Operation: Red Veil

Infinity is a 28mm metal miniatures game from Corvus Belli set in a sci-fi universe. There are many products that you can buy to actually start playing this game, but Operation: Red Veil is one of the best because is the newest and has 2 forces ready for play, as well as additional components for a complete introductory experience in Infinity.  

Components

Large Box

Rules (N3, new rules for Infinity)

Miniatures

Yu Jing

3x ZHANSHI (Combi Rifle)

1x ZÚYǑNG (Combi Rifle)

1x TIGER SOLDIER (Combi Rifle + Light Flamethrower)

1x HSIEN (HMG)1x NINJA (Tactical Bow)

Haqqislam

3x GHULAM (Rifle + Light Shotgun)

1x KHAWARIJ (Rifle + Light Shotgun)

1x TUAREG (Sniper Rifle)

1x ZHAYEDAN (Marksmanship L2) (Breaker Rifle + Light Shotgun)

1x FASID (HMG + (Smoke and Normal) Light Grenade Launcher)

Neon Lotus Scenery Pack

Accessories

3 Yu Jing dice

3 Haqqislam dice

Ruler

Markers and Templates

Large Box

A good sturdy white cardboard box with a good glossy cover, excelent to store your miniatures. With a do-it-yourself work you can transform it in a good transport box. The components come in a box also with a plastic insert, but this needs to be quickly thrown away, as it is not that useful later. All the pieces of each miniature are placed in little bags.

Rulebook

Operation: Red Veil uses the new N3 rules for Infinity also found in a similar product, Operation:Icestorm (with miniatures for Nomad and PanOceania factions), and two new miniatures, exclusively for this product. The rulebook comes with 80 pages (40 in English, guess how many in Spanish) presenting the miniatures available with Operation: Red Veil, a little story (4 pages), 5 missions designed also for explaining the introductory rules for Infinity in the way of “learn as you play” (19p), how to expand collection little guide with full list of miniatures for this expansion for both Yu Jing and Haqqislam, a presentation of other factions in the game (2p), notes about other products including from other companies affiliated to Corvus Belli and only 2 pages of a tutorial, a short introduction to the hobby of miniatures: from tools needed and preparation of miniatures to assemble and paint, all done in a step by step (paso a paso) procedure. The rulebook is a softcover, with a high quality paper, lots of good explanations to play Infinity, and many very good color images. Here and there, you can recognize there is not a native English translation, but I am not either, so hey, it is ok. A little mistake is the logo of Yu Jing, upside down here and there. A thing really to improve is the hobby dedicated pages, as the 2-pages section is really not enough even for a starting product such as Operation: Red Veil, since Infinity miniatures are highly detailed, they need assemble which for a beginner in this hobby is not such an easy process (a how to section per miniature will be good, although you can assemble them without instructions, is not that easy, as some miniatures are a little more complex), and of course a proper paint (the official tournament rules say you can play with the miniatures unpainted, but you guess how they will look) of these miniatures is needed – since the miniatures are highly detailed, you have to use different techniques and paints and such and watch for many details while painting (the guide recommends Vallejo model color and game color paints and washes). You can play really fast Infinity just from reading the rules, which are covered with many images and examples, and following the learn and play missions, so overall the rulebook for Operation: Red Veil (the complete rulebook can be found for free here) is a good product.

Miniatures: assemble and painting

I’ve already said it: the miniatures are very great, some of the best on the market. In total you will get 14 miniatures: 7 for Yu Jing faction, 7 for Haqqislam faction. One miniature for each of these factions are exclusive for Operation: Red Veil. In terms of rules and the recommended 300-points per faction to play a game, the included miniatures are not enough (close to 180 points), but you get a guide to bring your list to 300 points worth of miniatures. Since you are supposed to begin your adventure in Infinity with this product, of course the available miniature are more than enough. They have stats, skills and equipment that need some play sessions and advanced rules to be read in order to master them, otherwise you can play really fast with them the introductory rules. Assemble the miniatures is not such an easy activity, especially for some of them (Ninja, Al-Fasid), but can be done after watching some images on the rulebook or internet, with glue and patience in around 1 hour.

