Infinity: Defiance & Beyond

Rahman Rouhani is the ship’s doctor and while certainly a willing crew member, he’s a reluctant combatant. Despite his best efforts he often finds himself in the midst of trouble and is forced to take up arms, his experience and skills often calling him to places where trouble can’t help but find him.

Haqqislam is pretty much my favourite faction for Infinity, although for some bizarre reason I haven’t actually gotten round to painting any of my (not insignificant) collection. Until now, obviously. He was a trailblazer for models in the future and I also saved the colours using the Paintrack App (if you haven’t used it, I highly recommend it).

As with Jazz, Rahman also has a remote assistant, NASMAT by the name of Gaspar. I haven’t really changed my opinions of these remotes, it’s probably the only bit of Infinity I don’t really like. Also, Gaspar didn’t come with two feet, unfortunately by the time I realised I had lost the little QC ticket that Infinity miniatures come with that you need in order to obtain replacement parts. Again, another aspect of Infinity I find terminally frustrating. I love metal miniatures but some of the components in Infinity are so small and so finicky sometimes it’s hard to tell what is a part of the model and what is just a bit of flash or overspill.

Anyway… It turned out ok in the end. Apart from the missing foot, which I can’t help but see every time I look

These two characters get a combined entry because they’re quite similar. They are both speculo agents, genetically modified Shasvastii programmed to impersonate other species – in this case humans – for infiltration purposes. Their missions can be many and varied from espionage to assassination.

Aïda Swanson is, or rather was, a sub-mondo (the criminal underworld of the Infinity universe) with a reputation for being able to source whatever the buyer wants with no questions asked; information, weapons, drugs… people. For the right price of course, and with no questions asked in return. Then, one day Aida was no more, her last client an exact replica of herself, created by the Shasvastii. The creature killed her and took her identity and took up where its victim left off. Since then, the creature has become so immersed in the personality of Aïda that it no longer fully knows what it is; when called on it unquestioningly fulfils missions from its alien overlords without knowing why, extracting whatever information or items the EI has decided are necessary to further its goals

Victor Messer is a different beast again. Very little is known about Victor save that he exists. He bears the moniker “Autonomous Agent of Chaos and his main goal seems to be just that – to spread chaos and disorder among the Human Sphere. He has been detected numerous times on the Maya network, orchestrating various protest and hacker groups with the goal of disrupting human sphere operations. His actions have brought him to the attention of O12 as a person of significant interest and they want him taken alive.

According to most sources, Naish Sheshkiin is supposed to be the hardest of the Shasvastii opponents in the game. However if the N4 rules are anything to go by, I think this guy will give her a run for her money. The Heavy Infantry models are one of my favourite parts of Infinity – I guess they’re the Infinity equivalents of Space Marines and this is the Shasvastii take on that concept. The Shasvastii have some very different concepts that juxtapose the Human Sphere. Where the Human Sphere is very focused more on computer technology, the Shasvastii have a lot of genetic and biological technology fused with that. This big guy is a great variation on heavy infantry that brings in some of those features with lots of organic parts and shapes. Unlike most Heavy Infantry, the Charontids don’t have a pilot, they’re similar to the ALEPH constructs; a bio-engineered construct with a fragment of the Evolved Intelligence’s personality downloaded into it.

Agnes was a miniature I was really looking forward to painting;  she’s totally non-essential for the game, appearing only in mission 1 as the mission objective;  she’s been locked up and you have to free her from prison and get her to the ship because she’s the pilot.  But it’s cool that Corvus Belli included her in the kickstarter.

I was also interested in the colour scheme.  I have been generally sticking to the artwork as much as possible and I really like the light grey and blue combo with orange contrasts – it’s that grey/orange thing again that I did on the doors.  In fact, I used the same colours I used on the doors on the step that she is standing on.

Painting Agnes was a bit of a treat, of sorts.  I saved her till the last and I absolutely love the result.  My only complaint is that the miniature kind of looks like Christiano Ronaldo with boobs…

With Agnes done, everything I need for mission 1 is now in place.

It’s been feeling like a bit of a slog recently.  I absolutely love Infinity miniatures but I have been painting them for quite some time now and for someone like me, that’s hard work.  I keep looking at other miniatures sat on shalves waiting to be painted and wishing I was doing that.  But then I think about how close I am to the goal of being able to play Infinity: Defiance with all painted miniatures and I somehow find the will to continue.  I was playing Imperial Assault recently with my neighbour (totally new to gaming but absolutely loves the Star Wars games) and commented that he had been looking at Imperial Assault online and how much better the game looks when all the miniatures are painted, as mine are.  So although this is supposed to be a hobby and not a job, the effort being put in now will be paid back many times over when I sit down and play the game with gorgeous painted miniatures.

