Infinity (wargame)

Infinity is a game with 28mm high metal miniatures that simulates combat and special operations in a science fiction environment with Manga aesthetics.

Fluff

Factions

The Great Powers in conflict are:

• PanOceania, the Hyperpower: Leadership & Technology.
• Yu Jing, the Asian Power; Modernity & Tradition.
• Haqqislam, the New Islam: Wisdom & Bravery.
• Ariadna, the Lost Colony: Resistance & Tenacity.
• Nomads, the Nonconformists: Rebellion & Resourcefulness.
• The Combined Army, the Alien Threat: Power from Deep Space.
• Mercenaries, the Profession of War.
• ALEPH, who Watches over All.

On Infinity Factions by anon

PanOceania is the result of an Australian/New Zealander/Filipino/Indonesian economic alliance buying out the US, EU and India's debts which they acquired when the first space colonisation programme failed and the markets went through another huge krash. They're the most high-tech human faction overall and have a lot of remote-control robots and mechs. They're easily the shootiest faction. The setting itself is in the midst of a both a second Cold War between PanOceania and Yu Jing (who are the two hyperpowers), and a more traditional war against the Combined Army. They are ultra-capitalists who've killed off most left-wing ideologies by worshipping the free market as the ultimate arbiter and the 'fairest' redistributor of wealth, with their democratic system now run directly by corporate/special interest Lobbies instead of traditional political parties. Oh, and they're also fanatical Christians who've allowed the Catholic Church (which re-unified all the Christian denominations and is a major Lobby itself) to have power-armoured knights as its own private military.

Yu Jing is the result of China, now no longer Communist even in name, buying South Korea's and Japan's post-krash debts. China basically bought the country as a means of vindicating its colonial ambitions and treats the Japanese as second-class citizens. Other Asian countries soon joined the newly-formed "Greater China" and Yu Jing quickly became a hyperpower to match PanOceania. They have slightly less emphasis on remote-control drones and thermoptic camo but are as technologically advanced, just in a different way - they favour elite power-armoured infantry instead (though they also have a piloted mech or two), and have a bit more of an emphasis on close-quarters shooting. They were the first to restart their space programme and as such what little they lack in raw economic technologies versus PanO, they more than make up by having a shitload of land and people.

HaqqIslam are followers of a new branch of Islam that preaches tolerance and scientific enlightenment, based on the Islam of the Golden Age. They're absolute masters of biotechnology and have a monopoly on a substance called Silk which allows for mind uploads/reincarnation, among other purposes. As such, they're financially secure and no one faction can really afford to take them out since they're officially neutral and sell the Silk to everyone who can buy. They have more of a reliance on light infantry than the first two factions, but this is compensated for by their more expensive troops having funky ability thanks to bio-engineering and a lot of their infantry are religious fanatics which means their army stays on the table longer. They are also a shooty faction, but this is the norm rather than special.

The Nomads are the inhabitants of three huge spaceships that declared their independence from Earth in the early years of the relaunched space programme. They bunched together because it was that or be easy pickings for ALEPH and its PanO/YJ puppets (so they say). They're a collection of misfits, criminals and people with weird fetishes, and generally the last refuge of all the kooky stuff you could think of - basically, the Internet as a nation. They do bio-modification for fun, have all the best drugs and throw the best parties, and you can even buy sections of Bakunin where you can have the laws be anything you fancy (as long as they don't jeopardise the ship itself), so if you're really interested about making your army fit into the fluff you can do all sorts of fun stuff (I imagine there are communists and Nazis and every other extinct(?) ideology you can think of with a semi-autonomous module on Bakunin). In terms of the actual game, they focus on being a pain in the ass to the opponent, with a good mix of TO, drones/mechs and elite medium/heavy infantry plus among the best hackers in the game.

Ariadna is a nation formed by the descendants of the Russian (Cossack), French, UK (Scottish) and American colonists who were on the aforementioned space colonisation programme. When they were sent through the wormhole to the planet Dawn (the discovery of which prompted the second space race and the first colonisation programme) they set up a base on Ariadna (an alternative name of the planet, named after their ship, and after which the faction is named). Unfortunately, when Earth tried to send a second ship through the wormhole the wormhole collapsed, causing the market krash on Earth and stranding the Ariadne on an inhospitable planet. They quickly antagonised the sentient, dog-like native Antipodes and ended up at war with them for the better part of a century while intermittently going to war with each other, since each nationality had decided to set up its own base to maximise survival chances. Eventually, with the whole colony on the brink of collapse the Russians/Cossacks (who are ultra-capitalists and other oligarchs which Putin likes to try to kill every now and again), who had about twice the population of every other colony, just declared themselves the planetary government and started flexing their military muscles to make sure everyone focused on fighting the natives instead of each other.

