Why we collect?

In my apparent quest to collect every infinity faction before Christmas, I've been doing a bit pondering into why I can't settle on a faction. I feel it comes down to why I collect a faction, or the criteria that I use to pick my faction, it looks like this:

1. Looks, with the wealth of companies producing stunning miniatures, I feel it can be quite difficult to decide between them. It (generally) is no longer is the case that some factions are sculpted better than others within a range. Within the Infinity range it is evident that the older models aren’t as sharp as the new ones, however with each faction receiving regular updates, there is a consistent level of sculpting across the factions.

With this in mind looks are an important factor, am I drawn to the sleek futuristic look of the Aleph, or on the other end of the spectrum, the Ariadna who look closer to our times. As I am likely to be sticking to one faction for the foreseeable future, it has to be a faction that I enjoy painting, and that I will still want to buy more models to add to the collection.

2. Theme, I've always enjoyed reading the background and lore of the factions. It's part of the reason I enjoy Malifaux books, there are always new stories released that breathe life into the awesome models we get to play with on the tabletop. As much as I may like the look of a faction, if they don’t interest me with their background or stories, I find it difficult to be enthusiastic about playing games or painting them.

3. Gameplay, I like to think that I have a chance in most games. In general I don’t mind losing, it's something I've had plenty of practice in! If I'm going to lose a game, I want to have fun in doing so, I very much am of the opinion that the result of the game is secondary to the enjoyment of both players! What I don’t enjoy is the feeling of losing the battle at the army selection stage. I don’t need to feel I'm playing with the 'all-conquering army of overpoweredness', but at the same point I don’t enjoy playing with something that I know to be not to same level as the rest of the factions. I also find this the case with factions that have a majority of underpowered units, with then a few that work well, although I know that 'cheerleaders' are common in Infinity, I want to feel that push comes to shove I can still utilise all the models in my force and they will be the equivalent of the options of other factions, or at least pointed accordingly.

If anyone has created a character through Elder Scrolls Online, you will be familiar with the 'triangle of choice' (not sure the technical name!), I find it similar for choosing a faction, that it is often a trade off, although not ignoring one point for the others.  

With this criteria in mind, I thought I would run through my selections of factions so far with Infinity, having settled (hopefully finally!) upon my faction.

Yu Jing:

I had been looking at all the factions and bee unsure what to go for, at this point Red Veil was in stock and after looking at the models I was sold! Now the downside at this point was we didn’t own the rules or core books, so the only information I had access to was the Infinity website, which as fantastic a resource as it is for the store and the Infinity Army, there is very little on background of the factions!

I was already committed to the Red Veil contents, and in a rush to get something to play Martin with I ordered a bunch of model purely based of aesthetics (plus the support pack, which are a bit ghastly, but from the small amounts of tactics I had read, were very handy). With these orders on the way I then started my process of reading all the background and tactics I could. In some ways this is a double edged sword, as although I like to know all the background, I feel I can get to the point of having read so much that the faction no longer has any interest to me. This was the case with Yu Jing, I liked the look of most of the models, by all accounts they were good on the battlefield (retired undefeated – probably a first for me!), however I couldn’t find any interest in their background. The JSA seemed pretty cool, as were the models, so I had been tempted to play them, although I didn’t want to only play a very small portion of a faction as I felt it would lack the flexibility of a full faction. Plus a more combat orientated force in a game that seems to be all about shooting didn’t feel a winner to me!

