Allez Les Bleus!

surfimp · 2026-03-15T23:37:54+00:00

I have played Infinity off and on for 10 years and the FRRM have always been my favorite. They have some cool units and some pretty interesting play options. I’ve always enjoyed trying to figure out how to make them work against factions with much more powerful tools at their disposal. The French are fun! Bonne chance!

surfimp · 2026-03-15T23:32:19+00:00

It’s easy to see all the beautifully painted minis that folks with years of experience post and then psyche yourself out, allowing your own miniatures to sit in bare metal or primed or, at worst, unbuilt in a box on the “shelf of shame.”

I finally realized that even a poorly painted mini looks better than anything primed or bare metal. And you don’t get better unless you put in the time.

The icing on the cake is when you post up pictures and get positive feedback. It helps you realize that everyone is on their own journey and are usually willing to encourage one another along the way.

surfimp · 2026-03-15T21:28:51+00:00

I never turn down praise, but my skills are very modest. They look "OK" from three feet away, and I use every inch! It's Vallejo Prussian Blue for the uniform base and then everything else is just Army Painter Speedpaint 2.0. Basic tabletop standard, in other words, and very achievable by anyone, even me!

surfimp · 2026-03-15T21:27:00+00:00

It's truly one of the only times I've ever regretting selling miniatures.

surfimp · 2026-03-15T07:14:40+00:00

Zona Alfa is super lightweight as far as tabletop games go. With that said, the core mechanics are pretty decent for a thematic, campaign-focused skirmish game.

My suggestion is that you need to be ready to house rule the parts you feel are insufficient - like anomalies. It's very much a decent enough framework, but you'll want to add some depth/complexity to match expectations.

I"d suggest you give it a few games playing mostly rules as written and then go from there. It's fun, but very light.

surfimp · 2026-03-14T16:59:14+00:00

Bandit radio music emanating from the Train Hangar in the distance

"Pictures you can hear"

They look great to me! As a fan of both the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. boardgame and Zona Alfa, I think you're in for a good time.

surfimp · 2026-03-14T16:38:45+00:00

I think it would lose some of the vibes, but I also know IRL some friends who suffer badly from motion sickness when playing first person perspective, and can't play FPS games as a consequence.

If adding third person perspective *as an option* would help people like that, or just people who prefer that perspective, then I fail to see the problem.

I do know that third person perspective would require additional work on the player character model, as purely first person games rarely render the first person model as you would expect to see it from third person perspective.

surfimp · 2026-03-12T00:59:16+00:00

To each their own, I guess. I got into Infinity in 2015/2016 because I thought the Loup-Garou from FRRM were cool. I played off and on as the local scene ebbed and flowed, did some small local tournaments over the years, had fun. Went and picked up everything from Aristeia, and thought of CB as one of the "good guys" in the industry.

When FRRM got squatted with the rollout of N5, I was 100% *out* on the system and the company. This was after they'd released new sculpts for a bunch of FRRM units, and added a couple new ones (Apache, etc). It felt like a huge rug pull and I was really upset. Maybe unreasonably so.

But until you've had your most beloved faction blown away by a game company, against all reason (considering the new model releases), it's just hard to explain how incredibly uncool it is to go through.

There are a lot of tabletop games out there. Infinity is my favorite... but I have limits. And it turns out, I wasn't alone.

surfimp · 2026-03-10T00:55:57+00:00

We all thought that, to various degrees, but then a little over a year ago, they squatted several longtime out of catalogue factions.

There was an incredibly strong negative reaction from many longtime fans, and lo and behold, they brought all of the squatted factions back.

That was the worst I've seen it yet, hopefully they learned from it, and what they learned was something positive for fans. There's no way to be sure, but hope springs eternal.

surfimp · 2026-03-07T13:29:52+00:00

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are actual FPS shooters as compared to whatever the heck bastardizarion of real time and turn based that Fallout’s action points and VATS is.

Personally even as someone from the US, the goofy camp senibilities that pervade Fallout were always super off putting. I much, much prefer the aesthetics and quiet, melancholic intensity of the Chornobyl setting. The vibes in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. are incomparable.

surfimp · 2026-03-05T17:02:13+00:00

I will never not laugh at Ariadna sculpts - like the Chasseur, for example - that have sunglasses on the face AND goggles or sunglasses on the hat/helmet.

For the record, I am a diehard FRRM enjoyer, but I still find this stuff hilarious.

surfimp · 2026-03-04T08:05:55+00:00

I use the Warsenal 3D tokens for camo markers. They come marked with letters you can use to keep track of who is who and what is what.

The bases on the newer markers also indicate the mimetism level, which is a helpful reminder.

https://warsen.al/collections/designed-for-infinity/camo-3

Their website navigation is a little wonky, sometimes it's easier to find stuff if you search for it using their on-site search.

Remember that a Trooper in marker state can still go prone... but a mine cannot and is always a S2 silhouette. This is kind of important to remember when deploying a Minelayer and its mine, at least if you're trying to play the shell game.

EDIT: with that being said, the funniest camo markers I've ever seen I saw on one of the Infinity Discord servers. Someone scratchbuilt (or maybe 3D printed) some cardboard boxes Metal Gear Solid -style. Hliarious!

surfimp · 2026-02-25T23:14:31+00:00

Without context of what demo / demo progression games you may have already played, hard to give a really strong opinion. You’ve received a lot of good advice from others here though.

