Terrain: How much is right for Infinity?

Shown in the rules, dense, multi-height buildings are cool! 

I’ve been playing Infinity for a few weeks now with my good buddy Bringer of Death or BOD, Bringer…maybe BODhi…anyway, and we’ve been really enjoying it.
Aside from the mechanics of the game, the fact that it’s a skirmish game and that’s its not set in the grim dark…one of the key differences from 40k is the relationship the game has with terrain.

In 40k we work on a 25% coverage, mixed between LOS blocking, ruins, buildings, hills, trees etc…with a little bit of everything. We know that the mixture is key to avoiding gun line dominance and a boring game.

For Infinity, the terrain plays a truly key role. Too little and the mechanics break, with AROs (Automatic Response Orders) flying everywhere. I’ve explained ARO’s here, a quick reminder is that when an enemy model moves/shoots/uses a skill, any of the opponents models that can draw LOF (Line of Fire) to that model may act against it, commonly by shooting at it.

So without properly positioned and suitably dense terrain, the game doesn’t work. Bringer and I started out using standard 40k terrain, but just using much more of it. This didn’t work right, so we upped the amount of LOF blocking terrain, making the game both more tense and tight.

This is the board we are playing on now, a lovely 4’x4’ board modelled as a oil rig/port. We have not been playing the sea as a water feature, but with the game having a mechanic for Swimming (how cool?!) we may as well from now on.

As you can see, lining up shots can be tricky – primarily because, in a fashion not dissimilar to chess, movement leading up to that stage where you can act has been anticipated and a strategy built up by the opponent. Traps can be set and in the dense terrain, it is sometimes easy to forget an enemy model, what direction they are facing and suddenly you discover that your miniature is the target of a Double Action Sniper Rifle from afar as he scurries across a small piece of open ground! (Double action means you have to make 2 armour saves for every wound caused)



William Wallace braves the ARO of a Sin Eater...the last mistake he'll make!

 Rounding a corner can be dangerous too, knowing that as you cross the distance between cover, it is likely you will be sniped or shot at. This can be mitigated for in the game through the use of smoke grenades, throwable items that create a large area of zero visibility, through which no LOF can be drawn…unless your opponent possesses the hated Multi Spectral Visor (MSV L2)..in which case he will gun you down like a dog…or attempt to!

I'm assembling loads of these this weekend! All different!

Check out my latest piece of terrain – no, not the cardboard or the polystyrene…they are Works In Progress! I mean the very cool, paper, freight container…with extra graffiti! This is a free pdf from the excellent toposolitario website…I have around 9 more of these to assemble, ready to create a dangerous corridor of doom! They look great and are a good size for the game, though I feel they are not truly in proportion/scale…they still provide sufficient effective cover. Did I mention they are FREE!

View from a high up snipers nest...a deadly corridor to cross!

This board will improve over time as I paint the 40k Barriers, create real buildings from polystyrene and cardboard….the next big project will be to turn the long strip of cardboard into a docked, carrier boat thingy…with a crane coming from the central piece.. Bringer and I were talking about having a container hanging from the crane, the piece would start in a random deployment zone, so a miniature could be placed on top of it (perfect sniper position or what?), every turn the crane would turn around in a direction controlled by the opposing player using the Dispersion rule, making for a highly unpredictable and fun little bit of crazy. Of course, if the sniper found himself without targets, he can always climb the chains up to crane itself and leg it back across the crane arm to a better position!

Seriously, how cool would that be! Whilst also not being a critical part of the game..if you don’t want to pop your sniper (or don’t have one) up there…there are sufficient locations elsewhere on the board.

So there you have it, our current Infinity board, a WIP to be sure…but it creates a wonderfully tense game where movement is utterly deadly and positioning/forward planning crucial to survival!