Infinity: An N3 Perspective on September 2014 Releases

Time to go back and take another look at some of last years Infinity releases to see how they turned out in N3. This time it’s these beauties I unboxed last January.

Let’s start with this brutal looking Morat warrior. My first thought when I saw him was that he looks like the sort of guy who is just going to absolutely chew you up in close combat. In reality he’s more like a general. Strategos L1 seems to be one of his defining features. This lets you use his Lt. order wherever you want. Truth is, he isn’t a particularly bad place to use the order. His Mk12 is a decent, if somewhat uncommon weapon. It’s basically a Spitfire with -1 burst and +1 Dam. V No Wound Incapacitation will give Kornak some much needed survivability. His decent PH score and Kinematika L1 will also assist in that department by helping him dodge out of the way. If you do find him in combat, Berserk will increase his odds of hitting and turn any cc rolls into normal rolls. This means his attacks won’t be cancelled, but there’s a good chance of both combatants hitting each other. Anyone that tries to assassinate him in CC will probably end up dead as well.

In a Morat sectorial he can be added to any HI link team. This means he is the only way to bring a 4 man Sogarat link. While the benefits for a 4-man link aren’t as exciting as a five, this will allow the link to suffer an extra casualty before breaking. I think Kornak can definitely be useful in a Morat sectorial. In regular Combined army I think someone with Mnemonica will be a better Lt. Kornak doesn’t have to be in charge of course. There is a non Lt. version of him, but why bother?

This Dactyl doesn’t look as scary as our last guy, but seriously you should be afraid of anyone from Aleph. Androids are creepy. She’s another one who’s probably best in her own sectorial. I mean if you’re just gonna run regular Aleph, the freaking 14 point Proxy Mk 1 engineer with WIP 15 just seems crazy good. Or you can spend more than twice the points for a Sophotect who is fast and also a Doctor. In her own sectorial though, the Dactyl only competes with the Thorakitai. She’s the more expensive option, and though their WIP is the same, she has V: no wound incapacitation. This is important since, if I’ve learned anything in Infinity, its that people want to kill my specialists. On the other hand the Thorakitai can be part of a link team which may help him cross the battlefield.

But the Dactyl has another edge. She gets a couple of crazy weapons to choose from: The Flammenspeer, which can maybe catch a bunch of dudes on fire or the Akrylat Cannon, which can maybe absolutely ruin someone’s day by immobilizing them. Both are risky weapons with high payoffs. I think with all the things she has going for her, the Dactyl is a pretty great choice for Steel Phalanx. And you can always take a Thorakitai engineer in the same list anyway. The Engineer version isn’t much more expensive than a regular combi Thorakitai, and having lots of D-charges and Engineers around can be extremely helpful.

But wait – even though it says engineer on the blister this model comes in, you can also field her as a Doctor since this is currently the only Dactyl model. I think this is actually the best way to go. She is the only Steel Phalanx Doctor. I mean yes they have paramedics but if you really need to heal someone only a Doctor will do. The Doctor version comes with and Adhesive Launcher as well, but also Nimbus Grenades. Nimbus Grenades are awesome. They make low visibility/saturation zones that even affect those pesky models with multispectral visors. These are enough to make her worth taking in Vanilla Aleph. Especially if you were going to take a Doctor anyway, which you should, because objectives.

The Kotail has a lot going for him too. His two biggest abilities are going to be super Jump and his Holo-projector. As someone who’s been on the receiving end of a Kotail, they are solid. Super Jump makes maneuvering around the battlefield a lot easier. Jumping up on a roof is a great way to avoid those fire corridors your opponent set up. Bonus points for jumping down behind guys and taking away their face to face roll. Of course even when you end up in the line of fire, your opponent still has to decide which holo projector marker is actually the Kotail. I reccomend fielding this guy as the forward observer version because his abilities should make getting him to objectives a snap. Yeah the FO isn’t supposed to have twin combis like this guy does, but this is the only Combi armed Kotail you can get right now. And if you’re obsessive about these things you can always get rid of one of those guns.

Yojimbo is arguably one of the coolest models in the game. Where else are you going to get a Ronin on a bike? He’s not just showing off either. This guy is also one of the best models in melee in the entire game. His CC score is way up there, and he has Martial Arts Level 4 and a Double Action Close Combat Weapon to boot. Getting into CC can be a real challenge in Infinity, so fortunately he has smoke grenades to help get him up close and personal. These will be crucial to keep him from getting shot on the way in. If things still look too dicey, you can just try to get him up somewhere that lets his Koalas menace the most area and leave him be. At 21 points he’s cheap enough to be kinda disposable. Which is good since CC specialists tend to be high risk/reward models.

The biggest obstacle to fielding Yojimbo well is probably his base. With the high saturation of terrain in Infinity games, moving a model with a 55mm base around can be harder than you might think. My poor Squalo has had to take the long way around some buildings a couple of times because we put them too close together. Try to account for this during set up in friendly games. In more formal tournament type settings you’ll just have to hope the organizer will have anticipated this kind of thing.

Finally we have these fusiliers. If you play generic Pan O, you should grab this box. As I always emphasize, list building in Infinity is like putting together a puzzle. Even though Pan O has troops with higher BS or better armor, you never know when that 18 point, 1 SWC HMG will be just the thing you need to perfectly finish out a list. In NeoTerra though you just don’t have any excuses not to pick these guys up. Fusiliers are great in a link. Their BS is already higher than most Line Infantry and with five of them they can hit just about anything. I’ve been running a five man link with two of the special weapons, swapping the Sniper Rifle, HMG, and ML in and out for one another. I think in the end I’m sold on HMG/ML, but Burst 3 from the Multi Sniper Rifle with DA ammo can be just brutal. That’s right, that’s not an ordinary Sniper Rifle – Fusiliers get Multis. If you want some more on Fusiliers you can check out this article. Honestly, the more games I’ve played since I wrote it, the more I’ve found myself steering towards these guys over Bolts. The hacker isn’t great because of his low WIP, but he is cheap. Sometimes he’ll be the only hacker you can afford, and a cheap hacker is better than no hacker.