Infinity N3 (Operation Ice Storm) the surprise preview

[PhoneLobster]

Waffling Introduction
So anyway. Instead of shaking the angry fist at more of Saga Edition I'm going to do a preview of Infinity N3 (aka the third edition of the infinity miniatures game). Because it's easier and more fun and there has been some vague curiosity about Infinity around here at various times.

"A preview? WTF is a preview?" you say. Well, thing is N3 is only just out and I don't actually HAVE the rules, and they haven't released the free version of the rules yet. If I had preordered the rule book (which I didn't) I would have them in printed form... maybe this week? Give or take.

But what I DO have is the Introductory Starter Set for the new rules because some friend of mine in France inexplicably decided to pre-order it for me on my birthday. (I think he is keen on playing it next time he is in the country).

So what I'm going to do is review the introductory stater set and it's preview basic/starter rules and materials. Because why not. And maybe later, also the real game.

[PhoneLobster]

Infinity, Operation : Icestorm (No really that's where they put the colon, I added the comma myself for clarity)
What Is It?
It's a boxed set with starter minis for two factions and basic simplified rules and some missions that function as a gradual tutorial for said rules. It's supposed to provide an entry point for beginners along with a core of miniatures that could be readily expanded into an army.

Here is the official web site thingy for it.

No no, what is It?
Infinity is a miniatures game created when Spain rebelled against game's workshop because they were desperate to have a better/any form of Necromunda that anyone was actually allowed to buy. Also it would help if it was any good (unlike Necromunda) also it was Spanish so it had to have weird Spanish versions of weird religious hang ups and a strong Anime/Manga flavor of some kind. Because Spain is like more Japan than Japan only REALLY Catholic or something.

What Is in this here Starter Box?
Well it's pretty routine.

Small but acceptable Rulebook, check.

Cheap but acceptable tokens, check.

Not many, but comfortably more than absolute minimum dice, check.

A surprisingly nice little battle mat poster... that is smaller than you will need once you go from starter set to "standard rules" games, Damnit.

Cheap but nice cardboard fold out buildings and crates, could have been better, or cheaper, or both, but still, check. Good enough to use indefinitely as far as I'm concerned (might take up structural roof weakness).

Starter Minis for two factions (and ALL the miniatures you need for all the missions in the rule book, no cardboard substitute bullshit). Check.

A bonus pre-order only mini you use once ever as a glorified (and stupid looking) neutral sentry gun in only one mission (no preorder guys get a crap cardboard substitute, but don't care because it's a minor custom mission modifier).

More About The Miniatures
The miniatures are nice. Infinity miniatures were pretty nice back in their first releases... and they have gotten better. They are still (needlessly I think) all metal, and they have some stupidly tiny bullshit bits to glue on, but they are nice miniatures.

And they are also really nice miniatures to paint. I pretty much relearned painting miniatures on this set after a long break and by the last three or so I was enjoying it a lot and feel they came out pretty good.

The miniatures also include about 4 models (two per faction) that are entirely new units to the game to be introduced with the new edition. Possible also exclusive poses/casts of them, if you cared. The two which I think might be exclusive casts are both "religiousy" flavoured ones I don't think I'd be too keen on buying otherwise though...

The bonus preorder mini is... kinda stupid looking. It's a chick in a business miniskirt outfit wearing a tie flying sideways to expose deep cut open cleavage on her tiny shirt. She is carrying what looks like a techno brief case that MIGHT be a gun, but isn't sure about it, and her pose suggests she is VERY strongly committed to doing that matrix dodge move in the very near future.

But aside from her the miniatures are all great quality. Unpainted and not assembled, of course.

So what are the factions and junk?
There is the one "Mercenary" bonus preorder mini. Unlikely to ever be used again.

The two proper factions of the starter are the Nomads and Pan-Oceania.

Basic Setting Premise
It is WAY to near future for this shit and humanity SOMEHOW already has a splintered space empire, is being invaded by an alien empire under an evil alien AI, is being manipulated by it's own evil human AI, and is fighting amongst itself in various national/commercial/religious conflicts and also there is an extra batch of aliens.

Who or what is Pan-Oceania?
Not aliens. Sadly.

They are the "number one" human empire owning the most planets (unlike some factions that get like, one shitty little planet and a bunch of neo-islamic nonsense in exchange for full rights to spelling Assassin funny on half their model names. I'M LOOKING AT YOU HAQQISLAM!).

I think they are basically supposed to be the "Generic Western Democracy Empire... OF SPAAAAAACE!!!" Sort of. But they also get a hole bucket load of miniatures and sub factions that are like all Religious Crusader Knights. Because you know when I think "Western Democracy In Space" I think of Crusader Knights in space knight armour with space knight swords and maybe a panzerfaust.

Yeah I know I maybe suggested the western democracy in space thing was a touch generic and here I am criticising an eccentric addition to the theme. Well screw it. There's nothing wrong with a generic space democracy faction and they rubbed the god damned crusades all over it and got crusades stink all up in that faction fluff. That stuff needs like, dry cleaning or something now.

Anyway. This manifests itself in the top tier unit for the Pan-Oceania starter faction being a god damned "Father Knight", he is basically a knight with a sword. He is a good sculpt but sort of stupid in concept and also for other reasons I'll get to eventually.

For added bonus WTF we have the Akalis, Sikh Commando in the starter set, a jump jet trooper of military branch that EXCLUSIVELY recruits ethnic Sikhs. Now I KNOW that this might be a historic call out thing to the way that is totally how things have been in the past, but fuck it, do we HAVE to have racially selective recruiting in our space game? In the "Generic Western Democracy (before someone spilled the crusades all over it)" empire at that? Oh. And while we are here, how do the Sikh guys and the Crusader guys get along anyway, that seems weird.

Who are the Nomads?
Not aliens. Sadly. They are however some sort of Anarchist Space Smuggler Pirates Collective Commune... thing... So plusses for that at least. (Pirate bullshit is forgivable in space, if you don't obsess on the pirates constantly, and if NOT EVERY FACTION IS A PIRATE, I'm looking at you PRIVATEER PRESS).

