So what makes Infinity stand out from every other miniatures game out there?
Sure, there's the unique, hard sic-fi, anime styling. There's the amazing quality of the sculpts, brought to life by the insanely perfect paint jobs of Angel Giraldez. There's the attraction of only needing 9-15 models, total, along with the savings in money and paint time that includes. Or the fact that a full tournament-level game can be completed in about 60-90 minutes, instead of taking all day or all weekend.
But for me, the most unique and intriguing aspect is the fact that it is always your turn. That's their catch phrase, and it's true. The concept of the Automatic Reaction Order, or ARO, allows every model to react to everything they see.
In most games, there is a Your Turn, My Turn system in place. That's true for Warhammer, Warmachine, Monopoly, Quoits... you name it. In Infinity: The Game, you instead have your Active Turn and your Reactive Turn.
When it's your Active turn, it's your opponent's Reactive turn and vice versa. During your Active Turn, you spend Orders out of your Order Pool to do Stuff - Moving, shooting, hacking, and so on.
While your Opponent is moving, shooting, and hacking during his Active Turn, it is your REactive Turn. Every time your opponent dos anything within Line of Sight of any of your models, they may react to that action.
Your opponent shoots at you? You can shoot back. He runs from behind one building to another, crossing an alleyway that you are covering? You can shoot at him as he runs across.
In most games, that model running from building to building is completely safe - He did it on his turn, and there's not a durn thing you can do about it, 'cuz it's not your turn. And that's just silly.
If you set a soldier up to cover an alley, and someone runs across that alley - the covering soldier is going to shoot at him!
Infinity allows for exactly that realistic tactical situation to play out.
As you extrapolate that concept to actual game play, you will find that it forces you into much more realistic tactical decisions. You can't just run willy-nilly from cover to cover, thinking that as long as you're out of sight before my turn rolls around, you're safe. Think about your favorite combat movie. Whenever the heroes scrambles from the dumpster to that pillar, the enemy is firing at him along the way. The ARO makes that happen in the game.
It's not just limited to one ARO per model per turn - every time an enemy carries out an order - does something - in front of Private Bob, Bob will get to react, each and every time. So you can't just jog across that open square without consequence - all those enemy snipers in position will get their chance to light you up. Which is how it should be.
So what happens when you shoot at me in your Active Turn, and I shoot back in my Reactive Turn? Well that is going to lead to one of the core mechanics of Infinity, the Face-To-Face Roll.
I look forward to covering that next time!
Several folks have approached me, confused about how to build their army list for Infinity. Hopefully I can help out, so you know what models to start painting!
Like most games, Infinity assigns models a points value to help create fair and balanced lists. The points you spend on your models cannot exceed the agreed-upon points total for the match. The tournament and campaign standard for Infinity is 300 points. 150 points is a good starting value to get into the game with for your first few games. Fewer points really limits your options, and at higher totals the options can become overwhelming. So: Start at 150, and plan toward an eventual 300.
When selecting models, keep track of their "AVA" or availability stat. This indicates the total number of models with that troop profile you are allowed to have in your army list. Characters are always AVA 1, obviously, specialized troops may be AVA 2 or 3, and more common troops may have AVA 4, 5, or "Total." Total Availability means you can have as many of that model as you would like in your army.
Infinity models also come with an "SWC" points cost. This stands for Support Weapon Cost, and is used to balance the amount of special or heavy weaponry your list may include. Basic troops armed with a standard Combi-Rifle and no special abilities will have an SWC of 0. Heavy weapons like an Heavy Machine Gun will incur an SWC of 1, 1.5, or 2, depending on who is carrying it. Your army can include 1 SWC for every 50 points of the army's total. So in a 300-point game, even if you actually only spend 298 of your 300 points, you may include up to 6 SWC worth of troops.
Every troop type within the faction has a profile with multiple weapon and skill options, with the points cost and SWC listed with each different load out. Like this:
So - choose each model you wish, subtracting its points and SWC from your total available, until you have filled out the army list - keeping in mind Availability, of course.
Every list must include one Lieutenant. In the Fusiliers entry, above, you see that the Lieutenant option there is the same points cost and SWC as the normal version. This is often the case. If the troop is not likely to be in a leadership role, he may cost extra SWC to discourage you from that option.
Unlike most games, the Lieutenant is not necessarily the strongest, toughest, and most badass character on the table. Think about the movie Aliens - Lt. Gorman sat on the bus and directed traffic (poorly) from his computer bank, but Vasquez probably cost the most "points" out of anybody on the team of Colonial Marines.
Just make sure to select one Lieutenant option, and only one. By the way - if your Lieutenant buys the farm, your army is in deep doo doo. So maybe waiting on the bus and directing traffic from a computer bank is exactly what you want...
There are a couple of other things to consider when creating the list. First, if you want to take any Remotes (REM) - little semi-intelligent robots - you first need to include either a Hacker or a TAG model. The second, and most important, is the concept of Combat Groups and your Order Pool.
Each model you include usually adds one order to your Order Pool. The Order Pool lets your models do "stuff" during your turn. Each model may use one Order, or one model can use all your Orders by itself - whatever suits your strategy and game-plan that turn. The key thing to note during list building is that if you don't have enough Orders, you won't be able to do much of anything.
