Wednesday, 20 April 2016

New Demo Kit - Salute 2016

Another Salute has been and gone.



Player handouts - front view.

These were all composed with Word and Paint then printed/laminated at a local print shop. The charts and profiles are taken directly from the weapon and unit PDFs and the rule texts are my own summaries.

Each army comes in at about 120-135 points and follows the general principal of three light infantry, one tough Lieutenant, one MSV2 Sniper and one 'fun thing'. Of course things fall apart with USAriadna who lack MSV2s and proper HI, but that's the general guideline.

Lots of unnecessary rules have been cut entirely from the profiles (Kinematika, Mines, Smoke etc.) and others have been slimmed down in detail (Camouflage, Airborne Deployment, Infiltration) in order to create a simpler gaming experience.

Generally I also ignore Command Tokens, Suppressive Fire, Retreat, Stealth, Cautious Movement and other non-vital rules when playing. Even so, demo games tend to last around an hour including the time taken to explain the basic mechanics to the players.

Player handouts - back view.

So far the factions have been fairly well balanced. Haqqislam are a little odd and are likely to have a Janissary in place of the Khwarij in their next iteration - which'll be whenever I can find a spare slot in my painting queue - but put up a solid showing when they make good use of their Missile Launcher.

Typically there is a simple mission such as having one or two Consoles in the centre table, which are activated by a WIP roll, whoever controls them at the end of three turns being the winner. This seems like a solid introduction to scenario-play and results in a lot of very intense, suicidal dashes at the end of the game!

I hope you find these handouts useful, or at least interesting, and please do let me know if you have any feedback or suggestions.

Our demo table at Salute 2016 with Keith's scenery and my miniatures.

Salute was definitely a success for us despite having one less table available to us than last year. Our area was constantly busy and we never had a shortage of interested people.

Keith, Emily and I worked together throughout the day talking to players (or players-to-be), running games, teaching rules and advising on armies. Unfortunately we were so busy that I barely had a chance to do a quick dash around the event itself and pick up a few goodies - including two more boxes of USAriadna, a lot of alternative weapons and some horses. I sense a project looming...


  1. Fantastic! I will definitely use these for demos.

    1. Cheers, I hope you find them useful. Let me know how you get on and if you would like to recommend any changes. :)

  2. The PDFs are a brilliant idea. I have wanted to run some introductory games at our club for some time so these will really help. I have signed up for the Birmingham Expo tournament again, and I look forward to seeing you there. Alex.

    1. Looking forward to seeing you there. :)

      Where is your local club?

    2. I play at Tolworth First Founding in Surrey, which is more know for Drop Zone Command (it's the local club for Orbital Bombardment Blog and Pod Cast). But I also have my own blog, Epitude Rusk's Wargaming Blog, where I post about whatever gaming I'm doing at the time.

    3. Dropped you a 'Follow' and looking forward to more Infinity content on there. :)

      I like the Custom Traktor Muls for your USArianda, what did you use to make them?

    4. The main body and tracks of the model is made using a GW Adeptus Mechanicus model. The missile launcher is from Zinge Industries. Working on a Nomad army, and hope to post on this soon.