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Hi guys,

So I have like, read.... a lot... about starting forces, faction playstyles and I THINK I kinda... have an idea about sectorial lists.

Bottom line is I recently saw infinity and growing up loving necromunda/40k and recently hopping on the boardgame train I decided a skirmish mini game looked like a good thing, especially since infinity looked nice and complex both modelling wise and rule wise, but also able to be scaled back.

My big query isn't really about the money investment (I like the idea of spending about 70-120 AUD or so per 'army' and once painted be ready for a semi flexible list) but mainly the aforementioned flexibility of what starter box to get.

Part of this is also that I am getting another couple of people in as well who recently dug boardgames and one who used to play necromunda like 12 years ago etc. I know the modelling is a steep curve but I can help out with that, but I kinda wanted some feedback in regards to what would be a good starting point box for each army? I understand you can grab a bunch of whatever and almost make it work but I think I'd like to suggest the most flexible lists for everyone first so we can get a real solid sense of the game as a group.

I am looking to start an aleph starter force but I am really at a loss (having not read ALL the rules yet and not so used to the format infinity lays its lists out with etc) trying to work out what to actually pick up. While I like pretty much every faction appeal wise in inifity, I think the rest of my group are going to lean towards asian / middle eastern fluff and heavy shooting armies so I enjoyed the look of aleph / nomad and tohaa. I picked aleph not because I like the look (its pretty good) but the idea of the list constructions with smoke, heals, hacks and then kinda relying on a small force and reacting play to small, heavy hitting individuals or forces.


TLDR?

My original intent for coming here is to ask:

If my first starter box is steel phalanx sectorial, should I grab anything else with it (such as a Marut?). Or is this a bit of a "full on list" or too specialised?
Do other factions and boxes fall into the same thing as well, with each sectorial box being more of a set back for a new player than something that can be run non sectorial with a good amount of flexibility?

I ask this because I feel like if I can't rock the steel phalanx box, I kinda might just roll another force.

Any information of use will be taken on and shared with the group, just want to make sure all the time and money spent isn't just a big learning curve where we go meeeeh and either kill the game or spend another $100-200 on the same system just for a different playstyle faction.

Infinity seems unique, kinda hard to pin down what play style everyone will wind up wanting to go for! (there fore knowing what minis to pick up first to make a fun list)

Do not get discouraged. The rules might appear to be vast but you can quickly get a feeling of them. Especially, if you like role playing games.

As for the question, steel phalanx is a good start, even if you do not plan to play a sectorial list. Thorakitai are excellent specialists and support elements. The rest are rather aggressive elements compared to what is accessible to the general force. Decide, if you want to play a sectorial or the general army. A sectorial army gives you higher AVA of certain units at the cost of not having others. I'll make a note that Torakitai are not available in blisters and you'll need to be a bit resourceful in case you don't want the miniatures that come with the deal.

Overall the starters give you a collection of models to start with, to my limited knowledge there are only few starters that play neatly out of the box (Military Order and Bakunin). Certain starters can be played within the general army, others are having greater difficulty (PanOceania sectorials). I'll gather a quick overall review of PanOceanic sectorials:

PanOcenia:

Acontecimento Shock Army: Acontecimento Regulars are AVA 2 in the general force. The starter comes with three of them. The rest of the models can be used in the general army. Be warned that there is also limit on the number of Knights you can take. For example you cannot have Order of Montesa and Order of Santiago in the general force.

Military Order: A nightmare to field in the general force. Order Sargents are capped at AVA 2. You also start with far too many Knights you can field in the general force. On the bright side, the Military Sectorial plays neatly out of the box.

 Furbz wrote:

If my first starter box is steel phalanx sectorial, should I grab anything else with it (such as a Marut?). Or is this a bit of a "full on list" or too specialised?
Do other factions and boxes fall into the same thing as well, with each sectorial box being more of a set back for a new player than something that can be run non sectorial with a good amount of flexibility?

Not all starters are equal - the point costs of the boxes are somewhere around here, and they range from 100 points to over 200. The upcoming Neoterra and Shasvastii are the worst offenders; the former looks like it'll be close to 250 points, and the latter is something like 6.5 SWC - illegal at 300 points!
A sectorial army (amongst other things) places restrictions on what units you can take - a Marut, for example, is not available to the Steel Phalanx. Most people recommend starting at 100-150 points, or one HI and a couple of LI.

