Mid-December saw the release of Infinity 3rd Edition by Corvus Belli. Shortly before Christmas they also released the PDF version of the rules. Needless to say I dove into the new rules to see what had changed with the rules. Recently I managed to play my first game of N3 as well. So after the break we'll cover the good, the bad, and the ugly of N3. I'll also go over some of the more significant changes between N2 and N3. Finally, I'll give a brief overview of the first N3 game. I won't go into great detail as my gaming partner and I screwed up several rules, but I'll try and give an idea of the overall feel and flow of the game.
What N3 is
I feel it is important to explain the intent behind an Infinity 3rd edition as it is both limited in scope and laying the groundwork for future releases by Corvus Belli. First and foremost, like any new edition, it gives Corvus Belli a chance to address broad rules issues. Now, CB was already pretty good at addressing small rule issues in N2 through the Wiki, FAQ, and PDF rules available on their website. The N3 revamp allowed them to re-balance the rules from a holistic stance rather than piecemeal. However, N3 only replaces the original rulebook. The previous expansions, Human Sphere and Campaign: Paradiso, are still valid. The community at large expects some hefty FAQs to address how the rules, weapons, equipment, and units are affected by changes to the core rules, but all the fluff and rules in those books are still valid.
What N3 isn't
N3 does not cover the entire game of Infinity. As mentioned above, it only covers the core rulebook so rules that fall in other expansions are not addressed unless they CB felt they were core enough to be pulled in. Generally this is pretty limited in scope. So don't go paging through the book looking for Nomad WildCats, link team rules, or Feuerbach weapon profiles. They aren't there. CB will release a PDF updating these rules as necessary, they simply didn't want to invalidate parts of the fluff, or, cause players to buy a giant tome that includes everything from all three books (and likely tripling the size... and price).
The Good
Index. Corvus Belli finally included an Index in their rulebook and it makes referencing rules much easier.
Clarity. Overall the clarity of rules is better than N2 reading straight out of the PDFs/rulebooks. N2 was plagued with poor grammar, spelling, and translations and those sorts of issues happen very rarely in the N3 book. Additionally, the fluff is actually readable whereas in N2 is actually gave me a headache trying to decipher the poor translation.
Corvus also captured the rules in tabular format making it easier to perform comparisons or see all the options together. While some tables could be improved, the tables are well laid out, descriptive, and contain most of the necessary information about the weapons, skills, etc. they are trying to capture.
Re-balancing. Corvus did a fantastic job re-balancing all of the weapons to make them more distinct while also re-balancing the core rules to make the game more engaging. The sniper rifle is now too cumbersome to shoot reliably within 8" of the model but is fantastic up close. Missile Launchers are now ranged support instead of close support breaching tools they were in N2.
For the core rules, Corvus changed things up to allow reactions to more kinds of skills as well as more kinds of reactions. For instance, in N2 if a camo marker attacked via combat camo you were stuck waiting to see if your model lived before you responded. Now, you get to react immediately. Now CB still rewards good tactics. If you flank your opponent they still can't react very well (or at all) but there are mechanisms in place that potentially allow them to make actions to allow responses to later orders if the targeted model survives (the Warning mechanism).
The Bad
I really have a hard time declaring anything outright "bad" with N3. The book is of high enough quality, they made the smart move to swap all the fluff into a separate book so players spend less time flipping through fluff pages searching for rules, the graphical design and layout of the book is vastly improved, and overall the game has changed for the better.
The Ugly
Lack of Clarity. I know. I listed clarity in the good list above. So why does lack of clarity appear in the ugly list? Because I feel CB could have done better. There are a number of ambigious and vague wordings that are causing heated debate on the forums. Many of these debates I feel will be clarified when CB comes out with the Human Sphere and Paradiso updates but some center around rules in the core N3 rulebook.
- What are the stats for civilians/high value targets?
- How does marksmenship level 1 stack with special ammo?
- What happens with a Religious unit with V: Courage makes a guts roll?
- Initiative Declaration - i.e. who declares what when?
Human Sphere & Paradiso Confusion. While Corvus Belli stated repeatedly that the N3 book only replaces the N2 core rulebook the full implications of that didn't really sink in immediately. Only when books started showing up in people's hands did they realize that the HS/CP profiles weren't included. This creates a number of issues. How do you appropriately test HS/CP units when they don't have the points drops, potentially boosted stats, and without new skills? Well, you either use them as/is, which makes some units/loadouts awkwardly priced, or you try and modify them based on average pricing changes found in N3, which requires a ton of work and may end up dramatically different then the actual CB profile released later.
N2 to N3 Changes
There are too many changes to list here so I'll list the major changes.
- Hacking. Hacking is much more active and open in N3. You can hack opponents, boost friendly troops, or otherwise affect the battlefield in much more obvious ways. This makes them more worth the SWC cost attached to them. I'll be doing a post in the near future regarding Hacking in N3.
- Shadow Zones. In N2 you had shadow zones that prevented the targeting of troops with indirect fire within these zones. This meant that indirect fire such as speculative shot were rarely used. Shadow Zones don't exist in N3. At all.