Painting is the problem and that is if you want your miniatures to look like in the pictures from rulebook/Corvus Belli site. As a beginner, when embarking in this endeavour remember that the painting for Corvus Belli’s miniatures was done by an artist, a professional painter. Even if you have some experience in the field, it will not be easy to properly bring alive all the details of the miniatures. But you can do them justice by trying to at least use the main colors for miniatures depending on the faction (turquoise and orange for Yu Jing, dark sand, green and brown for Haqqislam, grey for their weapons), and dedicate time and patience to repeat the process of painting some details as good as you can, as some colors are tricky to use and will not stick or properly appear from beginning on your miniatures (orange for example). There are some good step by step guides and videos on the internet so be sure to watch them. The problem is that nothing compares to practice, to hold a brush in your hand and to animate with colors the miniatures, so don’t be to harsh with yourself and be satisfied with your work, while constantly improving (at the same time this is a general advice in the hobby of painting miniatures). I also think that painting a miniature is never really a complete process, is simply a stage limited by your present skills or present wishes (one is to paint miniatures for a wargame, and a totally different thing for a painting contest).

All the miniatures need a little work to remove unwanted casting elements. The miniatures come with black plastic bases. These also need a little preparation, a hole to make so your miniature will fit, and a little cleaning. Be careful when using glue for basing the miniatures. The miniatures are supplied with an additional little base, in case you accidentaly destroy one, which I think will hardly be the case. Only Al-Fasid miniature needs a large base, all the other need small bases. You can decorate your bases in the way you want, from a simple paint job, to adding sand, little stones, bushes or other scenery relevant to the affiliation of your miniature. A starting reading of the fluff from the Infinity site corresponding to the factions will help, but inventiveness is a plus as always in this matter.

These mentions were needed, because otherwise for some of the newcomers to the hobby or even to Infinity, it can result in a bad experience with miniatures from Operation: Red Veil and with the product and game overall, when in fact Infinity is a very good game and line of miniatures, with “Hollywood posing of miniatures”, “physically impossible” posing and an incredible work of art/casting/designing.

Miniatures from Operation: Red Veil

Terrain: Neon Lotus Scenery Pack

It is said with good reason that a tabletop wargame is all about terrain, about maneuvering your miniatures on a table while carrefully employing to your benefit the different terrain elements. This is especially true in Infinity. The more terrain, the merrier and this because with the sci-fi weapons of Infinity miniatures who have long ranges, but also with some of miniatures skills, some that can be employed better in close quarters, you need terrain to balance the game and make it fun. Infinity is also advertised as a skirmish game, mostly urban warfare, so you are advised by Corvus Belli to bring as much terrain as you can to every play of Infinity. Of course as in every aspect of the hobby, you have to come to a good balance between types of terrains employed.

In the missions from the rulebook of Operation: Red Veil you have images recommending how you can place to good use the terrain. In the box you will have Neon Lotus Scenery Pack comprised of a game mat (glossy paper, representing on one side the mall floor where the game takes place, and on the other a poster for Infinity) and as it is advertised "ready-to-play" cardboard scenery (four buildings and six containers). The last are not that ready-to-play, as you need to assemble them, and this is hard for the buildings. I think Corvus Belli have gone a little to far with creativity regarding the way in which the assemble of buildings works: is not that easy, and although good glossy sturdy color cardboard, is not that useful in terms of game experience. I know it is an introductory product and that there are many affiliates of Corvus Belli providing different quality scenery elements, but I wanted a more simple solution to assemble and disassemble buildings (they are quite big and this results in storing problems, especially since Infinity demands many different terrain pieces). You may want to improvise a better solution with what you receive, buy terrain from affiliates, designing you terrain or a combination of the above. The containers assemble fine and they look good.

Accessories

Operation:Red Veil comes with 6d20 dice (3 Yu Jing dice and 3 Haqqislam dice), and cardboard ruler, markers (orders and such) and templates. They are all good and highly needed to learn and play Infinity. You can improve your Infinity game experience by downloading for free from Infinity site (thumb up for Corvus Belli) the unit and weapons profiles and stats as well as other pieces of terrain.

Pros and Cons

Rulebook ****

+ good rules

- needs more explanation for hobby activities (especially assemble of miniatures)

Miniatures *****

+ spectacular, incredible posing

- takes a lot of painting to properly catch all the details

Terrain **

+ all the pieces needed to enjoy an introductory game

- hard to (dis)assemble

Accessories ***

+ all the needed pieces according to an intro game

 

Conclusion

Operation: Red Veil is a must buy product to enter the Infinity game and also to get your hands on one of the best highly detailed 28mm miniatures with which you can play a game that has been on the market already for 10 years. A lot of free-content from the Corvus Belli site completes the game experience from Operation: Red Veil. There are some things to improve like the terrain and assemble instructions or more information in the guide to paint the miniatures but overall Operation: Red Veil is a very good product for what you pay.