So I'm now very much back into Infinity. Haven't played much N4 yet, but I'm spending too much time on army and buying models, so it's happening. With an eye to making this a good infinity blog again, I've decided to update some old conventional articles for N4: a beginners guide to factions, a beginners guide to the game, and a tier list. Here is the first of those articles. This article is best read in combination with the beginners guide to the game so that you understand the importance of things like MOD stacks.
Infinity is an extremely well balanced game, which means that you can do well with just about any faction and can very much decide on your factions based on the rule of cool. If you like the look of something, then go for it. Furthermore, while sectorials can often be quite niche in their playstyle, most factions nowadays have a sprinkling of everything. So even if you say, start with Ariadna (a light faction) and realise that actually you like playing heavy infantry, you'll probably be able to adopt that playstyle to some extent. The 15 order cap has also flattened the distinction between many factions and sectorials, with those previously characterised by high order counts and warband spam (Caledonia, Ikari, etc.) now having to play a similar game to everyone else. That said, there are differences in "optimal" playstyle across factions and especially sectorials, and you should probably be aware of them when starting out. There are also a few factions that are either relatively hard to play or just bad, and you want to try to avoid them when starting out. Nothing turns you off a game faster than losing your first 20 games straight with the Japanese. A top player can still eek out wins with them, but it's a struggle. In fact, let's start with factions to avoid as a beginner...
Traps for Young Players
The main factions to avoid when you're just starting out are, in no particular order:
Japanese Sectorial Army
No army sucks in more newbs than JSA. The models are siiiiickk. Sci Fi Ninjas and Samurai, Akira-inspired bikes, the Geisha bots from Ghost in the Shell, and a Gundam! Noice. Except that these guys are perhaps the most handicapped faction in the game. The basic problem for JSA is that they want to slash their opponent but they have no way to get into base to base contact. The only cheap smoke in the faction is yojimbo, and he's unwieldy. The only reliable HMG in the faction with which to clear out snipers is the O-Yoroi (TAG) and if you take the big boy you won't have a lot of points or SWC available for other applications. JSA typically involves killing defensive pieces with Thermo Optic camo ninjas, and that is a very advanced skill and an order-intensive strategy. The faction has few conventional assault platforms (i.e. a B4 weapon with a MOD stack like mimetism) and frequently relies on unconventional methods to get kills. CC is a little weaker in N4 with the changes to dodge as well. Avoid JSA until you're very good.
Morats
Another faction that sucks in new players because supposedly they have fewer rules, Morats are actually infinity on hard mode. The Morat rule is an expensive tax that prevents you from learning important skills like hiding your lieutenant. Morats also lack MOD stacks on most of their units (Q-drone is the prominent exception), which makes offense difficult. In N3 they had a very good high-order count approach relying on Hungries, Daturazi, REMs, and Rasyats dropping in to throw eclipse, but that strategy was nerfed by the 15 order cap. That leaves a more iconic Morat approach involving very heavy infantry, which is frankly a weak strategy. In general, infinity is about not getting hit because you put a huge spread between you and your opponent with MOD stacks. As such, you just don't need ARM. It is nice to have, along with a spare wound, on your main attack pieces, but whole links of it is inefficient.
Military Orders
Substantially better than Morats, but employing the same strategy of Heavy Infantry (HI) spam. These guys are very much viable for beginners, so if you like the look just go for it, but you will face a steep learning curve against some factions. The main issue is, as usual, the lack of MOD stacks on many units. This leaves you reliant on the massive base BS and B of your main HI, which is fine if you know how to keep a link team together but many beginners don't. You can use the light infantry links to learn how to play higher order count lists, and there's a sprinkling of other units to learn the depth of the game. A nice aspect of these HI factions for beginners is that they are very low model count, which is cheap in $ terms. I would not that military orders has all these issues, but the raw power of MO, especially the idiot-proof Magister link, makes them fine for beginners.
