Home of the Ghostlords

I finally took some better pictures of my Avatar tonight.

From Infinity

From Infinity

I’m still missing a proper backdrop, but this is a lot better than the blue one I used for Bloody Barnabas.

I have finished painting my first TAG for the Combined Army – the Avatar. As the biggest and nastiest of the EI Aspects, I followed the same basic color scheme I used for the Charontid – shiny black with blue glowy stuff. Since I was working with such large areas and wanted to be able to get smooth gradients across them, I used the airbrush to paint much of this model. After a few tries, it was pretty easy to get the effects I wanted, and I will definitely be using this tool again on other large figures.

I decided to try another experiment, and the picture I took is an HDR image composited from several shots taken at several different exposure levels. It was a little work to get the tools set up, but it was a decent way to sidestep the usual problems with areas of shadow deep in the recesses of the model. Again, this is something I will probably be using again in the future. That said, this still isn’t a terribly great picture, and I’ll want to get another one with a proper backdrop and less glare.

From Infinity

I painted a couple of other models over the year (sometime in the May to July timeframe, I think) that I never got around to posting about.

First, there’s the Zerat Sniper. The original Zerat Hacker is one of my favorite models in the entire Infinity line. I rather enjoy the Sniper variant as well. I decided to paint this model because I had gotten worn out painting little blue glowy bits on the Skiávoro I was working on.

From Infinity

From Infinity

The other model I painted is the Spitfire Rasyat. I never actually finished his base, but the rest of the model is done and sealed. While I usually end up using the Boarding Shotgun version in-game, and have converted a model to have that weapon, I really enjoy the sense of motion that this guy has.

From Infinity

From Infinity

Next post will be another model I started painting over the summer, but didn’t finish until just a few days ago.

I just played the second week’s mission in our Infinity campaign against John Junghans and his army from Ariadna.

I used my experience points from the first mission to purchase +1 AVA to Q-Drones (the total reaction bots) and a Hacking Device for my Spec-Ops. Here is the army I used:

 Combined Army - Morat Aggression Force | 15 models
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Combat Group #1
 Q-Drone HMG (29|1)
 Q-Drone Plasma (30|1)
 R-Drone Repeater (8|0)
 Daturazi Chain (14|0)
 Daturazi Chain (14|0)
 Daturazi Chain (14|0)
 Kurgat Mk12 (24|0)
 Med-Tech Combi (23|0)
 Slave Drone (3|0)
 Slave Drone (3|0)
 Suryat HMG (47|2)
 Suryat Lt+HMG (47|2)
Combat Group #2
 Corax/Treitak Combi (16|0)
 Ikadron (9|0)
 Ikadron (9|0)
 Preta Chain (5|0)
 Preta Chain (5|0)
________________________________________________________

300/300 points | 6/6 swc

Mission 102 centers on activating a number of alien devices in a particular sequence using a single model, and then triangulating the source of a signal. My plan was to use my fast Repeater Remote (the R-Drone) to move from objective to objective and have the hacker (in the second combat group) activate the devices. If the R-Drone was destroyed, I had 2 Q-Drones and both of my engineers and their Slave Drones to attempt to recover the activation data and resume the sequence. I had two Suryats with HMGs, one as my Lieutenant, to make it difficult to have my Lieutenant killed and to dish out some damage as needed.

John had taken two levels from the Immediate Deployment speciality, and thus had a +6 bonus to the initiative roll. Unsurprisingly, he chose to take the first turn.

Turn 1

During his turn, John skillfully used his two combat groups to have his one Irmandinho to activate his first two devices and then pass the data to a Dozer, who was able to move over and get the third. He also rushed his Antipode Assault pack straight down the middle of the board and killed my non-Lieutenant Suryat and my Medchanoid, but getting wiped out in return.

During my turn, I was initially paralyzed by indecision about how to deal with the Irmandinho I had sitting on my doorstep. I ended up acting inefficiently, and spent too many orders removing the threat. After this, I moved my R-Drone to each of the first two devices and had my hacker activate them through the repeater. After this I did not have enough orders left to move the R-Drone to a truly safe location, which ended up being a costly mistake. I also used one of my Pretas to run up the flank between his Dozer and his final objective. I was able to drop multiple mines and really clog up the area.

Turn 2

John ended up being forced to spend an excessive number of orders clearing out the mines I had dropped by his Dozer. However, using his other Irmandinho’s Chain rifle, he was able to shoot down my R-Drone from its partially exposed position. His Yuan-Yuan air-dropped in and was instantly cut down by my HMG Q-Drone. He also took a pot shot at my Plasma Rifle Q-Drone with his Tankhunter, but the shell did not penetrate its meager armor.

With my R-Drone down in the middle of the board, my centrally placed engineer dead, my one Q-Drone on vital objective guarding duty, and the other one locked down by the Tankhunter, I had little choice but to have my Kurgat try to get his Slave Drone into position to continue the sequence. I was able to pick up the data from the R-Drone, but then lost the Slave drone to the Tankhunter’s reactive fire.

Turn 3

John was able to fill the area containing the final objective with smoke, obscuring my defensive models’ view. His Dozer was able to sneak down, activate the final device, and then retreat to safety and try to triangulate. Fortunately, my hacker was able to block his transmission. John’s final Highlander then rounded on my Suryat Lieutenant. My Suryat fired his Pistol as the Galwegian closed, wounding him and shrugging off the Chain Rifle fire. The Highlander took advantage of his Dogged ability and was able, in two more rounds of close combat, to kill my Lieutenant.

In loss of Lieutenant, I was only able to shuffle my troops around a little and ineffectually try to cover the routes he would need to access if the Dozer failed his triangulation again and had to hand off the data. I was not able to make any progress towards activating my third device.

Turn 4

This being the final turn due to the scenario time limit, John only had to succeed in a triangulation attempt. The Dozer repositioned slightly for an easy handoff should he fail, proving that my attempts to cover his escape were ineffective. He then attempted to triangulate, and I was unable to block him this time. With that, John won the game, 8 points to 3.

Aftermath

This was a very good game, and I think could easily have gone either way. John was very effective at only exposing his Irregular models during the first turns, leaving him with a strong order pool to continue making progress on the scenario in later turns. Had I acted more decisively in dealing with his Irmandinho in the second turn, I would have been able to place my R-Drone in a much safer location. If I could go back and change only one thing in my army, I would have had both of the Q-Drones be armed with HMGs instead of taking one with a Plasma Rifle.

My latest miniatures conversion project: Sogarat HMG in a running pose. Apologies in advance for the crappy phone pictures. I’ll get a good set with my real camera at some point.

Here’s the standard model:

Kind of a badass, but also quite static. So for my second one, I decided to make the pose more dynamic.

Start by clipping off the axe:

Saw off the arm (with that jeweler’s saw again):

Take off and disassemble the one leg. I ended up sawing off the other leg as well, so that I could angle it inwards more.

Reassemble the other leg and prepare a pin:

And then put it all back together. I cleaned up the underside of the raised hand a bit with my Dremel. For the most part the arms just fit without any significant adjustment. I decided to go with a “leading the charge” pose with the left hand instead of trying to bring it around to the gun or anything like that.

I had to resculpt his one leg somewhat, which involved making the mechanical under-texture. It’s a bit simpler than a lot of the human braided cords, so it turned out alright.

If you look too closely, you can tell that his hips really aren’t at quite the right angle, but I don’t think it’s too apparent from most angles. Suggestions and comments are welcome – I’ll take him back apart if people find anything that is broken enough. Overall, though, I’m pretty pleased at how well this fairly significant chop-job turned out.

Bonus picture – imagine what could have been.