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As someone new to the whole tabletop game scene, I was deciding whether to pick up infinity or not. I am currently stuck between this and imperial assault for a sci-fi skirmish game.

Can you please give me opinions on rules, quality of minis, etc? Thanks a ton in advance.

At it simplest...

Infinity is a table top miniature game, where you need to trim, glue, and paint the model before playing. The game system is one of the best in the business, but take a while to learn and master. The miniatures are also some of the best on the market designed for a game.

Imperial Assault is a board game ready to play out of the box. It has ready to go models for both side in the box and game boards so unlike Infinity you don't need terrain. It plays well and you likely sucker your nongamer friends in with the Star War setting.

I have imperial assault, and some various infinity factions.

The models are not really comparable.

The Imperial assault models are 15 or 20mm scale, infinity is around 28mm scale.

Imperial assault models are single parts with base attached from a mold, the plastic is okay quality but often is warped and bent in some places. My at-st walker that came with the box required some heavy filing to fit the few bits together due to warping.

Imperial assault comes with "map tiles" which let you create the various scenarios. Infinity requires you buy or make terrain, which can be much nicer.

Imperial assault exists in two dimensions, there are no up and down levels or movement. It has less options for what you can do as actions, most of the things revolve around rolling dice in an attack/defense and using various results to do various things- which may go beyond damage.

Both are good games.

The imperial assault scenario/story modes are excellent. It also plays well as a skirmish game.

If you have people to play with, and your new to tabletop gaming and have to pick between one of the two- I would pick imperial assault. It's quick to learn the rules and fun.

If you do not have a gaming group, or your gaming group really really likes cyberpunk and having lots of movement/tactical options I would pick infinity first. The no gaming group part is because you will likely find it easier to find people to play infinity with, then find a gaming group playing imperial assault.

Imperial assault really isn't a tabletop mini war game, it is a board game.

Infinity is awesome with great minis. It is a table top wargame as you have to build the models, paint them, and find an opponent who has invested in the game. The difference between infinity, AOS, wild west exodus, etc all co.especially down to theme and gameplay preferences.

Imperial assault is like super dungeon explore, descent, etc. It is a dungeon crawl board game set in the star wars universe. The dm plays the imperials, everyone else plays a rebel hero. The only positive of this compared to a wargame imho is that your opponent doesn't need their own minis as everyrhing you need to play is in the board game box.

I like board games like zombicide, descent, super dungeon explore, etc, but nothing can replace the wargame hobby.

The main reason I ask is because I am looking for a hobby between our monthly game nights and something a small group can play if only 1 or 2 people show up.

Another is how much money would it cost to invest in 2 factions for a friend to pick up, or would it be better to roll IA and share a unit pool to choose from?

As far as group play, I don't see why I couldn't find 5 people to play campaign but I have other games that can fill that role. I might not be able to get them involved enough to join the hobby side of infinity, which is concerning about buying enough units. Any thoughts?

Ryertangent wrote:
The main reason I ask is because I am looking for a hobby between our monthly game nights and something a small group can play if only 1 or 2 people show up.

Another is how much money would it cost to invest in 2 factions for a friend to pick up, or would it be better to roll IA and share a unit pool to choose from?

As far as group play, I don't see why I couldn't find 5 people to play campaign but I have other games that can fill that role. I might not be able to get them involved enough to join the hobby side of infinity, which is concerning abiut buying enough unita. Any thouhys?

One of the large investments I spent on Infinity was tokens, I think for my two factions [150pts ariadna, about 600pts combined] I spent close to 150 dollars just on tokens, which is comparable to the cost of those models.

Buying the operation icestorm box is a good place to start, since it comes with some decent scenery, and enough models to have ~140pts of two factions. You can pick up a blister or two and take both factions to 200pts. The starter for any faction plus two blister packs is usually about 200pts and will cost about 55-70 dollars total, pre tax.

If I could go back in time I would have saved the 150 dollars I spent on tokens and downloaded the tokens from the website, print them, cut them out.

