Infinity: The best game there's ever been? Part 2.

This is the second of my ramblings on why we should all be playing Infinity, and its the thing I love the most about the hobby... the miniatures!!!

The Miniatures

Now I know aesthetics are a personal choice and we all have our views on whats cool and whats not, BUT we can all at least usually agree when something is at the very least understandably liked. For instance I think Scarlett Johansson is hotter than a BBQ on the sun... some might disagree, but most can at least understand why people would find her attractive. Infinity models can sometimes suffer from 'first glance dismissal' syndrome. Whereby people's initial views of a model reveal nothing special.

Part of the issue is one of scale. The two biggest companies in the hobby both use what is delightfully known as the 'heroic scale' (Privateer Press and Games Workshop). While this is fine and looks OK on the table, it does lead to overly sized hands, feet and heads so on and so forth. This can lead to some goofy looking miniatures in my opinion, but its what we've all been brought up with and its what most of us expect from our miniatures. Infinity isn't heroic scale, its true scale, so feet, hands, heads, fox tails and bunny ears (yes I said bunny ears) are all in perfect anatomical proportions. It can take some time for your eyes to adjust and get used toit but once you do, you have a new appreciation for them as sculpts.


Another thing I love about Infinity is how because you don't need a hoard of miniatures to represent your force on the table, absolutely every single miniature is an individual sculpt designed to look just right. This goes for the lowliest grunts to the more important elite troops. Each is a lovingly created piece of art ready for people like me to ruin with our ham fisted attempts at painting them. I'm not trying to have a dig at Games Workshop sculpts but these really are in a different league, because the Games Workshop produce plastic kits that quite frankly can't contain enough poise and power in their poses because they either have to 'rank up' or we have to glue them together, they're static and if you like the painting side of the hobby more, you'll love Infinity. Its also worth pointing out just how fine the detail is on them as well. I swear to God Corvus Belli must employ pixies and faeries to sculpt their miniatures because of how delicate the detail is... honestly you have to get them in your hands to truly appreciate them, but what amazes me even more is just how much detail the metal castings retain, some of them are as good as the best resin pieces they really are.

Another question I often hear from people who first look at Infinity models is 'how do you tell the different factions apart?' and to be honest I can for the most part understand the confusion. Its easy to tell an Ork from a Space Marine or a Trollblood from an Everblight Elf, colour schemes help with this, but the models themselves are quite distinct and normally have a faction design aesthetic. In Infinity the defining line is not so clear, guns all look fairly similar to the uninitiated eye, armour likewise, its subtle. Its mainly the Combined Army or some of the Ariadnan's who stand out, or since their release the Aleph. The four main human factions can at first be difficult to tell apart because the detail on these miniatures is so fine and nuanced. However after a while the differences do start to make themselves known to you and I love the fact that the over all universe has a unified design, it just seems more realistic an approach.

To try and show you some of the differences and just how awesomely cool the miniatures are, I decided to list my favourite top 5 Infinity min's... I failed miserably and had to do a top 10 (split into two parts). There's also a list of my top 10 honorable mentions!!! With the help of the fabulous Studio Giraldez Blog, check out his pages if you haven't already, he's one of my top painting hero's.  I've posted links to my top 10 miniatures within the articles that will take you to Angels incredible paint jobs, I hope you enjoy. Peace out!

Top 10 Infinity Model - 10th to 6th
Top 10 Infinity Models - 5th to 1st
Infinity Miniatures Honorable Mention