Smagg's Small Soldiers

My collection of overpriced pieces of pewter, resin and plastic. Mostly Infinity, with some possible 40k, WFB, Dark Sword and miscellaneous other miniatures.

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Moving on from Tumbrl, that Blogspot is going to be my new minis/miniature games/related issues blog. It’s time to start building myself up again, using the momentum from good things happening in my life currently.

See you there!

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There you go, Footsore Shieldmaiden with an Oathmark goblin spear. Works better than expected.

I am half considering leaving the shield off, but that would kind of defeat the point of a Shieldmaiden, wouldn’t it? I also considered arming her with a bow, but I didn’t know how to fit the quiver.

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In the previous post I mentioned Oathmark goblins. Here’s a few. I was afraid they’d be too big, but they are pretty short after all (maybe dwarf-sized rather than closer to halflings, but I’ll take it). I like the wide range of possible poses, especially for their bows. I don’t know if I will assemble any of them with spears yet.

As you can see they are in a vaguely LotR style and fit okay next to a Moria goblin. Also one next to a Footsore Shieldmaiden, whom I thought would be too short. It isn’t the case.

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Some recently acquired minis: Footsore Shieldmaidens. They seemed really small to me, but I measured one and she comes almost exactly to 32mm, to the top of the helmet.

Compared to a Dark Sword mini she looks in scale. The Puppetswar sorceress is visibly taller, although the 5 sorceresses seem to be different in height despite being from the same set.

I also compared one Shieldmaiden to Infinity models, a pre-CAD Wildcat and a CAD Fusilier. Results are predictable.

There was a small disappointment with the blister. I knew historicals are often packed without bases, so that didn’t surprise me. However two of the Shieldmaidens are shown armed with spears in official pictures – the spears are not included. I read now that this is by design, which is awful. I don’t feel like buying a pack of spears for just two minis, so I’ll probably give them some weapons from Oathmark goblins.

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Spooky scary skeleton ghost! GW plastic skeleton from a toybox with Chaos Warrior sword, Puppetswar head and a bit of borrowed greenstuff.

Happy Halloween! 💀

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A little Halloween project: one of GW snapfit skeletons turned into something closer to a death knight or warrior.

The sword is from a Chaos Warrior and the head is from Puppetswar. The small skull is from Kromlech.

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Have you seen Varuna starter dossiers/renders and Zulu Cobras? I'm super excited it's coming this year.

(probably should have drawn a Zulu Cobra)

Sorry for taking so long to get back to you. Yes, I have! I am more excited for what they bring to vanilla PanO (jammers and Feurebach ORCs? Yes please!), but the wetboys seem great on their own.

Too bad about the starter following PanO tradition of awful setups. Was it really too much to make three Combi Kamau? Or at least go the ASA way and make two basic ones, two SWC ones and an ORC and a Cobra. I think a few people will be hunting down the old Combi Kamau blister.

Also I have a minis blog.

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And this is the minis blog.

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First one of the Puppetswar sorceresses painted. She could also work as a rogue.

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The face off. Troll from Stonehaven Miniatures. Sorceress from Puppetswar.

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I got a surprise gift from my girlfriend! Two Stonehaven Trolls. They're both one piece casts and the details are super crisp! Sorry I only could take fuzzy photos. Probably my favorite Troll miniatures.

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GWT Berlin 2018

I went abroad to an Infinity tournament on invitation. Organized by Macbain, it was a pretty nice event.

I could write down how the rounds went, but I lost all of them but one pretty badly, and the other one I drew. Still, it was pretty fun and there were more TAGs around than I’m used to.

Here are the badly beaten heroes:

List Heroes: Open in Infinity Army

My standard list with a Wildcat Core, but enhanced with a Massacre Haris. What did I do wrong with it? I kept forgetting I have Jaguars with Panzerfausts! I set them up in good ARO spots and then I forgot to actually ARO with them at enemy TAGs.

