Hello! So, I'm still trying to learn Infinity rules and I have questions. Could I ask for some clarifications? Currently, I'm trying to work out these two matters: 1. Specialists - these are the people who can fulfill objectives, interact with scenery etc., is that correct? Could I ask for some detailed list of things the specialist can do and other troops cannot? I'm a bit confused here... Also, I'd really appreciate some help with who exactly the specialists are? I know that the troops with the Specialist Operative skill count. But who else? The rules state that Doctors and Engineers count as specialists in *some* scenarios - does that mean that there are scenarios where they don't count? Who decides on that? Also, aside from them, who else is a specialist? 2. Fireteams - okay, here's a thing that I really can't wrap my head around. When are the fireteams allowed - only when playing a sectorial army, or are there fireteams in the main armies? How can I tell which troops can form which fireteam? How do they work and what are their benefits? Also, is it possible to play Infinity without fireteams? Can one ignore them? Or does everyone use them?
Hello Varsovian . 1. You are correct. Only specialisits can fullfill individual its missions. Specialists are usually clarified within the ITS Mission. Usually they include Forward Observers, Docotors, Engineers, Hackers, Paramedics, Specialist Operatives and/or Chain of Command tropps. These skills are stated in the trooper profile. Specialists are the "button pushers" with a willpower role the can acitvate Mission Objective like antennas or the HVT (High value target). There is no such thing as a detailled list, as the usage of the specialist ist always relative to the mission. As an example. ITS MIssion the Grit. Your specialist troops have to activate the antenna. ITS Looting and sabotaging: Your specialists have to loot stuff. ITS Highly classified. Each card from your classified deck need a specialist to fullfill it´s objective. Doktors -> heal, FO- Mark target, Engineer ->repair remote ...... 2. Fireteams are only available in sectorials, with 2 exceptions. 1 - Tohaa Triads and 2 - Fire Team Dou with an Evo-Drone running the Support Program. You can tell if the units can be in a fire team by checking the army builder. It is stated below the troppers profiles (ex. Nomads - Corregidor Alguaciles, PanO-NeoTerra - Bolts) Fire Teams have to stay withing 8" of their leader. Depending on the size of the team the get boni (+1 Burst, Sixth Sense 2, +3 BS) Check the infinity wiki for details. Of course you can igrnore them. In the year i´ve played infinity i´ve never used a fire team and i am pretty happy with my Vanilla Nomads Force. Hope i could help.
What Recruit said. Basically, fireteams are the most appealing thing in sectorials. In general, they are always declaring the same orders. In active turn, you have Link Lider who's getting the profits. In reactive, they all benefit from bonuses. Be ware, that losing your Leader breaks the fireteam.
You can play without, and if you play a vanilla army (meaning the base faction, with access to all the faction's troop) then you won't have any fireteam. But you cannot completely ignore them because if your opponent is playing a sectorial, you'll have to face his fireteam, so you need to at least learn how to counter them. The enemy in a fireteam of 3+ members will react with Burst 2. With 4+ members they get to ignore Surprise Shot modifiers (but still apply camo). At 5 members they get +3BS. The quickest way to break them is with template weapon (because they tend to be close to each other); and killing the fireteam leader which will break the fireteam until he can reform it on his turn with a command token.
You can also not bother with ITS and specialists and play other systems like YAMS 1.1 (my favorite!) or 20x20.
Regarding fireteams: I personally recommend to new players that they avoid playing sectorials while they are still learning. Fireteams are the major advantage to playing a Sectorial, as you are normally giving up access to availability (AVA) of other troops in your main faction that you would want to take. The problem with this is that Fireteams are actually difficult to play well against someone who knows the game. You can easily end up leaning on the advantages of a Fireteam so hard that you are completely helpless when someone takes it apart. As a more veteran player of Ariadna primarily, I do play Fireteams occasionally, but often prefer not to use them anyways. The coherency requirement can force you into a poor deployment depending on the board, and much like a TAG it is usually a lot of points invested into one part of the board. Alternatively you could spread those points around the board for better area control. It's a play style difference and preference, and both have their pros and cons, but using a Fireteam WELL definitely has a lot of nuance to consider such as carefully planned deployment. I consider good deployment to be one of the hardest skills in this game to master, so anything that makes that harder on a newer player seems like a bad idea. As for what Fireteams are allowed, the most accurate/best way to tell is always to check here: http://wiki.infinitythegame.com/en/List_of_Fireteams
yeah good point from FKB about Infinity 20×20 Scenario System by @Prophet of Doom is very good and has clear rules that give advantages to units say Hackers as specialists or whatever when sometimes ITS is weird with what units can do what. And YAMS (maybe by rules guy @ijw?) is convenient because you can print out the cards and use MTG sleeves so its easy for space on the tabletop
This is possibly my most visited wiki page after the Order Expenditure Sequence page! It's important to remember that the Army Builder only has notes on Fireteams, not the whole rules.
