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I'm curious: Are there any tabletop games out there which center around tiny groups of infantry or strike teams or whatever? Games where 10+ models is a whole hell of a lot, each guy is his own unit, and it takes place in a much more confined setting. (Preferably with clear and consise rules.) Maybe similar to 40k Kill Teams, but with a ruleset tailor-fitted to little squads.

Sounds like Infinity a little bit.

Yep, pretty much Infinity in a nutshell. Maybe Malifaux if you prefer occult westerns.

Infinity, as in the Disney thing? Not quite what I meant...

Waaaghpower wrote:
Infinity, as in the Disney thing? Not quite what I meant...

http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/

Infinity, as in the game by Corvus Belli...

Lord of the rings sbg battle companies?

Infinity, battletech at some scales.

Lots of games like this in many genres. Infinity is a sold well supported mainstream game though, so a good option to try.

There's Deadzone as well. I tend to describe it as 'X-Com on the Tabletop.' The average squad size is around 8, with 4 being the typical lowest (for the moment) and maybe 12 being the absolute max you'd see for a very hordey force.

There's a demo game of the basic rules available on youtube.

Waaaghpower wrote:
I'm curious: Are there any tabletop games out there which center around tiny groups of infantry or strike teams or whatever? Games where 10+ models is a whole hell of a lot, each guy is his own unit, and it takes place in a much more confined setting. (Preferably with clear and consise rules.) Maybe similar to 40k Kill Teams, but with a ruleset tailor-fitted to little squads.

Lol, I used to ask questions like this. A lot of players see 40k as the start and end of all things wargaming, but in reality there are hundreds of rulesets out there.

You should give infinity a go. Its the best game I've ever seen, hands down. Once you do, its honestly a Red Pill effect - your eyes will be opened to all the other stuff out there

Edit: Didn't see deadzone up there. That would be another good one, especially since you can proxy Orks as Marauders no probs. Still recommend Infinity though

Another vote for Infinity, as linked by Cyporiean. Fits your request to a T.

The fluff itself restricts engagements to small teams of special operatives (larger engagements are forbidden by the games version of the UN).

Rules are well written (though occasional Spanglish mistranslations can be annoying) and while complicated, offer very, very cinematic fights.

Tables are generally very packed with terrain - the game makers recommend no more than 8" between any 2 peices of terrain (the movement of a light infantry), around 9-10 full buildings that block LoS with different height levels that are accessible, and plenty of scatter terrain.

Not wanting to start a Deadzone V Infinity thing but... Infinity has never really appealed to me as a game to even try it out due to its complexity, the whole Spanglish thing and the absolutely HUGE requirement for terrain - is it 3' by 3' minimum? I swear I've seen some 4' by 4' boards for it, still with a handful of guys running about.

Admittedly, the majority of the minis are goddamn awesome. However, quite a few of the female models do go over the 'good taste' line for me. To repeat though, I think on average, they are the best 28mm models I've ever seen.


Deadzone, however, is the best tabletop game I've ever played. There's nothing quite like blowing a guy off a walkway using a grenade to have him plummet to his death far below.

The game is played on a 2' by 2' gridded board (with models moving 1-3 squares a turn), so while it is very heavily terrain based, you don't end up needing that much of it. - For example, here's a typical board setup that I made as an example.



The rules are pretty simple too, but the video will explain that better than I can.

Finally, you get to field this guy.

You might also try MERCS. Five dudes per side and a small playing area.

I'll 14th Infinity.

The only problem with deadzone is the models. The rules are solid if not a bit simple.

Infinity does sound a lot like the rules you might be looking for. I was tempted to get into it myself at one point, but then I looked at the models online and just...yuck (yes, from the Tau player)

An expression I used once: "I can only put up with so many 'cute anime girls' on the table at once. Malifaux pushes that needle to the very limit of the gauge. Infinity spins the entire dial around a few times, then crosses what's left of the red line just to mock me."

 Compel wrote:
Not wanting to start a Deadzone V Infinity thing but... Infinity has never really appealed to me as a game to even try it out due to its complexity, the whole Spanglish thing and the absolutely HUGE requirement for terrain - is it 3' by 3' minimum? I swear I've seen some 4' by 4' boards for it, still with a handful of guys running about.

