Product Review: Infinity “N3”

So, I’ve actually been playing a few games of Infinity the last little while.  Some friends have asked me to setup a campaign, in fact.  So I’ve started posting battles on another blog.  (http://wpginfinity.blogspot.ca/).  We just need to wait and see how many people actually start playing games…

Corvus Belli is on their 3^rd version of Infinity, designated “N3”.  I’ve been playing Infinity since it first came out.  The biggest problem back then was waiting for the figures to be released!  Infinity is a 28mm scale “Skirmish” sci-fi combat game.  You control a combat team (or 2 or 3) of up to 10 “selections” (usually a single figure).  These teams are involved in more “limited” engagements; think more Special Operations rather than all-out war.

This is a very terrain intensive game.  The more terrain you can get ahold of, the better.  Weapon ranges are (for the most part) table-wide.  Most weapons can shoot 36” or more.  If you don’t have terrain to hide behind, you’re shot and dead.  It can best be compared to Necromunda from Games Workshop (if you can remember that far back).  I recommend you download some paper cargo container templates and other terrain pieces from many places on the web.  If you have 40k Terrain, that would be great, too.  Multiple floors make for more interesting games as you begin to see a more 3D Adventure.

The NICE thing about infinity is that Corvus Belli has posted the rules for free download in PDF format on their web site.  You don’t need to buy the books to review the rules.  They’re available on their web page here:
http://www.infinitythegame.com

The only thing missing is the fluff!  That’s available in the hard copy books and I recommend getting a hold of a copy if you can afford it.  Besides, I find I can find things faster in a hard copy than a PDF (my tablet’s a little old).  The Hard Copy is a box set of two books, both softcover, but both in high quality glossy full colour pages.  One book is the rule book, the other is the story line and a description of the various factions and various troopers available to them.

The Story and Players:

The Human race has learned to fly to other planets and colonized them via wormholes.  Various factions from Earth control different planets, some of them “sharing” (more like “fighting over”) the same planets.  The access to the different planets and the space ways are controlled by an Artificial Intelligence.  The factions in the base book are:

• Panoceana – The Superpower of the game.  A merging or melting pot of Australia, New Zealand, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and other Pacific Rim countries, trying to compete against Chinese Economic Expansion.  These are the most technically advanced and “spoilt” human faction.  They consider themselves the best nation in the universe and work hard to make sure no one else can challenge them.
  
• Yi Jing – The Chinese Power House which has expanded to include North Korea, , Mongolia, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Taiwan, Nepal, Bhutan and Japan.  Very eager to take over as the top position from Panoceana, they are almost as technically advanced as Panoceana, but just as aggressive.  Maybe more so.
  
• Ariadna – The Joint American, Russian & European Space Agency’s sent a colony ship to colonize the first planet that was discovered accessible via a wormhole, Ariadna.  Unfortunately, the wormhole collapsed and the planet was isolated for many years.  During that time, the colonist technology hasn’t improved much as they were too busy fighting for survival against the planets natural inhabitants.  Fortunately, the colonist include some of the best trained troops from all the nations in the initial project, so they’re more than ready to fight to protect the last known Coca Cola factory in the universe.
  
• Haqqislam – The “new” Islam has a modern interpretation of the Quran.  They treasure knowledge and scientific pursuits and have been able to reconcile what previously they were unable to.  They are considered the foremost experts of Medical and Terraforming sciences.
  
• Nomads – Three colony ships that have rejected the rest of Humanity’s dependence on an Artificial Intelligence that controls the spaceways and pretty much all aspects of the other nations.  These 3 ships each have unique histories and specialties, but have joined together to form a nation of their own.  These ships have some of the best Hackers and Engineers as well as being very important for crews that work in Zero-G environments.
  
