Contemplation lookout for Infinity

Today we have something from Infinity. While my Forward Base terrain is not completely finished yet, I am thinking about another table with urban terrain. There are two things that have me irritated about most urban tables for Infinity. And since urban seems to be the most popular table type for Infinity, most tables. The first is that most tables seems to be dominated by boxed shaped buildings with railing on top that are all on a single level. I will get into more details when I start more in-depth on my table. Which is what attracted my to Battle Kiwis Contemplation Lookout when I first saw it. So much actually, that I asked them about it when I saw their pre-release test model on a tournament photo. It provides a high lookout with cover, while on the ground level it has a very narrow footprint, leading to more open lanes of fire. At the same point it proves cover from shooters from above on other buildings. As such it should form a challenging centrepiece, or piece in the middle zone of the table.

Contemplation lookout

But the other thing that always irritated me is, that everything seems to be so clean, bright and nice. There is no soot, no dirt, no graffiti, no social underbelly. I can not imagine this to be the case. Even in the future of Infinity mankind is still at war with itself (and other races), so if it has not surpassed those habits, why should it have eliminated social inequality? Would the conqueror treat its new subject as good as his own people? I do not think so. So I want my urban table for Infinity to look that way. With graffiti, run down buildings, neglected municipal recreation areas, run down buildings and dirt.

Contemplation lookout

The kit itself come in a nice light off-white with protective film covering the parts. Which is nice, but did not fit my wishes, so I repainted it. A light grey seemed appropriate for a structure of this type, but I wanted a darker white, so everything was airbrushed with Vallejo USN Ghost Grey, which is a few shades darker and has very slight blue hint. The walkways and ramp were airbrushed in a German Panzer grey and highlighted with gun-metal while the upper railings were done in yellow. Here in Germany and many parts of Europe you often seen this on such municipal recreation structures where the designer felt they would look to bleak otherwise and I wanted to pick that idea up. I then painted on various graffiti. As strange as this might sound… while I have an airbrush, I find it easier to mimic graffiti painting by brush, which is what I did here for the most part. Some smaller graffiti were added using a paint pen. I tried to achieve a mix of more artistic graffiti, political or social criticism and the mundane ones.

Contemplation lookout

[/caption]Up next everything was given a very liberal wash with highly diluted streaking grime. When I hit the first graffiti made with the paint pen this caused lots of problems, since the white spirit used to dilute the paint reacted with the paint from the pen in that it washed it off. Since the ramp section had already dried, I could not change for a different weathering paint. So I used white spirit to wash those graffiti made with the pen off, replaced some of them with ones painted by brush using acrylics (although not all of them, so there is less graffiti here than planned) and carried on. After everything was given the base dirtying up, I returned to the model with the streaking grime, this time adding real streaks where the rainwater would flow down the building.

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

The display on the upper deck could hold an old smart photo to give an interactive display on the table, but I wanted to keep things simple, so I just added some desert like flora to it.

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

I did not glue the display to the platform. While this could in theory form a landing pad or the like, I just wanted to make sure it could be stored more easily. I was contemplating adding rain water streaks to the glass of the display, but upon assembly I felt it looked too nice. On the other hand it stands a bit out with the rest being so run down. What do you think… rainwater marks yes or no?

Contemplation lookout

Contemplation lookout

 

Battle Kiwi Star Wars terrain

When they announced the Star Wars Legion game late last year, I knew, that I had to play it. And I knew that I needed some terrain for it. When I saw the Battle Kiwi Kickstarter I knew that this would be great for the game and I bought into it. And I was not disappointed. All the buildings went together very easy and required very little effort to make them even better. Plus they are super versatile.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Endor bunker

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Endor bunker

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion consoles

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion consoles

Up first is the bunker. It has a good level of detail, provides cover to the minis standing atop the roof. I like the fact, that it has opening doors and that you can take part of the rear wall out, to give you the ability to connect it to different buildings they are planning to release later on. The three consoles that come with the bunker offer some nice cover to the minis inside. I repainted these dark grey and picked out the buttons and screens.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion tech work area

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion chief switch

The tech working area is a nice homage to the ending areas on Scarif in Rogue one. The containers suffer a bit from the problem you have with all MDF terrain… you see a lot of the edges on small pieces. So I repainted these. Which was easy enough. Since the Battle Kiwi terrain is pre-painted, I took the paint really well. With the control console I simply picked out the buttons and details while painting the the antenna in gunmetal.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Shiled Generator dish

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Turbo Laser turret

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Turbo Laser turret

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Turbo Laser turret and Shiled Generator dish switched around

Now on to the big models… the dish for the shield generator on Endor and a Turbo Laser turret. The are really great in that they provide great LOS-blockers for both infantry and vehicle sized models, while being really scenic. I made some minor improvements in that  I picked out some of the cables in dark grey and painted the turbo lasers themselves in gunmetal grey. Since you can interchange the tops of both models, it gives you even more versatility and makes them easy to store.

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad with Lamda Class shuttle

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad (low configuarion) with Lamda Class shuttle

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Landing Pad

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion Power generators

Battle Kiwi Star Wars Legion entrance to Pylon

Now this landing pad is undoubtedly the absolute centerpiece of the whole range. As you can see it really towers over the minis. That being said, it is easy to store, since the pylons are separate from the landing pad, which is itself is two parts, with the railings and light pylons coming off as well. As you can see, you can also do a lower landing pad and add some stairs to it and place some power generators on the pylons, or use the generators by itself. I only made some minor alterations to the model, by painting on landing lights and doing the openings into the platform itself in gunmetal grey.

The biggest problem with the model is, that it looks a bit bare by itself. So it was screaming out for a shuttle to be landed upon it. Since there is no model of a Lambda Class shuttle in the right scale, I could count myself lucky, that Martin has a 3D-printer and printed one out for me. The model itself is a bit simple, but as a terrain piece it is doing fine.