Introduction

As expected, following the N5 release in December, Corvus Belli have dropped the second/revised part of the Infinity Tournament (ITS) Season 16. For any newcomers, this is their annual cycle of tournament rules (running August to August) which is essentially the main mission pack for Infinity games. It’s not the only mission set available, since there is now a cards-based random alternative, Resilience Ops. But for competitive play, and the great number of pick-up games that are basically run with the same rules, ITS is the standard. As well as the actual missions, each season has a few little extra rules, which might boost certain troop types, or inject a little tweak to some elements of set-up. These have often served, in the past, as trial runs for changes to the core game rules. Because of the edition change, Pt1 of Season 16 was extremely cautious – it didn’t introduce anything new and it actually cut several missions from the set without replacement. 

The headlines for this update are: 

• The pack has been updated to make sense with N5, e.g. changing references in missions to Damage to PS, or Wounds on HVT profiles to VITA.
• 3 missions cut from ITS16 Pt1 have been restored to the document, with minor changes: B-Pong, Last Launch, Evacuation.
• A couple of minor seasonal rules – Long Service, Border Skirmishes – return, and a new minor rule for Journalist models has been introduced.
• Some missions have had the free turrets given to each player removed. Other than that, common mission special rules like QAZ Zones, QAZ Creatures, etc have not changed.
• Some missions have the new Tactical Support rule, where players randomly generate certain bonuses using the Tactical Objectives deck. This is the most elaborate change or new rule in the document, but only appears in certain missions: Acquisition, B-Pong, Evacuation, Frostbyte, Last Launch, Mindwipe, Supplies. 

N5 Language and Mechanical Changes

These are all purely functional changes to make the rules read in a coherent way; as far as we can tell, nothing about the actual stats or numbers behind anything has changed. It just means, for example, that when you roll to see if your models die in a Biotechvore zone, you can use PS without having to convert from N4 Damage.

Tactical Support

We’re going to deal with this first as it’s the most elaborate, and in our opinion over-elaborate, bit of the new rules. Players use the Tactical Objectives (sold included with the Classified deck, and normally used for Resilience Ops games) to generate additional rules for their forces. The first thing that jumps out is that the Tac Obj deck is not fully intended for this purpose. To make the system work, players have to shuffle through and remove four cards which don’t have symbols on them. From there they draw 1-2 (mission dependent) randomly, and consult symbols printed on the cards for which of the 12 options are available. Honestly, our first reaction is that this is a terrible system for generating bonus rules. The symbols are at least big enough to see clearly on the cards, unlike the little, occasionally relevant doo-hickies on the Classified Objectives. But they are all very similarly designed, poorly distinguished lines and dots in circles. The universal experience of players generating Tactical Support will be shuffling the cards about, consulting the table in the PDF, and trying to find which one they have actually drawn. Once this is done, it’s not as if the card will remind them of the Support option – its text is for something else and the symbol is no help. 

Why could this not have been a D12 table? Don’t tell us that CB doesn’t make D12s or use them in the rest of the game, it’s just a random number, and in 2025 every player has a smartphone which can be a random number generator in their pocket. On the face of it, giving ITS players a use for some of the other cards that come packaged in the Operations Deck is fine. But there’s no reason for this to be tied to cards.

Restraining our grognard grumbles for a minute, let’s look at the Tactical Support options. These all have a standard caveat (it crops up in other mission special rules) that the model chosen to received the special rule must be on the table, not a marker/holoecho/hidden/airborne deployment, and that it can’t be a Vehicle, REM, or Irregular. These restrictions seem rather out of place – some of the Tactical Support rules are declared without needing to pick a trooper, fair enough, the restrictions are irrelevant. But some are declared after making a roll, so they could be made by a Trooper which started the game as a marker – does getting the rule mean they can’t go back into marker state afterwards? We’ll try and call out any weirdness on this when it occurs, but it definitely seems like a copy-paste from other mission rules, which isn’t entirely applicable. 

