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Hello all - I've never played Infinity and am basing much of this decision on the models I'd like to paint, but I had some questions about the play style of some of the starting boxes and in particular how suited they are for beginners. I was looking at the Haqqislam Starter pack, Japanese Sectorial Army, Shock Army of Acontecimento, and Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor. Having read around a bit I've caught on to the models mattering less than the tactics utilized, but some general comments on the listed starters would be great. Are any of them too specialized? Would they be good jumping off points? Thanks in advance for any comments on the matter.

I've only just started myself so I've read lots of advice on what starters to get. I don't have the experience to tell you specifics about all the factions you're interested in but I do know a little about Haqqislam. Haqq are a force that specialises in elite light infantry, having troops with lots of options for weapons and skills but light armour. This means they can field large numbers of specialised troops but have lesser access to troops with heavy armour and only 1 TAG (the big robot things.

As for the JSA, SAA and JCC, they are all sectorials, essentially fluffy sub armies with a limited access to a factions troop types. To put it in Warhammer terms a main army is equivalent to a Chaos army that mixes the 4 gods while a sectorial is like taking a Khorne only list. Sectorials aren't recommended for beginners because they usually have a more focused playstyle and a new player needs experience in the game to learn how they like to play.

Anyway, if you go for a vanilla force like Haqq they can do a little of everything, it should give you a chance to find out what you like and then you can start to consider the sectorials.

Hope that helps!

Thanks! The information on the Haqqislam is great! Regardless of any 'recommended for beginners' labels, I'd still be curious to know how the other starter sets played if someone had that information.

Thanks again!

FOLD wrote:
Thanks! The information on the Haqqislam is great! Regardless of any 'recommended for beginners' labels, I'd still be curious to know how the other starter sets played if someone had that information.

Thanks again!

The other starter sets are best regarded as "advanced", as they contain what are called "Sectorial lists" from the Human Sphere book (barring the ALEPH "Steel Phalanx" and ALEPH starter boxes. ALEPH was introduced with Human Sphere, and the Steel Phalanx Sectorial came out with Campaign: Paradiso) which change up the availability of certain units and allow for "Link Teams" which give some nice bonuses.

The Sectorial starter sets are legal armies in the vanilla lists so you're not obligated to play the sectorial. If you like one of their styles you can always play them as a non-sectorial to get a handle on rules/army then switch over to the sectorial list whenever you feel like it.

I play Yu Jing and Nomads.

YJ is an aggressive army that can put pressure from multiple directions. It has several heavy infantry to choose from ranging from cheap and fast to expensive and devastating. It's medium infantry is greased lightening and hits hard to boot. Light infantry is pretty much relegated to support roles. JSA doesn't deviate far from that philosophy although it lacks the more heavily armored of the HI options. The starter is middling because of its short reach, except for the Oniwaban which is not the most newbie friendly model. It is expensive, has several special rules and requires some finesse to get the most out of it. You'll definitely want to expand the starter by buying more HI.

Nomad medium infantry is without fail excellent. Pick a random MI from the Nomads list and it is good idea to take it. Corregidor is the airborne army with abundant offensive and support AD options. It has some funky TAGs and the usual high quality Nomad remotes. The starter itself is very good, coincidentally almost the entire box is made up of MI. The Wildcats outclass every other Starter box's basic infantry and the Intruder is one of the best MI in the game. With the Alguacil hacker and either a Wild/Hellcat hacker you can even play around with offensive hacking although its not really Corregidor's bag. On top of all that it comes with the new Intruder sculpt, an improvement over the goofy older one. If you expand on the box I would look at Tomcats, more Hellcats or the HMG Intruder.

Anyway I wouldn't worry too much about the models in the starter. Proxying is common since models don't exist for several profiles.

All great information, thanks a lot guys!