Damn, I've been playing Bakunin since early 2018 and I don't recall any significant update to it since then. I obviously wouldn't count fireteam changes in N4, N3 to N4 transition, Chaksa addition and minor things like change to Zoe's profiles. So it was at least 5 years for us. I imagine some armies (like MRRF, ASA) didn't get said love for even longer as I don't recall any significant updates for them upon dropping the model line either. But, obivously, I might not remember something correctly as I was still fairly new to the game when they happened and I don't think I've ever seen them fielded on the other side of the table :)
With how it's painted, it's no Ave Maria either. And it's deliberately painted / sculpted to look unicursal. Very specifically not as overlapping A and M.
They are literally the Order of Saint Mary of the Knife. Liberty might have been taken in the painting, plus perhaps modification after centuries, but there’s no way it’s anything but an Auspice/Ave Maria.
It's not just the painting, the hammer lady has these breaks as part of the sculpt. It's not an A over M, simple as that. It's a unicursal hexagram. One version of a unicursal hexagram was the symbol used for the Thelema. The Thelema was specifically inspired by the Ave Maria symbol, too, but the alteration, the geometric simplicity, the overlapping unicursality (indicating the line overlaps as if it was drawn in a single stroke of a brush) clearly are a later part of the symbol - which shows in none of the Auspice Marias, and does show in many versions of the hexagram that is the Thelema.
Again, I would love to hear your suggestions for devoting development and production team resources in a manner that would support every single faction all the time, or even most-of-the-time enough that there are not 2-3 year gaps in support for some factions. If you don't have specific business process recommendations yet, perhaps you should take a nice long look at the development steps and timelines in other miniature wargames' lifecycles. Where you can find that info, also consider the depth and intricacy of their products compared to Infinity (which IMO blows everything else out there out of the water). After that you -might- consider that 2-3 or even 3-5 years is a pretty common cycle for miniature wargame faction updates from smaller companies. Or even for larger corporations (which then also bring exploitation in the name of profit maximization to their rules, resulting in mass suckage and $200 tanks). How long does GW, with its barrels of cash, go between full renewals/updates for an army that isn't Space Marines or Chaos? 3 years iirc for stuff like Dark Eldar or whatever they're called now, last time I checked? Or you could just whine for new things constantly and forget that someone has to actually make all that cool stuff. That's a lot easier than considering the actual business cycle.
In page 29 I linked images of Ave Maria monogram and the first example is exactly this symbol, in page 30 a Spanish poster uploaded many pictures of Spanish architecture that have this monogram and identified as the Ave Maria monogram, it is no "thelema" itself a clear depiction of two triangles merged together and much younger and obscure symbol that does not even originate in Spain. I am not sure why a simple well known monogram that bears the name of the orders saint should be considered as something else, especially when thy do not look the same.
As PS noted, there are *plenty* of examples, in this very thread, as to why it’s the Ave/Auspice Maria symbol, which has a long history, is well known, and well connected to the patron of the Observance. Put quite simply, you’re wrong to try and make it anything else.
Yeah, well, there were people saying Tohaa were fine before the first ITS scrape. And at the tail end of N3 the different results for the viability of Druze when you looked at all games vs. top 25% of ITS were pretty stark. I think Nomads have something similar going on.
It's not "dressed up," those are good arguments. As of right now there's nothing that Nomads can't get, really, but things that other factions can't get. Also there's very much a thing where designers are cool with the factions they don't care as much about having disadvantages, and the factions they like having unearned advantages.
So I have to write their business plan, schedule their meetings, allocate their funds, read progress reports, hire, fire or else its a moot point. How high you want that arbitrary goal post? Guess what, gw does bi annual and quarterly balance passes of all armies. Bi annual rules drops to fix issues and quarterly points adjustments. Corvus Belli game developers. Its their damn job. I expect them to do it, unlike you. Theyre not insignificant. They can sit down and address a few issues. As is, they just seem to randomly update profiles when they feel like it. They made a commitment to quarterly faqs and fell through on that. There is no reason for them to be this immobile but you're trying to make it seem like it's too hard for them to sit down, review and write. Asking for a cost breakdown is ridiculous and you know you know it. They have the staff already. They have data collection. They have an eager and interested audience to playtest and seek feedback from. They just need to do it.