Tactical Support Options

Remember, these are all fully random, not draw two/drop one as with Classified Objectives. They are generated after the lists are chosen, but before the Lt/Initiative roll. Weirdly, Tactical Support options are Open Information – this works for some but is surprising for one or two. The 12 possibilities fit into a couple rough categories:

• Controlling Objective Rolls. 4 of these results are intended to make it more reliable to achieve the central objectives (ie any Skill with the ‘Scenario’ tag, typically the normal WIP roll to activate a console or similar objective). Separate options give you:
  • A single-use success (spent before making the roll)
  • A single-use ReRoll (declared after failing the roll)
  • One Specialist to be able to ReRoll all Scenario Skills during the game (pick which Trooper at the end of Deployment)
  • One Trooper becomes a Specialist Operative for the game (at the end of Deployment)

These are the most welcome and sensible additions from Tactical Support. We can see the logic – a famous, long-established and much-discussed negative play experience in Infinity is failing numerous normal WIP rolls in a row, thus turning a winnable game into a frustrating loss. 3 of these 4 options are interesting twists on improving your force’s reliability in this area. Single-use Success is a sure thing, but you need to commit to using it at one vital time. A ReRoll is not certain but you can get more out of it if the dice are right. ReRolling all Scenario skills is potentially mechanically the strongest, but only if you’re using one Specialist repeatedly and don’t lose it. All will be desirable in different missions, forces and situations. The fourth option, making another Trooper a Specialist, will be more of a fix for certain lists in certain missions. Some players may feel they just don’t need it, others will get a lot of efficiency out of making a key attack piece a Specialist who can spend a single Order trying an Objective en route to murdertown. Some really good design going on here, and concepts which we might hope filter through in some form into core Infinity.

If you thought there was a “but” coming along, you would be right. The fact that these important, helpful special rules are fully randomised and scattered into a 12-result table is intensely irritating. Apparently, modifying Scenario rolls is so precious, it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of unrelated cruft. 

Gaining extra kit. Five of the options let you pick a Specialist (not just any Trooper, and remember the restrictions of no REMs, Vehicles, Irregulars, or Markers/Hidden/Etc) and give them a nice new toy: Sensor, a Medikit, a Gizmokit, a Blitzen, and an Adhesive Launcher Rifle are the options. These are obviously all situational, but in most games and lists, since the player can pick at end of Deployment, there will be some potential value from them. Here there is some merit to the restriction on markers or Hidden troopers, giving such equipment to those sorts would be a conflict of secret/open info. Overall, we don’t think these are as desirable as the Scenario-roll-affecting results, and they are just so unnecessary. Who was asking for this level of random extra to be added to missions? 

Beyond those two categories where we can at least see a design philosophy, if only partially coherent, we have 3 weird results:

Improving the Lt WIP roll by +1. This lone option just seems out of place, it has nothing to do with the others and seems as if the design team was perhaps struggling to think of 12 separate bonuses to add. Maybe we’re being uncharitable. We’re also sure someone will argue it can’t work if your Lt is a camo marker (we think it’s fine, the Lt roll takes place before deployment).

Wildcard option. One card lets you pick any of the other results. God, they’re really leaning into the randomness. This isn’t as offensive to our sensibilities as…

Cancel one of the opponent’s options. This is, straight up, one of the results, and one of the silliest things we have seen in Infinity so far. Why does it exist? Just to make the whole process of shuffling the cards around and deciphering the symbols feel more pointless? It’s just not good design that you both draw 1-2 special rules (depending on mission), but occasionally you both lose one of those. Hell, if both players draw this, a mission with 2 Tactical Support cards would end up with no bonuses in play, completely undermining the apparent intent to improve Order-intensive missions. 

Is This a Good Mechanic?

