Data Sphere

I got a few 40k players interested in infinity, but they're not quite yet ready to abandon their models. They were interested in trying a demo with proxies, and perhaps continuing to play using proxies until their finances opened up and they liked the game.

They both also like the current play styles for their armies, namely Space Marines, Tau, and Necrons.

Can anyone recommend some good equivalent 100-200 pt demo lists to those styles? I'm well aware that Infinity is vastly different, but just stuff that has some feeling of those.

I know the PanO knightly orders would work perfectly for space marines. Throw in a some knights as SMs, and some low ranked cheerleaders as scouts and that's a demo list.

Maybe Tau could proxy also as PanO, but a more shooty sectorial?

Necrons would be tough, something slow and tough, with ridiculous guns. I don't know the factions well enough.

Necrons = combined army vanilla. Tricks, though, brutal well-equipped (especially the EI constructs). Otherwise ALEPH vanilla.

Tau.. Difficult. I'd personally go with Tohaa for them. Mainly fluff reasons though. The caste system of Tau translates well to the Trident system of Tohaa. They bring lots of firepower, although not extremely long range (but you can influence that yourself by bringing hmgs+ snipers). Going all long range will hurt you in Infinity.
Edit: mobility too, one of Tau's and tohaa's strengths.


Space Marines = PanO vanilla leaning on military orders for the Knight-theme. The MO sectorial doesn't play like space Marines.

Well, Scorch has several good points (plus his knowledge regarding 40K wi way better than mine), but... these two games are very, very different. I doubt any playstyle would translate well from one into another.
And why should it?

In Infinity, nearly any faction (though it is less accurate regarding Sectorials) can play and be victorious with any playstyle. Yes, some are better suited to this and some are less capable, but they all can do it.
Why limit yourself, then?

Your buddies want to try it out with proxies?
Shiny!
The old favourtie "choose your army by the fluff / looks" remains in effect here. Just for the time being the actual models on table will be looking a bit grimdark, that's all.

My knowledge is mainly from Dawn of War and codex PDFs, so I am familiar with 6th edition unit options for all factions.

Big fan of Tau fluff, I have looked into Infinity trying to find something similar. There isn't. Not fluff wise, not playstyle wise.

I agree with Errhile that trying to grasp Infinity without even trying to let go of a 40k mindset will not make this a fun game I should have kept that in mind when typing my previous post.
40K = strategy, Infinity = tactics. It is not just playstyle that doesn't translate well, it's the entire way of approaching what happens on the table that is a different beast altogether.

My personal advice would be; go for the opposite of what you have in 40K, and do not look for anything that will keep your mind tied to 40k. Scramble your mind, otherwise you will burn, and the game you play will suffer from it.

Scorch wrote:My knowledge is mainly from Dawn of War and codex PDFs, so I am familiar with 6th edition unit options for all factions.

Which actually beats mine by the virtue of the Codex books.

Scorch wrote:Big fan of Tau fluff, I have looked into Infinity trying to find something similar. There isn't. Not fluff wise, not playstyle wise.

Though I could argue that there are similarities to be found between the following of the Greater Good and the Search for Knowledge Haqqislam also likes to present itself as the goody-good, moral (and humanistic) power, and are pretty ready for their ends to justify their means...

Errhile wrote:

Scorch wrote:Big fan of Tau fluff, I have looked into Infinity trying to find something similar. There isn't. Not fluff wise, not playstyle wise.

Though I could argue that there are similarities to be found between the following of the Greater Good and the Search for Knowledge Haqqislam also likes to present itself as the goody-good, moral (and humanistic) power, and are pretty ready for their ends to justify their means...

Might be the reason why I own both Haqqislam sectorials and have played them the most.

If you just wanna discard all the fluff reasons to proxy a model and go for pure visual/profile relateability, I'd go with something like this:
Orcs: Morat, no room for goblins though
Necron: Aleph, Myrmidons or Dakinis
Tau: Japanese sectorial or Tohaa, maybe even Nomads
Imperial Guard: Ariadna, PanO linetroopers, Haqqislam
Space Marines: PanO Military Orders, Yu Jing heavy infantry
Daemons: Combined Army
Chaos Space Marines: just throw them in the trash. They're silly, adolescent power fantasies, they have no place in Infinity
Sisters of Battle: PanO, Bakunin
Daemonhunters: Mercenaries

I might have missed some 40k factions, it's been a while since I've played.

I just use MODELS and leave faction fluff out of it.

I go for approximates when it comes to armour types and stuff. So there'll be a mix of guard and marine and tau stuff int he mix. I'm going for the styles that stand out more, over total accuracy.

Flak armour (5+) = LI troops. From the bog standard cadians to eldar guardians. The normal wet cardboard armour.
Carapace Armour (4+) = MI troops. Tau firewarriors, scouts and guard stormtroopers.
Power Armour (3+) = HI troops. Whether SoB (yeah, right - nobody plays them anyway) or marines.
Bikes = bikes. Scout bikers or ork bikers over SM bikes but SM will do in a pinch.

TAGs can be repped by Tau XV8 suits.

Obviously, weapons on 40k models are sometimes not close enough - but that's where some flexibility needs to happen.

Flamers and heavy flamers exist on LI and HI models (in 40k).
Bolters/lasguns are all counted as "rifles/combi rifles/multi-rifles - some units can't have one or more types).
Missile launchers are missile launchers.

I'm with chromedog: you're going to use proxies anyways, so why bothering with fluff and gaming mechanisms which don't have any real equivalents as the games are just too different? Well, besides Morat = Orkz, that is.

When it comes to proxying, just take models that are quite easy to distinguish and can be recognized as what they are meant to represent. Everything else makes no sense at all.

I must say that I started to miss my Khorne Berzerkers so much that I started building Magister Knights. :-)

Harlekin if you think Morat = ORKZ you obviously havn't read the fluff, or tried to play them.

I do agree with the general consensus though. If you're going to proxy with your guarhammer guys, just go with lightly armored guy with rifle = lightly armored guy with rifle, heavy armored guy with heavy weapon = heavy armored guy with heavy weapon, and so on. As for faction equivalents, if you're getting into a new game don't look at which orange is most like the apple I already have, look at which army from this new game do I like the most.