Wednesday, June 15, 2016

Introduction Part Deux

Introduction Part Deux

This is a continuation of the first part.


Digging around more I found some instructions for how to make your own terrain.  This is the option we've been using for the most part.  Still, it's a lot of work.  The quality of your table is dependent on the quality of your skill at doing arts and crafts basically.  It is a lot of fun, and I think that everyone should make their own terrain, but it is a lot of work for a newcomer to the game.  Starting from scratch with no skills to speak of was a daunting task, and My son is also totally overwhelmed by it.  It just seems too bad that a fun and quality game is gated behind something poorly handled 

We have also found the 40k rules to be daunting. There are so many rules, so many exceptions, so many modifications and rules spread out piecemeal into several very expensive books. The mini rule book seems to be missing some of the rules for the models included, and it's vague on others.  In other situations the rules are poorly worded, and open to insnely overpowered or subjective interpretation.                                                                                                                                                                      
Also, the Dark Vengeance game / box set leaves you with a tiny fraction of an army. I looked at pricing for making two decent armies in 40k, and it was intimidating. I’m heading back to school soon, and our finances are finite right now. The pricing to complete an army for each of myself and my son seems to float very close to $1000 once you add in t axes and a bit of terrain to spruce up the table. It could easily go higher, but it is tough to get it much lower then that. That’s just too much money for me to justify. Way too much. 40K seems to live in the land of serious business. money, and not casual "lets have a fun game with the box."  The odd rules almost encourage “that guy” type of rule hacking, and spending money on models that utterly demolish your opponents. It’s almost like a pay to win wargame it seems sometimes. I don’t want to be down on 40k. I have bought a few models, and we will likely continue to play it.. The positive for me was the wonderful models, and catching the painting bug.

I’m not a very good painter yet, but I’m having a blast painting what I can. I’m steadily improving, and I’m enjoying learning new techniques. My wife joked with me that painting was the real game. With 40k it seems that way sometimes.

While looking through online sites for information about making terrain, I’ve stumbled across infinity quite a few times. It seems like an interesting game, and I’ve become more and more curious to try it. At first it was the artwork and models. I stumbled across the maghariba guard on a gaming news site, and I was in love with the style. That got me digging through the corvus belli site, and I just loved the sculpts that they’ve done for these models. They capture a bright anime feel while still feeling gritty and brutal. I was very curious.

The system with automatic reation orders looks like a lot of fun. My son gets pretty discouraged when it isn’t his turn, and I spend a couple minutes ripping apart his army with nothing he can do about it. Either that, or he gets bored and drifts off during my turn. (“Kids today just don’t have the attention span that we used to. Why, In My Day ….”) The line that you hear often about the facebook generation and immediate rewards is somewhat true. My son does seem to be more attentive since we’ve been playing more games, and spending more time together.

Infinity has a box set that addresses some of the issues that I had with the Dark Vengeance set. It includes terrain, and you can get a second pack for ten bucks. The starters are fairly balanced, and the models seem to be useful if you go on to play with pan oceania or the nomads. If not then they are pretty cool models, and just on their own I bet we can have fun with the Infinity Operation: Icestorm introductory starter box.

When I saw the Onyx Contact Force on a news blog it reminded me of Infinity, and my mind was made up. Those models are just downright gorgeous. The possibility to get a decent starter box for $100 ordered at my new flgs is a great deal. Looking around online it seems like you can just add on a couple models and have a cohesive force that is adaptable and viable. Maybe not the best, but good enough to play in some games with other people here in Montreal I think. I can always build up a different faction later. I priced it out with a couple of extra models, and for way less than half the price of getting into 40k,I can have a great army. and that is only counting models. Buying your codex is a big investment, while infinity makes the rules freely available on their website. So, this blog is set up to document my son and I getting into Infinity, our Infinite Descent into Infinity: The Game!
The plan is to document every step of our adventure the best we can. I will do my best to review every piece of terrain and unit that I pick up. I’m not an expert, and I’m not the best painter ever, but hopefully it will help other people out there who are unsure of Infinity, and maybe those who are experienced can both learn something new, and share all the old information with myself and the other newcomers.

Welcome to my new blog folks  and I hope to see you back as we get going. Any questions/comments/hate mail/ or anything else really, are always welcome at my email address (brandon _dot_ abbott36 _at_ gmail _dot_ com) Swap in the .@. as written of course.  The Operation Icestorm box set is in the mail right now, and I will get some first impressions and a light review up very soon.  A more in depth review will likely follow, and my son and I will be putting up some battle reports for the beginning missions as well most likely.  That way we can show other brand new players a guide to the box set missions.                                    0                                                                                                   

- Brandon and Adrian Abbott

No comments:

Post a Comment