They don't get a planet, they get like three shitty space ships. No really. Three space ships and they get a whole faction of the same order of importance of Pan-Oceania with it's "most planets". Hell. They even get what I think might be a larger range than Haqqislam with their 1 whole planet.

Anyway. The three ships have slightly different flavors, but even then are sort of diverse internally and the Nomads are a bit of a "ah screw it, add whatever" faction and along side their more generic space guys with guns and robots they have wolf men street fighters, cat lady doctors, various other mutants, anarchist punk feminists, and fucking space nuns and space penitents (both with some decidedly hard core S&M torture fluff).

GUESS which of their oddball tag alongs has a presence in the starter, as the god damn unique high points value leader model AGAIN.

You guessed it. The fucking S&M space nun. At least she doesn't LOOK too much like an S&M space nun. She could just be some space adventurer with a hood.

...Fucking space nuns.

The missions have fluff too
I don't really care I stopped even skimming it half way through the rules are more interesting. Suffice it to say there is flavorful overly militaristic fluff.

[PhoneLobster]

And Now, The Rules/Missions
Because enough messing about with dry explanations and forehead slapping over fluff. (Also I ran out)

Mission 1: Perimeter Control... And the Basics of the Game
So the format for the intro rules basically goes "Mission name, some fluff, rules used in mission, troop profiles somewhere in all that, actual mission set up, NEXT!"

The troop profiles turning up scattered like that is GOING to be a problem later on. By the last mission you are doing some serious book flipping JUST to cover the limited number of starter profiles every time anyone does anything. There IS a sort of compiled list of troop profiles, but it is sort of a preview of the REAL rules, so it has things in the profiles that you have no rules to use... so it's sorta useless.

Once we get through the basic rules the first mission is boring as dirt. You get only 3 troops each, they are all boring vanilla infantry with the same weapons and NEARLY identical profiles, except red Nomads get one less Ballistic Skill, because, screw nomads I guess?

It's boring, but it's quick, and does a good job of demonstrating the incredibly bare bones basics of the system.

The basic Roll Mechanics
ANYWAY. The basic roll mechanic of the game is just a bit baffling. It's... acceptable? And at least in the basic rules seems about as stream lined and good as you might reasonably expect it to get... for a roll mechanic as baffling as what they chose to go with.

SO. It's SORT OF a roll under dice pool contest thing.

You roll 1d20s for, well, everything. You are trying to roll EQUAL OR UNDER your relevant Attribute +/- Modifiers. Higher (but under) is better, and dead on equal to your target number is a Critical success.

Sometimes you are rolling unopposed. Even (in rare edge cases) when shooting chumps. But, apparently (forum hearsay) unopposed rolls are intended to be rare, and even more rare as a feature of this new edition.

So when you are opposed by someone... they are always also trying to do something, so you shoot them, and they dodge or shoot back. So you make your action check and they make their own action check opposing you, the highest success wins (cancelling out lower opposed successes), criticals are trumps, and ties cause failure for everyone.

It becomes (almost) a dice pool when you pull out a gun as they tend to have Burst ratings and roll like 3 shots at a time. But at least in the starter (and apparently most of the time in the base rules) opposing rollers will only be rolling one dice... but a lot of models might all oppose your action, and get a dice each.

Who Goes First
Is notable because they introduce a variant rule for the first mission only before introducing the standard one. It's simple as dirt, but seriously, they could have just put the standard one in from the start and saved everyone a tiny amount of confusion.

Measuring and LoF basics
Are all fairly sensible choices. LoF is notable because they actually change it in later missions to the new standard where you look for "head sized parts of target" using a target piece of carboard you wedge behind your mini instead of the mini itself. Which has it's upsides.

Orders/Unit Activation Rules (for now)
OK. So you get an order per model that is alive at the beginning of the turn. But you can spend your orders (on your active turn) on ANY models and you can double up as much as you like, so all your orders can totally go to just one hyperactive guy.

Orders (in the basic game) are "Move-Move","Move-Shoot", "Move-Stab", "Move-Dodge". Shoot and stab check your Ballistic Skill and your Stabby Skill respectively (not called that but it should be). Dodge tests your Physical.

However after the first half of you order resolves any enemy/reactive models that can interact with your model's position at that time may declare Reactions. Those reactions can be stab, shoot, dodge. This changes any rolls you make from unchallenged rolls to opposed rolls using the basic mechanic. Dodging basically exists just to cancel hits, but shooting and stabbing can actually result in reactive characters cancelling hits AND dealing damage.

Oh. And Move-Move? Has separate move distances on your profile for the first move action and a potentially different one on the second. Basically some guys get double move on a run, and some guys only get an extra 50% or so of their initial move on the second half of the run. Because it was just that important to do that.

Oh, and moving UP a ladder on the side of a building/crate is vaguely demonstrated in the rule book, but hopping a low fence (can happen in starter), jumping down off something (should happen?), and climbing without a ladder (never strictly ruled out) is just not mentioned at all.

Shootyness
Shooting gets your weapon burst (your weapon is a Combi Rifle, burst three) dice rolls. Each success (that isn't cancelled) is 1 hit of 13 Damage. Targets then roll an armour check for each hit... which inexplicably is 1d20+armour+cover roll higher (equal is a fail) than damage you succeed and take no damage. Each fail is one injury, the mission one vanilla infantry are all 1 damage each (zero armour).

Cover on a target is both -3 to your shooty target number against them, AND +3 to their armour check to not take injuries from your damage.

There are range modifiers to attack target numbers and Combi rifles (ie the gun you have) get a penalty at a range longer than will likely apply in the starter set, and a bonus +3 at 16 inches, or in other words "almost all the time".

