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That's not to say it isn't incredibly popular already, I just mean making the game so accessible in a starter kit can only be a good thing.

What initially put me off was the openness of it all. That sounds silly I know, but with say, GW (sorry!), Mantic etc there's a box that says HERE is where you start - have fun.

The unit names for Infinity are pretty scary to outsiders too - and to see players discussing this bag morat over that what-have-you was quite daunting and I felt stupid for not knowing what everyone was talking about.

But I've stood at the side lines, dropping in on the various forum discussions, listening to the O12 podcasts and even had a demo game all the while just waiting for the opportunity to take that next step (not a stalker, honest).

Then the Icestorm set was revealed and Beasts of War did a great week worth of specials about it and I pre-ordered. I feel glad I stuck with my interest and I really excited for September 1st when I can pick up my box and get stuck in. I’m planning my colour schemes already…

The mini escalating campaign in the book sounds ideal for noobs and I genuinely hope that the game explodes as a result. I reckon I could Mrs Monders to play. Certainly the earlier smaller games…

I liked their minis before, but the new stuff CB is releasing is a different level completely.

Anyway, that was a bit of a ramble to say hello Infinity types, I’ll be with you soon!

Will it be THE one to make GW quake in their boots?

Probably not.

Will it help "spread the word"? Indubitably.

It might get as popular as VOID or Warzone did back in the 90s, but I don't think it will ever really challenge the big boy for market dominance. Not unless they (the big boy) manage to spontaneously and publicly go balls-up.

They have 27 years of market control and inertia behind them. It's often seen as "Easier" to just "upgrade" to the latest version than change games by many of the players.
(Many of whom came into the hobby through that gateway. The idea of a games company making the rules AND the figures is a normal one to them - it's the statistical outlier in the overall hobby).

I get the impression that WM/H and even Infinity and some other systems are more popular than VOID ever was, at least here? And I don't remember Warzone at all, not in 1998 anyway (or was it finished by then?).

Maybe it's the effect of the net?

Good points chromedog, thanks for the input. I’d agree with you that most would see it easier to stay in a certain system rather than change up. I just could not get my gaming buddies to try anything new and was met with “Why are you even bothering? No one will play that”.


I’d like to say that I hope CB give GW a wakeup call if Infinity starts going more ‘mainstream’ but as has been discussed to death back - they won’t pay a blind bit of notice!

Daba – nailed it mate. It’s definitely a ‘net effect. I’d never had heard of Infinity, Deadzone, DZC, Dystopian Wars, Fantasy Flight Games et al had it not been for the net, and Dakka in particular.

I’m thinking of initially painting my Pan O blue and Nomads red, like game pieces, just to try and get some ‘normal’ mates to give it a go… I'll describe it as a 3D squad based cover shooter in a Mass Effect 2/3 style. Fingers crossed eh?!

As for the stubborn GW only lads – two have new babies and two have moved to Cardiff. Ah well!

 monders wrote:
The unit names for Infinity are pretty scary to outsiders too - and to see players discussing this bag morat over that what-have-you was quite daunting and I felt stupid for not knowing what everyone was talking about.

Scary in what way? I'm not quite understanding your angle.

I'll describe it as a 3D squad based cover shooter in a Mass Effect 2/3 style. Fingers crossed eh?!

It is how I describe it. Mass Effect with a bit of Rainbow Six or XCOM elements thrown in. In my experience the order dynamic (unlimited spending of actions on a singular unit) was the biggest deciding factor.

Cheers and happy gaming.

I think Operation: Icestorm will help Infinity quite a bit mainly because it has created a lot of product awareness among the gaming scene. Stores here in the US are using Icestorm as a jumping on point and its presence at Gencon will help as well. But for the most part I think it will be existing players picking up Icestorm in the excitement for a taste of 3rd edition rules. Plus the new models are beautiful as well and I'll never turn down terrain for infinity even if its just cardboard.

 Knight wrote:

Spoiler:

 monders wrote:
The unit names for Infinity are pretty scary to outsiders too - and to see players discussing this bag morat over that what-have-you was quite daunting and I felt stupid for not knowing what everyone was talking about.

Scary in what way? I'm not quite understanding your angle.

I'll describe it as a 3D squad based cover shooter in a Mass Effect 2/3 style. Fingers crossed eh?!

It is how I describe it. Mass Effect with a bit of Rainbow Six or XCOM elements thrown in. In my experience the order dynamic (unlimited spending of actions on a singular unit) was the biggest deciding factor.

Cheers and happy gaming.

