May > August 2023 releases - New heat wave

There were also a few new Corregidor units (Lobo, Gator, and Diablos at least) and the entire MAF revamp. MO got Hawkins and the Curators too.

 

I do not like these kind of packing. 2 Heroes that I already have and be fine with the old ones,
while the new ones are mostly "new" not necessary better. Acmon looks like a less armoured Hector
and Machaon ... I don´t know. One side I am happy that he not pointing his medikit around like a pistol (this is so silly) or do some Yoga posing, but still somewhat boring, gun here, sword there, finish. Are the designers in a rush? But anyway, the one that do the Mahkai do a great job, the best of the three - she looks so cool. Even the Knife in her hand is adding flavour to the scene. And she not even the hottest loadout, that I want (Red Fury or MMR).

So I have to buy the old guys together with the new troop Mahkai? Why the actual Achilles? I could understand three Myrmidons (where are the rest of the new ones?) but here we have three different troops and two of them are characters ... they start do sprinkle out a troop type over several releases in boxes againg (Greetinx to the Grenzers here).

 

I'm not sure why but I love the Patcher.

 

Code One.

 

Same here, i dont care it's a blatant "inspiration", it's a cool design.
Of course I'd like to take credit for it's release with my sacrifice to the release gods as it perfectly invalidates my brand new conversion ^^

 

I can’t remember who also mentioned this, but I think the story is outpacing the game. The story is about all-out war with the Combined like a 40k game, but we’ve been playing small black op skirmishes. Now if they change the standard to 400pt games and up the model count a bit, it might make a little more sense.

 

Why would you even want a larger model count? do we need another American tournament won by a 40 models list to remember why the models cap was enforced or we forgot that without the models cap it was almost always a race to 18 models lists and all expensive models be damned.

I am not convinced that 400 points even with 15 models cap is better for the game, but I must admit I have no practical experience with it and making lists does not count as any form of practical experience.

 

Honestly, I'd like the base limit to be 20 models, two full combat groups. Mostly because it feels more natural for me than the current one and a half combat group. And with N4 changes hordes got more manageable.

 

It would not change anything, it will be again a race to 20 and at least half the expensive models will never see the light of day because "they are not efficient" and "always maximize your order count".

It is of little wonder TAGs became a thing again only after the 15 models cap became a thing, previously they only saw usage in limited insertion (10 models) games.

 

I never said I wanted that. Hell no! But the story is beyond what the game is. It's talking about things that are all out war and here we are just trying to get data on a politicians affair or pictures of his bad toupee (anyone get that reference?).

 

They've became a thing again after changing the way crits worked, so that high ARM/BTS started to actually provide protection against high burst weapons, and after point recalculation for TAGs and HIs - particularly elite ones - made it easier to field them and still have a proper backup and support.

Also, it's not like the rules forbid us to play different format than the default one. We can test how the balance holds between horde and elite playstyles.

 

Increasing the relative efficiency of expensive models is an option. Better MOV on Heavy Infantry, MSV3 and Biometric Visor not taking Order taxes to break Marker States, more reliable Doctors, reducing access to cheap tools that trade up, adding tools that punch down effectively; all of these things are options that make more expensive pieces appealing.

 

I view the skirmish games of Infinity as taking place either as black ops, or as slices of bigger engagement, or as raids in an active and developing conflict.

All 3 cases are depicted in the fluff.

I do not get the reference, but would appreciate contemporary political references to be excluded from the forums.

 

That would be the same time the models cap was introduced, I am not sure we can divide how much each one influenced the introduction of higher cost troops, but from N3, we know models cap (limited insertion) was a deciding factor for their increased usage.

 

I'm finding it hard to suspend disbelief for a game representing a black op skirmish when it includes a bunch of regular basic grunts.

I can believe a situation where a game of Infinity (looking as it does look right now) is set in an all-out war with the Combined. It just represents a very small, bite-size fragment of it, one in which a handful of troops are engaged. Even if it is a 150pts game - it is a very narrow slice of the conflict. As in, let's pretend our conflict zone isn't lmiited to what is actually on the table, but stretches for literal miles right and left of it (and also front and rear of it as well!). It is not a pitched battle - it is a skirmish-sized element of the conflict. It will not win or lose the entire war on its own (difficult for a squad or even platoon-sized action to do so...), but may be a pebble in an avalanche.

I could see the new Reinforcements rule representing troops that strayed from that "adjacent table" into ours.

I think it is unnecessary. Infinity wasn't meant for massed combat, and trying to make it into something like 40K is - in my eyes - an excercise in futility.


At the end of a day, however, there's one thing that's important: to have fun playing the game.
I can have fun playing at 150pts from time to time (mostly due to space constraints). Sure, 300pts allows me to break out more toys - some of them way too expensive to make sense at 150pts level - but smal-end games can still be fun.

 

I think it's going to be 400pts, 2 combat groups, and you can set aside some number of troops as reserve. They most likely will have different rules where they can be deployed when the time comes.

 

It's more of a problem that the war always continues to grow, to the point that it's now getting a bit hard to suspend disbelief that PanO still gives the remotest damn about knocking off Yu Jing's new toys or pirating a little Teseum while alien fleets fly through their trade lanes, or that ALEPH can waste time and materiel validating Nomad fears or bullying the Tohaa when it's coordinating the orbital defenses of a half-dozen planets.

There's really not much narrative support for more multi-faceted conflicts with the CA being hyped up as such a massive threat, which we've seen in pretty much every online campaign I've been in so far- the CA can't even have a base or they'll be stomped down by everyone making an effort to roleplay in their faction's interest. The only real fun in the last couple of years in that field has been when some clever faction leader invents a nice scandal to meme around, and the tiniest of CA victories are taken as crushing blows while the inter-faction intrigue is totally sidelined by the main narrative. As a bit of a fluff player, this is disappointing to me- it's starting to feel a bit like what I've read about the old Storm of Chaos...

 

Me, I got it!

 

I see it as a problem of wargames in general. Historically, I struggle to recall conflicts where there were multiple factions operating on the same side that at the same time operated agaisnt each other (i.e. a situation like the one in infinity, where all Human Sphere factions are opposing the Combined Army, are nominally allied against it, yet still run against their allies. Intelligence gathering - sure, but kinetic operations...? Well, maybe some phases of the Thirty Years War were a similar mess, I'm not sure...).

I therefore do suspend my disbelief here, for the greater goo... I mean, greater fun of playing a game where my Haqq can square it off against my friend's Haqq. Sure, one could present it as a training mission, fluffwise... but in the end, that's the same faction fighting itself, essentially.

It also seems to be a consequence of CB's decision to advance the story / timeline / metaplot. Various thresholds, tipping points and cliffhangers are always a very interesting points for a setting to be, but they are hard to keep forever. So, CB, instead of keeping us at the point in time we were at during N2, decidedto keep telling us what happened later.