Pimp my hut

The most common comment (besides compliments) I had about my board when I take it to events is that it is too green. Which I agree with because most of the terrain is mainly basic army green as I didn't find the time to do further detailing yet, but recently I got around to improve the terrain a bit.

Long time ago I remember someone shared a link to a collection of sci fi posters. I believe it was on Facebook but might have the official Infinity forums as well. Stupidly I did not save that link but around end of July I decided to search for it and found it on Flickr (click here for the album). 

I downloaded the whole album, deleted few, added some of my own and then took it to my local public library where they have really good printers. I think it is a laser printer, it comes out really nice and its not expensive. I printed 9 sheets and it was like £2, so great for budget. 

In total there was almost 300 posters on those 9 sheets but it didn't take as long as I thought it would to cut it all out. I done it in two evenings or so, cutting them out while watching something on YouTube. Thankfully the collection included different shapes and sizes so it wasn't all the same. The posters are just slightly bigger than I'd like them to be when compared to Infinity miniatures but it looks fine on the table and I didn't want to mess with the Print settings too much. I just picked one of the options that placed the most images on one page.

After I had them all cut out I spent another few evenings gluing these to the terrain. I used standard PVA glue and it holds very well. For added effect I cut up someone of the posters or burnt them a little. I have 10 shanty town huts as part of my board and it didn't take long to add posters to all of them. Though I still have much of the posters left, so I will be adding more later. 

I am quite happy the result and it looked good on the Northern Open 10. It certainly added bit more colour to my terrain so its not just green!

TTCombat Objective Room Review

This is a first of several articles I plan to do about the various terrain pieces that I use for my Serenity Valley gaming table. To start with I'd like to give a review on the TTCombat Objective Room (Building B).

Disclaimer: This is just my personal review of the product. I have not been sent this by any company to review it. In this case, I have also won it on a tournament and as such not paid for it.

Clean up and assembly

The building came in wooden MDF sprues, I believe there were two of them, slightly lager than A4 sheet of paper. None of the pieces were hard to get out. The clean up was easy too, only had to file down the small places where the pieces were connected to the sprue. 

The assembly was mostly straight forward. The main walls and the ceiling/roof slotted together nicely. The only slightly tricky thing were the protruded outer walls, each of those is made of three separate panels that have to go on in a certain way but it was really easy to figure out which way. 

Personally I have closed the side gap on protruded outer walls. It was easily achieved by cutting out shapes from a left over Infinity box. I will explain why I done it later on. I have also removed doors and a hatch on the roof, mostly so the roof can be easily removed. Otherwise I think you would struggle to take the roof off as there is no way to grab onto it.

Practicality on table

The building is the required size for an ITS Objective Room, or at least feels that way (I haven't measured it). For that reason I recommend to have the roof removable as you need to be able to move your miniatures inside and the walls are infinity height for ITS Objective Room so you can't get on the roof anyway.

If you play it as a regular building, it is bigger than S2 models so it can hide your regular troops. As with any other building that has hexagonal shape to it, you either have to agree with your opponent no shooting at legs (underneath the building) or be very mindful the protruded walls do not hide your units even when they go Prone.

My concern with this building was that the protruded walls have too many holes you can see through if you don't close the gaps on sides (as I mentioned earlier). The three panels do not connect with the main walls so you could draw a light of sight from higher level throuh the protruded wall, which personally I do not think is a good thing, kind of defeats the purpose of having terrain. It gives the terrain pieces too many unpredictable Lines of Fire, which tends to be only frustrating.  

I have found the building to work better if something is placed inside of it, otherwise it is very empty. The inner walls are just flat. Otherwise as long as you address the hexagon shape with your opponent before the game I found the building to be fairly practical. The protruded walls and gaps between them give you more options for cover than buildings with flat walls.

Conclusion

Although the assembly is easy and after minor fixes the building is practical, if I am perfectly honest I do not believe it would be my first choice if I was shopping around for an Objective Room. If you want something to only be an Objective Room there are easier options and on other hand, if you want something that can be an Objective Room and also a regular building, there are products with more details.

If you don't fix the gaps, this building could easily be frustrating for you and your opponent. Which would be the main thing to turn me away if I was looking at the picture in a store, but granted, it can be easily fixed.

That said, this building does have a different look to it and I could definitely see it fitting on tables that have other hexagonal shaped buildings. I do think the product is a good value for money for £10.

TTCombat also has a new Objective Room which is different in design, more detailed and costs the same. A very good and detailed review of that product can be found on Splayed Paint Brush blog.

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.