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Like others, I play both and they are very different games. In fact, if there were ever two examples to illustrate the polar extremes that exist in the miniatures wargaming hobby, then these two are the ones.

Ostensibly, they share much in common: both are tactical miniatures skirmish games hinging on the effective use and combination of model-specific rules; neither requires more than about a dozen models per side; both have an extensive and impressively-designed miniatures range, strong visual and thematic underpinning and both parent companies release the rules for free online.

And yet...

I'm on record as having described Malifaux as "a card game with a miniatures mechanic", but I'll admit here that this is a little unfair. It's definitely a miniatures game. But the cards are central. They are far, far more than a random number generator, what with having control cards to "cheat fate", jokers, suits that activate special abilities and multiple flips (a card mechanic that's a bit like rolling multiple dice and choosing the lowest/highest).

But for all that the cards are a central mechanic, they aren't what drives the game. Malifaux is a game about personalities. It's all about Lady Justice taking on Seamus, or Pandora fighting Ramos. Yes, there are sub-narratives concerning their various henchmen, minions and slaves, but that's just it: a game of Malifaux is like acting out the action scene in a gothic horror fantasy novel.

That doesn't mean it's not tactical. But it does mean that your game can collapse on the flip of a single card very easily: it provides many moments of dramatic tension that create an exciting and tense gaming experience.

But it's not war.

Infinity, meanwhile, is a dice-based game but one with substantial margins for error, so you can be pretty confident that any given plan - whilst it may not survive contact with the enemy - will at least perform how you expect it to more often than not. Cover, lanes of fire, team interaction, target suppression, camouflage, tactical insertion and kill zones are all key to victory. People say you need a lot of terrain. You don't; but if you go for minimal terrain the game is essential about duelling snipers/HMGs, because that's how advanced warfare between equal forces is going to work!

Infinity has its personalities, of course. It has named characters and powerful individuals. But it's not a narrative game. It's a game of war. Elite, small-scale war, yes, but definitely war.

Now, I've not yet played the Ambush Alley/Osprey modern warfare miniatures game, Force on Force, so it might be a superior choice (and I have it in mind to use my Infinity models to play the sci-fi version, Tomorrow's War, when it's published in October), but as an old soldier myself, Infinity is one of the best tactical combat simulations on the market.

So if you're trying to choose between them, ask yourself one simple question: when I play a miniatures wargame, do I see myself on the table, or am I simply the guiding hand behind my loyal troops?

If, in your mind, you want to be that hero, leading your crew in a battle of magic and mayhem, then Malifaux is definitely the game for you.

If, on the other hand, you are above the battle, observing the movements of your troops and guiding them from your position of omniscience, then the tactical excellence and brutal firefights of Infinity are more your thing.

R.

If you havent played Malifaux you have to at least give it a go. Its by far one of the best games out there at the minute if not the best

precinctomega wrote:So if you're trying to choose between them, ask yourself one simple question: when I play a miniatures wargame, do I see myself on the table, or am I simply the guiding hand behind my loyal troops?

If, in your mind, you want to be that hero, leading your crew in a battle of magic and mayhem, then Malifaux is definitely the game for you.

If, on the other hand, you are above the battle, observing the movements of your troops and guiding them from your position of omniscience, then the tactical excellence and brutal firefights of Infinity are more your thing.

R.

Very good text from PrecintOmega. Brief description of both games with their differences.

Also, both games have free online rules, so testing the game and create your own opinion is easy and fair.

I´m also happy to see that this thread has not turned into a childish flame war, with users bitchin about "the other game".
So nice to see a civilized forum. All of you add a +10 to your self-esteem bar.

A question about both Malifaux and Infinity. How many figures on average in a "standard" game as recommended by the respective designers?

While I've played and enjoyed Necromunda, I'm beginning to think a skirmish game should have about 20-30 figures. More figures will help reduce the luck factor which can ruin a small 10 fig game. It allows for platoon/squad level combat tactics.

A corollary is that the powers of each figure cannot be too complex, or the game bogs down in exceptions to the basic mechanics.

Also, how flexible are the games, and how do you change the playstyle of your gang/squad? For example, precinctomega has left me with the impression that Malifaux is more personality driven, so it seem one would customize the caster (say, one game go for direct offense, then the next as buffer for the troops), but the troops are pretty much the same. Infinity seems like one would have a different force mix to change playstyle, like taking a demo expert one game or a hacker the next.

