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I got a demo of Infinity a couple of months ago but played my first "real" games last night and I've got some observations on the game leading into a few questions.

The game was 190 points and I was using Aleph while my opponent was using Combined Army. I had the Aleph starter pack, minus all the Dakini Tacbots, plus Penthesilea and a couple of Netrods. He was basically just using the CA starter pack, but he replaced a Morat with some guy who was impetuous and had a big curved blade thing.

I lost both games. The first one was lost by a lot - his heavy infantry came up a flank, so I turned to focus him. I ended up accidentally killing him with a crit with my last order, so all of my guys were facing an area of the board in which there were no enemies present. The impetuous guy just ran up and CCed his way through literally everyone in my squad, one after another, except my Asura. But I lost more than 60% of my squad so the game was just over.

The second game I had better positions and I also got first turn. So I moved my Asura into position and just spent all of my orders on her. From high ground, she killed 3 models in one turn and a 4th in the next. However, CA apparently doesn't have to retreat or something? So I killed a 5th model, the camo guy from the starter who goes anywhere on the board, but he used a health pack or something, healed himself, and shot and killed my Asura. Combined with having previously lost Penthesilea, this put me over 60%, so despite causing huge losses I still lost.

So it seems like there's no reason to ever use any orders on models other than your best model. The Asura has the best stats and the best gun, so if I can get her into position why would I do anything with anyone else? Even moving seems like a waste, because if you move and don't shoot, you're just getting shot for free. And since my movement is only 4-4, if I want to improve my position on the field I basically can't shoot because everything is probably too far away. Am I totally off on this? The game seems to be: get (or deploy) your models into position, and then just never move unless they can't see anyone anymore. Then, on your turn, spend all of your orders on your best model, who also hopefully has the best position that you can get on your side of the board.

At the same time, Combined Army, what the heck, seriously. They can't have loss of lieutenant, they're very hard to make retreat... you just have to kill every model on the board, or what? Seems very, very strong.

And so, I know Aleph are supposed to be "elite" in the sense that their models are good but more expensive. Well, so are CA from what I could see, but they also have those other bonuses I mentioned. So what do Aleph do REALLY well to justify the cost per model?

Greetings

Morat posses Religious trait. Simply put it, this rule allows Morat to stay on table while other armies would be in retreat. It's important to note that non-Morat models are still subjected to retreat.

Tangent wrote:The impetuous guy just ran up and CCed his way through literally everyone in my squad, one after another, except my Asura.

Did you use any of this:

- You get ARO. You can shot him before he approaches you. If smoke was involved I can see how this could happened, but it would take a lot of orders.
- If active model enters your zone of control you can change your facing as ARO, even if you do not see the active model.
- Alert as ARO. Sad story but everything in Infinity dies, sometimes it's better to alert others they're getting jumped from behind.
- Nanopulser, i-khol 2, camouflage. It did nothing?

Tangent wrote:So it seems like there's no reason to ever use any orders on models other than your best model.

Partially true. You always want to trade favorably so you spend it on miniature that is in the best position. Sometimes it is AD, HI, REM but even simple LI can get the job done. Spending on coordinated order and suppressive fire also isn't uncommon for myself.

Tangent wrote:They can't have loss of lieutenant, they're very hard to make retreat... you just have to kill every model on the board, or what? Seems very, very strong.

Religious is very strong ability with none drawbacks. It's a reason why my own community started playing ITS or similar scenarios. Once objectives start to count and you're limited with game rounds it is different story.

Tangent wrote:So what do Aleph do REALLY well to justify the cost per model?

Aleph is in unfortunate spot. Its models are expensive but you get what you pay for. The army gets better once you play on higher points, but you also need an understanding how the game resolves, army balance between offense and defense and having a good pool of orders. It doesn't matter, if you have Asura or Ekdromos, if you lack orders to fuel them because opponent killed your order pool. The army list could use some work in my oppinion, at lower points it's very hard to use all the toys you have. Why Aleph players hate using Dakini has been puzzling me for a while. I know the models are a pain to put together.

 Knight wrote:
Greetings

Morat posses Religious trait. Simply put it, this rule allows Morat to stay on table while other armies would be in retreat. It's important to note that non-Morat models are still subjected to retreat.

Ah, ok. So, are most of them Morats?

