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. Infinity miniatures are characterized by the high quality and blah blah marketing crap blah blah... Zzz...

Despite the LOOK IT'S CAPTAIN OBVIOUS weaboo art style, this game was made by Eurofags. Rules are available in English, German, Spanish, French and Polish. It's not at all grimdark so you know it wasn't made by Britfags.

One of the things it tries to fix in army wargames is how long you take to wait for your turn. Typically the turn order is "Player A: move, shoot, melee. Player B: move, shoot, melee." That's okay unless you're fielding 200 lead miniatures, and you have to use the piece of string because you want to check sight lines over hilly terrain.

Forces fielded are smaller, 12-15 to a side instead of 200. People call it a "Skirmish" game instead of a real army game for this reason. Also, opposing units get to react to enemy movement and actions with what Infinity calls Automatic Reaction Orders. D&D nerds would call this "attacks of opportunity," but whatever.

One description by Anonymous to a namefag

Not sure if you're a troll, but on the off chance you are not, I'll address you.

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.

Teams

The Great Powers in conflict are:

• PanOceania, the Superpower: 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.