Ammo Tactica: Shock Ammo


Hi there fellows!

Are you new to Infinity? Do you come from other systems with much less depth and you suddenly feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in front of you? Are you asking why are there so many different guns and why do they have so many ammo types? Why is this thing that I’m reading full of questions?  Don’t worry, I’m here to help you out!

While other games have mechanics to represent the different effects of various ammo types, none have the variety that infinity has (at least in my experience). Counting normal ammo, there are 15 ammo types, which is crazy and can be daunting at first but it is not that bigger deal once you get some games going. Each ammo provides different ways to make the target bite the dust and also, they give a cinematic feel to the firefights that are just balls to the walls awesome.

This series of articles will give an overview on the ammo types of Infinity and provide some tips and tactics which will help you to keep your opponents out of the objectives. I’ll try to provide some insight about the best targets for each ammo and why. Of course, this is just a personal opinion based on my experience and the meta of my community, so, if you have any corrections, suggestions, doubts or just want to give your opinion, please leave your comments below.

So lets get on with it.


Shock Ammo

This ammo causes severe wounds that lead the target directly to the dead state, bypassing Unconscious state, as long as the target does not have two or more natural wounds, has immunities like Shock Immunity, Bioimmunity or Total Immunity, or if the unit wears powered armour (non-Ariadna Heavy Infantry).

It is not a very common ammo outside Anti-Personnel Mines, CCW, wacky Crazy Koalas and Submachine Guns, which are limited to Ariadna, Haqqislam and ALEPH.

Its advantages depend on the enemies you are facing more than other ammo types. If your opponent brings doctors and has little to no multi-wound troops, then your shock ammo will be quite effective. By directly killing your target you negate the utility of doctors and spend less orders bringing down targets with NWI (No Wound Incapacitation).

Against armies with high amounts of troops with NWI, like ALEPH (especially Steel Phalanx) where many heroes have ARM 2-3 and NWI, shock ammo will ensure their death in one shot without recovery option of any kind, thus negating one of the skills of their very capable doctor (Machaon).

This ammo is also quite good  against Shasvastii, first because they have access to lots of Automedikit options and it is really annoying watching a Thermo-Optic Camouflaged Malignos rise from the dead (Unconsciousness, to be precise) to keep sniping your dudes from its vantage position.

Also, the Shasvastii are horribly difficult to remove from the table, remember that they still count as alive for retreat threshold and count as scoring in Quadrant Control and Frontline until their disgusting embryo is killed, which means putting four shots on their bodies. Shock ammo saves us shots by bringing them to the dead state in one go.

It’s worth mentioning too that this ammo also prevents V: Dogged soldiers from going on rampage once injured, since their liquified organs will be pouring through all their orifices thus making the whole rampage business very difficult. (I’m sorry mister HMG Ragik, you wanted to do something bad?)


So to recap we have a very nice ammo given the right circumstances. Which are:

Hope this came handy for you and don’t forget to join in for the next Ammo Tactics pretty soon! If you would like to add your $0.02 do not hesitate!



Canary Islander, born in Tenerife, I'm a big Infinity geek of course! hope y'all like my articles here. I play Merovingian and Nomads.

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9 Responses

  1. Nestor says:

    Awesome!! great job, cant wait for more.

  2. bladerunner_35 says:

    I like it. Enough to get the idea across but still short and to the point. Looking forward to more articles like it.

  3. Melvin McSnatch says:

    The biggest thing for me is that after you read the book the first or even second time, you may know the rules but still not understand the importance of them. This kind of article drives it home. So if there are any new players reading this who plays against a lot of Aleph or Shas or Hassassins, you may have just opened a new tool for them that they didn’t realize they had.

    Great job!

  4. Pipboy says:

    Thanks guys! more coming up pretty soon! stay tuned!

  5. VisOne says:

    Here is a little side note.

    There are a number of models/profiles are that negates the effect Shock Ammunition.

    Heavy Infantry are all equipped with Heavy powered armour which negates the effect of Shock Ammunition. The only exclusion to this rule is the Ariadna Heavy Infantry who use Traditional heavy armour this type of armour does not negate Shock Ammunition.

    However you will find all Ariadna Heavy Infantry to date has the skill Shock Immunity which again negates the effect of Shock Ammunition.

    Also there are some models with the skill Total Immunity such as the 2nd Irregular Cameronians Reg, Dog-Warriors, Duroc from the Mirage 5 team and McMurrough the Mercenary. See a theme there they are all the ‘Werewolves’ Dog Warriors there. Total Immunity is a real pain as it negates the effects of Shock Ammunition as well as many others.

    Its easier to list what it doesn’t negate: Adhesive, E/M, Monofilament, Plasma, Viral and Flash Special Ammunition.

    Finally there is a very recently added new rule called Bioimmunity that so far is only found on the Neoterra Bolts & Tarik Mansuri which again negates Shock Ammunition as well as Viral Ammunition.

    So as always welcome to the intricate and deadly game that is Infinity!

    • Melvin McSnatch says:

      Total Immunity was listed. Heavy armor slipped under the radar because it’s not listed in the Shock Ammunition rules! And Bioimmunity isn’t ingrained in me yet. Yet another piece of information that has slipped past me and the reason I want to read articles like this.

    • Scorch says:

      Added it to the article! Thanks for the feedback! 🙂

  6. Pipboy says:

    We (I) totally forgot about BioImmunity, HI are shock immune because they have more than 2 wounds I think, every troop with two wounds is immune to it.

  1. May 31, 2014

    […] if you remember back when we talked about Shock Ammo, we discussed  some armies with the disgusting habit of not going unconscious due to their  NWI […]

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