I understand the sentiment. As far as my own expenses go, I point at terrain more than anything else. More than miniatures, even. --- Achilles and Umbra are two miniatures that stand out, if it is so that LOF can only be checked when they actually are in effect, then this is just as problematic as the older, smaller, miniatures. But I'm trying to approach this from a gameplay perspective more than anything, if the game is complex and needs aides then either you dumb it down or you make the aides available. The game is still evolving and is moving away from simulation (the miniature IS the silhouette) towards the accessible (every miniature has a fixed size and we're going nuts with the poses). There's still stuff that's left behind. One of the more mandatory aides you can get is a silhouette, I don't mean the paper cut-outs from the back of the book here, I mean acryllic silhouettes with 25mm (etc) bases that can be swapped in for miniatures if necessary. Everybody has them, probably for silhouettes that doesn't even get used for their army. I find it a bit odd both that Markers (representing troopers) and markers (representing states) are allowed to be so similar (and to have the same terminology), yet CB and CB's partners have actually solved the problem but haven't taken the steps to actually make us use it. Yes, it does increase the ancillary costs and the costs that kill you are the thousands of small ones, but it's hard for me to cope with the dissonance between how seemingly people complain about this in terms of money when there are no complaints when a new model is released for their army at a near bi-monthly rate (yes, yes, I know, except Tohaa, etc etc). Could it possibly be that forcing you to get a 3D token would possibly be the least sexy thing they could write into the rules to force you to get and that this is the issue more than anything? Something that doesn't fit neatly into a poker chip carry case that you have to carry along at least some 4+ of that's no-face no-pose blandness?
It also (not olnly, but also) goes along those lines; consider that I have now 4 armies (CA, Aleph, Nomads, and Haqquislam, of which only Haqquislam is "limited"), and what happens with the 3D silhouette thingy: 3 mining zeros mean six, plus two prowler we are at eight, plus three custodies mean 11. Or go to Ariadna, where you can field up to 15-16 camo miniatures (and then add mines/decoys!). Right now, I have a small half-tray case for carrying every marker I need, plus emergency superglue, plus "25mm smoke markers" (I use an acrylic smoke template, go figure...). Double the miniature space, and well... Not all of us use a car to go to where the game is played. Frankly speaking, if Infinity reaches a point where I need to exchange the miniature every freaking order with a silhoutee, I will leave the game, period. There would be no need to buy any miniature, since it would be best to just print the miniatures and play a paperinifnity game, that way it would be more comfortable. From my point of view, both the Legate and Achilles V2 are failures of design, where CB was unable to provide a model both functional and aesthetically sound.
I think it's not as bad of a logistics nightmare as you make it to be. People often carry wh/wh40k armies of 100+ models by hand. Compared to this Infinity is not that big of a deal. In my case every 3d marker that I use for Aleph fits into one standard Infinity cardboard box filled with foam over and under. With added acrylic templates, tokens, dice, objective deck, tape measure and sometimes a second army I still have no problems with packing into a backpack and have some space to spare. I don't see how even twenty 3d markers could be a problem to transport.
Not all of us use a car, and guess why some people give WH a pass? Having to move so many things everytime you want to play it looks like you are changing house is not what I want when I want to have a good time.
I'm usually taking public buses for my casual games as we rarely have a gaming night without some beers. Still THE thing that makes me look bad and is hard to carry is the big blue Ikea bag of terrains.
Right now in Madrid, I only go where the table is already set (shops with gaming tables and the like). It would be impossible for me to move terrain, and in fact I have some pieces I had to leave behind when I moved in because I saw no way to take it here without broking the MDF buildings. That being said, I can carry all my Aleph collection (which is almost all models, barring five or so) in a 6 tray Feldherr bag, but if I wanted to add more than 3-4 miniatures I would be forced to step up to the 10 tray one... not a fun proposition by any measure.
3d markers are on my list of things to get eventually. Currently I use cardboard circles with plain printed tokens glued on top as my gaming budget has been taken up by models/paint. I would never expect to force anyone to buy the fancy stuff (I still don't own a laser sight despite how useful they are) but I see their uses. During the game I have never had someone try to hide an ARO by not mentioning a token of any kind, normally the other player will remind someone if they are stepping into LoF with a token before the order is completed.