List TAG Team: Open in Infinity Army

This list is leaning on more traditional stuff: Alguacil Core, Intruder Sniper, Tsyklon Spitfire... And a Gecko Duo as flair. As you can imagine, my Geckos turned a few heads and got a few photos taken. This list performed a lot better I believe. Especially the Spitfire Tsyklon, which I’ve been on the receiving end a few times. I can see why! It’s not as powerful as the Bulleteer, but it works well. While the Geckos are pretty good at pushing their way into the mid-field. I probably should have used coordinated orders with them a bit more.

As you can imagine my tournament haul is rather modest, mostly stuff no one else wanted (posters and pins) as well as the cools stuff the tournament organizers gave everyone: an objective marker with the tournament logo and a dice tray with the team logo (Prussian Sphere).

Why so much Yu Jing stuff? Well, I know someone who might be interested in it...

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A short presentation of design differences between Shadow War: Armageddon and Infinity

There’s probably hundreds of skirmish-level wargames on the market, supported or not. They all share a lower barrier to entry due to low model count than something like Warhammer 40,000 or By Fire and Sword.

In the sci-fi skirmisher genre the big boy is definitely Necromunda, I have no idea how far behind Infinity is. Next year GW is launching Kill Team as a 40k skirmisher and last year GW threw out Shadow War: Armageddon, which as I understand is old Necromunda rules packaged as a 40k game. I got the rulebook (yeah...) and some models ready and I’ve noticed just how different it is from Infinity.

To present what I mean I set up a typical situation: active player has a unit in cover seeing two enemies: a more dangerous one further away and out of cover and a less dangerous one closer and in cover. I’m going to go through what the active player does in each game.

Shadow War: Armageddon

A Veteran Guardsman armed with a Lasgun sees two Orks: a Boy armed with a Shoota and a Yoof armed with a Slugga and a Choppa. The Boy is more than 16″ away from the Guardsman while the Yoof is within that distance, but is in cover.

First thing to do is checking which enemy can be shot. In Shadow War active fighter has to shoot the closest enemy to him, unless a different target is easier to hit. In Shadow War premeasuring is allowed (which I like), so the Guard player can check the distances: the Yoof is within Lasgun’s short range (+1) but in partial cover (-1) while the Boy is in long range (0). Because it’s both 0 modifiers to Hit total, the Guardsman must target the Yoof.

If there was a sniper Guardsman somewhere behind the Lasgun one, he could target the Boy due to Sniper Rifle’s ranges having a -1 in close. But in general one has to go through the closest enemies before he can target long-ranged threats.

The Guardsman fires at the Yoof. Let’s count the required dice rolls.

First roll is Guardsman’s to Hit. That’s a 1d6 roll and he hits on 3+.

If the Guardsman rolls a 6 he has to make an Ammo roll. That means he hit the target, but his Lasgun has malfunctioned and needs to roll 2d6 to see if his weapons is still functional. Because Lasguns are pretty reliable he only needs to hit 3+, so anything other than “snake eyes” passes.

If the Ork is hit, he is placed on his back to signify that he’s Pinned. Now the Guardsman player rolls to Wound. Lasgun’s Strength (3) is compared to Yoof’s Toughness (4). True to Lasgun’s reputation Guard player needs to roll 5+ to Wound the Ork.

Now that the Ork has been Wounded, the Ork player rolls a Saving Throw. The Yoof has basic Squig-hide Armour so he only saves on 6.

Let’s keep assuming the Guard player is lucky and that the Yoof has failed the save. He loses his only Wound, so now he’s Injured. To determine the Injury, the Guard player must make an Injury roll. On a 1 the Ork suffers a Flesh Wound and suffers a stat decrease, but regains the Wound and remains Pinned. On 2-5 he’s Down and put face down and all he can do on his turn is crawl 2″. On 6 he’s taken off the table. After all that the Guardsman is done for the turn.