• EI: The Combined Army – The Evolved Intelligence and its forces are the 1^st Alien Faction introduced to the game.  In the main book, they’ve just invaded the Human Sphere and are a scary enough threat that the Human Nations might (HA!) cooperate to defeat the alien intruders.  If not, they just might destroy mankind…

There are 2 other forces introduced in the other books, but I’ll leave those for you to discover…

Game Play:

The game plays as a “You Go, I Go” system, with a twist.  Players get “Orders” based on the number of troops you have at the beginning of your turn.  The more troops you have in your team, the more orders you get.  While some orders are only usable with specific troops, there is a pool of general orders that can be used by anyone in the team.  You could (in theory) use all your orders on 1 figure.

Not a good idea, but possible.

Each order allows a figure to perform various actions.  Usually these consist of 2 “Short Orders” (usually a move and an attack or an extra move), or an action defined as a “Long Order” (such as “Suppressive Fire”).  These actions are all defined in the book as to whether they take a full order or can be combined with other actions.

The other thing to consider, is that some actions, if performed in the line of sight of an enemy soldier will cause an “Automatic Reaction Order” (ARO).  This allows an enemy trooper to “react” to your action, usually allowing a counter-attack or a dodge into cover.  This makes the “You Go, I Go” system different.  You cannot afford to leave the table as your opponent does his orders otherwise you’ll miss the opportunity to react.  This helps to keep both players fully engaged throughout the game!

When you attack, either shooting or in hand-to-hand combat, you declare the weapons you use.  Each weapon has a “Burst” rate, which is how many attacks you get.  If you’re reacting, your burst rate is 1.  Based on the figure’s Ballistic or CC skill, that is the base-to-hit value.  You add modifiers to this base value to determine what you need to roll for a success.  You then roll as many as D20s as your Burst Rate. 

Here’s where it gets fun again!  If there is no reaction, you make a “Normal” roll and if you roll the modified value or less, you “hit”.  If someone is reacting to your attack, you do a “Face to Face” roll.  Your opponent rolls 1 D20 and you roll your burst rate of D20.  The person who rolls highest without exceeding their success value, wins and completed their action(s).  It’s possible to cancel the success of multiple attacks by rolling higher than the opponent, but still have 1 attack hit.  If both roll the same value, the results cancel each other.

It’s a little more involved than that, but that’s the general idea.

What’s changed between the versions is that the Close Combat and certain activities (Hacking being the big one) have all been changed to match the same “method” as ballistic shooting.  Before, sometimes there were negative modifiers, special rolls, etc. that made each type of roll a different method.  Now all are done the same way.  Determine whether using Ballistic Skill, Close Combat Skill, Will power, Physical, or whatever, then modify the final value.  If you roll under, it’s a success.  If you match it, it’s a Critical Hit (cannot be stopped except with another crit).

Closing

The hard part about this game is learning and remembering all the possible actions, the weapons stats and special equipment.  For example, there’s Camouflage (multiple types), Ammo types (Again, Multiple Types), Hacking (multiple types), etc.

I recommend you start with low-point games (75 to 1100 points per side) and gradually increase the point value of the games and introduce new units and rules slowly.  It works well learning this way.

As a free download, I can’t recommend strongly enough that you download the rules and take a look at the game.  It doesn’t require a lot of figures to play, it has a very narrative feel to it.  The figures are very nice!  Very Anime – like and each faction has unique figures with unique capabilities.  Cost per figure is not too far out of line here in North America, though we sometimes have to wait longer before new figures are available here (that guy in the row boat is really slow sometimes).  I think the figures are generally well worth the wait.

There are two other “expansion” books: The Human Sphere and Campaign Paradiso.  Both books add some extra rules (though N3 Core Book does usually address those rules that would be impacted by the changes).  So, the new version doesn’t render the old books useless.  And once again, you can download those rules for free on the Infinity Web Site.  Don’t forget to download the Army Lists – they were just updated and published in January and include all units that were introduced in the Core Rule Book and both add-ons.

Take a look!  And Enjoy!