Kazak Assembly Line

After much dithering over how to do the bases for my first 300 point Infinity army, I've finally decided to just set that question aside for the moment and begin work on the miniatures. My favorite line of models from Corvus Belli for this game are the Kazaks of Ariadna, so tonight I am starting off with them, having put together an army list based on an all-Kazak theme. I've not yet found any local Infinity players so in order to learn the game and hopefully introduce it to others I plan on painting an opposing 300 point army soon after finishing this one. Therefore once I'm actually playing and understand the game better, I will then start to think about how to tweak and expand my initial selection of miniatures or perhaps even look into additional factions.

Here though is my jumping off point into Infinity:

Ariadna "Kazak Heavy Patrol"

GROUP 1 (Regulars:10, Irregulars:0)

Line Kazak - Combi-rifle / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/9C)

Line Kazak - Combi-rifle / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/9C)

Line Kazak - Combi-rifle / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/9C)

Line Kazak - AP HMG / Pistol, Knife (1 SWC/29C)

Line Kazak - Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife (1 SWC/28C)

Tankhunter - AP HMG, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife (1.5 SWC/40C)

Tankhunter - Autocannon, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife (1.5 SWC/40C)

Veteran Kazak Lieutenant - AP HMG, Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW (1 SWC/61C)

Veteran Kazak - T2 Rifle, Light Flamethrower / Pistol, CCW (0 SWC/49C)

Scout - Ojotnik, Antipersonnel Mines / Pistol, Knife (0 SWC/26C)

300 points, 6 SWC

As a total newcomer to the game I have no idea if this would at all be an effective army or not to use. I'm not worried about that too much as my only interest at this point is to have some painted minis that I like so that I can begin the learning process. While working on my Kazaks I will sort out what I want to do for the other 300 point army from a second faction. I really like the aliens of the Shasvastii Expeditionary Force but haven't been able to come up with any lists that also have a lot of appeal for me. Also I get the feeling they might be sort of a funky choice as a learner's army, thus I'm still looking around at the other options. Pan Oceania or Yu Jing, maybe? I am keen on painting some aliens though so perhaps I could stick with the Combined Army and focus on the Morat instead of the Shasvastii.

No matter whom I end up choosing to work on next to be enemies of my Kazaks, it is certainly a fun dilemma to have. Although Ariadna is my favorite aesthetically and fluff-wise so far, all of the factions look great to me. I'll likely just continue experimenting with army lists until I find one that really interests me and that seems like an enjoyable matchup for my first army. I am of course open to suggestion as well.

Happy painting and gaming!

Frontline Infinity

I'm taking a little break from the hobby whatnots tonight as another round of family visitors arrived earlier today. Thursdays are nominally my Infinity day for blogging, although during my first month back to diceRolla I hardly did anything at all related to the game and so it was skipped a few times in my weekly rotation. This is personally disappointing for me as Infinity is one of the games which I am right now most excited about. I am eager to become more familiar with it and I look forward to playing the game as well as painting a bunch of miniatures from Corvus Belli's beautiful range of models, it's just taken me longer to get started than I had hoped.

Therefore I've been sort of frustrated by these largely self-made delays in getting underway with Infinity. Fortunately to help me get the regular Infinity-fix that I have been craving, not long ago I started reading an awesome wargaming blog called Frontline Gamer that is written by an unabashed fan of the game. There is a lot of excellent content on the blog concerned with other games besides Infinity so I recommend you check it out even if that one particular game does not interest you. The Infinity articles however are the main reason that I've been digging through Frontline Gamer's blog archives as they are not only very clear, informative, and well written, but also the passion the author has for this game is infectious. Therefore tonight I would like to highlight a few of my favorite Infinity articles that I've found over at Frontline Gamer. Here is a selection of them:

Infinity: The best game there's ever been? Part 1 -- The start of a thorough discussion on why Infinity kicks so much ass.

Infinity: The best game there's ever been? Part 2 -- A continuation of Frontline Gamer's thesis on why we should all be playing Infinity.

