That's right, INFINITY!
So I thought I could as well spend some time writing up a more in-depth analysis of Infinity for those of you interested.
So, here goes. Let's begin with the main fluff!
It's 175 years from now. Humanity has taken to the stars, and through wormholes have begin populating planets. Through the first wormhole went the ship Ariadna, to the planet Dawn, and that happened not too far in the future. It was a ship meant to settle Dawn, to be followed by others. It's crew consisted of, well, Scots (Highlanders), some Americans, and Russians (Kazaks). And they landed, made their best, and waited... and waited... For a ship that never came.
Meanwhile, back on earth, they had sent their second ship. But due to this field never having been researched before, they accidentally made the wormhole collapse, and the other settling ship disappeared. And if I'm not mistaken, this resulted in some very heave political and economical shifts on earth. The Asian alliance known as Yu-Jing, and the Oceanian new superpower of PanOceania rose up with the fall of Europe and USA. Even all of the Arabic/Islamic countries united under a single banner and became a greater power on earth, the Haqqislam (meaning New Islam, a new philosophical view that managed to unite the arabic nations of our time).
Meanwhile, the population of Dawn, calling themselves Ariadnan was busy surviving.
Then, back on earth, they advanced in the science of wormholes, and used it to populate the 11 more planets, for a total of 13, in what they call the Human Sphere. Indeed, the human technology advanced far. And with such a large area to keep check of, monitoring trading and such, how was it going to work out?
Well, no human was going to do that work. A supercomputer was going to do it. The ALEPH was going to.
The first true AI created by man, tasked with keeping check of the whole human sphere.
Meanwhile, the Ariadnans were busy surviving. Though I believe it was around now that they were re-united with the rest of humanity. Though by everone elses standard, these are no more than crude savages. Not even any hacking tech, no Thermo-Optical camouflage, pft... Anyways, they were back in the Human Sphere, with other humans and space travelling once more.
However, meanwhile the whole ALEPH-deal had some citizens upset. A supercomputer supervising them all and controlling their society? No please! These free people decided to leave the ALEPH-controlled planets, to travel the stars as free people in three spaceshipfleets, namely Tunguska, Bakunin and Corregidor. These are the nomads.
And then, some previously unknown alien federation attacked the borders of the Human Sphere. They are the Combined Army.
And that brings us to where Infinitys storyline currently is. And the factions are, as you might guess:
PanOceania, Yu-Jing, Haqqislam, Ariadna, Nomads, ALEPH and Combined Army.
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Now, let's have a little short introduction of the different factions!
PanOceania:
Usually referred to as PanO, and it's the big #1, the world's greatest superpower.
In the game, PanOceania has a higher than average BS skill (which, in a shooting-based game is a pretty important thing), but having a lower than average WIP (rendering them more prone to fleeing, and worse at hacking / discovering etc).
They also have quite good tier of tech, and the best of T.A.G.s, that is, big and heavily armoured big mechasuits (think Warjacks or Dreadnoughts... Or just, let's say, a japanese mecha, lol).
Yu-Jing:
Ah, the second greatest superpower, always seeking to take the grand seat from PanO. The Asian Alliance.
In the game, these guys have superior CC-skill (PanO's contender having the opposite skill as primary skill? Coincidence? I think not.), together with a big number of good Heavy Infantry. Also, they come with samurais and ninjas and shaolin monks and other cool asiatic things.
Haqqislam:
Not as big as the previous two, but still a force to be reckoned with nonetheless.
The New Islam has the higher Willpower, meaning that they are better doctors and engineers, as well as better to discover camouflaged units and less prone to shitting their pants. They also come cheap and with Hassassins (Did you know that the english word assassin came from an arabic word?), impersonators that'll easily do what assassins do best: Assassinations. Pretty sweet, eh?
Ariadna:
Next up, these guys! The settling ship who lost contact with the human sphere, and having problems surviving and getting along on their new homeworld, they tech did not advance. Alas, they are the low-tech faction of Infinity.
However, surviving has granted them better Physique than the other factions, and their bad tech renders them unaffected by Eletromagnetic grenades and Hackers, plus having cheap troops and a good deal of guys with camouflage! And not only that, but Scots and Kazaks are there too! Kilts!
And they've also got a huge variety of weapons, I have noted.