 Knight wrote:
Did you use any of this:

- You get ARO. You can shot him before he approaches you. If smoke was involved I can see how this could happened, but it would take a lot of orders.
- If active model enters your zone of control you can change your facing as ARO, even if you do not see the active model.
- Alert as ARO. Sad story but everything in Infinity dies, sometimes it's better to alert others they're getting jumped from behind.
- Nanopulser, i-khol 2, camouflage. It did nothing?

1) He did use smoke on his initial order.
2) If I change my facing as my ARO, can I still strike back in CC? Or shoot as he approaches?
3) I didn't know about this one.
4) None of my guys had camo. If I remember correctly, my Naga Hacker had already been shot earlier in the game. The impetuous CA guy ran up and used smoke with one order. Then he ran through the smoke and charged my Deva with the next. Then he charged the Netrod. Then he charged Penthesilea. The Deva was facing the right way, but just died. The Netrod obviously just died. As for Penthesilea, who has i'khol 2 and a nanopulser, she was facing the wrong way. The CA guy had martial arts level 4 and a some kind of shock weapon, so she just got hit once and died. My Asura, who was still on the table, had been positioned to shoot (and kill, with the aforementioned crit) his HI guy, so she was facing the wrong way and couldn't shoot at this martial arts guy as he was making his way through my dudes.

 Knight wrote:
Religious is very strong ability with none drawbacks. It's a reason why my own community started playing ITS or similar scenarios. Once objectives start to count and you're limited with game rounds it is different story.

I see. Yeah, we were just killing each other pretty much.

 Knight wrote:
Aleph is in unfortunate spot. Its models are expensive but you get what you pay for. The army gets better once you play on higher points, but you also need an understanding how the game resolves, army balance between offense and defense and having a good pool of orders. It doesn't matter, if you have Asura or Ekdromos, if you lack orders to fuel them because opponent killed your order pool. The army list could use some work in my oppinion, at lower points it's very hard to use all the toys you have. Why Aleph players hate using Dakini has been puzzling me for a while. I know the models are a pain to put together.

Yeah, those Dakini are hard to put together!!

First off, way WAY too many special rules and abilities on the table! You're jumping in at the deep end if all you've played is a couple of demo games some time ago.

On to specifics.

1. Everyone who saw the smoke being thrown could have shot/dodged etc. The Daturazi (I'm assuming it was one) would have had to beat the rolls on every incoming shot for the smoke to land.
2b. The Asura has a Multispectral Visor level 3. She can see through the smoke as if it wasn't there. If she could see the Daturazi Witch Soldier it should probably have died.
2. Nope, you only get the one ARO per Order. :(
3. It's quite a useful one at times.
4a. Yep, Devas don't like Shock weapons as it ignores their No Wound Incapacitation that lets them keep going while 'unconscious'.
4b. The Netrod has Electric Pulse, there was a 30% chance of the Daturazi managing to taser itself.
4c. Really really important bit here - if any of your models get hit, your other models within 8" get a Change Facing reaction if they had no other reaction - it sounds like Penthesilea and the Asura should have been able to turn round either when the Deva got shanked or the Netrod was attacked - which would have resulted in the Daturazi suffering badly if it then tried charging them. Especially as the first strike effect from Martial Arts only works if the charged model does a Dodge or CC Attack reaction - shoot as a reaction to the charge and it's a face to face roll.

Going back to the first game, the Shasvastii sniper that healed itself with the automedikit - what exactly happened when it shot the Asura? Was it just a case of awful range band modifiers? Her MSV3 lets her ignore all negative modifiers for Camo or TO Camo and also lets her ignore the first strike effect of Combat Camo.

1) So, when he threw the smoke bomb, everyone was facing the wrong way except the Deva.

2b) The Asura was actually on the other side of a corner of a building, out of line of sight (and facing the wrong way). So she couldn't see all of this going down.

4b) Did not know that's what electric pulse does!

4c) We actually played this a bit wrong, but had the same result as you're describing.

I'd like to describe the situation a little better, if I may.

The Daturazi was approaching a chain of my models. The Deva was first in line, followed by the Netrod, and Penthesilea was last in line. All of my models were up against the side of a building with no windows. The Deva was facing the side that the Daturazi was coming from, while Penthesilea was facing the other way (the wrong way). The Asura was essentially out of the game due to her position.

The Daturazi threw the smoke basically right in front of the Deva from around the corner of the building, so the Deva couldn't see him when the smoke was deployed. He came around the corner and charged her, and she responded by fighting back or shooting or something. She died.

