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I'm interested in starting up a sci-fi skirmish game and am bouncing between these two. Can anyone compare/contrast them? Assuming no 40k experience, I get the sense Infinity has a "newer" ruleset, more support, etc. (I do have a copy of Shadow War but I'm not sure I'll keep it.)

Pick whichever one you'll actually be able to get a community for. They're both good.

Yeah the community thing is the main one..


Shadow War: based off an older rule set which is good fun. Has a decent Campaign progression (not as detailed as Necromunda but actually have a defined end goal)

Infinity: Apparently has a better ruleset (never played it myself) But doesn't have a Campaign progression (which is what kept me away). It is just skirmish battles.. So better for tourney

Shadow War and Infinity also operate on a lot of similar ideas (extremely high usage of cover, overwatch/reactions, face-to-face rolls being similar to Shadow War close combat), but Infinity is a much more complex ruleset.

They both have their ups and downs, but it's hard to go wrong with either.

It's also fair to say that Infinity is a far more technical rule set.

Played both, infinity for years and recently SWA.

Do you like Metal or Plastic? Infinity has better sculpts but its all metal which can be a pain.

Do you like quick pick up or deep advanced? Learned and played 2 games of SWA under two hours. Infinity is a solid 2-3 hours for a single game.

Both are pretty heavy on modifiers. So no pro or con there.

What do you have terrain for? Grungy post apoc style of SWA or nice scifi buildings?

While I love the models for infinity way more then 40k, I like how easy it is to play SWA. Infinity has been described by many vets as a game better taught then learned on your own. Good luck reading the book and figuring it all out. I personally after 2 years of NOT playing infinity tried to get back in and it was a disaster. Forgot how complex it was. Also it is arguably cheaper to play SWA as you just need a box set of troops, so average of 50$ or less. Infinity has starter boxes, but youll end up buying a ton more for many options.

Thanks all for the info. The explanation that SWA is lighter and Infinity is complex is very helpful - I was afraid SWA was just a "worse" set of rules, but it sounds like it's just simpler (which is fine). Community-wise I think both are played so I didn't focus on that but it is certainly a key consideration!

I'm assuming SWA minis are useful in 40k - I don't play 40k but 8th has me interested so it's definitely nice that I could get a headstart on an army.

Now to decide if the SWA box is worth it if I don't like the included teams, and where to find cheap terrain...

The SWA box is absolutely worth it even without the minis. there's a good saving on the terrain and you also get the rules, templates and tokens. you should be able to sell or trade off the minis - although probably not for much as lots of people will be doing the same.

If that's your decision and I'm making a recommendation with no other context I say go for Infinity. It's the primary product of the company so it's better-developed, more complete, better-balanced, and better-supported, you don't have to deal with errors that show up because someone copy-pasted 40k content without checking, and there are a lot of really cool things in Infinity (reactions) that can't exist in SWA because the system was designed to scale far beyond the model counts Infinity was designed for.

The advantages of Shadow War are expansibility (you can take a Shadow War warband and hop laterally into Kill-Team or into 40k proper if you want), ubiquitousness (more people have 40k models), and artistic potential (Infinity models are beautiful sculpts and are a blast to paint, but you don't have poseability, spare parts, or general convertability inherent in the vastness of the 40k range).

So if I were to boil this down if you want a game that works well and don't mind some difficulty finding people to play with go for Infinity, if you want a wild breadth of hobbying experience and don't mind a poorly-edited game go for SWA.

Or take advantage of the fact that you can be in and ready to go with either one for under $100 and try both.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
If that's your decision and I'm making a recommendation with no other context I say go for Infinity. It's the primary product of the company so it's better-developed, more complete, better-balanced, and better-supported, you don't have to deal with errors that show up because someone copy-pasted 40k content without checking, and there are a lot of really cool things in Infinity (reactions) that can't exist in SWA because the system was designed to scale far beyond the model counts Infinity was designed for.

The advantages of Shadow War are expansibility (you can take a Shadow War warband and hop laterally into Kill-Team or into 40k proper if you want), ubiquitousness (more people have 40k models), and artistic potential (Infinity models are beautiful sculpts and are a blast to paint, but you don't have poseability, spare parts, or general convertability inherent in the vastness of the 40k range).

So if I were to boil this down if you want a game that works well and don't mind some difficulty finding people to play with go for Infinity, if you want a wild breadth of hobbying experience and don't mind a poorly-edited game go for SWA.

Or take advantage of the fact that you can be in and ready to go with either one for under $100 and try both.

Just want to set the tone here, im no GW fanboy, (as I own and play both, and played infinity hundreds more times then SWA) but a lot of what your saying is a pretty biased view, and your distain for GW is pretty obvious. Which I don't think helps the OP get the factual info on making the right decision. It fine not to like GW, but there should be present facts, not all opinions

Errors are in any game. Ive seen tons in infinity over the years. Lots of models released without balanced rules, later to be corrected, but still released with issue. SWA being GW doesn't make it more of a copy paste error issue you speak of.

SWA has less models then infinity. Your average game is at least 10 to 15 models in infinity. SAW is 5-7 unless you are orks, then a little more, but that's 1 of now 14 armies.

SWA has overwatch, so you get reactions.

Both games work well. As stated, SWA is a very different beast, but a far less complex beast. Both systems good but depends what you are going for.

As terrain seems to be a selling point, SWA box set gives you 170$ worth of terrain for 130$ (plus models, tokens, book , templates) You can also use any of GWs already released terrain. a lot of what youll find for infinity is either Plast Craft of MDF. You could use Mantic battlezones for plastic, but plastic terrain for infinity is rare. So that could also be a selling point or perhaps not.

If you do infinity, I highly recommend plastcraft precolored stuff. Its cheap, easy to assemble and designed for it.

 AnomanderRake wrote:
someone copy-pasted 40k content without checking, and there are a lot of really cool things in Infinity (reactions) that can't exist in SWA because the system was designed to scale far beyond

and don't mind a poorly-edited game go for SWA.

You are wholly unfamiliar with SWA/N2.

Completely agree judgedoug. A comment like that shows bias and is not based in facts.

I own both, both are good games. Shadow wars is necromunda perfected, which has been around for decades. Infinity is a newer game system (has some editing issues, like the cyclists from usariadna in their army set... mainly due to language conversion. This is a rare issue though and not a major issue).

Main difference is infinity is one of the most complicated games out there, games take several hours. You can react to practically everything your opponent does on their turn, which keeps you on your toes. SW is less complex and games are quick. You can still react due to overwatch. To make a competative force, SW is cheaper (yup, gw is cheaper for once!!! Esp a force of 5 chaos marines) due to plastic box sets and singles vs metal box sets and singles of infinity.

Both have awesome minis. I will actually be using my usariadna as astra militarum for SW, as I love the usariadna minis.

I'm definitely leaning toward SWA as I think it fits my goals (beer and pretzels) more. For anyone else considering these games, I highly recommend watching basic/intro battle reports and Let's Play videos. Besides the info above, batraps were very helpful in seeing how games actually went. I was surprised to realize that the complexity and ARO system of Infinity appeared far less fun than I expected. I'm sure they're great fun if the goal is that level of complexity and interactivity, but it's not what I'm looking for right now.

I use a competitive/narrative spectrum.

If you want to measure which player is better at the game, Infinity is the better choice. But if you are more interested in getting into crazy adventures, Shadow War is a better choice.