Currently we usually play 1-5 pm Saturdays (enough for a bunch of games) pending on whether or not people show up, but as far as factions go there is the following:
Haqqislam as Qapu Khalqi sectorial
Haqqislam as Hassassin Bahram sectorial
PanO Acontecimento + General PanO
And I have 200 points of Yu Jing (starterset + 2 tigers) and 973 points of Combined Army. Technically more because I have the Shasvasti Spec ops, so we'll call it 1012 because she's most likely to be proxied as a Speculo killer.
As Justin has mentioned his Japanese Sectorial Army will be showing up... whenever? Ok well he's expressed that he's playing JSA (a Yu Jing Sectorial).
Mike has some Yu Jing but I'm not sure if that will ever really pan out, however he does think that the Yu Jing Bikes look really cool, so if it does pan out there's a good chance of bikes.
Tom has also shown interest in fielding a Steel Phalanx list but he's not ready to commit to another skirmish game which has a low population. In his words "After starting warmachine with 4 people and playing the same 4 people over and over and over again for two years I'm not going to jump into another wargame just to have the same thing happen again"
Roughly paraphrased.
As far as infinity itself goes it is definitely tons of fun and most armies will field 9 or 10 models which is much easier to paint than a whole army (it's just 10 dorks!) and while 40k games feature convenient breaks where you have the opportunity to sit, get a drink nap (the entire opponent's turn except when you roll saves) infinity is jam packed with declaring actions and doing sweet cool things.
Games are fast, bloody and widely regarded as fun. There's no "correct" or "optimized" builds (while people argue endlessly that there are indeed bad units) so the general rule of thumb is play what you like best.
Find the guys who you think look the coolest and start there.
Personally my favourite unit in the entire line are the Druze Shock Infantry.
Yeah these guys look sweet.
So I asked around about what armies specifically involve these guys.
The answer is of course Haqqislam Qapu Khalqi sectorial army, however some people were apprehensive about me learning the game with a sectorial list (it's also pretty hard to build a list with these guys and depending on how you want to fill out the rest of the roster due to the limited range offered by Corvus Belli).
So I spent some time going through all the fluff (it's all awesome and sweet and there's literally something for everyone if you look enough) so I arrived at the common predicament (common to me at least) where I thought every army was cool. However my friend had already indicated to me that he had dibs on the "space scots" (ariadna) so they, while totally sweet, were out of the question.
Eventually I learned more about the mechanics and units and the stat lines, and I fell in love with these bad boys.
These guys are sweet. Available only in a general Yu Jing list (no sectorials) the Shang Ji are heavy infantry with literally the best power armour available to Yu Jing, an upgraded version of the Invincible pattern (thank you Japanese engineers).
90% of the Heavy Infantry in Infinity has a 4-2 movement speed, however the Shang-Ji get 4-4 movement, and access to some really sweet wargear.
As an added bonus the Yu Jing starter box came with one! Score.
Thus I was solidified into YJ and I made a list using the starter kit targeted at 200 points.
Now, the starter isn't 200 points alone, so I poked around and decided to add two tiger soldiers which was excellent since there's a blister pack with two tigers.
I strongly suggest that you follow a similar pattern.
The best way to get into infinity, is find models you like (if you like how they look you'll like painting them and playing with them), read about the army, come up with a sample 200 point value list, print out your army list and any special rules your units have, get your models and play.The most economical way to do this is to choose a starterpack and one or two blisters.
From this you'll play, learn how you like to approach infinity, get a feel for what units you like, what playstyles you might like to try and how you might like to evolve future lists.
I've only played 150 or 200 point games at Nexus, and the standard for pickup games is 150-300 point battles, so we're very accommodating.
As far as the campaign is concerned I'm not too sure that'll take off. As is there isn't weekly games (I blame the slackers who don't show up), so I wouldn't worry about the campaign, however it's worth keeping in the back of your mind that a 300 point campaign army is very different from a "normal" 300 point army (the campaign missions demand support units while traditionally most people rarely thought of them at all)
So, what should you play? (What you like the look of, no matter what).
As you expressed you don't want to do what everyone else is doing so you might want to talk to Justin and see if his JSA will include bikes, since the JSA has access to the most bikes there's a good chance that he will indeed feature bikes (since they're really really cool and the JSA does bikes best).
As far as I know, nobody currently owns any Wu Ming (the assault corps) models but getting the box would heavily commit you to the other Yu Jing sectorial the Imperial Service (which nobody plays to my knowledge) however it can be difficult started as an Imperial Service army since there's no current starter pack for it, but the Wu Ming box would be a good start.
Personally, if I was going to start an imperial service army with a Wu Ming box I would buy the following:
Wu Ming BoxCelestial Guard Kuang Shi BlisterCelestial Guard Kuang Shi Blisterwww.infinitythegame.com/infinity/en/2011/miniatures/kuang-shi/Kuang Shi Box[/url]
And the 200 point list I'd learn with would be the following:
Wu Ming Light Rocket Launcher
Wu Ming HMG
Wu Ming Combi Rifle
Kuang Shi Chain Rifle
Kuang Shi Chain Rifle
Celestial Guard With Kuang Shi Control Device
Celestial Guard With Combi Rifle
Celestial Guard with Combi Rifle (as your LT)
Celestial Guard as a Hacker (using the second Kuang Shi control device model as a proxy)
Unfortunately there are excess models that you own but don't use, however if you continue collecting the Imperial Service you won't regret owning these models.
Every army is built on the backs of line infantry, you will never say to yourself "gee I hate Celestial Guard." They are some of the sweetest line infantry in the entire game, and I wish I could take more of them in my general list (I'm capped at 2) and they are your hackers. Technically you could take ninjas as hackers but I'll level with you, if you play Imperial Service your hackers WILL be celestial guard (as many or as little as you want, but they'll be celestial guard) and Kuang Shi are dirt cheap, disposable (but not wastefully so) and if you like Wu Ming there's a chance you will want to run 5 of them as a link team in a 300 point game. A very good chance since the 5 man wu ming team is beefy and very very dangerous.
This is just a suggestion, and feel free to steer clear of it. The imperial service is an army which needs a lot of tender loving care from Corvus Belli (to be frank with you) and their roster is very limited. They feature some powerful tools but as you look over your available units you'll realize that you pay dearly in points for what you want to get. There also is no current IS tag (giant robots, think of them as the land raiders of infinity in that they're cool heavily armored weapon platforms that rule and are rad) so if you think you might like running a robot and flattening people like that maybe the IS isn't for you...
If you're still not sure about what you might like then by all means, look at the miniatures of all the armies, read the fluff associated with each miniature, maybe something will catch your fancy.And of course, ask any questions you have.