Possible new player, Donut Assassin

[donutassassin]

Hey guys. Possible new player here. I have always played very competitive table top minis including 40k, warmachine hordes and most recently malifaux. Picked up malifaux a couple of weeks before this years adepticon to play in the masters tournament, and with 2 demo games, and 1 full game played before attending, I was on the final table playing for first place. So I been taking a break from minis since adepticon, and not sure if I want to fully commit to malifaux or look into something new like infinity. Infinity models look awesome and I really like the whole futuristic theme of the game. I really want to play with tags, but not sure if that is competitive or just fluff. My question is, what wins big tournaments? Hordes of minis? Hackers? Objective grabbers? Elites? 
Im having a hard time choosing a faction, I like the look of the neo terra panO and the religious panO, but I also like the look of many of the other factions as well.
i play mostly out of the dice dojo  when I play minis, but I can go to many of the west and north suburbs for games as well, since I end up spending a night or two in south elgin almost every week.

[turlisk]

Well the thing about infinity there is no perfect list that wins all tourneys that i know of.  Its usually good combo's and well rounded armies.  Since really most armies are within %5 of each other on base stat lines.  So I would think its the ability to compensate a loss or something you didnt expect to happen.  I honestly dont care for hackers that much.  Its good to have one around, but shutting things down isnt that amazing.  Play a few games and you will realize how voilent it can be.  So counting on something being end all be all, like a tag.  Usually doesnt work out that way lol.

[moondoggy]

Ya With infinity as well it can depend on what missions are being played as to how your list should be set up. Also it can depend on who and what you go up against their is allot of variables. If you really want to get into it I would say just pick what looks cool to you and go with it. I would go for what you think you will enjoy playing as much as anything every army has it own tricks that it can use. Also one of the great things about the game can be its flaws as well is it does have a huge amount of skills and different things you can do in the game. This means it can take 5 - 10 games I would say to start to really know all the rules and the game. So I would grab a faction and get several games under your belt to start to learn all of the rules first and what types of things you want to try and do. Pan -O is a good faction to start with just because their is allot in it and it can be rather diverse.

One last thing about what wins big at tourneys I would say the same thing one of the infinity podcasts referenced when talking about winning at tourneys and that is the person that can roll more crits has the better chance of winning.

[donutassassin]

Cool thanks for the info. In most games I play, people always say that all the armies are pretty balanced and such. But then a few games in, you start to notice some armies are really hard to win against, and then you meet the power gamers, and really find out that there are certain very over powered lists i.e Colette in malifaux and egaspy in warmachine.
Yeah I'm just having a hard time of thinking which army I want to paint up with my airbrush. And also thinking of alternate paint schemes, cause I hate looking like everyone else's models.

[Angron]

Welcome to the boards.
There are no set builds in infinity. For ITS tournament play there are restrictions that narrows builds due to specialist recommendations. Only certain troop types can complete objectives. But even then you'll rarely see the same build more than a couple of times.
There aren't many,if any at all, power gamers in infinity. It's not a game of combos and overall strategy it's a game of basic tactics. Playing to opponents weaknesses, taking advantage of terrain, exploiting fire-lanes and playing to your own armies strengths.
My advice is to pick a starter set you like and start there. Usually they contain three line troops some kind of heavy Infantry a skirmisher and either a warband type or drop troop.

This is a great time to start because we are starting an escalation league in June.

If you've got any questions throw them out there and once you start playing don't get discouraged, the learning curve is very steep in the beginning but once you get the hang of it, it's super rewarding.

[scadugenga]

Welcome to the forums.

I've been playing minis wargames since Rogue Trader, and Angron is absolutely correct. You won't find a game balanced the way this is. The Infinity maxim is "it's not your list, it's you." This is very true, with the one exception of ITS tournament play, where the mission objectives pretty much require you to field certain specialist troops.

[jerimy]

I don't think the learning curve is that steep for a veteran wargamer. You will have to realize two things about Infinity.

First, it operates like an actual gunfight. Everyone dies when you shoot them a couple of times, cover is an absolute and when you stick your head out to shoot someone, people shoot back at you. No other game is as realistic and balanced as Infinity (aside from giant robots, werewolves, half naked cyborgs and one wheeled motorcycles) From a rules standpoint, Infinity is very realistic and deadly compared to other games.

Second, Hand to hand combat isn't really used that much because when you rush someone in Infinity, they put bullets in you and you die. There are some good H2H troops but generally your games are won by taking objectives and outhinking and out maneuvering your opponent.

There is no super hard list or "chaos space marines" of infinity. All of the lists have a virtual crap-ton of variants and specialized lists and you only need a few models to start. So many of the players on this board have different armies (Angron has everything...and he is basing things...finally) So viva variety!

You need to pick the army that looks best to you and then ask the forum about play style for that army. When you get the right combo, you will be happy. Fortunately, everyone here is more than happy to give you their opinion and you are a veteran so it won't take you long to figure it out.

One last thing. Your nickname on the forum is the "Donut Assassin". Apparently many of the members here prefer something called a cronut which I thought was a typo at first but then I realized it's a real thing so hopefully you like those.

If you get a small force together you may want to check out how an escalation league works. It is an easy way to get used to infinity and build up a force.
www.infinitythegame.com/infinity/downloads/its/%5Ben%5DEscalation%20Leagues%20-%20Rounds%201%20to%205.pdf

Welcome to the Forum and to the CRIPs

[donutassassin]

Made a reply last night, and not sure why I don't see it..., o well. But I was saying I am debating between nomads and pano I think. I like the iguanas and geckos and the idea I could actually field them withou spending most of my points on one model. But as far as troops go I like the look of the models in the jurisdictional command of Corregidor box.
And as far as pan o goes I like the look of the knights of Santiago and many of the military order models. And I like the neoterran capitalize army box and the neoterran bolts. But when it comes to these pano sectorials, the list I see online use fusiliers.... And those look really stupid to me. Why wear all the upper body armor if you are not going to wear a helmet or any armor for the majority of the legs. Berets and parachute pants, no thanks.

[Angron]

The fusiliers are some if the oldest sculpts in the line and are due to be redone in the coming months. They will probably retain the berets and parachute pants though.

Knights are less about finesse than most of the other armies. You can field a competent list without any fusiliers.

That said I'd start with the Corregidor box set and either the iguana or the geckos. That sectoral has some really cool minis.

[scadugenga]

MO has plenty of great HI, but have some issues with specialists--particularly if you don't like Fusiliers. (I have the same issue with the old Aguacile sculpts--yuck.)

Corregidor is a very straightforward army, compared to the rest of the Nomads. You get lots of great direct damage, but you lose out on a lot of the tricksy-ness of the Nomad army. It's a mindset thing. If you're coming from systems that don't require a whole lot of lateral, or outside-the-box thinking, then Corregidor is a good starting point to jump into Infinity.

Plus, the different varieties of 'Cats are awesome. As is McMurrough.

[lsl]

Nice to breifly meet you on Saturday. Hope we can get some demo games set-up down at Dice Dojo at some point.

[Angron]

We tried that once. It sucked. Not the stores fault but had to bring terrain, meaning had to park. 'Twas expensive.

Hopefully they have more terrain now.

[lsl]

I'm getting better at packing about a duffle bag's worth of terrain for a table since playng drobuff. Easier in a car, but I can probably get up there via the red line with a duffle.

[Angron]

It's the demo armies and the good terrain that's hard to carry on the red line. Last time I brought the sarrissa stuff.

[lsl]

Point.