AND if all that isn't enough you can split your blast fire between multiple targets (specified prior to rolling individual dice). Yes this CAN get complex as you can start rolling 3 dice vs three targets, one doesn't oppose, one shoots back, one dodges, and there isn't a clear explanation of which of those opposing rolls can cancel which of the attacks (can anything cancel a success vs the target that didn't oppose? Does the shooting opposition cancel success against the dodging target? Or does the dodging success cancel success against the shooting target?) No comment say (basic starter) rules.

Close Combat Attacks
Run off your Stabby instead of Shooty skill, and use your unit's knife (everyone in the starter gets a knife and it's the only melee weapon in the (starter) game).

Knifes deal your unit's Physical attribute -1 damage, but say that in a notation of PH-1 without the starter rules ever explaining that damage is sometimes a call back to base attributes with a modifier instead of just a flat number. So that's totally helpful to noobs. But whatever.

Melee combat is terrible, at least in starter, mostly because PH scores are sucky and knife gets a burst of 1. It is far better to stand next to a sucker and fill them full of 3x+3 combi rifle burst at 1/2 an inch.

The (starter) game severely wants for penalties for shooting into melee or penalties for trying to break out of melee or something. It's just not there and without that, or without a better knife that makes melee pretty poor in the starter. And that will crop up as an issue later.

Dodge for movement
If you dodge as a reaction to someone else's action and succeed you may move 2 inches for free (but not into melee). Presumably you use this to dodge out of LoF for further shots or something. It's kinda crash hot actually.

Mission 1 Round Up
It does a reasonable job of babies first mini game and gives players a first run at the WTF roll mechanics in a very very basic scenario.

Some smart use of cover and the incredibly bland even sided and small match up slightly favors blue team Pan-Oceania, and/or whoever goes first.

edit: oh yeah, you win by points. But it's one point per kill one per survivor, and 2 if you take no casualties... and the game ends on wiping out one side so basically not being the one who loses everything wins... and you add up points for nothing.

[PhoneLobster]

Onto Mission 2:Secure The Warehouse
(wow, these mission titles, hot stuff hey!)

Each mission introduces new stuff, mission 2 goes with...

The "Who Goes First" rule you use for the rest of the starter
Now you each roll your lieutenant's Will Power as an opposed check at the start of the game and the winner decides if they want to decide who goes first OR if they want to decide who deploys first THEN they decide the decision they decided on deciding and the other player decides the decision they decided to let the other player decide.

No really.

Yes that amounts to "you can choose to go first or deploy second, or hope your enemy inexplicably lets you deploy second AND go first!".

But yeah. The correct choice (with the co-operation of both players making the correct choices for themselves) is "deploy second or go first" and I think with the way the small starter missions play out "go first" is the correct final choice.

A New Miniature Each
Mission 2 decides to introduce one entire new miniature (per side) with no new weapons or mechanics. It is however a miniature with a better stat profile, some armour on the profile and 2 wounds. Blue still gets a slightly better Ballistic Skill (yes, it abbreviates to BS), the slightly better Will Power of the red guys however now sees at least SOME chance of reward in the new "who goes first?" mechanic... but that is like one roll a game and ballistic skill is... pretty much every roll in the game aside from that... so... sucks to be red still.

The heavier infantry exists as a vehicle for "hey look multi-wound models" and as something to slap the new mechanic of the Lieutenant hat onto.

The Lieutenant Hat Mechanic
People should let me name their mechanics more.

Anyway. You pick your lieutenant before battle. Secretly. Only you don't because all the missions in the book from here on out pick him for you and it is basically public knowledge (and also pretty obvious even if you keep it secret).

For Mission 2 your Lieutenant is the new elite trooper guy you just got.

Your lieutenant gets an EXTRA SPECIAL bonus order token. A lieutenant order. The only difference between it and a normal order is you can only use it on the lieutenant, and if you do it reveals that he is your lieutenant.

On the down side of having the lieutenant hat mechanic in the game if he is dead at the start of your turn you lose ALL your normal orders and only earn "Irregular" orders for each model remaining, and they can ONLY be spent on the model that generates them (so one order each instead of stacking orders onto one guy).

After one turn of chaos with irregular orders you nominate a new lieutenant (secretly) from among your survivors at the start of your NEXT turn and go back to normal. Until that guy dies.

BAM Mission 2 Round Up
And that's all that is new in mission two.

Whoever gets the better position, most likely whoever decides to spam all their orders through their new elite lieutenant model wins.

It is still pretty even with advantage to going first and Blue Shooty Bonus Faction guys they want to win Ultramarines Pan-Oceania.

It isn't exactly a vast change from mission 1, but again, a good, simple, fast to resolve but slow to stress the learning muscles intro to Lieutenants and the whole dead lieutenant hat swap thing.

And also hey NOW you have a model on the table you care about instead of the Cannon Fodder Vanilla Infantry Cannon Fodder.

edit : Oh yeah, and the points thing. Now its 1 per kill, 1 per survivor and 2 to whoever kills the enemy lieutenant hat first. But still end of game on a team wipe. You can just barely lose all your models and score a tie, in a rare edge case. Mostly you wipe the enemy and win, and add up points for no reason.

[PhoneLobster]

Onto Mission 3: Clearance Of Production Area Alpha
(No really, can these mission titles be more generic?)

Things almost get interesting in mission 3. It introduces a new model to each team again but THIS time the new thing they do is different for each faction.

But they still get the same fucking Combi-Rifle and Knife because there are only fucking 3 weapons in the entire starter rules... fuck it.

The Blue Beetle
Pan-Oceania gets a Combat Jump trooper. He is a slightly better armour 2 wound 1 step up on vanilla cannon fodder infantry... and he can Combat Jump with his jet pack.

Which just means he starts off the table. Drops a large round template (as/costing an order on player's active turn) somewhere it fits, puts himself on it, and then checks his Phys to see if he arrives there or back in your deployment zone instead. THEN after he succeeds or fails the opposing player may declare reactions (ie shooting) against it... and you plain cannot oppose that reactive shooting so any successes are hits.