- Loss of Lieutenant. In N2 Loss of Lieutenant meant that you likely just lost the game. The state effectively made you miss an entire turn. In friendly games not using ITS/YAMS this wasn't a huge deal but for ITS, where you only have 3 turns, it was game ending. In N3, Loss of Lieutenant means that troops become irregular. This can be ignored through Chain of Command, Veteran L1, or Morats. A new lieutenant is automatically selected at the end of the turn the player spent in the loss of lieutenant state.
- Retreat! This is the rule that truly shut games down in N2 and it happened when your army lost 60% of the points value. So in a 200 point game you only had to lose 120 points. Moving into Retreat meant that your units moved towards the board edge and couldn't fire. Retreat in N3 happens at 75% loss and means that models enter a special Retreat state. Retreat means you enter Loss of Lieutenant and all orders become irregular. It also limits actions to short movement skills, cautious movement, dodge, reset, and change facing but they don't have to move towards a board edge.
- Command Tokens. This is a completely new mechanism. Each player gets four tokens and these can be spent for a variety of purposes. Some of those include ignoring retreat on a single model, making an irregular order into a regular order, cancel the possessed state on a model, etc.
- E/M. This may seem specific but it really isn't. In N2 E/M and E/M vulnerability was everywhere. A camo'd troop hit by E/M grenades burnt out the Camo, Heavy Infantry could be completely shutdown with E/M, and many weapons could be made completely useless by E/M attacks. In N3 E/M has been toned down. It can still cause remotes, TAGs, and heavy infantry to become immobilized and it can cause any model to enter the new isolated state. So it isn't shutting down weapons and equipment in N3 but it can still dramatically effect certain unit types.
N3 Game Overview
I played my first N3 game with my usual gaming buddy, Miniature Tim. We played the Armory scenario from the N3 book.
Tim used a Yu Jing force that comprised 3 of the new terracotta heavy infantry, a ninja with a tactical bow, and a few light infantry for specialist support.
My list consisted of a grenzer (lieutenant), two hackers in the form of a zero and an interventor, a clockmaker, an alguacile paramedic, alguacile sniper, zero with repeaters, stempler zond, one of the new jaguars with a chain rifle, and a hellcat with HMG.
Tim won deployment and chose first turn. I chose board edge and made him deploy first. Tim set up in the building son the edge of his deployment zone with ready access to one of the doors of the armory. I set up with easy, and largely unassailable access to the armory but with my zero with repeaters on the far flank in case he held anything back I could lay down some repeaters.
My first turn saw me largely move up, open two armory doors, and access the panoplys a couple times with the interventor and clockmaker. My last few orders were spent preparing for Tim to breach the doors as well.
Tim's turn saw him run up and try and access the doors but fail his WIP-3 roll. He had fewer orders and spent more of them running due to his deployment on the roof of a low-lying building. He also sent his hacker up to immobilize my remote.
My turn three saw my remote discover and reveal the Ninja with sensor, my hellcat landed and downed two of Tim's specialists, and otherwise I solidified my control of the Armory by moving two more models into the room (the paramedic and my zero hacker).
Tim's turn saw him down the hellcat and then rambo the ninja around the corner and through one of the doors I had opened where I failed my discovery rolls. The ninja then proceeded to kill the interventor and clockmaker.
My last turn I killed the ninja, stood up my prone lieutenant, and mined the crap out of the armory with the zero.
Tim's last turn saw him blwo the door open with anti-material rounds and then move in like the SWAT. He managed to down all three of the models I had in the room while he only took two wounds on two separate HI due to mines. What can I say? He made some lucky dodge rolls.
In the end the final score was Tim 6, Me 2. Overall, Armory definitely rewards players who choose to go second and it doesn't rely heavily on specialists since, if you have anti-material weapons, you can simply blow the doors open which is the only action that requires a specialist.
What We Got Wrong.
So before I go into this I want to point out that these are mistakes that we both misplayed. We read the rules in question and we agreed, together, on how to implement them. This isn't me trying to explain how I might have won or how I feel cheated. The game was fun, even if we misplayed several rules, and Tim won a hard-fought game because he took risks and they paid off.
We played the Anti-Material rules wrong. Tim's latest blog post addresses that as well. Had we played those right he may not have breached the door and would either have to use specialists (of which he only had 1 left if I remember right) or run around and entered through my open doors.
I didn't utilize my hackers right. I forgot my stempler is still a repeater and that my interventor and zero could have responded to the hacking attempt against the zond.
We totally forgot about the Warning! rule which would have made the hellcat's dramatic drop a little less effective if I had pursued further shots (I didn't) and potentially altered the outcome of the Ninja rampage inside the armory.
Command Tokens. Between the two of us we used only a single of the 8 command tokens. The amusing part is that we used that one inappropriately. Because Tim chose to go second he won the ability to use command tokens strategically. What we didn't read is that these can only be used in the first turn. So on my turn 2, Tim chose to eliminate two of my orders when that action should only have been used in turn 1. Not a big deal but important enough to remember for future games.
Next time I'll go into Hacking in N3 and maybe show some progress on painting... something... anything.