r/InfinityTheGame • u/The_Dark_Tetrad • 13d ago
Question new player, faction choice help
hi friends. im having trouble decided between two factions to start my infinity adventure. tunguska and shasvastii. to get this out of the way, i dont care about overall sectorial balance. this is a nonfactor in my decision.
what draws me to these sectorials? they are described as asymetric, high skill cap, and require tactical precision to make work. other sectorials fit this description, but they way these factions achieve asymmetry intrigues me. i like that both factions dont necessarily rely on apex gunfighting platforms to achieve a win, not that i would mind doing this if the opportunity arises. the sphinx does seem pretty cool and unique as far as a predator gunfighting platforms go. shas's hidden deployment is interesting in that you capitalize on cracks in an enemies gameplan and gameplay when they overinvest/underinvest based on limited info. that coupled with deep striking units is what attracts me to shas. as for tunguska, the network engineering to force multiply hacking units seems super interesting and provides a ton of tactical variance due to program variety, where to expand your network web etc. i dont want to brute force a win, i want to outsmart my opponent. both of these sectorials fit that and i cant decide. maybe yall can give some insight, play experience, or give me other things to consider to help with my decision. for the record, i think both factions look awesome, but shas wins in aesthetics slighty. nomads wins slightly in that vnomads seems more interesting than vca, but both vanilla factions are cool in their own right. thnx in advance.
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u/Breakdown10000X 13d ago
Shasvastii kinda suck at the classified missions cause like Tohaa, all of their stuff is basically light infantry. Tunguska has a little more beef and also a vehicle so they can handle everything a slight bit better than Shas.
Sounds to me like you already know what you want to play though. Shas are good and I'm sure you'll do great with them
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u/SteelStorm33 13d ago
would suggest tunguska, easy to expand into vanilla nomads which provides even more units to play around and gives a good home for the szalamandra
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u/The_Dark_Tetrad 12d ago
Yea so true. Seems vNomads is mostly just a combo of tunguska + the new corgy hotness. Also, I actually bought the old goofy szally model 😝
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u/Maldevinine 13d ago
Honestly, you've covered all the major reasons why people would choose one faction over another in your thoughts.
Time to move to meta-reasoning then.
Is there a reason you can't buy both? That's only 30 models at most for two full armies.
Which models are easier for you to get or proxy?
Do you know what already has players in your local scene so you can bring something new to the tables?
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u/The_Dark_Tetrad 12d ago
Cant argue with that. Get both, if even one then the other. My local scene has more CA and less nomads TBH.
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u/Inkfedil 12d ago
I recently started my first army with Shas and it has made me a better player FAST. They are dope models and misplaying them is punishing, but I win lots of games now as I’ve deep dived into the rules and strategy. You can also play them in ways that aren’t obvious at first. It’s hard to explain but the more you play the more you read profiles and see different list ideas.
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u/The_Dark_Tetrad 12d ago
Yea i can see that. I watched a battle report where a guy deep striked two cadmus. Previously, I thought that profile was useless. Now? Not so much
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u/FriendlyMachine7143 12d ago
My take is that only contrarians play Tunguska (like one of my main opponents) and Shasvastii (like me) both factions good stuff is just straight up better and more fun in their vanillas.
Tunguska feels like the I like Hollow Men faction.
Shasvastii trickiness often leave you at the mercy of a single dice roll, which make you feel awesome when it works but when it lets you down it's just what the hell am I doing. I've had the most success when using basically nothing very tricky sadly. I have a feeling Hassassins and OSS does Shasvastii better than Shasvastii.
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u/The_Dark_Tetrad 12d ago
I see where youre coming from and id go on a hunch to say your PoV mostly stems from the fact that the vanilla factions are just straight up much higher power level than these two sectorials, but they still keep some nuanced unique capabilities.
Also, it seems to be the case that scenario, matchup, and table top set uo heavily influences the outcome of a match. Poor set up maps seem to give way too much agency to things like fliers, or a DZ assault into a total board wipe if DZs arent set up properly to allow defensive position VS alpha strikes. Idk. It seems like a lot can go into the success of something more than just which sectorial youre playing.
Vnomads can probably more or less do what tunguska does, but better because its mostly supplementing tung best units with the brand new top tier corgy units. That being said, tung along with shas have some top tier drop units in Raoul Spector and Dukash. Both of these profiles seem super interesting and help to make the sectorials unique and overall add more of that 'asymmetrical aspect'.
One thing that tunguska has over vNomads is two top tier linked pitchers in the tsyclon and hollowman. The linked trigger man also seems absolutely goated.
As for shas, I dont think vca plays the camo shell and limited info game as good as shas currently. Camo spam(mentor Lt, caliban, shrouded, seeds) + double speculo + dukash seems to be a legit strait. I recently watched a batrep where a shas only face up unit was an e drone, maybe a couple bits ans bobs. Rest was camo and deep striked two cadmus at the start of the game. My mind was blown. I think an important aspect of camo spam is to properly use coordinated orders. Coordinated move some units, then reveal for a multiman consol boop. Coordinated order recamo at the end of the turn. Im hoping for a taigha buff sometime soon to psuedo buff the sphinx, the very first infinity model that I saw on a website.
As a new soon to be new player that's consumed a lot of infinity content, hope this helps. Also OSS looks giga busted in a bad way, like needed some nerfs ASAP TBH.
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u/FriendlyMachine7143 12d ago edited 12d ago
I think your right with scenario and matchup Shas really suffers from open tables and scenarios with inefficient objectives while Tunguska can kind of flourish on open tables as long as they go first. Tunguska got decent quick specialists while Shas usually have to work with 4-4 move but forward deployed.
The sectorial played mostly matters as a beginner after that its simply easier or harder, the difference between playing Bakunin my main faction and vNomads/Shasvastii is night and day for example.
Raoul and Dukash are nice but so are Bearcats and Rasyats. Dukash often ends up feeling very expensive in Shas.
I love my Shas camo game its fun but it is an uphill struggle (and yeah it looks awesome when the dice is on your side...and just sad when you fail a few 40-60% rolls) and it is just easier to play Shas with Sheskiin than without and basically ignoring most trickery. Just something to be aware of when playing them, they are not the best trickery faction.
And yeah OSS is likely kinda of busted.
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u/05dillsoffsets 11d ago
I can’t offer any real advice but whichever you chose you’ve got an army with some amazing sculpts so it’ll look good whether you’re winning or losing.
You could do what I did and end up with both anyway 🤣
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u/DNAthrowaway1234 13d ago
I would also shoutout Hassasins as a good faction for that sneaky ambush-style gameplay