The flanking can pay off... a bit... I mean it's still just another combi-rifle on fairly vanilla infantry. The risk is pretty damned terrible though and odds are good you either get no benefit and waste an order, or he gets shot up directly on arrival, even if you can find a good place to drop him.

Looking at the preview "full" profile this guy costs more than twice as much as the vanilla cannon fodder models to field... buuuut in the full rules he gets E/M Close Combat Weapon, Religious Trooper, and a bonus pistol, all of which don't exist in the starter rules so... yeah... I think even in the starter he isn't a terrible deal... but... hmmm... yeah...

The Red Skull
The red team gets the better option. They get the stealth assassin dude.

He only gets a combi-rifle and a knife, so that sucks, but he DOES get two other things that are flat out awesome.

He gets TO Camouflage which is a -6 penalty to ranged attacks and discovery actions against him. Which is huge.

AND he gets infiltration. Which means he comes onto the board as a faceless stealth token instead of a model and people aren't allowed to interract with him normally until he does something other than move OR until they succeed in a discovery action against him.

And Discovery is a Will Power check... and you make it at -6 against this guy because of TO Concealment. AND it uses up your reaction OR it uses up half your order, and risks losing the other half of your order if you fail, OR risks being irrelevant if the stealth guy just says "you try to detect me? well you do that I'm just gonna shoot you with a bonus for surprise if it's my turn".

AND that first shot he makes (on his turn only if not discovered prior to his order, during the order won't matter) gets to have any reactions against it (like dodging or shooting back) suffer a -3.

Infiltration is a potential order sink for the enemy and a pretty reasonable defence/delivery mechanism to put stealth guy right up there in a really nice flanking or defensive cover position.

Mission 3 Round Up
Ant that's it, mission three is just two more guys, Combat Jump and stealth stuff. You get your basic infantry and your better infantry guy (who gets to wear the lieutenant hat) then you fight it out.

And odds are pretty damn good that minus some really terrible choices red will win because the stealth dude is better than the combat jump dude, I mean even after discovery he gets -6 to shots against him, -6.

If you pop back to the final profiles for the full game version he is worth nearly 50% more than the blue combat jump dude (and gets Multi-Terrain, a pistol and anti-personnel mines no less).

So suddenly Mission 3 jumps from "Blue gets BS bonus so hahaha" to "Red gets the stealth dud, hahahaha" and red wins with (sort of) 1 whole extra cannon fodder guy worth of model value on the table.

edit: And points stuff, yeah, ok for some reason we drop back to 1 per kill 1 per survivor and nothing else ending on a team wipe. So yeah, who ever gets wiped loses and points are just... there... again...

[PhoneLobster]

Mission 4: Clearance Of Production Area Beta
(Was anyone surprised this came after Clearance of Production Area Alpha? Why does this mission title sound like a clearance sale at a shoe warehouse?)

Mission 4 once again gives us a new model each. This time we get Snipers.

The Sniper Rifle
Is introduce as the third and yes, last, weapon profile in the entire starter rules.

It gets a range penalty of -3 out to 8 inches, no bonus out to 16, and +3 from there out to out to 48 (then -3 from there to 96, but thats long since off the small sized starter mat). Which is... difficult to set up in a beneficial manner in the starter rules with the cramped space. But if you can pull it off interracts interestingly with the combi rifle ranges.

It only has Burst 2 but it also has 15 damage giving it some interesting if small trade offs to the Combi Rifle.

Mimetism
Is like TO Concealment only suckier. So it's -3 to Discovery and BS rolls against the model with Mimetism. Blue Sniper gets Mimetism, Red Sniper does not get Mimetism.

Blue sniper does NOT get Infiltration and doesn't do the whole "I'm a token until I shoot or you discover me" but he DOES get the whole -3 to being shot at, so it is pretty sweet.

Multispectral Visors
Both snipers get these things. Red Sniper gets the cheap version, which negates the effects of Mimetism against him (and halves the effects of TO camouflage against him). Blue Sniper gets the expensive one, which negates the effects of TO camouflage and mimetism against him.

Mission 4 Round Up
So you get... well every miniature introduced so far. Your lieutenant hat still goes to your generic elite trooper dude.

Mission 4 has enough stuff to get interesting and variable in the outcome.

Red stealth guy is still probably the game winning advantage, but blue sniper guy pretty much negates most of that advantage if properly maneuvered to nullify him, red sniper guy can nullify Blue sniper guys advantage, but if he doesn't then blue sniper guy is better against everything than red sniper guy is vs the rest of the blue stuff, and against each other the snipers are a pretty equal mirror match.

Mission points are for killing models and a bonus point for killing the special troops and 2 bonus points for being first to take down the enemy lieutenant. There are no longer points for having survivors. Because... Anyway... Game ends on wiping one side entirely, so while you can BARELY win even if wiped out... its a pretty close rare edge case.

[PhoneLobster]

Mission 5: Generic Alpha Beta Clearance Perimeter Take R&D
Anyway. Last mission in the book.

Being Unconscious
That's your new rule. Your models can now be not entirely dead. There are tokens and stuff. And they die if they take more damage. Unconscious models don't produce orders.

And Doctoring
And now models can be unconscious you can heal them. If you have a doctor. Its a will power check on a Move-Doctor order on your active turn.

So we get doctors right
Yep.

Doctor Red Space Nun Lady
Doctor red space nun lady is a 1 wound 3 armour elite infantry with a knife and a combi rifle. She will be your lieutenant hat for this mission if you play red Nomads.

Her notables are she gets Doctor and Mimetism and she gets to have Move 4-2, making her the slowest model in the starter (other than the snipers who get the same slower second move speed, did I mention that, no, well now I did, so shut up).

She is pretty nice and she can stand back up your important models at important times. And mimetism too? hell why not.

She is however fluffed as a crazy murderous religious fanatic. So there is that to consider.

Doctor Blue Stab You In The Face With A Knife Crusader
The "Father Knight" for team blue Ultramarines is a doctor not in the sense of the word as a healing man and more in the sense that he will stab you in the face with a knife.

