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Today I saw my first Infinity game live! Turns out that a few people in my gaming club play it and I want to try it out too! But.. I realy cant decide on what army I should pick.. I realy like the looks of PanOceania, Ariadna, Haqqislam, Nomads and Combined Army.. And I cant decide what one to pick.. So.. was curious if people could give me some gameplay info on them..? Tell me a bit about them, Tell me their strengths and weaknesses and so on..?

A lot say to choose the faction you like the look of most, but then a lot also like the look of half a dozen different factions so that can be a problem in itself.

Here's some vids from the CB website, sort of an introduction to the background of each faction.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/549783.page

Here's a thread that goes into a bit more detail of how each one plays.
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/556384.page

Thank you! I have already seen the background fluff videos, but that second link is exactly what I was looking for! *starts reading to see if I can chose a faction based on the info there*


Hmm.. Now that I have read it.. I think PanOceania, Haqqislam and Combined Army sounds intresting still.. XD

Pan Oceania is about having the best tech available to you. TO Camo, big guns, heavy infantry, TAGs with bigger guns. Even so far as a TO Camo TAG. They're regarded as the 'shooty' faction in a game that is laserbeam focused on shooting, which gives you an idea of their style.

Haqqislam is about specialised light infantry. They don't have access to the best gear (in fact, they are mostly equipped with the most basic of weapons in the game, the humble rifle). Their light infantry tends to have skills and even armour usually reserved for better trained medium infantry. Their lack of tech is shown in their access to a single outdated TAG, very few heavy infantry, and little in the way of fancy gadgets. But they have some special training that other factions lack or only have limited access to - lots of doctors, religious troops, impersonators, dogged units and others.

Combined Army are a hodgepodge of 3 distinct races, plus other additions. The main faction is the Ur Nationalists, or now EI Aspects. Things like the Charontids, Anathematics, Avatar, Batroids. Basic Combined Army lists are generally about taking these EI aspects, which are some of the most powerful units in the game, and bludgeoning your opponent over the head with them. Then there's the Morats, whose main style is run forward and kill the enemy dead with a wall of firepower. The Shasvastii are sneaky - lots of camo, but not much that can take a punch to the face and come out well.

You'll find fun stuff with any of them. Depends what you are more into - being the hi-tech guy with all the toys? Being the tech underdog with lots of specialist training? Or being the big bad guy who gets the hammer units others dream of?

Hmm.. From the Combined Army I primary like the Morat units.. The rest, I dont like as much.. So if I played Combined Army I'd probably have a force consistend of only/mostly Morat units.. Not sure if that would be good.. I like having a mixed varied force with a bit of everything.. But mostly thigs that hit hard... XD

I'm actualy leaning towards PanOceania, Or a all Morat force..

Infinity O-12 Podcast (Sorry, no link available at present.) did a few faction specials the last months.
Maybe this can help you in your decision.

I'm realy considering a Morat army.. Is the Morat Aggression Force Sectorial Starter Pack ( http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/2013/miniatures/morat-aggression-force-sectorial-starter-pack/ ) a good place to start with Infinity..?

Merllin,

what games have you played so we can make some correlations for you?


Morats are a personal love of mine so I will field that one.

Basically what to start with? the box set and a box set of hungaries (they are the hunting dogs of the morats and the oznat in the box can lead them)

I would also maybe get 2+ more vanguards from Shae's thread here as he sels models from the box sets individually which is very helpful so you can get more vanguards!!!

this would be good to start.


Morats are a "no frills" army, they don't have any fanct camo tricks or anything like that, what they have is the morat special rule which makes them religious so they do not suffer much at all when they lose their lieutenant, and they also usually fight to the last man not suffering retreat very easily. (both of these rules you would need to understand more about infinity to grasp exactly what they mean but in a nut shell. Infinity is about orders and when you lose your lieutenant you only get 2 orders on your next turn (or remaining if he died on your turn) and usually those two orders you use to elect a new LT. Morats been die hard soliders get those 2 orders but each guy still gets his orders individually, they just don't go to the pool, so its not as big an issue as usually in a 3 turn game when you lose your LT you lose A WHOLE TURN. Morats can fight through and still win when its bottom of the third and your LT got sniped but you can still succeed at two objectives cause your troops still have their own orders (plus the 2 for loss of LT)....hope that makes sense....the retreat rule is typically you run away automatically when you lose a certain percentage of your points, Morats don't do this or their threshold is so high like 90-95% usually.

