PoR Painting Contest Final Entry

And here we go! The final entry for Pride of Rodina's Painting Competition. From last article the main change, which was hard to capture on the photos, was adding slight dark corrosion around the metal bolts on should pads and also darkening of the boots to make them look dirty.

I did try to do chipping but it didn't look right to me, thanks to the camouflage pattern it just ended up looking like a part of it and too busy overall, it was bit messy. Last night I also saw someone post on Facebook a photo of their mini with painted light source from the rifle's scope and the helmet light, which looked cool and I considered doing it but didn't think it would fit onto my own mini.

I am happy with this overall though and looking forward to painting the rest of my French army this way.

PoR Painting Contest Almost Done

Thanks to being stuck at my mate's house on Sunday (literally trapped, road was closed off thanks to some people running around so I couldn't drive away) I didn't have as much time as I thought I would but I did get some work done, so I am happy with that. 

The photos are not the best as I took them at night and I don't have any good day light lamps at home, so I will take better ones in the morning for my final entry.

The last thing to improve will be adding wear and tear to the armour and maybe some highlights on the armour plates too, my only concern was that I am not sure how to highlight camouflage, I just think it will look like a mess. I don't normally put many highlights on weapons as I don't think they need it, but that is also one thing I can learn to do better.

PoR Painting Contest Update

On the 19th of May I have posted about entering the Pride of Rodina Painting Contest and I had every intention of painting more regularly with more updates, but as it often happens life had different plans for me. So I am bit behind but I am confident I can finish my entry over the weekend to look at least bit decent!

As I am writing this I have already made more progress than on the photos but didn't have time to take new photos of it, so I wanted to at least share how my Veteran Kazak looks with basic colours and before any washes & highlights. 

I have already finish a camouflage pattern over the sandy armour and hope to get all the highlights done on Saturday, mainly on the gun, the backpack roll and everything that isn't camouflage. On Sunday I will finish the base and be ready to submit before middnight. That is the plan anyway, lets see if I can do it.

Pride of Rodina Painting Contest

The Pride of Rodina is hosting a Kazak painting contest, I am getting bit late into it but there are still over two weeks left so I should have enough time to paint one model! The model I will be painting is the Veteran Kazak with T2 Rifle (from Ariadna Starter Set). It has been one of my favourite models in the game for  a long time and if I did play vanilla Arianda, he'd be in every list. 

The colour theme for the model will be desert based, though as you will be able to tell from the photos, he won't be on a desert base. I haven't decided yet on the camouflage pattern but it will be either mostly brown or with a mix of green. I will be drawing inspiration from the French Foreign Legion as I use this model as a Moblot in my French army (as there isn't enough unique Moblot models yet) and all my French will be painted as my take on Ariadna's MRRF Foreign Legion. 

So far I have the model built, primed and based. By the time I post next it should have base colours done. 

USARF "Speed Painting", Part 3

Considering my pace of painting the miniatures is far from fast I should change the name of these articles, but I am committed to consistency! This "third step" was not part of my initial plan, it came out of necessity to get some of my USARF models done to the very basic tournament standard to look decent on the table from distance. 

I was very undecided what to do with the bases. First I wanted to make them match my Caledonia so I could use them all as a vanilla force and they would have the same bases, but then decided to go with a very simple desert bases instead. Mainly because I didn't have much time to paint them before the Northern Open 8. I will be adding some more terrain to the bases so they are less flat but I am happy with the colour, I think it goes well with the green.

Which is another thing I am undecided on. I still haven't figured out how to break apart the green, it feels like it is too much. After I am done with all the other colours, I think I will do some subtle camouflage on trousers and perhaps other cloth too, just so the only flat green are armour panels.  Though I will admit that when I played with them it didn't look as bad, that they are all mainly green.

As you can see from the photos, the miniatures are still very much work in progress and in the pre-washes stage. I would like to get all the base colours done before doing the washes for shadows and then highlights. That should very much improve on how the minis will look. I only had time to do some of the other colours, like metallic silver and flesh, which is why you don't see many browns or grey yet, and why everyone's hair are still green.

Before the tournament I have also picked up a new unit to proxy for Traktor Muls as I wanted something different for my USARF. These models are from Anvil Industry game Afterlife, they are called Unity Council Bastion Support Platforms. Their website sells them with more weapon options but I bought them on a wargaming show and they only had the missile launchers. I have also found on their website unit called Republic Taurus Gun Tractors Mk.II, which looks closer to the Traktor Muls so I might get those instead later. 

