NorCon 2013 Terrain

Here's the first of my photos from NorCon with some of the new terrain that I made for this year.

The first picture here is of the Hospital Bank offices from downtown San Pietro on NeoTerra. This was the site of our Bank Heist scenario, which used the Seize the Beacons scenario rules. To add a bit more challenge to the scenario, the beacons that needed to be hacked were all on the top floors of the building, which meant players had to come up with creative ways to get into the building.

Each wing of the building had stairs leading up, as well as a fire escape on the back of the building that could be climbed. Each building also had roof access, which meant AD troops could get to the objectives by dropping directly onto the building. The three wings of the building were also connected by skyway bridges on the fourth floor, making it easier to get from building to building once a model had reached the top of the towers. The central tower also had a clear glass elevator that models could mount and ride to any floor in the building.

The buildings come from Demo's Laser Cut Designs, but were heavily modified. The fire escapes on the buildings were a custom laser cut order, also from Demo's, but the additional staircases, skyways, and the elevator on the central tower were scratch built and added later.

Several buildings featured billboards, which were made using frames from Demo's combined with fire escape ledges so that models could climb to the top and set up sniping posts. The billboards themselves are signs that I made in photo shop, inspired by various bits of Infinity fluff.

Most of the ground level terrain, including the SWAT tank seen in the foreground in the first picture, came from Antenocitis Workshop in England. I've said it before, but these guys make my favorite resin cast Infinity terrain, and add a great sci-fi feel to any table. In this photo one of Scottie's Tomcats takes cover behind a sidewalk ad from Antenocitis while making a run for the front of the bank.

The police barricade in front of the building also featured more terrain and vehicles from Antenocitis, including some police cars that didn't make it into this picture. The riot shields in the barricade are another laser cut item from Demo's, with the San Pietro NeoTerran Police badge slapped on the front for good measure.

All of these photos came from the Bank Heist table, but I'll have more photos coming up in the near future featuring the other tables from the event. Unfortunately I didn't get as many photos as I had planned this year, but I still have a lot more stuff to share! Thanks for a great convention guys!

Just Awesome

Today Corvue Belli finally released photos of their new model range, Bootlegger models. These minis all come from the game of Infinity, but are meant as collector pieces rather than models that will actually be used during a battle.

All of the first 5 models released for this line are of TAG pilots (although one is technically a flight crew mechanic, since her TAG is a remote presence model). 4 of the 5 models are designed as sexy display pieces based on pin-up art of female pilots, but as beautiful as these models are, the one that really interests me is the odd man out. Corvus Belli has finally made a model of my favorite short-tempered former-drug-addict killing-machine, Joe "Scarface" Turner.

Although Joe's model is meant as a single large display piece, I will be breaking it up into two models: a wreck marker for the TAG, and Joe on foot. As my opponents know, I play so aggressively with this model that I don't mind having Joe jump out of the pilot seat and start blasting away with his shotgun when his TAG starts to fall apart. And now I will have a fantastic model to represent him when he does.

Well done, Corvus Belli! These models are brilliant.

Updated Prizes

I just realized that it has been 2 months since my last post. Apologies for the lack of content, but head has been buried so deep in a pile of terrain that I completely lost track of time. The good news is that I will be back very soon with lots of new pictures from NorCon, as well as the pictures of terrain that I have been promising for months.

Most of my readers are probably at NorCon right now and won't see this until the event is over, but I have an updated prize list I wanted to post for anyone who is interested. We got some surprise last minute support from Allen at Matrix Cards and Games that has pumped the first place prize pack up to awesome levels. The first place prize for this tournament will have a total dollar value of close to $100 now.

NorCon Amended Prize List-

 

1^st Place

Free Starter Army from Allen’s Infinity Stock

Limited Ed. Max Scorpio with Boarding Shotgun Model

Limited Ed. “Max Scorpio” Army Pin

Authorized Bounty Hunter Army Pin

Paint Job Voucher from local award-winning painter DDestroyer ($20 Value)

First Place Diploma

First Pick of Army Patch

1000 Points for I.T.S. International Ranking

 

Player’s Choice Winner

NorCon Event Plaque

First Pick of Infinity Prize Blister

Second Pick of Army Patch

First Pick of Army Pin

 

2^nd Place

Second Pick of Infinity Prize Blister

Third Pick of Army Patch

Second Pick of Army Pin

800 I.T.S. Ranking Points

 

3^rd Place

Third Pick of Infinity Prize Blister

Third Pick of Army Pin

650 I.T.S. Ranking Points

 

4^th Place

Fourth Pick of Army Pin

500 I.T.S. Ranking Points

 

5^th-8^th Place

Subsequent Army Pin Pick

350 I.T.S. Ranking Points

Tournament Prizes!

