Editing Infinity (wargame) (section)

=Gameplay=

There are really three main sticking points about Infinity that might throw new players, the first of which are actions. In most games, play is divided into phases where units do an action in each phase which are restricted depending on whose turn and what phase it is. This doesn't happen in Infinity - you instead have orders which most of your troopers generate and you can then distribute to whomever you want as the turn progresses. You spend an order to activate the chosen trooper and then can do either two short movement skills, one short movement skill and one short skill, or one entire order skill with them. So you can effectively activate one model 10 times in one turn and rampage around the entire table! Sounds completely broken, but it isn’t as bad as you think because for every action there is a reaction. Whenever an action is declared, any model within Line of Sight (LoS) of the activated model may declare a response to or against him. For example: if you activate a model with a “move/shoot” command, the instant your model peeks around the corner to draw LoS to my model, then I may declare an Automatic Reaction Order (ARO). ARO is a short order response to enemy model(s). If someone walks around the corner with guns blazing, are you going to stand there and watch? I wouldn’t either. So when an opposing model shows up, you may fire back, dodge their fire, go prone, etc. Rambo is good, but he may not be good enough to withstand 10 shots fired back from my ambushing squad's ARO action! There are more complex counters to this in order to get around line of fire and ARO, but that's the basic premise and one that makes prospective players think twice about their actions. See below for a more complex breakdown of the action/reaction system.

Second is the profusion of states, tokens and markers. From the most basic prone and unconscious to immobilized, sepsitorized, and unloaded, these states flavor a given game such that a basic plan is often insufficient. When your opponent can possess your TAGs, immobilize your heavy infantry, isolate your lieutenant or sepsitorize your Rambo and use him against you, well, really drives home the emphasis on getting to understand how these things work and how they effect your guys. There are some models that can deploy in such a way as to misdirect you, either with holograms or by being concealed in Thermal-Optic Camouflage OR they can impersonate your own guys. What it all boils down to is ensuring that your guys can spot these things, which often requires a WIP roll before you can do anything.

To that end, the final point revolves around specialists: Infinity is, first and foremost, a game about objectives. Most of the time this means having one of your guys run up and grab some documents or a McGuffin or to kill or render unconscious a particular model or sabotage some terrain piece. ''This requires some careful consideration on your part!'' It isn't enough to have killed the most guys (although that helps) because if your opponent has accomplished their objective and you haven't - they still win! In order to achieve any victory in this game, you will need to construct lists and plans for them that can achieve an objective or prevent your opponent from achieving theirs - and then have a backup plan for that! Remember, kill points are only for tiebreakers!

==Gameplay Basics==

The standard stats for Infinity are:
*'''Movement Value (MOV):''' Used for moving. Always given in two numbers separated by a dash (i.e. 4-4). This is the number of inches you can move for your first move action and your second, respectively. Average is about 4-4 for humans, 6-2 or 6-4 for robots and TAGs, and 8-2 or 8-4 for motorcycles.
*'''Close Combat (CC):''' Used for making close combat attacks. This number is often much higher than ballistic skill due to how close combat works in Infinity. Average is mid to high teens.
*'''Ballistic Skill (BS):''' Used for shooting. Average is about 12 to 12.5
*'''Physique (PH):''' A combination of how much melee damage you deal (modified by weapon), how well you dodge, and a catch-all stat for some skill use like regeneration, combat jump, and the like. Average is about 11 to 13. Notably, TAGs tend to have high PH but special rules that count it as lower for things like dodge.
*'''Willpower (WIP):''' Used for morale checks, activating an objective, engineering, and doctoring. Average is about 12.5 to 13.
*'''Armor (ARM):''' Reduces the amount of damage you take. Average varies by unit type but tends to fall into ranges. Light infantry tends to have 0 to 2, medium tends to have 2 to 3, and heavy tends to have 4 to 6. TAGs generally have 6+.
*'''Bio-Technological Shield (BTS):''' The same as armor but for use against hacking and any attacks that specify they hit BTS, such as viral weapons. Always comes in a multiple of 3 from 0 to 9.
*'''Wounds/Structure Points (W/STR):''' The amount of damage a unit can take before falling unconscious or being destroyed. Doctors and medikits heal wounds, engineers and gizmokits restore structure. Most infantry will have a single wound, though a lot of heavy infantry will have two. TAGs generally have three structure points.
*'''Silhouette (S):''' The amount of space your model takes up, regardless of pose. Extremely useful. Most infantry is S2 with some Heavy Infantry being S5 and most TAGs being S6 or 7. The other numbers are occupied by bikes, remotes, and other special cases.
*'''Availability (AVA):''' The specific number of that type of unit you can field in a single list. This is always worth checking when looking at sectorials compared to the vanilla faction, as this number usually changes.
*'''Support Weapons Cost (SWC):''' Listed with the unit's cost, this is an additional cost that you must pay for the profile you are choosing. Better/more unique options tend to have higher SWC. You get 1 SWC per 50 points of the game you are playing (so a 150 point game gives you 3 SWC while a 300 point game gives you 6).
*'''Cost (C):''' The profile's cost in points. See above for standard point levels.

When a unit activates, you are able to either give your model two “short” orders (either two short movement skills, or one short movement skill + one short skill) or one “entire” order. Short movement skills generally encompass standard movement and short skills can be things like “shoot, dodge, hack, etc”. Entire orders are actions like: suppression fire, cautious movement, speculative (indirect) fire, climb, jump, etc.

