in truth, MRRF was shelved at the same time as Shasvastii, and seems that only a small part of MRRF will come with cosmoflot, so evidence support only half of it at the moment. We need to keep waiting anyway
You've totally mistaken the tone of my post, I'm not worried at all. We just don't know what we don't know, and I think it's disingenuous to post otherwise to a newcomer.
The return of shasvastii supports the hypothesis that it is not yet the appropriate time for MRRF to return as a complete sectorial army.
But cosmoflot might indicate that those are the only units that will return. The "appropiate time" label is like an euphemism. That supposed return can be delayed ad eternum with that excuse. Lets be real, there are facts, but also beliefs in here up until now, CB has not deleted a sectorial, that's a fact has deleted units with miniature (hapened to exrah) and without (Macayama) has substitued units (hapened to rayden or haramaki for example) has moved one unit from one to other faction (ko-dali) has shelved various sectorials, and returned one. Some units form MRRF will come to cosmoflot CB allways does as they say... that's a belief. CB has "changed its mind" several times (be it mistakes in comunication, strategical plans, or whatever). So much to the point that sometimes its ambassador was called for directly lying (Because they said something and then, that something was not as was said really early, without previous notice about the "change"). Usually, those changes are beneficial to the players (for example, they said that there will not be a knights-dedicated sectorial and we got MO in the end. Later they said that sectorial will not be checked as much as others, but in the n2-n3 change it got a more deep revision than others), but other changes are not (As the year of the tohaa) there have been times CB has done as said, more than others, but negating that they have "changed" what they once promised in previous ocassions is no good neither. If people is to believe in what CB says, it has to be knowing everything, not only a part.
The goddamn space bears indicate that it is past time for MRRF to return as a complete sectorial army. In all seriousness, Kosmoflot takes more work to produce since it features about 5 new units from scratch, but will (I imagine) see less actual sales than a revived MRRF since their model line doesn't feature anything even remotely new and only Chasseurs and Mirage 5 (which Kosmoflot has!) were widely used in Vanilla, while Kosmoflot is an NA2-style mashup of crap people already own. Bringing MRRF up to snuff would allow them to move old inventory and introduce new, desirable models with minimal design work. The exception, of course, would be if they have something as crazy as the Shas rework planned, but I may as well quit the game early if they're doing that because it means whichever idiot decided the subterfuge sectorial needed a BS15, B5, FAT2 Wildcard has escaped the CB basement again.
@SpectralOwl just you wait and see - CB stated many times before that it is not stats that sell miniatures, but looks. With new shiny syndrome behind it's back and very Soviet Russia feel to it Kosmoflot will appeal to both Ariadna and none-Ariadna players. I wouldn't worry too much for Vanilla players either, as there's that sweet sweet proxy rule, which allows you to field awesome looking minis in place of solid profiles. MRRF was pretty unpopular to begin with and I doubt it would have come back with a financial bang. On top of that there are game-wide N4 changes done to units and loadouts costs. We don't know if old MRRF profiles will still be so appealing after update.
That's why morans, one of the most criticied miniature, and I am sure most converted-to/proxied in their range were repacked when they announced it and then resculpted to fix their sales... whait, that didn't happen at all (CB announced the repack a few years ago but it didn't happen, instead, there was an unnanounced moder for other faction) I aggree that a lot of the times, looks is what sells. But not all the times, rules have a point there (if not, raoul or mary problems would have not sell much, because they are following the morans path but...). Also, numbers are sometimes something CB just ignore. They changed a top-seller miniature as the first daktari because of their looks and all the criticism she got. Even if it was one of the top sellers of their time, they decided to retire her while other with worse sales remain As far as I know, MRRF was unpopular at their time because rules, not because miniatures. Maybe a player of those times can bring more insight, but I was told then, that they were boring and too dependent on 1-2 profiles, while there was too much for the same roles. I think it happened something similar to what happened to tohaa now: no new ideas --> no new interesting miniatures --> sales go down --> CB decide to stop efforts and see --> sales get worse because ppl things CB forgot about the faction, or don't see CB hearing their pleas while CB hears other factions --> CB decides to put the sectorial on the self.
before the first HS book, after CB announced the arrival of sectorial armies, people asked for a "knight themed sectorial", CB said something in the likes of "no, a full sectorial don't go well with the fluf, they are not so organized, they don't have the numbers" and so on. Then, because there was a lot of insistence by the fans, CB decided to bring a fast-created sectorial and told us that they would be a bit different to make it fill with the fluf, a bit unbalanced because they were not intended in the first and was done fast, and that because all of it, it will not be as checked as other intended sectorials. That's why pano got 3 sectorials at the beggining, 2 intended, and 1 extra because fans asked for it. It happened years ago, of course, it is one of those nice things that CB did for the fans.
I appreciate all the input and the perspectives. This discussion got a little heated which is not totally unexpected. I suspected that it might be a sensitive topic, but more in terms of comparison against competitors. In any case this is kind of where I am right now:
Shasvastii was not in the same level of discontinuation. It was more like a "no new releases until replacement" approach, previous models were for sale. In two words: not discontinued. Mid 2018 FRRM was explicitly removed with background justification and all. The Shasvastii starter was avaliable for Xmas 2018, for example, and the new models were shown by Spring/Summer 2019. I think that is what is causing different views or confusions. Shas did not disappear and come back, but just stop getting new products. FRRM (or any of the others since) will demo if OOP-for-sure really come back. Miniatures were pretty nice IMO.
It wouldn't be hard justify a significant rework of MRRF, at least in the fluff. They got decimated by the Combined Army and in their force reconstruction they emphasized new combat priorities. Easily done. Now the question of if that would satisfy fans of the old playstyle... well that is a different question. Seriously. Other than the scale issue, I'm satisfied with the army. If it comes back and looks totally different like SHAS did, then I'd probably treat them like a whole different army, paint them in black and white, and say they're Corsican-Ariadnan mercs.
While Shasvaasti didn't get its models discontinued both it and FRRM were dropped from HSN3 in favour of Onyx/USARF. Neither got any more than a perfunctory rules updates until FRRM got their Fireteams makeover in 2018 and Shasvaasti got their full glow up.