USARF "Speed Painting", Part 2

Continuing with my (not so much) "speed painting" of USARF, I have completed the next step. Which, as I have predicted in the previous article, has taken much longer than the first step. For my USARF I have decided to go with black on weapons, pistol holsters, straps, boots and chest vests.

The difficulty of this step was making sure everything is painted neatly and the black isn't all over the place. So I ended up spending lots of time with my super small detail brush on the straps which were not always easy to reach. Weapons and boots were the easiest, most of the surface was done with a larger brush and then detail brush again on the surface near hands and other parts of the mini. Chest vests were fifty-fifty, some miniatures has them mostly accessible while with few others they had arms and guns going across them.

I am not sure yet what will be the next step because so far I have not decided on the end result, as in I am not sure about the final colour theme. Mostly likely I will do metallic silver to finish the guns and then flesh, so the minis look playable. I can then do the bases to complete the "table top" look. I do want to add grey and brown to the mix as well. I did try to add a different shade of green of armor plates but not sure if it works. Might need to complete one miniatures to decide.

Welcome to Serenity Valley

I have been playing wargames close to a decade now but never had my own gaming table. Infinity was the first game that made me want to have one, and our Northern Alliance was also a big influence because most guys have their own table and I wanted to do my part to contribute to the Northern Open events. Since Ariadna is by far my favourite faction, I wanted to theme my table around it and also do something different from most tables I have seen, which are either industrial in theme or "generic" sci-fi cities.

I plan for this to be a series of articles about my progress on the board with reviews of the various terrain I have bought, from how difficult it was to build and how practical it is in the game. As I am writing this, the table is painted and game ready but not finished. The terrain is done in basic colours for the most part, so there will be plenty of updates to come as I'll do my best to finish it by end of the year.

And yes, I decided to name my table after Firefly show, after all my Caledonia Browncoats need somewhere familiar to fight!

Serenity Valley as it is today.

My first idea was to make an airport table, with runway and jetfighters and such but as I thought about it, I didn't see how I could make it practical and look good/realistic. I have then came across this Rust Pointe product, which I thought looked perfect for Ariadna settlement. The theme for the board changed to be half hovels settlement and half military base.

The current buildings I am using are from Zen Terrain, Death Ray Designs and Warsenal. The scatter is lots of Death Ray Designs, some random bits and few from Micro Arts Studio. For the gaming mat, I used mouse pad mat from Deep Cut Studio.

Currently I do not have plans to add terrain before I get the current things painted more. The main thing I need to get for myself though are some trees, I have been borrowing those from other people for some events but it works without them too.

I think that will do for the intro to the board! Here are some photos for you of the board building progress and set up during different ITS events.

All terrain arrived, time to start building!

Spraying Zen Terrain things green before putting it together.

Progress...

Buildings all sprayed and built!

First mock up set up.

Play-testing before Northern Open 5.

Set up at Northern Open 5.

Bunker gets a swanky new paintjob.

Set up at Birmingham Games Expo.

Set up at Gribbley Gaming Event.

USARF "Speed Painting", Part 1

Carrying from my USARF conversions, the next natural step is to paint the army! I bet many of you are like me and ended up with too many armies too quick, and don't have enough time to paint them all. Since I do not have an airbrush yet, I decided to try "speed paint" with just a paintbrush. From what I understand with airbrush people are able to undercoat an army with some highlights quite quick and then pick out the details with a paintbrush; which is the idea behind this.

The plan is to get all of the models undercoated with green, dry brushed for some highlights and washed with dark colour for some shadows. Then I will follow it up painting the straps, skin, weapons and other details in different colours. I might also do some camouflage, haven't decided yet.

Inspiration for my USARF army was taken from this image, where the uniforms are green camo and more or less everything else is black. I want my USARF army to be very uniform in their look, so they look more like a regular army.

The first step was to get everything green (well, all but the K-9 Antipode, the wolf will be mostly grey so I will do that one differently). I have used The Army Painter "Army Green" spray for undercoat, then Games Workshop "Rotting Flesh" (old name for the colour, it is very light green, like if you mixed little bit of bright green into white) for dry brush and finished it with Games Workshop "Nuln Oil" (black) wash. I think the result is quite nice, even completely green the details have definition thanks for the darker shades and brighter edge highlights.

The whole process didn't take long either and I have done around 30 minis this way. Though I am fairly certain the next step will take lot longer as I will be painting all the straps and weapons black, plus some of the pouches.