Edit: Third question. How much space do the games take? Can you play 4x4 like Necromunda or do you need 6x4?

Both games interest me, and while a number of the Malifaux figures seriously creep me out, the others I really like. Even if I don't start Malifaux, I may get a Rasputina and send her to a painting service for a display piece!

With Infinity, I feel like I'd be spoiled for choice. I like almost all the figures and just about each faction interests me. (Of course, if Infinity uses two Fireteams (8 people) for a standard game, acquiring forty-eight figures won't bankrupt me.)

Of course, this may be moot, I think WM is still the big thing in my area and the WM minis do not work for me.

@Precinctomega: Thank you for the summation of the different playstyles of each game. It really helps in evaluating a prospective purchase.

I happen to really like Infinity for many of the reasons above.

What drew me to the game was the miniatures. For the very reason that they're not gothic and dark and don't have artistic embellishment everywhere. Warmachine, Malifaux, and the GW games are all about that. Infinity is the first game that's come out since Heavy Gear that goes in a completely different direction stylistically. I agree that the market is flooded with gothic style miniatures and it's not really my favorite art style.

I also like the background. It is deeply rooted in the political conflicts we have today and is extremely interesting as well as multi-faceted. I also like how multi-cultural it is. I play Yu Jing and want to understand more about Chinese language and culture so I can at least pronounce the names of the miniatures correctly .

Like others have said above, the game mechanics are awesome. The game has the best "feel" of any miniature game I've ever played. Even Flames of War feels like 40k with WWII tanks instead of space marines, but Infinity feels like a dynamic firefight. What I also love about Infinity is that every miniature matters and what every miniature does on the table is important.

Games like Malifaux and Warmachine feel like games. They have cards and every model has unique special rules. What combos you put together are more important than what you actually do on the table. Infinity gets away from this type of game play and lends itself to feeling like more of a simulation and more action oriented.

Something "real" is always happening in the game. You don't have a model using a special ability that's just game rules, you instead have models actually doing something. Even models with special abilities in Infinity actually do something like climb a building or hack a computer.

So really the games appeal to radically different play styles. Malifaux comes from the CCG tradition of card games and very much plays like a card game with miniatures. Infinity goes way back to early 40k and games like Warzone which tried to be battle simulations as opposed to games.

I prefer Infinity because I always hated CCG's and grew up watching Robotech and Desert Storm news footage so modern style miniatures have much more appeal to me than the gothic stuff.


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Ancestral Hamster wrote:A question about both Malifaux and Infinity. How many figures on average in a "standard" game as recommended by the respective designers?

Also, how flexible are the games, and how do you change the playstyle of your gang/squad? For example, precinctomega has left me with the impression that Malifaux is more personality driven, so it seem one would customize the caster (say, one game go for direct offense, then the next as buffer for the troops), but the troops are pretty much the same. Infinity seems like one would have a different force mix to change playstyle, like taking a demo expert one game or a hacker the next.

Edit: Third question. How much space do the games take? Can you play 4x4 like Necromunda or do you need 6x4?

Both games interest me, and while a number of the Malifaux figures seriously creep me out, the others I really like. Even if I don't start Malifaux, I may get a Rasputina and send her to a painting service for a display piece!

With Infinity, I feel like I'd be spoiled for choice. I like almost all the figures and just about each faction interests me. (Of course, if Infinity uses two Fireteams (8 people) for a standard game, acquiring forty-eight figures won't bankrupt me.)

Of course, this may be moot, I think WM is still the big thing in my area and the WM minis do not work for me.

Skirmish games by definition usually use less than 10 minis. Necromunda, Mordheim, Infinity, and Malifaux fit this size. I play a lot of 300 point games in Infinity and each side has seven to 10 minis on the table. Given the level of detail that Infinity has, that many minis still gives you lots of options. Teams are also up to 10 minis, and having less than seven or eight minis in a team really limits what they can do because their order pool will be small. Infinity's use of d20's as well how they scale success rolls really keeps random crap down to a minimum. It happens, but generally what you predict will occur will generally occur.