Because he does NOT have Doctor. Or mimetism for that matter. He DOES however have Armour 5, two wounds, a combi-rifle and a knife... and Kinematika... which lets him move 3 on a successful reactive dodge instead of 2 (one extra feels like a rip off, or does that stack? rules don't say "instead of" but certainly don't clarify explicit stacking either).

Oh and he gets the full 4-4 move (the fastest and standard move profile for the starter).

Father Face Stab... is sorta stupid though. In his "full" form he is a melee dude with a way better set of special abilities and equipment, including not only the actual fucking sword on his model (instead of a god damn knife) but also a hefty shotgun and some sort of "special" pistol.

Why they thought they should introduce a sword specialist guy into the final mission and not give him his fucking sword I have no idea. But this guy gets to run at people with a fucking standard knife and fail. Or just use a boring combi-rifle and his superior profile instead.

And yeah, your father face stabber gets your lieutenant hat if you are team blue.

The stupid looking Coporate Security Unit Model
Appears. She is basically cheap ass vanilla infantry. But she is a neutral model that stands in the center of the board on the objective building and shoots everyone ever as a reaction whenever she sees them. She is annoying and pops the moment someone commits to getting rid of her, but little more than that.

Objectives and Points
This mission has the most elaborate objective of the starter. You still get 1 point for eliminating enemy troopers (none for survival, none for special kills, none for lieutenant hat kills). The game now ends on a team wipe OR on the end of turn 3.

And you get 4 points for controlling the objective building at the end of the game. (be the only player to have non-unconscious troops on it's roof).

Now I'm pretty sure the game ends with a team wipe and the guy who survives wins on points too and maybe gets bonus building objective points for no real reason. The only way in hell it gets any different is with an incredible amount of turtling by both players as 3 turns is reliably enough to wipe these small teams on small maps.

But I SUPPOSE you could get more complex victory outcomes. If you really tried to...

Mission 5 Round Up
I think at this point it sucks to be blue and you want to be red. But the difference isn't TOO bad. The mission is... weird and sort of pointless.

But the game is now fairly elaborate, but still quick to resolve. And I think actually fairly fun at this point.

[PhoneLobster]

Additional Materials
The rule book is a nice little glossy magazine manual, short and only remotely substantial since it has double all it's content with one side English and the other side Spanish.

It's pretty and well laid out with only a few oversights. It's easy to learn and of course laced with illustrations, photos and other content trying to sell the rest of the game to you. Which is expected and acceptable of course, and they don't do too bad a job, if anything they probably should have gone a slightly harder, or at least more detailed, sell.

The "Full Lists"
Each faction gets a "full list" at the back of the book that stats out a 300 point force (apparently the standard sized army for the real game) that is basically the starting minis +2 more purchases.

It gives you points costs, special weapons costs, and their full profiles with additional weapons and abilities... and no explanation of any of those things.

They SHOULD have at least provided the fucking rules for the fucking additional weapons and abilities.

I think that it would have been NICE if with the starter alone you could turn around and at least play with your existing models and their full god damn profiles.

Now... it DOES refer you to the full rules which ARE available free. BUT the new rules aren't there yet, it's still the old rules. Probably will change soon, but that's the way it's been for AGES and I received this set months ago.

I THINK you could piece together the full rules for the full profiles from the old rules in a makeshift mess that should work. BUT... minor compatibility issues aside the full lists in the starter cover various units (including two models per side from the starter) that do not have profiles in the old edition and there is no guarantee all required rules/abilities/equipment are covered at all.

So How Are the Old Rules
I don't know and refuse to check them out. I actually do want to learn the new rules now and I'd rather not read the old ones for needless confusion.

However forum and community chatter, and hearsay from my friend in France, suggest a number of minor issues in an over all playable game. As usual with new editions of games like this the designers are promising fixes on popular failings of the game.

How are the Old Old Old rules
Back long ago I actually used to play Infinity back when it was still pre-1st edition "beta" rules and largely gave it up when it was obvious the local gaming community was collapsing with the local gaming store and the full 1.0 edition of the game came out without any significant formating, rules or poor translation improvements.

I think I remember notably that Heave Machine Guns were the fucking bees knees, hacking/hackers were sorta shitty, melee was weak knees, LoS/LoF mechanics were argument bait and reaction fire was way too fucking ridiculous.

Sadly a lot of what I gather from community chatter is that basically all those things were to varying degrees STILL issues as of 2nd edition. Though... it seems like some were partially addressed, and at least reaction fire SEEMS sorta OK in the smaller scale starter with just combi-rifles and snipers.

Will the new edition be better?
But hey that entire list is much of the promised improvements of 3rd edition, "leaked" material on hackers certainly seems like they at least have a real and by the looks of things good over haul going, and there are promises that the Heavy Machine Gun supremacy has been heavily targeted with large range modifier/weapon profile changes.

Still, I've seen new editions of miniatures games promise improvements then actively and objectively make things totally worse on the specific promised issues in the past, so, yeah...

The traitorous Gamer Betrayers!
There is some minor mess with some players being pissed some of their models have been surprise discontinued along with all rules support just a few weeks before the release of the new edition.

I can see why they are pissed and it is a bit of a dick move, but not one that overly concerns me, especially with the number/scale of the discontinued models being really very small, and apparently smaller still due to massive unpopularity.

When are the full rules out for free on the interwebs at the official site?
Who knows, could be any day now. Totally could have gone up while I was typing this, but very possibly won't be up until after new year. It's a secret mystery or something.

People already have the physical rule book and you can go read piecemeal ask me questions threads targeted largely at people who know the old edition and are asking for updates. But that's largely useless.

Will Phonelobster Be Buying More Of this?
I think I like this one. I think I will be buying more. If for no other reason than I should get just enough to play with the guy who gave me the stuff next time he is in town. But I like it enough I'll likely be doing more than just that.

It will depend somewhat on my opinion of the full rules. But certainly the starter has been good enough to make me want to at least look into the rest of it with an eye to further purchases and game play.

