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Thats a nice set of models for both sides. Really well done. God damn that Aspara is amazing looking.

Yeah, the box is amazing. The models are astounding.

The ALEPH minis are very good indeed. The ALEPH starter plus those ALEPH in the Beyond box makes for a nice looking force. The starter should be available in January.

The only model I don’t really like is the Ratnik, and I’m usually a huge fan of the S5 heavy infantry models. I much prefer the blackjack to it, and I’m not even a massive fan of that!

Not exactly 3rd Offeensive week but here we go.

Shona Carano is amazing.

Aristeia is a great creative outlet for them. Lots of interesting designs that let them explore areas of their settings that the minis game never would even if they do throw in a lot of fan service with not-Hellboy and not-Ateam.

Aristeia right now is the Healthy & fresh game by CB. Is a game easy to understand, easy to play difficult to master, with their own tournaments, with just a few extra layer of expansions and that's it.

Unlike INFINITY that has become a behemoth of complexity with gazillions of rules, a range of miniatures with old/new/exclusive/discontinued/soon to be discontinued/bootleg/attractive but unsafe spectre of models, a narrative confusing plot with fanbase interference and a competitive scene that pushes the game to nightmarish levels of meta.

I've been ejoying INFINITY for more than a decade now. It was lovely and manageable in 2007, it became the best-loooking sic fi range of miniatures in 2012.
Nowadays I go to a tournament and it takes 15 minutes for me to understand what's going on, why am I rolling dice and how can I get out of here.

-"Die as a hero or live enough to see yourself become a villain."

I guess that these games have their moment for everyone. Aristeia is refreshingly simple and it doesn't require from me to assemble a table for 20 minutes before playing.
I'm getting old also.

Infinity could heavily benefit from official stat cards to ease the rules bloat.

BobbaFett wrote:Aristeia right now is the Healthy & fresh game by CB. Is a game easy to understand, easy to play difficult to master, with their own tournaments, with just a few extra layer of expansions and that's it.

Unlike INFINITY that has become a behemoth of complexity with gazillions of rules, a range of miniatures with old/new/exclusive/discontinued/soon to be discontinued/bootleg/attractive but unsafe spectre of models, a narrative confusing plot with fanbase interference and a competitive scene that pushes the game to nightmarish levels of meta.

I've been ejoying INFINITY for more than a decade now. It was lovely and manageable in 2007, it became the best-loooking sic fi range of miniatures in 2012.
Nowadays I go to a tournament and it takes 15 minutes for me to understand what's going on, why am I rolling dice and how can I get out of here.

-"Die as a hero or live enough to see yourself become a villain."

I guess that these games have their moment for everyone. Aristeia is refreshingly simple and it doesn't require from me to assemble a table for 20 minutes before playing.
I'm getting old also.

Agreed. Everyone that I get to play one of the Operation boxes loves the game but a normal game takes about 3 hours to play (as you're learning) and that turns a lot of people off as if you don't play a lot you never really move past that 3 hour mark.

Absolutionis wrote:Infinity could heavily benefit from official stat cards to ease the rules bloat.

Lots of things should be done to speed up the game. Shrink the play area from 4 feet to 3. Max of 10 orders regardless of the number of troops (and you just loose orders as you loose point percentages), get rid of all the stuff that's almost the same and condense it to one rule.

 Absolutionis wrote:
Infinity could heavily benefit from official stat cards to ease the rules bloat.

What would that accomplish? They have Infinity Army which is available to everyone.


If you mean write some of the special rules and abilities more concisely and clearly. yeah, they could definitely do that.

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:
Infinity could heavily benefit from official stat cards to ease the rules bloat.

What would that accomplish? They have Infinity Army which is available to everyone.


If you mean write some of the special rules and abilities more concisely and clearly. yeah, they could definitely do that.

Or maybe have army actually print out the rules for all the skill and equipment instead of having to hope though the wiki or rule book to find everything while playing. Stats and weapons aren't enough. Even just listing what freaking ammo does would be a big help. Cards would force CB to keep things concise as they wouldn't have an unlimited canvas.

