Guest Post: Quick Naffatun step-by-step

What do you do when you've spent more than 24 hours and whole forests worth of carbon to travel to literally the other side of the planet to visit old friends?

Fresh air? What's that?

That's right, you sit inside and you paint tiny space men* with them.

Fair warning, this is just another step-by-step painting work in progress, so if you're not terribly interested in that please click anyway as I am terribly lonely and I get beaten if these posts don't get hits.

I recently made one of my semi-regular trips back to my sheep-infested homeland, while also acting as The Megapope's mule for plastic crack. Games Workshop gouge the crap out of their antipodean customers, so I was happy to bring him a box of Devastators that wasn't being charged at 800% markup.

Look how happy he is!

Being a gigantic nerd, I had planned ahead and bought with me an Infinity figure (another Naffatun, like the ones in one of my earlier posts). So while lascannons and heavy bolters flew from their sprues like plastic rain, I got busy painting.

I don't think that ponytail is particularly safe.

Didn't have any primer on hand, so I picked up a can of Tamya white primer. It's actually really nice, had a good tooth, and didn't wear at all. As usual I started with citadel Desert Yellow for the uniform, then Dark Flesh for armor and detailing. It'll be mostly covered by subsequent orange coats, but enough will remain in recesses to add depth.

Really, it's going to get caught on something.

My Ultramarine-obsessed host was lacking in Badab Black and Gryphonne Sepia washes**, so I had to make do with extremely watered down Snakebite Leather (for the yellow) and Chaos Black (for the grey). The brown worked better than the black, but both did their job. The highlighting on the yellow, however, is not at all up to my usual standards, and I blame the unfamiliar (and hook-ended) brush. I'll have to fix it later.

Or catch on fire.

The orange, on the other hand, turned out great. I decided not to overthink or over-blend things, and the bolder highlights coupled with the added depth from the dark flesh make it pop against the pale cloth areas. Sadly, I was missing the greys necessary for the gun and boots, as well as blue for the visor/details, so this is as far as I could get. I thought it was worth posting though, as I'm pleased with how much I could get done in just a couple of hours - it's always much more fun to paint with someone else.

Also SOMEONE has to post in this blog.




* Actually, in this case a tiny space woman. Unlike most tiny space women, she is wearing sensible clothing and no combat heels. Sadly she has not avoided Gigantic Boob Armor Syndrome, but I guess we can't have everything.

** I think they're too dirty for Ultramarines.

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Guest Post: Ragiks against the machine

I swear, Infinity miniatures exist purely to make me feel like a terrible painter. I consider myself a mid-range painter, not golden demon worthy but able to implement standard techniques to get a passable result. But something about the Infinity line makes me feel like I'm a 12-year-old learning to drybrush again. I think it's the dynamic posing and realistic* scale, they really make you step up your game.

Anyway, Ragiks! The drop-troops of the Hassassin Society, specialists in turning up unannounced to mess your stuff right up. I've used these guys successfully by luring the other player's forces into the mid-field with some Ghulam plebs, then having the Ragiks turn up in the opponent's own setup zone to gun down their lieutenant and other high-cost units from behind.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was a little unsatisfied with how the orange was turning out on my Naffatun, and after a bit of thought I decided that the problem was that the armor didn't have enough depth.

The solution was pretty simple, put down a base coat of Dark Flesh underneath the Solar Marcharius Orange. It makes the gaps between armor plates seem deeper, and gives an overall slightly richer shade.

The guns are a continuation of my experiments with non-metallic-metal. They're still a bit messy, and turned out much better on the rifle (above) than on the heavy machinegun, but I think I'm starting to get a handle on the technique. I'm especially pleased with how the rifle's clip turned out.

The sword is another experiment, painted in Necron Abyss with edging in Enchanted Blue, Ice Blue and Skull White. It's okay, but I think it's missing something.

These guys aren't actually finished, they need a final pass to clean up a few mistakes and add a little edge highlighting on the shoulder vents. Overall though, I'm much happier with how they turned out, and hopefully I can apply these lessons to the next couple of miniatures I'm painting - those unfortunate Ghulams that the Ragiks use for bait.


* Compare them to Games Workshop humans, who's fists are often bigger than their heads.

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Plans! Also Happy 2012!

All packed apart from several sharp bits I trod on

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great holiday season and didn't empty your wallets buying overpriced plastic space characters for slapping pigment onto and moving around a table while making 'pew pew!' noises.

Unless that's your thing of course.

