markers: Objective Markers are not obligatory but they come in pretty handy. All for the sake of keeping track of what’s going on at the table.If you lack these yourself then probably your opponent will provide his own set, but what if he thought exactly the same?
– Silhouettes: Silhouettes* are a must have in N3 (*if your army uses these) and they tend to be used at some point in the game. They are being used if a certain Line of Fire situation is not clear. At first you will probably mean they are an inconvenience but after couple of tries you won’t be able to play without them.
– Classified Deck: This item is just awesome. All the rolling involving a special table and then searching how does a certain secondary objective works is just frustrating. You can either buy one of these along with your friends or print a copy. Whatever you choose you won’t regret!
– Laser Pointers: No more Line of Fire arguments, no more asking other players if a miniature sees another miniature, no more judge involvement needed. Fast and awesome method to check out LoF!
– Facing Markers: Facing Markers are a whim, as you can just mark facings on the miniature’s base. Still I preffer these instead of destroying smooth, black surface of my miniatures’ bases.
– Wound Rings: Wound Rings have one advantage over Wound Tokens – they fallow the miniature wherever it goes without you being involved.
– Tape Measure, Dice: These must be present. They all are vitat to the game and not taking one is like forgeting to put your pants on for the event. (Well if you actually happen to like going out without pants consider this actidentally putting them on instead!).
– Pen & Paper: Pen & Paper are important as you will be asked to write some vital information like which Camouflage Marker is related to a certain miniature etc.These ARE OBLIGATORY regardless if you consider yourself a Pro or a newbie.
– The Miniatures: Try to pack only the necessary ones and in a configuration that will be easy to access and won’t require lots of time to be deployed/swiped back.
The Rules: No one demands that you take a paperback Rulebook with you, not to mention all the errata, Paradiso, FAQ, whatever. A mobile phone with basic Rulebook.pdf will usually do. Be advised tho, as leaving on a tournament without any means of consulting a Rulebook is a mistake. Syre you may be able to memorise all the rules but I doubt that and a Rulebook is much cheaper than amphetamine.
A mobile phone with internet access to check out Infinity Wiki is also a nice thing to have.
So a lot of what must and musn’t be done here 🙂 Please remember that this is my own opinion based on personal experience acquired during over fifteen years of miniature wargaming including some world class tournaments. As for Infinity I’m still a noob so I will have to confront my ways with a bunch of tournaments but I’m sure that most of these will prove true.
Infinty Tournament Checklist:
Must haves:
– Miniatures,
– Roster for you and the opponent,*(printable)
– Pen & Paper,
– Tape Measure,
– Dice set,
– Tokens, (printable) / WHERE TO PURCHASE
– Silhouettes, (printable) / WHERE TO PURCHASE
– Templates and Blast Marker, (printable) / WHERE TO PURCHASE
– Rules,** (printable)
Usables:
*- Printed Roster for you and the opponent,
(printable)
– Precise Measure, / WHERE TO PURCHASE
– Objective Markers, (printable) / WHERE TO PURCHASE
– Classified Deck, (printable)
– Laser Pointer, / WHERE TO PURCHASE
**- Paperback Rulebook, (printable)
Convenience:
– Facing Markers, (may be painted) / WHERE TO PURCHASE
– Wound Rings, / WHERE TO PURCHASE
**- Printed Errata, FAQ,
**- Paperback/printed Paradiso etc,
Feel free to add some stuff in the comments – In the future I will gladly expand this article according to wise advice.
Recently I’ve decided to take my previous Hacking Device Holoprojector concept to a higher level. The key point was to use the same base material: a Coca Cola bottle plastic, but instead of painting simbols and lines on it – make it look more like a complex holo projection with many ‘windows’ opened at once. A devious plan formed in my mind and here I am sharing it with all who are eager to read it!
* Scissors,
* Twizzers,
* Super Glue,
* Coca Cola bottle XD
* Piece of plastic/brass mesh,
1 Using Scissors cut a small piece of Brass Mesh and a small piece of Coca Cola bottle.
2 Still using Scissors cut a piece of Plastic into small rectangles.
3 Use some oval shaped tool to softly bend both the Brass Mesh piece and Plastic rectangles.
4 Using Super Glue, attach the Brass Mesh piece to a miniature.
! I recommend to paint the miniature along with Brass Mesh piece at this point.
5 Using Tweezers and Super Glue attach Plastic rectangles to a painted Brass Mesh.
6 It is done, but you can apply some Skull White onto the edges of Plastic rectangles to make them look more 3D.
And that’s it 🙂 Whole process takes up to 10 minutes so I decided to remove old Holoprojectors from my Nomadic Hackers and install brand new ‘software’. Hope you give it a try 😉
Second ‘Special Project’ in 2015! It was emerging between my thoughts once in a while for some time before I was finally motivated to work on it. The crucial point for me was to accidentally bump into an online Painting Contest at Data-Sphere forum. I already had the concept and materials to make this piece so an opportunity for a nice competition was the final push I needed.