The SP box makes this 150 point list:

ASSAULT SUBSECTION
──────────────────────────────────────────────────

GROUP 1 6 0 1

EUDOROS Lieutenant Mk12, Nanopulser, Zero-V Smoke Grenades / Pistol, DA CCW. (0.5 | 40)
AGÊMA Marksman Missile Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 38)
THORAKITES Submachine gun, Chain Rifle, Flash Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (13)
THORAKITES Combi Rifle, Nanopulser, Flash Grenades / Pistol, Knife. (16)
THORAKITES Submachine gun, Light Rocket Launcher / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 25)
MYRMIDON Chain Rifle, Nanopulser, Smoke Grenades / Pistol, AP CCW. (16)

3 SWC | 148 Points

Open with Army 4

After you've got the rules down you might want to include link teams (one of the strengths of a sectorial), either with Alke or a myrmidon box. Maybe Ajax or another named character too.

Thanks so far!

I just realised the 'starter' boxes I was looking at are actually really specialised starter kits made up by the seller for online (combat company).

The steel phalanx includes the regular starter with diomedes, nesaie and panthesliia. Been staring at the one store for two days not knowing that the starter boxes are actually really different.

Hopped on another site and just had the 6 regular minis in the box for half the price.

Looking at it more I think i'll get some rules down in my head and pick my army from there!

all suggestions are great though because it will really help me convey it all to my group about stats, what play style and what to go for, how to think about camo even if we dont start with it and how to work a theme around their faction group as well as they collect.

Really excited to actually get a force sorted on paper, buy the minis, paint them up and make some really nice terrain to suit


Also, any Australian's know where I can order a lot of stuff online outside of combat company and slave to painting that would be good and reliable? CC are always great but the selection is missing some stuff I really like the look of and not buying from 5 stores would be easier than splitting it if avoidable.

As an Australian I'll say this - looking for good deals online is a waste of time. Even with a good 25% like Combat Company offers, unless you buy a huge amount, after shipping you won't be saving much. Finding someone that does such a discount and offers free shipping is almost impossible.

The game is cheap enough already - be thankful CB don't follow other companies that shall not be named and charge us a premium just because they can.

Wait, Combat Company isn't cheap?
It's like.. what $11 a model?
$80 for a package deal with 250 points?

I pay $12 a model at my FLGS, and don't pay shipping. And get it right away.

Infinity is already super cheap.

Yeah the store query was mostly to see who had variety. Infinity pricing is great everywhere, except maybe ebay now the US dollar is back up.

Prob do a combat company order and grab the missing bits where I can

 Furbz wrote:

If my first starter box is steel phalanx sectorial, should I grab anything else with it (such as a Marut?). Or is this a bit of a "full on list" or too specialised?
Do other factions and boxes fall into the same thing as well, with each sectorial box being more of a set back for a new player than something that can be run non sectorial with a good amount of flexibility?

I ask this because I feel like if I can't rock the steel phalanx box, I kinda might just roll another force.

Any information of use will be taken on and shared with the group, just want to make sure all the time and money spent isn't just a big learning curve where we go meeeeh and either kill the game or spend another $100-200 on the same system just for a different playstyle faction.

Infinity seems unique, kinda hard to pin down what play style everyone will wind up wanting to go for! (there fore knowing what minis to pick up first to make a fun list)

Your first question - about the Steel phalanx box. If you wish to run this sectorial army, do not buy the Marut as you won't be able to use it alongside the army UNLESS you use them all for the vanilla aleph faction (Marut IS NOT PART of the phalanx army).

In general, ALL of the sectorial boxes can be used within the main "vanilla" army, but you may have minis in excess of what you are allowed in it.
Some models that are ava1 in the vanilla have their availability increased in the sectorial - the trade off for this is you lose access to other models. Like Asuras (MSV3 model) or the Marut, or infiltrating minelayers, or other cool stuff.

Steel Phalanx is not a subtle list. It's meant to get your guys in their face, kicking some and taking names. You'll probably want some myrmidons (friends for the hacker and Eudoros to play with) or Ajax, or the other man-TAG, Achilles.

I recently went over the rules for Ajax and Achilles. For human sized models they are completely ridiculous.

The Nomads were right!

Corridor has probably the best box ever made for any faction or sectorial . Every model good , every model useful . The only a bit worse unit can be fixed by switching the weapon and just buying 2 blisters give an awesome force.

That's Corregidor.

Corridor is a hallway.

Corregidor is the decendants of criminal scum that infest the spacelanes.

