Infinity N00B – Cover and Positioning

Infinity is a game that has a very steep and painful learning curve.  The past several games have taught me a lot about positioning and cover.  The wrong position can cost you a TAG or lose you a link team.  This post is to cover some of the painful lessons I learned about this.

I want to use Infinity N00B as my way of talking through areas of the game I find difficult to grasp even when the concept is an easy one.

Deployment

Many games are won or lost due to bad deployment and this is one of them.  While it isn't as bad as 40k, I have seen a TAG go down before my turn began.  Likewise, I have depleted an opponent's order pool because he didn't see that fire line.

The first thing you should look for is fire lanes.  A fire lane is an area where there is clear or nearly clear LOS between two points and will most likely see some traffic.  If your opponent has already deployed, look to see if he deployed in a fire lane.  He's either covering it or maybe mistakenly placed his model there.

The image below shows lots of lanes of fire.  No models are down so it's easy to see lots of interesting areas.
The picture below show an O-Yori with a nice fire lane clear into the enemy deployment lane.  Too bad he was smart enough not to deploy there.  The O-Yori has a nice corner to provide cover. 
During the Game
One of the areas that are easily over looked is cover and fire lanes during the game.  The heat of battle.  Your going for the objective or, in my case, you over estimate what your TAG can do.  

The image below shows more fire lanes on another board after the start of turn One of another game.  The O-Yori on the left has a nice fire lane but an opposing TAG is already there as well.  Both have cover.  The HMG Link Team on the right has a fire lane and used it to destroy a remote that was deployed in it without cover.  It was the only mistake my opponent made.

If you look closely, there is even a  small lane of suppression fire.

Here is a close up of the TAG on TAG action.  The O-Yori will go down to a hail of bullets. 
This image shows the good cover he had but cover does very little verse good ammo. It gives a -3 to being shot and a +3 to soaking damage.  Many of the special ammo types are there to make sure cover isn't a complete game changer.  If you look at 40k, unless the weapon has the "Ignores Cover" rule cover is a great equalizer.  In Infinity, it's used to provide a sliver of hope.

I am not saying that it's useless.  Most of the time cover can prevent you from even having to roll.  Against a Combirifle, it will make a huge difference.  Against a HMG or a Spitfire, not as much.  You should always get cover.  Standing in the open is asking to lose a model and the order it provides.  The O-Yori below is even behind cover. 
In closing,this was my quick run down on positioning and cover.  Two areas that I have been struggling with.  I know I only scratched the surface of a very complex game but it's an area that I have been struggling with.  Feel free to add any advice or other comments.