AvP: the final batch

You know how these things happen. You think you've finished a project, you move on, times goes on... and then one day suddenly your pal tells you he forgot to provide me just these other tiny boxes:

Aaaaand there we go again

It looks like much, and I felt a little bit dismayed at the beginning, but once I took them out of the boxes, it looked more manageable:

Not "few minis". Just "manageable"

At first it was a little bit difficult for me to get used to these sculpts again. I mean, I think I said it before, but they are nothing like GW. They are so crisp and full of details that all of them are quite a challenge. But let's get started. My first choice were the Aliens, as the monochrome scheme is the fastest to get done.

I took my usual approach. Black priming, first (and very subtle) layer of highlights with black/dark blue and then highlights with metallics:

Two Praetorians. Unsure of the Roman influence in the Xenomorphic culture

A Royal Guard. Again, I have some doubts about the differences with Praetorians

Evolved Warriors. Designers got lazy with the names this time

Here you have the whole family:

The red stuff is just for you to know that your screen didn't turn B/W

 

Then I painted the humans. This time they're not USCM, but Weyland-Yutani Commandos, the PMC branch of the company. At first I was terrified because, if you remember, this was their lookings in the Alien3 fanfic film:

I'd call it a... problematic design. Yet not the worst thing in the movie

Fortunately Prodos had purchased the rights over the Aliens videogames. I won't speak of Prodos and rights, just leave it there. The thing is that they luckily got to produce this:

Spot the differences (if any) with the previous pic

This is what I got:

There are two USCM sentry guns

I have to say that these minis are cool as hell. I love the design, and both the poses and sculpts are definitely top notch. The only thing I don't like is the goggles, but apart from that, I'd totally make a WH40K Imperial Guard regiment out of these.

 

Now for the Predators. First thing is the special character, Machiko Noguchi. She is presented in two variants, one on the regular spaceship display, and another one on the hunt, deep in the jungle:

I totally hate painting the grid dressing or however it is called

The Hellhounds are a weird desing IMO. They look scary, undeniable, but I'm afraid they're not my cup of tea. Anyway, I tried my best.

Whatever the case, I wouldn't like to face these anywhere

Finally, the Predator Elders:

Now these are cool

Sadly never as cool as these

Here you have the mandatory family pic:

Strange family, but who am I to judge

This is all for today! I'd like to say that the AvP project is definitely closed, but who knows!!

I'm now working on some different stuff, I'll try to post it anytime soon!

Definitely not modern Adeptus Titanicus

 I had to conduct some serious archaeology works to find the last time I posted anything about Epic and something specific about Titans. That was 2015. Wow.

Long story short, I had some Titans and, though I planned to add more stuff, it never got it done. I bought a couple of things, gave a Titan away... you know, life.

But given that the other day one of the Titans had a struggle with gravity (which he definitely, yet not unsurprisingly, lost), I decided to call it a happy accident and declared the moment to get my hands dirty again with Titans.

I'm not going to make you look upon 2015 in the blog. Here's what I had:

Three totally unrelated monsters

I decided to keep the blue and bone white pattern, but I think there was a decision I took back in the day which now I strongly regretted, i.e., the black edges. The models, specially the Imperator Titan, need much more contrast and colour. They are calling for some ridiculous, over the top gold. So I refurbished them, added some more white, red chequers and gold. Tons of gold.

Let me introduce you the Miserere Nobis, Imperator Titan and head of the Legio Excubiae.

The same, yet not the same

I need a backdrop!

 

I think that the little touches here and there make much more a change that I had expected. I was worried about overdoing it, but I think it works this way. You may have to zoom in, but you may notice that I haven't painted all the black edges, as they have inscriptions in High Gothic. I made them back in the day, when my eyes allowed me those things.

Next, the Paeniteat, Lucius Pattern Warlord Titan. I've left it basically the same, but for a couple of tiny details and new decals:

 

I think I could add some battle banners

The one who closes my original trio is the Fulgur Hastam, Reaver Titan. The only change was highlighting the blues and, well, of course, you'll notice a lot of gold:

I'm noticing the issue with the decal as I post the pic. Ouch

Anyway, this was just an update of my old models. I could say that I more or less finished them, more than really repaint them. But here they are. But now that I was riding the wave, I painted some more stuff I had purchased years ( a lot of years!) ago.

The Credens Bello, Mars Pattern Warlord Titan:

 

A true relic of the past

This thing hardly has a golden angle

I had to complete the weapons on the carapace with a Space Crusade Dreadnought plasma cannon, as I didn't have more Epic stuff, I hope it works! The banners were kind of mandatory and, even if they aren't specially elaborated, they add gravitas to this behemoth.

Finally, the twins, the Impatiens and the Lupus Belli, both Lucius Pattern Warhound Titans:

I like these two more than I should

Here you can see the Sapphirus Maniple of the Legio Excubiae:

Gloriously incoherent war machines

The mix of Mars and Lucius patterns (I don't even know what pattern the Imperator is) is a little bit strange, but it really doesn't bother me. I can totally picture the Legio being rebuilt and reorganised with Titans from different patterns through the millennia, and the silly mix makes me smile for some reason.

Well, I don't have serious plans of painting more Epic stuff in the short term (though I should, I have tons of tiny warriors in their boxes!), but who knows. Oh, BTW, I also have like hundreds of new Titans from the modern Adeptus Titanicus game, I do have to take serious action about that...

