5 Tactics For New Infinity Players
In Infinity each unit you have access to has a wide variety of capabilities and orders they can accomplish. Figuring out all the possibilities can seem daunting for new players, but it's this tactical depth that makes Infinity such a great game. Here are 5 tips and tactics that every new Infinity player should know to jump start their skill.
1. Total Reaction Remotes
While not really a tactic, this is one of the first units that I found helpful for surviving a game of Infinity. The trusty Remote, specifically the one armed with an HMG, 360 Visor and Total Reaction, is a fantastic choice for holding down a part of the field and punishing careless opponents. When you're new to the game, having a model on the board that can effectively cover a corridor, or even an entire flank, will help free up the rest of your army to maneuver and accomplish objectives. The Total Reaction remote isn't without it's counters (like MSV+Smoke below), but it's always something worth considering in an army for new players.
2. Suppressive Fire Coordinated Order
Most armies in Infinity are going to have a few models that are more inexpensive to hold down the backfield and generate orders. Often nicknamed cheerleaders, they typically come standard with a Rifle or Combi Rifle, and can easily be forgotten... Until an enemy gets around your flank and starts killing them all off. An effective way to protect them is to spend a Command Token on your first turn to perform a Coordinated Order to put up to 4 of them into Suppressive Fire. Suppressive fire can potentially last the entire game, and is only cancelled when you do something other than ARO with it, so by getting your units in this mode early you can take the most advantage of it. Having a fist full of Suppressive Fire models in your backfield, or covering short corridors is a fantastic way to help control the board, since any enemies that get within their range will be taking an ARO with Burst 3, and if they dodge or fire back, they'll suffer an extra -3 penalty. So don't just ignore your backfield troops, get them into Suppressive Fire and give them a job to do!
3. MSV2 + Smoke
Probably the first two-unit combo you'll pick up, this nasty little combo allows some of your models to shoot without the fear of suffering an ARO in response. Here's how it works:
- Have a out of LOS of the enemy armed with smoke grenades throw one into a corridor where the enemies lack MSV2.
- Have your own model armed with a Multispectral Visor Level 2 (or 3) move into a position to fire and take out the enemies. Their only options will be to fire back at -6 through the smoke, or dodge at, which will be at -3 for not having LOS to the attack if you're using a template weapon.
- You can freely move around behind the smoke or touching it with your MSV model, killing any other enemies that you might desire.
- Don't forget to finish in a good position since the smoke will dissipate at the end of your turn.
This is a great way to take out annoying things like Total Reaction Remotes (which lack MSV2), as well as any unsuspecting enemy caught by the attack.
4. Using Templates Against Camouflage
Dealing with camo is just part of the game in Infinity. There are hidden models all over the board, and to attack them, you need to get creative. Normally, the only action you can directly take against a camouflaged model is Discover, which is you attempting to force them out of the state. This approach can be order intensive, and if a model fails, they cannot keep trying to discover that same enemy model. Another way to deal with an enemy in camo is to attack them indirectly with a template weapon. If we use the example above, lets pretend the model on top of the box is hiding in camouflage, the Daturazi (in purple) decides to use his Chain Rifle against the model directly in front of him, the blast of the gun is so large though, that it will also hit the hidden model above. That hidden model is now forced to out of the state, since being hit by the weapon means he must take an Armour save, which cancels the camouflaged state. While it wont help with every camouflaged enemy, when you can line up these kinds of attacks, it's often worth taking.
5. Cover Your 6
Probably the most difficult thing for me to get used to in Infinity is model facing. Each model has a 180° field of view to their front. If you've been playing games where facing doesn't matter a lot (like 40k), then this is a little fact that is very easy to forget.
In the diagram above, we have two models surrounded on all sides by enemies. In the top picture, we have a forgetful former 40k player (like me) leaving his models with their faces against the wall, because of this, their Line of Sight is mostly blocked by the buildings and doesn't allow them to safely cover their backs from the enemies to the extreme right or left.
The bottom part of the picture shows much more effective positioning, by placing their back towards the building, they're able to open up wider LOS, covering the advance of the enemy from any direction.
Obviously there's a lot more to the game than what's here, so what tips do you have for new players?