Wednesday, 1 October 2014

Infinity - All the News that's Fit to Print

Last weekend (27th-28th September) was the Infinity event at Tabletop Nation hosted by Wayland Games and attended by Carlos (Bostria to some of you) from Corvus Belli.

They were two fun filled days and included a couple of Seminars where lots of juicy information was revealed, an ITS tournament (report coming soon to a blog near you) and lots of demo games. Of these I'm sure you are all most interested in the gossip. Some of this might commonly be known by now, especially by those following the news closely, but hopefully there will be a few gems in here.

Tabitha Lyons in a Bolt cosplay


Valor: Dogged
So let's open with a big one. Ahem. Dogged is being changed so that it just grants Valor: No Wound Incapacitation until the end of the turn. It seems like a simple change but just let that sink in. Assuming that NWI is broadly unchanged this will mean that Dogged will no longer break links or require consecutive orders. It also means that you can bring up a Doctor to heal a model that has gone Dogged.

Now think of Muyibs. A link of Dogged troops supported by a Doctor are going to become very dangerous indeed as they can deal with the immediate threat and then patch up the wounded. There is nothing to suggest that Dogged won't work in the Reactive turn as well in which case it'll also be a powerful defensive tool, but this is unconfirmed.

An expertly painted limited edition Bounty Hunter

The Jump Skill
Jump will be treated as a long skill in N3 the same way as climb is treated in Operation: Icestorm. This should reduce confusion and weird rules conundrums substantially. It seems like a very positive change and I hope it will be welcomed. This rule is going to be put into immediate effect in my gaming group, that's for sure.

Icestorm Scenery
The scenery that comes with Icestorm - play mat, 4 large buildings and 6 crates - will be available to buy for around £7-£8. This represents excellent value as a couple of sets of these will fill out a gaming table nice and cheaply. During the tournament I played on a table that was almost exclusively made up of this scenery and it worked very well.

Warcor miniature
As may be common knowledge now, there is a limited edition Warcor miniature that is going to end up in the hands of, well, Warcors. There will also be an alternative version with a different head and arms for everyone else. The limited edition model is sculpted based on a well known Infinity player in the States known as Magno.

The general release and the 'Magno-edition' Warcors

Kasym Beg
Kasym Beg is the new Kum character model and will be in a double pack including a dismounted version. This could mean a few different things - possibly the dismounting rules are changing or maybe there will be the option to buy him with or without his bike. Either way he looks awesome and I have a suspicion that he will play a big part in upcoming events story-wise.

Kasym Beg - Professional Badass

Dactyls
The Full Dactly profiles have been revealed and we were also told that Acmon will be the Dactyl officer. Acmon will allow the Dactyls to link, providing fast, efficient specialists to Steel Phalanx and some much requested special weaponry.

Remember what I was saying above about Dogged link teams with Doctors? Dactyls are the perfect showcase for this combination of abilities. Surprisingly they are one of the few non-remote models in Aleph to not have a template weapon.

Full stats for the Dactyls, lots of cool gear

Rodok
Combined Army are being well looked after at the moment with all of their Morat resculpts. The Rodok is a new Morat linkable medium infantry with super jump and a Missile Launcher. It's been confirmed that it will also be used as the base model for the upcoming new Yaogat. And we thought Vector Operators were scary!

Yes, those are super jumping piston shoes

Rasail
Tohaa are getting some love too. The Rasail is a symbiont armoured infantry and comes with a Chaska, presumably meaning that they can't form triads.

Not much else is known about them at the moment, but do note that the label on the rifle is wrong and it should in fact be a Viral weapon.

New Tohaa unit...

... with accompanying friend

USAriadna Grunts
Apparently this has been common knowledge for a while, but it's news to me! A basic USAriadna grunt will cost 10pts and will come stock with a Heavy Flamethrower, Light Shotguns and a whopping 3 points of Armour. They are only MOV 4-2 though. Seems like excellent value and easily comparable to Naffatun and Thorakitai.

USAriadna grunt in full camouflage
Yan Huo Invincibles
These guys have been the cause of much concerned discussion lately. They come armed with either two Missile Launchers or a single HRMC(!). They are tough and slow with ARM 5 and MOV 4-2. These guys are basically packing TAG weaponry into a man-sized chassis so I wonder if they will be bumped up to 40mm bases?

Either way, I'm sure these guys will get a lot of new players picking up Yu Jing in the future.

Also available with a HRMC

Generic Remotes
The plan for the generic remotes is “cheaper and more effective”. Guided Missile Launchers are likely to be a bit cheaper, as are Forward Observer remotes, Total Reaction and Repeater remotes are likely to stay about the same.

There is an overall drive to make all the unit profiles useful and distinct, and remotes are an easy place to start as they are pretty consistent across all the factions. Small changes to these profiles can potentially affect a lot of games.

Sensor Remotes 
One of the ways that these remotes are being upgraded is that they will be armed with a Marker-like Sensor launchers called a 'Sniffer'. The idea behind this is that camouflaged troops will not be able to re-camo within 8" of the Sniffer, exactly as if it was a Sensor.

