The Infinity group at my store is currently running a mini-campaign that I’m greatly enjoying. Each of the eight participants has created a Spec Ops character for their army, including a bit of backstory to explain where they came from and why they’re awesome. Each week we’re paired against an opponent; the organizer writes some fluff about why we’re fighting, and assigns us an objective-heavy scenario to resolve the conflict. We play it out, and any Spec Ops who survive accrue experience to pick up new abilities and gear. After the game, both players write up a short fluff piece about the battle from their Spec Ops’ point of view; some players write a play-by-play of the coolest parts of the battle, while I’ve focused more on the grisly aftermaths of my relentless series of crushing defeats.

It’s been a hoot. 🙂

So, a few months ago, I made a really bad decision.

Yeah.

When I started playing, I came up with a colour scheme for my lovely new Space People using paper dolls in Photoshop; however, once this conceptual work was done, I then immediately proceeded to do anything but paint actual models for like four months. I drew pictures, I made terrain, I made fancy tokens, I made fancy scenario objectives, I made fancy transport cases… painting my Space Dudes was about the last thing I wanted to spend brainpower on, because for me painting isn’t really a creative endeavor– it’s more of a grudging obligation.

What finally made me pick up my paintbrush was a league my store scheduled for July and August. Someone else challenged the other members to be fully painted by the end of it, and while I’m nowhere near that level of completion just past the 3/4 point of the league, I have put paint on over half of my dudes. Which is, for me, a pretty incredible rate of painting progress. 🙂

Infinity models are very, very pretty.

However, they are also very, very brittle, both because they’re sculpted to be a bit thinner than the “heroic” scale minis most other companies produce, and because a couple of the factions are saddled further by a veritable forest of these f@#$ing things:

Ugh.

I haven’t written a rant in a couple months, so let’s see if I remember how to do that.

I figured that if I’m going to start talking about Infinity, I should probably start with what made me decide to get involved with the game. And it’s probably not what you’d guess.

• It isn’t the game’s setting, even though I find the setting fascinating and a really creative break from the GrimDark and GreyVsGrey universes in so many other games.
• It isn’t the sculpting opportunities, though I do really look forward to trying some full sci-fi sculpts.
• It isn’t the ruleset, even though they could scarcely have come up with rules better-suited to poke my brain’s reward center.
• It isn’t even the minis line, despite the fact that as far as I’m concerned, Corvus Belli is putting out the best gaming minis on the market– the sheer dynamism and detail in their current line is just mind-blowing to Sculptor Spud.

No, those are all awesome things, and they’re all contributing to my current enjoyment of the game. But the first thing that drew me in, and the thing that has consumed by far the largest chunk of my time since my induction over the last two months, comes down to two words:

Space Buildings.