The Hallway Starter box (Corregidor) Looks so good. I think i'll be going aleph to begin with and then a Nomad force once I have a semi flexible 250/300 point aleph faction.

Currently working out what Aleph list that will sate the way I want to play and what minis I want to field without locking myself out of fun options by favouring one over the other.

Currently working through Aleph Toolbox to sort a list that would include ajax, some myrmidons but cant figure out what lieutenant to take (want to run ajax as non lt) and what sort of sniper or hacker I run (myrmidon? daysus? naga?), machon,panthesilea and diomedes (actually all the named) look really solid as well but also wondering if I should sort some netrods in a first purchase or leave that for later? Love the flexibility of it all though to be honest!

If anyone plays Yijun, Pan O or Haqq let me know what a good strong starter setup for them is and I can help the others in my group find an educated decision and focus their research / reading down a bit. Rather not just throw links at the people new to tabletop but also rather not spend hours reading myself on each factions ups and downs just yet either! Finding out on the table is a good way to go

 -Loki- wrote:
I recently went over the rules for Ajax and Achilles. For human sized models they are completely ridiculous.

Good thing then, that Ajax is not human sized It's on a 40mm base, and it is a massive mini.

For Haqq, a good start would be the starter box, plus a blister of 2 naffatun, plus the support (ghulam doctor and najjarun engineer and two nasmat helper bots). This gets you ten minis, and you can use them as proxies when needed. The Janissary can be any Heavy Infantry choice for example, and the Hunzakut any skirmisher. I routinely proxy my Hunzakut as a Tuareg, befcause I dislike the current Tuareg sculpts (Sasquatch wants his boots back. Look at the minis, you 'll see what I mean.) Once you've figured out where you want to go, either vanilla Haqq, or one of the sectorials, then you can plan out the next acquisitions.

Pano's strength is in shooting. Doesn't matter whether you take the vanilla starter or a sectorial starter.

I play mostly Neoterra - "starter" box for them coming out soon.
Whether it's Neoterra's kind of "deny camouflage to them whilst keeping your own" and long ranged shooting or infiltrating mine-laying short-ranged shooting of Acontecimento (except for the TAGs) or the shorter ranged, but backed up with choppy MA of the Military Orders. It's still going to boil down to "shoot them to bits".

Which one you get really boils down to the main infinity rule. Pick the one you like the look of.

And since this is a beginners' thread, please let me hammer out the same old tired adage again, nonetheless:
Yes, PanO is a shooty faction. Particularly shooty faction, actually.
Then again, any faction in Infinity is a shooty faction. Aside from some infowar gimmicks you might pull every now and again, battles are fought at at least some range - no matter your faction of choice.

(even if you bring lots of close-range guys, you'll need long-range stuff to make sure your opponent doesn't get to set up every bl***y firelane he feels like, completely unopposed)

 Bolognesus wrote:
And since this is a beginners' thread, please let me hammer out the same old tired adage again

Appreciate it, but was mainly looking for info that isn't really in the same old threads, hence asking, mainly in regards to starter boxes then kinda where to branch out from there to maximise use of money and time for players totally new to modelling and tabletop.

All helps though!

 Red Harvest wrote:

For Haqq, a good start would be the starter box, plus a blister of 2 naffatun, plus the support (ghulam doctor and najjarun engineer and two nasmat helper bots). This gets you ten minis, and you can use them as proxies when needed. The Janissary can be any Heavy Infantry choice for example, and the Hunzakut any skirmisher. I routinely proxy my Hunzakut as a Tuareg, befcause I dislike the current Tuareg sculpts (Sasquatch wants his boots back. Look at the minis, you 'll see what I mean.) Once you've figured out where you want to go, either vanilla Haqq, or one of the sectorials, then you can plan out the next acquisitions.

Awesome cheers for that, guy I thought was gonna roll Pan-O rolled Haqq with a sectorial starter I think so ill find out which one and pass the info on! Thanks again

Yes - in this future, people rarely get the chance to hit someone with their swords!

They do, however, get the chance to blow people to bits at close range though!

 Alpharius wrote:
Yes - in this future, people rarely get the chance to hit someone with their swords!

They do, however, get the chance to blow people to bits at close range though!

Also unless you're godlike in melee like Achilles there's a good chance that you might lose, even if the model actually is pretty good. My brother had a Domaru Butai lose CC against one of my Ghulam. Senior Deadpool was beaten down twice in a row by a Muyib. You're almost always just better off using that combi rifle.

