Infinity Deathmatch: Tag Raid, Kickstarter First Impressions
It’s here! Corvus Belli’s latest Kickstarter is now live, and it’s already shaping up to be really interesting, both as a stand-alone game, and for current Infinity N4 players. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can find it here:
What’s in the box?
To quote one of my favorite movies, let’s talk about the goodies that this kickstarter is slinging.
Starting with the core pledge, the game is going to come with 4 TAGS, 4 Prospectors, 4 Remotes, and the Stoorworm monster, which is a not bad collection of minis. It also comes with a bunch of terrain, game tiles, dice, and the usual components to play the game.
As a boxed game, this doesn’t seem bad, but what’s really cool is that it seems like all the units (save the Stoorworm) are getting N4 profiles. We’ve already seen the profile for the prospector, which I’ll share in a bit. For €120, it’s actually quite a decent deal, since that’s more than the TAGs would probably cost alone.
Furthermore, a lot of the stretch goals have been adding more minis to the core pledge, so far including Engineers and Hackers.
What’s in the bigger box?
As expected, there’s a bigger tier pledge than the core box. It comes with all the previous goodies, plus extra monsters, miners for Combined Army, and a really cool terrain pack (that looks suspiciously perfect for Infinity ITS Objectives.
The Scenery Pack
I moved this up to the top, because even if you’re not into TAGs, engineers, hackers, and the new Prospectors, if you know someone backing the kickstarter, you might want to hop on their pledge manager for the Scenery box alone. The Turrets are perfect for the new season of ITS, plenty of supply crates, possibly panoplies, and antennas.
The Miniatures
The minis are probably the biggest (or smallest) reason many of you might be interested in TAG Raid…
Honestly, the minis are awesome, much like we’d expect from any Corvus Belli minis though, they’re just so damn good. I’m especially fond of the Ariadna and Combined TAGs, but I’m also super bias, haha. I was primarily concerned that the minis wouldn’t be usable in N4, though Corvus Belli has said that they’ll all have profiles. This also means, that like Defiance, I bet many of these models may get a general release in the future, so you don’t need to have too much FOMO. If you have more than one army though, this is probably a good enough deal as a bundle to justify (to yourself at least).
The Monsters
While probably not usable in N4, it’s worth noting that the monster miniatures are really bad ass, the Steindrage has about a 12” wingspan, so they’re really monstrous.
My Take
Full disclosure, I have not played the game yet. I’ve watched it being played on YouTube, but I’m not a huge fan of Tabletop Simulator, so I probably won’t play it until I get my greedy little hands on it. That said, even not playing the game, the set is pretty exciting.
Tournaments
Not what you think, I don’t count on there being TAG Raid tournaments at all, but I think that TAG Raid is a perfect side-show at larger tournaments and conventions. The idea for TAG Raid was born from TAG Arena home brew games that popped up at a lot of events, where people just took a TAG to an Unreal Tournament style match, bashing each other apart. I think TAG Raid will basically unify, streamline, and normalize those rules so it’s easier to pick up and play.
N4 Rules
Much like the Defiance kickstarter, this seems to have a lot of models that will be usable in N4, and if you play more than one army, that makes the bundle a pretty good savings. Figure the core set alone is €120, divided among 4 factions, meaning each faction pays €30 for a TAG, Prospector, Remote, Engineer, and probably Hacker and more by the end of the campaign… That’s pretty sweet. Even if you don’t have someone to immediately split the set with, the secondary market will probably be strong, so the parts you don’t use later… Or keep them, because who doesn’t want more toys.
The models having N4 rules, and me owning a good amount of the armies present, means I’m definitely in. We even have a glimpse of the first unit rules for N4, the Prospectors:
Prospectors
This is the first profile we’ve seen for TAG Raid minis in N4, and they’re really interesting. They provide dirt cheap HI, which aren’t amazing, but aren’t awful either. Importantly, they’re in every vanilla faction (including Combined Army and Tohaa), like other mercenary units, and the individual models all use the same stats. That definitely keeps the bloat in-check I think, which is something I really appreciate.
While you can use the official Prospector minis, their profile actually makes a great proxy for low-grade Heavy Infantry, using equipment probably easily found on the civilian market, especially with the Rifle, Light Shotgun profile. That’s pretty much PERFECT for converting your own NA2 mercenary heavy infantry, or using any of the readily available 3d STLs to print your own. The profile makes for a good deployment zone guard, and has the potential for some neat gear with Booty. A solid unit worth taking, but not something I’d consider an auto-include, which means it’s in a good spot.
If the other minis come out with comparably interesting rules, then this is going to be a really fun expansion to the game.
UPDATE! Triphammers, Repurposed Industrial TAGs
Go figure that within 2 minutes of hitting publish on this article, there’s an update showing off the N4 profiles of the mining TAGs! Well these are… interesting? They’re in all vanilla armies, plus Druze, Ikari, and StarCo, so that makes me thrilled. Not sure about the other sectorials that the Prospectors show up in, but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough. The profiles aren’t anything incredible, but they are pretty neat, mostly short ranged, though a lucky Booty roll could spin up something fairly monstrous. Watch out for Hackers though, their WIP is low and BTS is miserable. The AP Spitfire with Heavy Flamethrower is probably my go-to choice, but the Panzerfaust + Flammenspeer is tempting too, Fireteam Duo raises an eyebrow. Finally Ariadna gets a TAG!
The Bottom Line
Really, like anything in our hobby, being “worth it” is really a personal judgement call. For me, I play multiple armies that are likely to be able to use the minis in N4. I run Infinity tournaments, and enjoy attending larger conferences. I wish I had more time for board game style games, and since this seems to require FAR less bookkeeping than Defiance, making it easier to pick up and play, even with people who aren’t familiar with Infinity (though I’ll have anxiety letting the uninitiated manhandle my painted minis), so it might be easier to con others into playing with me. Not to mention that I have a blog, and a live stream/podcast, so it’s something I think I’ll get plenty of value out of.
If you only play N4, and have no desire to play TAG Raid, then it’s a tougher call. If you can split it with some friends, or don’t mind fronting the money and selling the minis you won’t use later, then €30 for 4 minis, including a TAG still seems like a decent bargain to me.
Part of me also wonders if Infinity Deathmatch will become its own imprint in the future, with more content… Why not just call it Infinity Deathmatch, or TAG Raid? Why Infinity Deathmatch: TAG Raid? Who knows.