Getting into a new Infinity army: the way I have done it

Ciao!

I started with Infinity back in N3 splitting the Icestorm box with my game and blog buddy Uopo. I got the Nomads part and not digging too much the fluff and the look and feel of Corregidor and Bakunin I learned the game playing mainly vanilla. Then Tunguska sectorial was released and its all concept and background really resonated with me and my love for cyberpunk. It was love at first sight. Being quite a casual player I did not feel any lack of variety, the options available within the sectorial were enough for me. 

From time to time I have been scanning the Infinity Army and the store looking at the many gorgeous models and cool profiles available across all different factions. Still, it was not enough to trigger a real interest and a purchase. Then a few things happened:

Dune remake movie was released. I was already a fan of the book and the David Lynch movie and this sparked my interest again. 

• 
  Invisibile started to build and paint a Shasvaasti army;

• For some reason I dug out and re-read the classic D&D supplement The Emirates of Ylaruam!

I bumped into some Asawira meme. From there I started to look into how people have been proxing this model and found out many convert Jeanne d'Arc 2.0 with Spitfire which really is a cool model!

New Saladin model was released

All this escalated into me looking more and more into Haqqislam and growing fonder and fonder of it. I enjoyed the lore tapping into so many cool pop culture references and I do appreciate the playstyle differences with respect to Tunguska promising a refreshing game experience with lots of new toys: viral weapons, impersonation, holoprojectors, doctor +3, etc...

So finally I made up my mind, this Christmas no more Tunguska army expansion, time to get into Haqqislam!

Because I like to plan things, I tried to put emotions aside (at least some of them) and started to think what the most efficient way for me to get at it.

Being conscious that:

• my hobby time is limited and it can take months to paint 10 models
• although I really like Hassassin Bahram and I ultimately want to play that sectorial, it makes sense to start from vanilla in order to get some experience and do not immediately go into a limited selection of models (we do have friendly proxy rules anyways, don't we?).
• I don't want to get just random models, I want to be able to play the missions

After much reasoning and speculations I ended up getting the Haqqislam Action Pack (with a healthy 30% discount), the new Saladin and the aforementioned Joanie with spitfire. I did not go for the Hassassin starter mainly because the sculpts are a little outdated and static (particularly the Daylami) and the action pack was so much more value for money.

This is the list I am planning to debut with. A simple vanilla limited insertion with some interesting tricks and specialists to handle the button pushing. It is not going to be uber-competitive but should allow me to have some fun and learn the basics.

I will proxy the Barid with the Khawarij, the Najjarun with a Ghulam, the Lasiq with the Tuareg, the Asawira with Joanie, Al-Djabel with the regular Fiday and the Ayyar with the Zhayedan. All in all I reckon legit proxies.

I have a similar one with Tarik instead of Saladin. To be honest I prefer the O-12 liason officer by far.

This is it. Wish me luck and let me know in case you have feedback. Comments and (constructive) criticisms are welcome. I hope to post painted models and battle reports soon!