French (Rapid Response Force Merovingia)
A hangover from N1 really. Back then, a top tier strategy was to press all the buttons and then go into retreat to end the game before your opponent had a chance to respond. JSA and the French were masters of this art. Changes to the mission mix over the seasons to favour ground control and killing stuff rather than pressing huge numbers of buttons has nixed this strategy. The models being discontinued doesn't help. You can play the viable parts of French better using other Ariadna factions, notably Kosmoflot.
USA
These guys got hit very hard by the 15 order cap introduced in N4. Their traditional approach was 17+ orders and unlike other high order count factions they have few units that make a lower order count list viable. You're basically for sure going to be running the Unknown Ranger and a blackjack, and you might as well do that in Kosmoflot.
Druze
N4 makes these guys playable with the changes to spotlight, tactical awareness on TAGs and a few other tweaks, but they remain underpowered and require a lot of finesse to play (see guide here). Medium infantry links are bad - high cost with little durability. Brawlers are objectively bad, though now you can mix and match the two decent profiles (MSV sniper and SMG hacker) into other links. You need to use guided a lot, which necessitates hacking through a wide repeater network. This works quite well in N4, but is hard to play unless you are experienced.
Nomads
The sectorials here are all fine, just avoid the vanilla faction. I have played Nomads for years. They are my favourite faction in terms of fluff and playstyle. But they just don't work, or at least they didn't until very recently, and even now they only have one viable strategy: camo spam, which is very advanced (see here for a guide). Nomads are the faction with the most "tricks". They are always doing something weird to kill you. But these tricks are typically order intensive and complex. That means that they are hard to execute efficiently. They also require a lot of pieces (e.g. hacker for spotlight, guided bot for missiles, and repeaters for creating a tarpit), which often leaves your list with a gaping hole for some kryptonite unit to drive a truck through (e.g. Nomads often end up with 0 multi-spectral visor units, which makes Aleph and O12 tough). You can win a lot of matches in the intermediate skill ranges with TR bots, puppetica, Kriza Boracs, and Kusanagi, but better players with optimised lists and strategies will just be impossible to beat because of the raw power differential. This is especially the case in missions with exclusion zones that prohibit infiltrators, which is the #1 strength of Nomads. I challenge anyone who thinks Nomads can win in exclusion missions to a match. I am confident I will win 95% of the time running bog standard lists from factions that don't rely on skirmishers. Stick to the sectorials. Corrigidor is now quite viable, and Tunguska and Bakunin were always strong.
Hassassins and Shasvastii
These are actually two of the best factions in the game, they're just not beginner-friendly. Both rely on a lot of "tricks" like impersonators, camouflage, melee, dazers, jammers, and light snipers. You will win a lot of games just on raw power, especially with Shasvastii (the Q-drone + noctifer trap is brutal in low skill play) and the mixed links (Asawira + LI or Sheskin + LI), but intermediate players will be able to stop your simple strategies and your other strategies take a lot of learning to execute well. If you want a more straightforward entry to the game look elsewhere.
The Slingshot Runway
So what factions are easy to start with?
Shock Army of Aconticimento
A very balanced faction with a bit of everything and a lot of simple, good, pieces. The Tinkbalang is amazing, especially as the shock army machinist has mimetism. The regular link with two sapper snipers is amazing. The bulleteer is a superb sweeper. Your skirmisher game is actually quite strong with peacemakers, Nagas, and Dart. Plenty of orders from Fugazi, and your AD troops are good enough to experiment with. MOD stacks aplenty.
Kosmoflot
Another balanced faction with a bit of everything and straightforwardly good pieces. Kosmoflot can also go full camo spam if you want with Rokots, and has one of the few genuinely good AD units in the game (Equippe Mirage). The links are strong. A nice thing about Kosmoflot is that there is very little dead wood in this faction: almost every unit is good in its way, so you won't accidentally buy something that turns out to be a bit shit. These guys even have a fair amount of MSV1, which is usually a weakness of Ariadna. Good chain of command units are also delightful for beginners.
