Working on a new youtube script. Wanted to share it Why Infinity is the best tabletop wargame. + http://www.infinitythegame.com + A game produced by Corvus Belli in Spain. It takes place, 177 years into the future. Humanity has mastered wormhole technology and has colonized several planets. Officially it is peace among the human factions, but they fight each other in secret with highly elite commando units. Constantly Stealing tech, planning assassinations and hacking intel. There is an alien invasion going on, which humanity is united against, but that does not stop the clandestine missions in the shadows. + So it is a skirmish game, playing with 10 to 20 minis max. Focusing on futuristic combat using sniper rifles, hacking, Electro Magnetic Pulse grenades to knock out Mechs (called TAGs in the Infinity Universe) and Exoskeleton armor. + But what makes Infinity the best tabletop wargame for me? Which I have been playing for 7 years and counting. A game where a lot of game publishers currently could learn a lot from. First a bit of history to show you where I am coming from with my conclusions. I have been wargaming for 20 years now, starting out with, you guessed it, Warhammer 40k. Drawn in by my friends at the age of 14. Everyone chose a different army, and I ended up with the Ultra Marines. Those were the days. Some boys in a small village, playing multiplayer games on the weekend, spending most of the time debating rules. Always feeling screwed by the Eldar player. No internet to tell you what the best lists or tactics were. No painting guides to speak of. So I was known as the worst painter, just flinging on paint in the hope it sticks. And just trying stuff out, eventually being wrecked by said Eldar player. + Luckily it all progressed from there. And I had a lot of fun with 40k in the early days. With my Orks with the Cities of Death rules, playing as a guerilla army popping up from sewers. With my Imperial Guard during the 4th edition. Turning into an army of parachutists and deep striking within my opponents lines. The first time I played Apocalypse sized mega games with my Blood Angels was an immense experience. And from a hobby perspective I enjoyed doing a lot of conversion work with my 40k and turning my Chaos into a thematic Fallen Angel army. Cause Games Workshop makes sure there are a lot of plastic bits to work with. + But with the introduction of new editions of rules, I started to lose interest. I felt I always had to update my army with new units, to stay relevant. Only to see it all change with the next installment of rules. I had to keep buying rulebooks and codex’s, while I did not find the rules improving. Currently I am totally out of 40k, with my last two armies listed on eBay to sell, mainly because of the 6th and 7th edition rules. + A good example of making smooth rules a hassle, was with how to remove casualties from a squad. While in the earlier days you took away the ones you want. Mostly leaving your heavy weapons and other strong units alive and killing all the flunkies. Which is not bad, it could be explained that if the rocket launcher was dropped, the next guy picks it up and starts firing. Simple, elegant. But Games Workshop wanted something more realistic, so with the new editions you had to take your casualties from the angle the opponent was firing. And sure it turns a bit more tactical with making sure your squad was well positioned. But on the scale of 40k, having multiple squads, it was a lot of extra busy work. Not to mention the special characters and hardy units standing, somehow soaking up all the incoming hits. Where in earlier editions, you just rolled all your hits, wounds and armor saves, I had a game where halve the time my opponent was rolling every incoming hit, individually, cause every “one” on the dice could change who would take the hit. The game starting to feel less like epic war and more like a very arduous way of cleaning up a table. + I got more invested in Warhammer Fantasy. Mainly because I liked the ogres looks as an army, but it had a hard time in the 7th edition of Fantasy. 40K and Fantasy had the tendency that certain armies were far superior to other armies. That you had already lost because you were not playing the top-tier at that moment. Or try showing up with a starter army against an army composed by the internet. You got blown to bits. With 8th edition fantasy the playing field was leveled somewhat. It all felt more strategic then 40k. During those years the pound had dropped and I could acquire a lot of armies for cheap until Games Workshop made sure that retailers did not sell from the UK to the rest of Europe. I did not know I had bet on the wrong horse. Cause Games Workshop scraped Warhammer Fantasy for the current skirmish game: Age of Sigmar. On the one hand it was a good move. For beginners it was a steep curve to get into Fantasy. Buying around 100 to 200 minis just to have one army to start off with and spending months to a year painting an army to actually play a game, is madness. But where 40k was a rules hassle, Age of Sigmar was way too simple to be tactically engaging for a wargamer like me. Plus I found a new love. + I started out as a wargamer in a time that Games Workshop was king. Currently there are a myriad of game companies and kick starters, mostly because a lot of players got jaded with Games Workshop practices. But back then, there was not much else to choose from. I had meddled with Confrontation, but had no one to play against, so I sold it all eventually. + That was until Infinity. Which I decided to become patient zero for in my local area. One of