Infinity: Tactica

"It's not your list, it's you." If you are a veteran player, or you frequent any of the Infinity forums, it is only a matter of time before you come across these words. The reason this slogan is so common is that Infinity has much more to do with tactics than army list.

Every wargame has a different way of playing out. For example, success in Warhammer 40k is based mostly on building a great army list and then deploying your army intelligently. Warmachine, on the other hand depends on building an army of complimentary models and managing resources like focus and activation order. In Infinity there are no "must have" or "auto include" models and the only resource you need to manage during a game are your activation orders. What wins games of Infinity are tactics, putting your army in the best possible position while denying your enemy any advantage.

Unfortunately this makes Infinity a hard game for new players, because a veteran will usually win, and keep winning, until a new player discovers their own killer tactics. The best way to get good at Infinity is to practice, but reading the book and reading about other people's tactics will also get you there. From time to time I'll be posting articles about tactics I've learned to help new players find their feet quickly and start taking veteran players down.

For this first tactica article I'm going to lay out three of the simplest offensive killer tactics for Infinity, as well as one defensive tactic. This article is meant to give new players an edge, so these tactics will probably seem like common sense to veteran players. In the future I will be writing more tactica articles about other more advanced techniques.

Outflank

The importance of cover cannot be overstated in Infinity. Cover provides a model with a +3 bonus to ARM, and models attacking them suffer a -3 penalty to BS. Consider this example: a Keisotsu Butai is one of the weakest models in the game but only costs 9 points. On the other hand a Nomad Mobile Brigada is a fairly powerful unit designed for heavy assault, but costs more than 4 times as much as the Butai at 43 points. However, if the Butai is in cover and the Brigada is not then suddenly both models have a BS of 10 and an ARM of 4 when facing each other. This example is a bit of an oversimplification (it doesn't account for number of wounds and weapons), but illustrates that an attacking army should be approximately 3-4 times more expensive than a defending army in order to have an even chance of victory.

Obviously then, the simplest offensive strategy is to deny your enemy the benefit of cover by attacking him from all sides so that there is nothing to hide behind. It is foolish to confront your enemy head on in Infinity, unless you have some genius tactic that supports such a move. Unfortunately for new players, the strategy of attacking an enemy head on is the primary strategy taught by 40k and Warmachine, and is a difficult habit to break.

Denying your enemy cover is easier said than done. The easiest way to do this is to split your army into two parts, and send each half around your enemy's defensive lines in a different direction to surround them. However, if you take to long to execute this tactic it is easy to defend against.

The best way to execute an outflank tactic is with shock and awe. For best effect an entire army should participate in this tactic. A forward element made up of models with the Infiltrate and Mechanical Deployment skills can pin the enemy down, while a flanking element made up of models with the Aerial Deployment and Impersonation skills attack the enemy from behind.

This is a tactic that almost any army in the game can pull off to some degree, but it is a specialty of the Hassassin Bahram (Haqqislam), Corregidor (Nomad), and Merovingia (Ariadna). The Acontecimento Shock Army (PanO), Shasvastii (Combined), Morat (Combined), and Gapu Khalqi (Haqqislam) can all manage this tactic as well, but not quite as effectively.

The other way to achieve this tactic is to field an army with a huge number of orders so that you can surround the enemy in a single turn without using special deployment tricks. Aleph and the Combined can both achieve this trick to a limited degree by using AI Beacons, but the Imperial Service (Yu-Jing) and Caledonians (Ariadna) are the best thanks to having incredibly cheap Regulars with very high AVA.

Assault from Cover

This is a simple and aggressive tactic that can be performed by almost any army in the game. This tactic is also easy to learn and similar to tactics used in games like 40k, so it is a great technique for both new and veteran players.

This tactic requires 2 things: models equipped with powerful short range weapons or close combat weapons, and models that can use smoke grenades. The idea is simple: lay down a thick smoke screen and then advance on your enemy, dropping more smoke grenades as you move until your are close enough to hit your opponent with overwhelming force.
This tactic can be a double-edged sword against strong defensive armies, especially if your opponent uses Multispectral visors to see through your smoke screen. Ideally you want to get close to the enemy, make an opening volley of attacks using direct template weapons, and then charge into close combat.

The S3 Assault Subsection (Aleph), Morat (Combined), and Caledonians (Ariadna) are the masters of this tactic. Almost any other army has a way of pulling off this tactic as well, making it a good first technique to master. The Imperial Service (Yu-Jing) are also good at this thanks to Smoke Grenade Launchers and the huge amount of Orders provided by their Kuang-Shi.

