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Hello fellow vault hunters... yeah right, Borderlands 2 got me in its addicting filthy little claws.
The good news is I'm so hyped by Infinity I'm not getting entirely drawn away from it. I'm still reading the books over and over. And I'm also giving the paint scheme another couple thousand thoughts.

Also I finally received word from MAS, who apparently had trouble with their homepage. My bases have been shipped on friday so there is a good chance they will arrive this week. That will probably the moment when I put B2 aside and get back to the hobby.

Tomorrow I'll make a call and split my Paradiso preorder to get the other stuff together with the bases.

Since I don't want to raise false hopes I'll mention it here, instead of my other blog: My dark vengeance stuff arrived (40 cultists and a set of csm) and they are lovely I'll definitely get around to make some easy additions to my Espantajos (miner gang) with these some time soon.

My order from MAS arrived today and to my utter frustration it turned out to be problematic again.
There was a mix up and I accidently received the order for another guy in Germany.
So now I have a pack of Infinity game markers and 10 wraithstone bases instead of more than 60 bases for my current projects.
gak happens, but the guys at MAS were suitably accomodating when they found out there was yet another problem and now I get to keep the stuff they sent me and get my actual order plus 10€ worth of merchandise to make up for all the problems.

The rest of my Aleph troops is on the way now, I can't wait for all the new toys...

The delay is bad. The bonus is good.

Mildly excited by rumours of eventual Espantajos expansion (keeping the excitement level low for now so I don't use it all up before you start )

The delay doesn't really matter in this situation, I'm playing Borderlands 2 anyway. If only I could have left my fingers off it, I knew it would be terrific(ly addictive)!
Hehe, keeping your excitement at bay is wise! Who knows when I'll get to it... On the other hand I already planned to paint a miner every once in a while, for a change inbetween the clean Infinity stuff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Infinity-related but not about my Aleph:
I just read some more fluff from the rulebook, in this case about Haqqislam and I came across this awesome background story:

“New rifles are disgusting; they look like toys and are completely inappropriate to break someone’s teeth with a butt whack. They are too damn light… That’s why I always carried a shotgun when in the boarding groups…”

Tarik Mansuri instructing his men in assault techniques, Rustán Camp, two years after the Silk Revolts.


Mansuri is a legend. He was one of the first Khawarijs that submitted to Runihura, the Haqqislamite super-soldier project of genetic improvement. His exceptional metabolism and stout body perfectly fit the genetic therapy; it transformed him dramatically, consolidating each metabolic improvement and cancelling the noxious oxidation processes. From then on, his body hardly aged; he is never sick and is always in top condition. His reflexes are always fast, his hands precise. His head is always clear, his senses alway sharp and he is always ready to move swiftly, easily and deadly. The perfection reached with Mansuri represents the greatest success of the Runihura program, which has not reached as good a result with any other Khawarij.

As a soldier, Tarik Mansuri is a veteran of the Silk Revolts, Neocolonial Wars and Ariadnian Commercial Conflicts. For him, those were the good times. He hates peace and tranquillity: “Being active means to live taking it to the limit”. In combat, blood rushes through his veins like liquid mercury. Forty years of service as a conqueror and executor for Haqqislam have prompted his participation in several high-risk missions; he has flirted with death hundreds of times. Others would have been afraid, but not him, because fear has no place in the heart of a warrior. Moreover, Tarik Mansuri is above all a good soldier, with excellent discipline. On campaign he refuses to carry a tent if it allows him to carry more ammo. He sleeps out in the open even in the worst climates, with weapons close to his body to keep warm, his combat vest as a pillow. Even in combat with death hot on his heels, he smiles confidently, filled with a blood fury. Perfectly trained, he has escaped the claws of destiny several times and always has fought and won in spite of the enemy’s superiority. For Mansuri, Haqqislam is the most powerful nation, and his Khawarijs the best troops of all. He considers that his mission, and that of his men, is to carry his nation to victory. Not doing so would be the same as betraying his ideals. For him, Khawarijs are the heart and the soul of the Haqqislamite army, so they must set an example for everybody.

Now picture this person! How would he look?

I immediatly wondered how this badass might look? (As I didn't know the miniature.) I figured maybe like an even more awesome version of the Husam or the Hassassins or Ghulam...
Well, then I took a look at the actual miniature, which I hadn't seen before and I was massively dissappointed! He could hardly suck more, I mean he looks like a freaking warcaster from Warmachine. Baah! Should I ever start a Haqq force I'll have to sculpt/convert a proper one.

heh..175 years into the future, the AK-47 will still reign supreme

Still nothing new to show you guys!
I'm still waiting for my bases to arrive and didn't get down to paint yet. (Borderland 2's appeal to me is declining though.)

