It sounds like Warren has gone bonkers for tournaments so I guess now is a good time to talk about them in regards to Infinity…

A few weeks ago Corvus Belli (CB) announced the 2014 season of ITS has begun. As you start researching Infinity or just starting out you’re going to come up against this acronym a lot. A few place you might see it:

ITS legal list, ITS Tournament, ITS Missions/Scenarios

So what is ITS? What does ITS require? How can you get into ITS? Keep reading for answers to all of these questions.

The What

You know what? I’m going to let CB explain it themselves:

“Infinity Tournament System (ITS) is Infinity’s official system for organized play, and features an International Ranking to keep track of each player’s score.” – ITS Basic Rules Packet

So instead of having a bunch of independent groups doing their own thing and coming up with their own rankings and tournament system, CB has taken it upon themselves to engage with the community and create a world-wide system that can be scaled from large grand tournaments all the way down to two people playing in their garage. But no matter if you play at Duelcon or a buddy’s basement you can still submit your results equally.

ITS events can be played at three different points levels. The higher the points level being played, the more potential points you can earn (or lose) to either increase (or decrease) your international ranking.

Low-Tier: 200 points & 4 SWC (See what 200 points entails in BoW’s Battle Box and Beyond)
Mid-Tier: 300 points & 6 SWC
Top-Tier: 400 points & 8 SWC

There are six different formats of ITS tournaments that can be played at each of the three point tiers, depending on how many people you have, and what kind of tournament experience you are looking for.

Standard Tournament: Designed for four or more players and a minimum of three rounds. This is the most general of the formats and all other are variants of this.

Spec Ops Tournament: Same as the Standard but you can bring a Spec Ops with 12 experience points. No experience points are gained during the tournament.

Campaign Tournament: Same as the standard, but now you can use objective points to improve your army at the end of each round.

Joint Operations Tournament: A variant of the standard that allows two people to team up in two versus two games.

Mini Tournament: Designed for 2-4 players and a minimum of 2 rounds.

So you can see the Mini Tournament is perfect for those of you who want to do a small one day tournament with a couple of friends. Or you can do a small Standard Tournament if you have a small gaming group.

The How

OK so what do you need to play in an ITS event? The requirements are fairly simple.

- Miniatures. Not required to be painted (but the dice roll better if they are). They must not be from other game systems. However, if a model is a custom piece only the majority needs to be from CB. Finally, proxies are allowed for profiles that do not have models yet.
- Dice. (Five is the most you will ever need)
- Tape Measure.
- Templates and Markers. (can be downloaded)
- Army lists. (you are allowed to bring 2 lists and select which one you want to use each round)
- ITS PIN (free online)

Nothing surprising here, the fact that you don’t need to have your miniatures painted is pretty nice, how often do we hear about people painting their models the morning of a tournament in their car in the parking lot? Templates are free, the army list builder is free, and you probably already have a tape measure and a handful of D20s laying around. So other than an entrance fee you only need to buy your miniatures.

Escalation League

Speaking of cost of miniatures there is one more type of event that I forgot to mention:

The Escalation League!

While its open to anyone, the EL is really designed to get new people involved in the game, teach them the rules, get some games under their belt, and build their force up in a short time. What’s interesting to me is the staggered rules that user a new player into the game:

Round 1: 120 points, no Lt. required, no retreat, no hacking, and annihilation
Round 2: 150 points, no retreat, no hacking, and annihilation
Round 3: 200 points, no retreat, and each player has two classified objectives
Round 4: 250 points, each player has two classified objectives
Round 5: 300 points, each player has one classified objective and several objectives to capture
Rounds 6-8: 300 points, standard ITS missions

A player can play through the first third of the league with a starter box and a blister and by the time they are moving into the latter half of the league they should be developing a good feel for what they want their army to look like. On top of all of that they are learning not to fear the ITS system and meet their fellow gamers. Both of which will make their transition to larger tournaments an easier affair.

For those of you looking to grow Infinity in their local area this could be the perfect opportunity. Hopefully we will be setting one up in our area sooner rather than later.

The Loot

No proper tournament would be complete without some cool prizes to give away, and once again CB has you covered in the form of their tournament packs. When you decide to start your own ITS event you will need a tournament pack. This will include your online registration code, but will include a host of prizes that include things like:

Limited Edition miniatures
Blister packs
Weapon packs
Patches
Posters
Pins, certificates, and art

The larger the pack you buy the more loot you get! (And yes if you really want to buy a pack just to secure your own limited edition mini you can do that…)

The Process

In order to run your own event the process is the simple:

1. Download the rules and scenarios here
2. Pick your Tournament pack and buy through the online store here
3. Register yourself (and tell your friends to register) at Infinity’s ITS portal here
4. Register your event at the ITS portal (Note: you will need a separate registration as an event organizer)
5. Go! Fight! Win! (BoW Ben: Cue anime style intro music?)
6. Record the results of your event here

And that’s it! So as you can see for the price of a couple less drinks you can make your evening of two to three games with your mate(s) an official ITS event that will contribute to your international standings. Honestly I can’t think of any reasons not to do this. As we mentioned before it’s free to register, all the tools are available online, and it can be scaled to fit literally any size of tournament. We showed the amazing support CB has put forward in terms of prizes, and I even put together a step by step process on how to create your own event.

Phew, feels like we hit a lot of points in one post! So enough from me, have you had any experience with the ITS system? How did it go? Are you planning to attend or put together your own ITS event?

PS: 3rd in the world for a few shining moments…

Casey Roberts

If you would like to write articles for Beasts of War then contact me at [email protected].