the mayor plusses is that an army can be composed under a 100 euros and under 20 models. The rules are free and easy to access on the internet. Which even supplies a wiki, which makes searching rules way easier. And a free army builder, as a handy tool to compose your army lists. So I bought two factions and learned the game to anyone interested at my local game club. And now I have several people to play against on a weekly bases and I organize bi-monthly tournaments. + So now I have set the backdrop on which I can lay out why Infinity is so damn good. First I will get the negatives out of the way. It has a smaller community then say: Warhammer 40k, Magic, X-Wing or Warmachine (all off them I tried, but did not gel with me). For these systems it is way easier to find opponents to play a game with. But the people that play Infinity, are overall, very dedicated and helpful in getting you into the game. Every year, more people play and more become Warcors (Volunteer game representatives) to organize gamedays and tournaments. Through the infinity website and Facebook you can probably find players near you. + Second is that a game of infinity, while it needs less models, it needs more terrain on the battlefield. The battles take place in dense urban areas, ports filled with containers or thick jungle. So be aware that you need more structures then other games. Luckily there are a myriad on companies that make stunning MDF terrain. The starter sets have cardboard terrain and there are also a lot of cheap ways to build terrain yourself. Tips a plenty on the internet. So be aware that next to your army, you have to make an investment in terrain if none is available to you. You can always use stacks of books on your table to start of with. + Last thing before I start praising Infinity for the sheer greatness that it is. you need to know that Infinity involves a lot of rules and that it can get complex. But where I found it a problem with 40k, I think it is fantastic for Infinity. With 40k it was rules for rules sake. But with Infinity it creates tremendous depth and the system gives a player a lot of options. In a given situation a player can decide to barge through a opponents defenses with his heavy machine gun blazing, or decide to airdrop a hacker that will lock the opponents heavy infantry in place, so it can sneak past with a hidden specialist that can crack the safe and get away with the stolen supplies. So it all can be a bit overwhelming in the beginning, but Corvus Belli has created starter sets with starter rules over the years, that gives you the basics and eases you in tot his wonderful universe. + So what makes Infinity stand out. + One word: + Interactive + Corvus Belli made sure that Infinity is a intense game with your opponent. That you keep engaged, even when it is not your turn. It is not like 40k where you take your turn and do all your moving, shooting and charging. Waiting for your opponent to finish while you dabble on your phone, rolling armor saves when needed. Not with Infinity: When your opponent moves a unit past one of your own units that can see it. They can act, they can shoot, they can dodge away. It becomes a gun fight with ducking and counter attacking. Every firefight is a duel, old wild west style. Rolling d-20’s to see who wins a fight. So it becomes just as important, not only to attack your opponent and grab objectives in your turn, but also to set up gun nests, minefields and sniper positions when your opponents turn comes up. + Objectives, this game is all about objectives. There are currently 20 missions that fit the Cyber Punk theme of Infinity. In one mission you need to rescue hostages, another to hack data servers, raid an ammunition store or steal supplies. Only a few missions are keen on killing your opponent, but the majority of them the mission is more important. This is a game where your army can get blasted to bits, but you can still win if you sticked to the mission. + The combination of cinematic firefights and getting the mission fulfilled turns in to a puzzle with the infinity order system. Each unit gives your army one order. These orders can be spend freely among your army during your turn. These orders represent actions like moving and shooting. So you could spend all your orders moving a single unit around the battlefield. But remember, every order means a reaction (ARO) from your opponent. + So orders are a finite resource in in the game in which you need to choose to give it to your heavy machine gun to kill your opponent or to your hacker to hack the data servers and get away with the intel to fulfill the mission. You’re not just going down the ranks in 40k, making sure that everything shoots and does its stuff. You need to look at your forces on what needs to move out with how many orders. As a player you are challenged to spend your orders well to get done what needs to be done. This makes every activation of a unit, tactically engaging. + You also have to make an army with a good mix of troops. Just spending it on highly elite, expensive troops, leaves you with a small amount of orders to complete the mission. You need some cheap riflemen to fill the ranks and put in specialist troops like hackers to fulfill the mission. So planning a good strategy for the forces needed, is key in Infinity. + Most matches are about an hour to 2 hour games in which you always trying to get the right unit in the right place a the right range to do its actions. You want to keep snipers far away with a good oversight of the battlefield, while a unit wielding a shotgun can be devastating up close. Which is one of the strengths of Infinity: every unit can die and has a weakness to something. 