Paradisio Campaign

Reviews

I took the plunge

Not so long ago I got my filthy little pig-paws on my very own copy of the newest Infinity book Paradisio Campaign. Not gonna lie, It's all kinds of fantastic. The new units, though sparse in number for most factions (barring Aleph and Tohaa) are all solid. The introduction of a new faction, the earlier mentioned Tohaa were a surprise for the community when the book hit shelves, as Corvus Belli kept them all on the down low until their big reveal. From a casual skim of the new factions rules and units, they look all kinds of hardcore, being, in the main, the anti-combined army faction... which brings a certain slippery slope, rules wise, to the game which I'll mention in a moment.

New weapon types bring even more variety to the game (never a bad thing), and the new rules seem to move the game in a more platoon level direction. Specifically the HARIS skill:

FIRETEAM: HARIS LEVEL 1.
This Special Skill allows composition of a Support Fireteam, but with a maximum of 3 figures. This Support Fireteam must consist of the owner of this Special Skill
and a maximum of 2 troops belonging to the same unit of the owner (eg. An Odalisque possessing Fireteam: Haris L1 and 2 Odalisques). The formation, activity and
reformation of this Fireteam uses the rules for Infinity Fireteams (See the book Infinity Human Sphere) with the following exceptions:

• The Support Fireteam is in addition to the single Fireteam allowed for Sectorial Army List.

• Only a single figure with this Level of the Haris Special Skill is allowed per Army List. This means there can only be 1 Support Fireteam created by a troop possessing this Special Skill Level in the army.

• A Support Fireteam is identified by the Support Leader Marker which is the equivalent in this formation to the Linked Team Leader of a Fireteam. It is not compulsory that the Haris be the Support Leader of the Support Fireteam.

• Troops belonging to different units are not allowed to be part of a Support Fireteam (eg. It is not allowed to create a Support Fireteam composed of an Odalisque possessing Fireteam: Haris L1, plus 1 Odalisque and 1 Hafza). 

 Ostensibly this means the game has made a specific move towards a more squad based size, which I'll admit, I'm NOT a fan of. Personally, I'm a fan of the disparate pieces creating a functional, flowing whole... Kind of like a special forces unit (which is, coincidentally, how I see infinity working). I personally worry that the squad level bias the game may be heading in will lead to larger games being required, which will lead to a higher entry cost, which will lead to army sized games which will lead to GW style games...
Some will see this as a good thing, and I'm not knocking army sized games, but I'm not interested in the game of Infinity moving in this direction. 

Note: This may be all because I don't believe Ariadna functions well as a Sectorial army yet, and therefor only play base/whole faction.

(end Rant)

ANYWAYS, Paradisio Campaign also introduced a super detailed flowchart style campaign system. This is very very cool. 

Player one fights player two. If player two wins, this happens, but if player one wins, this completely different thing happens.

I have always been a fan of this style of campaign, so it's always neat to see others feel the same. Alas this style is very linear and may turn many people off of the campaign system. 

Too bad for them.

The book also introduced a new experience system for your army and a new special forces unit, that introduces different benefits to your army such as free merc units, automatically knowing who your opponents lieutenant is, and various other abilities.

All in all, Paradisio  Campaign is a very solid book and I look forward to playing through the campaign. High suggested via Bean.

Until Next time,

It's not your army list, but your player skill that wins games.

Bean out~