I was going to post about this little bit of happiness earlier in the week, but things got a little hectic. 🙂

But anyways, back to fun stuff.  Last weekend was the Salt Lake Showdown Infinity Tournament at Shiv Games. This was my first Infinity tournament. I’m a much better hobbyist and painter than a player, but my buddy (and regular opponent) Josh talked me into it.

Being a painter more than a player, I’ve painted a lot of armies for this game… Not a joke. This picture is from several months ago. At that time I had 31 complete army lists that I could play simultaneously without duplicating any minis.

However, when Josh told me there was also going to be a painting contest, those 31 armies were INSUFFICIENT!  That’s because I don’t paint a bunch of the same army at a time, I switch around, so some of these were painted recently (when I’d gotten better) and the older ones didn’t look as good. So I had to pick a faction to play, and then make sure every mini in it looked respectable, either by repainting old ones, or getting new ones.

Not being super good at war games, I picked my faction based upon my current Infinity role playing game character (who ironically enough, was randomly generated). So PanOceania (NeoTerra) it is. Which meant for the last two months I’ve painted nothing but blue. I’m so tired of blue.

But, since I’d started painting this faction two years ago (it is what comes in the starter box) I figured I needed to step up my game, plus I’ve got a psychological aversion to duplicate minis in an army. So I started what I called the Epic PanO Kitbash project. Which meant I bought six boxes of minis, dumped all their parts into a pile, and started chopping them up with a diamond saw to repose them using a bunch of green stuff putty.

At minimum everybody got an arm or head swap, but with metal minis that means a lot of shaving, pinning, and green stuff.  Some of them I got a little more ambitious on. I posted pics on Facebook as I went. I’m not going to post all those pics in this post, because too many photos crashes my webpage. But I’ll do another Geeky Hobbies post about the Kit Bash Project when I get the chance.

(my personal favorite is this one unit called the Hexa, who is basically invisible until they pop out and attack. So on her, I sculpted a middle finger onto her hand to be flipping off whoever she was attacking. I love little touches like that)

I didn’t get through all of them by the tournament, but half my army was new kitbashed stuff, and the other half was old stuff. Since a bunch of high ranked players were going to be there, I figure I would get my ass kicked, but I’d look good doing it.

It was a great bunch, 48 players, and it looked like everybody had a really good time.

Round 1 was my NeoTerra versus my rebellious PanO countrymen (Military Orders) throwing down in a shanty town. We were both relative newbs. It was a good fight (and the only one I remembered to take pictures of).

The first two turns were rough, but the final turn I pulled ahead in points and I won a big victory.

Round 2:  NeoTerra vs. Druze. A mission I suck at (Biotechvore) against a more experienced opponent. And the table was pastel Easter Egg colors, which apparently threw off my troops’ aim.(a few times my dice hate me) But surprisingly this turned into a three round slug fest. I lost, but I did way better than I’d expected.

Round 3: NeoTerra vs. Corregidor. Again on that damnable Easter Egg table!  I got beaten like a rented mule by the very experienced player who would go on to take third overall. This was my only blow out. He didn’t just beat me, he systematically took me apart.  Corregidor is the army my son plays…. He did not play them the same way my son plays them. It was very educational.

Round 4. NeoTerra vs. Tohaa. At a different shanty town themed table.  It was the first time I played against Tohaa, who’ve got some weird alien rules. I was on the ropes for two rounds, but then my opponent got aggressive and moved up to finish me and collect a bunch of points, and my Rambo mini (his name is Arnold Castillo the Aquila Guard) who I’d been holding in reserve went on a bloodthirsty killing spree.  I won.

Apparently my guys put boot to ass in the favela.

Round 5. NeoTerra vs. Druze. The 2nd time I played against a Druze army, and another experienced player, on a Japanese themed table. It went back and forth, both of us losing lots of dudes.  This match was close. And by close, I mean he literally pulled it out and got ahead in points, on the last order, of his last turn, Hail Mary missile launch. It was a great game.

So I finished up with 2 wins, 3 losses. And the way they break ties is on points, so of my 3 losses, two were fairly close, and one was a slaughter. Overall I came in 26th out of 48, which is way better than I hoped for (and these guys give good prizes!).  Interestingly enough, the guys I’d had super close nail biter games against came in right before and right after me.

But now for the important stuff. The painting contest. 🙂

There were a lot of entries, including some really good looking armies entered, including a couple of guys who are pro painters. I narrowed it down to four that I thought were the top tier. Not to say the others weren’t good looking, it’s just one of those hobbies where you can spot the people who’ve put in more practice hours.  Personally, after looking at all of them technically (and I’ve judged mini painting contests before), I thought I’d get 2nd or 3rd.

But then when the judges were announcing the winners, they started talking about how there were a bunch of really good painters, but one army had put in a bunch of customization, modeling, and kitbashing. And at that point I looked over at Josh and was like DUDE.

I was surprised and humbled to win best painted. That really made my day.