I myself got a few more additions to the collection but am currently gearing up to move house, which has already involved packing up the study and everything in it. This effectively means that I won't be doing much (if any) painting until the start of February, so in the meantime I'll make a few posts here and there about things that catch my eye and hopefully also pressgang Gravitas and some others into a guest post or five.

Also. Also! My project for this year that I would like to set myself is a modest diorama. Nothing huge or too fancy because frankly I'm going to be having a lot on my plate this year with work and postgrad studies, but I think something fun with the boys in blue and some orks is definitely doable. I already have some ideas about a small urban scene, possibly an ambush of some kind in an alley.

Sooo yeah. I shall be reading your posts, making the appropriate ooh and aaah noises at your pretty pictures, and soon enough will be adding my own once again. Happy painting.

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Back Later, But First...

Baggies: also for modelling stuff.

Well I've been a bit slack what with some foot related setbacks and being distracted by other projects and not being bothered to blog-ness.

BUT SEE AN UPDATE.

As you can see to the left, quite a while ago I received some cool bits and pieces from the good folk at Armourcast. They specialise in neat little extra bits for your super space soldier* models, such as cinematic gun flashes, transfers and even missile launched hamsters.

"AND YOU WILL KNOW MY NAME IS THE LORD..."

Just look at that detail. Beautiful stuff, like a page from an old bible or something which is exactly the look one wants in an army of gothic religious nutters in powered armour. 

It's a recipe for space muffins.

Three different kinds of space muffins.

The transfer set also came with a whole lot of thin strips of text which are perfect for using on purity seals. I really, really suck at painting thin lines of text for those and had resigned myself to a bunch of okay looking blank seals. But no longer! 

The transfers themselves are great detail-wise. My main note is that they're a bit thicker than the GW ones and so require some extra care with the micro-sol. I found that after a few extra goes with the stuff they stuck down pretty well, but it does take more of the solvent than usual to get them sitting nice and flat. 

"Red ball, corner pocket..."

 Also I got three sets of missile launcher add-ons, which include the launching rocket (test fitted above) and a plume of smoke that comes out the back of the launcher. Like the muzzle flashes (below), they'll require some pinning to secure in place.

KKK prototype hats weren't quite there. 

Pretty.

Above you can see what the muzzle flashes and rocket launch effects look like painted. Courtesy of some dude on the internet. Thanks, some dude!

"AND THE BEAST SHALL HAVE TWO HEADS..."

Also: my christmas pressie from the friendgirl, which was unwrapped today since it's too heavy to take on the plane with us tomorrow. Awesome new desk lamp! I call it... THE HYDRA. Sure it only has two heads, but still. HYDRA. 

"WAAAAUGHoooh I fancy a cuppa"

Coming in the new year... ORKS! Well I had to have SOMETHING to pose against my Ultramarines with, plus I seriously needed a break from painting all that blue. So what better contrast than a bunch of lovely murderous greenskins. Plus I think they're kinda cute like boxer dogs. I especially love the deffkopter pilots in their little hats and goggles. Adorable! 

Don't worry, I'll still be doing Ultramarines too.

So that's a wrap this year from me. It's been a great few months and I'll be sure to take some photos of my stuff over the holiday period to inundate you all with next year. Have a great holiday if you get one and be sure to complain loudly if you don't. See you all again in X weeks. :-) 

* Fits perfectly onto your space mar...moset! 

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The Gibson Slums Ambush- an Infinity battle report

Lt. Sevens hunkered down on the old watchtower's rusted roof and watched the car descend from the steel-grey sky to touch down on the landing pad on the low concrete plinth below, trusting in her armor's optic baffles to hide her from unfriendly eyes. Her Corredigor Intrusion Cell had arrived hours before the scheduled drop, and waited for their contact another hour past the agreed time. Now his car had arrived, but something definitely stunk. With a click of her tongue she increased the zoom on her visor, focusing on the tinted windshield.. and the empty seats beneath.

"Remote operated" she muttered, already signalling the alert to her team when the first flicker of movement entered her peripheral vision. The arms deal might have gone south, but with any luck one of the Pan-O zombies trying to ambush her team would survive long enough to point out a juicy local target or two...


I don't think it's incorrect to assume that most of the readers of this blog mostly play Games Workshop games, with perhaps a few grizzled Flames of War veterans muttering about T-34s somewhere in the background. So it is only right and natural that I bring you a battle report for Infinity, the totally sweet cyberpunk skirmish wargame from Corvus Belli.

