It is NOT happening regularly. Stop acting like it was. And if it was, I would probably agree with you. On the exact same topic, no one is asking you to "proxy anything" and you won't have to. Just Bit & Kiss in our case. And if I agree on the fact that each faction needs strong units to make them unique, Bit & Kiss weren't really playing this role to me because they seemed really out of place in SEF. Tell me rather about Noctifers or Speculo... Those are strong units that fit perfectly well the spirit and playstyle of Shasvaasti.
And BTW, I checked 15 random CA army lists on the forum : Bit & Kiss are included in 12 of them. Tell me this is not an issue... That's what I call an almost autoinclude and it's a clear sign of an overpowered/undercosted mini. It's not a good thing for a game to see the same units played over and over...
If that is the intention Bit& Kiss would need a rework or at least be removed from Onyx. This is actually a pretty goo point. How regularly does stuff like this happen? I didn't play alot until shortly before Human Spehere N3 so i have no idea. Model rules removed from factions that i know of: Exrah from CA, Japanese from YJ, Bit & Kiss from Morat & Shas, Montesa from PanO (I count him because i can't use the model anymore after the rework) Can some Veteran here tell me in what year Exrah were thrown out so i can make up my mind myself if it is happening alot or not?
Talk to me about mutts in bahram, Leila in haqq, posthumans in ALEPH/OSS, chasserus in MRRF, foxtrots in USAriadna, Wallace in Caledonia..... If that's the metric we use to decide which units are "an issue", then that will be one long-ass list. I don't disagree in principle as these things do need to get looked at as metas are getting stale from what I see, but then let's acknowledge that this is a broader issue.
It may not be happening regularly, but more sculpts have been invalidated for people in 2018 then every other year the game has existed put together. If this pattern continues, there's going to be problems, and a lot of people are really worried about it. I, personally, got into the game as Yu Jing about two months before Uprising, switched to MRRF as some of my reasons for picking YJ were gone, and got the announcement MRRF was going out of production about a week afterwards, before I had time to assemble a decent collection but after a significant expenditure of cash. I know I'm an extreme case of bad timing, but that nonsense makes me think twice every time I get anything for Infinity anymore. I actually did have to proxy everything for a while! I actually see a healthy and diverse set of metas myself. A lot of people tend to use absolute statements about what is good or not, but even the best players at the highest tables can only tell you what works at those specific tables. There are many stories about metas with AHDs as standard, TAGs every second game or table layouts that change the way the game is approached. In my local meta, we have next to no spam lists of any kind, and a disproportionate quantity of ODD. Don't let forum hyperbole suck you in, creativity is alive and well out there!
@CabalTrainee I'm not saying that Bit & Kiss shouldn't be reworked even for Onyx. But at least, to me, they don't feel "out of place" as they were in SEF for example. But that's just my opinion. Infinity is now 13 years old and during that time Corvus Belli probably produced more than a thousand different models. Only a few are gone so I would not say that removal of minis is something "happening a lot". @theradrussian Because other factions may also encounter those issues doesn't mean it shouldn't be tackled. Again, I'm against any kind of autoinclude units, no matter the faction or even the game. I don't want Infinity to be W40K, where all the lists looks the same (fortunately, this is not the case at all). @SpectralOwl "If this pattern continues". As you said. If. If Corvus Belli does an Uprising thing per year, I will be the first to say that this is not correct and that too much is too much. But for now, all we have are a few minis being changed/removed and one major fluff-driven faction splitting. And I understand that your particular case can be annoying as you've apparently been particularly unlucky with your choice of factions and timing. Sorry about that =/
That's kinda what I was getting at. If CB is doing this to tone down auto-include (or near auto-include) units, I'd appreciate if they did it across the board, not just seemingly on a whim EDIT: No idea why it made my comment a link to someone's profile - I certainly didn't do that...and it's not letting me edit it. Sorry about that!
I fear my meta has done too much math, as the realities of what is optimal versus what is not in this game tend to get laid out in no uncertain terms after such an exercise. That being said, infinity is far better off in list diversity at top level play than any other wargame I can think of. I just hope they can do more to keep themselves differentiated via this unique selling point. I am not using the forums as the basis of my argument - I'm using the Hungarian and to some extent Polish and German metas to inform my posts on the matter.
What annoys me most is that there is no official comment to the removal even though it seems to move some the player base deeply. Shouldn't that be addressed and at least an attempt for explanation be made?
Suggestions of a designers note accompanying removals/additions have been made and the popularity of said suggestions has been noted I believe so we'll see if anything comes of it.
There is official statement. Unfortunatelly it is posted only on spanish part of the forum. Zoe wrote that Bit and Kiss were available to MAF and SEF only in the ITS 9 and from the start she wasn't planed to stay in these two sectorials. It is same situation like was Scarface availability to all armies during TAGline.
If that is the case then perhaps stuff like that should be listed in the ITS document since it's relevant to that particular season.
And now we are going to have a Raktorak and TA Suryat in almost every MAF list going forward. So, autoincludes......yeah. That right there is the move done to sell the model to MAF and SEF players when they normally wouldn't buy the model.
Where did I say that this was a good thing? Nowhere. That's not because some almost-autoincludes are still there or were added that others have to stay. And at least, those two are Morats.
Was this stated somewhere upon B&K's inclusion in MAF and SEF? I clearly understood Scarface was temporary. Meaning I'd proxy rather than buy. Had I known this about B&K at the time, I would have used a proxy instead of buying it. Are you suggesting B&K's near auto-inclusion helps justify their removal from MAF and SEF?
"During Season 9 the Troop Profiles of the ALIVE Antiestablishment Group, the individual profiles as well as the group profile, cease to be available to be enlisted in the ITS. However, the Bit & KISS! troop profiles are added to the Army List of the Combined Army, allowing its official use in the ITS, in their generic and in Sectorial Armies." Nothing specific about MAF / SEF.
It does mention the CA's generic and Sectorial Armies, so makes sense for the inclusion, and is similar language to including Scarface in non-TAG factions for TAGLine, so while not entirely clear, can be reasonably read that Bit and KISS! full availability was an ITS 9 thing, not permanent...
The lists on the forums are hardly a representative sample. You'd have to pull from lists submitted to tournaments.
Gotta love this git who doesn't even play in tournaments telling CA players they're bastards for running Bit sometimes.