Eventually, the planet was rediscovered first by PanO then by YJ at which point everyone discovered that this odd metal the Ariadne had been using since they got there was actually something called Tesseum, which is harder than diamond yet easier to shape and is also the primary component in advanced building materials, so both of the hyperpowers rushed to exploit a technicality in interplanetary law by claiming that Ariadna only owned part of the planet and that the other 75% that didn't have any settlements on it belonged to the original nations that had financed the colonial mission (by now absorbed into PanO/YJ) and was up for grabs by anyone. They started paying corporations to land on Ariadna and claim ownership of the bits of the planet, which obviously pissed the Ariadne off (who had been abandoned and left to die by Earth, from their point of view); the ensuing Commercial Wars were fought by Ariadna on one side with training and weapons provided on the cheap by the Nomads (acting to protect their interests as a minor power by making sure the hyperpowers didn't establish a precedent of violating sovereignty) against the PanO- and YJ-backed and -equipped corporations on the other. Eventually, the Nomads/Haqq managed to ram a bill through the O-12 (the "Organisation of 12 Planets", basically the Space UN) that established Ariadna's sovereignty over the whole planet and recognised them as an independent nation.

Needless to say, this didn't exactly sit well with the Ariadne who now have a major grudge against PanO/YJ (though fabulously rich from the sale of tesseum to them), but are bros for life with the Nomads and Haqqislam.

Oh, er, yeah, gameplay-wise, Ariadna has cheap light infantry, no heavy infantry at all (the closest they get are the dogfaces/dog-warriors who are pretty much the only things with multiple wounds in the Ariadna list; consequently their elite dudes are really cheap, though more fragile, by the standards of the other factions), a shitload of troops with Camouflage (but no TO) and Infiltration (meaning they start in your table half disguised as counters that your models can't see without wasting orders detecting them). They (with one exception) also cannot be hacked because they're using early 21st century equipment in the 23rd century and generally work best as a guerrilla army, setting up traps before the game begins and dropping out of camo to take shots before hiding to go back into camo. :fidel:

Then there's the Combine Army, the only (sort of) non-human faction. What recently arrived in human-controlled space ("the Human Sphere" as it's called) is the very tip of the Combined Army's scouting forces and yet humanity is already losing badly against them, barely holding them back. They actually have one of the cooler backgrounds in a sci-fi setting I've seen: some aliens figured out the heat death of the universe was eventually going to shit all over life so they built an AI that could figure out how they could be elevated to beings of pure energy and leave the material world behind. Unfortunately for them, that AI found the solution, promptly concluded that its creators weren't fit to receive that knowledge, then ascended itself.

The creators then decided to built a new AI, but this time, make it think like them so that it would obligatorily give them the secret to ascending to a higher plane. Unfortunately, the fact that it thinks like them is exactly what prevents the second AI from ever finding that secret, but the creators don't know that, and the irony inherent in the fact that they're on a total fool's quest is pretty hilarious - or would be if humanity weren't about to be flattened like pancakes unless they can close off the Human Sphere. Unable to find this secret, the AI concluded that what it needed was more computational power, and the easiest way to get that was to conquer new systems and turn them into computronium. Thus, the Evolved Intelligence began conquering the universe. Those species that would be good fighters (aggressive, loyal, survivalists) were included in the Combined Army; the species with mastery of science were told to build AIs of their own to work in parallel with the EI to increase the number of thought patterns that were working on solving the ascension problem; and the species that had absolutely nothing of worth to offer to the EI just had their solar systems deconstructed and turned into thinking matter to increase the EI's capacity.

Game-wise, the Combined Army is the most elite faction - highest points cost per unit but best stats per unit in the game. Don't expect to field more than 6-8 models in your average 250pt game, but what they lack in numbers they make up in being very good. Their technology is alien and does funky stuff like allow them to not die, or transfer their mind from one body to another if the original host dies, or shapeshift into enemy units, and their weapons include monofilament blades and nanoviruses that can target cyberbrains and overwrite/destroy them.

Finally, there's ALEPH which is the newest faction. These are the very-much-GitS-inspired dudes who work for the Human Sphere's super-AI, which regulates the minute details of life in the entire Sphere. ALEPH runs the banks, the stock-markets, the Internet, the Circulars (special ships fitted with technology that allows them to pass through wormholes without causing them to collapse) and the infrastructure for pretty much everything, and basically controls the Human Sphere - the only thing is that it operates under mandate of the O-12 and there are safety protocols in place to (supposedly) prevent it from doing anything except run things efficiently. To get around this, ALEPH has its own special force made up entirely of post-human field agents supported by the most advanced drones you can make with human technology. I've not really looked at their army list, but from what I've heard they use a fair bit of retro-engineered alien tech and are a very points-heavy faction like the CA, but with a heavier emphasis on drones and have excellent Hackers as well.