Glue a round plastic 25mm base on the bottom, glue something like this: http://www.ebay.com/itm/50-clear-glitter-sticker-epoxy-seals-1-inch-round-3d-Dome-circle-25mm-craft-DIY-/221892782060?hash=item33a9d727ec

on the top.

That gives you 50 tokens of whatever, for about 10 dollars + some work time.

If your local gaming store does not sell infinity rejoice, and buy them from one of the many internet sites that sells them at a discount new. if you are in the U.S. miniaturemarket, or thewarstore are great.

If you want something multiple people can play check out:

http://www.beastsofwar.com/infinity/tag-deathmatch-free-rules/

Each player needs just one model. You can buy the scenery packs for the game for about 10 dollars, replace TAGs with spec ops models, and you can have a 5 player game for about $75.00 retail. Use the stats for the TAGs from the death-match rules but the model/silhouette size for the spec ops. Its quite fun, and each player only needs 1 model. You can add in options later for people to spend points on spec ops equipment/skills if you want to add some variety and let people check out various other skills and game mechanics- a good way to introduce people to the rules.

You buy Infinity tokens, you must really like the way they look. I just use my Hoard tokens, got to love dry erase. They also work great for Battletech.

Yeah did not have hoard tokens or another token option to use.

Just want to point out that Imperial Assault does have skirmish rules not just board game rules... I have no played them however. It does however have rules that take it outside the board game.

Personally I'd get both. ^_^ Get Imperial Assault, lets you play and learn something while you assemble your Infinity miniatures. I'd probably get Operation Icestorm, just learn and play it from there. After you've determined more the direction then look at what additional miniatures to get.

I guess that raises my final question. If I was to get imperial assault does anyone know if it would be worth getting just for the campaign seeing how I can get infinity for the skirmish, or would it be better to save my money and use imperial assault as both?

the campaign for IA is very very good. It has high replay value, because of how you do the campaign progression- essentially you draw cards to determine the next mission so there are more missions then you can go through in a campaign.

IA has high replayability and its fun, but its not a tabletop wargame. Its a boardgame that uses miniatures.

Tabletop wargames are huge fun because of the hobby aspect combined with getting to tote your soldiers out and face other people's soldiers. But its not just a game, its a full on hobby of you want to go down that rabbit hole. Infinity will also be more expensive than IA, but you'll have much more replayability and IMO higher value. So its really a question if you are willing to commit to that.

Buying 2 factions is a big investment, but if you can get your friends sucked in then you'll have a blast. And you could probably sell them half of Operation Icestorm to make it not as much of an investment.


As someone who just started Infinity, here are my impressions.

1) Fantastic miniatures. These minis are a true pleasure to build and paint, they're highly detailed and full of character. They are a little small so an inexperienced modeler might have some issues. Pro-tip: less is more when it comes to glue.

2) The rules. They're well laid out and balanced, if a lot to digest. There is a lot coming at you and it really helps if you have someone helping you learn. Doing it on your own might be troublesome, so I would definitely go on forums with any rule questions you have about stuff works. The dice system is elegant, although as someone coming from D6 and 2D6 systems its very different from what you would normally expect from a wargame.

Overall, its a really cool game with a cool setting and awesome miniatures.

My suggestion would be to skip Imperial Assault. Buy whatever Infinity stuff you want, and then go spend about $15 with Ganesha Games. Their Song of Blades and Heroes ruleset is about the simplest and easiest to learn out there. My brother even managed to teach his second grade students to play it. If you want it slightly more difficult with expanded rules for ranged combat, grab Flying Lead.

Isn't Imperial Assault just Descent with a Star Wars re-theme? The two games are not even remotely comparable. It is like comparing Poker with Chess: they are both games, but completely different genres with different strategic requirements.

If you're looking for something to throw in a table for a few hours while you and your friends have some drinks and shoot the gak, with minimal overall buy-in, Imperial Assault would be the way to go.

As said, it's a board game and is entirely self contained. You'll be able to replay the campaign a lot because of how it plays. If you want to spice things up, there's additional models you can buy that have their own missions and rules, like heroes (Han, Chewie, etc) and villains (Boba Fett, Champion Royal Guard, etc) and even mooks (rebel saboteurs, wookies, etc). Also there's an expansion, which I doubt will be the last.