40k has units that can feel immortal. In Infinity In theory a rifle men can take down a big armored TAG with one burst of its weapon. There is always a chance. Which is a wonderful feeling when you can pull of a David-versus-Goliath-esque action. + With other game systems I always get the impression that you can know by turn 2 that you are doomed, but you still have 4 turns to go. Which can be a slog. But with Infinity there is always a chance. Even if all your elite guns die, you still have a mission to fulfill. If your army gets shot up to 75%, your army retreats and the game ends. And if you have done more objectives then your opponent, you win even on the run. So never give up, never surrender. Even when the odds are stacked against you, with good tactical play, you can still get on top. And if you get massacred, the game is over fast, and you can play another one. + And we have not talked about the quality of the Infinity models yet. There are 9 distinct factions. 7 of which are human and two aliens factions. All made with a anime-esque artstyle. And every cliché imaginable is represented. Ninjas, samurai, knights, punk chicks with guns, nuns with guns, men turning into wolves, highlanders, shaolin monks, Has sasins, cyborgs, etc. Each faction has a distinct feel and is filled with historical references and names, dipped in futuristic cyberpunk sauce. With a gamesystem making sure that the look and feel of the model matches on the battlefield. + Game Publishers take note. Corvus Belli as a game company has made some golden moves. For us as gamers it is lovely that the rules, wiki and army builder is free for use (and not a way to sell the same model again and again, just for the rules cards *cough* X-wing *cough*). But for Corvus Belli, the army builder gives them serious insight in how there costumers construct their armies. Corvus Belli can compare mini sales with what players actually play. Corvus Belli has a tournament system (ITS) which they collect all the data from. All that combined they have precise data on which factions, armies and units are used and played. This resulted in them creating models for profiles players use a lot. Or for them to tweak units that are neglected by the player base. They even broken up a faction in two distinct armies, which I have never see a game company do. In a nutshell: There is this faction called Yu Jing. It is China that has gobbled up his neighbors and formed the State Empire. One of its neighbors joining Yu Jing, was Japan. Who did this reluctantly and mostly with an economic motive, because they were going broke with America going bankrupt. But after years of being treated as second rate citizens, Japan decided rise up and break off from Yu Jing. + This was possible because Corvus Belli had the data. Showing that players either played exclusively with the Japanese and when players used Yu Jing, they only used the ninja from the Japanese and not much else. So now the Japanese and Yu Jing are distinct armies with the Yu Jing still able to use ninjas in their lists. Corvus Belli is pretty open and transparent about this information and how they employ it. It gives us players a well balanced game that gets tweaked with the use of this data. That if they sell you a model, that it is always useable and worthwhile. I still use models in my army that I started with all those years ago, cause Corvus Belli makes an effort to keep everything relevant in the current game. But I still go out and buy new models, cause they just make gorgeous models and it is fun to try new things. No need for power creep or to under cost a model in game, just to get it sold. With the current game system, everything is useable in Infinity. + So Infinity is my main game now. If 9th age keeps its rules system unchanged for more then 2 months I will get my Fantasy minis out for a game, but 40k is a lost cause for me. I will concede that Games Workshop is doing a better job now with bringing a lot of interesting skirmish games back into store. But they cannot hold a candle to what is Infinity. Corvus Belli has looked to all the systems and made a game that makes sure that you cannot just take a list from the internet and win. The game is so in-depth that you can take what you like and craft your own way of play. Sure the forums will say that some units are better then others. But it comes down to personal preference. And with 20 different missions, a standard list will not be suffice for every situation. Infinity is no Warmahordes (which I tried as well) where your caster mainly decides how the rest of your army looks on the battlefield. And it can be said that Infinity has a higher difficulty for given the player so much choice and a few limits. But I rather put a bit of effort in and have the freedom to take what I like and still be competitive in a given game. + I started recently with A Song of Ice and Fire: The Miniatures game. A good a well structured replacement for Warhammer Fantasy. With not a lot, but effective rules. Giving you a lot of tactical and strategical choices. I hope it goes the way of Corvus Belli, during its growth, when it comes to design philosophy. So I have a fun engaging second game to tickle my fantasy itch where all the units I paint stay viable and not be inclined to buy new stuff, just because it is better in game. + So If you are looking for an engaging skirmish game. With a Complex but well-designed rule set. Which is balanced and has high quality models. Then look no further then Infinity. + http://www.infinitythegame.com