I've been helping my noob pal with his nomads though.
He had prepared most of the stuff already and tried gluing it together, but much of it didn't work out as intended.
Especially his TAG was troublesome, the Szalamandra's belt feed respectively was the horror!
He had broken it off in several places and it was impossible to bend it into the right position anymore. So I had to do some tricky pinning to reconnect the pieces and fix it to the model.
Anyway his stuff is fully assembled and based now. (reverend custodier, prowler, spektr, vortex/zero, sineater, szalamandra)

So once I get my bases I will have to catch up, so we can start playing some test rounds.
At the moment I'm preparing my three netrods. SOO much filing...
The first thing next week will be slapping them on bases and giving them a quick paintjob, so that I get this neccessary, but slightly boring part of my force out of the way.

The spell is broken!
After working on my buddy's nomads yesterday, today we sat down again, glued down the last few feet and magnetized the Vortex's spare sniper rifle.
Visual proof:


Afterwards we sat down and created an army list that would include the whole bunch he had bought. It turned out to be 200p (excluding the szalamandra from our test games) so next thing was making a similar list for my Aleph too.
Which I did and which will serve as my guideline to what's up next (or actually the other way around as I tried to include most of the models I've worked on so far).

Asura Spitfire (prepared, waiting for base, glue and some gs)
Netrod x2 (mostly prepared waiting for base)
Zayin Rebot (PIP, waiting for new base)
Mk1 Doctor (untouched)
Mk2 Hacker (untouched)
Naga (PIP 80%)
Deva Lieutenant with Devabot

The last being unprepared until tonight, because I decided it's time to have a closer look at those lovely Devabots, which had arrived during the week.
More than three hours of removing mouldlines, smoothening surfaces, pinning and assembling later, the one Devabot I set out to work on is prepared for its base (which will hopefully arrive tomorrow or I'll have to go blitzkrieg on those MAS guys).
More visual proof:


If you have no idea why it took me so fething long to prepare one silly little robot (you've obviously never prepared an Infinity miniature and), you should have a look at this:

As you can see, with such a great level of detail you have to remove even the slightest hint of a mouldline, especially if you're aiming for good results on the paintjob.
The mouldlines were mostly quite fine (which doesn't mean you don't have to meticulously sand them off), except on the top side of the torso where the two halves of the mould were so shifted, that after carefully sanding them off, I had to reestablish many of the lining details, since the degree of deplacement exceeded the depth of the recesses.

Assuming my bases arrive I'll start putting my 200p together tomorrow. This is obviously a deviation from my initial plan to build and paint taking turns for each miniature, but I realized I had to get a small force going for our test games. After those I'll go back to my old plan.

Waited for the bases to arrive the whole day, until I received a message that they have not been shipped on tuesday as claimed before, but on friday. So if everything goes well, which would be nice for a change, they'll arrive tomorrow.

Shame you're still waiting on the bases, but good to see you're making headway now. I have to say I'm not feeling that devabot at the moment, I'll see how it looks when it gets some colour.

Do you not have needle files Baiyuan?

monkeytroll wrote:Shame you're still waiting on the bases, but good to see you're making headway now. I have to say I'm not feeling that devabot at the moment, I'll see how it looks when it gets some colour.

The devabot is special, I'm sure it's not everybody's taste, but the more I'm working on it, the more I'm liking it. Maybe a paintjob and proper pics will do the trick for you.

dsteingass wrote:Do you not have needle files Baiyuan?

Of course I do. Why are you asking? Did I say something to make the impression I don't?

Update:
Bases arrived.
Work has begun.

Netrods (assembled, based, ready for paint/gaming)
Mk1 Doctor (converted, based, ready for paint/gaming)
Mk2 Hacker (needs a bit of GS here and there, but is based and almost ready)
Asura Spitfire (has received a base and basic GS work, but still needs some more detailing)
Deva Lieutenant with Devabot (assembled, based, ready for paint/gaming)

Not much left to do before the gaming can begin.
I'll take pictures once the whole pack is ready. I did some things differently and those might be worth a pic or two.

LOL, you said you were sanding..metal...and that hurt my brain a bit

I have to ask again, why? Are there to your knowledge any limitations when it comes to sanding metal?
Because I actually do that. To be precise I use different kinds of tools when removing mouldlines. Different sets of needle files for the rough work and special shapes, my beloved #400 diamond file for more detailed work and sand paper for round and organic shapes. So when I said "sanding" I meant it that way, because I ended up doing it more than filing in this case.

Still working on my Aleph girls (the naga is the only male in the group), I hope I'll finish up tomorrow and then it's time for pictures.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also: Still no luck with your order yet, Rob? That'd be crazy!

 Baiyuan wrote:
Still no luck with your order yet, Rob? That'd be crazy!

Oh man tell me about it?! I had to write to complain yesterday as it's over the quoted 9 day period for "awaiting stock" and I was getting very fed up.
To be fair though they kindly refunded me my postage and the order status has now switched to 'dispatched' so should be here in next few days hopefully...however I'm about to sit a series of really important exams for my new job, so it couldn't have come at a worse time really...