Admittedly, the majority of the minis are goddamn awesome. However, quite a few of the female models do go over the 'good taste' line for me. To repeat though, I think on average, they are the best 28mm models I've ever seen.

6x4 recommended, played from the long edges, up to 300pts. 300pts and up from the short edges. The overlap is intentional - they recommend swapping edges occasionally at 300pts as it makes range matter more.

It is true that a lot more terrain than normal is needed, but it's not that expensive with all of the HDF terrain makers out there now.

Regarding the female models, that's just their style. In their defence, they said the super sexualised stuff will stay in the bootleg range now (non game miniatures), with only a little bit of it leaking into the main range.

Yeah. Totally yuck in the models department.

A lot of the infantry and robots are really legit. It's the annoying (to me) anime girls thrown in that ruin the rest for me, that and the dang hollow wheeled motorcycles. Just look weird.

Pfffft, that bike is one of the best models in the entire range.

I am collecting Infinity as of now just on the strength of those bikes.
They are awesome.
And going to be red.

Kanedaaaaa!

 dementedwombat wrote:
A lot of the infantry and robots are really legit. It's the annoying (to me) anime girls thrown in that ruin the rest for me, that and the dang hollow wheeled motorcycles. Just look weird.

Be fair. Aleph is one of the factions built on anime stereotypes. All of their females look like that.

There's 7 other factions where the majority of their female models are not anime skin showing stereotypes. The biggest offender after Aleph is the Nomad Bakunin sectorial, which is half of the Nomad range.

You're cherry picking to prove an incorrect point. The majority of Infinitys female models are fine.

 jonolikespie wrote:
Pfffft, that bike is one of the best models in the entire range.

Kum Bikers would like a word with you....



I started Infinity as a game with my very F-GW buddy. Now I'm really thinking of selling off my attic full of GW stuff and buying a corvette.


If you want a game where you have to think during the game and not so much what optimal list to bring, play Infinity.

Questions like this make me wonder why GW ever dropped Necromunda (and similar skimish games) in the first place - people love games like that. Hell, 5 years ago people would have still been recommending Necromunda/Mordeheim first and foremost, even though GW stopped supporting it with new material, what, 15-20 years ago? Ah well. Infinity and Malifaux both look amazing, Deadzone is apparently a lot of fun. Great small games, and there are a huge number more out there if you look around (Song of Blades and Heroes comes to mind).

 dementedwombat wrote:
A lot of the infantry and robots are really legit. It's the annoying (to me) anime girls thrown in that ruin the rest for me, that and the dang hollow wheeled motorcycles. Just look weird.

Ya know, they actually make them in real life too

 -Loki- wrote:

Be fair. Aleph is one of the factions built on anime stereotypes. All of their females look like that.

There's 7 other factions where the majority of their female models are not anime skin showing stereotypes. The biggest offender after Aleph is the Nomad Bakunin sectorial, which is half of the Nomad range.

You're cherry picking to prove an incorrect point. The majority of Infinitys female models are fine.

I was honestly not aware of that. I did some research on the factions, found out ALPEH was the advanced AI machine dominance type faction, immediately decided that was the one I was interested in, then went to look at the models and did a rapid backpedal out of the online store. Darn shame the faction that had the most interesting backstory to me is also the one most laden with the kinds of models I don't like.

So no spinning the dial around a few times, eh?

 cincydooley wrote:
So no spinning the dial around a few times, eh?

Indeed. Being made aware that apparently the alpeh faction styling is not indicative of the entire model range, I will be more than willing to retract my earlier statement about the game in general, although within that faction I will cling to it until the bitter end.

I'll be buggered...I actually learned something productive on Dakka today.

EDIT: that said, I'm looking through the rest of the faction ranges, and they all have a few annoying (to me) female models. I'll still give you the fact it's not as bad as I was thinking it was.

mark it on the calendar. It's a seldom occurance.

Oh, one more thing. Other than the rather unfortunate name that other biker unit is new levels of awesome. Plus the real life cycle is something I could actually see myself owning at some point...

Whatever faction they are, if the rest of the models look like that, I could probably get behind them no matter what their backstory was (I'm just picturing an entire faction that look like characters out of the A Team now).

It's pronounced "Koom".