I got the tournament kit for NorCon's big Infinity Event today, along with a bunch of other goodies from Corvus Belli. And here they are:

NorCon Deniable Ops 1st Place Prize:

-Limited Edition Max Scorpio Authorized Bounty Hunter mounted on a special edition Micro Arts Studios urban street resin base, painted by local award-winning artist DDestroyer.
-NorCon Event Infinity Award
-Infinity 1st Place Certificate
-Authorized Bounty Hunter pin and Max Scorpio Limited Edition pin
-1000 Points for I.T.S. International Ranking






NorCon Deniable Ops 2nd Place Prize:

-First choice of Infinity prize model: Yu-Jing Hac Tao with Missile Launcher, PanO O.R.C. Troop with HMG, or Nomad Reverend Moira with MULTI Rifle.
-First choice of Infinity army pin
-800 Points for I.T.S. International Ranking

NorCon Deniable Ops 3rd Place Prize:

-Second choice of Infinity prize model
-Second choice of Infinity army pin
-650 Points for I.T.S. International Ranking

NorCon Deniable Ops 4th Place Prize:

-Army Pin
-500 Points for I.T.S. International Ranking

Other Participants:

-Army Pin
-350 Points for I.T.S. International Ranking

Player's Choice Award (Best painted and best sportsmanship as voted by all participants):

-Remaining Infinity Prize Model
-Choice of One Army Patch: Caledonia, Neoterra, ALEPH Assault Subsection, Ariadna Scouts, or EI Pulsar

Infinity Campaign Map

 

The Fourth Infinity Campaign is almost ready, and I've got a preview of the map ready to go for anyone who wants to check it out. Above is a picture of the city of Ravensbrucke, a ruined metropolis on Paradiso smashed by the invading Combined armies. The Combined pulled back to their battle lines after killing the majority of the citizens, but a great deal of wealth and knowledge remains. Now, with the city and the surrounding jungles all but abandoned, small teams of elite operatives have returned to secure the assets that were left behind.

 

If your interested in joining the campaign email me to get on the mailing list at reddinginfinity@gmail.com

 

In this campaign the rules will be very similar to the official ISC rules from the Campaign: Paradiso book, but with a whole slew of changes to make the game much more casual, approachable, and fun.

 

While Spec-Ops will still work the exact same way, one change in the new campaign will be in the way that Army Specialties work. Instead of earning new specialties as they gain rank, players will gain access to army specialties by capturing pieces of territory called "Assets". In order to win the campaign a player must capture 6 of these assets, one of each type. There are a total of 18 assets that can be captured, as you can see on the campaign map below.

MR1- Central Subway Terminal (Mobile Reserves Asset)

MR2- Ravensbrucke Emergency Services Helipad (Mobile Reserves Asset)

MR3- Ravensbrucke Municipal Airport (Mobile Reserves Asset)

L1- PanOceania Central Command (Logistics Asset)

L2- MayaNet Quantum Entanglement Network Portal (Logistics Asset)

L3- Paradiso Control Force Outpost Charlie (Logistics Asset)

SF1- Secure Emergency Bunker (Support Forces Asset)

SF2- St. Augustine General Hospital (Support Forces Asset)

SF3- PanOceania Ravensbrucke Armory and Depot (Support Forces Asset)

P1- Cathedral of Saint Camillus (Psi-Ops Asset)

P2- MayaNet Broadcast Tower (Psi-Ops Asset)

P3- Paradiso Control Force Advanced Training Facility (Psi-Ops Asset)

ID1- Orbital Catapult B11 (Immediate Deployment Asset)

ID2- Paradiso Control Force Immediate Response Heliport (Immediate Deployment Asset)

ID3- Ravensbrucke Starport (Immediate Deployment Asset)

I1- PanOceania Military Satellite Control Uplink (Intelligence Asset)

I2- Civilian Resistance Hidden Base (Intelligence Asset)

I3- Paradiso Control Force Early Warning Radar Station A6 (Intelligence Asset)

Calling Infinity Players Once More

reddinginfinity@gmail.com

Anyone interested in Infinity, veterans, new players, or even people just thinking about playing, send me an email at the above address to join the Infinity mailing list.

Today I finished the rough draft of our new campaign system, and I have sent it out to some of our local veteran players for proof-reading and stress-testing. The rules for this new campaign have been greatly simplified compared to past campaigns, and the campaign is designed to be much more casual and new player friendly than the official Infinity Campaign System from Corvus Belli.

This Saturday, 4/27, Jack will be down at Matrix for new player demoes, and next weekend, 5/4 I'll be at Matrix for tutorials and army building help.

Infinity NorCon Trailer

I'm quite proud of this one: my second complete After Effects gaming project. This is the official promo video for the Infinity Event at this summer's NorCon. The video also includes my first teaser of the 5 scenarios that I will be running this year. In the coming months I will post the full scenario and tournament rules, as well as more pictures of the terrain that I'm working on.

Now that this is finished my next project is making a trailer for Scottie's Warmachine Event. More to come on that in the near future!

IKRPG Trailer

As promised I have gotten a lot of work done on terrain in the last 2 weeks, however I'm doing a whole pile of pieces at the same time so none of them are quite finished. I've also been working on other projects, like my group's upcoming IKRPG and developing an idea I had for a Warmachine campaign.