Sounds pretty interesting, but the real icing on the cake would be if the launched Sniffer would be able to detect camouflaged models too. Time will tell.

Woof woof!

Hackers
We got the tiniest bit of hacking news. Hacker will now be able to mark targets like a forward observer, granting the new 'Targeted' status (+3BS to shoot at and targetable by guided ammo). This is known as the Spotlight Protocol. Expect to see Guided Missiles more often with all these new changes which should provide more game against TAGs.

Apart from that, Hacking is just going to be huge and the redesign is aimed at making it useful against non-susceptible armies such as Ariadna.

Failed Deployment Rolls
Failed Airborne Deployment, Infiltration and Impersonation rolls mean that the model must be deployed adjacent to own table edge in a revealed state. The idea is that these types of actions should be high risk and high reward (as opposed to just high reward!).

Nimbus Grenades
So, you'll have to excuse me as this is rather vague, but the new Nimbus Grenades are tied in with new terrain rules. Forests and other area terrain reduce the Burst of all weapons firing through them by 1 (to a minimum of 1) in addition to any visibility effects. Nimbus Grenades basically create an area of terrain and reduce Burst by 1 and inflict a -3 visibility penalty for shooting done (through/in?) the area.

I like the idea of forests and the like reducing the Burst value of weapons, symbolising shots hitting trees. It's a nice alternative to having to work out Cover.

One of many profiles that is getting access to Nimbus Grenades

Terrain
Speaking of terrain, expect new terrain rules including more ways to 'interact' with it.

New Sectorials
There are all sorts of sectorials coming up, around two (or more - Haqq) for each faction! there was a long list of them but I didn't manage to note them all. Tunguska, Svarlheima (for PanO and YJ), Russians, USAriadna and both the Khanate and Caliphate are definitely in.

New Hac Tao concept

TAGs 
Some TAGs may be losing their Heavy Flamethrowers in an effort to make them more distinct from each other. No specific changes confirmed.

Also the Stingray series TAGs, the Tikbalang, Seraph and Uhlan will be classified as small TAGs and will be placed on a 40mm base. Apparently one of the reasons that the releases for these has been delayed is that CB were testing the waters with the Geckos - specifically with regards to boxing up pairs of TAGs. What this means for the Stingrays is uncertain however.

Vedic Sectorial
The Vedic sectorial for Aleph should be in Acheron Falls but it is not 100% certain.

New Factions
Either the O12 or Mercenaries should be in Acheron Falls. The O12 have long been planned (and then put on the back burner) and you can expect a highly elite faction - possibly even more so than Aleph. Mercenaries should largely consist of the troop types currently available so which faction we get I think will depend on how much time they can spare.

The evolution of the Ghulam HMG - the middle model is unreleased.

Martial Arts
The Martial Arts skill (not sure whether level 1 or two) will include Courage automatically.

Also, the new Martial Arts table will affect all face-to-face rolls, including being shot at whilst charging. Whilst a lot of people on the forums are discussing that, I think what people are missing is how powerful I-Kohl might be now. Check out Penthesilea who has i-Kohl L2 and an ODD, that's a whopping -12 to shoot at here when she charges in!

Army Updates
Expect units to receive overhauls to bring them into line with the N3 changes. No doubt Close Combat values will change as will weapon costs given the new range brackets. It has been confirmed that the online Army Builder will be the de facto method of building a list as it gives CB complete control of balancing unit profiles. Good news too as it means that any errant power issues can be cleaned up with just the push of a button.

Right, that's all folks as the other things in my notes I've been asked to keep as a secret for now. But rest assured that it all sounds awesome. :D

5 comments:

  1. Simply Awesome!
    Everything I read here makes me smile.
    It helps balancing GW ruining Dark Eldar.

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    1. I'm glad I was able to deliver some good news. Everything that I've heard so far about N3 has seemed positive and well-reasoned, so I have high hopes.

      What did GW do to Dark Eldar? I know they've removed some of the old characters.

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  2. Man I am in love with that Bounty Hunter. I thought Reaper had captured 'hot female' to the best degree but this gives them a run. The rest looks a bit 'meh' to me, not a fan of tech armour and the masculine anatomy tends to be a bit souped up to ridiculous degrees on the warrior minis, (and I grant you the female ones are exaggerated the other way) but the more 'normal' human sized anatomies are spot on. :)

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    1. Don't mean to insult, but when you mentioned and compared these models to Reaper your ability to judge model quality sunk a bit. CB is currently making the sexiest and most bad ass models on the market. Period.

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  3. Yeah, a lot of the Infinity minis are somewhat exaggerated although do largely have realistic proportions (heads, hands, overall scale). It's just the general aesthetic I think and you either like it or you don't. :)

    A lot of the Reaper minis are really nice, I still have a veritable horde of Bones to paint up but I think I need some motivation, like a nice D&D campaign for instance... hmm...

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