We don’t want to get overly negative here before we’ve even played a game with them. But this system raises so many questions. At the core there seems to be a valid motivation, introducing player agency over the Scenario Skills (aka WIP rolls) which are such a classic, but occasionally frustrating, feature of ITS missions. But the card system is clunky. 2/3rds of the random options just give unrelated special rules, or exist simply to pad out the randomness of 12 options. Drawing a Blitzen doesn’t affect the mission objectives at all, so why is it a possibility, besides disappointing the player that they didn’t draw a more relevant result? We will see how Tactical Support affects the outcomes of games, but we are definitely critical of the choices here. On the more positive side, any attempt to introduce control over Scenario Skills is a noble endeavour, and we hope that intent is carried through into future Seasons.

Other Season Rules

As has been the case for many years, Characters count as Veteran Troops, opening up some Classified Objectives for them to score. This is fine and honestly it is surprising that the reprinted cards didn’t just incorporate the change.

Journalists now all count as Specialists. This basically means WarCors (there are only a couple other obscure units with the rule, and they are Specialists already) are better than ever, and will be an absolute pro pick for some missions. Of course they will become a liability in missions like Firefight which award points for killing Specialists. It’s a rough life in the press corps. 

Border Skirmishes returns to allow one Combat Jump or Parachutist model per game to deploy inside an Exclusion Zone, and Combat Jumpers can do so without a PH roll, if they are placed along the edges of the zone. This is a pretty good boost, and with the general drop in price for those skills in N5, it may make certain Combat Jump units very popular in Exclusion Zone missions. 

Changes to Mission Extras

F-13 Turrets – the combi rifle total reaction turrets of the previous seasons – are completely removed from the ITS missions. They now exist only in Resilience Ops. This does seem like a response to turrets now being a piece of kit in players’ armies, as if CB didn’t want to add to the potential of turret-spam bogging down games, which some communities are rather concerned about. But it doesn’t actually address that issue – armies and players who can spam turrets may continue to do so, and taking the scenario turrets doesn’t massively alter the play experience. 

QAZ zones and creatures remaining unchanged are not positive in our eyes. These rules were already clunky and had the potential to impact their missions too strongly if the dice fell the wrong way. It’s a limited gripe, they aren’t usually a major issue, but QAZ creatures especially can be a hard gear check to some lists, if the right deployment spot for them exists.

Adjustments to Missions

So the 3 missions discussed below were all additions to ITS15, and while we welcomed some new ideas and interesting designs at the time, all three had a mixed reputation, especially with competitive players. Broadly, B-Pong was considered to favour the second player to a very high degree; Last Launch had some very predictable play patterns and rewarded certain units far more than others; Evacuation was simply incredibly Order-intensive. We are cautiously optimistic to see them return. In discussing the changes below, we are referring back to their debut in Season 15. 

B-Pong

The key thing about B-Pong was that in ITS15, 9OP were scored via end-of-round positioning. This made it extremely difficult for the first player to contest the objectives enough to stay in the game, and sort of poisoned what was a very interesting objective interaction mission. This has been significantly addressed. Players still score 1OP for controlling at least one console, and 1OP for controlling the beacon, at the end of each Game Round. This means 6OP are still on offer which somewhat favour the second player, but the mechanics of the Tracking Beacon have changed. Not only is ‘punting’ the beacon 4” with a model in Silhouette contact now a Short rather than Long Skill, you cannot use the Consoles to move the beacon while it is controlled by an enemy model. Essentially, a player can move the beacon into a position (probably in their own table half) and try to control and protect it there, without their opponent being trivially able to yoink it away from them via the Consoles. This is possible because the OP for having the beacon in the enemy table half is now scored at end of game. It also sinks to 2OP, with the difference made up by adding a second Classified Objective.

Some other, symmetrical changes are that the Exclusion Zone shrinks to just 4” either side of the central line. This will make the mission less Order-intensive and with Border Skirmishes could make Combat Jump troops very useful. The mission gains 2 Tactical Support cards per player which could, randomness allowing, also make play more Order-efficient.