Ariadna:

After deciding the Yu Jing weren’t for me, I switched to Ariadna, picking up the USAriadna box to start. Yet again the models were really cool, and they were chosen mainly on the background. I loved the idea of them as a lower tech force, surrounded on all sides by aggressors wanting to take over their planet, whilst fighting with the locals. So far so good, however where I became unstuck was on the battlefield. I'm not sure if they are 'underpowered', I'm sure people can do very well with them, however it seems I wasn’t included in this group of people! I had picked up a fair amount of the US range, only needing the Grunts box (which were on order), and the Desperados from the currently available models. I found that with such a large portion of the force in camo markers, but without particularly strong selection of guns, I would have little on the battlefield, allowing my opponents to concentrate on taking out what they could see, without the camo markers being able to do much due to low power weapons. Now this comes down to army choice, if I had the Grunt box, or if more Minutemen or Marauders were available I could have brought some heavier options, which may have offered more firepower to tackle some of Martin HI. As it was I played 4 games, with a solitary win (which was perhaps a bit of a fluke), I felt by then end of game 4 quite deflated. The 4^th game was objective based, and although I didn’t lose by many VP, my force was beaten thoroughly on damage, I had very few models left, and had inflicted very few wounds in return. I found the force to be quite toothless, I had models I could activate, but with a smattering of rifles at a relatively low BS, I struggled to win most of the f2f rolls and when I did, a low dmg against a good ARM and cover meant I wasn’t doing much.

I feel that this is in part that it was a sectorial list, which on reflection may not have been the best box to get into Ariadna with, but I also felt that with a lack of TAG's, Remotes and other stuff that normally comes with the heavy weapons, the options I had were to pick up the Grunts, for a BS11...HMG, convert up some Minutemen, Marauders or Blackjacks. However I would likely have to spend through the nose to get enough Minutemen/Marauder bodies from the starter set to get what I'd need, that it didn’t make this viable. Otherwise I'd have to wait for them to be released which could be a while. I didn’t fancy either option! Leaving me to the decision to trade/sell them, and try something different...

Nomads:

After the decision to sell off the Ariadna, I managed to find a trade for them for a load of PanO, not my first choice, but it meant that Martin could get what he wanted from the trade, and I could sell the rest, and he would then buy me some models in return.

So I was back at the crossroads of army selection. I narrowed it down to Aleph and Nomads. I had contemplated Tohaa, but not too fond of some of the models, and with a small unit choice I didn’t want to have to buy a load of models which didn’t interest me. PanO were a possibility due to all the models I'd be getting, but with Martin playing them too, it was going to be too samey, unless we went for Sectorials which wouldn’t give us full range of options.

Combined Army don’t interest me, they have nice models, but I'd rather paint humans, after years of Orcs, Orks and Gremlins.

So that left Aleph and Nomads. Aleph have awesome models, a cool background (although after an Art School lecture on Surveillance, I now wasn’t so sure, and had shaped myself an Anti-Aleph tinfoil hat in case they were watching!), my stumbling block came with writing a list, I found that I couldn’t write a list I was happy with! Now to start off with this might not be an issue, as may wish to collect the cool looking models, but I found it difficult to decide what I wanted to buy as they have a load of cool models, and as a lot of them are high points, it was a struggle to be able to use them, and I could end up with a load of models which were rotated one at a time, but nothing to use with them.

At the same point I was working out Nomad lists which I found a lot more straight forward. They are also blessed with a fantastic array of models and some awesome background. I had emailed Stephen, and he said he was fine with a rival Nomad player, so Nomads it was!

I've decided to start with the starter set for obvious reasons, managing to pick up the Reverend Healer from Operation Icestorm. This would give me a good range of models and not be restricted to a sectorial (like the USAriadna box – looking at you AVA2 Grunts!).I've added some Gecko's, models are fantastic and after a prospect of no TAG's, it is only reasonable to start the next faction with 2!. I've picked up some Intraventors, to try out hacking properly, and due to a large plethora of Nomads appearing on Infinity Trader UK Facebook page last night, I managed to pick up a bargain on an Iguana, Tomcat Engineer, and the Tombot?

I have my first game today, which will be against Military Orders for the league at 150 points. This will be the force I'll try out. I had been told that AP and Shock would be key against them, so Multi Rifles would be the way to go. Hopefully with one on the Reverend Healer and Mobile Brigada, I will have enough to deal with the heathens! I will hopefully get a report typed up for the battle, with some pics, both of today's game, and a game against Martin on Sunday.

When I took my crew out the box to play, I found this was the list I'd written....

....Not a Multi Rifle in sight!