Cameratastic Fun

Having had a good, long think about what Bushido needs to expand and improve the player base I turned to my recent introduction to Infinity by Corvus Belli.  Personally I feel that Infinity has less depth, but a much denser ruleset than Bushido, so the incredible surge in popularity from 2014 onwards of Infinity is really interesting to me - from what I understand there was a mass conversion from WH40K.

So the rules of Infinity are clearly not a barrier to picking up the game.  The most frequent request of GCT is a how-to-play video.  I haven't touched a how-to-play of Infinity, but I watched enough video battle reports to understand the basics pretty well, I just haven't had the actual experience of seeing what works and what doesn't.  It's a bit like Warmachine/Hordes in that way I guess, if you haven't experienced it on the table, you're not likely to know what it really does.  Sounds like most wargames really.

That moves us neatly into... I bought myself a terrible camcorder!  Tada!  It's time to start recording and putting together some video battle reports.  I reckon at least 20 of them should do, so that's my project for this year.  I'm still figuring out how to work with the camera, it was super-cheap and appears to have a minimum focus range of about half a meter or thereabouts and there are some issues with light I need to look at.  There's quite a lot of testing to be done, then I have to teach myself how to edit all the footage.  I suspect I may need to find myself a graphic designer shortly.  Now all I need to do is get an opponent over the weekends.

I've painted up a plastic Yuji for my Jung Pirates now, but I'm not happy with him at all.  There's just something about the plastic I don't like.  I couldn't get rid of the mold lines as the plastic doesn't 'shave' like resin or metal and his sword is more of a tube than a blade.  I'm pretty sure I'll get a metal version of him at release and repaint him.  It doesn't give me high hopes for the kohanin and the korusea, but they are miniatures with less going on.  At least I can drop him from a great height with no concern, Yuji's pretty much indestructible.

Boiling Oil

The planned Tengu Decension warband works pretty well, it will need some more practice but all the moving parts are there.  Now it's the waiting game for the April releases.  So far the warband is functional and can do a lot of cool tricky things, just not as tricky as my Ito Clan type of warband.  It plays a lot like a Temple of Ro-Kan warband, only with more movement related craziness and lessbuffing.  I arrived home to find Qimmiq had arrived, even more 'huzzah!'

Preparation for my Jung Pirates have begun in earnest!  Bases have been built, plastic miniatures have been dunked in boiling water, my desk has been covered in lots of tiny red plastic debris.  I'm going to keep the miniatures separated from the bases for now and attach them once both are finished.  Now to begin painting.  Yuji is up first, as what is a captain without a first mate?  Also he's pretty much the linchpin figure of the faction with his unique effects and Inspiration.  I've just come up with a cool way to distinguish between profiles A and B for the pirates too: one figure will be on the wooden docks bases, the other will be on stonework from the town part of the board.

I've hit a little bit of a brick wall with the docks board, as I now have to level out a good 60% of the board so that the stonework can be cut out and glued on properly.  I was thinking of just investing in a lot of lightweight polyfiller and then using a grouting float to smooth it flat; or maybe using a spirit level as that would be wider than the board...  Or just have an area in the middle lower than the rest.  I'll try some experiments with having to do the least work, and if it doesn't work out, the small-scale plastering will commence.

I was really sure I posted this yesterday, but apparently not, oh well.