This time I choose a Nomad miniature as a centerpiece of the Diorama. It is my favorite faction in Infinity the Game, and the Grenzer model I’ve picked just ‘screamed’ to let him ride that awesome haqqislamic bike. The pose was almost right if only I done something with the coat and the only thing holding me at bay was a pair of hands. In the end I used original Sniper Rifle left hand of a Grenzer, Shotgun right hand of a Jagguar and stripped a Spektr of both arms.PanOceanic antennae was added and after rearrangement of the pose some Green Stuff Sculpting had done the rest.
A ‘concept art’ which shows my overpowering drawing skills.
First step was to arrange the miniature on a bike.
Some conversion and Greenstuff sculpting.
Next step was to create a diorama thus fulfilling my mind’s eye concept. I’ve picked a nice candle for a diorama’s base and starterd to work with main arrangement of things…
Preparation of diorama.
Basics of diorama and miniature composiotion.
Facture added.
Then came the ‘Painting Time’. Usually I start by painting the miniature but this particular project was an exception. I’ve started with diorama instead to be certain that in the end I will be able to paint it correctly. Painting rust and dust is still new to me.
Diorama paintjob in progress.
Once I was sattisfied with diorama’s result I’ve focused all of my attention on the miniature. I tried to begin in accordance with Angel Giraldez’s online Kum Bike tutorial and it wen’t rather off at some point. Still I was able to create something unexpected and extraoridinary if compared to my other miniatures.
The actual miniature preshaded and with red armour in midpainting.
Something to look like NMM appeared on the bike. Armour lined and shades appplied.
Closing to finish line I’ve figured that something went really wrong. I couldn’t pinpoint the cause – just felt taken aback while observing the pice. It took me half a day of painting different miniatures to finally understand: The diorama sucked! It was a total disaster! There was not enough space for the biker which was posed so that only a small part was visible. Black rant of the base made too much bad contrast while the candle… oh the candle justed didn’t fit…
It went wrong in the forums too as I was told that my ‘OSL looks more like a nuclear blast’ to which I actually agreed…
Bad – bad diorama… bad nuclear blast…
I’ve made my mind then and remade the diorama totally. I cut the stuff into pieces which I used to create foundation for another ‘faster, harder, better, stronger’ diorama. This time I picked a much more suitable base for it too. I also fallowed an advice of Claudius Sol and dimmed the OSL.
Diorama cut and rebased.
At some point the diorama needed just the final touches.
Here’s the final piece: “NOMAD SOUL”
Recently I spent a lot of time working on a ‘Special Project’. I have read/watched tutorials and acquired Know How in a hope of expanding my painting skill. I even visited a friend from Fantasygames Painting Studio to watch and learn. In the end I feel like if I ‘gained a level’. Here is a shortcut of a tremendous amount of hours spent on learning and a week of hard day and night labour:
“LONE SENTRY”
FINAL RESULT:
Shizune (Made by Shizune) – for Painting Panoceania Blue Armour Tutorial
C’tan (Fantasygames Painting Studio) – for all the help, know how and this awesome Salt & Hairspray Tutorial
Here is a Step-by-step guide of how to paint Infinity Nomad Red Armour – Scar_hand Painting’s style 🙂
A complete Recipee used to paint my Infinity Nomads may be found in COLOUR RECIPEES: INFINITY NOMADS. You can also find some additional pictures in the NOMADS: CORREGIDOR lvl 4,5 Gallery.
* GW Standard Brush,
* Tamiya Modeling Brush HG,
* AP Wargamer: The Psycho,
* GW Chaos Black Undercoat,
* GW Mechrite Red, (When this one runs out i’ll switch to P3 Formula ‘Sanguine Base’ instead),
* GW Wazdakka Red,
* AP Skeleton Bone,
* White,
* AP Strong Tone Ink,
* AP Red Tone Ink,
1 I used Chaos Black spray to undercoat the model. I usually do this by applying eight layers of undercoat from eight different angles (four at the front and four at the back of the model, each at the same 45* angle with one directed up, one down, one left and one right side of the model).
2 The first layer of Red was made with Standard Brush and Mechrite Red. I tried not to fill the recesses too much and to cover all buldes smoothly.
3 I switched to Tamiya Modeling Brush and applied Wazdakka Red to all bulges and flat surfaces of the armour, leaving cavities Mechrite Red'ed. This madethe armour look more smooth and ready to be highlighted.
4 I applied a 50%/50% mix of Wazdakka Red and Skeleton Bone in the middle and on the edges of particular surfaces.
5 I added White to the Wazdakka/Skeleton mix and further lined the model.
6 More White was added to the mix and another layer of lines and points was made.
7 I switched back to Standard Brush and washed the armour with Strong Tone Ink.
8 I switched to The Psycho to add some Skeleton Bone/White lining in the key points of the armour.
9 I switched to Tamiya Modeling Brush and washed the armour with Red Tone Ink.
9 Oops! I did it again washing all the armour with Red Tone Ink to finally finish it.
Hope that you find this little tut useful and that you will post some pictures of miniatures painted this way 😉
