Infinity

[Pierzasty]

I've seen quite a few people here mention Infinity, and haven't found any thread for it... at least not an active one. So I'm making one

What exactly is Infinity?

Simply put, it's the yin to Malifaux' yang. Or vice versa. I'm actually a huge fan of the game and found that Malifaux complements it very nicely. Where Mali stresses playing with list-building, in Infinity list-building is marginalized. Mali has alternate activations, Infinity has full activations with AROs and order pool (more on it later). Mali is steampunk-fantasy-Wild West, Infinity is hard SF and cyberpunk, with an anime-inspired aesthetics.

I stepped out with my grunt and immediately got gunned down by six soldiers, what's going on?

Have a short (simplified) explanation of Infinity mechanics: You get a group of soldiers, you get one order per soldier. You can spend your order on either 2 movement skills (move, go prone, climb, jump etc.), 2 non-movement skills (most things that require a roll, e.g. shoot, attack in melee, dodge, hack...), one of each, or a special skill that takes the whole order. So far it's similar to (X) actions you know. The difference is that you can activate a unit multiple times, as long as you have orders to spend.

To answer the obvious question, theoretically you can field one uber-powerful unit and a horde of grunts, feed all your orders into the Rambo and rampage through the enemy force so it's decimated before his first turn. In practice, that's rarely gonna work against anyone who knows what they're doing. That's because every time you use an order where an enemy sees you, that enemy can respond. Everything is on permanent overwatch (think X-Com). You start rampaging through an open field, my 3 guys in cover are going to give you a serious case of lead poisoning. And normal rifles can be lethal in this game.

The trick is that when you act against someone who's responding, you roll a face-to face roll. Let's assume you're shooting at an elite trooper (Ballistic Skill 15) with a standard rifleman (BS 11), assuming no other modifiers. Rifle has Burst 3, meaning you get 3 shots for every Shoot action, while ARO-Shoot reduces the burst to 1, so he gets a shot in response. Now you not only have to roll 11 or lower, but you also have to beat the opponent's roll. You want to roll as high as you can, without going over. If he rolls 14, he'll be faster on the draw and you'll get the single bullet between the eyes before you manage to aim.

This mechanic applies to most AROs: someone dodges? He rolls his PH against your BS. You want to charge and attack in melee (move + CC attack)? He can roll his BS against your CC to see if he can shoot before you manage to reach him. And so on. This creates a very lethal firefight environment, and a careless move (even in your turn) can get you killed.

Who are we anyway? What am I fighting for? Why should I care?

It's 200 years in the future, mankind has successfully restarted the space colonization program after the previous failed attempt caused the global economy to crash, we've constructed a full AI which runs the computing-heavy jobs like starships and stock markets while causing endless moral/philosophical problems for humanists, we can record a complete human personality and upload it into a mechanical body or straight to the internet, there are new superpowers spinning the same old story of keeping political facades while grabbing what they can through deniable black ops, and finally, there's been a recent non-human contact. Unfortunately, the message boiled down to "submit or die".

Faction details: (click names for galleries)

PanOceania - rich, politically powerful, high-tech, corporate/consumer-oriented, pretty much replaced the US on the political scene. Has access to good hardware like multiple remote-controlled TAGs (mechs) or neo-Catholic knightly orders, but lacks the varied tricks of the other factions.

Yu Jing - China, China never changes. About the only power to survive, China assimilated most of Asia and changed in turn. It's ruled jointly by the Party (which stopped even pretending it's communist) and the restored Emperor. It's the grittier, dirtier counterpart to PanO. Yu Jing excels in powered armor (including robotic infantry) and lightning strikes.

Haqqislam - the part of the Arabic world who couldn't stand the rising religious bigotry basically said "Screw it, we're starting anew" and left earth, forming a more humanist society, intended to bring back the Islamic Golden Age of science and philosophy. They have the best medicine and terraformation specialists and a monopoly on some technologies vital to mind-transfer, which allows them to maintain political neutrality. On the table, the Haqq are a low-tech army; few drones and powered armor, but they make up for it with genetic enhancement and sheer tenacity.