So.  Jazz and Billie.  I have to say, I find the little robots that seem quite common in Infinity to be a bit strange.  I guess maybe it’s some anime thing that I don’t get, having never been overly interested in anime.  Painting that robot, while not difficult just felt like I was painting something for the sake of it.  Painting Jazz was a lot more enjoyable and that might explain why “Billie” as the robot is called, sat unpainted for 2 weeks after I completed Jazz.  In fact I actually sat painting doors and other random scenery bits using speedpaint rather than paint Billie.  Anyway they’re done now and that’s the 4 core crew members done.  Only one more item to go…

I had a flick through the mission book to see what other possible token upgrades I could use.  I found a couple of missions that had “Engine Access Panels” and also some energy cells.  But, as I was reading I also noticed that some of the missions were set in the Human Sphere but others are set in the enemy heartlands, on the worlds of the combined army.  Which then gave me an idea.  I backed the Star Saga Kickstarter a few years ago and Mantic, in their generosity, gave me extra Scenics meaning I had twice as many of everything – including doors.  I decided to use these spare doors in my defiance game rather than having 8 of everything in Star Saga – which is just overkill.  I created a hex stand using Tinkercad which I printed out and stuck to the bottom of the Star Saga doors

Then I designed a second Colour scheme for doors that would look more dark, nasty and alien.  So I went with the same colours as the Shasvastii I painted – black and crimson.  There’s also a bit of religiosity to the combined army, they serve the E.I. (Evolved Intelligence) whose goal is to discover the secret of transcendence.  So I decided to add alien markings/runes to all the doors to make them feel a bit more spiritual.

To paint doors, I just primed them black and gave them a dark grey drybrush.  The crimson panels were then picked out using Vampire Red, which I have decided is now one of my favourite paints.  The black panels were painted using a black speed paint, which made painting them a lot easier, especially the narrower recesses.  The writing was done first using a black marker and then I painted over the top using Necrotic Flesh.  To finish off, the black panels were given a coat of gloss varnish.

I also decided to look for some alternative consoles, because I wanted everything to look and feel different.  I had some alien consoles lying around which were made by Microart Studios but appear to have been discontinued ?

The engine Access Panels were made by taking a model of a cryo-chamber, chopping the legs off and standing it on its end.  This was painted in a similar colour scheme to the doors, as were the consoles.

The Energy tokens were produced by combining a scenic base STL with a chemical container STL which I shrank down to around 2cm tall.  I am actually really pleased with how this has turned out.

The final scenic elements were the Taigha Creature breach tokens.  Not exactly sure how they work in game but I decided to try and make these “neutral” in so far as they would fit with either the Defiance scenery or the Combined Army scenery.  This was done by using a mid-grey colour scheme but not using either the crimson or orange.  The lights are turquoise in both schemes and so the middle of each token was painted in that colour.

After I painted the terminals and containers I painted a couple of doors.  I went with a grey/orange/white colour scheme with any lights in a turquoise colour.  I have used this before on some Star Saga miniatures and I think the orange and white really pop against the grey background and the turquoise is a really nice contrast to the orange

This prompted a rethink for my colour scheme on the terminals.  Having looked at the rules and the scenario guide, I don’t think there’s any real need to differentiate terminals by using different colours so I quite like the idea of a consistent colour scheme and those colours do have a nice sci-fi vibe to them.  The corpse tokens don’t follow the colour scheme, but instead I painted each in a different faction’s colours (nomads, O12, PanO and YuJing)

The aim right now is to get the bare essentials finished so I can play mission 1 fully painted and then finish the handful of models I need after that to play mission 2 (which amounts to 1 Combined army model and 2 more heroes).  When I was looking at mission 1 I happened to notice that it had two generic marker tokens labelled as “Magnetic Clamps”, which appear to be clamps keeping the shuttlecraft from departing and which have to be disengaged before the players can leave and complete the mission.  They’re also classed as line of sight blocking.  I was suddenly a bit jaded that Corvus Belli would supply the game with some lovely scenery pieces and then ruin it by using some generic tokens for this so I did a digital kitbash.  The base model was the top of some sort of loading crane which I stood on its end.  I then used TinkerCad to attacks the magnetic clamps and some pistons before sending them to my resin printer.  I am quite pleased with the result!  It looks like there may be more such items in later missions and I am already looking for possible kitbash ideas.

Following the Slapchop discussion on the weekender I thought I’d give it a go.  Because I really want to have a crack at this game relatively soon, I decided to experiment on the Scenery upgrade I got with the game.  I have primed the turrets and doors too but I only did the terminals and containers.  Well, colour me impressed.  Sure, it does darken the colours a little bit, but if you want to get brighter, more poppy colours I think you can probably apply a heavier white drybrush for that (although that will reduce the impact of the highlights).

I shall be using this on the remainder of the scenery elements.