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So I have an interest in picking up Infinity, but I wanted to know what are the reasons dome of you folks play. The complex rules, the fluff, the models or a combination? What are the pros and cons? In other words, sell me on the game. I have a background in 40K mostly, but I've been eyeing more skirmish games, and the cyberpunk look of Infinity is appealing. So what else can folks tell me about it?

What would you like to know?

I haven't found Infinity enjoyable in quite a while. Various reasons, critical rolls, camouflage, link team balls, scenarios and so on. Basically I feel the tactical aspect isn't as strong as it used to be.

The miniatures are nice, probably one of rare skirmish games on the market where terrain and LoF matters quite a lot.

Try to get a demo and decide for yourself.

I do like how terrain matters and is abundant (it's why I don't play Warmahordes, the tables at my local for that game look barren and boring). I like a heavy terrain set up, so that might be right up my alley.


What about faction playatyles? I like to be aggressive, but tough. I also like Close Combat a bit more than shooting, though not opposed to having a mostly shooting army. I also like the look of most of the factions, so aesthetics is a toughie to base on, though I am leaning towards Aleph, Pan O, Nomads and Yu Jing in terms of looks.

My reasons for playing a combination of your three original points, plus the amount of scenery required for the game; the world feels more real to me in the densely packed city rather than shooting across an exposed field.

As far as army choices go, you're going to be doing a lot of shooting, no matter what faction that you choose. Troops in Infinity have an understandable aversion to big, scary enemies waving swords at them and tend to take precautions of a ballistic nature.

Any of the forces that you're interested in can be set up to play the way that you want to, just don't expect to be doing much hand to hand combat, it's more of an opportunistic thing rather than an army wide strategy.

For me as a sci-fi and anime and miniatures game lover it's the perfect storm of models/art/rules, but primarily it's the aesthetic. The figures just LOOK so darn great! And they only get better as time goes on. A fully painted force on fully painted terrain will turn heads like no other game out there.

With Warmachine specifically, even more than the terrain, I got tired of X unit only being good with Y Warcaster and Z unit only being good with yet another different caster, you needed almost a completely different army for every character you fielded. Infinity can feel that way if you play sectorials, but generally you just need to cover certain bases: specialists to push buttons, hackers to hack, doctors to heal, engineers to fix and good ARO vs active turn pieces etc. But there's multiple options for every specialist in every army that all play a little diferently, so there's a HUGE amount of options in listbuilding that lets you play a faction completely different from another person playing the same faction, even if many of your figures are the same

It sounds like you should try Military Orders (PanO), Yu Jing or Aleph. MO and Yu-Jing have good access to CC Heavy Infantry (who are relatively tough) while Aleph, especially Steel Phalanx has a lot of very hard to hit models that are good at CC. That said, CC is NOT very common and even tough models will go down to basic rifles. Infinity is more about shooting the other guy first and from a more favorable position rather than toughing out a shot, and even the most dedicated CC troops would often rather shoot than charge into melee.

Honestly? It depends on your needs. I say that because if you're a person like me, who wants to play regularly (at least once a week) and want to explore tactical game play and list building constantly, then the game is perfect for you. However, I honestly cannot recommend the game, if you're a person who plays rarely (like once a month or less). The game has a massive learning curve but it isn't impossible to learn with regular playing, but it is a "lifestyle game", if you don't play on a regular basis, you will quickly forget a number of rules and make dumb mistakes, not because you're bad tactically but because you made errors based on ignorance.

If you love painting models, then Infinity is also a game for you. Their models are absolutely beautiful and it's easy to paint up an entire "army" due to the low model count. If you're truly interested in the game, then I can recommend that you look for a local gaming community and see if there's any escalation league tournaments, where you slowly build up an army and start with excluding advanced rules etc.

