I have 3 of the original Squalos. Physically they aren't much bigger if anything, than an uhlan or tikbalang. And 2 of the current versions. I didn't need to HAVE 3 of them, but I wasn't going to pass up a $10 NIB model at a bring&buy (also scored another Lizard AND an old Szally for $10 each too).
I think you don't really understand what Proxying means in Inifnity. It does not mean you can use a Ghulam combi as a ghulam sniper (the other way around is OK, because they are much more different than just the pose). It means you can use, for example, a Naga (from Aleph) sniper as a ghulam sniper (or ghulam HMG, or hafza, or...). The ITS document is quite generous with the proxying, and nobody will call you out because your three asawiras in a fireteam are using Yu Jing's Shang Ji's box instead. This needs a specific response: this is not Warhammer 40k, and neither Corvus Belli is GW (despite their commitment to a "follow the leader" strategy at certain points). WYSIWYG policy does not exist here, what is required is to help your opponent (and yourself) so units are easy to differenciate and do not require constant switches with silhouette tokens. Uprising was is despised by many not because it removed the JSA from YJ, something many of us were in agreement it should happen (just not after releasing a shikami in JY colors, or forcing Modiphius to quickly remove all JSA from their recently released to backers YJ splatbook for the official RPG), but because of the childish, forced and ilogical way in which the Uprising was written, both in favour of JSA and against YJ (it was not an Idiot Ball what the Yellow Boys held, it was an Idiot MOON). I agree Corvus needs to stop bundling things in a "buy it all, loser!" style, specially for us old timers with most of the catalogue already (I refused to buy Crimson Stone merely because three extra ghulam would make me explode, and it was even worse with Blackwind since I already had all the old models for both factions, so I already had SEVEN thorakitai, which are capped at 6, and another seven Myrmidons, also capped at six...) However, their repacks are warned with usually enough time for all to finish the hunt for that last blister, which is a very commendable thing to do.
Considering the combined amount of whining that PanO players managed to generate for briefly having one old miniature be made obsolete to them, I'd say Uprising was pretty darned well received.
That happens when a single YJ tear is more valuable than whole PanO swarms of speeesh mehreeens in denial ;) On a more serious note, CB is very aware of the hook effect PanO (specially MO) has on WH40k players, they designed it that way after all.
@xagroth, I was just using the OP section titles and their understanding of Proxying for the reply. CB proxy rules are wonderful. My Hunzacut sniper model is a Zhayedan sniper and I use a Mormaer as my djabazan HMG. And on uprising, I remember a LOT of anger on the old forums about the YuJing losing so many profiles and models. They hated losing Obiwabans, Aragotos, and Close combat HI. It felt that regardless of any fluff, that change would have never been well received. EDIT: To be clear, my argument is that in my memory the anger I witnessed was more because of the loss of units versus the fluff. I know there is a lot of dislike about the Uprising fluff, but man, it paled in comparison...
I don't agree with the original points. Most have covered the counterarguments very well, so I'll stick to a couple of larger items. Nothing is obsolete. They've allowed you to to continue to use your tohaa models to great competitive effect. I'm in the same boat with Shock Army, and couldn't be happier. The game does not experience rules creep the same way that some other systems do, so the fact that they're not molding a certain model anymore has no bearing on your ability to use the one that you have. Uprising was one of the most interesting, dynamic, and exciting moments in the game's history. We played in a 120 person tournament that ran an uprising themed event where players sided with either JSA or Yu Jing. It was great, and I hope they shake up the lore and lists even more in the future. I could not disagree more with your assessment of its impact on the community, or the community's response to it. I'm curious as to whether your opinions on these topics were formed though first hand interaction with the game and its mechanics in an IRL community, or if this is just an aggregate of internet complaints that you've agreed with. I only ask as I can say that our local community, and the local communities that I circulate with would disagree whole heartedly with every single point.
I wasn't playing during Uprising. During events and all of that movement things may look better. For me Uprising conflict is made on a very weak fundament, and it's dramatism was a little silly. But better not to take Infinity lore that serious. It would be a little too bald to call it sci-fi seriously for me.
Uprising was a train wreck, and I'm pretty sure if it'd had been well received you'd have seen the Observance leave Bakunin and be its own Sectorial, but CB sometimes learns from their mistakes. Also, the lore for Uprising was absolutely awful.