He moved on to the Netrod, and we said that the Netrod could "alert" Penthesilea, who turned around to face the Daturazi. The Netrod was destroyed, and Penthesilea got charged next. She responded by shooting her Contender, but missed. I don't remember what I-kohl level 2 does, but she was hit in CC and killed.

As for the sniper who was healed... It was an unfortunate combination of bad range modifiers and cover. I moved the Asura up to get a better chance to hit on my turn. I did hit, but didn't kill him outright. On his turn, he healed, then shot back. I was now slightly out of cover while he was inside of it - he hit and I missed, and failed my armor rolls.

i-Kohl 2 means the Daturazi would have suffered a -6 CC penalty and hopefully missed.

Note that Netrods are pieces of equipment that provide an Order, they cannot perform skills such as Alert.

As far as the Asura being out of position, that's just lack of experience/knowledge of the opposing force - her MSV is a pricy bit of kit so it would be standard to make sure she's deployed/ends her turn in a position to shoot warbands that depend on smoke (and Mimetism for the Daturazi) for their survival.

The conga line just sounds like an unfortunate bit of positioning and reinforces how incredibly important positioning and covering fire is in Infinity.

Just a note - Infinity is brutal. Every lowly grunt with a rifle can put a round between your Asuras eyes, and if they do it with a Critical, you won't even get to save. The grunts are often referred to as 'cheerleaders', but don't underestimate them in the reactive turn.

Also, due to the sheer brutality of combat, until you get a handle on the rules and how the game flows, expect to lose. A lot. To things you never knew could happen. A common reaction to a new model on the table is 'Your guy can do what?!?'

Lol.

I tell the new players in my area that they should be prepared to lose their first dozen games and if they can't handle that, then they should perhaps find another game.

That said, new players are likely to win their first couple of games against me. Not because of my sad and woeful lack of tactics (well, not just because of it) but also because my dice rolling sucks. Not to say I won't pull off miraculous actions, but they won't stop me losing.

Had a game yesterday where my combi tactbot managed to get a dodge against a tankhunter autocannon shot (crit on a 2).
The other one got hit with an ADHL and made the phys test to not get stuck (again, crit on a 2).
Pretty much every other roll got beaten.

 -Loki- wrote:
Just a note - Infinity is brutal. Every lowly grunt with a rifle can put a round between your Asuras eyes, and if they do it with a Critical, you won't even get to save. The grunts are often referred to as 'cheerleaders', but don't underestimate them in the reactive turn.

Also, due to the sheer brutality of combat, until you get a handle on the rules and how the game flows, expect to lose. A lot. To things you never knew could happen. A common reaction to a new model on the table is 'Your guy can do what?!?'

The strength of LI lies in their numbers. On a single group they're very likely to fill guarding duty and providing orders to heavier hitters. On a double groups the fun starts. You have more bodies to generate ARO and certain armies have access to very cheap warbands with smoke. The downside is that your LI will have noticeably lower chances against heavier enemy model, however you can easily include few high-mid specialists in the list. Quantity has a quality of its own.

It would be very unusual that a style would be limited to only one army in Infinity. All armies can run variety of styles, some just do it easier, sooner or different than others.

Well, I definitely don't mind that I lost. I told that story mainly for clarification. The main questions I've got are the ones in my OP concerning whether or not this game is just about getting one powerful model into position and then just dumping every order you have on him. And that moving at all seems like a bad idea once you've got that position, and so games develop into both sides standing and shooting and that's it. Just trying to get a better grasp on the game as a whole.

IJW wrote:i-Kohl 2 means the Daturazi would have suffered a -6 CC penalty and hopefully missed.

If I remember right, the Daturazi had a CC stat of 18, so even at -6 he still hits on a 12.

IJW wrote:Note that Netrods are pieces of equipment that provide an Order, they cannot perform skills such as Alert.

We found that out afterward, but we figured it was no big deal because the Deva could have shouted Alert but we forgot. So the Netrod did it instead. It's also worth noting that Martial Arts level 4, which the Daturazi had, prevents enemy models from turning to face him when he enters their zone of control.

I'm well aware of MA4, that's why I mentioned models being hit in ZoC instead.

Note that Alert needs sight and can't be declared in close combat, so it would only have happened if the Daturazi moved out of the smoke cloud during the move into combat.

He did. So you're saying it could have gone like this:

Daturazi is in smoke. He is activated by an order. He moves outside of the smoke, charging at Deva in the process.