The first few sessions of my IKRPG are written, but I need to finish making terrain for the game and coming up with stats for all my NPC's. So, with all that work left to do for the game I've decided to procrastinate and do other stuff, of course. The first of these side projects was making a video trailer for the game, which I'm actually fairly happy with.

This has been pieced together from many sources and assembled using a mix of iMovie and Adobe Premiere. The music is a song called Stabbing Hate from a pay-to-use music group called Epic Score.

Also, on an unrelated note, here's the best promo video for Game of Thrones ever made:

NorCon XIII Part 1- New Terrain

I just finished the first batch of terrain that I will be making for NorCon XIII. I also have plenty more on deck waiting to be painted, so I should have more ready to go by the end of next week.

 

The first pieces of terrain shown here are dense forest markers that are going to be used to represent the moors of Ord in my upcoming Iron Kingdoms RPG, but at NorCon they will be joined by many more pieces to represent the forests of Northern Caledonia. I have four pieces finished so far, and four more on deck, but I will need about 12 more after that to make a full forest table. These were made using a variety of tree kits from Woodland Scenics as well as plaster rocks from Woodland Scenics. The bases are made of thin MDF board that I covered with sand and flock.

 The next set of pieces are ultramodern concrete benches and planters. These planters will be used as ground cover and decoration for the city table that I am planning. Down the road I will upload a photo of the layout that I have designed for this table, but the short version is that there will be a large central building on the table with a small courtyard. These chairs and planters will be used to fill that courtyard to provide some cover in the middle of the table. These were made using a variety of resin cast pieces from my favorite terrain makers at Antenocitis Workshop.

The next two pieces are both reflecting pools that will be used as decorative terrain for the first session of my IKRPG game. I will probably use them again down the road in later chapters of the IKRPG game, but I'm ultimately planning on donating them to Matrix Cards and Games to beef up their terrain. Both pools were made using plaster blocks from Hirst Arts, and are topped with minis from Reaper Miniatures.

For very simple pieces of terrain these turned out to be a pain in the ass. After the beach table I made for NorCon last year I decided that I needed to put much more dye in the water if I wanted to get a nice shade of blue, but unfortunately I over-corrected and made this water way to blue. Even worse, the amount of dye that I used prevented the resin from curing correctly, and it never fully hardened. To try and fix it I added a thin second layer of clear resin over the top. However, the blue resin underneath continued to harden and shrink, causing it to peel away from the fast-drying clear layer, creating weird fractal-shaped bubbles around the edges of the water. Well... Live and learn, I guess. Maybe the third time I do a water effects I'll get it right.

 The final pieces here are a set of garden planter boxes filled with trees. These will also be part of the terrain for my IKRPG game, but they will also be used as ground-level cover for the apartment complex Infinity table for NorCon. I know that pine trees are a weird choice for trees to grow in a garden, but I had an overabundance of these that were to small to use on the forest templates that I was making, so I ended up using them here. The garden boxes were made using plaster bricks from Hirst Arts, and the trees are from Woodland Scenics.

NorCon XIII

I've changed obsessions and switched back from my video editing project to making terrain. I've started assembling my tables for this year's NorCon event. In the last couple of weeks I've put quite a bit together, and I'll start uploading photos as soon as I get some painting done.

I'm not sure what to expect for Infinity turnout this year, and I'd like to participate in the Warmachine tournament this time round, so I'm planning on fewer tables. However, I want to try and outdo myself this year, so I am working on some cool new stuff to make better tables.

My plan is to have either 4 or 5 tables this year, plus a Warmachine table that I am making for our local Pressganger, Scottie. Like last year, each table will have a separate scenario unique to the table. One table will be a straight victory point scenario, and for the others I will be running simplified versions of some of my favorite scenarios from the Paradiso campaign book.

Table 1- I'm bringing back the Desert Town table from last year, but this time with some new additions. I've ordered a few more buildings to add more complexity to the table. Also, I've taken steps to correct the one complaint people have with the table by making the cover on the rooftops of the buildings more clear cut.

Table 2- The Apartment complex will also be making a return, with the addition of a few more pieces of cover.

Table 3- One of the new tables I'm making will represent a mining prospector camp on Dawn, just outside of the borders of Ariadna. The miners have uncovered a dangerous alien artifact, and two factions have arrived to investigate.

Table 4- Last year I wanted to make the holy grail of wargaming tables: a non-ruined city. At the time it turned out to be more expensive than I could afford, but I have a new plan to try again this year. The idea is to make a table with a three or four story building in the middle of the table, surrounded by shorter buildings. The central building has been affected by a cyberwarfare attack, and local police have secured a perimeter around the building.

Table 5- I'm still waiting for a flash of inspiration for a fifth table, but I have plenty of time before NorCon. I may ask someone to help me out, like the excellent Japanese Sectorial table that Joel made last year.

Warmachine Table- For the Warmachine tournament I'm building a table to represent a hamlet and lumberyard in the northern Thornwood. This small community has had the misfortune of landing right in the middle of every major faction in Western Immoren.