Thursday 5 January 2012

Review: System ∞ Street Canopy with lighting

Waiting for a bus, or having a cigarette... you decide!

I know. Two reviews in one day, I'm spoiling you all again. This time it's for the street canopy with lighting from the Sarissa Precisions System ∞ range. Earlier on today I reviewed the Street Lighting Set, and while in the case of those they were basically eye candy or incidental clutter, that can not be said of the Street Canopy. No Sir! These have their uses...

Product description

Well It's a bus shelter, come outdoor cigarette smoking shelter thingy. If you live in the UK or Ireland I'm sure you've seen these sorts of thing spring up outside your local pub as the smoking ban kicks in. Very bizarre. Any way this is Sarissa Precisions futuristic take on these structures. It comes in 6 HDF laser cut pieces, 2 side stanchions, 2 roof sections, 1 base and 1 low level street lamp. There are also 2 laser cut acrylic discs to represent street lights. As with the street light set Sarissa didn't send me the standard clear acrtlic with blue tint for these but this funky orange... yes funky orange is a colour now because I say it is! Don't you argue with me. :P

Usefulness 9 out of 10

Now I'm sure some of you are looking at that score and thinking, 'it's a bloody bus shelter has Frontline Gamer gone mad?', well yes I have gone mad. But, that happened years ago and I'm surprised it has taken you this long to notice! However I'm not bonkers when it comes the this Street Canopy with Lighting thingy. So let me explain! Snipers, they're the bane of pretty much any Infinity board I've played on. Give them a high enough location to dominate and you'll have real difficulty defending against concerted attacks down certain lanes of fire. You don't however for balance of play want to create a hard point for a guy at street level with a HMG now do you? No what you want to do is have something that leaves the HMG character exposed at street level but out of LoS of that Sniper. What you need is a Street Canopy with lighting! Bam! Genius! Chuck a couple of these in choice locations on your board and those high vantage points are no longer a arse achingly painful to deal with.

Character 7 out of 10

Its not really much to look at I'll grant you. It is however in keeping with the rest of the range and as such fits in really quite well with it. You could add your own bus shelter bench to it I guess though.

Detail 6.5 our of 10

Again as its such a bog standard piece of terrain, I'm not really sure how it could have been 'jazzed' up again. I guess we'll all have to do our own 'jazzing' with our paint jobs. Just remember that this isn't a full on building and therefore that's reflective of the score as well.

Its a Street Canopy with Lights... or a nice tactical piece of scenery!
Quality 8 out of 10

It all fits together nicely and is well cut. As always I had no problems whatsoever with this piece of terrain, just like all the other pieces I've had.

Service N/A

I was asked just via a PM whether I feel lucky to have had all of this awesome stuff sent to me for free to review? My answer is yes I do. Obviously when you get stuff for free it's like the worlds most awesome service ever, but sadly all you pleb... sorry mere mortals have to pay for this awesome stuff. I haven't had experience of such 'human' trivialities, so I can't comment on them. I will however say yet again that Sarissa Precision offer free worldwide shipping on orders over £30. What are you waiting for?

Price 8 out of 10

Only 5 of your earth 'pounds' you say for such a useful piece of terrain? Yep I think it could well be worth investing in a few of these if you want to add some height to your board just to cut down on some of the Line of Sight they provide.

Overall 8.5 out of 10

Again this is a difficult piece of terrain to score. Obviously its not as detail or characterful as the Warehouse but it's not meant to be. For starters it's a damn site smaller and cheaper. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the detail and character scores aren't as high as some of the buildings simply because of what the Street Canopy is. I wouldn't let that put you off getting a couple though, because strategically placed around your boards they'll have a big impact on your games of Infinity. Peace out!

15 comments:

  1. When I first saw this it looked utterly pointless but thanks to your review I can now see how this would be a useful addition to a board.

    I wonder whether it would look better with a back so that it's only open from one side? Although this would probably limit the options for using it and a similar effect could probably be achieved by positioning it against another building.

    The only thing I'm not sure about is the roof. I anticipate that the inverted slope is intended to make it more visually appealing but I think it needs a little something more and with it not being flat I guess it limits what you can place on top (both in terms of minis and the other street furniture available).

    With regards to the height of this, is it a similar/the same height as any of the pods?

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  2. @Hendie that's what I'm here for!!! Hey perhaps there's a catchphrase in that for me... hmmm...

    Frontline Gamer, testing crap so you don't have too!

    It needs a bit of finessing but its a good start :P

    Personally I've found having them out in the street so you have to run past a single sniper ARO shot and dodge out of the way so it blocks LoS from that point on works best. As I said in the review you could put a park bench or something on the base if you wanted it to confer a cover save at ground level. But who wants to create a hard point for a HMG wielding lunatic? Not me! You just replace one problem with another. It works fine as it is.

