From the Archives 2

With all going well at my recent nuptials, I'm now enjoying the delights of Bali on Honeymoon. It's a tough gig, I can tell you. I didn't bring any hobby materials and the latest issue of WS&S didn't arrive before I left, but I've now had chance to catch up on the few weeks' blogs.

Today, I bring you the fruits of another rummage through the archives: Infinity by Corvus Belli.

I got really into Infinity when it first came out, struck by the anime stylings and dynamic poses. Despite its premium price point, I built up a fair collection of PanOc and had a small dabble in Haqqislam and Nomads. The Nomads, never even came close to getting paint on them and were recently shifted to fund other projects, the Haqqislam may well go next.

Here we've got some early PanOc: Fusiliers from the starter set, a heavily armoured ORC trooper and one of my favourite sculpts, the medic on the left, calling in a medevac.

I also did quite a few conversions, more than I tend to do these days, as when I played there was only or or two variants of each troop type available: I preferred not to proxy. Here we have a simple weapon swap to give an Akalis a much nastier boarding shotgun rather than combi-rifle (sourced from a Void weapon pack) and on the right, an Akalis hacker. I was quite good at cycling the spare weapons around to other models to minimise wastage - the Akalis HMG went onto a converted Nisse scout long before the official sculpt was available.

Infinity as a system was really fun it is early days, I liked that it was human vs human vs human, though each faction was pretty similar for a couple of years - they seem much more diverse with more recent releases. The 'ARO' reaction system worked really well, allowing basically unlimited reactions to movements within line of sight, resolved by a face-to-face roll. While it sounds brutal, the fact infinity used D20 mean the aggressor had a chance and there were plenty of tricks to avoid reactions, like therm-optic camouflage and smoke grenades.

Infinity had a simple force selection system but it did allow some game-breaking lists: Gharak spotted that he could engineer a Yu Jing force with six missile launchers (3 support weapons usually being the maximum at 300 points and missile launchers pretty rare). Admittedly carried by conscripts, but he only needed one to hit to do some serious damage. So I brought a force which deployed nothing on the table: Them-optic camouflage and drop troops abound. Including a camouflaged TAG (mecha).

Last up, another ORC trooper and one of the extremely cute PanOc Dronebots - it's cute curves hiding the fact it brings an HMG to the party. I think most of the drone sculpts are ace.

The iffy lists, the ever-increasing complexity and the constant addition of new special rules became tiresome for me, as did what I saw as early of power creep with the alien factions out an end to my Infinity gaming. Oh and I moved away to another area for a new job, which meant I didn't have a group in the area. I'd have preferred they kept a streamlined system with special rules to a minimum, but I think the economics of the hobby mean Corvus Belli need to keep pushing out new shinies and cool rules for them.

I still keep an eye on the amazing rate of new releases and still think about half the sculpts are awesome, some don't quite work and a few are downright ugly. But it's unlikely I'll get another game unless Gharak fancies an old school one: I suspect my old PanOc are likely to be quite underpowered these days!

From the Archives 1

The other day, I was digging through old cases and boxes of long-neglected miniatures. And I came across a couple of highlights from the past that I thought I'd share.

My hobby youth was spent in Games Workshop, primarily playing Warhammer 40,000. When I went to University, the local GW was a pokey little place and unwelcoming to slightly more mature gamers as well as being away from my close-knit group of gaming friends. The Uni gaming club wasn't appealing either, they seemed to solely play 40K, often unpainted and on ramshackle terrain while I've always been one for the spectacle of fully-painted forces and nice terrain.

I eventually stumbled across the excellent Patriot Games in Sheffield, who were starting to stock some exciting new wargames ranges. I was most taken with the awesome sculpts of the fantasy skirmish game Confrontation by a French company, Rackham. I could have been tempted by half of the numerous  factions and spent hours agonising over the well-stocked ranges. Eventually, I went very out of character and bought the Orcs faction. This was quite a step outside of my comfort zone, having played Imperial Guard and Empire in Warhammer (looking back, I probably always was going to end up a historical gamer...).

This is my version of Dayak, one of the commanders from the Trackers of Bran-o-Kor box. While most people were following the Rackham style and experimenting with non-metallic metal, I stuck with my trusty metallics.





As well as a growing group in Patriot Games, Conf had a great community setup around a number of national 'confederations', including the UKCORD, which is still going in a different form.

Rackham also did inventive miniatures like Samurai goblins and Roman Orcs. On the latter, I did a few conversions of other orcs to Roman-ise them. This is one of the ones that came out best: a Brontops rider with a head swap and additional shield, sourced from a 54mm plastic legionary.

Sadly, both of these have taken a few knocks to their paintwork.

Of course Conf went the way of the dodo due to the baffling actions of Rackham, which is sad as some of its iterations were great systems and the miniatures were excellent. The Orcs were a riot to play too, while there was nothing subtle about them, but they were surprisingly competitive given their skills tended to be restricted to hitting things really hard. Eventually, I dabbled in Infinity, Gharak and I dabbled in some short-lived historical projects and more recently I've focused pretty much entirely on historical gaming. But while GW leaves me completely cold, I do still look back on Confrontation with nostalgia.

That's enough nostalgia. Over a family weekend, Gharak and I squeezed in a couple of games of Angels 20, as he's picked up a starter and booster of the second set, Bandits High. This adds the pacific theatre to the original set and here my nippy Japanese duel with his hardy US squadron over a Pacific island.



Sadly, the fragility of the Jap fighters was their downfall, but one again Angels 20 was great fun and perfect for late evening when you've just a little time for something light.

Normal service to be resumed soon - another ten Mahdists have just come off the painting table and another batch on. With Samulus over for a game next weekend, I'm trying to get as much of the Sudan project ready as possible for my first small game of Black Powder.