Ariadna - the first off-world colonial ship did arrive successfully, but the failed second attempt closed the wormhole and stranded the colonist on a very unattractive world. The remnants of the Russian/American/British/French expedition were forced to struggle against the harsh environment and hostile wildlife with no material or technical support. After the contact was reestablished, PanO/Yu Jing cited ancient treaties that would allow them to exploit the mineral-rich planet. Ariadnans claimed independence. As an army, Ariadna is basically modern 20-21 century armed forces cast against a far better armed enemy. Even lower tech than Haqq, lots of cheap units (and cheap heavy gear), and camo. Lots of camo.

ALEPH - the AI managing the human sphere actually has its own "internal police force". Is it a necessary evil, or is it planning to become humanity's overlord? No one knows. ALEPH is an extremely elite and high-tech faction. You're always outnumbered, you always have better gear. Things like optical disruptors and EMP weapons are commonplace, so are cyborgs, posthumans and fully robotic drones.

Nomads - Starting as three abandoned prison ships, these tough people managed to convert the derelicts into home and get them running. Selling information and services to whoever can pay they're somewhere between a minor nation, a bunch of mercenaries and a freak parade. Nomads have little in the way of heavy hear, their real power lies in versatile medium infantry, excellent specialists, awesome hackers, and drones. Lots of drones.

Combined Army - A combination of armies led by the Evolved Intelligence on a quest to transcendence. They're looking for new viewpoints/philosophies, technologies, or even space/resources for more EI servers. Unfortunately for humans, the EI does not tolerate opposition to its cause. The CA are very diverse, like a whole faction of specialists; you have the Klingon-like Morat with all the power and subtlety of a brick to the face, the pseudo-reptillian Shasvastii (infiltrators and terrorists), the insectoid Exrah specialist troops, powerful and expensive EI constructs to lead them, and a horde of zerglings

Tohaa - The newest faction, the Tohaa areasdfhjkkhasthe Tohaa are a bunch of talking artichokes and Star Trek rejects obsessed with numbers. They're way underpowered anyway, so you're better off looking elsewhere. This comment was brought to you by the friendly neighborhood EI

Mercenaries - the odds and ends you can attach to various factions.

Helpful links

(if you want basics explained, watch these!) There are also fluff introductions on their channel.

Official site - rules, markers, all free, but...

You want the Re-edited Rulebook from here. Same text, arranged in a much better way and with an index.

Aleph Toolbox - free online army builder, also on Android. There are better builders out there, but this one's definitely up to date.

What is this "sectorial" thing you speak of?

Sectorials are specialized armies. Every faction has a general ("vanilla") list and 2-3 sectorial lists. The tradeoff is that by choosing to take units from one of the faction backgrounds only, each unit's availability limit is increased, you get access to special mercenaries for that sectorial (which normally are "if opponent agrees") and ALEPH support in some cases, and link-team(s). The link-team is a way to combine 3-5 units (normally grunts, but there are a few nasty HI teams) into a squad. Each time you activate a soldier from that squad, he gets bonuses depending on the squad's size. The team is also faster (all units move simultaneously with 1 order) and better at defense. You can form a new team at any time with the LT's order.

The following sectorials are currently available:

PanOceania - Military Orders (religious heavy infantry), Acontecimento (jungle troops), Neoterra (bots, high tech)

Haqqislam - Qapu Khalqi (Mercs and Nomad support), Hassassins (elite troops, assassins)

Yu Jing - Imperial Service (Aleph Support, agents, suicide troops), Japan (bikers, ninjas, power armored samurai)

Ariadna - Caledonia (melee-heavy, also werewolves), Merovingia (training and superior equipment)

Nomads - Corregidor (good troops, specialists, light TAGs), Bakunin (awesome hacking, freaks)

Aleph - Steel Phallus Phalanx (aggressive and hero-oriented)

CA - Morat (straightforward, heavy firepower), Shasvastii (camo, trickery, trolling)

Tohaa - none yet, but they have pseudo-linkteams in the vanilla list

So, where are the pretty miniatures I'm hearing about?

Click the faction names above, they link to galleries. But a thread can't survive without a few pics, can it?

Edited April 7, 2013 by Pierzasty

[Mattyjudo]

I really like Infinity. It's the only game other than Malifaux I regularly play. Like you say the two compliment each other very well. I find I enjoy them both for almost completely opposite reasons: Malifaux for it's characterization, quirkiness and how unique each crew is; Infinity for the elegant mechanics, balance and the fact that each faction has a very similar toolbox to work with. You could give a good Infinity player a squad of troops they'd never seen before and they would probably do pretty well. Definitely not the case with Malifaux lol!