Infinity: The best game there's ever been? Part 3 -- Umm... part 3, right? Yes, just in case you need more convincing this one is about the Infinity community.

Building an Infinity army (plus how not to do it) -- Along with covering a lot of important points to keep in mind while deciding whom to take to war, this article is also an awesome introduction to the game and goes over many of the key features to playing Infinity.

Infinity factions Haiku's : A really fun article offering a summation of each of the factions for Infinity, presented in the form of a haiku. Perfect!

There are of course quite a few other Infinity articles posted at Frontline Gamer, those that I have highlighted here were as I said simply my favorites. Thus if you're interested in the game I encourage you to visit Frontline Gamer's blog as it looks to be a great resource, and not just for Infinity but a slew of other games as well. Frontline Gamer is also currently participating in the HoP Idol competition at the House of Paincakes blog network so check there too for more hobby goodness. Voting for week 2 has just begun should you want to help decide who will carry on to next week's round. (Hint, hint.)

Alright, that's it for now. If you haven't previously done so, take a moment when you can and go visit Frontline Gamer, I think you will enjoy it. Goodnight!

QuickPic - Hundred Years Project

I just snapped this photo a few minutes ago of some 15mm Hundred Years War miniatures by Corvus Belli. These guys are for my HYW: English army for the fast-play historical wargame, de Bellis Antiquitatis. I have an element of four billmen almost fully painted and ready for basing, after which I'll have finished all of the support and optional pieces for the army. Not too shabby considering it's only taken me, um... 3+ years to get this far. :)

Next up will be six elements of deadly accurate longbowman who form the core of the army. I then plan on painting the three elements of mounted knights and their dismounted counterparts. Finally I'll wrap things up with a camp and possibly a separate element of camp followers, though I might model them as part of the camp itself. Since I'm saving that for last, however, I have plenty of time to think it over.

Happy painting and gaming... goodnight!

Review - MAS Radar Station and Pump Station

Months and months ago, I posted this about my interest in playing some new games this year. I solicited suggestions but then in typical fashion never got around to following it up. Well one of the games I picked out is Infinity by Corvus Belli, which I chose partly because it allows for a much greater density of terrain coverage than you typically find in games of 40k. Working on terrain is one of my favorite aspects of this hobby and so I liked the idea of playing a game that encourages you to have a lot of scenery and cover on your tabletop.

Therefore for diceRolla's first Infinity-centric post I thought it would be appropriate to review a couple of hardfoam terrain pieces from Micro Art Studios, namely the Radar Station and the Pump Station. I bought these especially for use with Infinity in mind, but as they are meant to be generic 28-30mm sci-fi scenery pieces, I think they would fit comfortably into most futuristic settings. You'll see in most of the pictures that I used Sergeant Homer as my standard reference for scale, which handily also serves to provide a little glimpse of these terrain bits in a 40k context as well. Most of the official photos on the MAS site show them beside Infinity models, therefore it seemed like it would be more helpful to use a Space Marine for my own pictures.

So with that out of the way let's get to the terrain, starting with the Radar Station. It's comprised of three different materials as seen below: the main hardfoam structure, a resin piece for the doorway, and a sheet of pre-cut HDF pieces from which the radar itself and the building's walkway are assembled. The second picture is of the bottom of the terrain piece to show what this hardfoam stuff is like for those who have not encountered it before. It's pretty strong but can be brittle and it becomes gritty when broken or crunched.

The resin entryway piece had minor flash and will need some tidying but was for the most part in good shape. The hardfoam had several rather more noticeable problem areas, in particular warpage on the top and on two side sections.

I don't think any of these flaws are that bad besides causing a little annoyance. Instead what bothers me is that MAS charges what I consider to be a rather premium price for their products. Thus I did not expect there to be quite so many areas of damage right out of the packaging. To be fair I also was not expecting the foam to be perfect either, just not this bad. What surprised me the most however was when I realized the HDF sheet may have been cut backwards from the way it was intended to be cut. You can see with the walkway piece that on one side there is a little bit of etched-in detailing, while the other side remains unadorned.