My first try at Infinity

 After quite some time and endless delays, I finally got to play Infinity! Wohoo!

We used the minis I painted for my friend, who generously offered to learn the rules -something I was terrified about!

I guess there's no point in making a full review of the game and the rules by now, but I'm happy to share a few brief impressions from a newcomer :)

First of all, we played the Code:One stuff, form the Operation Kaldstrom box. I had been told that the rules here were slightly lighter than previous versions of the game, so I came a little bit encouraged. We played the introductory game, just to get acquainted with the basic rules.

We used my old frosty mat instead of the one provided with the Kaldstrom box

The first introductory game uses three minis per side, and is just an easy going pew-pew thing to get familiar with how things work in here. So perfect for me!

There are some other three people out there somewhere...

The objective here is just to get the enemy killed and keep the own troops alive by the end of the third round. So my first endeavour was to get familiar with activations, how orders work, and specially reactions. This system is new to me, and I have to say I find it quite appealing, as it makes each round really cinematic, with tons of things happening at the same time, and forcing you to cautiously plan each movement you want to play, as an unadverted enemy can really turn the tables if they catch you on the open!

On my first round, my fusiliers simply moved forward, taking care of lines of sight

When I moved, an enemy Zanshi saw one of my troopers, and shot at her:

The enemy is that blurry thing on the corner of the building!

I chose to dodge the enemy fire and, being sucessful, managed to get cover next to the building.

The Zanshi moved to open ground...

...and got one of my fusiliers killed with a skillful shot!!

Well, that was an incredibly against the probabilities shot! Of course that put me in a tight situation, having lost a third of my force without having really made any shot against the enemy! However, a thing about this game is that you can never surrender and must really give a try to your options. 

The fusilier moved upstairs and killed the Zanshi as he tried to reach cover again

Once on the top of the floor he received enemy fire, but cover served him well

He shot back and killed the enemy Zanshi (behind that short wall in the background!!)

Getting the high ground doesn't really have an impact on the game, but in psychological terms I felt things were making much sense :P

It was the third (and last) round and the blurry Zanshi in the background shot the fusilier

With this sucessful kill, both sides had two casualties and one survivor

End of the game! Draw!

I could say it was a little bit dense for a simple tutorial game with just three minis per side, but it was just me getting used to reactions and modifiers. To be honest, once you are into the game, things so smoother.

 

Let's see a second game, this time with a command unit on each side. This time we'll see how Lieutenants work game wise.

Lateral view will provide a better and more neutral comprehension of what's happening

OK, let's go. We have three infantry troopers per side plus a Lieutenant each one. The Lieutenants have their own special orders, so they can essentially do more (and better) stuff than regular troopers.

Yu Jing troops move forward, no encounter during the first round

But oh, the Orc moves upstairs and things change in a second

We considered that there was line of fire, but the Orc Lieutenant is under cover, while the Zanshi and the Jujak Lieutenant below aren't. I'm not sure if we acted according to the rules, but we didn't find that specific situation (I take for granted it is in the rulebook, we simply weren't able to find it and decided to move on). For us it made sense that the one holding the upper floor had better view and cover, getting the poor guys on the ground pinned down.

The use of additional ordinary orders on the Orc Lieutenant ended in him killing the Jujak Lieutenant:

The poor guy hadn't even had the chance to do anything!

The Lieutenant shot the Zanshi on the ground, who reacted and shot back, inflicting one wound

The other Zanshi climbed up...

...and killed the enemy Lieutenant, who flipped over the wall to the ground (in the better 80's tv show style)

So this is the general situation now

A fusilier advances

And the Zanshi climbs up the wall to the upper floor. Surprise, húndàn!

Quite a symmetrical situation!

The Zanshi kills the Fusilier

And moves next to the wall

Where she gets killed by the Fusilier on the ground

This bold firefight ends without casualties

And again! A new draw!!

Both sides had a Lieutenant and a trooper down, and two surviving troopers at the end of the third round. As short as it was, it had been another intense battle!

At this point we discussed some stuff; for example, it looked like there was little incentive to expose self troops, or the benefits of dodging vs reacting opening fire. I guess these things don't unfold so well in such a limited scenario with just three of four models per side. Besides, these scenarios being just focused on killing each other are not as interesting as any other in which you have to get objectives and that kind of stuff.

So my very brief conclusions from a newbie to anyone who hasn't played Infinity yet: The game is cool. Even more; the game is awesome. It's really cinematic, you get to feel that there's a lot of stuff happening at the same time, which makes the rythm of the action quite quick. You are into an action movie. I wouldn't necessarily say a Michael Bay movie, but at least one in which you get the impression of things going on. I don't see this like a typical WH40K game of long-ranged weapons crossfire and little or no movement. Infinity is quite the opposite, enormously tactical, a game in which you have to seriously consider your movements and the line of sight, and where you don't get to roll hundreds of dice each turn.

The curve of learning can be harsh for a newcomer, but by no means it's a difficult game neither you should feel disencouraged for that perspective. The basics are easy to grasp, the more challenging maybe the mere concept that your opponent can actually do stuff (relevant stuff!) during your turn. I still haven't faced complex special rules nor exceptions, but I don't believe they can be a no-go at all.

Whenever I get a true game of this you'll be the first to know!