Morat model range - Beyond what I suggested you are going to want to be careful with what you buy as if you see in the new Morat aggression focr starter box the alien monkeys got an update! and we can expect that to role out to our other troops a good deal of which are noticeably SMALLER than the rest of our army. The only two to really steer clear of in my opinion are the OLD vanguard (obviously) and the suryats. The yaogats too are small in comparasion but I personally like the sculpts for them and I doubt they are getting new ones within a year anyways.

Just use the new vanguards as proxies mostly!

No frills Morats break down

Morats are not good at anything specifically on paper save for not running away and not suffering from loss of lieutenant which someone at corvus thinks is a superb benefit so our basic vanguard which has the same stats as other armies costs 4-5 more points than enemy equivalents.

but we do have the tools to get the job done and well!

Vanguards - linkable and expensive basic line troops! the only way I love to run them is as forward observers then put them in a link team. This lets them succeed at a number of missions as well as giving them a flash pulse (my favorite weapon which blinds units hit for the entire turn wether its theirs or yours) A five man linked team can turning your turn on there get two dice each needing 16's or under at 32" range with a chance to blind a dude making him a sitting duck! its so awesome!!! other good pics here are the HMG and the LT, the LT costs 2 swc though...so that sucks...

Kurgat - Go MK-12 over the awesome Autocannon, his BS is so bad at hitting with it.....but they are our battle engineers with mines. They also can succeed at missions and they can drop lots of mines to keep people from choke points or off of objectives!

Treitak Anyat - our all around "specialist troop" for grabbing objectives. He is very good with climbing plus, linkable with the vanguard with a snazzier combi rifle, smoke grenades and e/m grenades! pretty good!

Yaogat - linkable. Medium infantry with MV2 visiors and panzerfausts. Solid unit! some cool tricks throwing lots of smoke out and using their visors to see through it and shoot people with impunity! (see daturazi for cheap smoke!)

Rasyat - Our AD jump troopers. SUPER GOOD! have zero vis smoke (NO ONE SEES THROUGH! even with visors) lets them block shots to them or set people up for CC, which they rock at!

Raktorak - comes in box set. He is cool with either a heavy flamer, or the vulkan shotgun! both so fire dmg which is awesome! If you like suryats he can link with them for a cheap way to up model count in the link.

Suryat - Our heavy infantry which are fast with 4-4, also hard to hack with -6 bts standard which is nice. Very solid all around heavy unit. Sucky models right now, proxy with vanguards.

Sograt - one comes in the box set. Linkable (hahaha!!) these are classified as heavy infantry but they are slow light tags with 6 armor PH of 15 and an automedkit. If you played 40k the medkit is like a necron reanimation protocol, he keeps getting back up by rolling under his PH on a d20, so very easy, and he can do it over and over...Tough as nails. Slow with 4-2 move.

Zerat - our only infiltrator who unlike other infiltrators does not have real camo...she also cant be a forward observer for a cheap objective grabber, you would need to make her a hacker which is expensive, and she sucks at hacking....

Daturazi - SUPER GOOD!! take chain rifle and smoke ALWAYS, and try to take 2-4 (at least 2) in most lists. They are impetious regulars which is awesome! super good at CC, provide smoke bomb walls for the rest of your army and have mimetism so enemies are -3 to shoot them. Our most iconic unit of awesomeness.

Pretas - always go pretas not gaki, they get mines, and chain rifles and are super cheap super fast board rushers! so good!! impetious irregular though (unless you link them with oznat see below)

Oznat - Can link with pretas (WHICH IS AWESOME) and has a smoke grenade launcher. Take her are 4 pretas! so goooooooood!!!


Basic 200pt list

5 vanguards (3 of them forward observers)
sograt with Feurbach LT
Oznat
4 pretas

Basic strats - sometimes link the oznat and pretas usuallt link the vanguards though for 2 shot flash pulses in ARO. Sometimes turn 1 I link the oznat/pretas to get them up the board then break the link and link the vanguards, especially if I go first!

The miniatures games I have played before are Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40k, And a tiny bit of Warmachine. And thanks for the awesome break down of all the units! One thing I dont realy know anything about though is link teams and linking units.. What does it mean and do..?

Merellin wrote:
The miniatures games I have played before are Warhammer Fantasy, Warhammer 40k, And a tiny bit of Warmachine. And thanks for the awesome break down of all the units! One thing I dont realy know anything about though is link teams and linking units.. What does it mean and do..?