So that’s typically 3-4 dice rolls by one player and 1 by the other. If there’s Close Combat or closeness to a terrain edge involved (causing a Fall), there’s even more. That’s a lot of rolling to remove one guy without any real decision made, since the player is forced to attack the closest enemy. Of course usually there would probably be multiple Guardsmen and they can be activated in any order as well as multiple Yoofs that could be as close (though I couldn’t find exact ruling about two targets within the same distance). All in all though there’s a lot of rolling with little in terms of tactical decisions.

Infinity

A Wildcat has two Fusiliers in his Line of Fire: a more distant Hacker in the open and a closer basic Fusilier in Cover. They’re all armed with Combi Rifles, so they have the same Range bonuses (+3 in 16″ and -3 above 16″). The Wildcat is in Cover as well. The models are placed more or less in the same spots as the 40k ones before. Similarly to the Shadow War example, the juicier target has been placed further away (as Hackers are Specialists and they can mess with heavier units, so you want to take them out if possible).

Let’s assume this is the situation before Nomad player spends any Orders. In Infinity whenever a trooper is activated, he provokes an ARO (Automatic Reaction Order) so the Active Player needs to keep in mind what modifiers the enemies get. Right now both the Wildcat and the closer Fusilier are both in +3 Range and -3 for Cover, so they hit on their basic Ballistic Skill (13 and 12), but if the Wildcat traded shots with the Hacker, he’s at -3 for Range and the Hacker would be at -6 for both Range and Cover, resulting in a 10 vs 6 Face to Face roll. However the Fusilier could also decide to Dodge, which he’d do on an unmodified PH 10, making it an even 10 vs 10. Note that the Wildcat has 3 shots to distribute while the Fusiliers only get one in return, so it can be anything between 1 and 3 dice vs just 1 for the Reactive Player.

Sounds complicated yet? There’s more. Because the Wildcat starts in LoF and Shoot is a Short Skill (meaning it takes “half an Order”, though you can’t Shoot twice in the same one), the Nomad player can declare whom is he shooting at and with how many dice right away and then ask his opponent for AROs or he can declare “Idle” and let the PanOceanian player declare his reactions first. E.g. if the Wildcat player declares right away that he’s spending all 3 of his dice on the Fusilier up close (hey, could be a hidden Lieutenant), then the Reactive Player knows his Hacker isn’t in danger – meaning he can return fire on that measly 6 without fearing getting outshot. But if the Wildcat Idles first then the Fusiliers have to declare their reactions not knowing Nomad’s intentions. So the Reactive Player has to decide if he’s going to risk and attack with the Hacker or declare Dodge – to which the Wildcat could just decide to use full Burst on the closer target anyway. If both Fusiliers declare Dodge then the Wildcat could even decide he’s not going to shoot either and just Move into other cover. Note that premeasuring is not allowed in Infinity, so the Fusilier player could mistakenly believe his Hacker is in positive range (it’s about 18″, so rather easy to spot, but could be not obvious to someone not used to imperial units).

The Nomad player declares BS Attack with 2 dice on the closer Fusilier and 1 vs the Hacker, while they declare BS Attack and Dodge accordingly. Let’s count the rolls.

The Wildcat and Fusilier do a Face to Face BS Attack roll. The Wildcat rolls 2d20 (separately, not combining the results) and the Fusiler 1d20. Each of them needs to roll below their target BS value, so they measure distances and take Cover into account, which, as noted earlier, results in 13 for the Wildcat and 12 for the Fusilier. The target number is below that value but also above enemy’s roll.

The roll results are 6 and 10 for the Wildcat and 8 for the Fusilier. So one of the Wildcat’s shots is cancelled by the Fusilier, but that 8 is in turn cancelled by the 10 – it’s one Hit on the Fusilier. Now the PanO player rolls Armour. He has to beat Combi Rifle’s damage 13 with a d20 roll, adding 1 for his ARM and +3 for Cover.