Basically, board games are better than wargames if your group isn't going to commit to the buy-in as well. Rather than build up multiple forces yourself and have your friends play a complicated skirmish game when they're around, just grab a board game like Imperial Assault. Assuming you're big into miniature heavy board games, there's a few others to look at as well, like Cthulu Wars and Zombicide. Any of them provide many sessions of multiple hours of gaming, with zero required buy-in outside of the base games.

I haven't played Imperial Assault, though I do have X-Wing and a bunch of other FF board games, among other dungeon crawlers.

One thing I would like to offer, is that board games can be quite tiresome to set up. Sometimes it actually puts me off playing, because you need to get out all the boards, and sort the cards and counters, and set up the mission etc... Even with X-Wing, I'm often amazed by the amount of crap on the table, while trying to set up a game.

Infinity feels like the complete opposite. With Infinity you just need your 5-6 little people and 3 dice and you're ready to go (though obviously some scenery is recommended). I have the scenery from Operation Ice Storm which I leave set up, so it only really takes seconds to get a game started. Of course, assembling and painting the little guys will take a lot longer initially.

The game itself is a very elegant piece of game design, it's a very good game. Instead of taking turns and having to wait for the other person, it's kind of always your turn, because you play reactions while your opponent moves. It actually makes me sort of pity other games. I'd say it has a really good feel to it too, there is lots of strategy in how you position your people and cover each other. It really feels like you're guiding an elite SWAT team or something, on a mission.

With regards to difficulty, I think once you grasp how the face to face rolls work (kind of like black jack with dice), then you're most of the way there. Obviously, there is a lot to learn, with the different troops and abilities, but everything is consistent, and uses the same system (except armour saves which are the one exception).

I like both. Infinity has more complicated rules but they're pretty awesome, and the models are hands-down more impressive. You spend a lot more for them though, and you'll have to assemble them and really should paint them.

IA is ready to rock out of the box and you can still throw down some simple paint jobs if you want. The quality of the miniatures is not comparable, but to whoever said they were 15-20mm that's just flat misinformation. The IA stuff is fairly comparable to the Infinity stuff. It wouldn't look good along side that stuff because it's simpler and monopose boardgame sculpts, but it's very similar in scale.

So like they've said, IA is what you want for a lower time/money investment and whatnot, it has a good campaign and the skirmish is probably plenty viable.

Infinity has the higher investment but with potentially greater rewards, but you will need a fair amount of models, painting time, and loads of terrain so bear in mind the time/space commitment.

As a former game store manager who spent 6 years teaching new players how to play games and get into painting then I would absolutely recommend Imperial Assault over Infinity. It's not a better game, but it is a MUCH easier (and MUCH cheaper) game to get into and learn and is quite a bit of fun.

IA models are decent and paint up very nicely (those are not my miniatures). infinity models are much superior, but they need to be cleaned, assembled and painted. Infinity pieces are often quite small and challenging to assemble even for veteran modelers, they are also expensive even compared to other metal miniatures on the market, you can expect to spend $100~$150 USD getting an army together, per side. This is wonderful for people that like incredibly detailed miniatures, and they are a joy to paint. You will also need to buy or make a lot of terrain, Infinity requires lots of it on the table and the terrain has a tremendous effect on the game. Expect to pay $300+ for a decent amount of MDF terrain and other bits, or you can make your own for significantly cheaper if you have the time to invest in making/painting it, or you can print papercraft terrain. If you have a local game shop with terrain this might not even be something you need to worry about, just use shop terrain. Making terrain can be incredibly fun and it really lets you go all-out in Arts&Crafts-mode if you like that kinda thing. Once you have models and terrain, playing the game is QUITE complicated. Now, it is very SATISFYINGLY complicated, but it's one of the more difficult miniatures games to learn simply because there are so many rules interactions to keep track of. No individual rule is particularly complicated, there's just a LOT going on at any given moment. This is GREAT for veteran players, but a nightmare to learn fresh, especially if you don't play a lot of miniatures games. You will need a lot of status tokens to keep track of things, there are companies that sell them or you can print ones from Corvus belli or make them yourself. The complete rules are also free online, or you can buy the print rules that come with the background story.