Cards would need printing in multiple languages. Too much $$$, or €€€ as the case may be.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Everyone that I get to play one of the Operation boxes loves the game but a normal game takes about 3 hours to play (as you're learning) and that turns a lot of people off as if you don't play a lot you never really move past that 3 hour mark.

It's now a lifestyle game. I have a few friends who no longer play because of this.

Stream-line, cull, prune w/e the weapons and special skills, and the hacking. This is where most of the bloat lies.

Pre-order for 3rd Offensive ends 5 November. Sometime in December we get the book? It will have new rules. It may even address the whole Play By Intent *issue*. When will the rules PDF be available?

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:
Infinity could heavily benefit from official stat cards to ease the rules bloat.

What would that accomplish? They have Infinity Army which is available to everyone.


If you mean write some of the special rules and abilities more concisely and clearly. yeah, they could definitely do that.

Or maybe have army actually print out the rules for all the skill and equipment instead of having to hope though the wiki or rule book to find everything while playing. Stats and weapons aren't enough. Even just listing what freaking ammo does would be a big help. Cards would force CB to keep things concise as they wouldn't have an unlimited canvas.

Ahh I see. I misunderstood you.

It would be interesting to add that as an option for the print out, though in the case of some rules it would print out several pages.

I do agree they could do with some rule streamlining. Like, the Sixth Sense rule has ZERO mention of how it interacts with Stealth. Instead, Stealth is the rule that says it doesn't work vs Sixth Sense. Meaning that if you have a Stealth model sneaking up on a Sixth Sense dude, it is on the Stealth model to remember that its rule doesn't work. Instead, Sixth Sense should have the line that says that it nullifies Stealth.

The actual rules of the game are much simpler since N3.
2nd edition rules were a nightmare of translation errors and inconsistent formatting.
Infinity is in a good place now rules wise. Yes there are a lot of rules, but 50% of those rules don't come up in any one given game. Just bring a tablet & check the wiki. They do a good job keeping it up to date.

I think you're referring moreso to the nightmare that is the ITS scenarios. I'm glad they have a structure for the die-hard tournament crowd. The game needs that.
But I agree it is too much to absorb for the more casual player. Pick a 3rd party mission system like YAMS or D20 and keep it simple.

Red Harvest wrote:Cards would need printing in multiple languages. Too much $$$, or €€€ as the case may be.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Everyone that I get to play one of the Operation boxes loves the game but a normal game takes about 3 hours to play (as you're learning) and that turns a lot of people off as if you don't play a lot you never really move past that 3 hour mark.

It's now a lifestyle game. I have a few friends who no longer play because of this.

Stream-line, cull, prune w/e the weapons and special skills, and the hacking. This is where most of the bloat lies.

Pre-order for 3rd Offensive ends 5 November. Sometime in December we get the book? It will have new rules. It may even address the whole Play By Intent *issue*. When will the rules PDF be available?

Ya, and that's a big reason I don't do anything really with the game anymore. Unless Infinity is all I do with my free time I can't get to the point to play it as it's intended.

As for rules PDF don't they generally come out a week after general release?

Grey Templar wrote:

Ahh I see. I misunderstood you.

It would be interesting to add that as an option for the print out, though in the case of some rules it would print out several pages.

I do agree they could do with some rule streamlining. Like, the Sixth Sense rule has ZERO mention of how it interacts with Stealth. Instead, Stealth is the rule that says it doesn't work vs Sixth Sense. Meaning that if you have a Stealth model sneaking up on a Sixth Sense dude, it is on the Stealth model to remember that its rule doesn't work. Instead, Sixth Sense should have the line that says that it nullifies Stealth.

Ya, of course it should be optional as not everyone needs that. Ideally you'd have army as it is now and then "card mode" that does a unit card that all that unit's rules (skills and equipment even range bands) should fit on (double sided) but I don't know how doable that is without complete rewrites of things like stealth and, Martial Arts and so on. Hacking could be it's own card maybe just because there's so many options.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
Ya, and that's a big reason I don't do anything really with the game anymore. Unless Infinity is all I do with my free time I can't get to the point to play it as it's intended.

As for rules PDF don't they generally come out a week after general release?