There you go. That more or less sums up the setting, and I ordered the factions in a way that gives you the history of the setting as well as each faction. The only things left to add are that Infinity armies usually represent blackops teams advancing their country's interests over that of other countries that they're officially at peace or even allied with. Also, a second rulebook came out recently that includes new fluff and new army lists for what they call the "sectorials," which are basically sub-factions of all the factions - so Ariadna has a French and a Scottish list, Yu-Jing has an Imperial Service one and a Japanese State one, etc. Half of the sub-factions have been covered in this book, and we're expecting a third one covering the other half of the sectorials at some point in the future, but it's not even been announced yet.

Hobby stuff

Cost($$$)

Like most tabletop miniature games, Infinity is not "cheap". Some of the large snazzy models such as the Tactical Armor Gear (TAG), (think Dreadnaughts in 40K or WM jacks) can get quite pricey $ wise (around $40), but the good news is that TAGs are around ~90-110+ points each or 1/4 of your army in a large 400-point game! Each infantry model ranges around $9-15, but some infantry models can be worth 40+ points depending on the model’s weaponry and equipment.

Scale

Infinity is a skirmish game, so each side consists of approximately 10-15 models. Game size is determined by point values, 150 for small point games up to 400 points for “large” games. Battlefield is fairly terrain dense (terrain should be no more than 10” apart across the entire (4x4 or 4x6) battlefield. Since this is a sci-fi game, there are no unit coherency rules (radio is a marvelous invention). Models can freely climb buildings (if there is a second/third floor), snipe out of windows, flank the opponent, etc. The game follows a fairly strict, "if you can see me, I can see you" rule.

Models & Sculpts

The models in Infinity are top notch, highly detailed and heavily stylized. Everything has a sleek futuristic rounded edge feel to them. Infantry is broken down into three classifications, light, medium, and heavy infantry. Unlike the familiar 40k and PP miniatures, infantry are sleek and slender, and fit nicely on to the base (extremities, swords, guns, etc. do not stick too far off its bases). Heavy infantry are armored with “Power Armor”, but they are nowhere as bulky as Space Marines in 40k.

Gameplay

Infinity is probably the most “different” of all the tabletop games I’ve play thus far. (WHFB, WH40K, Necromunda, WM/Hordes). Units have their standard stats, such as movement (MOV), ballistic skill (BS), close combat (CC), wounds (W), armor (ARM), biotechnology shield (BTS) – aka armor against biological attacks, hacks, etc., will power (WIP), physique (PH)

Gameplay Basics

When a unit activates, you are able to either give your model two “short” orders (either two short-move, or one short-move + one short-action) or one “long” order. Short-move actions are things like, move, climb, prone, etc., and short-actions can be things like “shoot, dodge, hack, etc”. Long orders are actions like: suppression fire, cautious movement, speculative (indirect) fire, etc. Upon activation, you can give a model two short-move orders or a short-move + short-action like “move/move”, “move/shoot”, “move/dodge”, (shoot/shoot is not allowed because you may only have "one" short-action during a single activation), or one long order, such as “suppression fire”, “speculative (indirect) fire” etc.

Movement

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

Nothing really new here. Roll D20, if your result is less than your BS including modifiers (range, cover, etc.), then you hit your target, and the target must make an armor save. Target’s D20 roll + ARM stat is greater than your weapon strength then the armor stopped/deflected the bullet. Although getting hit by bullet(s) will sometime cause a solder to recoil and duck behind cover.

Close Combat (CC)

Most miniature games seem to have a heavy emphasis on close combat. Infinity is one of the few games that do not glorify CC. In fact you do not get any bonuses for “charging” an opponent. Charging a Yu-Jing (Asian faction) “Ninja” or “Shaolin Monk” with your basic grunt can mean a quick boot to the unsuspecting guy’s face. Of course dice will always play a factor, but know that he has no bonuses for charging. Anyways, I think you get the idea.

GAMEPLAY – Differences

Actions & Activations is probably one of the biggest differences in Infinity over all the other tabletop miniature game. In most games, each unit or model gets one-activation per phase or turn. One move, one shooting phase, and one charge/CC attack per unit/model. In infinity, each model contributes to your army’s activation pool. If you have 7 models in your army, you will have 7 activations, if your opponent runs 10 models, he/she will have 10 activations in his army, and models can be activated multiple times per turn.

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. Alright, so it’s not exactly equal reaction, but there are draw backs to sending in Rambo with 15 activations to single handedly take out an opposing army. Here is why.

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!