Infinity. Where to begin?
Firstly, Infinity is nothing like anything you have ever played before. Forget it all, throw the manual out, this is a game about thinking, and he with the best brain gets the glory.
Infinity uses the IGOUGO system, but with a slight twist: When you activate a model every opposing model that can see it during its activation (including those whose LOF it moves across) can react against it, dodging out of the way or shooting back or dropping smoke... Anything!
Infinity also rewards thinking ahead of your opponent, and keeping things back from them - when you show your opponent your list you omit which model is your lieutenant and any models that are not starting on the board. This can lead to people putting seemingly expensive models in their list to hide the presence of a TO infiltrator or a AD jump troop, only to surprise their foe later on in the game. Some players (not looking at you certain Onyx Contact Force player in my club) like to put in two or even three(!) such models, fooling their opponent into thinking that they have played their trump card when in fact there is still another hidden back.
Numbers are vital in Infinity as every model gives you an 'order'. Orders can be spent on troops, and there is no limit to how many you can spend on one model, meaning that for every big 'active' unit you have you need a couple of supporting 'cheerleaders' to keep it fuelled. There are other order types, but the major thing to remember is to bring enough cheap order mooks to keep your big units running. Likewise, a good way to neuter big units is to kill off the 'cheerleaders' that are keeping it going. After all, a Jotums might be scary, but a Jotums that is running on one order is not going to be doing much.
Killing is not everything. In Infinity the primary way to win is to pursue the objectives, and very few missions require you to destroy the enemy force - in fact there are many games that I have had where myself or my opponent was utterly decimated but the game ended in a loss or a draw because neither had managed to achieve our objectives, or enough of them. Having enough specialists can be the difference between victory and defeat.
You do not always have to deal direct damage to kill a target. Hackers can immobilise the largest of TAG's, or force it to eject its pilot, allowing you to shoot the squishy bit that makes it run. Likewise the Forward Observer skill is amazing when combined with the relatively cheap Smart Missile Remote - and the bane of Link Teams.
Close Combat is not something to rely on, but if you know what you are doing it can be amazing. However getting there is another thing, and you have to dedicate lot of orders to get there. Smoke dropping units are really good for getting across lines of fire and a decent CC link/unit can murder the enemy when they reach them, as my Morlock and Uberfallkommando can attest too. In general you will have two CC unit types: The cheap frenzied throwaway mook, who you really take as a distraction or a guided missile style unit. Throw him at the enemy and laugh when he takes one out, but do not expect him to last. He should come with a chainrifle, or something else, and you should be looking at 6 points or less. Alternatively there is the super specialist murder machine (think Joan d'Arc, Uberfallkommando, Ninja's, etc) whom has either really good armour, camouflage, infiltration or a mixture of the above. They typically have really good skills, amazing armour, multiple or ablative wounds, infiltration and/or camouflage that lets them get close. Ultimately they are expensive but if they get close they will erase the enemy.

Finally, you can not do anything wrong by reading the various tactica pages on 1d4chan: https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Category:Infinity_Tactics

You absolutely can do something wrong, and that's reading the tactica pages on 4chan.

Zewrath has basically said everything that needs to be said.

I'm just going to copy the wise words Leigen_Zero over at the official Infinity the Game Forums has in his signature:

Choose life, choose Infinity, choose a faction, choose a big f######g TAG!, Choose HMGs, lieutenants, spec-ops and total reaction remotes. Choose initiative, deployment and classified objectives.Choose hacking things or blowing their brains out. Choose a starter box. Choose your REMs. Choose camo tokens and matching templates. Choose a ridiculous amount of terrain that won't fit in the attic. Choose D20s and wondering if there are numbers other than 4 printed on them. Choose sitting in a game store, taking all day setting up the terrain then realising it's about to close. Choose despairing at the end of turn 3, desperately trying to make a dodge ARO, while a TO Camo Heavy Infantry with a Martial arts level 3 rips of your troopers heads and gaks down their necks. Choose your orders. Choose infinity . . .

Well, my first and primary reason for playing a game is that I like the fluff.

Secondary considerations are game mechanics. In this area, Infinity is relatively solid. It is very complex, in some areas unnecessarily(and sometimes meaninglessly) so. Corvus Belli has tried to write the rules tightly. And for the most part they have succeeded. However there is are a few problems. The first is that the rules are primarily written in Spanish, and then translated into English. This sometimes leads to oddly worded rules and sentences. And Corvus Belli doesn't do a good job of fixing these rule typos and linguistic pitfalls. They just expect people to "play it like it's supposed to be played" instead of actually errata'ing stuff(they'll only errata or FAQ stuff if there is overwhelming outcry).



I will echo the sentiments of the others here on the gameplay. It's very complex and forgetting how rules interact can cost you the game. So it's not something you can really play casually and just remember. You'll get rusty quite fast and the initial learning curve is steep. It's basically not a very forgiving game.

Its a game where you can have the perfect plan, and then an ill-timed Crit from your opponent ruins everything.