112, Emergency Service

In my opinion the 112 Emergency Service of Ariadna is arguably the most badass Doctor in the Human Sphere. In Caledonia he is also currently the only available unit with the Doctor Skill therefore you will very likely find him in your army at some point as part of the "standard" Doctor & Engineer support group and Specialists.

Thankfully, despite being the only Doctor option, the 112 Emergency Service is very useful in its own right and so it doesn't feel like you are wasting points on a "should have" unit.

Profile

Generally speaking, Doctors tend to have about the same stat line as Line Troops and maybe higher WIP. This is the case when you compare the 112 to Like Kazaks (Ariadna Line Troops) but in Caledonia their stats are better than Volunteers. For extra 2pts (over Volunteer Paramedic) you get +1 BS, +1 PH, +1 WIP and V: Courage; which can always come in handy.

You have AVA 3 on the 112 but I never played more than one, so don't have experience using multiple 112 but it might be worth considering if you have the models.

So, for only 12 pts you get a decent (more or less average trooper in Infinity as a whole) unit for your Caledonia army, who is also a Specialist in ITS missions and gives you a chance to heal your unconscious troops. In a quick summary, in my opinion the 112 is worth the points.

The 112 also comes with a Light Shotgun, CCW and Pistol. Gives you few options when it comes to defense or attack. If you are wondering why would you ever use Pistol over Shotgun, remember the Light Shotgun always uses the Impact Template and in some situations you could find yourself unable to shoot it as it would affect Friendly units.

And lets not forget the MedKit. I think people, beginners especially, might not realize that you can shoot the MedKit. It has the same Range Bands as a Pistol, and if you hit, the unconscious (Null) target has to pass -3 PH check to heal. Which is lot riskier than normal Doctor check, but sometime it can save you Orders or gives you a chance to heal where you can't get into base contact.

On the battlefield

You of course take a Doctor for the chance to heal your Unconscious troops but its not always simple as that or even worth doing. In my games I found the 112 used in these roles generally speaking:

ITS Objectives and Classified Objectives are arguably the main reason to include a Doctor, who is a Specialist. The 112 is actually well equipped for this. With Light Shotgun you can defend objectives from close range, or even attack, and because of V: Courage you can always count on your 112 to stay on the objective and not run away or hide (or you can decide to hide if you really want to). Guts Checks should not be underestimated.

It might be bit of repeating but I would like to stress out the use of Light Shotgun for defense and attack. Within 8" your 112 is shooting at BS17, which is excellent. Against most troops you can hold off with even one dice (unless you just roll really bad), though it obviously won't work as well against Camo, TO or ODD. Same goes for your active turn. If you can catch someone out of cove, the 112 should be able to deal with them. I think your opponents might be surprised by it, I am guilty of underestimating 112 too; not many people expect a Doctor to charge out and be good at taking out units.

I don't recommend CC with the 112, but if you do find yourself Engaged, at least you are dealing Damage at full PH thanks to the Close Combat Weapon, which is a sweet looking axe.

One scenario where I use the 112 specifically for Healing is "Sniper-Healing". By this I mean using the 112 to sit back near my Snipers and heal them back up if they go down, which you expect them to do so. The most important thing about this is to deploy your 112 over 2.5" away because you don't want him to be caught by a blast that might hit the Sniper, or Sniper caught in a blast because of the 112. If you have more than one Sniper, its worth deploying in such a way where you can reach one Sniper base to base and at least see the second one for some ranged healing with the MedKit.

The downside of the above role is that your 112 is usually far from everyone else and probably on a roof somewhere, so he might not be able to get to Objectives reasonably fast. Because of this, consider what is more important to win the mission, healing your Snipers or getting Objectives. Hint; in an objective mission the objectives are more important.

My miniature

I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do with my first 112 so I took lots of inspiration from the Corvus Belli studio miniature. The main difference being I went with grey jacket over blue-grey and with less yellow stripes. I am happy how it came out, it fits into the military setting with green overalls but stands out.

My favourite thing about the 112 are all the little details, like the gas mask, the flash light and the shotgun shells on the chest.

I find it hard to take pictures of this but I did do bit of dirt on the bottom of the jacket, though I might make it bit darker later on as you can only really see it in person.

Last but not least, this was my first mini where I played around with blood paint. I wanted to use it for a long time but so far never finished anything to such a level where I could do the final detailing so when I finished the 112 I took the opportunity to add blood to his axe and a blood splatter on the base. More blood will definitely follow for my other minis later on.

Most photos in this article by James from Gribbley Gaming.