Nomads:
Ah, the guys I chose. These guys left when ALEPH took over in three ships/fleets. Tungiska, where the best hackers and infowar specialists thrive. Bakunin, where you trade in anything and everything legal and illegal, conducting experiments with and without moral standards. And finally, Corregidor, the former prison ship, where everyone is a hard worker! These three are the nomads, travelling around in space and doing their shit, not abiding by the will of ALEPH.
Their stats don't seem to go up anywhere special, but instead they are th infoward specialists of the game. Hackers and repeaters (mobile hacking zones) and remotes is their main thing.
ALEPH:
Ohyeah, the sentient computer has it's own army. Consisting mainly out of zonds and remotes, more than any other faction. I don't have much else to say than that. Sentient computer. Robots (really good looking too). SEXY SENTIENT ROBOTS.
Combined Army:
This is, to me, the most vague faction. It seems to be an elite army, with higher costs than usual (but with high costs comes good statlines), and they've got some unique armoury, being alien and all that. Unique weaponry with unique effects, and it being affected in other ways of the human weaponry and such.
However, it is important to note that unlike other wargames, your faction DOES NOT define your gaming style. You can go almost any gaming style with almost any army.
And also, this game is balanced. Very well balanced. You do not have to worry about bad units or bad army, because you're not going to find those.
That said, you may very well decide upon army based only on looks and background in this game. Keep that in mind.
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Lastly, I'll speak briefly of the game system.
If I were to describe it in one sentence... I'd say "Involving cinematic skirmish-sized wargame."
Let me explain it from scratch.
Like I said, it's skirmish-sized. Which means between 8 - 15 models, ranging in point values from 150 (small) to 300 (large), and unit costs range from 8 (standard crappy soldier) to 120 or something (a good T.A.G.).
It's based on a D20-system. Basically, roll less than your skill score, +/- modifiers, to succeed. Need to shoot something? Roll under your BS. Target far away? Apply a minus modifier to your BS, then roll under that. Target has Camo? More minus modifiers.
However... Every action has a reaction, and so, if the target sees you shooting him (which he in most cases certainly will), or perhaps even just see you wálking by, or placing a mine, or jumping between roofs... In short, if he sees you doing any action, he get's a short skill reaction (I'll get to skills later). And is allowed to react. In most cases it'll be shooting, by he can dodge, or go prone, or anything like that. That's why I called it involving.
Involving, because both players are active. The one doing the actions, and the one doing the reactions.
There's one thing called Face to Face rolls though, and that's when two models are acting against each other. Like Action - Shoot, Reaction - Shoot. Or Action - Shoot, Reaction - Dodge. What happens is that both try to roll below their relevant skill (with due modifiers), and the one succeeding by the smallest margin cancels all successes of his opponent. Simple enough, eh?
Now, to explain actions, reactions, long skills, short skills and orders.
Long list, but I'll try to be brief.
Actions: This is what the active player, the player whose turn it is. He who leads initiative.
Reactions: What the reactive player does, i.e. the player who reacts... to the active players... actions... yeah. I think you get it.
Long skills: Actions taking one complete order to consume. Cautious Movement is among these, but there are more.
Short skills: The most common of skills. Move is among these, shoot, CC, hack, dodge, climb and jump, among else.
Orders: Now this is the big one.
For every miniature in your army you recieve one order. These can be used to activate ANY miniature once. So you can go completely rambo with only one miniature if you want to... Though it might not be the best tactically (although it's a good T.A.G. tactic).
One activation consists of either two Short skills (one movement, and one of any kind) or a long skill. Movement skills are for example move, climb, discover, prone, jump, etc. And doing two move skills consecutive is allowed, though two non-move skills consecutive is not valid. So a Move-move (that's why the movement skill is split in two) is allowed, but a Shoot-shoot is not.
And that's why'd I call it cinematic. So many skills. You can go prone and crawl behind a hedge past three heavily armoured men (who'd shoot you if they saw you) to get up behind the enemies leader (who won't see you, therefore can't react), and shoot him. However, his armour might save him, and he reacts to the shooting by turning around. You decide to load another burst at him, but he too levies his weapons and fires back at you... Placing a bullet between your eyes.
I just find the image in my mind of it all so... beautiful, I think is the word for it.
And that sums it up for a beautiful game. Good fluff (though it takes a while to get used to it after all the OTT in Warhammer), good rules (involving, realistic), very balanced (Corvus Belli seems to know how to make a good game fair) and superb looking models, something I did not have the time to adress in this article.
So, a really great game overall!
Until next time, roll safely!
The CF.
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