More for Morats

Strengths
morat - listed this before but being an all religious army rocks IMO, some people begrudge it in missions, but it can swing both ways. I have had it cost me and I have had it win me games.
Fast - For infantry we are fast, most of our army moves 4-4 including our heavy. The only slow guy is the sograt at 4-2 but he has a big long range cannon, so he is fine trailing behind. We also have good speed it daturuzi (free mov with impetious order) and doubly so with our alien attack dogs the hungries.
we have no weaknesses in our defenses - There is no one category of attack we are weak to save maybe hacking? but our heavy infantry has -6 bts (which is awesome) the sograt mini tag is only -3 but again he is behind everyone so unless they are going sograt hunting he is hard to get to.
Good smoke options - we have some of the best smokers in the game only bested by the Caledonians in my opinion, but unlike them we have MSV2 in a very good unit to see through smoke.
Good link teams - vanguards are good, yoagats are awesome, oznat and hungries are awesome, even suryats and sograts are awesome link teams just very expensive
Heavy firepower - every big gun we have in spades. We have panzerfausts, feurbachs, HMGs, Autocannons, Mk-12s, spitfires, multisniper rifles...we got it all! and we have it in a lot of places meaning we are never lacking hard hitting power


Weaknesses
expensive - means its hard to get all the tools and toys you want. If you play ITS missions you want 4 specialists which limits you getting suryats, sograts, our tag...
underpar specialists in some categories - specialists are forward observers, doctors, engineers, paramedics, hackers - Our forward observers don't infiltrate, we don't have doctors save the mecha bug (I play purist) our engineer is good as a combat support engineer but he isn't a super high WIP engineer. Our hacker options SUCK.
infiltration - we have but the zerat and she is outclassed by all other infiltrators.
camo/TO Camo - we don't have any...


LINK TEAMS

linking in a nut shell - you elect a leader of the link team, and the entire team gets to act based on one order the link leader initiates instead of 1 order per dude (very powerful). Example - You have a 5 man link team, link leader declares a mov- mov spending 1 order. They all get to move but everyone must be within 8" of the link leader when everyone is done moving or they are broken from the link. They also can only trake one ARO in return for the whole team, not 1 per guy (awesome!) Furthermore, during your turn the link leader is the only guy who shoots they don't all get to shoot (you can rotate though with each order so its not that bad) but if you elect a shoot order he is the guy who shoots.

keep in mind they ALL have to do the same actions if I guy has to or you want him to do something else he breaks link and if he is the leader the whole thing unravels. Example - you want your link of 5 to mov but one guy has a ledge in front of him he cant use climbing to get over it unless EVEYONE uses climb instead of mov. He will have to use the mov you declared to try and go around, stay where he is but he will need to be within 8" of the leader when they are done moving or he is out of link.

Beneifts of link size - size is between 3-5 (ONLY 1 LINK TEAM ALLOWED IN ARMY)

Size 3 - gain +1 burst to weapons. In active turn the guy shooting gets the +1 in the reactive turn EVERYONE gets +1 burst. This is VERY powerful on items that are typically burst 1 such as missile launchers....think about it....
Size 4 - team gains sixth sense level 2. This gives them spidey sense so they can react to anything thrown at them regardless of LOS or anything else, they always get to react.
Size 5 - entire unit gains +3 to Ballistic Skill (AWESOME!!) also this +3 applies to anything shooting such as throwing grenades, marking, flash pulse even though they use other stats than ballistic.


That is the basics, you can get deep into the weeds with breaking and remaking links dropping in and out of link, but its best to see those in action to learn them.

Thanks for all the into! You are awesome! ^_^ As it turns out, I might be able to try Infinity on sunday using a friends Haqqislam. So with a bit of lluck I'l get to try the game and see if it is as fun as it seems! ^_^

Morats are good fun. A little limited in some ways but that can be a good thing for new players - I know I found the game overwhelming when I started

While some would say avoid the sectorials when your just starting, I feel the limited unit choices is actually beneficial. Just wrap your head around what you've got available to you - it may not seem like much but its been designed to function perfectly well with just these units.

With Morats I feel the core should be a link of Yaogats. Use Datzurati for cheap orders and smoke, which the Yaogats can shoot through with their special visors for unopposed panzerfaust shenanigans.

Pretas are fantastic throwaway units, and the Oznat makes them the cheapest link team in the game albeit the least effective in your typical link team roles. Take four as a screen or the cheap link to provide orders for something more substantial

Between Yaogats, Datz, and Pretas, you have our three star units. To back them up, Kurgats with the mk12 are capable combat specialists, and Anyat is another good source of flexible scoring. I'd also suggest a Spitfire Rasyat - walk him in on a board edge just outside the enemy deployment (more reliable than the combat drop) and massacre whatever you can get your hands on!

