Tri-Kingdom Area

As I sit in front of my laptop thinking of what to write for my intro piece for Data Sphere, I think back to my humble beginnings playing this game called Infinity Second Edition. I live in New York City, born and raised in a little borough known as the Bronx just outside of New York City itself.  There is plenty to do and never enough time to do it all.  So when someone mentioned this game they had been playing called Infinity I was suspicious. I was playing another miniature game, spent a lot of money on models and time painting them and didn’t want to hear about a new game that not many people are playing. I had tried my hand at another miniature army game with a steam punk setting and just couldn’t get a game where I wasn’t smashed by veteran players just so they could feel good about themselves. So like anyone in NYC I was hesitant to try this out.

After reading some of the rules on a flight to Vegas and viewing some of the models, I was interested. I mean some of the models reminded me of Ghost in the Shell and I loved the artwork and background. So I decided on the flight back (five hours is a long time to think about the future of your gaming) that I would try and find a place to get the rule book and my first starter box. Luckily enough a store in Connecticut had just posted on Facebook that they had just gotten some products for Infinity. It was too good to be true, so after contacting another player he and I drove up to Battlegrounds Gaming and in no time got the Aleph Starter box, second edition rule book and Humans Sphere. Now what??

I had all this data, I had to absorb it and try to understand how this game is played and read the story. So like studying for my engineering exam I spent the weekend reading the main book soaking in the atmosphere and how things are done in the near future. It was brilliant. I had to know more and dove straight into Human Sphere during the week. I carried that book with me everywhere—with my wife eyeing me each time I walked with the book to the living room, kitchen, bedroom (I read before bed).  It gave me information on my Aleph and what Aleph stood for in the Human Sphere.

It was during that week I also built my first box of Aleph models and would think about their color schemes. But wait, just six models? How many points is a normal game played at? That’s too low, you cant be serious. What’s a skirmish game? So let me get this right, an average game is 300 points, each model gives me an order that I can use to move around models and perform actions, and most armies are no more than 10 models normally for an average game (note: I was not aware of irregular orders or impetuous as Aleph didn’t have that, yes I know Myrmidons get frenzy but I was just reading about the regular starter box at the time).  Sorry, tangents happen with my train of thought at times, moving on.

The following weekend I went BACK to the store in Connecticut and purchased a set of remotes, and Post Humans. I was going to give this game a whirl the Friday with my friend over in Queens, NY (another small borough outside of NYC). Fast Forward over 18 months playing Infinity, a year of running a lot of small tournaments and one (some call it successful, I call it a learning experience) convention known as Templecon. I still struggle to get players to try out the game due to rumors about it, fear and just pure closed mindedness. I want to share with you my experiences as not only a beginner player but as a beginner Tournament Organizer. I have a good set of players who show up when they can and others who are Infinity die hards (you guys know who you are and I thank you). I am in no way successful on my own, and without my players I would just be playing the same old large army game where balance is nonexistent for the sake of profit.The truth is, in NY there are more than just a few THOUSAND things to do, and playing tabletop miniatures is not something a lot of people think about doing but we do it. In my upcoming articles I’ll describe my challenges with playing, learning and running events, but also about attracting new players, keeping them and dealing with outside influence that can disrupt your gaming.

I hope to make this a weekly piece and if you have questions please feel free to submit them below so I can answer them to the best of my ability.
Lazlo