If the Fusilier fails the ARM roll, he falls unconscious and that’s the end of the Order resolution for them. If he manages to save against all hits, he needs to roll Guts, which is an unmodified WIP roll. Basically he needs to roll 12 or under on a d20 to stay in place or move out of Wildcat’s LoF if possible. Know that he can decide to fail on purpose and just hide him anyway, without rolling.

With the Hacker the situation is similar, but if the Hacker beats the Wildcat’s BS Attack roll he moves 2″ away. If he’s hit he makes the same ARM roll as the other guy (without the +3 Cover bonus) and may have to make a Guts roll if he survives.

Note that in case the Wildcat would be hit, he has to make ARM rolls instead. Due to his Valor: Courage rule if he survives he doesn’t have to make a Guts roll and can just decide if he stays or hides. If the Wildcat is still conscious more Orders can be spent on him, assuming there are any left.

So it’s 2 Face to Face rolls (meaning both players roll off) and then one of the players makes up to two rolls for each Hit. That’s quite a few dice rolling, but the more important part is deciding what the rolls are going to be rolled for and the Reactive Player is involved in the most important ones. In a one-on-one situation it would be just one Face to Face and then one or more ARM and one Guts by one player.

This was quite a thing to write that will probably look obtuse to people not familiar with those games, but in short: in Shadow War active player has little say in whom he’s going to attack once he decided which fighter to activate and has to make multiple rolls while the opponent just waits for his Saving Throw. In Infinity there’s a lot of decisions to be made by either player before the dice are even picked up – and the players usually roll simultaneously.

Infinity certainly looks more complicated from the outset and certainly is in terms of decisions a player needs to make, but in my opinion that makes it more fun to play (although I have to say not allowing premeasuring is not something I’m too fond of – it creates arguments in what is allowed to measure or not, e.g. intent when moving or distance to closest enemy with Impetuous Orders). One thing I’d like to point out is that Infinity has rolled both To Hit and Save into one ARM roll, made by the Reactive Player, which IMO is an excellent decision. Because I like actually having a say in what I’m going to do during my turn and my opponent’s turn as well I prefer Infinity to Shadow War. I don’t know how close Necromunda: Underhive is to Shadow War, but if it’s like this (little decision making, a lot of d6 rolling for basic stuff like shooting an enemy), then I’m not interested.

I may do a similar analysis for Fallout: Wasteland Warfare and Afterglow, but I would need to learn the rules for either first.

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The jump in quality between basic box and Soldiers of Fortune is astounding. These minis are straight out of the box, before any cleaning. As you can see Senor Massacre compares pretty well to standard Infinity one. He even seems to be in scale.

Hannibal is smaller than Wild Bill and his detail is more crisp, including the face. Lunah looks outright melted next to Laxmee.

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Maxima from Wargamer Hot & Dangerous. She comes with two arm options, a centurion helmet and a mirror. Can’t decide on which to go with, but I’m leaning towards the helmet.

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Something I bought at a con today: a Naiym'vael Spectre, from the Afterglow miniatures game by White Tree (basically post-apo with fantasy races; this guy’s an elf) and my first “big” miniature, Ksenia the Cossack from Wargamer’s Hot & Dangerous pinup series.

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The HMG Swiss Guard, finishing Beyond Icestorm. Much like with Aquila Guad and Tikbalang I didn’t cover him in camo pattern, opting instead to simply use the colours in flat shapes. I originally planned to make his blade red, but I accidentally made it blue instead and didn’t want to repaint it.

PanO side of Icestorm has 3 Heavy Infantry, two of them pretty elite, and everyone holding a special weapon has a visual mod, with one of them having MSV2. On top of that the designated healer is rubbish. So all in all very PanOceanian.

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Tech-Bee! I ended up leaving her ass bare, though at some point I extended her stockings into leggins.

I overdid shading a bit, making her look dirty.