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I dropped Infinity earlier in the year after having enough of juggling the 5 or so pdfs. It made learning the game a nightmare. Just wondering, have CB cleaned it up abit or are we still waiting for acheron falls for an entire rewrite of N3?

The guys who I was meant to learn the game with gave up on N3 and went to warmachine leaving me to continue trying to learn the rules bit by bit alone. I quickly gave up as well. No point learning something theres no opponents for.

I still got some models laying around unassembled and some half assembled MDF terrain probably rotting by now. Wondering to bother assembling any of it or just binning it all. It takes up too much space to justify taking up my limited number of shelves.

So it really comes down to have the pdfs been cleaned up and streamlined or is it still all over the place?

We're still waiting for Human Sphere N3 really, as far as I know it's still a bit messy but will probably be fine after that. The wiki is up again not too which should help a lot.

Judging from your post, you're so negative about it it won't matter anyway ...
Core book + army builder is enough for 90% of the situations
add the Wiki and you're at 100%

Did you try to jump in to the full rule at the start, as this is a real killer to starting the game. I seen a fair share of player go I played other miniature games, the full rules will not be a problem. Then realize that Infinity has a completely different game style, then any other game, they start thinking it is to hard. Never crossing their mind their is a reason CB puts out a quick start rule set for learning the game.

Get the quick start rules and learn the core of the game before moving in on. Once you played enough that you understand the core game concepts, the full rules become so much easier to understand. Infinity you need to do not read to grasp the game.

The Quick Starter rules are the best way to start. The N3 rules are organized to facilitate step by step learning too. All you need to learn to play is in the N3 ruleset. The rest of the stuff is just reference material for units and equipment at this point, unless you add in link teams, which you should wait to play anwyay.

Don't try and learn everything at one go., as Noir said.

I'm still a fan of the layered approach to learning Infinity.

Start with 3 line infantry each. Most of the line infantry in the game are relatively equal. If someone is playing Aleph or Combined, don't worry about a hacker for the Dakinis or Unidrons. Also don't be too concerned about actually trying to win, just use it to get used to an order pool, face to face rolls, and possibly manoeuvring to get at someone out of LoS. Possibly also tackle CC if you're up to it.

After a few games, each add something you want to try like a gun with special ammo or a camo unit. Still don't bother with trying to win, just concentrate on adding those new rules to the game. After a game or two, add something else. Keep layering until you're at 100pts, then add the Lieutenant. At this point you'll have the basics nailed, so escalate the game size by 50pts each time you grow your game.

The small intro games shouldn't take more than 20 minutes, so you can get a lot more done and learned in a day of smaller games like this than jumping into a 300pt game and being constantly confused. After a few hours you'll be into 100pt games and growing them quicker and you'll be a lot more comfortable with the rules.

Yeah, I have the O:I booklet that I play. Forgotten some of it after the break from infinity but its going past the quickstart rules that I hit a wall.

Really I should just paint the models but I despise painting with a passion. Its by far, far, far my least favourite part of the hobby. My favourite being terrain and table ideas although I dont have the space to build what I want.

Ive redownloaded the pdf's incase anything has been changed in them but Im pretty much incapable of learning the game from them.

I'll probably screw around with some terrain and hope that reignites some interest I guess.

After losing the initial group, Im entirely cut off from any gaming scenes by choice at the moment too as Im sick of the hygiene shown by alot of the wargaming community in general anytime I go near any stores/events. Almost threw up just walking past the Adelaide GW not too long ago on the way to a foodcourt. Thats why Im stuck learning rules alone which hasnt really worked out. Was hoping to learn enough to get by, then roll up for the odd Adelaide based tournament or something.

Im probably more jaded from bad experiences within the hobby in general, than any real problem with CBs handling of Infinity. I like the setting of the game and the basic gameplay alot.

I am pretty sure there is a sizable Infinity presence in Oz. You may want to jump into the Infinity forums and see if there is anyone near you that can demo the game.

Heck, just watch some of the into videos on Youtube for N3. They go over the basics pretty well.

I had good success with learning the game by reading the quick start rules, watching some youtube videos, then clicking on units in an army I wanted to play and using the N3 wiki online to look up the rules for their equpment/special rules, then watching some more youtube videos of people playing

ski2060 wrote:
I am pretty sure there is a sizable Infinity presence in Oz. You may want to jump into the Infinity forums and see if there is anyone near you that can demo the game.

This is true. I have yet to find an FLGS where Infinity is not played to some extent. If you live in Melbourne, it's basically an Infinity hub.

And you had such a good username ! :(

Completely agree with Loki's point above about not diving into the deep-end straight away , although yes getting to play with someone else is probably the bestway if you can do it.

Amazing how your opinion of something can change if you can find a good gaming group so definitely try that route if you can.

I will add to the advice of using the wikki and play as much as you can, gradually building up. Maybe download the ITS packet and get an escalation league together? That's how I started to get it to click in my head. I still learn something new every game though!

The official PDF's are most definitely messy and not easy to learn from. There's a fan compilation with bookmarks which makes it a lot more bearable that I found on their forums but I can't seem to connect to those at the moment.

I'm not a big fan of the babysteps, start with quickstartrules or 3 models a side approach. The best way to learn to play a game is to play the full scale game from the start with other people and just muddle through. You will get some things wrong, mistakes will be made and it will probably involve a fair amount of losing till you get a good grasp of the rules but thats ok, it sure as hell beats puzzling every last element of meaning out of a poorly laid out pdf.

