Well, its about time we blow this joint

Generally minis companies need to move forward or die. If they don't keep releasing new models with new abilities the meta gets stale, people lose interest, and the game starts to die. New releases shake things up, and cause people to rethink their strategies, retool their lists, and buy more models.

 

I would get a lot of Regulars, some Bagh Mari (maybe 5).

For the Montessas and Guarda de Assalto, you could maybe convert other units, like other knights and ORCs. Paint alone + the AuxBot wouldn't make someone think twice about it for the Guarda.

I guess Dragões are going out of production, so you might want to get one if you like that TAG.

 

I was talking about the uprising thing, JSA could have got an update without leaving YJ, not sure if that was a cool thing but we can always ask a YJ player.

I agree with what you are saying but it will not make someone feel better and in the end it might be the right thing to do. I just hope people will continue playing infinity.

 

You can also use Fusiliers as Regulars since they are mostly the same. You'll just have to change one model and have him or her using a Spitfire instead. Father Knights or Hospitallers for Montesa Knights. I would grab the Bagh Mari box and blister while you can. That is the most important Acontecimento unit that will not have models available.

Grab:
PanO Vanilla Starter (Icestorm PanO half or Vanilla Box)
Fusilier SWC Box
Bagh Mari Box
Bagh Mari HMG Blister
Father Knight Spitfire Blister & Icestorm Father Knight OR Hospitaller Box
PanO Dronbot Remote Box
You can get the Bulleteer & Peacemaker remotes if you wanted as well.

 

If theres two things people hate, its how things currently are and change.

 

I hate change.

My new wallet doesn't have a pocket for coins so they end up rattling around in pockets, my work desk, and the centre console of my car.

 

I'm largely pretty pleased with this reaction.

I'd equate it broadly with the Ariadnan response to MRRF.

Some people aren't thrilled, some think it could have been done better, some think another Sectorial would have been a better "target" but overall most are ok and a few are even happy. It's probably not great for PanOceania overall in the long term (SAA is one of our better armies for attracting highly skilled players into the faction after they start elsewhere), but it isn't a fatal blow.

Personally?

I just REALLY hope Varuna is worth it.

 

That is so true. We want things to be different but sometimes when circumstances change we wish for the situation to revert itself back to "normal".

Ah a fellow Nurglite. Clearly you despise the Chaotic Changer of Ways.

 

And this is the biggest issue I have with this mentality.

It's reliant upon "Oh don't worry, it'll be fine! X is coming soon anyways...". Who the frig cares that X is coming anyways? Maybe people wanted to play Y but were waiting for resculpts?

 

Well, this doesn't affect those people at all.

Because, clearly, Acon weren't going to get any more resculpts... so they would have just been stuck waiting.

Note, also, that I am NOT saying "it'll be fine, Varuna is coming soon" but instead that I HOPE that it will be ok because Varuna MIGHT make up for the loss. Those are very different statements, and if you claim I am saying one thing when I am clearly and repeatedly saying something different then we are going to have a problem.

 

That's combat ineffective after 33% losses. So a modern USMC squad of 13 (squad leader plus 3x 4-man fireteams) is no longer able to go on offensive combat ops with 4 wounded. They are barely capable of keeping themselves alive in close assault once they have 4 wounded.

Note that an entire Division (Squad-Platoon-Company-Battalion-Regiment-Division) only has about 7200 combat troops, in a total of over 15,000. So a division that has taken 2400 casualties is pretty much out of action unless you start arming the cooks and bakers, even though that's only about a sixth of the total paper strength.

I don't mind that JSA left. That was always a rough fit, there's an immense amount of bad blood between Japan and the entire rest of Asia as a result of 1895-1945. It's a horrible failure of the promise of Yu Jing, that such things could be deliberately put aside to make the whole greater than the sum of it's parts.

I strenuously object to how the Uprising was portrayed, however. On both Japanese and YJ (and especially Imperial SS) sides...

 

It's less about the resculpts and more simply the fact that the thing interesting them is poof. Yeah yeah yeah, the lists are still there and you can proxy blah blah blah...but that is a major turnoff to some people.

Nah, not specifically saying that's your discussion more just that people seem to be staving off the potential issues by simply looking forward to whatever comes next.

