Last year a friend of mine was really excited about this game called Infinity. As a long time minis gamer, I was hesitant to say the least. I'd seen many games come and go. I had tried many of them but invested in few.
Games that spring to mind would be Mutant Chronicles and Void, both of which competed head to head with Warhammer 40,000 in its primacy. Newer games like Ronin: Duels and even other GW fare like the Lord of the Rings games in their various scales have also come and gone. I'd recently bought very big into a game called Anima: Tactics, primarily because of the sculpts which were fantastic.
Nick, my friend, was not swayed by my reluctance. He went on to describe a game to me that seemed like it was the best of all possible worlds. It had the terrain interactions and small model count of Necromunda. It had sculpts that were beautiful. It had a world background as deep and developed as Warhammer 40,000 with the possibility of plot advancement that Warmachine and Hordes offered. It's dice mechanics were different than many other games out there, and it had an interesting set of mechanics that blended miniatures games with the back and forth of a great table top role playing game.
It all seemed to good to be true to me, honestly. I'd played Warhammer 40,000 from day one and only stepped away from the game in 2008. I felt that I could no longer play a game that was so poorly designed while still playing a game like Warmachine which is one of the best designed games out there. I was afraid that my experience with Warmachine would spoil me for other games.
Nick came over and we went through the new Infinity starter set called "Operation: Icestorm". I was intrigued by how the game worked immediately. Much of what he had described to me was there. It's not an easy game to master, but like Warmachine it's rather easy to pick up.
It was incredibly detailed for a miniatures game as well. I felt like I was playing a table top game like Shadowrun. A few players from our Warmachine meta became involved in the game and we picked different factions to avoid mirror matches and the like.
The growing pains began, though, pretty early on. The rules, while balanced, aren't as clear as I would have liked them to be. Referencing the rules was not always easy. While the mechanics were easy, there was a steep learning curve much like in Warmachine. I was not expecting that, I guess, since I'd mastered the rules of Warmachine fairly quickly (primarily because I was the defacto Press Ganger before I'd even applied to Privateer Press).
The adage that no plan survives contact with the enemy is no more appropriate than it is in Infinity. Almost anything can happen in a given game, and in order to fully enjoy it you must be able to view the game not just as a win/lose proposition, but also as a narrative in its own right.
Nick ended up moving away and for a while I refocused on Warmachine and Hordes in our area as a new store had opened and wanted Press Gang support. I found myself always looking at my Aleph models and wanting to really get back into it. Around my birthday this year I decided to get back in. I added more models to my collection and even picked up a new faction with the Ariadna army box.
Since then, I've had a lot of fun. I find learning the game to be enjoyable, I find painting and collecting the minis to be a great deal of fun, and I feel like it's such a huge break for me to enjoy the narrative aspect of a minis game.
