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Hi everybody,

I'm considering starting with Infinity. I've decided to go for Ariadna and the Kazak subfaction in particular, mainly because all the factions with futuristic armor and weapons look kind-of the same to me and if I want to go CC-heavy, I'll just play 40k instead.
However, I'm a bit confused about the units. The basic grunt costs 9 points, which is cheap enough for a skirmish game with some 150 pts or so target value. But when I compare the stats between a regular line kazak and say a scout or veteran kazak, prices jump up to 40-50, while the values increase only by about 1-2 points or so; not much considering we're rolling D20s here. Am I missing something? Did I pick the least cost-efficient part of the army? Is the game less dependant on unit stat and more on weapon stat (the "cool" guys come with bigger guns, i've noticed)?

So, my starting lineup would be the box with 3 line kazaks, a scout, and either tank hunters or vet kazaks, something with at least an HMG: Good? Bad? Wrong?

I just recently started collecting on the Kazaks and I have the 3 line Kazaks, a Scout, Vet Kazak, and the Sniper Specnatz (converting to HMG)

The big thing to remember about grunts in Infinity is your order pool, low cost units are affectionately referred to as cheer leaders, which exist to guard your back field and provide order to the more expensive "killy" units.

You have to play a balancing act of having enough orders to run your cool units.

I love the name of your topic.

Kazak special weapons are oddly priced, the rest tends to be priced according to designing logic. Each unit comes with the set of its special rules, while ARM and W characteristics tend to add the most points to the model.

Your plan sounds fine, I'd maybe grab Kazak Doctor along with the initial purchase.

Let's see.

Veteran Kazaks have the Shock Immunity and Veteran Skills.
Shock Immunity is useful only in limited circumstances.
Veteran does two things. First, it gives Sixth Sense, so the Veteran Kazaks can more or less always react.
Second, it gives No Wound Incapacitation, which allows the Veteran Kazaks to keep fighting after receiving one Wound.
Veteran Kazaks also have more armour, so they should pass their armour rolls 15% more often than Line Kazaks.

Those explain most of the difference in cost.
They also have better weapons, and can have Mimetism, and a better BS, which explain the rest.

Okay. That's surprisingly far less confusing now. Though, mrondeau, fighting after receiving one Wound? They have only one. Do they live on borrowed time or is the rule functionally just less usefull for them?

 Kosake wrote:
Okay. That's surprisingly far less confusing now. Though, mrondeau, fighting after receiving one Wound? They have only one. Do they live on borrowed time or is the rule functionally just less usefull for them?

Basically it means they don't fall unconscious like normal troops but instead stay standing and the next wound they take moves then straight to the dead state. It's the equivalent to having two wounds in a game like 40k.

 Red Corsair wrote:

Basically it means they don't fall unconscious like normal troops but instead stay standing and the next wound they take moves then straight to the dead state. It's the equivalent to having two wounds in a game like 40k.

Not quite. Some things, like Shock (to which the Veteran Kosaks are immune anyway), affect models depending on the W value on their profile.
Asuras and Devas, for example, both have No Wound Incapacitation, but Devas still get killed in one shot by Shock weapons, since they have only 1 Wound. Asuras ignore Shock altogether since they have 2 Wounds.
They are also effects that pass a model directly to Unconscious. Those effects are not affected by No Wound Incapacitation.

Kosake, Dogged is "live on borrowed time". The model can receive more Orders, during its owner's Active Turn, and drop dead after it receives its last Order, or another wound.
It's optional, so you can just let it fall Unconscious as normal if you have a Doctor, or if it is not your Active Turn.

In all cases, I would wait until 3rd Edition to really bother with list building and rules understanding. We already know that Dogged will be simplified to "No Wound Incapacitation until the end of the turn", and I would not be surprised if No Wound Incapacitation also get tweaked to remove all the weird interactions.

Points are also changing. Not by huge ammounts but from what we have seen, different weapons options have become cheaper then their old versions.

mrondeau wrote:
Let's see.

Veteran Kazaks have the Shock Immunity and Veteran Skills.
Shock Immunity is useful only in limited circumstances.
Veteran does two things. First, it gives Sixth Sense, so the Veteran Kazaks can more or less always react.
Second, it gives No Wound Incapacitation, which allows the Veteran Kazaks to keep fighting after receiving one Wound.
Veteran Kazaks also have more armour, so they should pass their armour rolls 15% more often than Line Kazaks.

Those explain most of the difference in cost.
They also have better weapons, and can have Mimetism, and a better BS, which explain the rest.

Shock immunity will become more widely used in 3rd ed. Multi-rifles having shock ammo, for example. Also AP mines, crazy koalas and SMGs all use shock ammo anyway.