Deva is facing the Daturazi, so she can either shoot at him as he approaches, swing at him in CC, or shout an Alert to Penthesilea. She elects to Alert.

Penthesilea turns around. Deva dies.

The Daturazi is currently outside of the smoke, and charges the Netrod with another order. Penthesilea, who is now facing the Daturazi, reacts by shooting at him.

Assuming the Daturazi survives the shot and kills the Netrod, he then charges Penthesilea with yet another order. Penthesilea then has the same options that the Deva had - shoot, fight, or alert.

Correct?

Yep, 100% as far as I can see.

This makes quite a big difference as Penthesilea would have got an unopposed ARO shot in when the Netrod was charged - either DA ammo from the Contender and suffering the -3 BS modifier from the Daturazi's Mimetism or an auto-hitting template from the Nanopulser.

Bear in mind that if Penthesilea was within 8" of the Deva she could have got a Change Facing ARO from the Deva being hit, allowing the Deva (and Devabot) to shot the Daturazi. However you'd have to guess if they were close enough before declaring the Deva's ARO...

 Tangent wrote:
The main questions I've got are the ones in my OP concerning whether or not this game is just about getting one powerful model into position and then just dumping every order you have on him. And that moving at all seems like a bad idea once you've got that position, and so games develop into both sides standing and shooting and that's it. Just trying to get a better grasp on the game as a whole.

In my opinion it'll depend on the list, situation and scenario objectives. Infinity rewards aggression but nothing is certain so it'll be common to spend multiple orders on a single model. You want to drain your opponents order pool, killing units is the most straightforward option, the alternative is to deploy mines, suppressive fire, total reaction models, 360° visors, reserved infiltrators and fire teams. Like I said, you want to trade orders, if active enemy model spends 3 orders to kill only one of your ARO model it's a win for you. Unfortunately I've been on the side when that ARO kill snowballed and killed other models. It's not unusual in my group to see a cheap sacrificial model with template that just rushes and tries to take out as much reactive models as possible. This scenario is part of the game.

So you're saying that the Deva wouldn't necessarily have to call the Alert (to Penthesilea) in order to make Penth turn around. If I'm understanding you correctly, the Deva being charged or attacked in CC (which one? both?) within 8" of friendly models allows those models to change facing as an ARO regardless of whether or not they can see the action.

Normally, any action within the 8" ZoC lets models turn round, for example the charge/short move skill.

See http://infinitythegame.wikispot.org/Change_Facing or http://infinitythegame.wikispot.org/Zone_of_Control_%28ZC%29

However the Daturazi's MA4 cancels the normal ability to Change Facing in reaction to any action so the short move skill didn't trigger anything outside Line of Fire. However it doesn't cancel out the second trigger for Change Facing:

'If the miniature does not have an ARO, it can Change Facing if it is hit by an enemy attack or if an allied miniature receives a hit inside its Zone of Control.'

My emphasis.

So if the Deva gets hit, at the end of the Order any model that didn't get an ARO and is close enough gets to turn round. It's a bit of an oddity because it's outside the normal Order/ARO sequence, basically a fall-back letting your models respond in some way to team-mates getting attacked.

That's one of the reasons why I was saying you had too many special skills/equipment on the table as you've ramped up to nearly the highest level of complex rules interactions already!

Hahahaha, go big or go home!

Well that all makes sense. You're right about the interworking rules complexity here, and I hope to have a better understanding next time.

 Knight wrote:

 Tangent wrote:
The main questions I've got are the ones in my OP concerning whether or not this game is just about getting one powerful model into position and then just dumping every order you have on him. And that moving at all seems like a bad idea once you've got that position, and so games develop into both sides standing and shooting and that's it. Just trying to get a better grasp on the game as a whole.

In my opinion it'll depend on the list, situation and scenario objectives. Infinity rewards aggression but nothing is certain so it'll be common to spend multiple orders on a single model. You want to drain your opponents order pool, killing units is the most straightforward option, the alternative is to deploy mines, suppressive fire, total reaction models, 360° visors, reserved infiltrators and fire teams. Like I said, you want to trade orders, if active enemy model spends 3 orders to kill only one of your ARO model it's a win for you. Unfortunately I've been on the side when that ARO kill snowballed and killed other models. It's not unusual in my group to see a cheap sacrificial model with template that just rushes and tries to take out as much reactive models as possible. This scenario is part of the game.

