Longtime Dakkanaut
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After a long, tiring day spent in the company of the criminal masterminds of tomorrow, I arrived home to find a much anticipated parcel. My copy of Operation: Red Veil had arrived. Now whilst the vast majority of my hobby budget goes to gw, I do like to pick up other models and games from time to time, and have starter sets (or the equivalent) for many different systems. Never before have I felt the desire to write a review, not when the mkiii warmachine box arrived recently, or when AoS was released, changing a system I had enjoyed for over two decades. Red Veil has made me want to write about it.
I have, over the last few years, used Dark Vengeance as the benchmark for my comparisons. £65 for two sets of great models, rules, and necessary equipment is a great price for getting a taste for a game. When warmachine arrived earlier in the month, I questioned whether or not that was a fair comparison. I was happy with the contents, sure. But it seemed to me to fall short of DV.
Now, I didn't know anything about Infinity until it arrived today, beyond having seen the models in the painting and modelling section here, and posters' comments in discussions about how good the rules are. I had some spare change at the end of the month, and red veil or icestorm were looking increasingly tempting...
On opening the box, I was impressed with the art work. I'm not a fan of the manga aesthetic, but it gave a nice feel for what the box contained. I also discovered that it contained an extra figure I wasn't expecting, a mercenary, which was a nice bonus. Upon opening said box, the first thing I found was an A4 booklet, containing all the literature to be found within, printed on a medium quality gloss paper. I'm no diva, so didn't dwell on the lack of a properly bound book, and put it to one side. Then I find the models. Metal. Massively unexpected for a starter box. Now I've been around the hobby for a while. I have dragged cases containing lead armies from one country to another. I've wept when they fell and details were flattened beyond salvation, and I've fumed when I have opened a case only to find 50 legged torsos on bases. I happily embraced plastic, with its light weight, easy gluing, hard to chip goodness. I swore never again to metal (except for Dio and Maiden.) I was wrong. The fine details, so crisp in metal, with no air bubbles or warpage as resin would produce, are stunning. The absence of CAD design hallmarks were a joy to notice. There might only be 15 models in the box, but for £62 for 15 unique metal minis, I didn't feel short changed.
Then I picked up the book. A quick synopsis of the background on one page, and I feel like I have a clue. Then a brief paragraph about each unit I've just been admiring. Great, I know what I've got, and how it fits in with the background. Rules next. Easy to grasp, a few examples may have helped embed understanding on a first read, but on a second read I think I've gotten it. Then a mission to help get to grips with the rules so far using three models each. More rules, mission to consolidate those rules, and so on and so forth. Then a paragraph and picture on each of the other factions in the range. I liked this, much like the background at the beginning, it told me what I needed to know, without telling me too much. After this comes a painting guide, which at a glance seemed clear and easy to follow. A few adverts for third party terrain interested me, in that I don't recall ever seeing a company supporting multiple other businesses, rather than attempt to supply the products themselves (apart from very early gw). Then came what I considered the masterstroke, albeit a subtle one. An army list for each of the included factions, with all rules and points, as well as the same for a couple of good looking units, not in the box. These rules mean that I can expand my collection as soon as I'm ready without thinking about extra rule books or PDFs, and keep my forces balanced. This might not seem like a big deal, but I thought it a really nice way of guiding a complete noob to the next stage, rather than just leaving them to figure it out alone.
The scenery pack is decent, and at a quality I would expect from such a box.
Overall, I'm very impressed. No one thing in the box stood out as being particularly better than anything else in my rather substantial hobby collection, but what did stand out is the thought that went into putting the contents together. For £62, I got a gaming mat with plenty of terrain that will serve me learning to play most amply, two factions of stunning metal models, all the paraphernalia I need to play, a well thought out system of teaching me the core mechanics, and rules, and guidance on where to go after, should I decide to expand. Yes it is trying to sell, but it's not intrusively done at all, and genuinely feels like a useful and appreciated helping hand, rather than with DV and Warmachine, where you get little (warmachine) or no (40k) guidance, and have to make sense of a huge online range with no idea what does what. Unless you buy another book, full of more rules to try and get to grips with...
I feel like someone here has really thought about what getting started with a new game is like, and has done a really good job of actually addressing the needs a completely new gamer will have. If, like me, you didn't know much about Infinity, but want to give it a try, I can't recommend this box enough. This will be my new bench mark against which other starter boxes will be measured. I just hope the game lives up to the great impression it has made on me.
Thanks for reading.
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