These last two weeks have seen a frenzy a frenzy of activity here at the Amazingatorium. Four posts in sixteen days?! WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?!

Today I round out this non-stop rollercoaster ride of bloggery with easily the least interesting installment of the series: the dirt-cheap grunt troops who accompany my Noble Space Priests in their duties, accomplishing crucial mission objectives while the larger, more devout officers are running around blatantly ignoring the sixth commandment.

On the list of reasons that I like Infinity, the second biggest (following respectfully behind SPACE BUILDINGS, which will forever be first in my heart) is the quality of the model range. Corvus Belli’s minis have a level of dynamism and a clarity of design that I just don’t see in most other gaming ranges– every model is doing something, and the models are covered in details that feel planned-out and somewhat plausible.

However, this was not always the case. If you go to any of the faction galleries on the Infinity website and scroll down, there is a sharp distinction that occurs between the top 2/3 of each faction’s models and the bottom 1/3. Namely, that the old models are just awful. The designs are very bland, the poses are bizarre, and the sculpting quality is very low, with very soft, round shapes instead of the sharp detail the range later came to be known for.

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. 🙂

At my local store, we recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of the Most Extreme Annihilation Challenge, our annual 20pt mangled metal tournament that features robots and monsters tearing each other apart amidst the strangest missions I can come up with. During the four-round event, three of the scenarios rotate from year to year– past favourites have included:

• Fight in a giant bowl with a hole in the middle. Models tumble toward the center every time they move unless they find something to hang onto.
• Control a trench that has a massive lava boulder rolling back and forth through it.
• Battle across a lava river spanned only by a rapidly-crumbling bridge.
• Control a zone surrounded by crystal formations that random spew fire, lightning, and ice across the battlefield.

I have a lot of fun coming up with these. 🙂

In the middle of all of this chaos, however, there is always one consistent occurrence. Each year, in the third round, the various teams of homicidal monsters and pitiless robots put on colorful jerseys and enjoy a relaxing round of the world’s most refined sport: GRIND!

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.