Either Yaogat link with Dat support, or Oznat/preta link with Raicho and either a few specialists to fill out a single combat group, or a bunch of filler and another fun thing or two so you can go for two groups (one TAG/ordermonkeys/zerat/1xyaogat or somesuch, and one Oznat/preta, adding two ikadrons, an R-drone and maybe a q-drone, wherever points/order totals allow/demand).

Generally, Starter box first, then hungries box, then either Yaogat box or Raicho box depending on which way you want to go.

After that it's time to add the fun stuff (but by that time most players will have their tastes developed sufficiently to figure that out themselves!).

Rather good though, come to think of it: MAF is quite playable just starting with one box for 150, adding another for 200, adding a third for 300 and basically only needing other stuff/blisters for variety.

Theorius is right when it comes to ITS though; there's sectorials that can play ITS painlessly - but MAF isn't one of them. I don't know what I'd take in a MAF tourney list - it's really skimpy on the tools.

I like the Morat models and they do sound intresting ^_^ Though being me I'm still not entierly sure about who to pick.. I might be able to get my friends Haqqislam models since he is looking to get out of it (He has grown very tierd of miniatures games and only play because his friend asks him to) but we will see.. I dont realy want to play Ariadna as they are apparantly very much about stealth and stuff and I dont want huge ammounts of cammo and stealth stuff, Atleast not to start with.. Tohaa I dont realy like the looks of, And I dont quite like ALEPH either.. But the rest of them I realy like the models in (I am growing to like the Yu Jing models more) But it's so hard to decide.. XD (Atleast for me, I'm the type that can spend 10 minutes trying to decide what chocolate bar to buy in a store.. XD)

Merellin wrote:
I like the Morat models and they do sound intresting ^_^ Though being me I'm still not entierly sure about who to pick.. I might be able to get my friends Haqqislam models since he is looking to get out of it (He has grown very tierd of miniatures games and only play because his friend asks him to) but we will see.. I dont realy want to play Ariadna as they are apparantly very much about stealth and stuff and I dont want huge ammounts of cammo and stealth stuff, Atleast not to start with.. Tohaa I dont realy like the looks of, And I dont quite like ALEPH either.. But the rest of them I realy like the models in (I am growing to like the Yu Jing models more) But it's so hard to decide.. XD (Atleast for me, I'm the type that can spend 10 minutes trying to decide what chocolate bar to buy in a store.. XD)

Dont feel bad about it being hard to choose I own a starter from every army save Yu Jing at this point lol and I only last week finally settled on which one I am going to spend the time painting and collecting.

I picked my faction (Haqq) purely for the look. I think it's a great thing about Infinity that almost all units are viable if used correctly so I just buy what looks cool!

Of course, I only have one opponent as of now and we've played only a few games. Hopefully the previously expressed opinions don't change! lol

I understand the problem...I own about 5 armies now, growing. Morat are great fun to play and the new starter is very nice. Get some hungries and some Yaogat and you´ll have some nice options of ape power!

It has taken a VAST amount of willpower to resist starting another faction, definitely. Between the PanO TAGS and the Morat box it's caused a lot of sleepless nights! lol

I've sworn to not start another (or get more Haqq) until what I have is painted. I'm desperate to not go down the "attic full of unopened boxes" route I did with WHFB/40K.

Luckily with two snow days in a row I'm well on my way to getting the Haqq done!

I think I like PanOceania and Nomads the very best in the looks, With Morat as close second place, And Ariadna, Haqqislam, and Yu Jing as slightly more distant but still close second place.. XD

Actualy.. Now that I think about it.. Nomads slip down to second place and Haqqislam and Ariadna slips up to first place together with PanOceania.. XD I like Nomads, But mostly because I love their TAGs.. (Aspecialy the Iguana and Gecko.. they look awesome..)

I chose mine based on looks too. My agonizing decision came down to being between Nomads and Ariadna...with Haqqislam in a close 3rd. I don't really care that much for the fluff behind the Nomads faction, but I loved the look of almost every model in the range. The great thing about infinity and its low model count is...you can get easily grab a second or third faction without breaking the bank too badly (not like GW game scale anyway, or even 35 to 50 pt Warmahordes forces).

Oh, in case it wasn't obvious...I went with Nomads. Love the Zeros, Reverend Custodians/Moiras, and the Geckos have to be the coolest looking TAGs in the game.

I chose Haqqislam based on looks. I liked the rugged, heavy and more utilitarian sci fi look they had over the more sleek anime inspired sci fi look of most of the ranges. Even the higher tech stuff they get, like Asawira and the Hassassins still have that heavy, rugged look.