But would Phonelobster recommend this to others? (in the 3rd person)
Not until I read the full rules, that would be just irresponsible.

But actually I think the answer is, sort of, a "No.".

Not because it isn't a nice little set. And if the the full rules are even reasonably good it wouldn't be because it isn't a nice little intro to it...

I just think that for what it is the whole thing is just a little expensive.

It contains what amounts to two of the games $40 AU faction starter packs in minis and IS "only" about $115 AU. And yeah you get SOME extra stuff for the extra $35 AU... but I don't think the card board houses, poster mat and 6 dice that amounts to are really all that worth it. And meanwhile a full half of the mini value is sunk into a different faction.

And you would be lucky to decide to collect EITHER of these factions let alone BOTH. Not to mention infinity has this sorta subfaction thing going on so actually it's two specific SUB FACTIONS of minis and even other sub factions aren't going to be fielding ALL these minis (maybe?).

Not only that you could maybe run through every mission in the game in under an hour. And re playability of the final mission with all the stuff is... possible... but not all that great more than once or twice.

It's not a terrible demo set for a store, and MAYBE a bait gift to hook someone on it (like, say, me), but it's not a great jump off point for actually collecting a damned army.

It's been a long standing issue with this sort of starter for this sort of game and I don't think this one gets around it. IF I read the new edition full rules and decide they are worth recommending (and this set gives me at least reasonable hope that I would) I would at that point recommend the tried and true war gamer advice of "play a game with borrowed or substituted minis and then collect a single faction (or multiple factions you actually choose yourself) from scratch if you like it enough."

But was Operation : Ice Storm at least fun/good?
As short as it was it was fun, quick, relatively efficient and a pretty reasonable tutorial for rules basics. I think over all they did well, a few to many space nuns and father face stabbers with no faction to take the irreligious high ground, a number of mission point scoring phases that seem completely senseless, and a dice rolling mechanic that seems efficient and workable while also being an almost inexplicable design choice but that's probably the worst of it.

I'd say they did a fairly good job on it. I still don't recommend you buy it. But it's pretty nice.

So what about reviewing the real game?
So anyway since I will be learning the full game once it's on the interwebs, and maybe collecting a bit I think I'll definitely review it here and either recommend it or not (or be vague an noncommittal about it) some time after I do that. Because at that point why not? I'll be doing the background on it anyway after all.

And yes I know this isn't as fun as a shaking the angry fist style review, but it might be marginally more useful for people who might actually consider playing this one.

[PhoneLobster]

So ANYWAY... the N3 Pdf is out ealier than expected, so I wasted time reviewing the starter thinking hey, it's going to be like WEEKS before the full N3 edition is out, and then bam, less than 24 hours after the additional materials post and there it is, the full N3 edition, waiting for me to read it all.

So I guess I'll be getting to that fairly shortly. In I think a bit less detail than the starter, the full rules are pretty ridiculous in the sheer amount of material and options presented.

[PhoneLobster]

The Full N3 Rules
Ok so I've read them, I've played a run with them using the full N3 profiles of the starter minis. I've made my own decision about buying into this or not. So it's time to say something about them.

Going To N3 from the Starter Rules
The starter rules did one thing very nicely. They were simple, easy and streamlined.

The full rules are less so. But the still seem to manage to be somewhat streamlined. But learning them, and remembering the incredibly detailed array of options... not I think so easy. It is a complex rules set that (seems to) generate mostly simple and streamlined interactions, but it COULD degenerate into sudden complexity, WTF moments, rules arguments and other issues.

It still does an admirable enough job of it. There are less fuzzy unclarified moments rule for rule than in the starter, there are piles of examples and even if simultaneous short action/Short Movement/ARO resolution and Face To Face roll cancellations are sometimes not intuitive, they are, eventually and in pretty damn full detail made pretty obviously clear. And in the end I doubt you could have as many options as the system provides and be any less complex by any meaningful degree, so it's certainly efficient.

Going To N3 from the pre 1st Edition Beta rules
Translation, presentation, examples, bad wording all seem notably improved from the old days. There were still moments where I felt something was worded slightly more ambiguously than need be and in a way that made me suspect the translation was at fault, but they were rare and usually clarified by example text. This is a lot better than the old beta/1st edition rules which frequently had what felt like whole paragraphs of WTF?

Over all I've read English as first language rules sets that are significantly worse, and indeed few that are as clear and concise.

Hacking really DOES look like it has been significantly improved... but I'm going to have to try it out on the table, but it's now more compatible/intuitive compared to other rules and does more useful things. The potential look ups and complexity of available hacking options could be an issue, but then this is Infinity EVERYTHING has that potential problem.

Weapons seem a bit improved, things other than HMGs are at least looking marginally viable to field. Reaction mechanics seem cleaned up and improved, and reacting to everyone with HMGs might not be the be all and end all of optimal play styles.

So yeah, certainly a fair number of improvements I think.

Complexity Complexity : Complexity (Complexity), Complexity [Complexty]... Complexity
Again the rules are efficient play can be pretty fast and streamlined.

But the complexity of the available rules set, specifically in the options that are available is huge.

Let me just...

OK so there are quick reference sheets you will be using. Each time you activate a miniature you will be performing either an Entire Order or a Short Move Skill and a Short Skill, and enemy models may (each) be performing ARO actions.

The quick reference sheet lists about 4 Short Move options, 39 Short Skill options, and 25 Entire Order options and 40 ARO options. Yes that is like pretty much 100 different things you might do in a turn.

To be entirely fair the odds are good in any one turn with any one model you don't have ALL those options. Many of the action options that make the short list are in fact Special Skill or Special Equipment based. Many of them are contextual and terrain/obstacle based or even based on interacting with certain sorts of enemy token or model.

In any given turn odds are pretty good your actions will be "move+shoot" and sometimes your actions will be "special move like climbing or some junk", "dodge", "close combat". And reactions to your action will typically be "shoot" or "dodge".