It's a game where you can be dominating the board, only to have your opponent snag the objective and run away and win with only 2 guys left.

It's a game where your link team might be walking down what they think is a clear alleyway, and then your link leader gets jumped by a ninja who proceeds to kill the whole team on your own turn.

The player is more important than the list. The list is about 20% vs warmahordes 98% or 40ks 50%

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
The player is more important than the list. The list is about 20% vs warmahordes 98% or 40ks 50%

I can second this. You can have the strongest list in the game, but paying it badly will see you steamrolled by even a weak list.
That said there are very few auto takes and very few never takes. CB are very good at balancing units.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
The player is more important than the list. The list is about 20% vs warmahordes 98% or 40ks 50%

This oft gets repeated but is not necessarily true.

If it were true, we wouldn't see repeats of certain lists.


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 master of ordinance wrote:

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
The player is more important than the list. The list is about 20% vs warmahordes 98% or 40ks 50%

I can second this. You can have the strongest list in the game, but paying it badly will see you steamrolled by even a weak list.
That said there are very few auto takes and very few never takes. CB are very good at balancing units.

Also false.

There are quite a few "autotakes" and quite a few "nevertakes". It just depends on the army in question.

Thank you for the replies, folks. I got interested with the game by watching some of the games that went on at my local, and I heard rumblings about a league of some sort, so I will look into that.

After looking at more of the models, some of the basic rules, and taking in what everyone said, I think I will start out with Aleph, branching into Steel Phalanx and then choosing Pan O for my second faction later on.

 Soteks Prophet wrote:
The player is more important than the list. The list is about 20% vs warmahordes 98% or 40ks 50%

WMH is definitely not 98% list. They're both games where a bad player with a good list will usually get his butt kicked badly.

I'd say overall,

Infinity is 10% list. And it's mostly a question of how many specialists and what heavy weapons did you bring. The platform is rarely important.

Warmachine is about 20% list. With maybe a caveat that you add another 20-30% depending on list matchups since WMH lists often have a little Rock/Paper/Scissors going on.

40k is probably 60-80% list. It's just how many guns you can cram in.



Which is a big advantage in Infinity. 95% of the models are usable, and it's just a question of what you want to bring and how many points stuff costs. There are of course better and worse models. But even Bolts, who are widely regarded as the worst models in the game, see play sometimes in some lists built around them.

10% list? You must be joking?

Infinity list building heavily depends on mission you play. Some lists and models are great in some missions, and in others meh at best.
Also, some missions hevily favor sectorial armys compared to vanilla ones.

There are clearly some models that are way superior to others. I mean, if you are lucky enough, you can kill any model with any model, but you shouldn't count on that. But on other hand, you can loose 1/3 - 1/2 of your list in a single shoot if you get unlucky potentionally.

Yes, in infinity tactics matter a lot, but no ammount of tactics will save you if you get bad luck, or enemy gets few lucky crits and your whole tactics just gets thrown in water..

All in all it's very good systems, but it has it's flaws. Not to mention that in a lot of cases, even if you Know rules ,you will get in cases where you are unsure how certain rule interacts with another one. And there are plenty of special rules in here.

 Kanluwen wrote:


There are quite a few "autotakes" and quite a few "nevertakes". It just depends on the army in question.

Name some then?
In my Nomads the only never takes I can think of are the Securitatie, Grenzer MSR and the Morlock with a Light Smoke Grenade Launcher. For auto takes..... I don know, I usually bring at least one Interventor when playing vanilla, and my Reverend Healer is really cool, but apart from that? Nothing really.
IN Pan'O, my secondary army, there are once again very few never takes that I know of, and the auto takes are few again. Joan is usually an auto bring, but she is expensive and needs careful use. My Uhlans is also frequently used, but once again is not an auto bring.

 master of ordinance wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:


There are quite a few "autotakes" and quite a few "nevertakes". It just depends on the army in question.

Name some then?
In my Nomads the only never takes I can think of are the Securitatie, Grenzer MSR and the Morlock with a Light Smoke Grenade Launcher. For auto takes..... I don know, I usually bring at least one Interventor when playing vanilla, and my Reverend Healer is really cool, but apart from that? Nothing really.
IN Pan'O, my secondary army, there are once again very few never takes that I know of, and the auto takes are few again. Joan is usually an auto bring, but she is expensive and needs careful use. My Uhlans is also frequently used, but once again is not an auto bring.