 

I agree with Kanluwen that I don't see Varuna as a consolation prize. I'm really excited for Varuna (...Embarrassingly so, perhaps) but it's a shame that one has to go so that another can be released.

Alternately, the community had a chance to save Acon over the last couple years, and didn't. If Acon had been played more, purchased more, this wouldn't be happening.

Framed in that context, none of this is bad. Stiopa's poll indicates roughly 75% of the community is happy with how MRRF and Acon are being handled. About 11% (at the time of posting) are unhappy, about 8% of which doesn't play the faction and is just annoyed on principal. The remainder either don't care, or see both sides of the argument and don't feel strongly enough to weight in on either camp.

I think that's telling. Vocal minority is being vocal. But for the most part, the community gets it.

 

NOPE. You don't get to pin the blame on the community for this.
If Corvus Belli hadn't released a relatively poor excuse for a "starter" product, you might have seen more purchases.
If they had done a better job of communicating or a better job of making product available the same thing might have been a factor.

Alternatively, "the community" at this point might just be used to this nonsense. Which is bad.

 

The community may or may not have had a chance to keep ECA in production, we don’t know. Maybe if things had shaken out differently, either OM or ECN would have been pulled out of production, but we don’t have the information to know that. Even if it hadn’t been ECA, it would have been something. This, coupled with FRRM being put on hold, seems to indicate CB is comfortable actively supporting three Sectorials per faction. Now, the re-introduction/updating of FES will put that theory to the test, but it seems feasible. Regardless, what’s done is done, the only thing left is choosing our own, personal responses.

 

This is a rather narrow perspective on how companies produce products and how customers consume those products. You gloss over the fact that this product was well received by the community, however, it's been explained by the numbers in ITS & by CB that the sales didn't match what was considered a critical success.

CB can't exclude the rest of their community and release schedule to guarantee this product got exclusive and extended coverage that could have maybe helped it sell better.

I love what CB did with ASA and what they released. It's an excellent product. I just wasn't interested in it at the time just like a lot of other people I know. Sometimes products fail to get the recognition they deserve despite how good they are.

It's not CB's fault, they did what they thought best at the time.

 

From the POV of someone (currently) unaffected, CB's approach here doesn't inspire confidence. I know why they're doing it here, but it doesn't really add up when I consider there are other options. Yeah, those options have their own drawbacks and difficulties, but for people in the game, the threat of your favourite range or one you have your eye on going OOP isn't a great motivator towards, say, encouraging new players or starting new projects.

I think retiring entire sectorial ranges is not the way to go. Older minis, quicker merging of blisters, maybe actually reconsidering why they have so much chaff wasting SKUs. CB can start to adjust now towards a more restrained method of production with less waste, but if they have to keep doing things like this, upsetting the playerbase every time, it's just going to end poorly.

Did we ever learn how many troops MRRF lost? They weren't a large force, and those Ekranoplans could have been any size, but it seems odd a mere three transports going down would severely set a force back - unless they were large enough that they carried about 1000 troops on average for about 3000 guys, and we're assuming MRRF therefore lost about a third of their entire relatively small force more akin to some divisions than a full corps or army.

Hell, losing those three big transports alone probably hurt all Ariadna heavily, they can't have been cheap.

Perhaps - but they could be following one mistake with another mistake. To outright scrap quite a few fairly new minis seems rather strange, especially when some of the same factors making it a poor seller may well be attached to upcoming releases as well - including the one this entire move is meant to facilitate.

 

I must have missed that explanation of why MRRF went OOP.

But a modern ekranoplan can have an immense load. The relatively small A-90 Orlyonok (Eaglet) can carry 150 troops or 28,000kg, about 3x that of a C130 (even more seated troops than a C-17!), despite being a little smaller than a C130 (and with a bit over 3/4 the engine power). The bigger Lun-class is roughly 737-sized, but could carry 100,000kg of cargo if you removed the very large antiship missile launchers.


But even losing 10% of your fighting strength would really destroy a unit. All the training and practice to work well together is gone at that point. You're not combat ineffective, but you're going to take a lot of casualties learning how to work together again. It's why the US finally pulled it's head out of it's ass and rotates entire divisions into and out of combat zones instead of rotating individual troops in and out of divisions like we did in WW2 and Vietnam.