What is a "standard game" in Infinity?

[el_presidente]

Hoi chummers,

The question might seem a bit weird for some. I'm asking this because the other game I play (warmachine/hordes) has an official tournament system, called Steamroller, that has for the most part become the way to play a "standard game" in W/H.

Now, I know that Infinity has the ITS which is the official one, but I wondered if people normally use that for pick-up games? And if not, then which scenarios are most commonly used?
Any in particular that you'd recommend for starting players?

[Scorch]

People use ITS, YAMS (Yet Another Mission System, designed by IJW), or just plain deathmatch.

There are also some other systems like Narrative Cards, a level from the Paradiso Campaign, or the Dire Foes, but those aren't spread much.

[CoveredInFish]

Many people play YAMS, a fan made "scenario generator". Its fast to set up, random enough to allow for many, many different games and easier than most ITS missions (as in doesnt require custom tailored army lists as much as ITS does).

There are several other mission generators to find, but they arent that well known as YAMS (yet).

For most early pick-up games I played kill-em-all, but especially if you get to larger armies you will want to play missions. Missions are key to enjoy infinity!

Nonetheless ITS missions are possible for pick-up games too.

Ninjas everywhere ...

[chromedog]

You can also use the ITS missions for "casual games". We tend to alternate YAMS, TaOS or ITS missions not in a tournament - using the OP to determine victor just as YAMS does. Atm, though, I'm running a slow grow (CB calls it an "escalation league" - but we started at 100pts not 120 - and it uses basic scenarios.

The game hasn't been around long enough or 'popular enough' for a single "standard" game format to dominate yet.

[Gwydion]

We've played mostly ITS in our area, with the occasional "just line up and knock each other down" game mixed in. I haven't personally tried YAMS yet, but it's thought of very highly here, so I'll likely give that a try.

We also usually play with Spec-Ops allowed (from the Paradiso campaign), as we like the flexibility it gives.

[Lone_Pathfinder]

Variation is the spice of life. YAMS, TaOS and ITS are three options as well as the basic murder and mayhem. There are lots of fan-made scenarios. There are the Paradiso scenarios.

I hope that there will not be a standard in the future unless that standard has plenty of variations., including bigger tables, longer games (more turns) and variations in points.

[Harlekin]

In our meta it's mainly YAMS and ITS followed by an occasional fan made scenario and Paradiso or Dire Foes missions.
For more "casual" gaming it's YAMS most of the times.

[Lampyridae]

ITS has been standard for a while in our scene, but I feel that we should be looking at YAMS or adapting it somewhat. Too much console bashing in ITS scenarios and the requirements can be too arbitrary or fiddly.

[el_presidente]

Thanks for the answers people!

I think we'll try YAMS first and then look into ITS.

From the different packs, is there a particular mission(s) that stands out or that you'd recommend for new players?

[macfergusson]

YAMS is a deck of randomized cards with individual objectives, by design you don't know what you're getting or what your opponent has necessarily. Each individual card is generally one simple specific task that is worth a point.

For ITS, the simplest scenario is probably Sieze the Antenna.

[toaster]

A YAMS variant is to draw only 5 cards each, keep 2 as your secret missions, discard 2 and you each place 1 down as common missions, stop the problem of having missions that don't interact at all which can cause boring games.

Robert

[Lone_Pathfinder]

You can play combined YAMS / ITS. Probably 4 - 5 rounds. Max 15 objective points.

[Certs]

A YAMS variant is to draw only 5 cards each, keep 2 as your secret missions, discard 2 and you each place 1 down as common missions, stop the problem of having missions that don't interact at all which can cause boring games.

Robert

We've been doing something similar for the past year and have generally liked it. Though the trend here is to usually do 6 objectives per player instead of 4, so there's just an extra card drawn and shared per player in that process.

For the last couple weeks, however, we've switched over to doing draw 6 and share 3 for all 6 objectives being entirely shared. With the TO determining one complete set the objectives to be used by all matches per round during tournaments to helps keep everyone on the same page in terms of general objective difficulty.