Everything about Imperial Assault is much easier. It's up to you if that is a good thing or not. The miniatures come pre-built and are easily primed and painted like any other miniature. They are not nearly as detailed as Infinity, but they still look good (obviously opinions will vary on that). The game plays on thick cardboard tiles and comes with all the status tokens and dice you need. If you want to you can go crazy making actual terrain for the game, i picked up some miniatures to replace many of the cardboard objective tokens and doors, but you get everything you need to play in the main box, and the expansion packs are optional but neat for the Campaign mode (meant for a group of players), but extra packs are necessary for the Skirmish mode (the 1 on 1 mode). Skirmish mode is a full miniatures games with army building and scenarios to play out, although it does still use the cardboard map tiles which is a bit limiting

blaktoof wrote:
The Imperial assault models are 15 or 20mm scale, infinity is around 28mm scale.

That is completely wrong, they are both 28mm, the same scale. Comparison shot (my own figs)

One thing I would like to offer, is that board games can be quite tiresome to set up. Sometimes it actually puts me off playing, because you need to get out all the boards, and sort the cards and counters, and set up the mission etc... Even with X-Wing, I'm often amazed by the amount of crap on the table, while trying to set up a game.

Board games are NOT more difficult to set up than Infinity, far from it. Of course setting up a fresh board game takes longer than playing on an already-set-up gaming table for Infinity. If you come home and your wife has already made dinner and set you a plate then you also get to start eating faster compared to cooking the dinner yourself. Amazing. If you don't have a table already preset with terrain then it is going to take you a while to set it up, and the box needed for that terrain (unless it's the foldaway stuff) is far greater. There are still cards in Infinity secret objectives (if you're playing ITS scenarios, and you should be), but there are about as many tokens and keeping them organized is just as easy in both systems: a small plastic sewing/bead container with seperated sections.

Personally, I like Infinity more, but I would not recommend it as a first game for players who have never done anything in the hobby before.

Thanks for posting comparison shots the kids wouldn't let me do it earlier

Some beautiful paint jobs there Kalamadea

Completely agree. As much as I love Infinity, to the point where I actually think it's probably one of the most well designed wargames of all time, it's an intense game to play and not something to be taken lightly. Sure you can dip in with Operation: Icestorm, but before you know it a firm hand will grab the toe you've dipped into the pool and pulled you in head-first. It has fantastic depth, a dizzying array of tactical options that reward the keen wargaming mind, but it might not be want you want here.

Imperial Assault on the other hand would be perfect for a fun few hours evening play and won't drown you. Maybe even something like Deadzone, again relatively simple to setup and play, cheap and straddles the concepts of board and wargaming.

Those minis are gorgeous! Every model I see painted by the community is gorgeous. Which kinds turns me on to infinity. I'm not a terrible painter but that is just gorgeous.

If you want a quick and easy game, IA.
If you want a hobby and a great game, Infinity.

 Kalamadea wrote:
Board games are NOT more difficult to set up than Infinity, far from it. Of course setting up a fresh board game takes longer than playing on an already-set-up gaming table for Infinity. If you come home and your wife has already made dinner and set you a plate then you also get to start eating faster compared to cooking the dinner yourself. Amazing. If you don't have a table already preset with terrain then it is going to take you a while to set it up, and the box needed for that terrain (unless it's the foldaway stuff) is far greater.

I assume this was directed at me... and well, you're just flat out wrong. I've timed how long it takes to set up most of my board games. Mansions of Madness takes about 45 mins. Arcadia Quest takes 15-20 mins. Zombicide, Super Dungeon Explore, Space Hulk, City of Thieves, all take at least 10 mins to set the board up and position all the doors and bits. And just because I said I leave my Operation Ice Storm terrain "set up" doesn't mean the game is set up. I meant I leave the cardboard buildings constructed. The smaller ones all fit in the OI box, and the 4 large ones really don't take up anymore space than a game would on the shelf. How long do you think it takes to plonk down 4 buildings on the table, and scatter a few creates? Even if you were only placing one building per minute, it would still be faster to set up than most board games, but you could easily place all the OI terrain in under a minute, and I do, which is why I came here and said that Infinity is one of my fastest games to set up. It's one of the things I like about it.

