Infinity uses templates to determine various effects on models or defining particular areas of the table. Just like many table top wargames. There are a number of manufacturers out there that produce templates for Infinity, both official partners to Corvus Belli and not those not endorsed by CB. Here is a few retailers, in no particular order:
Corvus Belli themselves supplies templates to print free. You can print out templates and markers from the Downloads section of the Infinity website. Also if you bought one of the large starter sets such as Operation Icestorm you’ll have some card stock templates. While the US Ariadna Army Pack came with a card circular template and both sizes of teardrop templates. Card is perfectly fine, but it’s more useful to have a more durable set of templates. So I thought I would design my own set of templates and get them laser cut by Cog ‘O’ Two.
Why Cog ‘O’ Two? Well firstly because I have bought some X-Wing templates from them in the past and am happy with the quality of those. Secondly I knew from browsing their webpage that Cog ‘O’ Two has a design service, where you can supply them with your idea and they’ll turn that into a product. However they also give a set of spec’s on their design page about the finished file types they can except, and the standard for the line types used within it. Armed with this information I quickly checked to see what file types I could generate easily in my computer. I ended up downloading a free open source vector graphics software package called Inkscape, and began messing around designing some templates to use in my games of Infinity.
I initially just thought of the basic templates, large and small teardrops along with the standard round marker. However ideas quickly escalated with various widgets and the like, including TO Camo markers and Holoprojector markers specifically for my Pano force.
Not sure how well this will look, as it is just a screen grab of the Inkscape file, but this was the first design file I created.
However I couldn’t really decide on a final design and created a second set of templates, although with less of the widgets. This time i wanted to give the templates a more sci-fi feel and also included some QR Codes. These link to the Infinity Wiki for the appropriate rules references. At this point I was unsure if the QR codes would work or not, so this was an experiment to see what was possible.
Once I had finished the two designs I then checked the files (as best as i could) to make sure they were of the correct format for Cog ‘O’ Two to cut. There were still a few errors in my designs that needed a little fixing. However Cog ‘O’ two spotted these and corrected them for me.Once i had paid the money for the designs to be cut, they were actually in the post the very same day and i had them in my hands the day after. You can’t complain at the speed of that service!
Below is a small selection of the templates as received from Cog ‘O’ Two. The acrylic comes with its backing film on both sides. This protects the acrylic from scratches during storage, transport, manufacturing, etc. But it is also very useful for when it comes to painting the templates. If you paint the templates before removing the backing film it acts as a mask allowing you to paint with no risk of getting paint on the face of the acrylic. The once your done and the paint has dried, pull off the backing film
This is what the above templates looked like after painting and having the backing films removed. Ready to game with!
The first image of this post was taken at an Infinity tournament recently, run by Bolton GNOME. This was my templates first outing on the table top. They must have worked really well for me as I ended up coming 3rd. I guess all my opponents were too busy admiring my new templates 😉
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