Yeah, my group has gone the same way. As bloat increased are small hiatuses from it started growing larger and larger. It eventually became small clusters of increased play around releases followed by a steep drop off. And as are time with the game grew shorter and shorter people became less enthused every time we started playing it again because starting up always meant 2-4 hour long games full of almost constant look up (I mean, the wiki makes it easier, but there are games I haven't played in nearly a decade that I can get in to and play quicker than I ever could with Infinity).

I think "lifestyle game" is a pretty apt description. It is a game that basically demands your undivided attention these days unless you're just in it for the models.

It has gotten to the point where I've started looking for alternatives so my group can use our Infinity collections again, because it feels more and more like Infinity just isn't the game for us. I really miss the days of it being a small squad tactics game, but unless N4 goes back to the basics again, it feels like that ship has sailed and they should probably just bite the bullet and fully move in to making it the platoon-scale skirmish game it has been turning in to over the past decade.

a card-option in Army isn't very realistic and I don't see how it's any better than the armylist printout that Army already does, some of the individual rules would be multiple cards on both sides and forcing it into a card format would be almost a complete rewrite of the app AND take up more paper. An option to include a rules summary would be welcome though, and I mean literally a 1-line summary of reminder text for the rule.

The actual rules are fine as-is, like Bladerunner said, they've been cleaned up a lot for this edition compared to N1/N2 and I doubt I'd be as interested in the game if CB "streamlined" it to the level some people are asking for, there's already plenty of shallow skirmish games on the market. I LIKE that this game is complex enough to make a fight between 2 dozen soldiers as complex as other games using hundreds of figures. That said, they sure could do with a little more redundancy. No reason that the wiki shouldn't mention stealth/sixth sense interaction under both listings, for instance. Also there's a bunch of rules buried within other rules like Martial Arts granting Stealth and V:Courage. An option in Army to print out any granted-in sub-rules and a little more repeated redundancy in the wiki would go a LONG way to solving these issues.

As for scenarios, there's an app called Comlog that has all the ITS scenarios and, unlike the actual ITS PDF, it lists all the relevant rules for the scenario at the bottom of each scenario like Civ-Evac and Xenotech where it applies. For hacking you've got both a summary on the armylist printout from Army and also there's the excellent Captian Spud's hacking Helper.

Just because the rules are better compared to N2 doesn't mean they're clean. Infinity has always had the reputation of having a high barrier to entry with a *lot* of frontloaded rules you have to memorize.

Having a simple set of cards wouldn't *replace* the Army Builder. It'd supplement it. Language/translation is also not an excuse when mission cards exist; those things become obsolete quicker than profiles.

A card explaining, in detail, the fire modes of a MULTI Rifle would be nice for both players to have on-hand at all times without flipping through a bunch of sheets of paper. You could have multiples of the same card just near/under a model's card to get a quick at-a-glance understanding of what the more uncommon weapons do. I'm sure everyone has memorized the range bands of a Combi Rifle by now, but some players may need reminders on what Plasma Rifles or T1 Rifles do especially for those that don't play specific factions.

Having troop profiles with reminder text, akin to MtG cards, would also be great. It could be shortened significantly to remain as reminder text. That way, it'll be easier for new players to learn the difference between the different Camo types. It'd be nice to have a reminder card for all the Hacking Programs and Martial Arts types just for reference for all players. It'd be nice to have a reminder on exactly how Jammers, E-Marats, CrazyKoalas, and Sepsitors work without having to reference the rulebook every time.

 Kalamadea wrote:
a card-option in Army isn't very realistic and I don't see how it's any better than the armylist printout that Army already does, some of the individual rules would be multiple cards on both sides and forcing it into a card format would be almost a complete rewrite of the app AND take up more paper. An option to include a rules summary would be welcome though, and I mean literally a 1-line summary of reminder text for the rule.

The actual rules are fine as-is, like Bladerunner said, they've been cleaned up a lot for this edition compared to N1/N2 and I doubt I'd be as interested in the game if CB "streamlined" it to the level some people are asking for, there's already plenty of shallow skirmish games on the market. I LIKE that this game is complex enough to make a fight between 2 dozen soldiers as complex as other games using hundreds of figures. That said, they sure could do with a little more redundancy. No reason that the wiki shouldn't mention stealth/sixth sense interaction under both listings, for instance. Also there's a bunch of rules buried within other rules like Martial Arts granting Stealth and V:Courage. An option in Army to print out any granted-in sub-rules and a little more repeated redundancy in the wiki would go a LONG way to solving these issues.