Ryertangent wrote:
The main reason I ask is because I am looking for a hobby between our monthly game nights and something a small group can play if only 1 or 2 people show up.

Another is how much money would it cost to invest in 2 factions for a friend to pick up, or would it be better to roll IA and share a unit pool to choose from?

As far as group play, I don't see why I couldn't find 5 people to play campaign but I have other games that can fill that role. I might not be able to get them involved enough to join the hobby side of infinity, which is concerning about buying enough units. Any thoughts?

What others said.

Infinity is a fantastic 2-player game, but have you maybe thought at all about investing in a good 2-player board game instead?

 Smacks wrote:
I've timed how long it takes to set up most of my board games. Mansions of Madness takes about 45 mins. Arcadia Quest takes 15-20 mins. Zombicide, Super Dungeon Explore, Space Hulk, City of Thieves, all take at least 10 mins to set the board up and position all the doors and bits. And just because I said I leave my Operation Ice Storm terrain "set up" doesn't mean the game is set up. I meant I leave the cardboard buildings constructed. The smaller ones all fit in the OI box, and the 4 large ones really don't take up anymore space than a game would on the shelf. How long do you think it takes to plonk down 4 buildings on the table, and scatter a few creates? Even if you were only placing one building per minute, it would still be faster to set up than most board games, but you could easily place all the OI terrain in under a minute, and I do, which is why I came here and said that Infinity is one of my fastest games to set up. It's one of the things I like about it.

O:I is not an Infinity table, it's an intro set. 4 buildings and 6 crates only works for the O:I scenarios and for very small games, and you're still not set up. What about armylists and scenario objectives and tokens and dice? I only have 100 points of Imperials and 100 points of Rebels for X-Wing and a couple of options if I really want to swap out specific pilots or upgrades. It very literally just takes me a minute to unfold my mat, plug in the flight stand stems and pull my already-sorted upgrade and pilot cards out of the baggy. Clearly I did not buy heavily into the game and am very happy with how my fleets play since it only occasionally comes out. That does not mean that most people only need a minute to set up a game, and it would be a disservice to new players to claim "It only takes a single minute to set it up!" as a key selling point. That situation is fairly uncommon, if you can set up and play a full game that fast whether it is star wars or Infinity or pretty much any game in the industry.

4 O:I packs is common for ITS and new players to quickly and cheaply cover a 4x4 table, that's going to be 16 buildings and 24 crates which won't take that long either, but that's not a particularly interesting table to play on and still doesn't include setting up objectives or setting the figures out for your chosen list from of your armycase, getting out the correct order/status/camo tokens. Even if you already have an army selected, it takes time to get them out of your bag and next to the table. Most people do not have a dedicated gaming table with terrain shelves next to it and throw a gaming table over the kitchen/coffee table, toss a mat on it and pull boxes out of the closet or garage where the terrain is stored. When I play at my FLGS that has terrain on the shelf, it still often takes a while to toss out prebuilt buildings and planters and cars and crates, determine a scenario, place objectives, determine sides, measuring zones, adjusting terrain if needed so it isn't too much in the way of the mission or giving one side too much of an advantage. Setting up a bare table and getting to the point where you're finally deploying models often takes 20 minutes, much more if you haven't determined your scenario or armies before you meet up, that's been as true for Infinity as it has for 40k and Warmachine. Fantasy Flight is notorious for having terrible Box Control and also for having a lot of figures and tokens and cards in their games, but if you keep your tokens and figures sorted and come to the table with an army already built I haven't noticed much time difference at all between setting up IA than setting up for Infinity. Most board games not made by Fantasy Flight are considerably quicker to set up, especially the ones with good box Control.

Okay, well maybe we are just talking about different approaches. I apologizes for being argumentative, I just wasn't sure why you were contradicting me. I think we can agree that you can spend hours setting up a really in depth scenarios, and playing bigger games, if that's how you want to play. I personally prefer smaller, quicker games. Which is why I play Infinity rather than something like Apocalypse.