The problem I encountered is that on mine the walkway only fits onto the building if you have the detailed side pointing to the ground instead of pointing up. D'oh! I'll likely use some thin cardboard and strips of plasticard to breakup the flat surface of the HDF, thus adding back some visual interest to it. That way it's an easy enough fix. What surprised me about this is the apparent carelessness in its manufacturing which I did not expect from MAS. I still think it's a great piece of terrain, though perhaps somewhat overpriced for the quality you get.

The HDF radar was easy to assemble and there were no problems due to the radar panels' detailing having likely been etched into the wrong side of the sheet. I did a dry run without gluing any of the pieces to test out their fit and to make sure I understood how everything was supposed to go together. It was a very straight forward process but you do want to be gentle when punching the individual pieces off of the sheet so as to avoid any of them breaking or tearing.

Here then are some final pictures of how the Radar Station looks when assembled.

Moving on to the other scenery element for tonight's review, the Pump Station consists of just two pieces, a big chuck of hardfoam and a resin doorway. As with the Radar Station, the hardfoam was damaged in a number of places. In this case it's primarily the coils of those duct-looking things to either side that have suffered the most.

The above unpleasantness is on one side....

And this is on the other side. :(

There are also a few noticable areas of warpage scattered on the surface of the piece. Otherwise I think it is a really nice bit of scenery and will look quite spiffy on the table once fixed up a little and painted. I appreciate its overall simplicity.

Once again I believe the damaged areas should be easy to repair with greenstuff, or I may just leave them that way and paint them as battle damage. However considering the price MAS charges for their terrain, I was not expecting them to be in such rough condition. I still have some of GW's old hardened-foam terrain pieces that even after years of use are in better shape than these new ones from MAS.

Overall I am satisfied with the MAS Radar Station and Pump Station, though I feel the damaged and problematic areas were excessive. I'm excited to see them painted and I suspect I will be happy to have added these pieces to my collection of terrain once they're finished. As a consumer I'm left with a less-than-thrilled feeling, but I'll get over it as they're still some pretty cool pieces of terrain. :)

That's it for now, happy painting and gaming!

Woo-Hoo!! Painted Archers!

Tired And Burned

The baby was very cooperative and took a nice long nap in the middle of the day, but instead of painting I went swimming again. Now I've got a nice pink burn and I've got that dazed, tired feeling you get from being in the sun. However I did squeeze in some painting this morning and a few extra minutes this evening. Not quite there but oh well. I still need to finish the belts and add one more highlight to the metal areas. After that I'll tidy things up and then be done. I might use a wash on the metals but I don't recall if I had been doing that on the earlier pieces, but I'll deal with that tomorrow.

In the photo below you can see an example of a finished (i.e., fully painted and based) element for the 15mm Hundred Years War - English army, the single unit of spearmen included in the army's list. I'm not sure exactly when I painted it but I believe it was around last October. A few days ago I decided I had to fix that stripe running down the guy on the right's helmet, but otherwise I haven't done anything else to them since I took this picture. I'm a lot happier with the corrected paint job as the stripe was supposed to just help delineate the separation of colors, but instead it seemed to me to assert itself and became a focal point. I'll take new photos of all the finished elements and I think the improvement should be pretty obvious.

Gascon Brigans

I'm really pleased with how well the bases have turned out so far. In particular I'm happy that it looks like their standing on the ground instead of each of them perched on their own little boulder. I've tried a lot of different ways to disguise the metal base that 15mm figures come on and this is the first one that has actually worked. Personally I think these guys look pretty sweet, but of course I am biased.

That's it, I'm tired and my body hurts. I'm going to sleep.