As for scenarios, there's an app called Comlog that has all the ITS scenarios and, unlike the actual ITS PDF, it lists all the relevant rules for the scenario at the bottom of each scenario like Civ-Evac and Xenotech where it applies. For hacking you've got both a summary on the armylist printout from Army and also there's the excellent Captian Spud's hacking Helper.

The card option would have been nice in the past. I know other games do it. The cards in Infinity boosters are a waste of space.
However, we’re beyond that now. There is a free army builder app that will build a roster for you. The community has done a great job to simplify the bloat with other tools available.

With the limited insertion rules and ongoing efforts to deflate HI point costs, it seems pretty clear CB is trying to get more people playing 10 order lists. They have also introduced many new specialist profiles and new scenarios in the last 2-3 years to get the game away from the excessive button pushing.
It’s a tough balancing act between simple annihilation missions and stupid button pushing tasks.



Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Absolutionis wrote:
Just because the rules are better compared to N2 doesn't mean they're clean. Infinity has always had the reputation of having a high barrier to entry with a *lot* of frontloaded rules you have to memorize.

Having a simple set of cards wouldn't *replace* the Army Builder. It'd supplement it. Language/translation is also not an excuse when mission cards exist; those things become obsolete quicker than profiles.

A card explaining, in detail, the fire modes of a MULTI Rifle would be nice for both players to have on-hand at all times without flipping through a bunch of sheets of paper. You could have multiples of the same card just near/under a model's card to get a quick at-a-glance understanding of what the more uncommon weapons do. I'm sure everyone has memorized the range bands of a Combi Rifle by now, but some players may need reminders on what Plasma Rifles or T1 Rifles do especially for those that don't play specific factions.

Having troop profiles with reminder text, akin to MtG cards, would also be great. It could be shortened significantly to remain as reminder text. That way, it'll be easier for new players to learn the difference between the different Camo types. It'd be nice to have a reminder card for all the Hacking Programs and Martial Arts types just for reference for all players. It'd be nice to have a reminder on exactly how Jammers, E-Marats, CrazyKoalas, and Sepsitors work without having to reference the rulebook every time.

The wiki does this just fine. Just use your phone/tablet.
Use tabs?

What am I missing here? Having all that stuff on cards on the table will clutter up an already complicated game. Lord knows there are already too many tokens in infinity.

Should also say anytime I’m building a list with exotic stuff like jammers & crazy koalas, I make sure I reread those rules first.

 Bladerunner2019 wrote:
The actual rules of the game are much simpler since N3.
2nd edition rules were a nightmare of translation errors and inconsistent formatting.
Infinity is in a good place now rules wise. Yes there are a lot of rules, but 50% of those rules don't come up in any one given game. Just bring a tablet & check the wiki. They do a good job keeping it up to date.

I think you're referring moreso to the nightmare that is the ITS scenarios. I'm glad they have a structure for the die-hard tournament crowd. The game needs that.
But I agree it is too much to absorb for the more casual player. Pick a 3rd party mission system like YAMS or D20 and keep it simple.

I agree. I find Infinity to be fairly streamlined (for what it is, which is a complex game). I've been playing for about 10 years and teaching the game for most of that, and I think it really is a game for a certain kind of player. Not for everyone. But when people talk about it being bloated, and the things they think should be removed, what they suggest often doesn't make any sense to me. The game has a HUGE amount of rules, but you don't actually need to know most of that in order to play. What you need to know is the basics, and you need to have a handle on the army you brought. Everything else can be referenced extremely easily using army and the wiki. In most cases looking something up doesn't take more than a minute or three, and can often be done in anticipation of the question. I know that some people don't like looking anything up at all and find having to pause the game for even a moment frustrating, but thats never bothered me at all, and I always look at it as both a way to sharpen my knowledge of the game and as a chance to be as fair as possible. And even if I end up pausing the game to reference a rule 5 or 10 times it rarely makes the game last more than 15 more minutes. Thats never been a big deal in any of the hundreds of games I've played.

