It was mentioned at last year's Gen Con Seminar that they hoped to have a sectorial within a year, but "roadmap" is probably too strong a term.
I wouldn't call a roadmap a strong term. It is a way of expressing high level goals, not strict deadlines. They've been coy about the pre-N3 sectorial since the start of the year or I'd have used more confident terms. It's possible O-12's sectorial has been moved back. And on that topic; I'm not convinced it'll be Bureaus it's possible the sectorials will be focused on deployment areas. PanO and Nomads have strict force divisions, but Yu Jing sectorials are more along responsibility areas rather than being a faction with Banners of the Rainbow for sectorials. What I mean is that it could be a sectorial focusing on (strictly as an example) Aegis' Paradiso forces (which wouldn't be all of Aegis nor exclusively Aegis troops, it'd be O-12's unique configuration of assets there)
I'm glad someone else said this. I like that sectorial armies imply assets as deployed in _sectors_. The obvious exceptions would be the NA2 armies, which are an org chart for (typically) a mercenary company or a minor power which only has one sector. The biggest non-NA2 exception i can think of is aleph - where it is more role based than location based, but there are certainly others.
I would think the sector part is more from PanO, with the classification carried over. Regardless, now it’s just the shorthand for a sub army.
I think it's actually only PanO that has "regional" armies (And Nomads too, in a certain way) while ALEPH, Yu Jing, Haqqislam and Combined Army have different "divisions"
They're all sort of mixes. While PanO has regional armies, they also have Military Orders. Yu Jing is Imperial Service and Immortals, but the Banner armies are regional aren't they? Nomads divides up easy based on homeship, sure. ALEPH is tactical split. Ariadna is regional though. Haqqislam is just completely random... I'd think O12 was more tactical divisions rather than regional, since they're not really located in specific arenas. Sure they'll have forces on Paradiso and Concillium, but anyone else might be traveling around. And everyone has Paradiso forces, most of them aren't from there.
Banners aren't regional as such, they deploy to where they're needed. I think a few of them are deployed on several planets and there are some planets with several banners deployed.
That being said, White Banner as presented in Kaldstrom is definitely tied to Svalarheima. Not just in the box narrative, but also in the winter gear trooper variants, etc.
Indeed, for Yu Jing in context of the other two sectorials, that one is a bit special because it describes not only a distinct organization, but one of its specific deployments. The other two aren't quite as regional, but describes a type of deployment organization more akin to the Haqq sectorial divisions. --- I can imagine that O-12 could be Bureau Aegis The Faction instead of being split along the more dubious Bureau lines since most other Bureaus seem to have a very limited roster of combat units, while the sectorials are along the lines of; Paradiso joint defense front line with more focus on ground army units (This is where the Delta, Gamma and Kappa call home), space blockade forces with more focus on aerial deployment and the visor-and-terrain shenaniganery that Zero-G troops often have (I'm thinking Crushers, Epsilon and Varangian as typical units), as well as counter-infiltration forces with a much stronger emphasis on infiltration as well as command and control troops (Psi, Gangbusters with Betatroops as heavy hitters). This kind of division would also allow splitting units that sort-of-kind-of step on each others' feet (Kappa vs Varangian, Delta vs Crushers, Gangbusters vs Razor, Alpha vs Katherine, even somewhat less direct feet-stepping Gamma vs Omega) to have a purpose other than expanded AVA or small purpose optimisations. This also means that you could have units from other Bureaus complement the Aegis units with their respective Bureau's distinct flavour instead of inventing units to fill roles within the non-Aegis Bureaus, not to mention reduce the need to borrow from Aleph.
Haqqislam sectorals arent random. They are very distinct organizations within the larger faction. They just aren't 'regional' like some of the other sectorals. Aleph and YuJing also both have most of their sectorals split into different specalized organizations based on what they do and who they work for. More than where they come from.
ISS and IA are organizations, allmost all NA2 sectorials are organizations (only JSA isn't), same for haqquislam and aleph's sectorials. Even military orders are an organization based sectorial! not all sectorials have to be regional themed. about defiance, AFAIK, CB told that the miniatures would be exclusive for it, and, at a later time, there might appear something alternative. And we are talking about a KS project that had a bigger than expected success and isn't a pre-sale, so is to be expected for it to be delayed (even more after all the pandemy) and that would also affect the release for those "standard version" miniatures. Actually, I remember a lot of complains because that possibility during the campaing, so it is a bit surprising that reaction now.
Yes, CB sculptors for whatever reason cannot into male flesh hands. Gloves, cybernetics are great - male flesh hands look like some Bolt Action nightmare.
I have noticed something since I bought Wildfire and assembled the male Kappa, but what made it evident was the Alpha....
My prediction for N4 is that we will get a two faction box set. It will include O-12 as one side and they will be models that will make up a new sectorial and help fill out C1 unit slots. I’m less confident about the second half, but possibly Black Hands Nomads the sectorial being essentially a surprise drop, as nothing has been mentioned and it wouldn’t be the first time CB has dropped a surprise like that. Also, thematically it would be a fun cops vs robbers box. I think White Company will be a paper sectorial drop with N4.
not really sure that cops and robbers is the best theme at the moment but yeah (and that would be more like revolutionaries vs government anyway) o12 sectorial is the next big box this year, there's really nothing else it could be. the n4 launch box is kaldstrom imo. same thing happened with ice storm predating n3 :)
I also thought that kaldstrom was "the box" for initial N4, and while I would like to see a new nomad sectorial, and chances are hight that I would buy it directly, I doubt we will see one so soon. Also, if we were to see a nomad starter box anytime soon, it would be next year for the vainilla box, and that for C1, because it is at the moment, the oldest vainilla starter, and the only one from the initial human factions that had their starter resculpted only once (all others got it twice)
the articel of the wc say "wc will play an important role in n4" under this circumstances i think it is possible that the box is wc. Anything else would be more of a shadow drop.