But then the anime look started to woo me, and then I bought basically everything Tohaa have released.

Sticking with one army with Infinity is... hard.

Maybe go for Tohaa since not many people seem to be playing them.. And they look a bit unique.. And nobody here plays them... Though they dont have many options yet.. Do they have rules for more models then are currently avalable? (Indicating more will come) Or will we have to wait for a new book to have more of them?

Or maybe PanOceania.. Ghaa.... Cant pick.. XD

Tohaa are a bit odd - their small selection of units and ability to link makes them feel a bit like a sectorial army. With regards to their units, they're actually pretty well covered - Sakiels, Gao-raels and Clipsos are missing some loadouts, but apart from that, everything's there. There are rumours of a Chaksa sectorial in the future, but for now, that's all they've got.

*nods* Are Tohaa good? Whats their play style? I dont realy know anything about them and havent realy found much info on them..

They have a lot of biotech, which shows in their symbiont armour and viral weapons. Symbiont armour (carried by their MI/HI) gives them two profiles; when the first one's wounds reach 0 the second one kicks in. As a balance to that they have a massive weakness to fire. Their other big advantage is their ability to form multiple small link teams, which give some advantages to their firepower and allow multiple models to move at once. For their playstyle, I'll quote Tam's tactica on the Infinity forums:

The faction is heavily predicated on linkteams and medium-tech with a bioengineering focus, much like Qapu Khalqi, and you're likely to surprise your opponents with much more durable troops than they're likely to be expecting, something JSA has classically been good at. One of the Tohaa staples, which I'll get to later, acts quite a bit like Daturazi, so you wind up having some Morat-like combat tactics on the table. It's worth noting that the Tohaa are pretty bad at infowar, having no access to even a standard Hacking Device at this point.

The Tohaa are like all of those things, but noticably different in their own ways. This mostly boils down to the special rules and equipment they have access to. Tohaa have the ability to be incredibly order efficient, but nothing in the army is fire-and-forget. Prepare to get good at coordination and holistic tactics; this isn't an army where you can take a couple of rambos and some cheerleaders and go to town.

One not-immediately-obvious strength of the Tohaa is in their ability to become terrifying in the reactive turn, in greater numbers and with greater firepower than nearly any other faction. Tohaa have superlative access to full-burst-in-ARO and multiple-shots-in-ARO, allowing certain Tohaa lists to punish opponents in their own active turn.

The Tohaa model range is quite impressive - I haven't seen CB fill out a range that completely that quickly. They're missing only a few odd profiles here and there, most notably in the Sakiel unit. Overall the range is done, with maybe a Sakiel box on the way to fill out their options, and some odd blisters covering profiles in other units like the missing Clipsos loadouts (sniper and boarding shotgun), Vulkan Shotgun Ectros, etc.

If you want to play WYSIWIG without the need to convert, Tohaa are probably the closest you'll get for a while. The best part is most of it is in boxes, which makes it incredibly easy to get all of the profiles.

Hmm... I like all of the armies, but I like the looks of PanOceania, Ariadna and Haqqislam best so I should probably take one of those.. But it is so hard to decide... hopefully it will be easier once I have tried the game. ^_^

You will be happy with any one of those three. And if it makes deciding any easier, you'll probaby pick up a second army sooner or later.... I started with Haqq, and the force grew enough that I could easily play Qapu Kalqi or Bahram too. Then I started on Acontecimento... It's like pokemon. There is an urge to collect them all.

Just go for what you like the look of to start with, each faction can be themed to a style of play (camo / stealth - or ANTI camo and Anti-stealth) it's only after you've had a few games will you know where you want to go with your army. Ariadna has lots of cool mini's and you can take Mercs too .........but so do the rest. You've got to choose 2-3 figures that you REALLY want and build the rest of your army around them. You'll be playing most games with 10 minis or less so it's not hard to change them around to theme your games differenly (or end up like me and most Infinity players - with several armies!

 Red Harvest wrote:
You will be happy with any one of those three. And if it makes deciding any easier, you'll probaby pick up a second army sooner or later.... I started with Haqq, and the force grew enough that I could easily play Qapu Kalqi or Bahram too. Then I started on Acontecimento... It's like pokemon. There is an urge to collect them all.

Then a third and fourth and ohh GOD WHERE DOES IT END.......THEY ARE ALL SO DAMN PRETTY!



I currently have my Corregidor, Military Order, and Hassassins on my table to paint, have the MRRF, Aleph, QK, and some random Morats stowed away.