I'd be happy if CB changed the rules so that everything had to be represented by something similar to the size of it's silhouette. (Garuda etc. notwithstanding..) I find it a bit strange that we have to use 3D miniatures to represent the troops, but we can represent the same-sized troops when camouflaged with a flat marker. I wouldn't be happy playing Infinity if all troops could be tokens, and I don't see why certain troop states should differ. I think there are two main parts to this: Usability It's just easier to see and play with 3D markers. There are often loads of tokens on the table in a game of Infinity for orders, game states, mines, etc. in amongst the terrain, and when (camouflaged) troops can also be tokens it's just too easy to either not notice them at all or for them to blend in with the other tokens. When you're checking LoF from the model's eye view, you're often completely unable to see a marker due to a parapet or similar. Yes one could memorise the location of all camo troops or check the whole table from all angles every time, but I don't think we should have to - if a troop exists somewhere, it should be obvious. Aesthetics Infinity is a very cool-looking game, I think most people appreciate the awesome miniatures and scenery. To me, a 3D camo marker looks way better than a token, regardless of said token's quality. I use the Customeeple ones, which I think have a kind of Predator look which fits the camo theme perfectly and are about 1 EUR each. A couple of Northern Open's ago a guy had some Bakunin camo markers he'd cast himself in a semi-transparent resin, which looked AMAZING! This aspect is a bit more subjective and less important than the usability issue, but still. Downsides Admittedly there are some downsides, the main ones people have mentioned being cost and space. I can understand that people don't want to spend extra cash, although given that you can buy an average army's worth of 3D camo markers for the cost of a single miniature it doesn't seem to be a big problem. If it's a real issue, you could use cardboard standees or similar - and if that's not acceptable due to aesthetics, I don't know why a flat token is. And yes it's a few extra cm3 to carry, but compared to the space and weight of your army's worth of metal miniatures, it doesn't seem like a massive burden. Going back to the extreme, you could save masses of money and weight by using tokens for your whole army, but I don't hear anybody arguing for that.
Seriously? People are wanting freaking laser-cut acrylic Camo Markers to be the standard? That file I uploaded is Metal Gear's infamous cardboard box. It's 25mm corner to corner (about 20mm across the flats), and stands about 15mm tall if you let the open tabs splay out flat (about 25mm tall if you let it stand on the tabs). I had a spare body from my Sedition Wars minis, so I used that to make a full-height Snake-in-a-Box. The other half-dozen box camo markers just have a number written on them in brush-pen sharpie. My TO camo tokens are the clear models from the Sedition Wars KS option (I've never seen them for retail sale, sadly), and are numbered 0-9 with no duplicates (and two unlabeled, since the token maker won't do letters or two digit numbers). Since I had two sets of triplicates in that clear PVC, I used those for a pair of HoloEcho marker sets after I hit them with a little fluorescent paint. When I get around to my Hassassin and Ariadna, I'm going to buy the Reaper sculpting dollies and cover with static grass as Ghillie suits. Mount them on clear acrylic bases with the paper camo marker glued to the bottom. Hassassin camo markers in desert tans, Ariadna in forest greens.
I love the 3D camo token silhouettes, but I stopped using them. They just took up way too much space in transport. I am often fielding in the region of 4-14 camo markers on a list.
Funny. I do the same, but the sedition wars markers as regular camo and just marker as TO markers. Got mine from ebay some years ago, though. haven't seen them since anywhere, but they do the job quite well. Better then the cut out silhouettes in my opinion. There are some clear acrylic minis from a halo tabletop, but they stand a head taller than infinity miniatures
I magnetised mine the same way I magnetised my mini. As hey are light plastic they can easily be put upside down on the lid of the box I use to transport my mini or on the side of the toolbox I use to store them Even when playing full camo with ariadna, I have no problem transporting my 3D markers
My girlfriend tells me I have a near-addiction problem with a certain german magnet seller... There's 25mm disc magnets, both in Neodymium (if you want them to stick) and Ferrite (if you simply want a magnet and prefer them cheaper) with adhesive layer. Bought a few smaller 15mm discs to stick to the underside of trees and other problematic terrain. Case in point, self adhesive discmagnets makes for excellent Marker enhancers once you've started playing with metal scenery or ferrous paint. Regardless if 3D or 2D. If you make 2D markers out of them, the markers themselves get really easy to stack and move around.
One benefit of the silhouette system though is it frees up the sculptors, it's an infinitely better system than it used to be, but some miniatures (cough Blackjack, cough) are far and beyond mad.
Being free, and abusing freedom, are different things, as you mention ;) I can endure things like the "jump to the sky" poses some miniatures have (Umbra Legate, Yuan Yuan special Red Veil edition, Bashi Bazouk female, Assassin Ragik female...) since I can always cut the offending extra height (but if you don't, you better be careful so as not to have a vaulting miniature, unable to stay upright), barely. But design's definition says it means beauty AND practical. Specially once we consider 3D means you can scale things as you want.
You know, I can agree with that. I like that sculptors have a degree of freedom, but things like Samaritan are very impractical. Having trouble with hugging walls because of guns that stick out can occasionally be annoying already. And then we have this...
I love competitive play and want to play competitively as much as possible, and have others enjoy playing with me. I've found Infinity is already exhausting enough that I want to minimise unnecessary stress so everyone enjoys top-tier play. Tournament games going to time without getting a proper third turn are unsatisfying to me, and (as an exaggeration) if I wanted to play as "successfully" as possible I might have to stop every order to see if I have overlooked the position of one of my opponent's 10+ "S0 but actually S2" tokens. Maybe that means I'm not yet a good enough player, maybe it means Infinity has large collaborative elements and is not purely competitive. The competition I want to experience is the clash of tactics and mindgames, not resistance to mental exhaustion. If I wanted a purely competitive game instead of a collaborative one I'd play chess. Personally I always use silhouette-accurate camo tokens for my own forces and really appreciate it when others do too. I built them originally out of cardboard and blue-tac, and now use acrylic markers I've collected from tournaments goodie bags over the years.
