Atalanta, Agema's NCO & Spotbot

In my last post I hinted that this one would have one of my favorite snipers from Infinity.  So here's Atalanta and her handy little Spotbot.  Almost every game list I have made for Aleph, she has been included.  She's just too good to pass up!

She's not the most durable of all snipers in the game, especially since she doesn't have any type of active camouflage, making her an easier target.  Since she's so effective, she often becomes a priority target of my opponents.  Even if she dies early in the game though, it's not a total loss because my opponent wasted orders on killing her instead of mission objectives!

On the defensive side, she may not have a lot of protection, but on offensive she's quite the killer. She is equipped with a Multispectral Visor (Level 2), which makes all types of active camouflage less effective and best of all she can shoot targets under the cover of smoke.

One common tactic of Aleph players is to drop smoke on her and then let her start picking off targets, because she can see through the smoke and most of her targets can't shoot back!

The Spotbot is a handy little guy that improves her ballistic skill by +3.

Next figure is in progress, but it's a multiple figured base so might take a little longer. 

See you then!

Rod

Aleph High Functionary

I almost let February slip by without a post!  But actually, I'll wrap up with two.  Life has been a little busy lately, but I have squeezed in some paint time.  The hard part was just setting aside some time to take the pictures.  Luckily my wife was taking some shots of her bonsai trees, and took these pictures for me (the rest will be posted later this week.)

This is the Aleph High Functionary, an important representative and liaison for the Aleph artificial intelligence.  In game terms, he's an HVT (High Value Target).  In most game scenarios, you have to deploy a HVT for the other player to use as an objective.  So, not really part of your army, just an objective you have to protect from your opponent, while you go after his HVT and any of the other scenario objectives.

Hope you all are having a good week.  Next post later this week and I'll give ya a hint... it's my favorite sniper in the game!

Rod

My Trip to OKC (Oklahoma City)

On January the 19th I made a 3 hour drive up to Oklahoma City with some of my fellow Infinity players from the Dallas/Fort Worth area to play in an Infinity tournament called WarPanda's Wiley Wompus.  I didn't have any aspirations of winning since I'd only gotten to play one practice game with my new Aleph army before going to the tournament.  BUT, I had hoped to at least give a decent showing.  More on that later...

So, there were 16 total players and we each got to play 3 games.  As usual for Infinity, all 3 guys I played were really friendly folks and we had some fun competitive games.  I lost my first battle 6-2, faired a bit better in my second game losing it only by 2-1.  The last got off to an ugly start and I ended up losing 6-3, but I pretty much killed all his troops in revenge.  Sadly, if I'd had more opportunity to practice with my new army I think I could have done better.  By the last game I was really getting a feel for how to use my troops.

With the games tallied up at the end of the tournament, I found myself in LAST PLACE.  Yes... I'm not doing so well on the tournament scene this season.  3 tournaments, 3 last place finishes!!  Not good for my ego, but I think things will turn around with the new Aleph army.  The Oklahoma group has a tradition that the last place player gets to put their name on a wooden spoon and keep a baby seal hat until the next tournament were hopefully someone else will take the honor.  Why a baby seal hat you ask?  Think "clubbed like a baby seal" as a description of how the last place finisher feels.  Here's a picture of me, the clubbed baby seal.

Next up, our local group has a tournament on Feb 17th.  I haven't decided whether I'll participate yet.  I'm still feeling a bit beat-up on the tournament scene.  Will see though... that's a few weeks to recover.

Anyway, here's some pictures of some of the tables from the Oklahoma tournament.  I didn't take any of these pictures, but grabbed them from the Facebook posts after the tournament.

Penthesilea, Amazon With Attitude

Penthesilea, in Greek legend was an Amazon queen and a fierce warrior on the battlefield. A match for most men in combat, she was the daughter of Ares and the Amazonian queen Otrera.  Suffering from guilt, she sought to find an honorable death which lead her to participate in the Trojan War.  During the Trojan War she joined the side of Troy and finally met her death when facing Achilles.

175 years into the future, the AI Aleph is designing host bodies and giving them the personalities of the Greek heroes.  The most notable of these is Achilles.  His aggressive nature and lack of fear has caused him to be killed on the battle at an alarming rate.  Making a new body and transferring his memory to a new host gets to be time consuming and expensive. So, in an effort to give him better support [and surviveability] Aleph initiates Project "Amazon".  Penthesilea is the result.

Equipped with a Motorcycle, Penthesilea can quickly cover ground on the battlefield so she can easily come to the aide of team members like Achilles.  Or if she gets into the enemies backfield she can start taking down soft-targets very quickly.

I have to say I really like this model and looking forward to putting her in some games.  We'll see how she does pretty soon as I'll be headed up to Oklahoma City to participate in a tournament next Saturday.  Yes, I said a tournament.  I really dig this game!!

Cheers!
Rod

2018 to Infinity

HAPPY NEW YEAR FRIENDS!

I wish you all a healthy and happy 2018.  May your miniatures get painted to your satisfaction, your dice roll true, and all your games be full of fun.

This year I'm keeping it pretty simple on my goals for 2018.  I've really enjoyed my almost weekly games of Infinity with the local players so I plan to keep focusing on that.  I'm already signed up to go to a tournament the later part of this month.  I've never really been one to participate in tournaments, but the people who play Infinity are such friendly folks that I find these tournaments to be pretty enjoyable.

So, my goals for 2018 is pretty simple:

1. I accumulated quite a few Infinity figures last year and more during Christmas.  So, I want to have every figure I own plus any I purchase this year to be painted by the end of the year.
2. Work on some new techniques to paint all these Infinity figures to a higher standard than I currently paint.

And, that's it.

Now, while I plan to get all my Infinity figures painted, I do plan to sneak stuff in from some of my older neglected projects.  So, if you're not into Sci-Fi figures, hopefully I'll be throwing in some historical stuff to peak your interest.

Now, back to toys.  Here are the last figures from 2017 I have to show you.  These are remotes from the Aleph faction.

The Dakini Tactbot is a tactical remote that can be used in a variety of missions.  In games terms though, they are just your basic line troops.  Hence I kind of speed-painted him.  I don't plan to use these very much.

The Garuda Tactbot, however is designed for more immediate insertion/deployment.  They can be launched from aircraft and spaceships.  In game terms, on any of my active terms, I can bring him on to the board by airdrop.  Pick a location on the table, roll for a successful drop, or roll for drifting if I fail the roll.  Very handy for trying to slip a figure in behind the enemy or for trying to drop a troop on an objective.

My first figure of 2018 is almost finished thanks to having a 3 day weekend.  Think Amazon on a motorcycle.  :)

Thank you all for continuing to visit my blog and leaving comments.  It really is appreciated.

Rod