Hmm, that's interesting. Obviously, there's a lot that I don't know about the game, but your mentions of all of those other options gives me confidence that the strategy is much deeper.

"It's how you play, not what you play." That's the Dakka/Infinity group motto, thanks to CDK.

You can use a whole variety of strategies and it's actually very difficult to create a list that would cripple you. As long as you get some variety and try and use your SWC then your list can't hurt you and neither can your opponents list. It will take time to learn to play and find out how to get the best out of your units though.

Regarding spending orders on better units, a term you'll often see used is 'cheerleader'. These are things like Ghulam, Celestial Guard, Fusiliers, etc. Basic line infantry that have middling stats and cost 8-15 points on average. Units that you'd look at in other games like 40k and shrug away as useless.

Their role in Infinity is as a 'cheerleader'. Basically, you find them a nice, defensible position in your deployment zone and leave them there. Their goal is to provide extra orders for your pool, and guard your backline from infiltrators, airborne deployment troops, or any other sneaky tricks people do to get behind you. They are there to throw some shots in the reactive turn at such units. And as they are still armed with a rfile and in general have a decent BS value, they can still kill someone dead if they aren't careful. But you probably won't be activating them for actual use unless you're really in trouble.

Having 3-4 cheerleaders at 300pts isn't uncommon, simply as a way to fuel your more killy units as they do their thing. It's purely down to order efficiency. Some models are better to spend orders on than others.

However, depending on your list, you may wind up with no cheerleaders. This is fairly common in sectorial army lists. My Hassassin Bahram list has a grand total of zero cheerleaders. Every model is a Hassassin, every model is quite dangerous. I gain order efficiency the way most sectorial army lists do - through a link team. 5 of my 10 models are Hassassin Muybis, and are in a Link Team. This means 1 order moves all 5, and as a defensive team in the reactive turn they are fairly lethal.

 -Loki- wrote:
Regarding spending orders on better units, a term you'll often see used is 'cheerleader'. These are things like Ghulam, Celestial Guard, Fusiliers, etc. Basic line infantry that have middling stats and cost 8-15 points on average. Units that you'd look at in other games like 40k and shrug away as useless.

Their role in Infinity is as a 'cheerleader'. Basically, you find them a nice, defensible position in your deployment zone and leave them there. Their goal is to provide extra orders for your pool, and guard your backline from infiltrators, airborne deployment troops, or any other sneaky tricks people do to get behind you. They are there to throw some shots in the reactive turn at such units. And as they are still armed with a rfile and in general have a decent BS value, they can still kill someone dead if they aren't careful. But you probably won't be activating them for actual use unless you're really in trouble.

Having 3-4 cheerleaders at 300pts isn't uncommon, simply as a way to fuel your more killy units as they do their thing. It's purely down to order efficiency. Some models are better to spend orders on than others.

However, depending on your list, you may wind up with no cheerleaders. This is fairly common in sectorial army lists. My Hassassin Bahram list has a grand total of zero cheerleaders. Every model is a Hassassin, every model is quite dangerous. I gain order efficiency the way most sectorial army lists do - through a link team. 5 of my 10 models are Hassassin Muybis, and are in a Link Team. This means 1 order moves all 5, and as a defensive team in the reactive turn they are fairly lethal.

Can every army and every list use Link Teams, or is that a special rule that's unique to certain models?

Also, as regards the cheerleader thing, Netrods for Aleph are 3 points. Why doesn't every Aleph list have at least 10 of them?

Linking is available to certain models in sectorial armies (steel phalanx in Aleph's case) and Tohaa. If they can link it's indicated in their profile as "Linkable". There's also a list somewhere showing what can link.
And as for the netrods in particular, you can only take 3 at most. So there's that. And I suppose that Aleph players would rather spend points on something which has a non-zero chance of killing something.

 Tangent wrote:
Can every army and every list use Link Teams, or is that a special rule that's unique to certain models?

Only Sectorial army lists can take them, sort of compensation for losing access to a lot of models. And only troops with the Linkable option can link.

For Aleph, you're looking for units with the Enomotarchos rule in the Steel Phalanx Sectorial list, which works slightly differently to normal Link teams, but serves the same purpose. With Aleph, Link teams using Enomotarchos are formed around individual leaders like Myrmidon Officers. In other armies, they're just formed from any group of 3-5 Linkable troops of the same type.

