Some dispute in the church might be nice for the plot, but maybe better later, there's enough going on at the moment.
And each group is infiltrated by agents of the other, who are actually doubleplus agents who've forgotten which faction they actually work for. It's The Man Who Was Thursday all the way down.
I'll go to Occam this Operation: Whatever. Icestorm is PanO vs Nomads Red Veil is Haqq vs Yu Jing ColdFront is Ariadna vs Aleph Looking at Infinity Army and having Shavastii (Combined Army) more or less confirmed, this just leaves: Tohaa or some NA2 generic force (but there are already Brawlers and Druzes in box) So I will bet for a Tohaa vs Shavastii. On the other hand, having almost all armies in Operations being used, maybe the will change to a sectorial Operations set up. This will fit with Shavastii, as they don't seem to the the "core" of Combined Army like in other cases (Kazaks, Dakinis, Fusiliers, Alguaciles, Ghulams and Zanshis), nor for the fluff neither the army building.
Tohaa vs Shas seems unlikely to me because Spiral Corps box is April and also I bet Tohaa don't sell well.
But they said is the Tohaa year. What if along 2019 will be a Tohaa revamp? They just make the fluff advance and the Daedalus collapse to present Spiral, and then re-open de wormhole in other location and brand new Tohaa units are presented. NA2 including Military Orders? They only lack Montesa and Teuton, plus some combi Sergeants. The box including White Banner will include PanO as well.
Coldfront is already a sectorial vs sectorial box. I see no reason for CB not to continue this way. With the amount of sectorials available they can release Operations well into N5. At least. For MO I'd really like to see a new starter. The old one is really outdated by this point.
Yeah, just add the SoF-Option to Tunguska and there you have your Black Hand sectorial! The pope is a shasvastii!!!
Coldfront is an Ariadna vs ALEPH starter. The "vanilla" starters just happen to be themed around Sectorials, same as Red Veil was. I'd rather see a NA2 starter packed with Brawlers, Wardrivers, and Cube Jaegers first. :)
In RV only the Haqq side overlapped with a sectorial. In Coldfront - both. But what I mean is that they don't have to make a difference between "faction vs faction" and "sectorial vs sectorial" Operations. Let's say the next one will be indeed Tohaa vs Shas. Next could simply be Svala vs WB without changing a thing, and being PanO and YJ releases in the next wave of Operations. Or something might change by that time. NA2 starter is an interesting idea, but it definitely won't fit all the armies there. And I think Brawlers are getting a box anyway? ABHs could be switched to a box, though.
The only true vanilla starter is Icestorm. Nomads are Corregidor + Tunguska (and Bakunin healer) and PanO are Svalarheima + Acontecimiento + Neoterra (and MO Father Knight). Red Veil is 50%. From that first experiment, you'll find that faction starters are also sectorial starters. So far I will probably suggest a Nomad vs PanO starter, but it will repeat the Icestorm topic, and most of PanO and Nomads sectorials are already more-or-less complete (except Tunguska, but then, I will probably bet for an Army pack instead a Operation). So, I will include Operation Svalarheima with PanO vs Ju Ying as a possibility. Adding new miniatures and sectorials. And talking about revamps, the current factions without an updated starter are: Military Orders, Neoterra, Qapu Khalqui, Caledonia, Merovingia, Corregidor, Steel Phalanx and Shavastii. Any mix (probably not repeating old face-to-face ones) could be provided.
i can see happening a Neoterra Army vs Shasvastii in an Operations box, with Shasvastii infiltration reaching all the way to Neoterra and creating havoc there... Edit: Maybe not, because with Fusiliers, Orc it would overlap too much with Icestorm units, i don't know...
Again, I'd rather see something that isn't covered in existing two player boxes. Unless they're going to start retiring those boxes? It goes towards more SKU bloat for really no reason. Brawlers box is: Engineer(literally labeled as such) Doctor (has the Doctor tool out) MSR HRL That leaves "basic" Rifle+LSG and the Hacker models notably absent. Cube Jagers don't have a generally available model for the Boarding Shotgun profile(it was an ITS reward only). Wardrivers don't have a generally available model. You could make a NA2 starter consisting of: 5 / 1 BRAWLER Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) BRAWLER Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) BRAWLER Lieutenant Rifle + Light Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 16) BRAWLER Hacker (Assault Hacking Device) Submachine Gun / Pistol, Knife. (0.5 | 17) WARDRIVER Hacker (Hacking Device) Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (1 | 19) JÄGER Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon. (0.5 | 21) 2 SWC | 105 Points And realistically? It's impossible to make any boxes that will fit -everything- because the selection of units is just an absurd mishmash of nonsense.
Considering how Nomads, PanO, YJ, Haqquislam, Aleph and Ariadna are already covered, the only real option would be a Tohaa Vs CA box, with the added problem of Spiral Corps being "considered tohaa"... Unless we are talking about a future "new vanilla UR-inspired" CA versus "Tohaa exalteds" or something like that, we would be forced to Shasvastii Vs... what? Just make it a Shasvastii Vs Sygmaa, with a narrative campaign, and then the whole box would be 100% CA XD
The other reason Tohaa would make sense is that it will be without a proper 6 miniature starter with the current one being discontinued. This could just be an updated starter for Tohaa. If not then Tohaa will be the only faction without a normal starter box. This would also lead to Tohaa players fearing for their faction and leave an obviously gaping hole for anyone wanting to start in on Tohaa without being forced to buy the Spiral Corps box.
Comments from CB, I think it was Koni, make that less likely. I forget where I saw it, but I recall seeing that there wasn't a plan for any repacks or resculpts. I'll go digging and see if I can find that again. edit: https://forum.corvusbelli.com/threads/a-new-box-guys-cool.27344/page-14#post-220850 originally it said something about repacks/reculpts. The edited version does give more leeway to resculpts but not repacks
They have a new product called Spiral Corps and want to sell it. They delayed the release of the Invincible Army starter 10 months away from the JSA box because they didn't want one to predate sales from the other, leaving during that time YJ players with 1 sectorial and 34 profiles only and fearing for the future of the faction. So I grant you they give a fck about any player wishing to start Tohaa without being forced to buy Spiral Corps box or fearing for the faction because that's exactly what they want you to buy. The discontinued SKUs and Daedalus' Falls plot should be evidence enough that they want to funnel customers into buying Spiral Corps first. Expanding into the rest of Tohaa is just a secondary bonus.
The JSA also don't have a starter pack - they only have the large army pack. That said it seems to be 50/50 right now on army pack boxes getting starter packs, as USARF got both.
The only NA2 faction I could see them doing in a two player set is Foreign Company - include a couple of characters and Kaplans as the "line troop" option and there you go. But frankly, it seems far more likely they'd use one of the other major players instead. If you want to justify it with fluff, one of the more likely options could be a Teuton-centric MO set - in Third Offensive, there's a series of engagements across the Norstralian Northern Front involving the Black-C Combat Group, which is led by the Teutonic order, including a raid by Shasvastii troops that stole the season 10 "teutonic artifact" from them.
What is the difference between these two things in your mind? It probably won't have much -- there's only one Order on Svalarheima afaik, so it's not like you're going to get Teutons dumped in there.
