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Hello all,

I've just convinced a couple of my buddies to try Infinity (yay!). None of us have played before (boo!).

Now, we all have armies that we like the look of, but none of us know much about the game other than "Wow, those models are awesome" and "Hey, the rules seem pretty cool."

So...the purpose of my post here: how do each of these armies play? Is there a glass cannon? An "Axe to face" application army? An uber-tough to kill but a little pillow fisted list?

Or is all this speculation, and each army has units that fit each of these descriptions?

I'm pretty well set on C.A. (mostly M.A.F.), but I'd like to have an idea of what they are like on the field before jumping in.

The answer is that most factions can be played most ways, and still be effective. There's nothing like the degree of "stereotyping" in the armies and how they play. Sure, there's some limitations (the easy example is that Ariadna don't get high-tech trickery), but they're not actually that confining.

The only thing to really say is that the way most factions can't be played is as a close combat army - CC is fairly ineffective in Infinity, largely limited to just specialists who get the right equipment and skills.

But that's not a hugely helpful answer, so for some more "typical" playstyles, you should really see Wargaming Trader's intro, as it covers the very basics.
However, I'd always say you should look beyond "this faction isn't my normal play style, I'll give them a miss". If you're going into a new game, why not also think about trying a different style of army?

Honestly they can all play very similar. As for the glass cannon / axe to face concepts it really depends on your tactical selections for your list at the time.

However a few things to take note of.
-Close Combat is not anywhere near as effective as it is in other games
-Basic gun fire can be very very very deadly
-Your tactical choices in playing greatly out weighs list building.
-Have lots of terrain, not including the typical blown out "swiss cheese" terrain.

I do want to say welcome and for more information, check out the stickied thread for more information and videos of how the game plays out.


----ninja'd

Thanks, guys. That link helps some.

For the record, I'm not asking because I'm locked into one specific playstyle. There are just a couple that I really don't like. My preferences do tend to run towards "glass cannons" or "shoot-shoot-shoot. Shoot some more" or "get there as fast as you can and axe-to-face." As long as C.A. has some variety of that, I'm happy.

On the CC topic, I think I actually like the idea that only troops that specialize in CC are good at it. How are the Daturazi? If I understand right, being Impetuous basically gives them a free order, right? It's more or less like Rage in 40k where you have limited options, but more often than not it's where you want to go anyways, yeah?

The problem is, even the CC specialized guys are far more lethal with shooting instead.

If you think about it in the case of dice rolls, CC you will always have a 1 attack dice. But with shooting you often have 2, 3, or sometimes 4 dice rolls as the attacker, or at least in the case of Chain Rifles an auto hit if you're within range.

Impetuous does give them a free order, but it must move them towards the nearest enemy, which could mean out into the open and thus shot into pieces. You can cancel the impetuous order with a normal order, but often you don't want to spend extra orders having your troops standing around.

Again, need to hugely emphasize, CC in Infinity is often a last ditch effort or under very specific conditions. It's almost always better to just shoot someone.

Not always though, and not everyone just plays the way where they just calculate probability of a kill!

Case in point, something like the Yu Jing Domaru (pictured below). He has 2 wounds and fairly decent armour, meaning that if you can attack from up close (against most line infantry) he has a pretty good chance of CC. Also, that sword of his isn't just pretty and for show - it's an 'explosive' close combat weapon, and combined with his 'berserk' special skill means he will critical hit on a 12 or more (he has +9 to his already formidable CC rating). Essentially, most stuff he hits is probably going to wake up with a headache the next day



I agree most of the time CC is not a good option - in a recent game, the game was over and my 'snake plisskin' character (just a Haqq Ghulam with knife) tried to charge down a moderator. I wanted my friend to oblige just so we could have a round of close combat (for the cinematic factor) but he was a spoil-sport, and in a way similar to Indiana Jones just picked up his gun and shot my Ghulam dead as he ran in

On the other hand, I firmly believe that the Gods of Infinity punished my friend for not charging in with his Domaru when he had an easy opportunity against my Ariadna linewoman. The chainrifle shots simply bounced off her windbreaker, and her return fire hit both times and killed him. I think the lesson from this is simple

So, I would say CC definitely has it's place. Some units (the Uberfallkommando, again pictured below) have no firing attack. Yes they are only a handful of points each. Will they die before they reach CC? Perhaps most likely, but it will look awesome as they try and charge in, bouncing off the walls with their extreme agility dodging shots, as the defending soldiers desperately blaze away at them


Sorry for all the pictures, I thought it would be helpful for a new player who may be wondering what the hell I am talking about!

In answer to the OP, I think it is far more important to have a 'balanced' army than to pick one force over another. Someone once told me to think of it as a special forces unit from a movie or game. You have the sniper, the tech-specialist, the medic, the bad-ass, the cannon fodder. Each has his part and contributes to the effectiveness of the whole. The wonderful thing is of course that the game is so cheap to play, and proxying is encouraged so you can constantly swap stuff around. My friends and I are having great fun discovering the different effects of units, and introducing new stuff as we buy it.

Thanks again. That's quite helpful. I quite like the Uberfallkommandos, actually...I have decided that, once again, I will be swayed more by what I think is cool than what might or might not be good...

At any rate, I was able to get an intro game today and I picked up the CA starter, the Yaogats, and the blister of Daturazi.

I also got a handful of Nomads so that I can have two forces in order to coerce my gaming group to pick it up

Off to the army builder now.

Are all the factions really so homogenous with respect to playstyle? Does picking one really make no difference to the game as played?

The wargamingtrader link makes them sound so distictive, but if that's not really the case how misleading is it?

No, there's a difference between "most factions can be played most ways" and "all factions play the same".

While most factions have ways to build certain styles of list, the range of choices each faction offers definitely tries to steer you towards certain approaches.

The prevalence of hackers in a Nomad list will tend to make hacking a common approach for Nomads. But if you wanted to build a heavy armour list, they've got a decent supply of TAGs. If you wanted to outnumber your opponents, they've got some nice cheap line troops instead.

They couldn't go quite so far down either of those avenues as PanO or Ariadna (respectively) could though. And don't think Nomads could take on Haqqislam in a "heal off", because those guys get high WIP and doctor options by the truckload - they can even have regenerating power armoured doctors, if they want.

To summarise: Each faction has its specialities, but they do not have to be confined to them.

Ah, so the info there is not misleading then.

It's just I've been looking at Infinity a bit lately and seems the same answer keeps comming up to "which faction" question and it always seemed to make the game sound dull because faction meaningless.

I think Haq might be for me then, I always enjoyed playing healers in MMOs and even the equivlents in FPS. Good enough reason to start Haq I think.

Think that was a very accurate description by MarcoSkoll there.

You can make some really individual force styles by using a particular faction, that might not be easy or even possible with others
- Like the idea of 'crusading knights', where each unit is well armoured and armed? Something like the 'military order' sectorial for Pan-O:

- An all-stealth army (start with no models on the table!) of a Shasvasti force for Combined Army.

- Don't like the high-tech concepts of infinity? Use Ariadna, it's an often used joke but this is an Ariadna 'hacker'

- Yu Jing can be an army of armoured samurai, or a horde of cheap light infantry (one unit is condemned criminals, who explode when they die, or even serve as a targeting beacon for laser guided missiles )

This is just some of the examples, but there are so many different routes possible even within a single faction. And the great thing is that most if not all of them can be effective on the tabletop, rather than being just a gimmick that will be funny for one game but never used again because it is impossible to win with.

There was a thread on this on the Infinity forums. Check it out (the first page sums up the conversation) pretty well.