B-Pong still does have clear advantages to the second player; they will certainly have an easier time scoring the 3OP on offer for controlling consoles, and in many ways will still be favoured to score the 3OP for controlling the beacon and 2OP for having it in the enemy table half at the end of the game. But these are counterbalanced by the inherent advantage of going first. Most importantly, there is an Objective-focussed route to victory for the first player, beyond simply alpha striking to put their opponent on the edge of Retreat, and trying to score in later Rounds. They could feasibly drag the beacon into their own table half and try to control it there, and if they lose control of the consoles, it won’t be a near-automatic loss of the beacon as well. We need some practice on this, but the changes certainly seem a move in the right direction.

Last Launch

The main change for Last Launch is the whopping 4OP on offer in Season 15 for Extracting more Army Points than the opponent is cut to 2OP. This should make games less swingy – getting ahead of your opponent by launching one more expensive model is still a 4-point swing, but it’s not an 8-point swing any more. The difference is made up by adding two Classified Objectives, which may help the mission feel less specialised on its unique mechanic. 

Another major complaint in Last Launch was the extreme incentive to take EVO hackers – these have lost their special exemption from needing to get an ID token in order to extract. EVO bots will still be given an advantage, since Baggage does give the bonus 20pts to the total of Army Points extracted, but they are no longer the auto-take or game-winning edge they were previously. 

The 16” wide Exclusion Zone has been removed, although models still cannot deploy inside the Launching Tower (the central objective room) itself. This should make the mission less Order-intensive, although it may open it up afresh to new skew lists, that simply try and start (or Hidden Deploy) valuable Specialists close to the consoles to extract efficiently. Last Launch also gains 2 Tactical Support Cards, which again might make interaction more Order-efficient. 

Overall these changes seem positive. Last Launch remains a very specialised mission with a unique scoring vector and an interesting push-pull: by scoring heavily in early turns, players are reducing their own ability to affect their opponent and control the game. We are keen to play this one more.

Evacuation

Fair disclaimer here, I [Genghis Cohen] think Evacuation was a deeply unpopular mission because players did not like the sheer number of objectives they were being asked to achieve; I loved it for the same reason. To me it captured the feel of the old ‘terror missions’ from X-Com. There were too many civilians to save them all, you had to make hard choices to get some of them out. In my opinion, this mission was never given a fair shake, maybe because the community is too fixated on having missions that are plausible to score 10OP in. But even I can’t deny it was a challenging mission, and it was easy for players to feel they simply couldn’t score. 

The scoring has hardly changed, each civilian extracted is 1OP and each enemy HVT is 2OP. However the number of neutral civilians deployed has dropped from 5 to 4. This is made up for by a second Classified Objective. The bigger changes are to the layout of the table. The central HVT is gone and the 4 in different quarters are closer to the table edges, while the consoles used to extract them are now on the central line, rather than at the edge of the deployment zones. This should make the movement required to score less onerous. Previously, to access HVTs or the civilians in the enemy table half, players had to slog all the way back to their DZ, or try to access the ‘enemy’ console, which was usually closer but might be guarded. Now there is more even access to extraction points. Even more impactfully, the Exclusion Zone has been removed entirely. This is a total game changer for list-building into Evacuation. There is no longer an overwhelming demand for bikers and other fast-moving Specialists; infiltrator stocks are back up. 

Hopefully, even if the 2 Tactical Support cards don’t show a Scenario-affecting result, those changes make the objectives sufficiently achievable that this mission sees a bit more play. 

Conclusion

There you have it. Mostly a conservative change to the remainder of Season 16. Seeing new missions is always the big change we’re after in ITS, and we will take the restoration of three previously-available options in the absence of anything else. While they had their critics, all three missions are interesting enough to be worth saving in our opinion, and we will look forward to playing them with their improvements. Tactical Support is the big new introduction, despite only being in 7 of 18 missions (not counting Direct Action), which makes the clunky and random nature of how the bonuses are generated all the more frustrating. But the hints of really good ideas are there. 

Good luck, and may you draw Scenario ReRolls instead of Adhesive Launcher Rifles!

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