The Uprising was a classic example of a Chekhov's gun - hanging on the figurative wall of Infinity fluff since 1ed at the very least. It was bound to go off at some point. That being said, I agree that the manner in which it was executed - both fluff-wise, and rules-wise - was difficult to swallow. And that's from a guy who never played JSA nor YJ of any flavour.
Oh yes. Losing access to key units really hurt gameplay a lot (which for me definitely included Keisotsu!). Having my Raiden and Haramaki essentially go into the bin due to really not being suitable for any proxies didn't hurt nearly as much. And the fluff is as with all games best kept behind a filter. I have to say that Cranes are repeatedly used as the absolute embodiment of Impetuous rage boners any time they appear in the fluff after reading some of it. Always always charging in sword first yelling PG-13 racial slurs. Uprising was in character in that regard. I'm not sure if anyone else feels the same way, but I definitely lost interest in JSA when it got unhooked from a main faction.
I think all of this just made me realize that ISS is probably one more step to dead. Now that the Koreans have come in, I think they are going to make a new sectoral. I'd rather they add them to White Banner instead but I doubt it will go that way. But I just need to go with it. Accept fate.
I Disagree there. Not only there IS some mild power creep going on (mostly with how useful or optimized troops are for the current ruleset, but Corvus is not against self-cheating on the "formula", look at the Lobos in Corregidor, they literally have a skill that is "CC+3" because it was cheaper than giving them Martial Arts 1 or going over CC20. SMGs are another egregious example. And the obsolescence comes from the fact that Corvus rarely revisits old profiles until it comes a re-release, the observancy nuns (Moiras specifically) were paying because they were Religious Troops since frigging N2. And of course there is the self-sabotage of troops. Why deploy a Reverend Healer if FIVE points more give you Wabara, who has so much more to offer she could be costed at 45pts and still be competitive? How many were Yu Jing lifelong players, and how many remained so after Uprising? It is not a surprise almost all non-YJ loved the Uprising, since the only one painted as a moustache-twirling villain incapable of seeing anything (despite having the most extensive, professional and paranoid state security of all factions that even has its own sectorial) was the only one who lost, all the time, and was unable to take any kind of countermeasures because ALL of humanity UNITED against Yu Jing, despite of not being in their logical interests to do so (for instance, Nomads, Haqq & Ariadna need to use YJ against PanO, and the Uprising should have weakened YJ. But lazy storywriting and lack of interest in taking the aftereffects into account led to "yeah, we just rocked the ship hard!!!" followed by an "everything goes as it was, just that some units were shuffled unto their own sectorial" and no word was ever uttered about all the debts the Japanese must then pay). Again, let's also remember that it was "so planned" they released a Shikami some time before, with YJ colors, and it was soo obvious Bostria had to apology for that. Let's not mention how they cooked statistics also, by taking model usage in the Army Builder's lists exclusively from the Operation Red Veil release (and how the image it painted was that most people would neither proxy, nor buy many more models in months), but let's rememeber that Modiphius was releasing the YJ splatbook (for the official, CB endorsed and revised, Infinity RPG) for backers at the time and had to retire it to remove the JSA from it. And Military Orders from PanO XD Going OOP is not the same thing as being removed, but to be fair just when a sectorial goes to the fridge they give it a last sweep and release a consolation miniature. Or at least it has been like that (besides Tohaa & Spiral, but Spiral was so current I don't think it really counted like the others). That being said, ISS mostly works with Su Jian and Kuang Shi, cramming as much support as possible after those, sadly.