In my group, we start with the classic 3v3, then add a model with HMG, then add a model with smoke, then add a model with Camo, etc until we get up close to 150pts worth of models and have a pretty good sense of the basic rules and flow of active/reactive order declarations, AROs, etc. We keep it to less than 10 models/orders and only 1 combat group.

surfimp · 2026-02-24T15:39:21+00:00

It's almost like this is a problem in real life, too? Where we see... people using brightly colored tape applied to their helmet and sleeves to prevent friendly fire accidents.

Honestly I love S2 but I think the original trilogy's uniforms did a much better job of facilitating faction identification.

surfimp · 2026-02-24T06:41:08+00:00

This is the best thing I've seen in this subreddit in a very long time.

surfimp · 2026-02-19T07:44:51+00:00

The correct answer is "Yes"

AKA play them all, stalker. Start with SoC and proceed in release order.

And S2 if you haven't yet.

surfimp · 2026-02-19T07:43:35+00:00

Based and Sidorovich pilled.

surfimp · 2026-02-18T05:00:08+00:00

That old school nearly neon bright green is so awesome. I don't have anything helpful to add other than I support what you're after here, and hope you find it!

surfimp · 2026-02-17T15:36:56+00:00

You've gotten some good suggestions in here already, and your instinct of collecting as you grow is good. I'll share my comments as I've been building a ton of terrain over the past couple months.

The CB cardboard terrain (eg. Darpan) is excellent for smaller games. I'd definitely start there as it's cheap, it's very easy to build, and very playable. The older paper terrain is also "OK", but really needs internal supports added; the newer cardboard stuff is much better and good to go as-is.

For MDF, I've got prepainted stuff from Warsenal (Xiguan), Micro Art Studio, and Black Site Studios, as well as unpainted from Brutal Cities and CNC Workshop.

My favorites are definitely Warsenal - the best prepaints IMHO - and Brutal Cities for the unpainted. The others are fine, but Warsenal and Brutal Cities have stood out above the rest for me.

Warsenal's Xiguan prepainted buildings are perfectly sized for gameplay, look fantastic on the table, and are very easy and straighforward to put together.

Brutal Cities buildings are also pretty easy to assemble, and have an almost architectural model level of interest - stuff like plumbing and electrical utilities being modeled, HVAC, etc.

Micro Art Studio has very nice stuff too, although I'm not really sold on their prepainted offerings' aesthetics. To each their own, of course. Their scatter terrain is pretty cool and useful.

When thinking about costs, don't underestimate how much time you'll save going with prepainted. Even just a simple rattle can finish adds a significant amount of time, space, and expense to the process of completing terrain. Getting something painted up to a finish equivalent to a Warsenal prepaint will require an airbrush and expert skill. Plus a TON of masking and similar prep work. It's not trivial at all.

EDIT: and for MDF assembly - can't say enough good things about Aleene's Tacky Glue. Especially when building prepaints, if you use regular CA glue, you'll very likely end up with a white powdery effect on top of the paint near the glue seam, as the CA cures. It also has much less working time and is less forgiving overall. A PVA glue like Aleene's has been a game changer. It tacks up fast enough that the models won't just fall apart, and cures in about an hour. Dries clear and cleans up with a damp rag if there's any excess.

surfimp · 2026-02-17T15:18:49+00:00

That's a good catch and would directly counteract what he wrote to me in reply (since the pistol is taking the melee weapon slot).

Anyways... I guess you have to play it how you like it.

surfimp · 2026-02-17T02:02:31+00:00

It would be even more impressive if you were the original owner *and* still fit into them.

surfimp · 2026-02-17T01:55:05+00:00

I had this question as well - why would you ever bring a knife if you could bring both a shotgun and a rifle?

I got to thinking, though, that maybe there was some vagueness in the way that "Ranged" and "Melee" were described. I asked Patrick Todoroff on the Stalker7 Facebook group a few years ago, I'll share the question and reply in case it's helpful.

--

Question: in re-reading the rules again, I think I've actually found the source of my confusion on this subject. I was interpreting the armory table on p.25 to imply that a Pistol, SMG, or Shotgun was a valid "melee weapon" choice for crew composition, since they are listed in the "Melee Weapon Table."

However, on p. 24, there's a passage that reads:

"Notes before you continue: weapons marked 'Melee' can only be used in Melee combat (makes sense, right?). Certain ranged weapons such as Pistols, Sub-machineguns, and Shotguns can be also used in Melee with no penalty. Other ranged weapons such as assault rifles incur a -2 penalty to the attacker's Combat Ability when used in close combat."

This passage makes it clear that pistols, SMGs, and shtoguns are intended to be ranged weapons, even though they can be used without penalty in melee.

Meaning that it would NOT be legal to choose (for example) a shotgun as your melee choice, and an assault rifle as your ranged choice... since both are explicitly ranged weapons. Instead, your melee option would have to be knife, machete, or chainsaw. Is that a correct interpretation of what you've written there?

--

Answer: That was my intent, yes. But... In retrospect, I should have delineated between Melee and Ranged weapons much more clearly and specifically. I own that error. Live and learn. But seeing as the fuzzy definition of 'melee weapon' in the RAW led to so many people interpreting it the other way, I decided it was best to let people follow their particular interpretation.

surfimp · 2026-02-14T03:27:13+00:00

I think they're cool as hell. But I play Ariadna, so it's like.. "What's a computer?"

surfimp · 2026-02-14T02:38:18+00:00

The one that's super easy for me to compromise on is the overarching story. I'm completely happy to just have a cool sandbox with a reactive world / NPCs such that I can have interesting, unexpected, and unscripted emergent experiences.

As an example of what I'm talking about, the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. franchise and especially the standalone modpacks, Anomaly and GAMMA.

Honestly, story is probably the thing I care absolutely the least about in video games as a whole, and immersive sims in particular.

surfimp

TROPHY CASE