Of course there are counters to every strategy. Like bring in the speculative (indirect) fire weapons and rain grenades (templates), etc. onto my pile of infantry, or simply use Suppression Fire from the flank to suppress my gang. While you’re busy handling my pile, perhaps, I will simply “deep strike” some models in and try to take down your inferior infantry on the backlines and reduce your army’s total number of activations. As the remainder of his squad is KO’ed, Rambo will have fewer and fewer actions. This is the tactical beauty of Infinity.

Units with stealth/camouflage can effectively sneak through areas with suppression fire undetected, while deep striking units opens up the board for different flanking possibilities. Bring in too many heavy weapons teams and TAG’s, and it will open your solders up for possible hacking attempts which may immobilize or even take over your most powerful fighters.

Misc

One description of Infinity by Anonymous to a namefag

First of all, yes; Infinity does have manga influences(it's stated both on the website and in the book in the first few sentences of each, and the creators openly acknowledge Shirow as one of the influences in the game). However, that's about where the similarities end. If you use your Spazz Marines instead of the regular units, you won't be able to tell manga influences were used.

I can go in detail about how Infinity is very different than Warhammer(and even 40k), but unless you're seriously curious, I don't see the point in blowing my own horn. However, given the two systems, I'd pick Infinity every time because it's a lot more balanced, more fluid play, and a lot more tactical.

In regards to the background, Infinity is set a little less than 200 years in the future. A lot has happened, but I will try to be brief. Humanity has reached out to the stars, and by wormholes have been able to colonize 11 star systems. Infinity's future is full of subtle, small-scale wars between intelligence agencies, spec-ops, and corporations trying to gain power while at the same time trying to appear as friendly on the surface. At the moment, there are two main divisions between the factions. The first is the Human Sphere, which encompases PanOceania, Yu Jing, Haqqislam, Ariadna, and the Nomads. The second is the Combined Army which is an alien force from outside the Human Sphere which has been making attempts to forcibly recruit humanity into its ranks. More information can be found in the wikipedia page.

Now the comparisons. My primary experience is in playing 40k(4e), but I have dabbled in Fantasy(6e), so please forgive me if my knowledge is a little out of date. The biggest comparison is that you will have 8-15 men on the battlefield per side(though more often than not, I field about 10 at the most), wheras with 40k/Fantasy, you will have armies often times with 50 to hundreds of models. In Infinity, each model has similar statlines, which range from roughly 2-8 points depending which attribute you choose to compare. How you gain advantages though is by special abilities, equipment, and by being in cover/out of sight, with each of them having an emphasis. In 40k and Fantasy, you gain advantages through the first two, and to an extent the third, but it is rather limited(ie in 40k, you get a 5+ cover save OR your armor save in a forest).

Another large difference between Infinity and 40k and Fantasy is that with those games, you move each unit once, shoot with each unit once, use a magic power once, and fight once in CC, and that is your turn. In Infinity, there is something called the Orders Reserve. Each model within your army contributes 1 order to the Orders Reserve, from which you can(usually) use that order on any model in your army. So if you have 10 regular models in your army, you can use those 10 orders however you like. You can use 10 orders on a single model, or use 1 order on each model, or split them however you like, anywhere in between. Each order is like an action within DnD; you can move + move, move + shoot, fight in CC, or several other things. When you use up all of your orders, the turn is then passed.

What I disliked personally about most wargames is that you were only using your miniatures half the time. When it was your turn, you did what you wanted to do, while the other person sat idle looking at what was happening, and makes a wounds roll here and there. Infinity turns this on its head with the Automatic Reaction Order(ARO). In short, whenever an enemy model performs an order, whomever in your army can see him gets to react(generally by shooting at him, moving so he can't see you, or trying to dodge his shots). In this way, gameplay is much more fluid, and interactive. You almost always have an opportunity to do something, and it is not uncommon to remove units on both your turn and your opponent's. Another thing I disliked is that once you are in combat, you stay in combat until either yourself or your enemy is destroyed. With the Dodge order, you can attempt to get out of close combat in lieu of trying to make an attack(though the opposing model does get to respond; generally by making an attack on you).

Regarding something other than rules, Infinity draws its influences from quite a few different sources. It draws heavily from cyberpunk and post cyberpunk ideologies, transhumanism, biopunk, and other ideologies. If I had to describe Infinity in a word, I would say pragmatic. Contrast with 40k, where everything is grim, depressing and over the top, Infinity seems to be how society and political institutions of today would be if they were bigger. There is war, but they are small-scale conflicts involving only few people, and often times they are arranged in dark rooms where the heads of the factions can be given "plausible deniablity".

I hope that was readable; I went through several edits because I kept getting into the intricacies of the rules. the rules are available for free online, and they are quite different in their strengths. You can find it under the downloads section of the main site.