Cheap Paint Stands

Last summer while shopping for craft-type items for our wedding, my wife and I spent a fair amount of time searching through the mass of stuff at A. C. Moore, a large art-supply chain. I couldn't help but also check the aisles for anything that might be useful for painting miniatures or wargaming. As luck would have it I came across a bunch of these little paint pots sold in packets of a dozen. Inspiration struck me as I looked at them... they would make perfect stands for use in painting miniatures! I purchased two packs for I think less than a dollar each and set about looking for some sort of temporary adhesive to use with them. I've tried regular double-sided tape but was not impressed as it seemed to lack the strength needed for metal miniatures, even those as little as the 15mm scale ones. Fortunately I found some Scotch brand double-sided poster mounting tape that looked more rugged and thought it would at least be worth giving it a try. As it turned out the paint pots and mounting tape have worked out perfectly. That tape has a foam-like center so you can really jam a miniature's base tab down into it. The adhesive sticks very well to both metal and plastic but you can easily pop the figures off once they're complete.

It was the success of this method that really gave me the spark that I needed to begin painting again in earnest. In the past I painted 15mm miniatures (almost exclusively for DBA armies) after I had already glued them onto their base, typically in groups of two to four miniatures. This was mainly due to my desire to start playing even before I had things painted, although it also provided a nice handle for painting. However a few years ago I finally decided to try painting them separately and worry later about coming up with a workable way to texture and paint the bases. This was stymied though when I couldn't find a good way of holding onto the little buggers well enough to be able to paint them. But now that I'm using the paint pots and have a suitable basing method, I doubt that I will ever go back to my old ways. The quality of my painting has improved and even their bases look better too.

Even though they've appeared in my earlier Work-In-Progress photos, I have included two more shots of my painting stands in action as further illustration. I want to take new photos of my finished HYW English elements and so thought these shots below could in the meantime serve as a preview of the painting I did in the Summer and Fall of 2008.

Irish Kern and Gascon Crossbowmen

English Bombard and Crew

Archers WIP

Above is another WIP shot of the archer group, this one taken at the end of yesterday's painting. I had started off wanting each of the figures to have both individually colored shirts and hoods, but halfway through I decided it was too much. It seemed to me that if I had continued with that scheme that there would be simply too many colors in too small of an area, especially once I had based them together only a few millimeters apart. I therefore repainted the hoods on the figures with the red shirt and the green shirt to match that of the guy in blue. I'm happy with the change as they are still individualistic but also now look like they are meant to be together.

Right then, time to finish these chaps up!

1st Work-In-Progress Photo

This is my first ever Work-In-Progress photo!! These are the bowmen that I've been painting over the last few days. They're taking a bit longer than I had expected but I'm happy with how they look so far... not crazy about the red-shirted fellow's face but viewed in person doesn't look so bad. I will most likely finish them tomorrow, although I am not planning on basing them until I am ready to base the billmen as well.

I have some photos of the other elements which I painted for the HYW:English army last fall and will get them posted soon.

That's it for now, time to go to sleep.

What I'm Painting

Yesterday I resumed painting some medieval archers with longbows which I had initially begun painting approximately six months ago. Last summer I started work on an English army of the Hundred Years War for the game De Bellis Antiquitatis using the beautiful 15mm-scale HYW range by Corvus Belli. I completed my first element for the army, a base of two wild Irish kerns that would serve as my Psiloi, just before my wedding on August 20, 2008. In the fall I managed to paint another three elements (spearmen, crossbowmen, and a bombard) as well as priming the aforementioned archers and giving their skin its first coat of color. But that was all until I finally got back to it yesterday afternoon. I did some more painting today and will hopefully be getting photos up soon.

After this batch of archers is complete, this is what I will still have left to paint for my Hundred Years War English army:

3 mounted command
4 dismounted command
6 mounted men-at-arms
8 dismounted men-at-arms
18 archers with longbows
4 billmen
Camp and camp followers

I think I should be able to finish tomorrow the 4 archers that I’m currently painting and so may start prepping the billmen tonight, but even if not they should be ready to go by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest.