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So I try to start the game and can't decide what faction and what type of army should I take. I've read the quick start rules, read around the game's official page and some forums too, I still need some info.

What are the main strategies or ways of playing that are viable?

I really like the idea of TAGs, accompanied by cheap units to feed them action points. How viable is this? And what other support do TAGs need? Which faction should I choose for this?

Can I skip specific roles in my army, e.g. hacking, engineers, medics, are they critical, or useful?

I heard pretty much everything is viable in infinity, and every faction more or less have access to every type of units. What are the main strengths/weaknesses of the factions and what are the main strategies for them?

I'm looking for some shooty army, but not a gunline, and with some mobility, prefereably with heavy infantry and TAGs. I like the idea of stealth and infiltration. I possible, I'd like to add support, synergy or even combos if possible.

Thanks for the help in advance!

Zsolt wrote:
So I try to start the game and can't decide what faction and what type of army should I take. I've read the quick start rules, read around the game's official page and some forums too, I still need some info.

What are the main strategies or ways of playing that are viable?

I really like the idea of TAGs, accompanied by cheap units to feed them action points. How viable is this? And what other support do TAGs need? Which faction should I choose for this?

Can I skip specific roles in my army, e.g. hacking, engineers, medics, are they critical, or useful?

I heard pretty much everything is viable in infinity, and every faction more or less have access to every type of units. What are the main strengths/weaknesses of the factions and what are the main strategies for them?

I'm looking for some shooty army, but not a gunline, and with some mobility, prefereably with heavy infantry and TAGs. I like the idea of stealth and infiltration. I possible, I'd like to add support, synergy or even combos if possible.

Thanks for the help in advance!

There are no gunlines in Infinity, at least not in the way you're talking about. Running a Tag Rambo style isn't the best option. Too many eggs in one basket.
All the factions have their strengths and weaknesses, but also enough tools to compensate. For example, I could run a heavy infantry Nomad list if I wanted. My list would be a bit more limited than Pan O's or Aleph's, but I could.
Honestly, just pick the faction that interests you the most and go for it.

 MWHistorian wrote:

There are no gunlines in Infinity, at least not in the way you're talking about. Running a Tag Rambo style isn't the best option. Too many eggs in one basket.
All the factions have their strengths and weaknesses, but also enough tools to compensate. For example, I could run a heavy infantry Nomad list if I wanted. My list would be a bit more limited than Pan O's or Aleph's, but I could.
Honestly, just pick the faction that interests you the most and go for it.

My problem is, I still can't figure out which faction to choose and what kind of army.

Zsolt wrote:

 MWHistorian wrote:

There are no gunlines in Infinity, at least not in the way you're talking about. Running a Tag Rambo style isn't the best option. Too many eggs in one basket.
All the factions have their strengths and weaknesses, but also enough tools to compensate. For example, I could run a heavy infantry Nomad list if I wanted. My list would be a bit more limited than Pan O's or Aleph's, but I could.
Honestly, just pick the faction that interests you the most and go for it.

My problem is, I still can't figure out which faction to choose and what kind of army.

I always recommend choosing a faction based on aesthetics. But I can see why some would prefer to base it on available units.

What 'kind' of army I find highly irrelevant. This isn't a game where you simply buy your 10 models and are done. You're going to want a good selection of various units and specialists depending on what scenarios you're expecting to play. While buying an entire faction is mostly reserved for the insane (I'm among them), a good spread over 20-30 models is a good place to be with this game.

Buy what you like the look of best, as you will enjoy your army more. There are varying play styles but its all very similar bar say Caledonian Highlanders (Hi !) against Pan O Military orders. Very different style of play, or Yu Jing hi tech vs combined army brute force, but you can do it the other way round with those same armies too.

As some have said before, just killing each other in infinity isn't really what its all about, scenarios make the game.

Zsolt, I think the problem here might be that your questions are pretty hard to answer in Infinity.
You want a shooty army? Well, Infinity is a very shooty game. Some factions might have more close combat than others, but in the end those are shooty armies too at core.
If TAGs are viable,.. On higher points sure. If you can make them work, then they will. It's not a matter about if they're bad or not, it's a matter if it fits your playstyle having 1/3 of your army in one unit and making it count.
Medics are very useful. Engineers are meh when there are no TAGs/Remotes in your army, but become increasingly useful with every such unit you take. Hackers are very useful. with all the small tricks they bring. However, it's a perfectly viable option not to take any of those. The key is knowing why you would aviod doing so.
For example, when I play Shasvastii, I know I'm gonna spread my forces really thin, and advancing forward all over the field quite a lot. So I usually avoid having a medic, because he's never gonna be where it counts. Also, some of my most important units have automedikits, so they are not in need of a medic anyway.
However, if I were to take a medic, I would have to change my playstyle a bit and not have my units stray too far from him, so that he could back them up if needed.

Now, for the harder to answer questions...
There are no "This faction has X playstyle" that's 100% true. You could of course say that Aleph is a little bit more elite than the others, Nomads are a little bit more dirty than the others, Ariadna is a little bit more horde than the others... But it's marginally so. If you really want to know, try to find a summmary somewhere, they are floating around on forums.
I'll try to summarize briefly..
Aleph: High unit costs, elite units.
Nomads: Dirty tricks.
PanO: (this one's really tricky. Some would say it's just a vanilla faction. I'd like to say it's a faction based on efficiency, with units having as little flashy stuff as possible and only what they need).
Haqqislam: Lots of Doctors and Viral weapons... I dunno.
Combined Army: Elite alien units.
Tohaa: Aliens working in groups of three.
Yu Jing: Lots of Heavy Infantry.
Ariadna: Low-tech, cheap units.

That's the base, anyway... Then there are sectorial subfactions that can change this.

As for strategies available... I'd say it isn't so much about strategies as it is tactics. It isn't about "I'm gonna go an all sneay army!". Sure, you could do so, and it could work, but more importantly it's about "I'll move this guy here to flank that guy, forcing him down towards my grunts and cutting him of from his support." You know what I mean?

As for what you're looking for...
As I said, every army is shooty. For having TAGs and HI... Well, I'd rule out Haqqislam (The Maghariba is their only TAG, and it's currently undergoing some changes...) and Ariadna (no TAGs whatsoever).
Stealth, Infiltration, Support and Synergy is something everyone has. As for combos... I don't really know if those are a thing. I mean, there's the Forward Observer + Guided Ammo (= auto-hitting) that every faction can do, aside from Ariadna. That's the only thing I can think of.


Sorry if this has been a bit all over the place, I haven't had breakfast yet. But I hope it helped.

Thanks for all the answers guys!

My problem with choosing on aesthetics is there are a couple of units I like in each faction, and a couple I don't like. I'll give them a few more checks.

Zsolt wrote:
Thanks for all the answers guys!

My problem with choosing on aesthetics is there are a couple of units I like in each faction, and a couple I don't like. I'll give them a few more checks.

Yes, but pick the faction that has the most ones you like...
And then, after a few months, surely that Nomad Prowler wouldn't hurt... just to paint it.. Together with some Reverends. And then you might as well get some Moderators to have a small nomad force... and then there's the Hassassins looking real sweet...

Believe me, we've all been there. It comes creeping upon you, and then you're left with 3 or 4 factions you're playing.

 Herr Hörn wrote:

Zsolt wrote:
Thanks for all the answers guys!

My problem with choosing on aesthetics is there are a couple of units I like in each faction, and a couple I don't like. I'll give them a few more checks.

Yes, but pick the faction that has the most ones you like...
And then, after a few months, surely that Nomad Prowler wouldn't hurt... just to paint it.. Together with some Reverends. And then you might as well get some Moderators to have a small nomad force... and then there's the Hassassins looking real sweet...

Believe me, we've all been there. It comes creeping upon you, and then you're left with 3 or 4 factions you're playing.

Yep, I'm afraid of this. I already have a couple half started 40k armies too

Zsolt wrote:

 Herr Hörn wrote:

Zsolt wrote:
Thanks for all the answers guys!

My problem with choosing on aesthetics is there are a couple of units I like in each faction, and a couple I don't like. I'll give them a few more checks.

Yes, but pick the faction that has the most ones you like...
And then, after a few months, surely that Nomad Prowler wouldn't hurt... just to paint it.. Together with some Reverends. And then you might as well get some Moderators to have a small nomad force... and then there's the Hassassins looking real sweet...

Believe me, we've all been there. It comes creeping upon you, and then you're left with 3 or 4 factions you're playing.

Yep, I'm afraid of this. I already have a couple half started 40k armies too

The good thing is you should be able to have a few 300pt list for the price of 1 40K list. Add in the fact that a normal Infinity force is the size of 1 normal size unit in 40K, you shouldn't worry to much. I have over a 1000pts in my first Infinity faction and nearly as much in me 2nd and 3rd faction, all for less then my Ork army made mostly from Black Reach Orks (so it was built on the cheep side). The Lootas and Stompa did shoot the price up . The good part about liking some model in a faction and not others is in Infinity you don't need to worry about the one you don't like as there are no auto-picks. As a Combi-Rifle will kill a LI and TAGs just as dead, the Tag just mean you have to a different tactics to do it. The shoot Tag in back, Tag turns, move other guy up to shoot TAG in back from other side, and repeat, is a good one unless the other guy support his TAG with overlapping LoF. Then you just try a different tactics, and this is what set Infinity apart there is no one tactic or model for a job, it is all about how you use what you put on the table.

 Herr Hörn wrote:


Yes, but pick the faction that has the most ones you like...

x1000 this. I started with PanO, but realised that although I liked a few more of their models than the other factions, I didn't like enough of them to go full vanilla. So I switched to Neoterran Sectorial, which then allowed me to avoid most of the ones I don't like to concentrate more on the ones I did.

Same for Yu-Jing. I went Japanese sectorial. The ninja models are cool. And you can take MORE of them in JSA. All of the ninja.

That then led to the few nomads/haqq models I liked - not enough to run either as a discrete faction, but a sectorial (Qapu Khalqi) allowed me to use both lots, together in the one force.

The trick after finding the models you like, is MAKING it work as a list. You can lose the game during deployment if you choose badly and it's was very unforgiving in 2nd ed. It won't be quite AS punishing in 3rd, but it's still going to be a learning curve.

If tags end up being what you love though their are really two factions that have the most viable/uniquish tags that are highly survivable..

Before i get into that though I will support ascetics - I use the morat raicho tag because i love morats and the raicho looks cool. He is outclasseD as a tag usually (morat rule RULES THOUGH sometimes)

Anyways here are the "best" tags, and by best...they are the unique ones with skills that give them advantages over even other tags. Highest armor in game, to camo...odd...etc things that are OP as heck!

Pan-o (jotum, dragoon, cutter)

Ghost - in n3, you can fully repair wpunded tags/remotes. You can also use command tokens to reroll failed rolls on GHOST models. Pan-o has all ghost tags.

Jotum -arm 10!! and ghost....and a big fing gun. good stuff

Dragoon - hyper magnetic cannon (biggest gun in game) and ghost

Cutter - a bloody tag with TO camo!! infintrate and ghost!!!

and combined army (avatar, sphinx)

avatar (the biggest baddest tag around....ODD, arm 9, ghost,super fast, super weapons, sepestor, best stats in game....COST A TON!!!)

sphinx (climbing plus, camo....)

Theorius wrote:
If tags end up being what you love though their are really two factions that have the most viable/uniquish tags that are highly survivable..

Before i get into that though I will support ascetics - I use the morat raicho tag because i love morats and the raicho looks cool. He is outclasseD as a tag usually (morat rule RULES THOUGH sometimes)

Anyways here are the "best" tags, and by best...they are the unique ones with skills that give them advantages over even other tags. Highest armor in game, to camo...odd...etc things that are OP as heck!

Pan-o (jotum, dragoon, cutter)

Ghost - in n3, you can fully repair wpunded tags/remotes. You can also use command tokens to reroll failed rolls on GHOST models. Pan-o has all ghost tags.

Jotum -arm 10!! and ghost....and a big fing gun. good stuff

Dragoon - hyper magnetic cannon (biggest gun in game) and ghost

Cutter - a bloody tag with TO camo!! infintrate and ghost!!!

and combined army (avatar, sphinx)

avatar (the biggest baddest tag around....ODD, arm 9, ghost,super fast, super weapons, sepestor, best stats in game....COST A TON!!!)

sphinx (climbing plus, camo....)

Well, I like both the Avatar and Jotun models. I think I'll gowith Pano. Where to start? Since you guys said all untis and weapons are viable, I'm thinking about some light infantry spam, to start to know the game, and later add a TAG, and try to build an army around it. could this be a viable choice? If so, how to do it? With what packs should I start? There is the starter pack with nomads and Pano, and there should be some starter packs for Pano specifically. Just getting a lot of fussiliers can work, or do I need other things? What other units need the basic infantries, and later, what do I need to put next to the TAG to make it work?

Thanks

3 Fusiliers should be plenty light infantry. Just take a look at the different starters, they are very good. You don't need to buy them, but they include something like 3 Line Infantry, 2 specialists and 1 heavy unit. It's a great way to start.

The only obvious think I can think of being necessary to bring along with the TAG is an engineer to help him out when he's down on his luck.
Aside from that, I think it comes down to how you use the TAG that decides what you need to help him. If you use him as some sort of spearhead, the I guess manouverable fire support to cover his flanks would be necessary. If you use him as a long-range artillery, then mid-field speed bumps would be good to stop the enemies from reaching him. And if you're trying to get him real up-and-close, then you would probably do good with some infiltrators or airborne-deployment units to keep the enemy in place whilst your TAG marches forward.

As for Light Infantry spam, it's workable, but generally people say that you should avoid fielding more than 10 units at any given game. This is because of Combat Groups. Every unit has to be placed in a combat group, and 10 is the maximum amount of units in one such group. Units within a combat group can use each other's orders.
What this means is that your TAG will only ever be able to use at most 10 orders in a turn, so having more than 10 units might be a bit of a waste.
There are of course exceptions and such, but the general point stands.

 Herr Hörn wrote:
3 Fusiliers should be plenty light infantry. Just take a look at the different starters, they are very good. You don't need to buy them, but they include something like 3 Line Infantry, 2 specialists and 1 heavy unit. It's a great way to start.

The only obvious think I can think of being necessary to bring along with the TAG is an engineer to help him out when he's down on his luck.
Aside from that, I think it comes down to how you use the TAG that decides what you need to help him. If you use him as some sort of spearhead, the I guess manouverable fire support to cover his flanks would be necessary. If you use him as a long-range artillery, then mid-field speed bumps would be good to stop the enemies from reaching him. And if you're trying to get him real up-and-close, then you would probably do good with some infiltrators or airborne-deployment units to keep the enemy in place whilst your TAG marches forward.

As for Light Infantry spam, it's workable, but generally people say that you should avoid fielding more than 10 units at any given game. This is because of Combat Groups. Every unit has to be placed in a combat group, and 10 is the maximum amount of units in one such group. Units within a combat group can use each other's orders.
What this means is that your TAG will only ever be able to use at most 10 orders in a turn, so having more than 10 units might be a bit of a waste.
There are of course exceptions and such, but the general point stands.

So a regular game is around 300 points, there are light infantries that cost around 10 points, so from that I can have 30 LIs in 3 combat groups. Does that make sense?

I've just started playing IG and I'm in the "Throw enough bodies at the enemy so we can drown it in our own blood" mind set...

Yes, that is correct. However, if you do that versus an experienced player, you might find yourself defeated by mines, AROs, flamethrowers, etc.
I would assume someone has tried it before, I just haven't read about it or seen it done.

Maybe worth looking into, I don't know. However, most common army lists are 10-man strong, and I've seen 20-man army lists too. Never 30 though.

you could go ariadna caledonian sectorial and have 50 galwegians in a 300 point game!
or at least you used to be able to do that in the old rules may need to buy a different lieutenant now even so they would be pretty badass linked up and critting on ones in cc

Horde lists are alright for objectives based scenarios and they're ways to manage multiple models link teams (squads of 3-5 of the same unit) and coordinated orders (an order that activates multiple models). You can use them to cap obj. quickly because of the large amount orders. Hordes also do better against Airborne troops since they block good drop sites/board edges.

The drawback of horde lists is their short range because of the rifle ranges and low accuracy. So engaging troops at long range especially Camouflage is really dicey. If you mix in some heavier weapons it could work since PanO LI is fairly accurate but probably have trouble with heavy negative modifiers like TO and ODD.

Or you could play the PanO subfaction the Neoterran Capitaline Army and horde Auxilias, LI with robot companions equipped with Heavy Flamethrowers. You can easily hit 20+ models with them and the bots are basically cannon fodder to run in and light things on fire. Deals with camo really well. Although it would be $.

I would suggest the icestorm boxset pan-o.

You get 3 fusiliers
an orc with mulit (they can also be played as swiss guard, they look identical save the eyes)
father hospitler
nisse with sniper rifle
akali drop trooper

its 150 pts of awesome!!!

Add a jotum to it bringing it to 255ish, you will also need a machinist and some palbots to follow the jotum and keep him healed up, remove adhl and em, immobilized...

The Jotum and the machinst will bring you to 9 models, and you can fit one more guy for your tenth easily with 30ish points depending on how may (or if) you take palbots.

Theorius wrote:
I would suggest the icestorm boxset pan-o.

You get 3 fusiliers
an orc with mulit (they can also be played as swiss guard, they look identical save the eyes)
father hospitler
nisse with sniper rifle
akali drop trooper

its 150 pts of awesome!!!

Add a jotum to it bringing it to 255ish, you will also need a machinist and some palbots to follow the jotum and keep him healed up, remove adhl and em, immobilized...

The Jotum and the machinst will bring you to 9 models, and you can fit one more guy for your tenth easily with 30ish points depending on how may (or if) you take palbots.

I was looking at the icestorm box,the problem is that it doesn't come with a full (a small one would be perfectly fine) rulebook - while team grabmoney can do it. I don't really like some of the nomad models neither (though at least two of them are cool. If it'd come with a full rulebook, I'd definitely buy it, with it's current config I'm not sure.

The rulebook is free to download from the cb website.

bertmac wrote:
The rulebook is free to download from the cb website.

I know, but I prefer printed rulebooks, and I think a starter set really should include it. I don't know how much printed stuff does the box already contain, and how big increase would it mean, but I'd prefer a full rulebook, that is mandatory and useful on every level of play to some tutorial missions which are only useful in the beginning and not mandatory at all.

Btw do they have some ebook reader (i.e. not tablet) friendly version? Pdf with pictures is pretty hard to read on them.

Zsolt wrote:

bertmac wrote:
The rulebook is free to download from the cb website.

I know, but I prefer printed rulebooks, and I think a starter set really should include it. I don't know how much printed stuff does the box already contain, and how big increase would it mean, but I'd prefer a full rulebook, that is mandatory and useful on every level of play to some tutorial missions which are only useful in the beginning and not mandatory at all.

Btw do they have some ebook reader (i.e. not tablet) friendly version? Pdf with pictures is pretty hard to read on them.

Never seen one, seeing as a good chunk (most) of the pictures are examples of the rules it would be hard to omit them.

I do not have a problem with there approuch to the starter set. Yes you can nit pick what you would like to see but they decided their starter value would go into the models,which NO ONE can but agree that they are awesome. I personally prefer better models over a bunch of rules. Especially when said rules they give out for free.

2 sets of 150 pt armies that are very beautiful including unique models only found in the starter.

Dice (dont usually get those)

starter rules which the level of depth this game gets into I am GLAD they cut it down for new people and made missions that work people through the levels of complexity.

Terrain (is not half bad and I LOVE how you can reinforce them as they fit snuggly over any of their usual box sets!

Tokens (wish these were on cardboard card stock, my personal nit pick)