And yeah, both games have gorgeous (though again, very stylistically different) minis

Edited April 5, 2013 by Mattyjudo

[Pierzasty]

Yeah, I like Infinity for the tactical simulation and Mali for list-building, combos and more things that would ruin a larger game. Here I can just buy a blister or two and experiment. Same with the minis, Infinity has the best quality minis I've ever seen, but on the other hand they're very intimidating in a "how am I supposed to paint THAT!?" way. Malifaux' are simple, fun and make it up with vision

Which reminds me, I have to go throw a Levi box into a jar of nitro

ed: Infinity is real-world. Malifaux is magic-world *grin*

Edited April 5, 2013 by Pierzasty

[Jonas Albrecht]

The game has such a solid, well crafted set of rules. I really hope it gets as popular around here.

[wolfoman117]

i´m selling an ariadna´s army if someone is interested.

[pixelante]

Sometimes Infinity is about who blinks first, it requires a ridiculous amount of terrain which is often dumped on the table with more concern for lanes of fire than any rhyme or reason.

But the models are really cool, except for the fiddly bits. Just make sure you play for actual objectives because mutual slaughter in Infinity makes for a poor game.

[CannonFodder]

its picking up in my area. Looks nice. if you learn how to play on a table with little terrain it doesn't work well.

In warmachine/ hordes you need a couple pieces of terrain to make the table playable. about 4-6 large pieces for a 4x4 table.

Malifaux you need a full table of terrain to make it interesting. 4-6 large pieces & 10-12 small pieces for 3x3 table.

Infinity you need a Densely packed table to make it fun. I saw a game where they used enough terrain on a 4x4 table to play about 3 malifaux games.

I tried it on a table with typical 40k ruined building and it became a stalemate early on since neither could move without getting killed.

[wrabbit37]

Spent a long time not really liking Infinity's aesthetics, but a buddy finally convinced me to try out the game (Gamers Lounge 75 goes through my first experiences). I was pleasantly surprised to the point where I sat down with a couple of locals and worked up a list of models that sound like they fit my playstyle and look appealing to me. I'll likely be giving it a few more tries, this time focusing on the ALEPH faction, and if I like it well enough, I'll be buying a crew.

Like Malifaux, it seems cheap enough to buy into if you're just looking for a small subset of models to play with casually.

[tibour]

I think that Infinity might be one of the best ever table top skirmish systems. The rules are great and just work well. Having said that I find the factions and background a little boring. The minis are good I just don't care for the look.

[Pierzasty]

Yes, I forgot to stress the point:

Infinity needs A LOT of terrain. Seriously. If you have an empty space more than 8" across, it's likely a killing zone. If you still insist that it's too much, I'll happily park 2 murderbots (reaction drones) and a MSV2 sniper there, have fun

And none of that 40k terrain crap. 40k often uses ruined buildings with lots and lots of holes and windows... which makes them worthless as cover.

I'm using a portable "training facility" foamcore walls, cover etc. and it takes about: 35 large walls (L-shaped, 6-10" size), 15 small walls (2-6" size) and 25 pieces of low cover (2-3" length). That's one 48"x48" table. No, it's not cramped. I'm working on some area terrain pieces of different kinds(rubble/vines/[toxic] spills) to incorporate them into the map (either take the movement penalty, [x]terrain units, or go the long way around).

Like Malifaux, it seems cheap enough to buy into if you're just looking for a small subset of models to play with casually.

That's what they tell you at first, get a starter and 2 blisters and you'll have some varied and fun lists, and then pokemonitis kicks in and next thing you know you have 5000 points.

Edited April 7, 2013 by Pierzasty

[wrabbit37]

That's what they tell you at first, get a starter and 2 blisters and you'll have some varied and fun lists, and then pokemonitis kicks in and next thing you know you have 5000 points.

Just like Malifaux! They get you in for cheap, and next thing you know you're completing your third faction and your wife is wondering what happened to the bank account.