This was a 150-point battle between the forces of the Nomads (What if 4chan, Reddit and Something Awful had SPACESHIPS) played by Andy, and Pan-Oceania (a mishmash of themes that include Catholicism, corporate power and Pacific Islanders and no I don't know either) played by Dave. This won't be exactly a tutorial, but I'll try to cover a few basic rules as they come up. What you really need to know is that Infinity is a D20, roll-under-stat system with a million special rules that include things like 4 diferent kinds of camoflauge.

Finally, I must apologise. The Infinity miniature range is one of the most good looking out there, so it is practically a war crime to do what we did and use the freely available rules to play with a motley crew of proxies and standees. I'm so, so sorry.

Setup and Deployment

The players roll against the Willpower (WIP) stat of their Lieutenant (army leader) to see who determines deployment and who has the first turn. Like most rolls in Infinity, this is done by rolling a D20 and attempting to get under the appropriate stat, with the level of success being determined by how close the roll is to the target number. A roll of the exact target number indicates a critical succes. Both Dave and Andy succeed in rolling under their targets, but Dave's roll is closer to his Lieutenant's WIP of 13 so he wins. Dave chooses deployment, and makes Andy's Nomad forces set up first. However, this means that the Nomads have the first turn.

Necromunda? Never heard of it.

The Nomads deploy three Alguaciles near the shanty shack in the center of their deployment zone, with the Stempler Zond remote in support behind the far right silo. Their intrepid Intruder lieutenant sits camoflauged on top of the watch tower in the center of the board, with the similarly concealed Zero atop a nearby tanker truck. The two Tomcat parachutists begin the game off the board, ready to be dropped in later.

Yes, those are cardboard cutouts.

Pan-Oceania (from now on shorted to Pan-O) set up one Auxilia and Aux-bot team behind the silo on their far left, with the other in support of the Knight Hospitaller behind a long shipping container. At the other end of the container, a Bagh-Mari provides cover fire for the three Fusiliers taking cover behind a thin metal fence. Only one of the three is a normal line trooper, one is a hacker, the other Pan-O's Lieutenant.

Each side is careful to set up in cover.

Turn One

Movin' on up

Nomads: Most models on the board generate an order, which goes into the order pool and then can be spent to make any member of the army perform skills like moving, shooting etc. Both moving and shooting are "short" skills, so by using one order a model could move and shoot, or move twice (though not shoot twice).

The Nomads have 5 orders in their pool, which they spend moving the Intruder up slightly, and the Alguaciles into the midfield using a coordinated order, which is too complicated to get into right now. For the moment, all you need to know is that models performing a coordinated order must perform the same actions, we'll get into this in more detail later.


Pan-O: Also move into the midfield, making sure to stay out of the enemy's line of sight. If a model acts within the line of sight of an opposing model, the enemy gets an Automatic Reaction Order (ARO) which they can use to shoot at/return fire at the acting model, or dodge out of the way of incoming fire.

End of turn one, both forces contesting the middle of the board.

Turn Two

Nomads: The Stempler Zond moves up to take cover behind a building, while a Tomcat drops in on the board edge. Finger on the trigger of his light flamethrower, the parachutist sprints down the narrow alley behind the small storage building towareds the Auxilia and Aux-Bot. Though he is out of their line of sight, he is close enough to enter their Zone of Control, allowing the Auxilla an ARO which she can only spend to turn towards the sound of running feet.

Someone's getting fired for this

Another order is spent to move the Tomcat out of cover and open fire, but this generates another ARO for the Auxilia which she uses to return fire (by rolling under her Ballistic Skill stat).

The flamethrower hits automatically (since it's a template weapon), exploding the Aux-bot and wounding the Auxilia, but before she hits the ground she manages to squeeze off a shot and take down the Tomcat.

Peek-a-boo!

Meanwhile, the Intruder drops from camo and opens fire on the second Auxilia. Her Combi-Rifle has a Burst rating of 3, meaning she takes three shots for each order spent on shooting. Her target gets an ARO, but because the Intruder was camoflauged, her shots happen first - and since two of the three shots hit (and one was a critical), this is bad news for the Pan-O trooper. The surprised Auxilia makes a successful Armor (ARM) roll to shrug off one shot (gaining a +3 bonus from the sturdy concrete barrier in front of her) but the critical hit means an auto-wound, and she goes unconcious before she can fire back.

Unfortunately for the Intruder, Pan-O's Bagh-Mari was also in line of sight when the Auxilia was gunned down, which means they also get an ARO. With uncanny accuracy they open fire on the Nomad Lieutenant, who drops unconcious on the corrugated metal roof.