Not scary that they give me nightmares, I meant there are some pretty unusual unit names, and I found myself thinking "I'll never understand all of that, or what they are or what they do!"

But of course they're just that - unit names.

You have had success getting non-gamers to play it and even enjoy it?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Zombiemood wrote:
I think Operation: Icestorm will help Infinity quite a bit mainly because it has created a lot of product awareness among the gaming scene. Stores here in the US are using Icestorm as a jumping on point and its presence at Gencon will help as well. But for the most part I think it will be existing players picking up Icestorm in the excitement for a taste of 3rd edition rules. Plus the new models are beautiful as well and I'll never turn down terrain for infinity even if its just cardboard.

For cardboard terrain it looks pretty nice. Bright and angular and in keeping with a lot of their anime-style artwork. I'm a fan, and I'll be ordering more no doubt!

The paper poster mat looks a bit of a let down, but £45 at Mantic will give me three more Deadzone mats. Sorted!

You have had success getting non-gamers to play it and even enjoy it?

I'm afraid not. Most of them had at least some table top experience. Wish we were a bigger community. Infinity is still relatively small in my area, yet it's rather impressive how many of the older players gathered a small Infinity army next to their main system.

I'm a fan of the starter just for the terrain. I have had a friend say literally "I have looked at Infinity and it seems really cool, but you need so much terrain I don't want to get into it." Icestorm will fix that quite nicely.

Also about the unit names I can understand. I think a lot of it is that CB is a Spanish company and a lot of their names are pulled from non English sources (as opposed to GW which is pretty reliably English or fake Latin, or Warmachine which is all English). Some of them just look really long and strange to newcomers. I remember the first time I actually realized I was spelling "shasvastii" correctly without looking it up. It was a surprising moment.

Also about the unit names I can understand. I think a lot of it is that CB is a Spanish company and a lot of their names are pulled from non English sources (as opposed to GW which is pretty reliably English or fake Latin, or Warmachine which is all English). Some of them just look really long and strange to newcomers. I remember the first time I actually realized I was spelling "shasvastii" correctly without looking it up. It was a surprising moment.

I have to say I find it extremely funny that it's an issue for some people
It just seems so ... normal in Europe Variety is the spice of life !

 TanKoL wrote:

Also about the unit names I can understand. I think a lot of it is that CB is a Spanish company and a lot of their names are pulled from non English sources (as opposed to GW which is pretty reliably English or fake Latin, or Warmachine which is all English). Some of them just look really long and strange to newcomers. I remember the first time I actually realized I was spelling "shasvastii" correctly without looking it up. It was a surprising moment.

I have to say I find it extremely funny that it's an issue for some people
It just seems so ... normal in Europe Variety is the spice of life !

For better or worse, American people (myself included) have traditionally been really bad with languages. Comes from living in a really big country that all speaks the same language, and never really leaving it under most circumstances I would assume. I kind of like it now, but the initial reaction was "what are all these letters doing next to each other?" It didn't help that the Infinity website had all the models in the army displayed without any kind of organization I could see at the time so they all jumped out at you at once.

 monders wrote:


Not scary that they give me nightmares, I meant there are some pretty unusual unit names, and I found myself thinking "I'll never understand all of that, or what they are or what they do!"

But of course they're just that - unit names.

You have had success getting non-gamers to play it and even enjoy it?

I shall spend more time writing this reply thanks to your rather fantastic avatar Monders

You're definitely not alone with the names thing, and in fact someone was making exactly that comment a few days ago in a 'new player here' thread. I think it's just down to familiarity. Having followed 40k since before I was a teenager, if someone says 'lascannon' or 'ork nobz' I immediately know what they are talking about. But, I was in the same position as you with Infinity when I started, not having a clue (and choosing one of the most obscurely named factions possible - Haqqislam!) and it being a bit of a nightmare.

But, play a few games with your faction and you'll quickly get used to it, or else wonder why that rather weedy looking line infantry is shrugging off shotgun blasts and suddenly realising you have been playing a Ghulam as a Jannisary

On the second point I've introduced several non-gamers to Infinity and as funny as it sounds in some ways its actually easier. Everyone has experience of computer games and action movies and when they say "Wow, I'm getting shot at, my guys throwing himself behind this wall here" or "my sniper is going to nail that guy when he runs between those buildings" the mechanics are involved enough that you can do that kind of stuff. They know running down the centre of a road, in the open, firing wildly is going to end badly, so they stick to cover.