But sometimes there will be other options, sometimes there is an enemy camouflage token on the board and a whole set of discovery, intuitive fire and speculative fire rules come into play as suddenly more common actions.

And worse sometimes there will be some rare ass edge case common action (like variant movement to peak over the edge of a building to shoot people below, which isn't even listed as a separate option on the quick reference sheet anyway) or a less common but not well known action option opened up by your equipment or skills, like the option to strap demolitions charges to enemies as a melee attack.

If you are familiar with every obscure option in the game, and every obscure interaction in the game this will give you some very significant rules mastery edge over some sucker who just plain didn't know that you could shoot his guy from the roof directly above and ignore his cover using the peek over the edge action.

That isn't entirely bad but it also isn't entirely good.

Hidden Double Secret Special Skills
So. Sometimes you look at your special skill list for a trooper to figure out their special abilities. And sometimes it isn't all there right in front of you. Because some special skills grant OTHER special skills in the body of text describing them and those other special skills do not pop up in your troop profile.

Some of these are mildly intuitive despite being needlessly absent. So you when get stealth abilities and then you get surprise attack abilities to go with them.

Some are similarly associated but less obvious and still very important to the basic function of the first ability, like the regeneration ability and it's free immunity to the instant kill on KO ammo type... but really should be separate profile entries because if you miss the one line in the text on Regeneration where it grants Immunity:Shock you would NOT automatically assume you got that.

Others are dumb nested references, so being a Morat on your profile just gives you Veteran 1 and Religious Trooper, which could have just been on the profile instead of/as well as Morat which does basically nothing on it's own.

I KNOW I remember seeing one somewhere in there that granted a total "WTF?" hidden skill like Marksmanship or something on an otherwise completely unexpected skill, but I can't for the life of me find it anymore. So it's out there. Lurking.

Victory Points And Scenarios
Default victory points are pretty much a total waste of time and you may as well play to wipe/defeat/the special involuntary retreat state. Because the way the limited default victory points rules are... you basically get the same result anyway.

Scenarios are different and elaborate. with semi-random objective generation and random civilians (apparently lacking actual profiles) that you need to protect and interact with (maybe) depending on the semi-random objectives. And then there is some main objective. And it's pretty much expected materials but nice that they actually are there I suppose.

Command Tokens
Aside from orders you get Command Tokens, a limited resource that doesn't refresh in battle and which can be spent on small but important things like making a troop not retreat. They seem pretty good and are one of the things that might make the involuntary retreat state at 75% (of points value) casualties more interesting.

Order Spam
So mashing all your orders (unit activations) onto a single model is a thing. It's actually probably not as bad as it seems with the reaction system making it not all that advantageous. But for some maximum cap on that you can't share orders between more than 10 models and have to segregate them into little separate order pools of 10 models or less.

Order spam however IS still a thing and a bit of a minor to moderate concern combined with Troop Spam.

It's a bit less of an issue with the whole thing where you bring a powerful costly unit as an order eating puppet for your entire army which then consists of the largest number of the cheapest order generating models you can field cowering innactive behind total cover back in your deployment zone. Mostly because even tough expensive units can go down to reaction fire.

Still leaves you in a place however where the optimal strategy is probably to bring several powerful costly units then fill out your list with cheap order generating spam troopers to fuel them.

Troop Spam
Could be an issue. Cheap troopers aren't all that much worse than expensive elite options, and you can bring maybe 20-30 of the cannon fodder for 20-30 orders compared to like 10 or less elites (even less with the large robot TAGs).

Default objectives are weighted by points cost, surrender is weighted by points cost and basically nothing especially punishes you for bringing lots of troops (other than that they are sorta crappy) while you are rewarded with order resources, distributed risk, more flanking positions and more targets that the enemy needs to eat through.

Co-ordinated Orders
You can blow a command point and 1 order to get a bunch of guys to perform the same order in a group. Which basically ends up being I think 4 of them moving and shooting together, for an over all profit in shots taken, at a single target, but with weird interactions that will make it easier for other enemies to shoot down the guys assisting the lead guy chosen for the co-operative order.

I don't think I like Co-ordinated orders. They were I feel a needless addition that adds complexity and opens up various exploits.

But they aren't really good enough to worry about... unless someone starts doing something crazy and co-ordinating Snipers or Missile Launchers and junk instead of Rifle cannon fodder like the option is clearly intended for.

Basically it is a marginally profitable option for your order for weapon fire exchange when your group of spam troopers rounds on a single expensive enemy lacking covering fire. I'm not sure those guys needed a boost with that.

Fire Teams!
The worst thing in the rules is not in the rules.

It's legacy rules from a prior edition.

Now some prior edition legacy rules look a bit like no big deal, like say troop profiles for all the splat book troopers, even if they are conspicuously absent pending the update of the free army list web site tool.

But ONE piece of legacy rules is at least for now and it is Sectoral Faction Lists and the associated Fire Teams rule that comes from the same, now out of date, book.

Sectoral Faction Lists anger me because the core book implies that sectoral troop availability will be listed... somewhere visible, and it doesn't seem to be, and that it flat out states compatibility with the fire teams rule is marked on the units that can use with a little color of some form and I can't for the life of me find the damn thing anywhere.

Fire Teams anger me in part because the referenced book actually only seems to ever talk about Link Teams instead and then more so because they seem to be some archaic haphazard overly elaborate version of the Co-ordinated Order rules.

They also apparently are one of the major issues of the last edition and apparently the meta in France at least is that fire teams are an advantage too good to pass up and every competitive list MUST therefore come from one of the narrow wierdo sub faction Sectorial Lists so they can use the Fire Teams rules.

But I'm going to call the rule and the prior edition book it comes from depreciated and it looks like it's being a bit played down. The core of the new edition merely references it once without explanation. Meanwhile the referred to rules from the referred to book previously available free on the site has now vanished from their free downloads section.

I had downloaded it prior to the web site update for the new edition, and referring to it... I mostly note WTF is up with this PDF and it's bullshit loading times off my god damned hard disk? Then I got angry with it and decided to pretend it doesn't exist some time before even figuring out for sure if the whole Fire Team/Link Team confusion was ever cleared up anywhere.