ITS is actually very consistent. I can't recall the last time they changed up what skills count as a specialist. Actually... no, I can recall, and it was before 3rd edition even came out. Lieutenant used to count for specialists, and that caused balance problems so it was removed. I may be wrong, but I get the impression that the ITS Classified Deck was based on the old YAMS deck.
@macfergusson notwithstanding the consistency you note, I gotta say I find ITS pretty confusing myself too. Maybe it’s the way they’re rewritten, but we have the handsome glossy version to hand and spend the whole time going back to it and checking the points. ITS almost always feels somehow more complicated than it needs to be. I haven’t played much YAMS. I think we played one game last year. It’s good then, is it @FatherKnowsBest ?
Basically what it comes down to for me, and other local players I've discussed this with, is that Infinity is a fun game as a death-match/kill'em'all style for only so long. The really interesting games happen with objectives and goals and things, where the real "special forces" nature of the small tactical force comes into play. Whether you play a mission system like YAMS, ITS, or 20x20, or whatever else you might brew up, it's better to have objectives besides just "kill your opponent." It adds depth and complexity to what would otherwise get boring after a while. ITS is a bit more complex, absolutely, just because there are a wide variety of missions that have different objectives, and random bonus objectives on top of that via Classifieds. That, to me, is a positive thing. If you were to play the same mission over and over, you'd have a very solid grasp on it and not need to reference the scenario rules over and over, however I feel like that would get old. The variety in ITS is part of the charm to me. But, again, for newer players starting off by just trying to kill each other is a good way to learn how the game works. Adding in a simple mission system later can serve as an escalation point should they want to start moving towards tournaments. One of the problems with playing JUST Classifieds, (and YAMS had a similar problem as a recall) is that you can end up playing a game that is completely unrelated to your opponent. If you're both going for different goals because of the cards you happened to draw, and you don't even need to engage the opponent, that seems a bit off to me. So from there it seems a natural step to move to the full blown ITS system where for the most part you are directly competing with your opponent to gain points for yourself and deny your opponent via the objectives. Edit: Also, as far as ITS references go, various people have transcribed the missions to a quick reference web-page, like the wiki. It makes in game quick checks much easier IMO. Currently I've been using this reference, as my own website is out of date due to a lack of time for maintenance: https://sites.google.com/view/infinityconnected/its-season-9
@macfergusson i totally agree that it’s all about objective games. I play loads of small points introductory and teaching games at the moment (Starter Box armies, in fact), and don’t even then play an annihilation game. I think Infnitty does and should play like a board game with moar dakka ... I probably should play an annihilation game again, actually! I can’t remember the last time I did so!
http://www.wargamingtrader.com/yams I love it, It's great that my opponent and I could possibly have very different mission parameters...or do we? I also remember the days before you had to bring anything other than a LT to play the missions. Not keen on having to cover more and more bases.
Thanks! I skimmed the PDF (as I don't have time right now to read it in its entirety) and I noticed something: ITS player rating system. Could I ask what it is and how does it work? Another question: ITS Classified Deck. What is it? Does one need to use it? And yet another, unrelated question: army lists and public information. As I understand, army list is (with exceptions) something you need to show to your opponent. But does it mean you only show them the troop names and costs, or do you have to tell them the troop's stats, skills etc.? In other words: let's say me and my opponent play a game and my opponent fields a trooper I don't recognize. Can I ask my opponent to explain what the trooper is and what it can do? BTW. It kind of relates to an organizational question I have: how do you guys handle the amount of information about troops (and related rules) you need to have at hand when playing? I mean, each trooper has stats, skills, equipment, weapons with their own stats and attributes? It seems to me that, ideally, each player should have a tablet at hand with a wireless connection to Infinity Army and Wiki...
Classifieds are randomly drawn objectives usually worth a point or two, they sometimes have other Intelcom uses in game too,described by the scenario. The rules for them are in the ITS book/pdf. In the army builder you can print out a courtesy list that shows all your public information on deployment. Whenever a model is on the board you are entitled to know everything about it that isn't private info and can ask your opponent at any time. Ideally for organisation I have my list open in the Army Builder on my phone or Mayanet on iPad, with the wiki open in Chrome. At a tournament I add physical copies of my list and courtesy list. Nowadays I can do 90%+ of the game from memory (with the occasional looking up of something obscure like the CC of a Nisse).
