Diving Into Infinity

Greetings!  So I have to say it has been quite an eventful summer.  The fall is closing in on us in Michigan and I find myself as busy as ever.  You see when the weather starts to get colder and the snow starts falling, we Michiganders start to do a lot more stuff indoors.  I think this is why war gaming and gaming in general is real big in the midwest area.  I predominately play Firestorm Armada and Planetfall, but I have been starting to play some other games.  As most of you know I dabble in Malifaux and War Machine.  We have a healthy WarmaHordes community in Michigan and at the Game store I work at.  Malifaux sadly not so much.  I am trying to change that.  I have started a bunch of Fall Escalation Leagues for several games.  The aforementioned games all have a League going and thankfully we have a people participating in all of them.  Some have more players than others.  The game that has the most Participants by a wide margin is a new game to the area.  I was introduced at Adepticon this past year and then Immersed at Gencon.

I speak of course of Infinity by Corvus Belli. I introduced the game and products to people about a month ago and we are looking at 18 participants in the Fall ITS League.  People who traditionally play 40K, Warmachine and even Magic The Gathering are all playing.  Even at the expense of their "Primary" game. 

If you have not looked at Infinity before you are missing out in my humble opinion.  The game is a 28mm skirmish level game that is heavy sci fi.  It also has an anime aesthetic to its art and models. It is played with very dense terrain, usually an urban setting, on a 4x4 table.  This is a true skirmish level game as game play is very fast and your army is composed of maybe 12-15 models.  Unlike many war games out there it is not based around the ubiquitous D6.  Infinity uses the D20.  The stats of your soldiers are on a scale of 1-20.  The higher the number the better as you have to roll under your stat to complete actions.  

The game is in the "I go you go" format, but you and your opponent are designated as the "Active Player" or "Reactive Player".  If it is your turn you are the Active Player, your opponent becomes the reactive player.  They are able to react to your actions.  Basically it means that both players are playing constantly.  You can't just rush forward and Alpha strike your opponents army.  If you move and one of your opponents models has Line Of Fire to your active model, he can choose to do an Automatic Reactive Order or "ARO".  He can choose to dodge a potential attack, go prone or even shoot you. 

The game uses a system of Orders to activate your models.  Each model generates one order.  They all go into a pool and you can spend your order pool on one model if you choose to do so.  Each order allows you to perform two short skills or a full order skill.  Shorts skills are moving shooting and the like.  More complex tasks require use of full orders. You spend your pool of orders and then your opponent gets to spend their pool.  Each model acts and is independent of the others.

Game play is really fast and you can do full 300 point games in less than 90 minutes.  The only real obstacle I have run into here at the store in regards to Infinity is terrain.  The game uses a lot fo it and it can be a real investment in terms of dollars and hobby time getting a full table of nice pre made terrain.  Of course craft savvy gamers can make terrain on the cheap very easily and there is a great terrain company that sells a full table of laser cut wood terrain for only $175 bucks.  This is the route I am going once I get the OK form the owner to purchase a couple tables worth of terrain.  Check out Shark Mounted Lasers.  The terrain is nice and it is very affordable.

I think the best thing about Infinity is that you can download the rules for free.  Much like Spartan Games, Corvus Belli has put the full rulebook up for free download in addition to the unit profiles and weapons.  They also have the ITS which is their official play format.  When you register you are issued an ITS pin.  Magic players are familiar with the DCI number and this is pretty much the same thing.  Players with ITS pins are ranked.  Rankings are by country and overall in the world.  If you like compeitive play this is the game for you.  The rule set is very tight and the FAQ is updated frequently.  Questions and rules inquiries are handle on the forums fast.  Things are very spelled out.  The Rules are a little more involved that games I have been playing as of late.  It seems to have more complexity that Warmahordes and the interactions can be a little more complex.  Once you start playing though, things become very intuitive.  

my two cents on a fantastic game.  I will be talking Halo Fleet Battles next time and then continuing looking at the Relthoza in Planetfall.  We talked Planetfall in the latest episode of Firebase Delta which just went up a couple days ago.  Check it out as we discuss the new Aerial Helix's and our opinions on the game so far.

I also wanted to remind everybody we still have spots left in the Firestorm Armada tournaments at the Michigan GT.  Sign up before its to late!  

Until next time crush the Alliance and as always...

REMEMBER DRAMOS!!!!!!