But I understand thats not what everyone wants out of a game. And unfortunately as Infinity has grown more popular its attracted more people who want the game to be something it isn't, and get frustrated when thats not the case (as opposed to the people who understand what the game is and are also frustrated by it, I guess). Reference Cards are also a suggestion that never makes sense to me, considering we already have army, the ability to print out detailed sheets with all unit info, weapon qualities, hacking programs and other information. And again, everything is quickly referencable via the wiki. I always assume wanting reference cards must be a holdover from players who are used to games that have them and don't really understand that Infinity doesn't require them? Or simply have a strong preference for that kind of format even though it doesn't fit this game well? Nothing wrong with that, I guess. But I always wonder if people would be happier embracing what Infinity is (faults and all) instead of wanting it to be something else.

I also agree that ITS is... kind of nuts. I appreciate it as a source of ongoing content and narrative, but its become a headache to keep up with. Over the last year and a half I went from being a Warcor who played 3-4 ITS games weekly to a hermit who gets to play maybe once a month, mostly with people who don't have any interest in ITS. As a result I really struggle to keep up with the changes each season, and new missions often seem nonsensical too me at first. I think if I was still playing as much as I used to I'd be more on top of everything, but now that I'm a more casual player the whole thing seems like more trouble than its worth. More and more often I want to just play simple missions without tons of added extras.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Absolutionis wrote:
Just because the rules are better compared to N2 doesn't mean they're clean. Infinity has always had the reputation of having a high barrier to entry with a *lot* of frontloaded rules you have to memorize.

Having a simple set of cards wouldn't *replace* the Army Builder. It'd supplement it. Language/translation is also not an excuse when mission cards exist; those things become obsolete quicker than profiles.

A card explaining, in detail, the fire modes of a MULTI Rifle would be nice for both players to have on-hand at all times without flipping through a bunch of sheets of paper. You could have multiples of the same card just near/under a model's card to get a quick at-a-glance understanding of what the more uncommon weapons do. I'm sure everyone has memorized the range bands of a Combi Rifle by now, but some players may need reminders on what Plasma Rifles or T1 Rifles do especially for those that don't play specific factions.

Having troop profiles with reminder text, akin to MtG cards, would also be great. It could be shortened significantly to remain as reminder text. That way, it'll be easier for new players to learn the difference between the different Camo types. It'd be nice to have a reminder card for all the Hacking Programs and Martial Arts types just for reference for all players. It'd be nice to have a reminder on exactly how Jammers, E-Marats, CrazyKoalas, and Sepsitors work without having to reference the rulebook every time.

I feel like all of this already exists. Its called Army and the Infinity Wiki. Its very simple to use and much easier than having to carry around a bunch of cards. I mean, if this is just your personal preference, thats fine. But its hard for me to imagine most people would prefer having a bunch of cards over an easy to use app on their phone/tablet/laptop and detailed army list printouts which include much of the info you're talking about anyway.

 Bladerunner2019 wrote:

The wiki does this just fine. Just use your phone/tablet.
Use tabs?

What am I missing here? Having all that stuff on cards on the table will clutter up an already complicated game. Lord knows there are already too many tokens in infinity.

You're "missing" that some people like having things physical. Not everywhere has WiFi access, so you're now suggesting people use their data plans for it. There's also the simple factor of not everyone wants to take a tablet with them to game--I rarely take mine with me, instead opting to print things or getting stuff physically.

Additionally, you know those cards that come in the front of the blister for Infinity models? How about the cards that came with the GenCon Dart? It's not like they can't do this.

Should also say anytime I’m building a list with exotic stuff like jammers & crazy koalas, I make sure I reread those rules first.

Okay...? Yes. People likely read the rules for something when building lists. That's a thing they'll do.

 Ronin_eX wrote:
I think "lifestyle game" is a pretty apt description. It is a game that basically demands your undivided attention these days unless you're just in it for the models.