Obviously, list building can be time consuming if you want it to be, I've certainly spent hours messing with the army builder. But that's also true for games like X-wing. On the other hand, you can throw together two roughly balanced teams quite quickly, especially if you're starting with the OI components.

I think perhaps another reason I find Infinity less hassle to set up, is just because you don't need to be as precise as you do with board games, when it comes to setting up the battlefield. If you wanted, you could literally just throw the terrain on the table, and play it however it lands, and it can still be a great game. You can't do that with something like Space Hulk. You usually need to have the mission book open, and keep checking back to make sure you are placing everything properly. Then you have your player area, which with a lot of board games can get quite cluttered with cards and bits. It's like you've got a game of MTG going on besides the actual game. With Infinity you don't really need anything in front of you except your tokens. And there are fewer components generally. Games like Zombicide, Space Hulk, SDE etc... all come with a huge number of just miniatures, which are annoying to get out and pack away. Though in fairness that probably isn't true for IA.

That's my observation from experience. If I'm looking for a way to kill some time, or it's late, and I'm too tired to start faffing about with mission books. I look along my game shelves and Infinity/OI, always feels like an easy option. Evidently YMMV.

On a different note. How much of a value/game do you really get with the IA starter set? X-wing, feels very incomplete without any expansions, and the expansions are quite expensive. I'd say you need to spend over £100 before you get what I'd term a "full game" out of X-wing. Other boardgames are less than half that, and everything you'll ever need is in the box.

 Smacks wrote:
Okay, well maybe we are just talking about different approaches. I apologizes for being argumentative, I just wasn't sure why you were contradicting me. I think we can agree that you can spend hours setting up a really in depth scenarios, and playing bigger games, if that's how you want to play. I personally prefer smaller, quicker games. Which is why I play Infinity rather than something like Apocalypse.

Obviously, list building can be time consuming if you want it to be, I've certainly spent hours messing with the army builder. But that's also true for games like X-wing. On the other hand, you can throw together two roughly balanced teams quite quickly, especially if you're starting with the OI components.

I think perhaps another reason I find Infinity less hassle to set up, is just because you don't need to be as precise as you do with board games, when it comes to setting up the battlefield. If you wanted, you could literally just throw the terrain on the table, and play it however it lands, and it can still be a great game. You can't do that with something like Space Hulk. You usually need to have the mission book open, and keep checking back to make sure you are placing everything properly. Then you have your player area, which with a lot of board games can get quite cluttered with cards and bits. It's like you've got a game of MTG going on besides the actual game. With Infinity you don't really need anything in front of you except your tokens. And there are fewer components generally. Games like Zombicide, Space Hulk, SDE etc... all come with a huge number of just miniatures, which are annoying to get out and pack away. Though in fairness that probably isn't true for IA.

That's my observation from experience. If I'm looking for a way to kill some time, or it's late, and I'm too tired to start faffing about with mission books. I look along my game shelves and Infinity/OI, always feels like an easy option. Evidently YMMV.

On a different note. How much of a value/game do you really get with the IA starter set? X-wing, feels very incomplete without any expansions, and the expansions are quite expensive. I'd say you need to spend over £100 before you get what I'd term a "full game" out of X-wing. Other board-games are less than half that, and everything you'll ever need is in the box.

I don't think x-wing and IA are good comparisons.

They are both star wars, but very different. I don't know a lot of people who play IA, but of those who I do know they all play the campaign mode. The campaign mode for IA is complete out of the box and has hours of play in each campaign, and the replay of the campaign is high due to the random nature of the missions and how you choose progression for imperial side, and rebel side. X-wing out the box does not offer any of that. There are expansions for the campaign mode, but they cost on average 9-14 dollars per pack, often you can get them 40% off on the internet, the expansions feel like add ons, and not things that are necessary for a complete campaign. As for skirmish mode, the add on packs are much more essential.

Kalamadea

- thanks for posting that, for some reason I was certain they were smaller but never put them next to my other painted models for other games...must be the lack of paint on mine that makes them look smaller