Infinity is full of incredible and spectacular miniatures, but this time I am focusing on one of the most interesting elements in the game - motorcycles!
In Infinity, the effective range of bikes is fantastic and varied, and you can find fantastic characters such as the Kuroshi Rider and her imposing scythe, the dangerous Nazarova Twins or the badass Carmen Johns, which is not only motorized - but accompanied by Bétard, a dangerous antipode.
Let’s focus on the average profile of a trooper mounted on a motorcycle. Of course, they are infinity's fastest profiles, and as such, in a few orders, they could get across the entire table.
We can find different Warband profiles such as the Kum Riders and Carmen Johns, for example, to the more tactical profiles such as Aragotos or Mavericks.
This means that within the range of motorized profiles, you will have different strategic options!
Flanking an enemy and destroying them in Close Combat will be a relatively easy task and will not require a large investment in orders. A troop with mimetism is blocking your path and you don't have a Multispectral Visor to hunt her down? Flank her with Carmen Johns and eliminate her inClose Combat - problem solved! Or simply cover the road with roving bands of your Kum Riders, blanket the map with smoke and charge through to erase everything.
With more tactical profiles, you can reach strategic positions before the enemy and close off routes. For example, with Yojimbo, we could quickly relocate ourselves and complicate the exit from an enemy deployment zone by placing his Crazy Koalas, or with an Aragoto Hacker and threaten a Heavy Infantry or TAG.
Sounds good, doesn't it? But of course, the Bikes in N3 had some rules or conditions to play that could become annoying or made it difficult to use in lists - making their use somewhat marginal. For example, the size of the base makes it difficult to move around the table, something that certainly has an impact on one of its main advantages - movement. If it doesn't fit between those two buildings, we'd have to go around that would expose our bike, or no longer make their speed an advantage.
Motorcycles often equip short- and medium-range weaponry, because their speed will give them more use out of them -but what's the use of having a motorcycle with a Marksman Rifle in our deployment area if we can't take advantage of its mobility?
It should also be mentioned that not all bikes have Smoke, so when it comes to dodging, the negative they suffer can take away the chances of our bike surviving and going along its way.
Another aspect to take into account with motorcycles is the cost. When you are making your army list knowing these disadvantages, it may not be attractive to take them despite their other advantages.
Fortunately, that's a thing of the past! N4 has brought with it a lot of rule changes, and perhaps that's why the modifications to motorized units have gone unnoticed.
What are the changes in Infinity N4?
The first problem affecting the bikes was the penalty to dodge, something that in Infinity N4 disappears, thus increasing its chances of survival.
Even some profiles have earned a bonus to movement when dodging. For example, Pentesilea has gained Dodge (+2”) which means she gained 2 inches to their dodge, this will make her move faster - both to approach their enemy and to get out of their enemy’s line of sight.
The difficulty of movement on a table with a lot of scenery and narrow passages, which affected bikes so much in N3, has been updated with the new edition and its new rules of movement and base size.
The new Movement rules tell us that the surface on which a troop moves must have a width equal to or greater than half its base. Something that will definitely help bikes move around the game table.
Infinity N4 also brings a change in the troop scoring system (and of course along with it the scoring system for bikes). This calculation of points has taken into account the difficulties they face, as they remain highly visible and cannot benefit from cover. For these reasons, the price of motorcycles has been lowered, especially as warbands.
For example, a Kum Rider with Chain Rifle costs 10 points in N3 and 5 points in N4, and the same Kum Rider equipped with Light Shotgun used to be 14 points, and now costs 6 points.
A Dynamo Paramedic in N3 used to cost 29 points, and thought we would invest 29 points in that paramedic, those points could actually end up being a few orders invested elsewhere. If I told you that in N4, that same unit only costs 19 points, it becomes a far more attractive option.
The miniatures that cost 22 points in N3, like Carmen Johns, are now only 17 points and we can count on her presence. No doubt those 5 points can make a big difference when it comes to creating our lists.
So now you know, with all this information and with the changes that Infinity N4 has brought us, it is time to dust off those bikes and make some noise across the battlefield.
Tell us how you are going to use them and share with us pictures of your motorized minis on our social networks using the hashtag #coolvusbelli!