Yeah.... no. I'm what most would call a super casual gamer. After work, family and other RL commitments I manage maybe one trip to the local gaming club a month (if I make two it feels like my birthday) and manage to paint maybe a couple dozen miniatures a year, and I still play more systems then Infinity.

If someone is complaining Infinity is taking up all their hobby time it sounds like someone needs to take a step back and give their time management skills a severe cleaning.

Infinity has the ability to suck up all your time if you want it. It's a great game in that respect. You can go as deep or as casual as it suits, but it does not demand that commitment.

I'm not really asking for a rewrite at all, though some are, just a few areas that are confusing to be cleared up like ZoC, stealth, alert and that nonsense. Let the game stay what it is for what people want that. Having easier access to info is what I want. It takes hours to play the game if you don't have everything memorized and sorting though 50 tabs on a small tablet is not a time saver. As is the game takes too much time to play 3-4 hours with most of that rules discussions. If I could play more then once every 6 weeks it would become easier to play but my main hobby time isn't wargames so I only get to play with me and the other friend that do like miniature games can get togethor without the others that don't like them.

For the card version I said ideally for a reason. It's what I'd like but that doesn't mean it's what I'll ever get. Though I wouldn't complain if CB had a version of the rules that allowed you to play the Operation X level of complexity -- wouldn't care if half the units were the same.

 Monkeysloth wrote:
I wouldn't complain if CB had a version of the rules that allowed you to play the Operation X level of complexity -- wouldn't care if half the units were the same.

I guess you could simply choose a dozen abilities that you feel were core to Infinity , and then just play units as having nothing but their stats, their abilities (which ever ones they have that are on that list of a dozen) and a simplified weapon loadout (all rifles are combi rifles, all template weapons are Chain rifles, all Shotguns are Boarding Shotguns, SWC weapons are limited to Missile Launcher, MSR and HMG, all mines are AP Mines, all grenades are grenades, etc)

That would pretty much do it. It would be a MUCH simpler game,and likely a LOT of profiles would be very over or under costed. But in a lot of ways it would be like a simple version of first edition. HI would get by on having higher armor, higher BS and 2 wounds. Skirmishers would rely on having camo, mines and infiltration. Warbands would be all about high CC stats. Theres certainly an appeal to that. But also, I played a LOT of Icestorm demos when I was a Warcor. Like 50 or so of them. That kind of limited selection can be fun and challenging, but it also gets old after awhile.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
An escalation league that starts at Icestorm style rules and slowly grows to include more and more would be neat. For example, Season 1 could be basic stuff, Season 2 could be camo, smoke and MSV, season 3 could be hacking, remotes and TAGs, season 4 could be fireteams.

 jake wrote:

An escalation league that starts at Icestorm style rules and slowly grows to include more and more would be neat. For example, Season 1 could be basic stuff, Season 2 could be camo, smoke and MSV, season 3 could be hacking, remotes and TAGs, season 4 could be fireteams.

That actually would be fun

 Monkeysloth wrote:

 jake wrote:

An escalation league that starts at Icestorm style rules and slowly grows to include more and more would be neat. For example, Season 1 could be basic stuff, Season 2 could be camo, smoke and MSV, season 3 could be hacking, remotes and TAGs, season 4 could be fireteams.

That actually would be fun

I think it would also be a good tool for teaching the game. CB used to recommend this, slowly easing players in by introducing a few rules at a time. But too many people try to teach everything at once,a nd too many players want to use every toy they have. The operation boxes are a good start for this, but they drop you off into the deep end instead of easing you in.

 Ronin_eX wrote:
...but unless N4 goes back to the basics again...

(Spits drink)
N4?!
Is there an official/unofficial rumour about N4?!

I think this game really needs such thing.

 BobbaFett wrote:

 Ronin_eX wrote:
...but unless N4 goes back to the basics again...

(Spits drink)
N4?!
Is there an official/unofficial rumour about N4?!

I think this game really needs such thing.

None at all and I doubt they will for several years since they finally seamed to find their groove after a really slow roll out reworking n2 content into n3.

No, no rumor. Really, just a revised N3 would do. And ITS missions that are written for 250 point or even 200 point lists.

No leaks about the rules that are to be included in 3rd Offensive? ( "3ON3")