    As for my roofs, I'm planning on putting foliage on them to make them look all 'green' and environmentally friendly. In terms of height the dip in the middle of the V is 2.5" and the peak at either side is roughly 3". The street light is the same as the small street light so about 7.5" in height. The length of the roof is roughly 5" and its width is about 3.5".

    Before you ask no I don't know what its bra size is and if its single. :P

    If you can think of anything else to ask then drop me a line. hope that helped.

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  3. Sigh....
    If I wasn't still trying to recover from holiday spending (and teaching the Crazy Lady to use her fancy new computer), I'd probably take a minute to calculate how much money I'll be spending in the next couple of months...
    ...but then I'd probably be all ashamed and whatnot....

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  4. I kinda just wanna stroll into Sarissa and go, 'I want those.'
    'Uh, excuse me, sir? You want what now?'
    'That Infinity terrain....I want those.'
    'Oh! Ok, which ones would you like?'
    'All of 'em. And two of the cool ones.'
    'Uh, which ones are the cool ones?'
    'Yer right....gimme two of each.'

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  5. Ah SinSynn, I'm sorry. You're not the only one who is spending their life savings on this stuff. I received an email earlier today saying that someone has spent the money they'd saved for a new sofa on Sarissa Precision scenery because of me... they haven't informed their wife yet!!! lol. I can just see how that conversation is going to go.

    "dear where's our new sofa"
    "well, you see... erm... "
    "what did you buy? It better not be more toy soldiers'
    "well not exactly honey"
    "whats that glorious smell"
    "Ah you see, now that's what I've brought!"
    "What you've brought some potpourri?"
    "Well know I've brought some laser cut HDF, that smell is burnt wood"
    "What do you need laser cut HDF for?"
    "erm... bye"
    *runs out of house*

    Dude sorry to poke fun at you but your going to wish you'd brought a new sofa because I tell you now for free you're going to be sleeping on it for a LONG time!!!

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  6. Hope he buys the eight footer...
    He's gonna need it.
    :D

    'What do you need laser cut HDF for?'
    What kinda question IS that?
    We just DO, is all...
    Why u need da couches?
    Nyah.

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  7. "I was just standing around waiting for a bus and this f-----g TAG came at me out of nowhere."

    "Turns out he just wanted a smoke under the canopy, but by Aleph that scared the hell out of me."

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  8. Haha..

    Looks good, I have a street running through the centre of my Infinity board so think that will fit well!

    Bought a warehouse from Sarissa on the basis of these reviews, thanks for the write-ups!

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  9. Great lighting on these shots and congrats on the 200:)

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  10. @Ant Holloway... feeling in a silly mood were we? lol. This might sound really sad but I did a whole series of photos of the TAG getting closer to the Deva and 'hiding' behind lamp posts. In the end I decided you all probably thought I was nuts enough without resorting to those sorts of shenanigans!!!

    @Pacific, the warehouse shouldn't disappoint. I love mine to bits. I think there's nothing wrong with having firing alleys on Infinity boards but you need appropriate cover to stop them becoming death traps. These help.

    @BragonDorn, I wandered what you were on about with the '200' at first!!! Thanks for deciding my blog is worthy of your attention. :) Always happy to see new faces join up. The more the merrier I say.

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  11. @Frontline - You should suggest a new set of images to Corvus Belli for the "Cover/Not cover" pictures - TAG with lamppost down the middle of it: NOT COVER.

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  12. lol. Thing is people get all upperty over the cover system in Infinity as it is. I think lamp post pictures might just send them over the edge!!!

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  13. @Frontline - sounds like a win/win situation to me.

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  14. I think you're just being mischievous now Ant... and I like it!!!

    What I hate is people going "but he's half covered by that low wall" yes but the rules say you need to be touching cover "but that's stupid" maybe so if that's what your used to in other games but the rules are clear, besides you ask any soldier if they'd be happy standing out in the open like that because they had a waist high wall 10 feet in front of them and see what they say "yeah but in 40k" grrrrrr you're not playing 40k!!!!

    Cover rules and LoS are what really trip people up moving from game system to game system. But they're always such integral parts of how any game works, that you can't just mess around with them. Can you tell it gets to me? lol.

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  15. "If we were playing 40k, you'd only need to cover his foot, we're not."

    In 40k the battlefield is assumed to be chaotic, with constant fire outside of the "Shooting" phase. There is no "scanning tech" that the Infinity troopers have as standard. This is what keeps movement slow for foot troopers, allows them to make use of cover, etc.

    Infinity doesn't treat the chaos of the battlefield in an abstract way, it's right there in the ARO system. Admittedly this is because with fewer models you can afford to actually have it in the system, but that's why cover isn't as forgiving, movement is faster, guns fire more shots, etc.

    That was slightly off topic, but yes, play the game in front of you, ARGH.

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