Into Infinity & Beyond!: Choosing The Factions

November 13, 2013 by crew

I mentioned in a previous article that Austin (my teammate for the Warhammer 40,000 Doubles) and I played a demo game of Infinity and had a blast with it. It’s fast, tactical, and brutal. With all the events that happened at Feast of Blades it’s hard to believe Infinity can be considered a smaller game! The miniatures look amazing, the company has incredible amounts of interaction with the community, and it’s been experiencing nearly 75% growth every year for the last few years! But chances are you aren’t playing it.

Odalisqe

Up until Feast of Blades, neither was I. But the amazing models, the terrain, and the overall enthusiasm of the community has pushed us over the edge and Austin and I each picked out a starter box. With any luck others in our gaming group will pick up boxes of their own and we will grow into a small Infinity community.

A lot of people are in similar situations. They love the game but there isn’t anyone, or maybe just a few, who play nearby. These won’t be articles teaching you HOW to play; there are a lot of great resources for that already. So I’m going to cover our experiences trying to get Infinity going in our group. Hopefully these will be of use to others out there and be a little interesting too.

We’ll take a look at:
- Resources
- Painting
- Terrain
- Of course some Battle Reports!
- Hopefully cap it off with a small local tournament

I’m also starting a painting log in the painting section of the forums for a bit more of a day-to-day type of update. But before we go any further let’s see which boxes Austin and I picked out, why we picked those boxes, and what those boxes come with.

Austin: Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor “The Strong Men”

Nomads

The Models:

- Three Wildcats with Combi Rifles
-  Intruder with Combi Rifle
- Hellcat with Combi Rifle
- Alguacil Hacker

The Logic:

My decision on which faction to play was primarily based on the look and contents of the starter boxes. When I found a starter box that had interesting models and unit types I would compare it to the brief faction synopsis on the website to see if their theme and philosophy agreed with me. The streamlined efficient looking Wildcats of the Jurisdictional Command of Corregidor starter box jumped out to me. Looking at the Nomads I liked that they were fighting to stay independent of the A.I. which controlled the human sphere but were also still very technology savvy. They weren't rejecting the A.I. because they were back water simpletons who wanted to live organically on farms, but because they were free spirits and advanced enough to not need an A.I. to run their lives. Not knowing anything about the rules, the brief mentions of hacking expertise intrigued me. I liked the idea of interfering with an opponent's systems, maybe neutralizing them without having to fire a shot. If it did come to shooting the Wildcats looked more than capable.

Wildcats Dossier

Casey: Tohaa Trident “The Fighting Artichokes”

Tohaa

The Models:

- 3 Kamael Light Infantry with Combi Rifles
- Sakiel Regiment with Viral Combi Rifle
- Ectros Regiment with Viral Combi Rifle
- Clipsos Infiltrator with Combi Rifle

The Logic:

Everything I’ve read told me just to pick the models I think looked best, but I still had a hard time choosing a faction. A VERY hard time. Haqqislam, ALEPH, and Nomads were all in the running for me. They looked great and seem to have solid online player bases, but each starter box invariably had one model that rubbed me wrong. Conversely the first Tohaa miniature I saw was the Diplomat, and I wasn’t terribly impressed. Why is a diplomat on the battlefield?! Why is she wearing a poncho into battle??!! But when I took a look at the starter pack I couldn’t find a model I didn’t love. Plus their rules sound like they have a ton of flexibility and I can take a lot viral weapons, which are pretty awesome I’ve been told. I’m not so interested in one or two nasty tricks, those can always be countered, I want an army I can adapt on the fly to address whatever obstacles I come up against and I think Tohaa will let me do that. I worry a bit because a few people have said Tohaa are tricky to learn for the new player, but they said that about 5th edition Tau so I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.

Keesan Vs Hasht

With a general outline in place and a quick look at the factions and why we chose them we’re ready to get stuck in with the actual game! Next time we’re going to jump right into a battle using nothing but the online rules to see how well two people can pick up and play the game in a vacuum.

Check out Casey's Painting Plog HERE.

Casey Roberts

If you would like to write articles for Beasts of War then please contact me at [email protected].

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