Conversely, coming into the game from 40k or Warmachine etc. (and this was true for myself also) you have to shed a lot of those abstract notions that you have picked up in other games. Thinking about the facing of your troopers, about reactive fire and effective use of cover (even the toughest guys go down to massed small arms fire!) - it's all a change in what you are used to, and I know personally I lost a couple of games at the start because some of my guys tried to go all action hero!

But, I think overall it's fun and different. This is the reason we play different games I think, for the most part they each offer something different and fresh. Back to the main topic, definitely think this new set will help Infinity a great deal. It can be daunting to new comers, and having a 'start here' with a big arrow pointing to it can only be beneficial.

I have unproven theory, I think people who played RPG games should have relative easy transition. The system should feel oddly familiar and you lead a team composed out of different "classes", perform actions and roll D20.

I find the names rather interesting, I don't know how to pronounce them all but definitely found it another interesting aspect. Maybe I've hoped to find more Slavic names, it's kinda cool to read a name with your own phonetics.

Especially if you played Pendragon, the FtF system of Infinity is an exact copy

I actually love the names. As a military historian I even get excited when I translate a name or recognize it from my history studies. "Ah! Sikhs! Those guys are Bad-A!" Or the way the different sub-factions within the faction play off of each other. The more I look into Infinity, the more I find to love.

The content of the box beats any other starter set i can think of, terrain is a big seller for me and the models are lovely. It's only been in the last year or so I would even have looked at other game systems outside GW. I still haven't bought any of them but Icestorm and FFG star wars armada have me more than curious. The 'other' manufacturers seem to have really raised their game.

I think it will help spread the word, but that is all. And I hope it does well as I find myself quite liking this company. When I first started playing infinity in OKC there was only three players, myself included. Then, suddenly over a year we go up to twelve players. Then a certain game released a 7th edition, and we moved up to sixteen players. It keeps getting better!

 Daba wrote:
I get the impression that WM/H and even Infinity and some other systems are more popular than VOID ever was, at least here? And I don't remember Warzone at all, not in 1998 anyway (or was it finished by then?).

Maybe it's the effect of the net?

Nope, WZ was pretty much dead in the water around that time. Combination of rules updates AND the company going balls up didn't help. The 2nd ed box for WZ had some nice plastics in it (based on the 2nd ed 40k box), but they paled into insignificance with 3rd ed 40k.

Void/Urban War had some minor success here with people who wanted to keep playing at the "small unit" game that 40k used to be and didn't want to jump on the expand and expand GW bandwagon.
Once again, company issues saw the game fail.

But the con scene in the UK/US is a far, far different thing to the one we have here. Based merely on the population sizes (we have a fraction of either of their populations) and historicals held a long sway even into the late 90s.

Knight wrote:
I'm afraid not. Most of them had at least some table top experience. Wish we were a bigger community. Infinity is still relatively small in my area, yet it's rather impressive how many of the older players gathered a small Infinity army next to their main system.

Well that's a start! Good luck converting with Icestorm!

TanKoL wrote:

Also about the unit names I can understand. I think a lot of it is that CB is a Spanish company and a lot of their names are pulled from non English sources (as opposed to GW which is pretty reliably English or fake Latin, or Warmachine which is all English). Some of them just look really long and strange to newcomers. I remember the first time I actually realized I was spelling "shasvastii" correctly without looking it up. It was a surprising moment.

I have to say I find it extremely funny that it's an issue for some people
It just seems so ... normal in Europe Variety is the spice of life !

I'd agree with both here - as a native English speaker, who hasn't spoken much of anything else outside of very basic conversational Spanish and a bit German and Greek it's all very "WOAAHHHHH".

I heard Carlos say on BoW that even Spanish players struggle with the names so that made me feel a little better.

The big issue for me is Panoceania. Nearly every says Pan-o-she-ana but to me it's Pan-o-sha-nia.

Pacific wrote:
I shall spend more time writing this reply thanks to your rather fantastic avatar Monders

Spoiler:

You're definitely not alone with the names thing, and in fact someone was making exactly that comment a few days ago in a 'new player here' thread. I think it's just down to familiarity. Having followed 40k since before I was a teenager, if someone says 'lascannon' or 'ork nobz' I immediately know what they are talking about. But, I was in the same position as you with Infinity when I started, not having a clue (and choosing one of the most obscurely named factions possible - Haqqislam!) and it being a bit of a nightmare.

But, play a few games with your faction and you'll quickly get used to it, or else wonder why that rather weedy looking line infantry is shrugging off shotgun blasts and suddenly realising you have been playing a Ghulam as a Jannisary

Spoiler:

On the second point I've introduced several non-gamers to Infinity and as funny as it sounds in some ways its actually easier.