They don't all need to be perfect. CB outputs enough EXCLUSIVE miniatures at conventions and in crossover products, with full Infinity rules, that I absolutely do not buy that a lack of production time is an issue. For criminy's sake, they didn't even do anything to make Konstantinos exciting and he's in these boxes! If anything, it feels like there's a lack of passion and direction on CB's side towards the neglected factions- Yu Jing still doesn't really have a clear niche years after Uprising and PanO's been flop after flop since apparently the faction's not allowed anything special beyond MSV, Mimetism and Ballistics Skill. At least it's clear they're trying with Yu Jing and PanO, MRRF just got half-eaten by Kosmoflot and we haven't seen so much as a hint of a refresh, despite it going OOP at the same time as Shas which have been out and fresh for quite a bit. They might just have to slaughter the sacred cow at this point and open up Nomad and CA toys to the other factions if they can't find fresh inspiration for PanO's direct playstyle, Yu Jing's power-armoured industrial might or the Space French's light Skirmisher doctrine.
GW does quarterly balance updates, bi annual game updates, and puts out new units and stuff as they go. I dont even like them but they make an effort, whether motivated by sales or not it doesn't matter. I don't think people are asking for more new units, hell, there are too many with to much overlap anyway. Instead CB should use ITS stats and see what is and isn't being used often, and then go in and adjust it so it's worth taking. The prices isn't rocket science. They're just busy with spin off games and making infinity stats for those.
There is a distinct difference between imagining how a company should be run and how a company can be practically and sustainably run.
If you have game Devs and they're not devving the game, then what are they doing? Surely maintaining the health of the game falls under their remit?
Yeah and Tohaa were then convincingly shown to be a bit too strong through the data. And they nerfed them a little. Although they're still v strong. Again, you think, but you have zero evidence. The data we have says what you are saying is not true, I think its actually kind of odd that you keep on pushing this point tbh. Your theory is that despite all the data we have, Nomads are OP... because they beat you a lot?
Regardless of what PS says, it simply is not the Christian symbol. Whatever is on the miniatures might be intended to be similar to the AM and the Thelema, but it isn't either of them. What it is, is a unicursal hexagram though. The Auspice Maria is a logogram, it uses two actual characters "A" and "M", overlapped in various artistic fashions. It's not a unicursal hexagram, a geometric figure, as it retains the characteristics of two Latin alphabet characters even in the simplest of forms - and most expressions of the AM are not the simplified ones, quite the opposite, they usually are very intricate and flourished. You simply cannot look at the Lockheed Martin logo and say "it's an occult pentagram!" simply because it kinda looks a bit like one, if you forget about several key features of a pentagram. Quite hilariously, the symbol of the Observance is identical to the Watch Dogs 2 logo (a game by Ubisoft, specifically 2 because 1 had this kind of a crossbar), which is a hacker game about anarchists overthrowing AI-driven corporate and governmental systems of oppression. Sounds familiar? Yeah.
No, it is definitely not. I looked closer at it and even simplest one, the top left one, is still a monogram, not a geometrical figure. Every single AM is a monogram. The symbol on the miniatures isn't one. A monogram is a composition of letters, there are no letters in what's on the miniatures. Please look up "unicursal hexagram". Again, I'm not saying it's identical to the Thelema. It is though a unicursal hexagram, just like the Thelema is one. Please understand the difference and the point I'm making. The AM is a monogram. What's sculpted on the miniatures isn't a monogram. It'd have to contain letters and because of the overlapping broken lines you can't even claim these are letters, at all.
@psychoticstorm This is the simplest form of the AM you've meant, that others have shown. It clearly contains fully overlapping, interconnected features of capital Latin letters A and M, including letter shapes and the serifs of the printed capital letters. What's on the miniatures though is this: It doesn't have the interconnections, it's broken up, the way it's broken up artistically indicates being painted "with a single stroke" (unicursal, just like the occult pentagram, just like another variant of a unicursal hexagram - the Thelema) and it has none of the features of the capital printed letters A and M of the Latin alphabet. None of the shapes are complete, none of the serifs are present. It's intended to recall both the Thelema and the Watchdogs 2 logo and the AM, it is similar to all three of them, but it is neither of them fully - and it's closest to the Watchdogs logo of all of them, while being furthest from the AM, of all the three. You simply cannot say that it is the Auspice Maria. It's not.