 Tangent wrote:
Also, as regards the cheerleader thing, Netrods for Aleph are 3 points. Why doesn't every Aleph list have at least 10 of them?

a. they are AVA (availability) 3, so you can never have more than 3.

b. combat groups are limited to 10 models. Once you hit 10 models, you start combat group 2, but orders cannot be shared amongst groups.

c. Netrods are cheap orders, but they also lack everything else a cheerleader does. You wouldn't be afraid to AD drop in LOS of a Netrod, for example. AD drop with your back to a Fusilier? Get ready to be face down in the dirt.

Ah, ok. So only models that are linkable can link to each other? Or can they link to another non-linkable model?

 Tangent wrote:
Ah, ok. So only models that are linkable can link to each other? Or can they link to another non-linkable model?

In Sectorials for non-Steel Phalanx, only troops with the Linkable rule can link, and can only link with troops of the same type. 5 Hassassin Muyibs can link with each other, but a Hassassin Lasiq, also linkable, cannot. It needs to link with orher Hassassin Lasiqs.

For Steel Phalanx, you need a model with the Enomotarchos rule to start a link (though it does not have to be the designated Link leader). Then, they can have up to 3 units of the same type link with them. For example, a Myrmidon Officer is a Myrmidon unit type, so 3 Myrmidons can like with it. Nesaie Alke is a Thorakitai, so can have up to 3 Throatikai link with her. However, the Thoratikai cannot link with the Myrmidon Officer, as they are not Myrmidons, and the Myrmidons cannot link with Nesaie Alke, as they are not Thoratikai.

Aleph Steel Phalanx also ignore the limit of 1 Link team rule. They can have as many Enomotarchos Link teams as they can fit in a Combat Group.

Only ever to each other. In 95% of the cases the linkable rule means the models from the same unit (Celestial Guard, Metro's, Muyibs etc...)

In rare cases, a named character (such as Sheskin of the Shasvastii sectiorial) can form specific links with different units (seed soldiers, Gwailos) but the linked units must still be the same type (i.e. she can't form a linked team made up of Gwailos AND Seed Soldiers, it must be one unit type or the other)

Loki covered it nicely.

Full rules for link teams:
http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/downloads/rules/%5Ben%5DRulesHS.pdf

Additional rules (page 6):
http://www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/downloads/rules/%5Ben%5DNewRules.pdf

Link teams are nice way to base and expand your army, however at the start it's always better to focus on the basics. Order management, positioning, reacting, knowing your army.

I'll say this - even after a few games and escalating points up each time, I still don't want to even touch Link teams. The base rules are complicated enough for us to learn. What makes it worse, is previously I always learned games off other people - I learned 2nd and 3rd 40k, Necromunda, BFG and Epic off my brother and 5th 40k off a friend as I picked the game back up. 6th wasn't really a new game.

This time, I'm the driving force behind Infinity, so I'm learning the game first and teaching others. So yeah, Link teams can wait. My friend plays Aleph, and asked me to read the Posthuman Proxy rules so I could teach him. When I saw the rules, I told him exactly where he could shove that suggestion.

Wow, it really gets THAT complicated?

And so, I've got a question about the best place to get the rules. Are ALL of the rules for the game available online? And, if so, is there any reason to buy any of the books? And which ones contain what?

It's more that we're still learning the game. So when he asked me to learn a rule for one of his units that takes a page by itself I wasn't too thrilled.

 Tangent wrote:
Wow, it really gets THAT complicated?

And so, I've got a question about the best place to get the rules. Are ALL of the rules for the game available online? And, if so, is there any reason to buy any of the books? And which ones contain what?

ALL of the rules ARE available online.
Reasons for getting the books: Background/fluff and artwork (although there is some art in the 2nd ed rules download at least).

2nd ed rules contain most of the rules.
Human sphere adds fireteam (link) rules, sectorials and some new units.
Paradiso adds more rules (dangerous terrain/contamination hazards, etc) some new units, the spec-ops characters and a campaign system with missions. ONLY the game rules and unit add-ons are a download - the entire campaign system is not (including the missions).

There is a re-edit of the rules and Human Sphere done by Tenabrae on the forums that puts them into a more coherent and logical format for native English readers (no text was changed, and all of the typos and other errors are still there - like the movement table for units that is supposedly shown in inches, but the numbers are in cm (motorcycles having a 20-15 move, for example).
This re-edit IS authorised by CB.
It's also the one I carry with me to games. The main rulebooks get left at home.