 David Clarke wrote:
The official PDF's are most definitely messy and not easy to learn from. There's a fan compilation with bookmarks which makes it a lot more bearable that I found on their forums but I can't seem to connect to those at the moment.

Pretty sure that's still a second edition compilation.

The 3rd edition rules are much easier to learn from.

Yep, that was a second edition compilation of the rulebook and Human Sphere. The N3 rulebook is a completely different beast.

 -Loki- wrote:

 David Clarke wrote:
The official PDF's are most definitely messy and not easy to learn from. There's a fan compilation with bookmarks which makes it a lot more bearable that I found on their forums but I can't seem to connect to those at the moment.

Pretty sure that's still a second edition compilation.

The 3rd edition rules are much easier to learn from.

Please don't put words in my mouth I find it quite offensive. Second edition was much harder to learn from the google translate level english language official book. I take my hat off to anyone who got a functional understanding of the rules from that book. There was an incredibly useful fan translation of the second edition rules which I am incredibly thankful for as it meant I could get my head around this game.

3rd edition pdf rulebook is much easier to learn from but its still a 258 page pdf with none of the quality of life increments that make an electronic format rulebook worthwhile(bookmarks and hyperlinks) which makes it quite intimidating and clunky to looks things up in when checking rules after the initial cover to cover style of reading. Lots of gaming companies think its okay to release books in pdf format without even attempting to make any improvements when with a little bit of work they can be every bit as convenient as a paper rulebook.

Heres a link I grabbed from the infinity forums for a version of the pdf with hyperlinks and bookmarks-
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12112550/Infinity_Rulebook_With_BM%2BHL_V1.1.pdf

I hope people can see the difference in quality between the two experiences.

I apologise, I didn't know someone had done that for N3 yet.

Since I don't exactly know how I caused any offence, I'll set you to ignore so I won't offend you again.

I suspect Loki and I were confused by you saying 'compilation' rather than 'bookmarked PDF'...

I didnt know about that bookmarked and hyperlinked version and I'd been searching for one quite a while. Never seen it linked anywhere before. Thanks alot for that. That will help heaps navigating the pdf.

Getting more into the mood to model by fiddling with terrain. Got a 16cm honeycomb hex stencil I plan to use on 15 or so white giftbox buildings I have.

 IJW wrote:
I suspect Loki and I were confused by you saying 'compilation' rather than 'bookmarked PDF'...

Fair enough, apologies to anyone I may have confused. To complicate matters further I was originally referring to a different pdf that I can't find a link to anywhere which is 403 pages long,integrates a lot of the human sphere content into the main book and is called the N3-Rules Compendium. The pdf I put up on here is obviously just the regular rulebook with bookmarks and hyperlinks buts its all I could find as the official forums are playing up something fierce.

Dropbear Victim wrote:
I didnt know about that bookmarked and hyperlinked version and I'd been searching for one quite a while. Never seen it linked anywhere before. Thanks alot for that. That will help heaps navigating the pdf.

Glad I could help, I found it much easier to get to grips with the rules once I could looks things up faster. Part of me wishes that Corvus Belli would get around to uploading something like this as a replacement for the offical unbookmarked versions as it lowers one of the barriers for getting into the game.

The wiki does that very well. Searchable with hyperlinks and charts/lists of all equipment.

There isn't a need to re-do the free downloadable rulebook.

 SlaveToDorkness wrote:
The wiki does that very well. Searchable with hyperlinks and charts/lists of all equipment.

There isn't a need to re-do the free downloadable rulebook.

Whilst I'm really glad that you have a reliable internet connection wherever you game to check the wiki on that is by no means a given for everyone. The wiki is great for looking things up but its another layer of complication when going to the book for a one stop look up on rules is surely most gamers natural reaction? I'm not talking about an expensive reformat of the pdf's its just adding bookmarks in to the existing one. I can do it at home on foxit and thats how I fix pdf's that come to me without them. As the works already done for free by fans who have very sensibly added the clarification that the rules are still entirely the property of Corvus Belli who exactly is inconvenienced by them just adding a bookmarked version to their downloads section?

The wiki is the reason I prefer to have my iPad handy, because it's built into Mayanet.

Seriously, they need to make the team responsible for Mayanet a partner, because that app makes playing a game so much easier. Designs two army lists (though it makes it impossible to have courtesy lists when used for two people), tracks retreat and dead models, and every single ability and equipment item is linked directly to an in-built wiki. No internet required.

When we're using Mayanet, we rarely ever get the rulebook out unless it's a query about a core rule.

I hadn't seen that Maya was updated for 3rd. COOL!

That compiled pdf that David Clarke referred to was Tenabrae's fan edit (he's dropped off the local infinity oz scene somewhat in the last few years). It compiled 2nd ed rules AND Human Sphere into a more logical reading format for native English readers.

NONE of the text was changed -- he just moved chunks of text around and reformatted pages so it flowed more logically.

The translation for 3rd ed was much better and that bookmarked 3rd ed pdf is a much easier read than the initial pdf of 3rd ed that CB put out.

It's still much easier to find someone local(ish) to you that plays who can show you how the rules work in tandem with you reading it. Some things still don't click until you've SEEN it played in front of you.

@Dropbear victim: What part of this wide brown land are you from? We have a few warcors in the land - although as far as I know, most are clustered on the east coast (no-one from WA was accepted at least).