Aristeia - Meet the Aristos

Previously I went through and summarised the rules for Aristeia, so now it's time to talk about the Aristos themselves! I highly recommend reading through the rules article first as I'll be using much of the same terminology.

I'll go through the characters one by one, show their cards and talk about their abilities and what sort of uses they might have or who they might be paired up with. I've also tried to math out some of the possible results of rolls, but apologise in advance if I've made any mistakes in my calculations!

If you are interested, you can see the concept art and models for the characters in my Aristeia Seminar write-up. Oh, and for the record my ideal team is currently Gata, Parvati, Wild Bill (or Mushasi) and Hexx3r!

Aristeia Rules Summary

Aristeia is a competitive, two player game where players build their perfect teams of fighters in order to duke it out in the HexaDome. It's very much a standalone board game rather than a port or hybrid of Infinity and generally it is best to look at it with any preconceptions.

As the release date is not so far away (before the end of the year I think!) it's time to start looking at the rules and mechanics behind the game. A lot of the information has been revealed at the Interplanetary, but as reporting has been pretty sporadic so far I'm going to take the chance to explain many of the rules, mechanics and concepts.

I'm going to try and cover as much as is practical of the basics without going into the nitty-gritty. Apologies if I have some of the terminology/timing down wrong, some of it has been glossed over for the sake of simplicity but also I'm still pretty new to the game of course and may have a made a couple of odd, unintentional mistakes.

There are some things that I can't show yet but I hope this will be interesting to those looking forward to the game or even just sitting on the fence.

Images have been taken from the upcoming Reference Guide and How to Play booklets, are property of Corvus Belli and are used with permission.

ALIVE Anti-Establishment Group Review

Just a couple of days ago there has been a real shake-up to all Infinity armies (except Combined Army and their sectorials, sorry) with the release of the new ALIVE Group!

As part of this group you have three mercenary Hackers - Cypher, BIT & KISS! and Switch whose services you can hire. I'll be going through each in turn to see how they might affect army building and the game in general.

If you haven't already seen the news, then you can find all their profiles on the official ARMY Builder and in the ITS rules PDF.

Infinity - Unreleased models

Following on from my article about limited edition miniatures (now mostly up to date again) I was contacted by many players keen to share other oddities with me. So it seems that it's time to venture into the world of even rarer miniatures - those that have never been released to the general public at all!

None of the models in this article were made commercially available so their numbers are extremely limited. Generally they were early or test versions that weren't considered suitable for general sale but very few have been given away by Corvus Belli to mark special occasions or victories in particular tournaments. It's unclear how many of each there are floating around, but 8 is probably a fair guess as that is how many would typically be on a master mould.

The six sculpts below are those that I am aware of but if you know of any more, or have further info or corrections about any of them, then please do let me know and I'll be sure to add it in. Also, if you happen to own one and are looking to sell then don't forget about me!

My thanks go out to a number of players without whom this article wouldn't be possible including Cervantes, Yasbir, Fithavil and Admiral JFJC. Information was also taken from a related Data Sphere thread that is now somewhat out of date!

The unreleased Ninja and Highlander (left and right respectively, for those wondering).

Interplanetary 2016 Table Dump

Like last year I found the time to take pictures of all the tables at the Interplanetary before the tournament started.

There was an excellent selection of scenery on show and the all-card tables from last year were noticeably absent. Several tables had special terrain rules including woodland (cover or saturation and difficult terrain) and mountainous/aquatic areas (difficult terrain) but there didn't appear to be any very difficult terrain.

Generally there was a good mix of terrain density, although some of the tables definitely look a bit too 'even' which reduced the value of picking deployment zones. There were a couple that seemed a little lacking in scatter, but nothing outrageous.

The tables are all presented in numerical order (from 1-50) and there are two pictures of each table, one from the front and one from the right side.

WARNING: This post contains a lot of large images - mobile users beware.

There was also some life-size beautiful scenery in Vigo!

Infinity - Limited Edition Models

There's one aspect of Infinity that has always struck me as poorly documented and that is the limited edition miniatures that were released over the last five years or so.

I've seen many discussions about them and read lots of requests for information but I've yet to see anyone attempt to catalogue all those that have been available. So I'm going to step in and try and set things straight! Frankly, I'm a sucker for this kind of thing so it's definitely my forte - I just can't help buying into whatever rare toys are made available!

The Limited Edition miniatures can be broken down into four broad categories; tournament rewards, pre-order bonuses, celebrations and 'others'.

Please note that this does not include anything from the general Bootleg range (such as Penthesilea), out of production/unreleased miniatures or the starter-pack exclusives, but do let me know if you think I've missed any!

(Left to Right): CSU, Maverick, Joan, Gogo, Bounty Hunter

Aleph in Human Sphere: Top 5(ish) Changes

My Human Sphere book arrived today and I immediately started poring over it to try and spot all the new changes and how they might affect my favourite faction - Aleph. Unfortunately there's just so many of them that it's almost impossible to mention them all.

So I decided to make a list. Everybody likes lists, right?

Human Sphere N3

ITS 2016: Tournament Pack Unboxing

They've arrived!

I've been eagerly awaiting the new ITS tournament packs ever since the 2016 season was announced and I'm pleased to say that eight of them showed up at my door yesterday. I now have the pleasure of cracking them open to see what goodies they hold.

The 2016 season has arrived.

Infinity Starter Packs - PanO & Nomads

Update: This post has now been bought into line with the 3rd edition of Infinity.

So, you've had a demo game, seen the pretty models and want to get playing, but which starter pack should you buy? My aim is to rate each of the currently available starter packs on a scale of 1 to 5 based on the following criteria and provide some sample army lists to get you going.

• Immediate Usability: How well can you use the starter box to build a 120 and 150 point list for the first two rounds of an Escalation League. Top marks are for being able to use all six figures effectively and being able to play the first two rounds with minimal extra purchases.

• Long Term Value: Are the models that come in the Starter Pack going to be useful in the long run, will you end up using them all consistently as your army grows and are they likely to replaced by newer sculpts in the foreseeable future.
     Two ratings are given, the first when playing the 'vanilla' army with no limitations, and the second when playing the Sectorial that the box specifically belongs to (if available).

• Model Quality: Are the models good quality, recent sculpts. Some starter packs show more age than others or have outdated models in them.

I'm making the assumption that it is the player's intention to play the 'vanilla' faction, which means that they are interested in the full range of models for that faction. If a player is interested in just a particular Sectorial (a sub-section of a faction) then they should always just get the relevant starter box for that Sectorial as it invariably provides the best value.

All images in this article are the property of Corvus Belli.