And right there is the rub.

You're not playing a Sectorial, where the "autotake" and "nevertakes" become a thing.

Bolts are a "nevertake" in Neoterran lists, because anything they do Fusiliers do better and cheaper.
Jaguars and Intruders are autotakes in Corregidor lists, because...well I shouldn't have to tell you why Smoke and MSV L2 are a big deal together.

Well to be fair, the supposed balancing factor in sectorias, is you get access to very powerful link teams but you get severely limited in choices. One could argue that it would be a flaw if a sectorial would have the same diversity as a vanilla faction.

Still, I agree that factions certainly have "auto includes". I refuse to take anyone seriously, who argues that not taking any Kuang Shis in ISS is actually viable in any format except limited insertion. Every single Tohaa lists in Interplanetario had double Kaeltar Specialists and I struggle to remember any vanilla Nomads lists that doesn't include either Zeroes, Morans or both.

Geez, guys.

Cap'nSomas, go here, https://infinitythegame.com/resources/downloads , and get the quick starter rules, and the regular rules (both N3 and Human Sphere) and the ITS packet and a few other things that may catch your eye. Walk yourself through the rules. Go here, http://www.data-sphere.net/category/tactics/ , for some good tactics articles. Don't forget the free army builder here https://infinitythegame.com/resources/tools/infinityarmy . Also the wiki, http://infinitythewiki.com/ , is useful. All this is accssible from the Infinity home page, https://infinitythegame.com/ .

As noted, there is a lot too learn, perhaps too much. The league you heard about, was it an Escalation League? The format for that is in the ITS packet.

The Steel Phalanx army box is a nice deal too. I believe this is the least expensive source.

I like sci-fi, but I generally don't care for guns in minis games because they often create static gameplay where model positioning isn't terribly relevant. Infinity is really the first time I've felt a game really captured dynamic movement during a gunfight.

N3 is the first time I've really felt they've nailed the system. A big part of that is the way they've enabled the cheerleaders to efficiently get into reactive positions on the board. It creates a very unique gamestate where you're still somewhat focused on 1 or 2 "Rambo" models doing most of the heavy lifting, but with the "cheerleaders" out in reactive positions they feel more like NPCs to fight through than the exploitive order generators of past editions. It's the first time where I feel like all of the game's unique quirks are working in concert to create a really special system that does sci-fi gunfights better than anything else out there.

Well it helps that Infinity has all attacks being pretty darn deadly. Plus the ARO system and the necessity of heavy cover to have a chance of staying alive.

Even a heavy infantry model in cover has maybe, at best, a 70% chance of passing a save vs the basic combi-rifle. Start getting heavier weapons or something with AP or Marksmanship2 and things become worse.

 LunarSol wrote:
I like sci-fi, but I generally don't care for guns in minis games because they often create static gameplay where model positioning isn't terribly relevant. Infinity is really the first time I've felt a game really captured dynamic movement during a gunfight.

N3 is the first time I've really felt they've nailed the system. A big part of that is the way they've enabled the cheerleaders to efficiently get into reactive positions on the board. It creates a very unique gamestate where you're still somewhat focused on 1 or 2 "Rambo" models doing most of the heavy lifting, but with the "cheerleaders" out in reactive positions they feel more like NPCs to fight through than the exploitive order generators of past editions. It's the first time where I feel like all of the game's unique quirks are working in concert to create a really special system that does sci-fi gunfights better than anything else out there.

setting cheerleaders in reactive positions and not hiding them, usually means dead cheerleaders. Let's face it, your BS 11 B1 rifle cheer leader won't really stop BS 14 B4 HMG/spitfire etc. You might get that lucky 5% chance to crit, but enemy has 20% chance to crit, not to mention way way more chances to win ftf, you must be really lucky to do anything with cheerleader.

Unless you have something like template weapon, and you have guarantee hit on enemy, and enemy is unable to be in a position from which he can take you out from distance, cheerleaders are best ad cheerleading, and being somewhere safe. They can look at back zone to try and discourage enemy AD troops from landing behind.

I picked up Infinity for the mechanics. FtF and order systems are really what sets it apart from anything I've played before.

I continue to play for the variety and balance. Games are never decided before dice are rolled and the same mission with the same lists will result in different games.