Sure, it may be tempting to grab that cool TAG model, and these other 4 really cool-looking models that are really expensive, points-wise; but then you are order-starved at 5 Orders, and your opponent will out-maneuver you every time.
A Combat Group is a group of up to 10 models. If your army has more than 10 models, it must be split into multiple Combat Groups. Each Combat Group may only use the Orders from its own group. What this means is that the number of Orders you want to shoot for is 10. Nine is good, 8 is alright... but 7 or less and you'll find yourself running out of Orders before you get to do everything you wanted to do in a turn.
So, why would I take a lowly Fusilier instead of loading up on awesome Aquila Guard? Because I need those basic line troops in there to provide me some cheap Orders for my Order Pool (I can get 6 Fusiliers - 6 Orders - for the price of one Aquila). We call these guys "Cheerleaders," because they may not be there to take an active and vital part in the action, but they are necessary to build up Orders, so that your super-fancy models can get done what needs doin'!
So - Availability, Points Cost, SWC, Lieutenant, Order Pool. All set?
The cool thing is that all of Infinity's army and weapon lists are available as Free Downloads. They are broken down book-by-book, rather than by complete Factions, so you'll need each to see all of your option. Also, the Infinity Army Builder is a Flash-based interactive army building tool that is alos free on their web site.
Links!
Core Rule Book Army/Weapon lists
Human Sphere (book 2) Army/Weapon lists
Campaign: Paradiso (book 3) Army/Weapon lists
Infinity Army Builder
"Man, those are some of the coolest models I've ever seen, but I just don't get the game..."
They're talking about Infinity the Game, by Corvus Belli.
They are a Spanish company, Corvus Belli ("War Raven"), and therefore not as mainstream in the US perhaps as Games Workshop or Privateer Press, whose native language is English.
I heard tell that the the Infinity rule book was translated from Spanish to German, by a German, who then translated it further to English. If you have tried to read the Infinity rule book, this story is not difficult to believe. At times, the idiomatic inaccuracies are more cringe-worthy than CSI: Wherever dialogue.
So the question I get asked a lot - or, rather, the statement I hear most is: "Infinity - I don't get it."
In general, people just don't know where to start. They start to read the rule book, and get discouraged by the linguistic flaws. Of course, why doesn't everybody just do everything perfectly in English?!? We seem to have little compassion for the "errors," when in reality... their English is a HELL of a lot better than our Spanish. We're the dummies that can only grasp a single language.
So, in this first "episode" on a series of how to grasp Infinity, I would like to help everyone get started.
It's true - even the current, "2nd Edition Revised" Infinity core rule book can make your head spin. So if you're reading it for the first time, let me tell you this: I was just like you. After playing consistently for over a year now, and reading through it anew with all that experience, it is not as bad as you think. Like anything else, hands-on experience will drastically increase your understanding. So - how do you get started without losing your mind (and interest) from just skimming the rule book?
Begin with the Quick Start rules. They have a schnazzy printed version, available at conventions and events, maybe even at your local game store. But it is also available for Free, online. Check it out here: Quick Start Rules
That booklet takes you through all the basic rules, simply and with examples. It even has everything you need to play some games - model stats, weapon stats, templates, tokens, a small appetiser of the myriad special abilities that are available... And features awesome artwork and style to boot. An impressive 30 pages that is sure to get you intrigued.
If you've used the quick start rules, and have indeed become intrigued... the next step is to figure out how to construct an army list, so that you know what models to buy. I've had a double-handful of questions about that, so I will completely cover that in the next installment.
For now, let me leave you with the core concept of Infinity that separates it from any other game you've played: The ARO.
In most games, you take your turn and then your opponent takes his. During your opponent's turn, you may get to make armor saves, or even fight back in Close Combat. But in Infinity, you get to react to every action your opponent takes.
Instead of "My turn, your turn," Infinity has the Active Turn and the Reactive Turn. When it's your Active Turn, you get to do Stuff. When it's your Reactive Turn (the other player's Active Turn), you get to react to everything he does that you can see.
Remember Overwatch from 40K 2nd Edition, or Necromunda? It's kind of like that, but everybody is on it all the time.
If you do something where I can see you do it, I can react to it. Maybe I dodge. Maybe I fire back at you. But if you act in my line of fire, I don't just have to sit there and take it - I get to play, too. As they say, "It's always your turn."
ARO stands for Automatic Reaction Order, and allows any miniature to react to an enemy's actions within their line of sight. And it is the thing that makes Infinity the most tactically realistic games I have ever played.
Sure, you can run from behind one building to behind another - but when you cross that alley, I am going to take a shot at you. After all, that's why I have been posted up in this tower for 3 days without moving. I don't have to NOT shoot, just because it's not my Turn.
So have a skim through the Quick Start rules and have a go. You don't have to digest 3 books' worth of stuff in one sitting to play the game, and if you try, your head will asplode.
I know we have ben trained that we must spend $50-$100 on a rule book, codex, or supplement in order to play a game... Save that for now; use the Quick Start rules and spend that caish on sweet models. All the rules you need are free online. Free, I say! If you like art, graphic design, and fiction - THEN splurge on the core rule book. But everything you need is available free of charge online, so for god's sake buy some models instead.
