Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

For the longest time I've been interested in Infinity, but I know no local players and none of my friends were interested, but my current roommate is super excited by the game and I finally have my chance! I have some questions to ask before we get into it though:

My roommate is set on PanO so we've been considering the Operation Icestorm box, but I haven't been able to decide if I'd rather play Nomads, Yu Jing or ALEPH. How much extra do you get from buying OI over buying two starters and the separate scenery box? Also about how many points is a starter box? And what is the average game sized played once you're no longer a newbie? I've heard the factions in Infinity aren't actually that different from each other in gameplay, is that true? (It doesn't really seem to be from what I've read but maybe I am wrong, every faction seems pretty distinct though) I've also heard that expensive (points wise) minis like TAGs and Achilles (my favorite mini in the game) aren't really worth it because you lose out on orders, is that true? As for choosing between Nomads, Yu Jing and ALEPH (Though I really like everyone, these three just stood out a bit more); I am usually a hit and run, combined arms, elite units kind of player in other games, and I really enjoy having things like debuffs and movement shenanigans, what should I be considering when looking at these three factions knowing my playstyle? (I play Dark Eldar and Eldar in 40k; All flavours of Elves in Fantasy; Retribution, Cryx and Legion in WM/H; Blue and black decks in MTG etc.) ....it also seems I really like Elves which obviously Infinity doesn't have. Oh also, is there any way to get the fluff without buying the rather expensive rulebooks? Or can the rulebooks be gotten in softcover?

It's cheaper to buy the icestorm box than two starters and the scenery (you don't get the father knight or reverend healer in the faction starters to start with) and it comes with DICE, too.

If, however, you don't want either of those factions in the box, then a starter and terrain set (at least two sets will make a decent table) each will also do you.

I'm sure someone has managed to put icestorm up on scribd or something by now, too.

Zatsuku wrote:
For the longest time I've been interested in Infinity, but I know no local players and none of my friends were interested, but my current roommate is super excited by the game and I finally have my chance! I have some questions to ask before we get into it though:

My roommate is set on PanO so we've been considering the Operation Icestorm box, but I haven't been able to decide if I'd rather play Nomads, Yu Jing or ALEPH. How much extra do you get from buying OI over buying two starters and the separate scenery box? Also about how many points is a starter box? And what is the average game sized played once you're no longer a newbie? I've heard the factions in Infinity aren't actually that different from each other in gameplay, is that true? (It doesn't really seem to be from what I've read but maybe I am wrong, every faction seems pretty distinct though) I've also heard that expensive (points wise) minis like TAGs and Achilles (my favorite mini in the game) aren't really worth it because you lose out on orders, is that true? As for choosing between Nomads, Yu Jing and ALEPH (Though I really like everyone, these three just stood out a bit more); I am usually a hit and run, combined arms, elite units kind of player in other games, and I really enjoy having things like debuffs and movement shenanigans, what should I be considering when looking at these three factions knowing my playstyle? (I play Dark Eldar and Eldar in 40k; All flavours of Elves in Fantasy; Retribution, Cryx and Legion in WM/H; Blue and black decks in MTG etc.) ....it also seems I really like Elves which obviously Infinity doesn't have. Oh also, is there any way to get the fluff without buying the rather expensive rulebooks? Or can the rulebooks be gotten in softcover?

As stated, you get the father knight and rev healer. Aslo the learning to play book is nice. Some tokens and dice.

Starters are usuallly around 130-150 points. To get an exact you can use http://infinitythegame.com/army/

Standard game size is 300 points 6 SWC

Each faction has its strengths and weaknesses. for example, PanO has a higher shooting skill then most across the board, decent weapons, and good bit of heavy armor. Nomads have higher willpower across the board, best at hacking, but not much heavy infantry.

It is true they can suck up orders. On average, you want to hit 10 guys with 300 points. Some do it easy, some harder. If you take a tag, youll proably need to take some basic 10 point cost guys because the tags around 80 points himself. everything is worth it though if you can play it right, nothing is bad.

If your going to play, id say buy the rule book. It may seem like a lot but you will need it to look up a lot of stuff. With the rulebook comes a second book that is pure fluff. Maybe go halfises with your buddy?

As for movement crazyness, no one really does. There is guys that are like dropship troopers that can come on the board in different places, but most have access to them. ALEPH has a lot of ODD special gear that makes it hard to shoot them but they are your more elite army. Nomads are fun if you like hacking stuff. Yu Jing is your very heavy infantry based faction. Also they have a lot of close combat.

Owning all three, my favorite to use is ALEPH. I like the elite army of all murderous robots under human skin terminator feel.

Tohaa, due to their multitude of link teams, kind of have the feel that I think you're going for. Not to mention the fact that they're also something like infinity's "elf" race. Link teams, AD, & infiltration all allow for some fun "shenanigans" as well so maybe a second look at them would be good, no?