'''Rolling'''
<br>
Rolling is divided into two categories, Normal and Face-to-Face. Normal rolls are simply rolling the d20 and trying to get your target number or less after modifiers. Note that hitting your modified target number is a critical hit and may have extra game effects! Face-to-Face rolls are rolls where you and your opponent are acting at the same time in opposition to each other. For example, if I attempt to shoot an opponent and his ARO is to shoot back we would have to do a Face-To-Face roll. In this case, we both roll as for a normal roll. However, every die that a player rolls that is within their target number range cancels all of their opponent's lower results. In other words, to win you need to hit your target range AND roll higher than your opponent.

'''Movement'''
<br>
Movement stat is broken down into two sets of numbers such as: 4-4, 4-2, 8-6, etc. First number means the distance in inches a model may move on its first move, and the second number is how far the model may move on its second “short” move. So a heavy infantry with a MOV stat of 4-2 is give an order of “move/move” may effectively move 4” then move again for another 2”, or “move/shoot” by moving 4” and firing their weapon at a target. Motorcycles are fast and can move 14” (8-6) a turn with a basic “move/move” order.

'''Shooting'''
<br>
Shooting an enemy can either be a normal roll or a face-to-face roll, depending on if/how they react. Simply tally up your range and cover modifiers and attempt the rolls as described above. Note that for shooting, individual shots do cancel each other out. So even if you beat your opponent on one of your three dice, if they beat your other two dice, you only hit them once. Once hit, your opponent must make an ARM or BTS save. This save is a normal roll against your weapon's damage minus the target's armor or bts adding three to the roll if they are in cover. They pass if they roll OVER the modified damage. This is the only instance in the game where equal to or under is changed to a different system, remember! Finally, a hit opponent (regardless of whether they failed the save or not) has to take a Guts save, since getting shot is scary. This is a normal WIP roll. On a success, they stand firm. On a failure, they dive into cover or run away! You can always choose to fail a Guts roll (unless a special rule says otherwise).

'''Close Combat'''
<br>
Close combat is difficult to successfully perform in Infinity due to AROs and the general shootiness of most armies, however it can do a lot of damage in the right hands and is very high-risk, high-reward. Close Combat is performed exactly like a shooting attack, though uses its own skill modifiers, such as Martial Arts. You may notice that many dedicated close combat units have CC skills of over 20. What this means is that they will always hit and will crit on the difference between 20 and their CC if the sum of the difference and the die roll exceeds 20. Bear with me here, it is a bit confusing but an example should help. A unit with CC23 will always hit and will crit on 17 or higher, since 17 + 3 is 20, 18 + 3 is 21, etc. You always add this bonus, even if it wouldn't lead to a crit. For example, a CC23 unit who rolled a 5 for its attack would modify it up to an 8. This is where Face-to-Face rolls cancelling each other is very important, as even a low CC character can beat a high CC character if they manage to beat their modified roll. (Note that this phenomena can happen to any roll in which the target number exceeds 20, but most often occurs in close combat due to naturally high CC stats.)

'''Automatic Reaction Orders (AROs)'''
The real bread and butter of Infinity that makes it truly unique. The ARO system allows you to declare certain skills in reaction to your opponent doing things on their turn. You can dodge their fire, shoot at them as they cross an alley, or any number of things! The structure of an order and ARO follows.
*Choose a model to act and expend an order.
*Declare the first short skill of the order or the entire order skill. If any form of movement is declared, move your model to its final location, showing your opponent the path it took to get there.
*Opponent must declare ARO with any model that can see your model at any point during the resolution of the previous skill. They may choose not to declare an ARO but any model who can declare an ARO and does not loses it for the remainder of the order.
*Declare second skill.
*Opponent declares any new AROs, such as if you move a model into the line of sight of a model who couldn't see it previously.
*Resolve all rolls simultaneously, making sure to do determine which are Normal and which are Face-to-Face. Note that since all rolls happen simultaneously, even a trooper killed in an opening salvo may have a chance to do something!

That is a slightly shortened version of the book's description, but should help you understand AROs!

== Gallery ==
<center><gallery>
Image:Icestorm.jpg|A show of the Two-player box, Operation Icestorm. Also, a perfectly normal small game.
Image:InfinityIguana.jpg|A Nomad Iguana TAG, made of win.
Image:Infinity-Tiger-Soldier.jpg|Yu-Jing Tiger Soldier.
Image:SaberJoan 4 view.jpg|And yet some delusional Britons still claim to be making "the best models in the industry".
</gallery></center>

==See Also==
* [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Category:Infinity_Tactics Infinity N3 Tactics page]. (Outdated)
* [https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Category:Infinity_N4_Tactics Infinity N4 Tactics page]. (Currently being updated)
* [https://store.corvusbelli.com/partners], The various partners for Infinity products such as terrain and bases.
* [https://infinitythewiki.com Infinity The Wiki], the official rules wiki and your Infinity Bible.

'''Fan Supplements:'''
* [https://rocketshipgames.com/infinity/recon+/ Recon+], an unofficial rules supplement for 150 point games to smooth out potential balance problems with traditional ITS rules. Note that this was made for N3 and may require modification for N4.
* [https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/alternate-play-system-tacos-mk-ii.578/ TACOS Mk ii], an unofficial set of round-by-round objectives for less-serious play. Note that this was made for N3 and may require modification for N4.
 
[[Category:Infinity]]
[[Category:Wargames]]
[[Category:Skirmish-Level Wargames]]
[[Category:Free rules]]