Exception being for example exp ccws vs TAGs but that's a near mythic situation.

^^^ My Fiday w/ EXP CCW begs to differ especially after a Barid has immobilized the TAG through a repeater. Order intensive though.

However, one really is better off just shooting 99% of the time.

Well yeah. When you're hitting something with an EXP CCW that can't shoot you in ARO or fight back CC is quite viable

Well im sure the aleph mostly cc units order I placed earlier will pay off... haha, looking forward to getting amongst it.

Picked up a steel phalanx starter, penthesilia, achilles, ajax, myrmidon box, myr spitfire and a daysus sniper. Figured it was a good start with minis I can proxy in friendly games (naga sniper, thorokatai medics etc) and also dabble with different key characters and vanilla and sectorial lists.

All the places I've seen in adelaide have no or not much stock and online is mostly sold out of a lot. Hoping for a myr officer and a few bits and pieces to mix and match as I go.

Should keep me busy for a while maybe

Oh and hopefully slave for painting doesn't take forever to ship.

I'm still a noob too but looking at what you've got there it doesn't necessarily seem like a cc heavy list, just one that wants to get up in your face. Achillies gets a spitfire, Ajax a pair of combi rifles and everyone else still has guns too. Just because they are only modeled with the cc weapon out doesn't mean they aren't good at shooting people dead.

 -Loki- wrote:

 Alpharius wrote:
Yes - in this future, people rarely get the chance to hit someone with their swords!

They do, however, get the chance to blow people to bits at close range though!

Also unless you're godlike in melee like Achilles there's a good chance that you might lose, even if the model actually is pretty good. My brother had a Domaru Butai lose CC against one of my Ghulam. Senior Deadpool was beaten down twice in a row by a Muyib. You're almost always just better off using that combi rifle.

Happens all of the time. My Ninja FAIL so many times.............

CC is just a bonus if you can get it off.

In this game, ninja have rifles for a reason.

I've killed more with combat camo combi-rifle attacks than in cc.

Those that live by the sword will be shot by those who don't.

 Red Harvest wrote:
^^^ My Fiday w/ EXP CCW begs to differ especially after a Barid has immobilized the TAG through a repeater. Order intensive though.

However, one really is better off just shooting 99% of the time.

^^this^^

Also, that's an infowar list which happens to use some CC elements, which goes to show the proper position of CCWs: "nice to have just in case they might come in handy".
I like one on a spec-ops with a point of XP to spare though: the look on an opponents face can be precious.

 Furbz wrote:
Well im sure the aleph mostly cc units order I placed earlier will pay off... haha, looking forward to getting amongst it.

Picked up a steel phalanx starter, penthesilia, achilles, ajax, myrmidon box, myr spitfire and a daysus sniper. Figured it was a good start with minis I can proxy in friendly games (naga sniper, thorokatai medics etc) and also dabble with different key characters and vanilla and sectorial lists.

All the places I've seen in adelaide have no or not much stock and online is mostly sold out of a lot. Hoping for a myr officer and a few bits and pieces to mix and match as I go.

Should keep me busy for a while maybe

Oh and hopefully slave for painting doesn't take forever to ship.

Those are some amazing miniatures. If you haven't seen them in person yet, you will be shocked at how good they are. And feel free to proxy. WYSIWYG is not a requirement for Infinity... and for the first games, nobody will know anyway. Interesting that you took the Dasyus Sniper over the Atalanta mini though, since all the other minis are also a part of the Greek Sectorial-- ie the Assault Sub-section.

 Red Harvest wrote:

Those are some amazing miniatures. If you haven't seen them in person yet, you will be shocked at how good they are. And feel free to proxy. WYSIWYG is not a requirement for Infinity... and for the first games, nobody will know anyway. Interesting that you took the Dasyus Sniper over the Atalanta mini though, since all the other minis are also a part of the Greek Sectorial-- ie the Assault Sub-section.

I was going to pick her up, but I kinda of wanted to play something a bit different in some small scale vanilla lists i'll be doing with friends, she is next on the list along with the netrod pack and officer (maybe a couple of those nice looking holographic billboards to). Also I really liked the look of the mini and wanted to paint it up. Aleph will be the first force I ever try to paint 'bright' and do white / pink / purples / light greys done with a lot of washes and wetblends over a white primer (usually just build from black).

Most of my decision making was based on "what looks really good / what would be fun to play" wound up with a mostly sectoral list