The Gapu Khalqi (Haqqislam) and Mercenaries have an advanced version of this tactic thanks to the skills of the Yuan Yuan pirates. Instead of creating a moving screen of smoke, Yuan Yuan can use Aerial Deployment to drop behind an enemy and hit their troops directly with smoke grenades. With the enemy trapped in a cloud of smoke the rest of the army can safely advance. The Morat can also do this, but even better. The Morat Rasyat unit can deploy behind the enemy, and then drop Zero-V smoke grenades, completely blinding the enemy.

The PanO army is the only force that does not use this tactic, due to an almost complete lack of smoke grenades in their army. However, the Acontecimento Shock Army can perform an advanced version of this tactic thanks to the Zero-V Smoke Grenade Launchers of their Guarda de Assaulto. Zero-V smoke cannot be penetrated by Multispectral Visors, allowing the Acontecimento to advance in total safety.

Although it is technically a completely different tactic, there is a very powerful modified version of this technique that is worth mentioning. The problem with smoke grenades is that Multispectral Visors can see through them, but this is also one of the best things about smoke grenades. Instead of using a mix of units with smoke grenades and short range weapons, a player can make an army with a mix of units with smoke grenades and units with Multispectral Visors. By doing this your army can shoot through their own smoke screen, which will severely limit your opponent's ability to respond. Model's reacting to an attack through a smoke screen can only return fire if they survive, and suffer a -6 penalty to their BS. By choosing targets cautiously you can pick off enemies one at a time from relative safety.

This modified technique works best for Gapu Khalqi (Haqqislam), Morat (Combined), and Imperial Service (Yu-Jing). All three of these armies have units with Multispectral Visors who can use powerful long range weapons and form link teams.

Ambush

This tactic is easy to understand and execute, and relies on the ability of models with the Camouflage skill to perform surprise attacks. This tactic only requires a few models with the Camouflage skill working together, but is more effective the more models participate. Models with Impersonation are also very useful in this strategy, attacking opponents from within their own deployment zone.

When a camouflaged or hidden model makes an attack they make a normal roll and the reactive player can only perform his ARO's after the results of the attack. By carefully positioning camouflaged troops, and carefully choosing targets, a stealthy attack force can carefully pick off the enemy one at a time without any risk to his own models.
It is difficult to impossible to defend against surprise attacks, so even a skilled opponent cannot do anything to resist this tactic. However, the success of a surprise attack depends completely on the skill of the attacking model, and an enemy with a strong defensive tactic will be able to quickly kill off your ambushers.

Success with this tactic requires a player to be very calculating and cautious. Being too aggressive and exposing your ambushers to too many defenders will allow your opponent to rally and halt your attack. It is always best to take out isolated targets first, then use careful manuevering and stealth to eliminate the enemy one at a time. If this is done right it will give you breathing room to reactivate your camouflage skills

Most of the armies in the game have models with Camouflage or TO Camouflage to perform this tactic to one degree or another, but some armies are better than others. PanO and Yu-Jing are both very good at this strategy, but strangely most of their sectorial armies are not. The best armies for this strategy are the Bakunin (Nomad), Merovingian (Ariadna), and Japanese (Yu-Jing). However, the true masters of this technique are the Shasvastii (Combined).

Defensive Line

One of the hardest lessons for a new player from 40k or Warmachine to learn about Infinity is that some of the best armies are designed purely to defend. The main reason that tactics like the three mentioned above are so important is because they are all designed to defeat a defensive army. Without a good attack plan a powerful defensive army will win almost every time.

There is, of course, one fatal flaw with a defensive tactic: it only works if your enemy is foolish enough to attack you. When two armies designed for defense square off against each other the battle will often become a game of chicken, where the loser is the one that attacks first.

Most armies can develop powerful defensive strategies. The key to a good defense is being able to pour huge amounts of firepower into an attacking enemy. The easiest, and often the most effective way, to do this is to field large link teams of soldiers with powerful long-range weapons. A 5 man link team of even the worst troops in the game is formidable if it has a sniper rifle, heavy machine gun, or missile launcher and is deployed behind good cover. For example, a link team of 5 Keisotsu Butai with a Missile Launcher and HMG is only 70 points, but can easily beat almost any model in the game. More expensive link teams, like Djanbazan, Hassassin Muyib, Haramaki Zensenbutai, Yaogat, Bagh Mari, Grey Rifles, and others are even more effective and usually have some nasty tricks to boot.