Monday, October 20, 2014

A brief crash course in Infinity

o/

Our buddy Hoss offered and having accepted, he gave Wolfy and I crash course in Corvus Belli's Infinity this past Saturday. Wolfy played the Nomads after Hoss described them as Space Gypsies (or as I called them 'Spipsies'), and I used the PanOceania. The Pan'O are something of an evil empire in the game's universe...I think. No idea on points, no mission other than kill each other, and unfortunately, real life reared its ugly head and cut our game short (at about the two thirds point). So we weren't even able to get a full game in.

A clear illustration of my lack of rules comprehension...
Poor Hoss, he kept apologizing for not explaining things well/clearly. In response I kept telling him that I suck at learning rules, and was trying to dragoon Rob and Screech to figure it out for me (my usual method of learning new stuff...). On that front, my efforts have thus far come to naught.

Look at them buns of steel! Or uh...pewter. lol, yet another ridiculously posed 'Look! She's sexy and has a BIG gun!' type of mini that so often infects the gaming industry.
I thought the unconscious tokens were amusing till my troops started collecting them. :-/
My Lieutenant, and ORC Trooper who was green as is good'n propa!
As stated (and pictured) above, I suck at new rules comprehension. The 'you need to roll under this, but she rolled that so you need to roll above that number' was really hard to wrap our heads around. I'm sure that will still take us some time to figure out.

Corvus Belli's free, online Army builder is a nice touch (still feels odd considering GW's 'WHAT!?!?! GIVE THEM SOMETHING FOR FREE???' mentality). That said I still find it kinda confusing to use.

This was a poor time for distraction, as my Fusilier opened the door, spotted an enemy Commando and...
...she took a hit and was knocked unconscious. Luckily, my Sniper (the buns of pewter chick above) killed the commando! Our game ended at this point though leaving the engagement as something of a draw.
Shrugs...oh well, seems like it has potential and we have plenty of time to figure it all out.

9 comments:

Martianboy said...

Your best bet for learning the rules right now would be to play through the mission book for the Operation:Icestorm starter pack. The basic rules are laid out clearly and introduced over the course of 5 missions and leaves you prepared for the new edition coming in the next month.






For a regular skill roll you just need to roll your skill value or less (like any percentile based rpg). The difficulty is when it's opposed rolls.

The best way I've found to describe opposed dice rolling is comparing it to "The Price Is Right".

1. You need to roll higher than your opponent.

2. Don't roll over you adjusted skill value. Just like a regular roll

So if your Ballistic Skill is 15 you need to roll 15 or less(adjusted by things like range, cover, camo, and height advantage if you have it) BUT still need to be higher than your opponent.

So if your adjusted BS is 13 and your opponent's is 15, you need to roll 13 or less and your opponent needs to roll 15 or less. So say you roll a 12 and he rolls a 9, you beat him because you meet those two criteria.

Da Masta Cheef said...

lol, okay...the Price is Right analogy actually makes sense to me, thanks! Currently we lack the funds for Operation:Icestorm, but its on the list of things to get when we can afford it.

And yes I kept hearing references to DnD. I think in that case it made sense to my GF, but I haven't played DnD in close to a decade, so that similarity was lost on me.

Unknown said...

Welcome to Infinity where the TAGs are monsters you can shut down with hackers and EM weapons, guys can get Sepitorized into being the enemy when their Cubes get hacked by the Combined Army, the To'haa and their link teams bring multiple orders and tough quasi-heavy infantry into the gunfight, and Hassassin Fidays can deploy as an Impersonator, sneak up and slash your Lieutenant's throat open.

In short, it's furious, guns are always your first go-to, and every figure can be a threat. Welcome! :D

Da Masta Cheef said...

Thanks!!! :-D

(looks like I have some research to do in figuring out what all of that means...)

Martianboy said...

TAG: Appleseed style mechs
E/M:electromagnetic pulse
Sepsitor: Alien mind control gun
Cube: Brain black box/backup
Combine Army: Evil mind controlling aliens
To'haa: Evil biological weapon developing aliens that pretend to be our friends
Hassassins: MUSLIMS IN SPAAAAAAAACE. But in all honesty really cool faction. There's a "positive" outlook on islam and islamic culture if you read the fluff.

Unknown said...

What Martianboy said.

TAGs are Tactical Armored Gears. Like light Heavy Gears or Appleseed mecha, some are operated with a pilot, others remotely controlled as drones. They are fast, heavy on armor, heavy firepower, and can Rambo roflstomp an entire line if you get the right angle.

But they can be hacked, immobilized and then possessed by the enemy. they are also extremely expensive and they can end up being a real problem for yourself.

the To'haa are the newest faction. They use symbiont armor that boosts their Wounds and Armor to make them tougher, yet they are vulnerable to Fire weapons.

The Combined Army is the overall bad guys. Aliens that have come together under a hyper-advanced sentient computer known as EI. The EI units are the ones that can hack a human being's Cube (a little cube that stores personality and memories from a person's life and lets them be revived after dying) and twists the owner into a pawn for the EI and its allies.

The Haqqislam are a lighter-armored faction that deals in Viral weaponry and assassination techniques, but that is by no means their only trick.

Unknown said...

Where's the +1 button for comments? Good calls Martianboy.

Da Masta Cheef said...

Yeah, you would think that there would be a +1 icon.

Aesthetically, Ariadna is most appealing to me, whereas my GF (Wolfy) is very much an anime fan (though I do like anime as well), so there's no telling which faction she'll head for.

Martianboy said...

If she's big into Ghost in the shell or Bubblegum crisis she'd probably dig Aleph the most.

Personally I went with Nomads and more specifically Corregidor as I love the idea of a colony ship converted from a south american prison loaded up with the biggest badasses on the planet. that and Senior Massacre(aka spanish deadpool)