[Boshea]

Entry and expansion costs are about the same as Malifaux. $100 gets you enough for a standard game with some variability depending on choices. Compared to other bigger name games that is still pretty good. I've always had a passing interest in it, but need to get one of the local players to run me through a demo that doesn't entirely put me off the game (TO camo and letting me set all my guys up to die to a single Chain Rifle, wee). Models are hit and miss. Was initially pulled in by Aleph, but I have such a love hate relationship with the look of models, and I hate the look of a lot of the recommended stuff for them. Waiting to see how the Steel Phalanx pans out to see if that makes me recommit to them. Military Orders has been the one I've been the most at lately since there are almost 0 models I don't like the look of for them. Granted I know that the best way to play them is with heavy use of Sergeants instead of heavy Knights, but Sergeants are pretty cool.

[Mister Shine]

Im almost a big a fan of Infinity as I am of Malifaux. I will support the Kapu till my dying breath. Mentioning some of the sectorials in the OP might be a good idea since they really change how some factions play.

Also this is a handy guide for Infinity terrain:

Unlike other systems, you dont make a balanced board either. First turn is traded off against Deployment. Deploying second in massive cover is often worth not taking first turn

[pixelante]

To that I would add a bunch of chest high barricades and suchlike. As such the start up price is greater because you need to have more terrain than say 40K or even Malifaux. There is also the fact you probably want it to look more futuristic to fit the aesethic which is what you won't get with 40k gothica. The cost is going to be higher as well, forget about a second faction, each faction has a large range of models and each model has three to four variants. Though you could limit yourself by sectorial which is like faction inception.

If you like it then go for it, just don't buy the tag "its like Malifaux but sci-fi" its nothing like Malifaux, at all.

[Pierzasty]

Who says it's like Malifaux? It's similar only in that they're both skirmish games, that's about it, Infinity is as different to Malifaux as can be. And that's a good thing, I can play both and have little overlap. As for terrain and entry costs, you can save by not buying the rulebooks. It's hard to do in Malifaux because the unit stats aren't free and knowing the enemy abilities is so important.

[pixelante]

There is also a way around the terrain costs if you don't mind being cheap, the Star Wars Minis game has a lot of game mats that would be perfect for Infinity.

[G. Footman]

Sometimes Infinity is about who blinks first, it requires a ridiculous amount of terrain which is often dumped on the table with more concern for lanes of fire than any rhyme or reason.

But the models are really cool, except for the fiddly bits. Just make sure you play for actual objectives because mutual slaughter in Infinity makes for a poor game.

some of the people in my local gaming group are about the same with terrain for Malifaux.

I was interested in getting into infinity, i like the look, setting and the hacking rules, but there's a distinct lack of people playing in my area, and halflingspy who was the only other person around considering infinity, got talked into mercs instead, and mercs just doesn't do it for me

[Pierzasty]

Just do what everyone does with a new skirmish game: buy 2 starter forces (you're gonna start a second faction sooner or later anyway )!

[ddot]

Very fun game.

The ARO mechanic keeps gameplay fluid and tactical... if you remember to set up your forces to get good ARO positions. I played like an ape last game and ended up move+dodge for much of the game, but that was on me. And my opponent's ability to roll crits. D'oh.

The core rules are well done. The models can have some nice combos (TOCamo+HMG... ouch) but are nicely offest by Special Weapons Cost (SWC), so you're not likely to see a super-elite force coming down the gut; even if you do, they'll be short on orders and likely easy to send into the 60% Retreat! threshold. (Whereas other games *WMH* you're limited only to points and FA to build the stupidest combos you can.)

Not sure if it's the yin/yang to Malifaux's yang/yin, but a very fun game nonetheless.

[sakurazuka38]

Malifaux and infinity are the only minis game i play and with these 2 games i have all the gaming experience i need (i like the analogy with yin and yang between malifaux and infinity)!

I play infinity more often because there is a communty of player in my little town.

For malifaux i need to go to the big city (Lyon) that is 40 miles away (please wyrd make a french traduction of the rules and the card to help the game yo grow here).

[ddot]

Played two games earlier tonight. My buddy and I split two very one-sided games, but we didn't need to refer to the rulebook every 5 minutes, so that's a good thing; we have maybe 10 games combined under our belts, so people really overestimate the complexity of the rules, which seems to be a no-sell point.

I'm really starting to dislike the alternating-roflstomp-turn system in other games.