I have to apologise for the lack of progress here everyone. This has been a very one sided blog with B doing all the work. Very frustrating.

R

I've never met a metal mini that I couldn't tackle with just a knife and file, I've never heard of sanding metal.

Ghostflame wrote:I have to apologise for the lack of progress here everyone. This has been a very one sided blog with B doing all the work. Very frustrating.

No, you don't have to apologize, because it's not your fault and even if it was I would still be ok, because we're doing this for fun, not performance. I bet you got enough pressure in your life already, just like me, and there is no need to create more of it.
I do understand that it's frustrating though.

dsteingass wrote:I've never met a metal mini that I couldn't tackle with just a knife and file, I've never heard of sanding metal.

Same for me, until recently. I guess it depends on your standards. I try to improve (i.e. make quantum leaps) in the painting sector and nothing is more frustrating then trying to do wet blending and subtle filters on a surface that's not perfectly smooth.

Update:
Maybe tonight there will be one...

Ok guys news time!

1. Had my first game of Infinity today!
For our very first game, even though we were playing a 200p match with lots of complicated troops, it went well. It was a little slow of course, but the basics worked and with some (not too much I'd say) practice it'll all be well and a fluent entertaining game can arise.
Also my Asura OBLITERATED every trace of the nomads team on turn one. She received one wound and left behind a battlefield devoid of any human lifeform, with a hellcat ready for AD being the only survivor.

2. My District 9 artbook from weta workshops arrived late this evening and it's a blast! Perfect referential material and thus perfect timing, since I'll get back into painting my Aleph soon.

3. Which leads to my 200p list being almost completely built, only the Asura's still waiting for some GS.

4. Now some visual proof of my progress, I decided to show my stuff step by step and my Mk1 proxy doctor goes first.

But before I show you my "conversion" let's have a look at the original:

Ok, this is actually the hacker version, but it's the better picture and the only difference is the left arm.
You might know that I'm very picky, even more so when it's about poses and I therefore didn't like the strange one on this model.
I usually try out poses myself and if they don't feel right I change them, like in this case.
What is she even supposed to be doing? Landing? Braking? Running? It's just odd and unnatural!

So here she is after a head swap, change of neck position, bending of the leg and removing and repositioning of the foot. After all, a doctor is supposed to hurry the feth up...
It helps to imagine her going at the same speed (but less stiff) as the the T1000 chasing the car in Terminator 2.

Oh yeah, almost forgot I dropped my her right before the game, when I wanted to show her to my buddy... hurray!
The conversion on her foot was quite tricky and the pin that I had inserted (which started in her calf and then snaked through the separate tip of her foot into the base) well it broke off!
I had to bend the pin one time to often before glueing it into the base and I knew it was weak, but I thought the superglue would do the trick. What I didn't think of was dropping it from chest height.
Since it broke off directly at the sole of her foot, there was no pulling out the pin, to replace it. Instead I had to use tongs to twist the tip of the foot until it came off and I could then grab the pin and replace it.
The GS work in this area will have to be redone, but apart from that and the shock, no harm done! Luckily...

I usually try out poses myself

Awesome, another great reason to watch your show.

What is she even supposed to be doing? Landing? Braking? Running? It's just odd and unnatural!

I think she is almost pirouetting around to her left, maybe after landing from a jump. It seems to me that a lot of these Infinity figures have very over-the-top comic book type poses. It's a very neatly done conversion though, I can only imagine how fiddly it was to do the pin in her foot.

WOW! Stunning Baiyuan!! I now see why you were yammering about smoothness!

Bruticus wrote:Awesome, another great reason to watch your show.

Yep, I do the nasty stuff too... maybe I should start taking pictures of me while I'm testing the poses!

I think she is almost pirouetting around to her left, maybe after landing from a jump. It seems to me that a lot of these Infinity figures have very over-the-top comic book type poses. It's a very neatly done conversion though, I can only imagine how fiddly it was to do the pin in her foot.

You're right, the look of many Inf miniatures is intended to be ott. In some cases it works great and you get a very dynamic and unique model, in other cases it looks odd, like in this case and then there are those crimes against the putty, like the minuteman...

Pinning the foot wasn't that fiddly actually. I only got difficult when I decided to saw into the sole of the foot to tilt her forwards. I tried drilling the hole for the pin after cutting and tilting and the torsion of the drill ripped the tip of the foot from the rest (which was to be expected). The tricky part was not the insertion though, it was the bending of the pin. Exiting the heel it has to bend up, pass through the foot and then bend down into the base. And those bends had to be sharp and less then 1,5mm apart from each other.

dsteingass wrote:WOW! Stunning Baiyuan!! I now see why you were yammering about smoothness!

