I got some cash at Christmas so I finally decided to pick up some Infinity models and the rulebook. I've been drooling over the line for a couple years but had been holding back because my local store had a lot of difficulty getting it in stock and charged extra in order to do so. Miniatures Market started carrying it at very reasonable prices so I finally made the jump. (You can get a playable for for about $80-100 total)

I ordered a bunch of Pan Oceania models as they have a mix of bubble gum crisis and appleseed in their designs. I ended up picking up slightly too many heavies but that's ok as I was buying based on looks over game play. Later this month I'll pick up a few light infantry models to make a playable force, but for now these give me something to paint.

The sculpting on the miniatures is simply amazing. The designs have a very streamlined hi-tech look, the larger TAG suits in particular I'd love to use as crisis suit proxies. They are so much sleeker and organic looking than boxy xv8s.











Of course being the modelling junkie I am I just can't leave models stock and modified my Armoved Cavarly model by doing a head swap with a duplictaed Cutter head.







This was an older conversion I did about 4 years ago with one of the Pan-O walkers, which I still love.

Looks like you are off to a good start. I just ordered the print book and some models myself. It looks like a fun game and I love the reactive fire idea. It takes is from a most dice wins to tactical movement and positioning are king.

Very, very nice looking minis. Though at 33% more than a Crisis Suit I don't think I'm buying in soon.

I must admit, I do rather like the style of Infinity's models. How do the infantry-sized figures size up against, say, a Firewarrior?

The large suits aren't super cheap, but in a standard game you'll only be able to use one, even in large games the game you won't likely ever field more than two. Infinity is a skirmish style game so teams are generally 10 or fewer models which keeps the costs of buying an army way down compared to games like 40k or Warmachine.

For what you spend on two devilfish you can have an entire starting army for Infinity (if you skip using a TAG suit).



Here's a scale shot

Started blocking out the rough color on the Cutter, actual paint is much more flat my camera is super sensitive and picks up light pools making everything look glossy.

The sculpting on the Infinity models has made me ask "I wonder if ... for tournament rules; the '70% GW parts' could be 70% greenstuff by volume."

Edit: I can totally see a fusion of the new FW Crisis suits and these Cutters ...

Hmm, so the scale is pretty similar. Thanks for the photo, Paulson.

This would be the same faction i would go for myself. Tempted to buy into Combine forces to use as alien antagonists vs my Tau

Painting is off to a good start - signature blacklining included

I was a bit torn between Pan-O and Yu Jing. I'm not a huge fan of all the knight crusader looking guys for Pan-O but the TAg suits and Orcs were the deal sealer. Yu Jing had a lot of appeal due to the guys in Hakama pants and my love for samurai themed stuff but their TAG suit design isn't very good.

The Combine guys definitely have a very cool look and it'd be very easy to used them for Tau aux troops. They have a very high tech look to them and there's something I really like about their little babboon faces.

I don't think there's really any Infinity factions that I don't like the minis for, there are a few models that I'd pass on (like the riot grrls) but on the whole the factions are all unique looking and very well done.



As for the painting I think the black lining may be a bit heavy but I have no idea how else to do it. I've tried washes before and they help a lot with the shading but don't seem to help all that much with blacklining. Maybe I have too little experience when using washes, not really sure. Considering how much time I spend modelling on stuff you'd think I'd have figured out how to paint smoother, lol.

One of the things I did in recent painting history was to expirament with using an oil paint based wash; heavily thinned, based on one of the airbrush technique books. (How to Use an Airbrush by Robert Downie, http://amzn.com/0890242879).

Once the acrylic layers were dried; I applied about a 1:9 paint-thinner based wash that I mixed up and kept in it's own glass paint jar. It seeks out fine lines and hides in them. And is semi translucent at that level, so you can dab a few layers to build up some seriousdark lines. And since your acrylic's already dry, if you get a bit much on a high surface, a quick swipe with a clean cotton swab wipes away any extra. It made the flowing hooded robes on some of those other army figs an instant success.

Edit: I found a video tutorial of oil paint washes done very well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fdN_2YuSN4

Infinity is a great game - it is polar opposite to 40k... your list doesn't mean anything. I can even legally show you a fake list because some of my troops can pretend to be other troops. And if I have troops that can deploy by Airborne Deployment, they aren't even on the list!

Your strategy and tactics are everything. Every faction is virtually equal, although they all play very differently and most do have a steep learning curve. Basically you pick the faction with the miniatures you like the best and you win games with experience, not just by picking up the latest overpowered flavour and running a canned list from the interwebs.

Everything in the game is able to be killed by the most basic weapon (the rifle). It doesn't matter what you take to the fight, its all about how you use it. And the options are mind-boggling...

The game requires about 20 times the terrain of a usual 40k game - the weapons are extremely deadly and cover is your only hope. Swiss cheese ruined cathedral GW "terrain" need not apply... its less than useless in Infinity!

Corvus Belli makes incredibly detailed miniatures and releases at least 5 new ones every month (December release was 12 - 2x box set of 4, a TAG, and 3 singles, all for different factions... when you only need 9 or ten miniatures for a full 300 point army... ... are all you Tau players feeling a little neglected yet?)


A Cutter TAG costs 117 points - of your 300 points available - its more like 6% of a Warhound Titan if you are trying to compare prices per percentage of an army!

TAG's are good, and a kick in the face when you first play against one, however they require a lot of orders to be viable and once you work out a strategy to defeat it they are rarely seen again. While you are Rambo-ing your Cutter up field, my panzerfaust Muyib linkteam have positioned some nasty surprises for you, and my HMG Ragik is turning your cheerleaders into pulp! All for the same points cost. (I play Haqqislam by the way.) An ADHL will make even quicker work of that TAG... and the Nomads can hack that baby in 2 seconds flat!

With the latest book, Paradiso, objectives have become even more important so you need to bring an engineer, a hacker, a baggage bot and a doctor to even stand a small chance of winning. There is hardly room for a TAG anymore. And there is no room for simplton "annihilate" missions either - playing a game to just kill the other guys army is sooooo last century.

If I suffer from a spell of analysis paralysis while playing Infinity, my answer is always "If this was a movie, what would I do?", and then I do it!
You can climb walls, set up ambushes, impersonate the other players figures, hack anything with an electronic pulse (even guided munitions!), use thermo-optic camouflage, holoproject yourself, smash through things, jump across yawning crevasses, parachute into enemy territory... every standard game is far more "cinematic" than GW wishes 40k could ever dream to be.

Please give Infinity a try. Just leave your 40K brain at the door and I know you will love it! The rules are free and there is an army builder on their website.