I played my first game of Infinity last night and can happily report that the game plays better than it reads. I’ve seen this before, most recently with Republic to Empire. Not only does the game play well, it completely suits my style of play. There is an issue with pumping orders into a figure to allow them to make big moves that I still need to wrap my head around. It’s not that I dislike it, neither do I find it unrealistic or broken. It was just obviously a blindspot I had in the game, to the point where I was surprised when my opponent rushed me in a spot I thought was safe.
I want to say a quick word about my opponent before talking a bit more about the game I played. Endalyon from the Ottawa Infinity Association agreed to play against me using starter sets. We didn’t worry about points or army composition, instead just used a JSA and Nomad starter set. My force was exactly as included in the set, although I don’t know if Endalyon modified his force for balance because I’m not familiar with the JSA Sectorial list and box. Regardless, he was a pleasure to play against. He was both patient and understanding. I don’t feel I was particularly slow or inept, I generally learn my stats quickly and play quickly, but I’ve played learning games before where my opponent wasn’t able to clearly explain those rules I didn’t know. I look forward to playing with him again.
I also don’t know how much Endalyon was going easy on me, so take what follows with a grain of salt and consider that my opponent may have subtly thrown the game in order to not discourage me. For example, in explaining the possibility of having a TO unit which is not deployed on table, but is noted to be in a specific location, Endalyon revealed where his TO unit was. Then again, I may just be paranoid based on usually losing most games I play. What follows is some of my theories on Infinity tactics based on the game I play. I think this will be interesting based on only a single game played, if only to contrast with my opinions once I become proficient at the game.
An Automatic Reaction Order, or ARO, is awarded to a model when it has line of sight on an enemy model that is performing an action. Basically, whenever the active player gives an order to a unit, every enemy that can see the unit can react, usually by shooting. I think this is the most important part of the game. If you can make sure that multiple units can see, and shoot, every enemy that attacks you you drastically increase the number of attacks you can make. I tried to position my figures with interlocking fields of fire so that any time the opponent moved or attacked, I had two or three attacks against him.
This ability is made even more powerful by the ability to chose the moment when you fire, and the rule that says unless you are touching cover you do not benefit from it. This means that as enemies approach you will get your shot at an open target while they suffer a negative modifier to their attack and damage. To the attacker’s advantage, most models only receive a single shot with an ARO while the most common weapon can fire three times. On a one-on-one battle the three shots should beat the one. By having two or three models reacting it gets very difficult for an attacker to make any headway.
Early on in the game Endalyon sent a single figure forward to make his attacks. Each time I was able to fire with at least two models and with a bit of dice-luck I came out ahead in those situations. The situation turned suddenly when his ninja sprinted forwards on a handful of orders and attacked on of the figures on my far flank. He had managed to create a one-on-one situation where neither of us had cover. I had to decide between dodging and firing. If I fire, I may take down his ninja. If I dodge, he might not hit me but he’ll be alive to keep trying. I felt that he was playing a little impetuously, and if I could draw him even an inch closer my other models would be able to react. I dodged, and failed. His shot hit and I had to make an armour check and luckily succeeded. I could have attempted to make a Guts Check to hold my ground, or fall back at half speed. This is essentially the same as dodging, so it worked to my advantage. He pushed his ninja closer and suddenly I had two more models that can react, plus the original dodging model. All three shooting were able to take him down, to my great relief.
Since I now had a significant model advantage, five to his three, I decided to push forward and go on the attack. So far I had been moving steadily forward but maintaining a defensive stance. I could have stayed back and let him continue coming to me, but with no objective or reasonable time limit there was no reason he should. This almost cost me the game. One of the things I’ve learned from years of playing WWIIOL is that the closer you push towards an enemy’s defence, the easier it is to get flanked. I had to move around a large piece of terrain he was hiding one of his best units in and thus split my forces. Once I did, he launched an attach to try to get a shot at the back of some of my models.
Fortunately for me, he stepped into the 8″ awareness range of my model, allowing me to react by turning around. What’s worse, he did this with the second move of his order, meaning he needed to use another order to attack. If he had moved into range on my first move of the order I could have reacted by turning around, but he would have had a free short against me. Since this was a new order, I was able to react to his attack by shooting him back, making it an opposed roll. I failed and was shot, but again managed to make my armour check. Again, I could make a Guts Check to hold ground. Again, I chose to fail it in order to move into cover. On the next order I was able to outshoot him with my reaction and take him down. I moved a little more carefully after that.
Meanwhile, on my right flank, I was moving my figures slowly into position. I tried to make sure that every move ended in cover, and that the two models didn’t bunch up. It turns out this was a good idea as my opponent had a large template weapon which would have devastated any clustered units. He was able to pop out a couple of times and wiped out my entire right flank, leaving me with three models to his two.
At this point, after being reminded of the ability by my opponent, I started laying down suppression corridors on his position. Unlike a normal ARO, a suppression corridor allows you to fire your entire burst against any enemy that move into it. They are balanced by requiring a full order to begin, and deny that area to friend as well as foe. I slowly closed the net on his remaining figures until his last unit, his lieutenant, made a Butch Cassidy and the Sundown Kid dash to freedom, with historical results. At that point we shook hands and packed up our models. The game could not have taken more than two hours and was probably closer to 75 or 90 minutes. We were playing with forces a third the size of an “average” game, but I don’t expect that more points would add significantly to the game length. In Infinity more points means having better troops, not faceless masses of grunts.
Once again, I really had fun and look forward to playing again. I’m also tempted to introduce the game at my boardgame night, using proxied models. Although I doubt my friends would want to invest in a miniatures game, I think they’d appreciate the rules.
