Infinite Wisdom

OK, so I've done it again. Another new, shiny thing has caught my attention. This time it's Infinity! I'd been vaguely aware of Infinity as a sci-fi skirmish game, but never really paid it much interest, particularly in light of the overwhelming sentiment that the ruleset, while being dynamic and offering a great deal of tactical depth, was needlessly obscure and overcomplicated.

But then I went to collect some Wyrd Black Friday goodness from Lee (one of my local gamer buds, whose blog you can find here), and he excitedly produced a copy of the new starter set for Infinity 3rd Edition, Operation Icestorm. He and Zac (of Malibites fame, and also one of my locals) had gone halves on the box, with Zac taking the PanOceania force and Lee getting his hands on the Nomads contingent.

He suggested we play the first couple of missions from the Icestorm rulebook, so we quickly assembled the cardboard terrain (which is excellent, by the way) and threw down the playmat that comes in the box. Lee used his Nomad Alguaciles, while I used three other Nomads to stand in for PanO Fusiliers. It soon became clear how quickly your models can die in Infinity, as all three of my Fusiliers died - at least one during my own active turn thanks to the game's nifty ARO (Automatic Reaction Order mechanic - without so much scratching an Alguacile's armour.

When we played the second mission, which introduces Lieutenants, I tried 'Rambo-ing' my Lieutenant up one flank to try and shoot Lee's Lieutenant in the back and spent all my orders to inflict only one of the two wounds I needed to kill him. Luckily, I then rolled a critical hit in ARO, bypassing his Mobile Brigada's heavy armour and killing him outright even as he gunned down my Orc Troop leader.

Lee lost another Alguacile to ARO while killing a Fusilier, but one of my remaining pair took out both his surviving Alguaciles to hand me the win. The whole experience got me unnecessarily excited and I spent the next several days gazing at beautiful miniatures on Corvus Belli's webstore, tying to pick just one faction to go with. I ruled out PanO and Nomads on the basis that Lee and Zac have those covered, Aleph because I didn't like the aesthetic and Tohaa for some reason I couldn't quite put my finger on.

That left Haqqislam, Ariadna, Combined Army or Yu Jing. I really wanted to go Combined and go for a Morat Aggression Force sectorial, but nowhere seemed to have them in stock, so I've gone with... drum roll, please... Ariadna! Something about the fact that they're pretty much just ordinary guys and gals attracted me (which is why I like Imperial Guard in 40k, I think). And there is something strangely alluring about giant slavering werewolves...

Expect more on my Infinity progress as it happens! And some Malifaux stuff as well, hopefully...