Onyx Contact Force
The third and final balanced faction. Plenty of MOD stacks, solid links, good cheerleaders, a very strong defensive game, a lovely TAG (the Sphinx), and nowadays even good skirmisher specialists. No complex units, which is nice. Onyx can collapse pretty quickly if the Rodoks take criticals, but that's a skill to learn. I would say the best way to get into Combined Army is to play these guys, then Vanilla with Avatar and/or Anathematic/Charontid to learn how to Rambo, then over to Shasvastii to learn shenanigans. You will be a complete player in no time.
See here for Onyx guides (from N3):
- https://emperorsghost.blogspot.com/2017/07/how-to-play-onyx.html
- https://emperorsghost.blogspot.com/2018/06/onyx-lists.html
Tohaa
Some people think the artichokes have a steep learning curve. That's nonsense. Link teams take some learning, yes, but that is true for every sectorial. Tohaa do the basics of the game extremely well. They have mad economy thanks to Triads, especially when it comes to dragging specialists up field. They have good snipers and good sweepers. Their key attack pieces have MOD stacks. They are packing amazing smoke throwers. Their cheerleaders have direct template weapons. Even their TAG is decent nowadays. Tohaa have no weaknesses except Avatars. Lots of heavy armour is tough to beat, but if you know it's coming you can easily adapt, and there are advanced strategies that are highly effective against it (e.g. split burst a heavy flamer through a nimbus zone against HI link teams - they will melt). Note that with Tohaa models being discontinued there's not much time to get into this faction and Spiral Corps is much less beginner friendly.
There is a lot of Tohaa content on this blog because I played them for a year, including into the finals of the Australian National Championships, but maybe the best place to start is here (from N3): https://emperorsghost.blogspot.com/2017/10/thoughts-on-how-to-play-tohaa.html
Steel Phalanx
This is a tricky one. SP is incredibly powerful in an extremely straightforward way. You have 2 enomotarchos link teams and 2 snipers. Everyone has an ODD or MSV (i.e. a MOD stack), except Hector or Ajax, who have massive armour and PH for absorbing mines and templates. Your game plan is super simple - charge! Phoenix can murder most things in face to face, and once hector gets into your opponent's backline the plasma rifle will melt things. Phalanx struggles in a big way against tough MSV ARO pieces, but their aren't many of those (Gao Rael/Taagma snipers, Riot Grrl missiles, Kamau snipers, all in link teams) and you can always eclipse past them. I don't think I've ever seen a Phalanx list have more than 1 loss at a tournament, and relatively weak players can wreck even advanced players with them because ODD link teams are just that powerful. So if you want to start winning straight away, play Phalanx. The two reasons not to play them are 1) they get boring very quickly because they are one-dimensional and 2) you learn very little of the game because they are one dimensional and many otherwise viable strategies bounce off them, so you won't even learn from your opponents. Starmada can do a very similar if slightly weaker approach with Hector and has a bit more variety to draw on once that strategy gets boring, so it might be a better option for a beginner. But the other strategies for Starmada just aren't very good, so you might go from winning a lot to losing a lot.
I played Phalanx to 5th place (4-1) at Australian Nationals a few years ago. This article summarises my thinking on them: https://emperorsghost.blogspot.com/2016/11/steel-phalanx-list-building-for-cancon.html
Honourable mentions: Varuna, White Company, Neoterra
These guys are good all-rounder factions but are either a bit narrow (Neoterra) or have some complex units (Varuna with Jammers and Helots, White Company with all the expensive stuff and melee) such that they aren't entirely beginner friendly. Still very good options to kick off with. White Company is strictly superior to Svalarheima and has most of the same units. The only reason to play Svalarheima is if you love Jotums. I think Varuna is perhaps the best faction in the game, and White Company is up there, so these factions are very good choices if you just want to play the same units for years because they have deep power.
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