Thanks mate, I didn't expect to get a WOW for that!

Well, the thighs and butt are a lot smoother than most minis, you made it look great!

Well, the importance of smooth thighs and butts cannot be stressed enough...


Also:
Had my second game today. Same opponent, same lists, same terrain, but we decided he got to go first this time.
So he got to play at least one proper turn, but it that was it, after that my Asura began to tear the nomads limb from limb again. MSV3 is sooo powerful...

'What is she even supposed to be doing? Landing? Braking? Running?'

I'd say it's obvious she's listening to Kylie on those swanky headphones of hers



I prefer your version

What's a proxy? A replicant?

Thanks, monkey. You're right, I can hear it now, but it's "Hit me baby, one more time!" and I'm prone to comply...


To explain a proxy one has to explain posthumans first.
My faction, Aleph, the all-encompassing supercomputer that is the base of the infrastructure and information network of the whole human sphere, is an AI and its agents are not human beings but, independent programs uploaded into artificial host bodies, called LiveHost or Lhost.
If the host dies the individual program can only be extracted and resurrected using its cube (An implanted storage device for soul/mind, that most "civilized" humans have as well. It's worth mentioning that Aleph has complete control of the cube operation, so the AI gets to decide who's being resurrected and who's not.).
So 175 years from now, dying isn't that much of an issue anymore, but the cube method is not 100% reliable and it takes a while. There is one other, more sophisticated, way though.

Aleph's most worthy and valuable agents are sometimes granted the privilege of becoming a "posthuman", which means their essence (call it identity, code or soul if you will) will be saved in the network itself, so there is always a backup of them, they become immortal.
These posthumans can download themselves into special Lhosts, called proxies. The best part is that they are not limited to one body, they can jump between up to three different hosts. If a host is destroyed and there is a network uplink available (netrod) they simply exit the body and jump into one of their other proxies.

In game terms there are three general types of proxies, Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3, which each have different subversions with different specialities. An Mk1 can be a hacker, a doctor or an engineer. Mk2 is the thermo-optical camouflage version and can be a sniper or a hacker. Mk3 has only one heavy infantry/heavy weapon version.
You can take 2-3 proxies, but only one max of each type. And all your proxies only grant you one order, as it's effectively just one "person". The advantage is they are relatively cheap for there great abilities and as long as there are netrods, losing one of the proxies isn't a big deal.

Ahh, cool. Thanks for the info, I was vaquely aware Aleph was an AI, and that was about it. For any of the factions

Some of the aesthetics in the range make a bit more sense now.
So there's no 'true' organics in your faction, all 'bots, Lhosts and proxies?

Yes, remember that one base star full of Cylons they let go free? We all knew that was a bad move

 monkeytroll wrote:
Ahh, cool. Thanks for the info, I was vaquely aware Aleph was an AI, and that was about it. For any of the factions

Some of the aesthetics in the range make a bit more sense now.
So there's no 'true' organics in your faction, all 'bots, Lhosts and proxies?

Correct, it's all machines with some artificial organic parts here and there. Ghost in the shell is the perfect picture to have in mind.
But most of the agents don't even make an attempt at looking human as their purpose is mainly of a military nature.
A fun fact is that the AI can take direct control of them at any time, that's why Aleph likes to send Maruts TAGs as embassadors or negotiators, they speak with its voice and on top of that they are fething scary six meter tall killing machines.
If a more subtle approach is due, Aleph sends its Deva functionairies, who are above all meant to be integrated into the other nations armies as intermediaries. Their Lhosts were designed to look lifelike and attractive in order to appeal to the humans they interact with. They are physically perfect, both in their looks and their athletic performance. The sculpts of the Devas also sport stuff like guns concealed in their lower arms etc. all for a less warlike outer appearance.
Then there are some agents whose looks aren't all functional, but instead reflect their personal preferences and their sometimes eccentric personalities. Achilles is a good example for this, he doesn't need his fair and golden hair for his missions, but he's a vain bastard.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hey guys, I thought it's time for some more pictures. This time round it's another merely prepared miniature, but next time I hope there'll be something painted to show you.

So here some better pictures of the devabot. If you find a mouldline please tell me I'd hate to overlook something.
I'm aware of the one on his knapsack, that will require some putty as there was not much material left to file.

Guess what's been in my post today...


BAM! What a lovely sculpt!
I won't tackle this any time soon, but it will be great project to go in depth with weathering and whip out the old airbrush. I can't wait for it!

Devabot looks super sharp B. Great prep-work, as ever! I'm away for a few days now but I pray to the gods of miniatures when I return my order will be there!

Also on a side note I've been re-thinking my scheme a little. I too have been playing quite a bit of Borderlands 2 and have a bit of a thing for that Hyperion yellow ATM

R

I got a t-shirt with the artwork from those figs at GenCOn!