Oh yeah it has a free army list web site tool
Every miniatures game should do this. Are they doing this? I haven't been paying attention lately. If these guys are the only ones doing this all the rest are living in the fucking stone age.

Unfortunately it's currently not up to date with the surprise Christmas release of the new edition. But it will be.

Did Phonelobster Decide To Buy Into The Game More?
In the end though I decided it was interesting enough that I spent my own money on getting some more stuff. So it was good enough for that at least.

Does Phonelobster Recommend it?
I remain reluctant to recommend the game. It seems to play OK, the miniatures are pretty good, it covers a lot of the right ground in the right way.

But I remain concerned about the legacy rules issue, I don't have enough deeper experience with the game and especially with faction balance and troop lists.

And then there is the thing which makes me most uncomfortable about deciding to invest in the game myself, which is that it IS a tabletop miniatures wargame and that means if I really want to get games of it I'm going to have to socialize with table top miniatures war games people. Which is always a gamble with sanity.

Still if you ARE a miniatures war game peoples, and you can deal with the whole complexity thing and are prepared to somehow get your head around that one troubling legacy rule worry... I think this might be one of the better options out there.

[Koumei]

Haven't read the most recent post yet, but so far...

I like the idea of a basic set of Tutorial missions that teach you the rules bit by bit. That's certainly not a bad move. The d20 roll under but high with opposed reaction rolls thing... seems messy. Maybe it totally works though. Still it sounds like there could be better ways of handling it.

I took a look at their website for the models, and I don't think the nuns are particularly nunnish. Sure the flavour text might say they are, but just from the minis, they don't look like religious zealots, more like cloaked travelling adventurers. Compared to Sisters of Battle, Sisters of Sigmar and at least one faction of Warmachine, they seem just fine.

[Koumei]

Oh yeah it has a free army list web site tool
Every miniatures game should do this. Are they doing this? I haven't been paying attention lately. If these guys are the only ones doing this all the rest are living in the fucking stone age.

Boobie Knights doesn't, which is sad.
Warhams obviously doesn't, that being one of them there new techno-heresy things, git orf my land! (Also they get pissy when people make their own using Excel and publish them, because that's stealing from GW as though it's like giving the whole $50+ codex away)
Privateparts Press also doesn't, going by a quick check of their website.

I can't tell you about any others though.

And then there is the thing which makes me most uncomfortable about deciding to invest in the game myself, which is that it IS a tabletop miniatures wargame and that means if I really want to get games of it I'm going to have to socialize with table top miniatures war games people. Which is always a gamble with sanity.

Harsh but true.

[OgreBattle]

The crusaders make sense in the sense that Infinity exoticizes them as much as the Space Communist China Party with kungfu power armor and their Space Japan auxiliaries with power armor samurai and ninjas.

The troopspam order system is the main criticism I have of Infinity... even though I haven't played it the mechanics just feel too 'disassociated'.

[PhoneLobster]

The troopspam order system is the main criticism I have of Infinity... even though I haven't played it the mechanics just feel too 'disassociated'.

On the smaller scale of the starter set minis it feels pretty good.

There are soft limitations on stacking all your orders onto one miniature.

Reaction fire risks stack up. Every time you stack another order onto the same mini it's another risk stacking up that they will be picked off by reaction fire before they can stack up even more order use.

Actual opportunity for actions is an issue. Even if you have front line dudes who can do something productive with multiple orders it is unlikely they can do something productive with ALL the orders.

If you blow all your orders ramboing one guy up the field and into the enemies face... they end up exposed, and in the enemies turn they will have multiple miniatures nearby to pick him off and you WON'T have multiple miniatures with LoF to provide reaction support.

Even if you do Rambo one guy all over the map shooting things, it feels like a major achievement and turn in which orders are productively spent in a focused way on parts of the battle that are both important and also fun. You don't really notice too much that some guys are getting less, or no orders, because those are almost definitively the guys you care about less int he contexts that are less important to the outcome of the game, and in the situations that are less fun.

So I don't think there are too many dissociative or major balance issues with order stacking... with the starter units...

BUT, BIG PROVISO... that is with the starter units. That's two sides with the same number of models of pretty similar values, with a small number of models and without the really expensive super elite outliers on unit quality.

Larger numbers of orders, significantly uneven numbers of orders between opponents, and guys so good nominating them with the Rambo hat and feeding them every order ever is no longer a choice could all change that. Also, the combined order thing could be an issue too.

The stacking orders thing is one of the ones I found concerning in theory but which played out pretty OK in practice (like Guts rolls, they seemed terrible, but then turned out to be no big deal). But, still minimal experience with limited resources isn't enough to be certain that this outcome still holds in normal play.

[PhoneLobster]

I like the idea of a basic set of Tutorial missions that teach you the rules bit by bit.

For added redundancy even the core rule book seems to have a "basic rules" thing in the front. I mostly skipped it at that point having already been through the starter box that is a bit bigger. It is however a slightly different basic rules introduction. And still not entirely the same as the actual full rules. So just learn the full rules instead at that point.

The d20 roll under but high with opposed reaction rolls thing... seems messy. Maybe it totally works though. Still it sounds like there could be better ways of handling it.

I think after three editions they seem to have cleaned that base mechanic up as good as they can get it.

It seems to play out OK. I haven't even really thought too hard about the probabilities, but it's going to be a little tricky accurately estimating outcomes on face to face rolls off the top of your head. But at least positive modifiers are good, negative ones are bad, larger target numbers are good, and more dice are good, and everything barring Armour and BTS rolls intuitively work on that same unified scheme/mechanic (unlike old versions of the games where some things were just different). And then Armour and BTS are simple roll high resistance checks/saving throws (and both the same, again unlike prior versions of the game).

But ask me which is better, more dice, less opposing dice, or a larger target number and by how much and I couldn't tell you and quiet frankly I don't want to do the math required to tell you.