Infinity definitely offers lots of options for different styles of play. You can focus on a small number of ultra elite troops or have a large number of medium level troops. You can use lots of things like hackers, or fill the field up with robot launched guided missiles. Each option will lend itself to radically different game styles. The different factions also offer pretty significant differences. If you play Pan Oceania or Aleph, you can really bask in the high tech feel of their forces and use that tech to your advantage. If you play Combined Army, you really have a weird set of alien abilities at your disposal. So the factions also offer lots of options.

What I like best about the factions in Infinity is that you can basically play whatever one you think looks the coolest and generally just field the minis you like the best from that faction and you will quite often have an effective army on the table.

Infinity is played on 4x4 but can be played on 6x4 or 4x2 depending on how many minis you want to use. Generally the game stays pretty playable as long as each side has less than 20 minis.

Ancestral Hamster wrote: For example, precinctomega has left me with the impression that Malifaux is more personality driven, so it seem one would customize the caster (say, one game go for direct offense, then the next as buffer for the troops), but the troops are pretty much the same. Infinity seems like one would have a different force mix to change playstyle, like taking a demo expert one game or a hacker the next.

Of course, this may be moot, I think WM is still the big thing in my area and the WM minis do not work for me.

I'd say that the Masters (casters) for Malifaux don't dramatically change the play style of the entire crew the same way that a Caster/Warlock in Warmahordes changes an army. Simply because every model in a Malifaux crew is a distinct individual, and Malifaux has such detailed abilities, their role isn't going to be altered as dramatically by the Master change.

The buy in for either game isn't that significant (a little more expensive for Infinity perhaps), if WM is the game of choice in the area then you'll at least have a lot of 4'x4' game boards around. All you need to do is find one other person that likes a crew in Malifaux or a faction in Infinity enough to shell out for a box set and you're off.

I feel moved to correct kasrkinlegion.

A skirmish game is, technically speaking, one in which each tabletop entity moves (or may move) independently.

Some commentators - particularly those who favour games involving the movement of large infantry blocks - even describe 40k as a skirmish game, although I would take issue with that generally speaking.

As a result, size is not a determiner in whether a game is a skirmish game. Both Malifaux and Infinity can be played as small games (5-6 models) for a short conflict, or as much larger gogames (30+ models) for an all-day event.

To describe the small game as "squad-based" or the large games as "platoon-based", however, would be misleading as both games are skirmish games, as I described, so models move independently, rather than as part of a team or group.

As for odds, I'd say that Infinity suffers less from the efforts of result clusters than Malifaux, due to the Orders system that allows you to spend more Orders to achieve a desired outcome, at the expense of inertia in the rest of your force. But obviously, as you reduce your numbers, so the random clusters will have an incredibly great proportionate effect. If you know of a game where that doesn't happen, please let me know how they do it!

R.

Ancestral Hamster wrote:While I've played and enjoyed Necromunda, I'm beginning to think a skirmish game should have about 20-30 figures. More figures will help reduce the luck factor which can ruin a small 10 fig game. It allows for platoon/squad level combat tactics.

I wouldn't worry about that too much with either Infinity or Malifaux. They're both less random than necromunda. Malifaux because you can play cards from your hand, and thus save those for the important stuff, and Infinity because basic success chances are typically higher (a sniper shot may easily be 75% chance to hit), weapons typical fire multiple shots at once (so multiple dice increasing chance of at least some hits) and because you can spend multiple orders on the same guy re-trying if you get unlucky and fail.

They both definitely have random elements - Malifaux with its jokers, or Infinity with 1 in 20 chance of a critical on each dice roll - but it's not as random as Necromunda imo.

Thank you all for your replies. So far I've liked what I've read about both games, either here or on BoardGameGeek. As plastictrees points out, the initial buy in for either game isn't that high, and I've already budgeted some money for a possible return to either WHFB or 40k. That money could be spent to try out Malifaux or Infinity instead and build up the starter box force if I do decide to continue. Kasrkinlegion, your comment about being able to buy based on looks in Infinity is also encouraging.

While I prefer 6' x 4' for mini games, I do not have one, so a 4' x 4' card table is used if playing at home, so being able to play on a small table gives me more options.

Have downloaded the Rules from Wyrd Games, and will do the same for Infinity.