I'm starting to love Infinity for the lore. I like the aesthetic but wasnt super sold on the background. But the more I read the more I like it.

 smurfORnot wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I like sci-fi, but I generally don't care for guns in minis games because they often create static gameplay where model positioning isn't terribly relevant. Infinity is really the first time I've felt a game really captured dynamic movement during a gunfight.

N3 is the first time I've really felt they've nailed the system. A big part of that is the way they've enabled the cheerleaders to efficiently get into reactive positions on the board. It creates a very unique gamestate where you're still somewhat focused on 1 or 2 "Rambo" models doing most of the heavy lifting, but with the "cheerleaders" out in reactive positions they feel more like NPCs to fight through than the exploitive order generators of past editions. It's the first time where I feel like all of the game's unique quirks are working in concert to create a really special system that does sci-fi gunfights better than anything else out there.

setting cheerleaders in reactive positions and not hiding them, usually means dead cheerleaders. Let's face it, your BS 11 B1 rifle cheer leader won't really stop BS 14 B4 HMG/spitfire etc. You might get that lucky 5% chance to crit, but enemy has 20% chance to crit, not to mention way way more chances to win ftf, you must be really lucky to do anything with cheerleader.

Unless you have something like template weapon, and you have guarantee hit on enemy, and enemy is unable to be in a position from which he can take you out from distance, cheerleaders are best ad cheerleading, and being somewhere safe. They can look at back zone to try and discourage enemy AD troops from landing behind.

They do well being in surpressive fire from a coordinated order. They're still generally hidden, but way more active than they were in the earlier versions of the game I tried.

Suppression fire only prevents a LI from getting smeared at short range when firing from your back field or when watching a short board edge because there are dozens of ways to deal with a suppressing model.

The value of suppression is to force your opponent to spend excess orders to avoid or remove the suppression. So yeah coordinating 3-4 well placed models into suppression is generally worth. Its value goes up when you interlock with other aros and the longer the game goes when you see more of your opponent's army and when you start killing heavy hitters to deny order cheap solutions to the suppression.

bobman wrote:
I'm starting to love Infinity for the lore. I like the aesthetic but wasnt super sold on the background. But the more I read the more I like it.

How much sci fi material have you read?

 smurfORnot wrote:

 LunarSol wrote:
I like sci-fi, but I generally don't care for guns in minis games because they often create static gameplay where model positioning isn't terribly relevant. Infinity is really the first time I've felt a game really captured dynamic movement during a gunfight.

N3 is the first time I've really felt they've nailed the system. A big part of that is the way they've enabled the cheerleaders to efficiently get into reactive positions on the board. It creates a very unique gamestate where you're still somewhat focused on 1 or 2 "Rambo" models doing most of the heavy lifting, but with the "cheerleaders" out in reactive positions they feel more like NPCs to fight through than the exploitive order generators of past editions. It's the first time where I feel like all of the game's unique quirks are working in concert to create a really special system that does sci-fi gunfights better than anything else out there.

setting cheerleaders in reactive positions and not hiding them, usually means dead cheerleaders. Let's face it, your BS 11 B1 rifle cheer leader won't really stop BS 14 B4 HMG/spitfire etc. You might get that lucky 5% chance to crit, but enemy has 20% chance to crit, not to mention way way more chances to win ftf, you must be really lucky to do anything with cheerleader.

Unless you have something like template weapon, and you have guarantee hit on enemy, and enemy is unable to be in a position from which he can take you out from distance, cheerleaders are best ad cheerleading, and being somewhere safe. They can look at back zone to try and discourage enemy AD troops from landing behind.

Well the cheerleaders become dangerous when they are specific ARO cheerleaders around as well.

If you're taking AROs from both a TR HMG remote as well as 1-2 rifle mooks, that rifle dude might actually be dangerous. You want to devote your burst towards the more dangerous HMG TRbot, but that's leaving that rifle dude with a free shot at you.

Point being, it's never just some rifle cheerleaders. It's usually also a sniper/HMG/Rocket launcher that you're also having to consider.

Yeah but why, even walk into that kind of ARO unless you're still learning?

6 pt Warband will just run up and pop smoke on a free order, then the TR bot gets eaten or ignored.

Not everybody has a 6 point warband with smoke. Maybe the smoke can't go down without also provoking an ARO(so it's ftf if it happens or not).

Plenty of MSV2 reactive pieces too.