Infinity: Combined Miniatures Review

My Infinity collection is off to a strong start. I've decided to do Combined as my primary army for the game, I'm quite a fan of their story, as well as nearly their entire line of miniatures. I will still be doing USAriadna, but since it's going to be a while for all the models to come out, I wanted to pick up another army I could get to playing right away. To begin my service to my new overlord, the Evolved Intelligence, I've assembled up the following:

• Combined Army starter pack
  • Umbra Legate
  • Fraacta with combi rifle
  • Makreep with HMG
  • 3x Unidron Batroid with Plasma Carbine
• Umbra Legate with boarding shotgun
• Fraacta with boarding shotgun
• Skiavoro
• Charontid
• Kurgat engineer with MK12

All in all, it's well over 300 points, thanks to the Charontid and Skiavoro both being fairly expensive. To add some variety to the army I've also got the Obsidon Medchanoid (Dr. Worm) with slave drones, Daturazi witch-soldiers, Ikadron Batroids and Imetron, and the next thing I get will definitely be the Anathematic. Probably more than I need, but I really like the models! Something interesting about Infinity is that it seems that only changing 2-3 models can drastically change how the list plays on the board.

So, what about the models I've built so far?

Combined Army Starter Pack

Perhaps the obvious place to start the army, the Combined Army starter pack comes with 6 models (listed above). These are all newer sculpts, designed in CAD. These were the first models I assembled for the game, and you can color me impressed. The first thing I noticed was that they're all pewter, which brought back some nostalgic memories of my beginnings in wargaming. The casting quality was immaculate, with very minimal mold lines, far better than any other companies pewter minis that I've assembled. The detail was very clean and crisp, much like I've come to expect from top quality resin, and you can really see how nicely CAD works to sculpt in this format. I did feel it was necessary to pin all the pieces whenever possible, so if you're getting into this game, make sure you have a pin vice to make sure the models are durable.

Umbra Legate with Boarding Shotgun

A more dynamically posed Umbra Legate, the model with the boarding shotgun is another excellent CAD sculpt. I feel that the shotgun may be a bit out of scale compared to the shotgun that other models are carrying, but that also means it feels like an adequate proxy for a Spitfire if I want. The model consists of 4 pieces, the body, gorget, and both arms. I appreciate that they took the pewter casting and did their best to make the pose feel dynamic, though I think if they would have broken it down into one more piece, they could have kept the body piece from feeling a bit flat. Overall though, another great miniature.

Fraacta with Boarding Shotgun

Compared to the Umbra and Unidrons, the Fraacta is very lithe. The pieces are quite small and delicate, so pinning felt just about mandatory. Thanks to the smooth armoured shoulder pad, I was actually able to drill all the way through the arm and shoulder to set the pin, simply covering up the hole on the outside of the arm with a dab of greenstuff. I really like that the jump pack is easily twisted and bent to make the interesting pose that you can see in the picture, and all being one piece, it's a bit more durable than I expected. Like the other CAD sculpts, the quality and level of detail is just astounding for a pewter miniature.

Skiavoro

This is the first of the non-cad sculpts that I assembled, and it felt like a much more traditional pewter miniature. The connection point for the tail feels very weak, so I pinned it, which I would have done anyhow, and the level of detail wasn't quite as deep as I had come to expect from the other models. The little fins on the gun are often left off, and are too thin to pin, so they can easily break off if you're not careful. I still think the sculpt holds up though, and the pose is quite nice, but you really need to be careful with the gun fins.

Charontid

Another older sculpt (by comparison), the Charontid has undergone a base size change from the previous edition of the game, so the positioning of the feet is a bit awkward. If you put the tab under the feet into the slot on the base, you end up with the model posed far towards the back of the base, so you really need to cut it off. It also has a bit under the left foot that is normally glued to the side of the 25mm base, but with the new base, it's going to go on top, so it forces the pose to aim up a bit more than before, making his gun arm point a bit upward instead of forward, which isn't really a big deal. Not my favorite model of the army, but still not awful, I wouldn't say no to a resculpt though.

Kurgat engineer with MK12

Alright, the last model of the army, and I think the oldest sculpt. coming in at only two pieces, you can really tell the difference between the new CAD sculpts and this classic green stuff model. It's not bad, and I think a good paint job can revive it, though stylistically, it's quite a bit different than the new Morat sculpts, which look amazing.