The only reason I can see for cutting a sectorial or faction is to open up design space that will be negatively impacted by it remaining. I think it is more likely that most sectorials will remain in army but maybe a unit here or there is dropped or condensed to serve the same streamlining purpose they have mentioned elsewere. The only likely exception to that I can see is cutting Tohaa as a faction, but we shall see.
If whole armies like MRRF or Vanilla Tohaa completely vanish off N4 Army, the game will be worse for it and it will lose CB a lot of good will from the community. It's one thing to shave a profile off a unit here and there to trim SKUs and profile bloat, a completely different to invalidate whole collections or parts of them. I'm perfectly fine with the status like MRRF have now, "shelved / retired", supposed to see development in a few years. That's cool. However, if the community's fears that a majority of Tohaa models will become glorified paperweight come August are true by the way of Exrah, both the model and rules design variety will suffer just as much as CB's customers' trust.
I think they have three options. 1. Do a minimal update. That way they can do the complete rework when the army is re-introduced. They like to have shiny new rules to go with the shiny new models. 2. Do a complete rework. If they do this then I bet they don’t plan on reintroducing the army in the future. 3. Remove the army from N4. I’m betting 1 or 2. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro
They have done so in the past (Exrah) and they will have to do so in the future as they have expressed that several factions have too many sectorials at present and this is preventing them from comfortably expanding new ones. Not least because the huge amount of sectorials is starting to make the game *really* opaque to people in terms of what to expect from different factions. Given that some of these sectorials we are meta-discussing have had very recent releases and also contain some pretty old miniatures for those collecting them, I wouldn't be surprised if they migrated the recent miniatures to new sectorials and killed off the old sectorial. E.g. when they off NCA the next sectorial for Pan-O might well feature most of the NCA units, it won't be NCA, but it will be something in close proximity. However, CB has had a history of occassionally making some pretty gross alterations to miniatures with improper head notice. NCA's head notice is fairly minimal should NCA disappear with N4 and that'd be kind of yet another poor showing. For MRRF and Acon, we can't really say the same as they've had what amounts to farewell updates which makes for well over a year head notice. Each sectorial needs to be given time and effort to test. If they have too many sectorials, the time to develop them is going to be tighter and this will affect quality. Additionally, spending thousands of Euro to continue supporting sectorials that they're not selling and not making money off of seems like a poor decision, considering how increasingly difficult it will be to find those models that are unique to that sectorial, not to mention that there's more sectorials than some factions have units so how are people reasonably going to be expected to keep up with the minutia differences between them?
I see a further one. 4. Do a Shasvasti - have them keep the N3 prices and abilities, provided this does not make them overpowered, and only translate the abilities that got updated to their new names. Then move them into the faction "Legacy Armies" or some such
So an even shittier version of GW "Legends" that completely invalidates your entire army under the pretense of "you can still play it, as long as your opponent agrees to play with an N3 army" (which, of course, nobody will)? Imagine somebody pulling out the old Exrah profiles now and wanting to play with them. Thanks, but no, thanks.
Just wanted to add my weight in and say while I can get the point about design space I really feel that CB would shot themselves in the foot by removing sectorials whole sale with N4. Sure, sooner or later they will have to pull the trigger but now isn’t the time. Saying that it isn’t worth while for CB to keep them in is so sad. Sure, I get that they can’t put the same (or even any) resources on discontinued sectorials but CB have always managed to feel like a company “by gamers, for gamers”. Hopefully they manage to keep that feeling even while they continue to grow with N4.
To be brutally honest, that's exactly what you are asking for, but without the sugar coating. That said, most NA2 was a mistake and stupendously contributes to Sectorial Bloat.
NA2 is one of the dumbest ideas CB had in the past years ( number 1 dumbest still being someone at CB thinking how having 2 models on a single base would look cool and they released Guard units ). If they are to remove sectorials, start with NA2 ones. IMO they should make Spiral Tohaa sectorial, leave JSA as fully playable ( or do full 180 have them conquered by YJ :-D ), convert the rest of them to 2-3 CBLs for each and remove them from ARMY.
Don’t listen to the nay sayers CB. You do you. Don’t let the fame and success drive you from the path of the rightous. Take heed from Rackham! NA2 is a great and fun addition. It gives me a reason to buy the Hulang. What more is there to say. Infinity is good, great even. Don’t sacrifice its uniqueness on the altar of perfection.
N4 Marshall plan: - Delete Dashat, put Al Fasid and Kum Bikers into Druze. Al Fasid get Haris option with Druze. - Delete Ikari and put Yuan Yuan and Wu Ming into JSA. Also give JSA the Tanko ML + Keisotsu core option. - Delete StarCo, put Uhahu and Emily somewhere else - Foreign Company absorbs some profiles from soon to be axed NCA (e.g. Locust, maybe Aquila). - Replace Tohaa with Spiral Corps and migrate the newer sculpts (Sukeul) This leaves us with only three improved NA2 sectorials.
Those are... not bad ideas in general. A limited Wu Ming presence (under strict Samurai supervision) in JSA would alleviate their ranged woes a bit (ISS should be where they function the most independently as that's the main faction and sectorial for the unit). I rather see Spiral be a Tohaa sectorial, tbh, but the Tohaa population in the sphere might become a bit Token Vulkan so to speak. I honestly think the key units from NCA will find a home in Svalar or the next coming sectorial. Whichever that will be.
Yeah, definitely limited. They would represent the remaining Wu Ming deserters from the Kurage crisis. Rehabilitated to a degree and granted back their name, but still heavily supervised due to their violent nature. I was thinking AVA1/2 with something like this: Special Fireteam: Haris. 2 Domaru + 1 Wu Ming Special Fireteam: Haris. 1 Domaru + 1 Daiyokai + 1 Wu Ming - HMG/HRL for long range capabilities - Boarding Shotgun to get the Tinbot Deflector in there The HMG also opens up a new interaction with the Shikami Nimbus grenades against long range B2 AROs, similar to the Hsien + Zahnying Nimbus in ISS, although toned down a bit. Shikami are mobile enough to keep up with the Haris, so that could be a new niche for them.
But if they aren’t doing things exactly how the InterWebz say, they must be doing it wrong! In seriousness, I believe it would be an error to remove the NA2 armies. They offer a different way and style to use minis many folks already have. I’m looking forward to the White Company to finish rounding them out.
I agree, but I'd like to see them rebalanced. Druze getting fleshed out, FC links made a bit more intuitive and less restricted, Spiral moved under Tohaa.
They only removed them from the Code One (the entry level rules). N4 will have all the rules from all three books cleaned up and streamlined.
Sorry mate, I could be wrong but that’s not what’s being discussed here. We’re talking full on N4 rules changes, right gamers?
I feel that getting rid of factions ina story based way is fine. Games have to grow and change or fade away. Doesn't mean you dont support events that allow open play and of course people can play with their models however and whenever they want. Having said that I dont think any factions are going away. Some will ge retired and non of the retired ones are coming back for at least a year but cb will bow to the internet angst and just stop support. Na2 maybget pruned but honestly it should be it was a brilliant idea to get vets to buy more models but it lost the str and weakness balance as you can now choose an na2 faction that helps you. The real culprit though is the horrible mixed and crazy linking. I miss the simple days where links were clean and easy. Finally tohaa is a very small vocal group in the hobby. If a faction disappears or more likely gets consumed- spiral expanded and tohaa added as a sectorial to ca it will be tohaa. I know the rabid fans but it just never caught in with the broader audience and if they have to cut 1 that is the one to cut