This is not a good thing at all.

"The red thing's connected to
my wrist watch...Uh oh."

The Tomcat doctor drops in at the back of the Nomad deployment zone, then spends the rest of the army's order pool (yes, a model can use more than one order from the pool in a turn) in a heroic sprint across the battlefield, his climbing plus skill allowing him to effortlessly scale the tower and race to his downed commander. Pulling out his medkit, he completely fails his medical roll and kills the Lieutenant while attempting to revive her. Bugger.

The carnage that was the Nomads' turn 2

Pan-O: Inspired by the incompetence of the Nomad doctor, the Knight Hospitalier moves back and fails to revive the nearest Auxilia, their bungled surgery extinguishing what little life remained. Unperturbed, he moves over to the second, this time sucessfully treating her horrible burns. Sadly for the pan-o forces, Aux-bots can't re-link with a different user, leaving the bot in the center of their territory completely useless.

The Bagh-Mari takes a few steps backwards, draws a bead on the Doctor, and almost casually guns him down, his face-to-face dodge roll not good enough to negate the incoming fire (For a successful dodge, he must roll under his Physical (PH) stat, and be MORE successful than any successful to-hit rolls). She then moves up with the Fusiliers, the hacker heading to the center of the board, the others up the right flank.

Pan-O has a commanding position at the end of their turn.

Turn Three

Nomads: With the Intruder dead, the Nomads are suffering a Loss of Lieutenant situation. They only have two orders in their pool this turn, both of which must be spent on nominating a new Lieutenant. Losing a leader is a big deal in Infinity, which is why you don't have to declare which of your models is the lieutenant. With no orders to spend, the entire Nomad force has to remain where they are, though they will still get ARO if the enemy acts in their line of sight.

Those containers? Full of candy.

Pan-O: Taking advantage of their foe's confusion, the Pan-Oceanic forces advance. One of the Fusiliers takes a speculative shot at the Alguaciles with their light grenade launcher. This kind of indirect fire is almost impossible without a Forward Observer, and as expected the shot goes wide.

Turn 3: Not as exciting as turn 2.

Turn Four

The luckiest man alive

Nomads: Having finished drawing straws to see who gets to be the Lieutenant, the Nomads are back in the game. In another coordinated order, two Alguaciles move up and fire on the Pano-O Lieutenant at the corner of the building opposite. This reduces the burst of their weapons, but only gives their target 1 ARO rather than the 2 it would receive if they were acting independently. The Fusilier rather sensibly uses his ARO to dodge. Both Alguaciles roll to hit, and the Fusilier attempts to dodge.

Luckily for the Fusilier, he rolls a critical success, dodging backwards 2 inches and avoiding the hail of bullets marked with his name.

Give that man a medal.

Pan-O: The Knight Hospitalier cautiously advances on the left flank, and guns down an Alguacile, ignoring the wildly inaccurate returning fire. An army must go into retreat when it loses 60% or more of its starting points value, and the Nomads are 3 points away.

"Maybe standing on a fuel tanker
wasn't the best of ideas..."

On the right flank, the Bagh-Mari attempts to climb the wall of the building she's covering behind. Since she doesn't have advanced climb, she has to make a PH roll - which fails and sends her square on her ass. The ARM roll from a small fall like this is easy enough, and she passes, then goes for another attempt, this time succeeding, reaching the top of the wall behind the hover car parked on the rooftop pad. Moving forward, she attempts to discover the camoflauged Zero with a WIP roll. In response, the Zero uses its ARO to open fire, revealing itself before it can be spotted. This proves to be pointless, as its shot goes wide.

Things are looking grim for the Nomads.

Turn 5

Nomads: The Zero opens fire on the Bagh-Mari, who uses her ARO to return fire. Cementing her position as model of the match, the Bagh-Mair rolls a critical to-hit roll, killing the Zero outright, pushing the Nomads into retreat and leading to Andy conceding the game. Victory for Pan-Oceania!

Poor Andy didn't have the best of luck (Dave rolled THREE criticals in one game), but I think his biggest mistake was made in deployment. Placing his lieutenant in such a elevated, central position ensured she was going to attract a lot of fire, and you need a LOT of luck to shrug off concentrated fire. I hope this gives a reasonable idea of how the game is played - I glossed over or skimmed through some of the concepts, but the numerous wiki links should give you more in-depth information.

Really though, I just wanted an excuse to post more pictures of our scenery.

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