As some of you might know, I'm pretty active on the Infinity forums. I wrote the Ariadna Tactica and the New Player Advice on the wiki (which will receive a massive overhaul in N3!), which is supposed to help new players adjust to the unique Infinity paradigm.
Too often, though, I find myself posting the same things over and over on the forums. The same advice, the same arguments against XYZ, the same rebuttals to "people who know better". It's actually started to jade me, and I sometimes post quick and flippant answers when I should be posting something more helpful. Here is a very short list that I feel is important for new players to understand:
1) How does X faction play?
This is a totally valid question, but I'm always tempted to post something unproductive like "THIS ISN'T WARMACHINE OK?" It's true that many players from other games bring their prejudices with them when they sign up for Infinity, but it's also true that they really don't know any better. So instead of responding with the whole "THIS ISN'T..." thing, I should say something like:
Nomads [the faction in question] don't do anything in particular, at least not that other factions can't really do. They have access to a few neat tricks (the HD+/marker thing), but for the most part all factions can do everything. If you get stuck thinking that the Nomads only do x, y, and z, you'll get beaten pretty quickly when your opponents learn to counter those. Learn the tricks, but please don't assume that there are only one or two 'Nomad playstyles'!
This is a lot nicer, but still gently reinforces the idea that factions on the whole don't have "particular playstyles".
2) XYZ unit is so awesome; it will totally help me win!
I have to admit that this one's a bit of a hair-puller for me. Because some other games work more like Rock-Scissors-Paper matches, there are units that act as silver bullets. They exist, and they see play often. I often hear things like "oh man, have you read what MSV3 does? I'm definitely going to win more now that I have an MSV3 unit..." or "Wildcats are, hands down, better than Alguacils because of their stats". These things trouble me because they imply that new players are still focused on "taking the best unit" rather than "using their units in the best way possible", and I feel tempted to say something like "how are you going to feel when it dies?" Instead, I should say something like:
Sure, Penthesilea has superior movement to Sun Tze v2. The order limit we played with, though, means that Sun often (not always) has a chance to cut a corner and shoot. I really had to use terrain to my advantage to have a chance. Moral of the story: units don't win; players using units do.
This tells the player that, yes, Penthesilea has a solid advantage, but it also tells the player that I feel tactical skill is an important element of any match-up.
3) What's the best unit?
From the perspective of a player arriving from other games (of any kind), this is also a totally valid question. My gut response - honed by several years of saying there isn't any best unit and hearing the question constantly repeated - would be something like "THERE IS NO BEST UNIT, UGH. EVERYTHING DIES, GET OVER IT". That, of course, is way too harsh and not entirely true. What I should say is something like:
There really isn't any all-round best unit. You get what you pay for, and sometimes it's more useful to have a bunch of cheaper guys for better attack vectors and for the orders they provide. Most things in Infinity are pretty fragile under concentrated fire, so the definition of "best" you might be used to just means that the model will come under heavy fire by an opponent who knows how good it can be. Try using a handful of cheaper models instead, because when one dies you will always have another of comparable ability on-hand.
This tells the player that yes, there are good models - but not for the reason that s/he thinks. It also gently reminds the player that sometimes cheaper is better (especially in an order-based system), and that really good units tend to be synonymous with "really dead really early units".
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Take these and share them, if you have any new players in your group. I think that one of the reasons I keep seeing the same questions is that a) newer players don't don't immediately explore the available documentation (wiki, etc.), and b) that some forumites will routinely humour these questions with straight answers that don't reflect the nuance of Infinity play. Hopefully this will inspire you to approach new players differently, and to be patient when they might otherwise ask a question that you've heard so many times before. Good luck!
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