The rulebook has stats that actually aren't in the free rules online yet, not exactly sure why but weapon stats and some special rules aren't up.

Elite units are fine, the problem comes when you decide you feel like playing an all-elite-unit army. I could decide I want to play the Joan/Santiago Knights fireteam and spend 230pts and 5SWC on five models, but that gives me five models and all of seventy points to get myself specialists, long-ranged firepower, and order monkeys. The usual guideline is at least ten orders for a 300pt army, if you want a TAG that means you're going to be taking some line troopers.

Starter boxes vary, near as I can tell those for Nomads, Yu Jing, and Aleph are all between 115 and 150.

Games are usually at 200 or 300 where I play.

Factions in Infinity do differ somewhat but nowhere near as much as 40k or Warmachine factions do. Yu Jing is a straightforward faction; they don't have the breadth or variety of unusual tools some other people do, they can get upfield well, they have good fire support, and they have inexpensive heavy infantry so their armies tend to be well-armoured and versatile but with little in the way of dirty tricks. Aleph is extremely elite, they have a cadre of fast and well-armoured named characters as well as a selection of extremely odd remotes. They have fantastic statlines but they're complicated and require you to know lots of special rules to play, they're probably the closest to playing DE/Ret/elves in Infinity, but they're also one I'd recommend against starting out simply because everything is loaded down with so many dirty tricks you'd need to know. Nomads are equipped with plenty of good specialists but they don't have really durable things/artillery/mobility in the same way other factions can manage so they tend to be a little more static. These are vague tendencies, not hard-and-fast rules; you can build a high-model-count spammy Aleph list, you can build an AD-heavy highly-mobile Nomads list, you can built a ninja-oriented Yu Jing list with lots of fancy toys.

Hit-and-run combined-arms elite-units lots-of-debuffs is sort of the description of Infinity in general; I think you've come to the right game!

That aside Nomads are a pretty good place to start if you want to play the dirty-tricks army against your friend's ranged-beatstick PanO; playing Bakunin is kind of like playing elves (you have among the best hackers ('wizards'), you have elite/powerful infantry that can hold their own at range or in melee, and everyone's sneaky and hard to find (ODDs on all the Reverends)).

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The rulebook has stats that actually aren't in the free rules online yet, not exactly sure why but weapon stats and some special rules aren't up.

Err... which ones?

The rules that are online are simply the PDF used for the rulebook with (IIRC) lower resolution images. They didn't selectively cut bits out.

 -Loki- wrote:

 AnomanderRake wrote:
The rulebook has stats that actually aren't in the free rules online yet, not exactly sure why but weapon stats and some special rules aren't up.

Err... which ones?

The rules that are online are simply the PDF used for the rulebook with (IIRC) lower resolution images. They didn't selectively cut bits out.

My bad, it's been updated since I last checked. Free rules are full rules, go download them, they're useful.

Thanks guys! Definitely starting to lean away from Yu Jing and more towards Nomads and ALEPH. I mean with the size of a force either way I don't see it taking too long for me to start another faction, so I might go Nomads just for the awesomeness of Operation Icestorm (and my roommate absolutely loves the Father Knight it comes with). I'd also be interested in hearing more about the Tohaa though, I know very little about them, in both gameplay and fluff.

The core Tohaa mechanics are Fireteam: Tohaa and Symbiont Armour; I don't know precisely how either works but as far as I've been able to tell where normal people form one 3-5-member fireteams of specific troops in Sectorial lists only the Tohaa get to form any number of 3-member fireteams composed of any kind of trooper that has the rule in any list. Fireteams let you move a group as one entity with one order, this restricts exactly what the entire team can do but the team leader gains some benefits from supporting models and the enemy can only react once to the entire team acting. Symbiont Armour means that when a model 'dies' he simply continues on absent the Symbiont Armour (so with a reduced statline) and he can abandon the armour if he gets immobilized.

Symbiont armor also has the slight draw back of being very bad against fire. A wound from a fire weapon will kill any model with it in one wound. That can kind of suck for a Tohaa player when they're up against a lot of flamethrowers or HRLs but doesn't come up much.

While true, there's something to be said about positioning.

If you know your opponent has fire weapons, it's not hard to just ensure your Symbiont armoured guys are well hidden. If your opponent is hell bent on killing them with fire, it presents an opportunity - order draining. If your opponent spends 5 orders just getting a fire equipped model up the board (taking into account he won't be moving a full MOV-MOV each order if you have good AROs set up) before even starting to try to kill the model, you've just wasted more than 5 of his orders which now aren't completing objectives.

With the new missions being 3 turns, you don't have orders to really waste. If a canny opponent manages to bait you with a nice, juicy symbiont threat, he might have been intending to do just that.