Things You Might Want To Know About Corvus Belli's Infinity

As many readers may know, I'm a massive fan of Infinity, the wargame by Corvus Belli. It's getting more popular at the moment, and I've realised every time I see people talking about getting into it, there's a bunch of stuff I want to tell them about. Rather than go on an excited ramble every time, I thought I'd try and put some structured information together . . . 

What is Infinity?

Infinity is a skirmish wargame made by the Spanish company Corvus Belli. It's set 180 years into the future, with Ghost in the Shell and Altered Carbon being the most well known strong influences on the look and feel of the game.

The universe of Corvus Belli is in a state of cold war, in the early stages of an alien invasion. Open warfare is war, and the game focusses on small, special forces style missions where the objectives are often not related to destroying the opponent's force, but controlling territory, interacting with civilian models, or taking control of computer consoles.

How do you play?

I'm not going to focus on this too much. There are plenty of excellent tutorials online, and I'll link some in a little while.

The keys thing to be aware of are:

• its a skirmish scale game, with forces typically limited to fifteen models or so
• the system is incredible lethal, and models die very easily
• you spend a resource called "orders" to move your models, and can spend multiple orders on one model in your turn
• while its your opponents turn, if your models see an enemy model act, then they can react - dodging, or even shooting back

Is there a starter version / what's Code One?

There is a starter version of Infinity called Code One. This is a stripped down version of the rules that introduces you to the core of Infinity, but doesn't make you learn it all in one go. The Infinity rules (sometimes referred to as N4, as it's currently the 4th edition of the game) don't really change anything from Code One, but rather add more rules to it.

This is a really good place to start to learn the rules, but the army you want to collect might not be playable. Even if you plan to play another army longer term, I'd generally recommend you play a game or two using the Code One rules to get the hang of things.

You can get the Code One rules free online. There's also a free army builder. (If you are on a phone you will need to download the app instead. Make sure that it's set to "Code One" and not the main game.)

What do I need to start?

The rules are free online. There is a download page for the Infinity rules on the Corvus Belli website. You need the N4 rules, the rules annex and the FAQs.

You then need miniatures, a tape measure, some 20 sided dice and some scenery that will completely block the line of sight between models. Blocking line of sight is absolutely essential for the gameplay mechanics - its what keeps the lethality of the game in check. Tokens are useful but not essential. Some of the competitive play missions require a "Classified Deck" of secondary objectives.

The largest play space you will need is 4 feet by 4 feet, but smaller games are played in a smaller area.

The models

Corvus Belli has traditionally made it's models in metal. The newer ones are easy to assemble, but if you end up with some older models they can be hella fiddly. If you're finding metal intimidating, have a look at Mr Shy's video on the subject. It should demystify them a bit.

At the time of writing, it's just been announced that a few of the bulkier models are going to be produced in Siocast, a form of plastic, to offset the rising costs of metal. I haven't used it myself yet, but the reviews are broadly fine - its a very different material to prepare for painting so do some research before diving in if you get a plastic model.

The rules call for every model to have a fire arc marker to check line of sight. The newer kits come with plastic bases that mark this, older ones don't. I use Antenocitis Workshop resin bases with brass etch fire arc markers for some of my armies, but that's definitely a premium option... You can just paint it on if you want.

There's nothing stopping you from using models from another manufacturer if you want, but tournaments you attend may have rules about using Corvus Belli models. If you're looking for a cheap option, consider the Stargrave plastics. If you want to avoid metal entirely, I'd recommend Anvil Industry. That said, Corvus Belli's miniatures are stunningly pretty and I absolutely recommend picking one up to try out if you're unsure.

Operation, Beyond and Action Packs

Each year, Corvus Belli release a two player starter called an Operation box. It gives you two factions of models, some dice and some scenery. They they release an expansion box with another 3 models per faction, called a Beyond box. After a year or two, they then produce a new box, and repackage the miniatures into two Action Packs for just one faction.

Currently, you can get:

Operation: Crimson Stone (Nomads vs Ariadna) with Beyond Crimson Stone coming soon

Operation Kaldstrom (PanOceania vs Yu Jing) with Beyond Kaldstrom

There are then a selection of Action Packs, either from previous Operation boxes, or released without having previously been in an Operation box.

Cardboard Terrain

As I mentioned above, lots of line of sight blocking terrain is vital for a game of Infinity. Corvus Belli produce pre-printed cardboard terrain with their Operation Packs, and the quality has been really going up over the years. The most recent ones are the best, and are double sided to give two designs.

The sets that use the new, high quality design are the Kaldstrom set and the Salvora set. Both have a Scenery Pack and an Expansion pack. You can get all the terrain you need for a full size game with two Scenery Packs and one Scenery Expansion Packs.

Infinity players are really rather serious about their scenery, and can end up spending more on it than models. There's a huge range of third party suppliers who do good terrain that suits Infinity, but I think that's a separate article all by itself.

What are the factions / armies?

First thing to note - this is a game with specialist sub factions as well as the main armies. The factions represent large, space faring human nations or alien alliances. You'll see people refer to a "Vanilla" faction or a "Sectorial". Vanilla is a force selected from troops across the nation you've picked. A Sectorial is a specialist sub faction who might have a more specialist focus.

There are also the "Non-Aligned Armies", or NA2, a "faction" that consists of minor nations and mercenary companies. These groups take models from across the other factions and can be awkward to collect.

Some factions are currently out of production - their models are not currently being produced by Corvus Belli. Their rules are still completely game legal, however, so you can choose to hunt them down, or proxy some more modern models to play them.

Covering all the factions is more space than I'd want to cover in a starter article. If you're wanting to know more about them, there's a really good guide by The Dice Abide about selecting your Infinity Army. There's also a YouTube playlist of short videos introducing the faction backgrounds made by Corvus Belli. Click through each individually as they're produced in both English and Spanish!