Everyone has experience of computer games and action movies and when they say "Wow, I'm getting shot at, my guys throwing himself behind this wall here" or "my sniper is going to nail that guy when he runs between those buildings" the mechanics are involved enough that you can do that kind of stuff. They know running down the centre of a road, in the open, firing wildly is going to end badly, so they stick to cover.

Conversely, coming into the game from 40k or Warmachine etc. (and this was true for myself also) you have to shed a lot of those abstract notions that you have picked up in other games.

Spoiler:

Thinking about the facing of your troopers, about reactive fire and effective use of cover (even the toughest guys go down to massed small arms fire!) - it's all a change in what you are used to, and I know personally I lost a couple of games at the start because some of my guys tried to go all action hero!

Spoiler:

But, I think overall it's fun and different. This is the reason we play different games I think, for the most part they each offer something different and fresh.

Back to the main topic, definitely think this new set will help Infinity a great deal. It can be daunting to new comers, and having a 'start here' with a big arrow pointing to it can only be beneficial.

The Walken avatar is the only way I can get anyone to pay any attention to me, so thank you for such a detailed reply, Pacific - I appreciate that level of input! I'm not as elegant so apologies for my bullet point responses

Ah yes, the old Ghulam as Jannisary! School boy error…

Cinematic gameplay! Exactly! In my demo game, I did far more damage with AROs than I did in my actual turn. I still got beat, but I wasn’t down about it because it felt like a great action sequence from something much larger.

For me, and again this is just that one demo I had, it was trying to get out of the D6 mind-set. Rolling up to a number, rather than over and nothing being on a 4+. Mind blowing!

Indeed. Here you go, game 1, three dudes each, each exactly the same. Go!

MWHistorian wrote:I actually love the names. As a military historian I even get excited when I translate a name or recognize it from my history studies. "Ah! Sikhs! Those guys are Bad-A!" Or the way the different sub-factions within the faction play off of each other. The more I look into Infinity, the more I find to love.

You'll have to put a fact sheet together for us!

I'm really looking forward to getting deep in to all this gubbins.

I worked with a Sikh.

When he introduced himself, I noticed the turban and the surname (Singh) and said to him:

"That's a Sikh name, isn't it? Means "lion"?"

He was actually surprised that I didn't think he was just some "raghead terrorist".

I've only met a handful so can't speak for them all, but Sikhs are a top bunch. And their beards are amazers.

Oddly enough, nearly every Sikh I've seen on TV in the UK has a strong scottish accent. Usually Glaswegian...

 monders wrote:


I've only met a handful so can't speak for them all, but Sikhs are a top bunch. And their beards are amazers.

Oddly enough, nearly every Sikh I've seen on TV in the UK has a strong scottish accent. Usually Glaswegian...

Maybe Sikhs are like the Scottish of the Sub-continent?

 chromedog wrote:
I worked with a Sikh.

When he introduced himself, I noticed the turban and the surname (Singh) and said to him:

"That's a Sikh name, isn't it? Means "lion"?"

He was actually surprised that I didn't think he was just some "raghead terrorist".

I'm so ignorant. I worked with a Sikh, asked him why he was wearing such a massive bracelet.

To be fair, I grew up in a Buckinghamshire village in the 80s, and the only non-white people I saw were on TV.

Oh, I only knew it means "lion" because of a character in a book, tbh.

It was afterwards I looked them up (they go armed because of historlcal issues with muslims and hindu on the subcontinent.).

Although I DID have a Pakistani "pen pal" (pre-www days) from Scotland - and I was definitely NOT expecting a scots brogue from him when I phoned him up one day.

Whoops... there doesn't seem to be anything here.

Will OpIce beat out Dark Vengeance as THE starter set? Sadly probably not. Too many people buy 40k because they won't look at anything else thanks to the fear gw has instilled in them, or aren't exposed to much else because gw gets a stranglehold on the LGSs that carry their products. Plus it is as equivalent off a household name as you get in wargames. That being said Infinity is a great game (having only started it myself) & does feel more like a combat situation than 40k with AROs. OpIce is an excellent idea & I am soooooo excited to get it. I do wish CB would put out the 3rd ed quick start rules now though because it is problematic as a new player worrying about whether I should be bothering with it until OpIce & then should I even buy anything else until ~Nov when the new rb finally comes out?

I really love the rules of infinity & it's funny you mention halo Sillycybin as I sold my gf on this game by comparing it to halo which she absolutely loves. I explained about the camo & holograms & carrying multiple weapon types & her interest was piqued.