There are options certainly but I do like to keep certain aesthetics in mind when I build/paint/play my armies so much thought has gone into relocating my current squalos for which see below… It’s quite difficult due to the appearance of the Squalo and it’s weapon loadout especially if you want to keep a certain look to your armies. (Assuming you’ve used the minis available for the forces that CB has said they represent) Otherwise there are options available. I’ll be using my PanO painted one to proxy as a guijia in white banner as I have predominantly PanO stuff for them and it will fit the aesthetic. I’ve also considered it as a stand in for an anaconda in starco as I’m certain Uhahu would have stolen one if possible. (Also as I seem to have lost my anaconda new in box). And is basically Briareos from Appleseed… loved that old TAG way back when. He made me some nice pennies but sometimes I wish I hadn’t sold him. Nope, I’ll totally buy it. I already have plans for the stuff that has been announced but hasn’t been released yet. There are quite a few options available to use the current squalo mini in various size 7 slots especially if you’re not too locked into a particular look for your army. (Or even if you are. The possibility that someone out there has used the PanO range for a completely different force must also be considered). As I said above I’ll be using my PanO painted one as a Guijia stand in to keep with their aesthetic. Or I’ll add it to starco as an anaconda. The other one that isn’t painted up and I’ve converted will be included as a S6 along with the new version. My issue with the Squalo was never about the mini. It’s the profile. Especially for Varuna. It’s been very useful and has great utility. As I’ve said in another thread the S7 fills a different role to the S6 and I’d like to be able to field both. Whether or not there is a mini for that doesn’t matter. I’ve proxied for profiles that have no model before and I will again. It was more difficult in this case due to the load out of the mini and its size but it’s not impossible. If the S6 squalo had fulfilled a similar role to its S7 counterpart then I’d have said nothing at all as happened when MO was reworked and miniatures and profiles were replaced there. But I digress lest I add more salt and fire to these forums than is already apparent (which is not my intent).
Eh, it was my attempt to bargain with myself. And in the end I am strongly disagree with removing profile. For me it is aestheticaly wrong to proxy tag with pilot by tag with remote controle. But role of Guijia in White Company sounds ok. (not perfect... Sadly)
You're conflating mild power creep and being obsolete, which is different than CB varying the formula, which is different than internal balance within the faction. As a faction, Tohaa is still completely viable. Full stop. I don't know. Several? Many? If the thrust is that no Yu Jing player could find it palatable, then that's simply not the case. I'd consider that having the game advance in a direction of change is, even if it's a minor miss for some people, significantly better than having a game mired in absolute stasis. I dunno, I find that the balance of people that I interact with prefer a setting that advances.
In theory the formula has not been changed at all, only certain things being recosted (like BSGs, despite being nerfed with how they work and buffed with the ZoC measurement allowed against the active trooper spending an order, or how Haqq's Rifle+Light Shotgun were never recosted taking that into account). However, claiming that I'm mixing obsolescence of units with power creep is quite the stretch. Obsolescence happens not when something becomes useless, at least no in Infinity, but when new profiles that do nearly the same thing but are more cost-efficient arrive. In that regard, Tohaa will *never* be obsolete, because there won't be new profiles until CB decides to relaunch them... or the editions change enough that all their profiles end up being overcosted, unable to perform, or both. Unit obsolescence is what has happened to the Reverend Healers after Wabara's final release, and could only be undone by lowering thier cost by at least 5-7pts (drop their CC to 20 at most, drop their BS to 11, remove the MULTI rifle for an SMG, and it's doable). On another faction, it has happened to Aleph's Sophotects since Parvati touched ground, not to mention how Trisha was obsolete on arrival (and doubly so since she became unable to even count as dakini for fireteam purposes), because 7 points of difference make Parvati a 2 wounds doctor, +3 engineer, Structure 2 Remote Presence, BS12 SMG+1B dodging on 13 with superjump. Sure, Sophotects will come back somehow with the Reinforcements box, that's what happens when you are the only doctor, or the only engineer able to link with the TAG, but that will take her out of retirement, not remove that for years it has been an obsolete unit. I suppose there must be others willing to provide you with more examples of obsolete units, but I can't devote all day to it. You seem to miss my point. Of those 250 people of the event, all that were not YJ players were in the same side, so being generous at best it was more than 200 non YJ players enjoying a piñata, while the others were designated villains, a role some enjoy and others endure, but many do not pick willingly (much less joyfully), specially if their entrance suggestion into Infinity was "choose faction by which miniatures look the coolest to you" (and being really sincere here, YJ has the largest range of HI troops that are also *very* cool looking).
I still maintain that the biggest loser of the whole uprising affair is PanOceania, but this is a discussion done, I am not sure if there needs to be a specific story of how bad Japan is at the moment given how minor player in the world events they are.
We're drifting here. The argument from the OP seems to be that "playable but out of catalogue" has rendered people's hard earned miniature dollars obsolete. In the case of factions, that's not the case. I'll cede the point that units can become sub optimal within their own faction when new profiles come out, but I'm not sure that's the discussion. (In another setting, I'd engage with the idea that there's much more to list building than optimization, but that's a different topic.) As for the Yu Jing thing, I'm forced to assume that my own experience playing the game and being involved in the communities does not hold with your description of the impact. Maybe more of us play multiple factions, or are more willing to go with the flow of the lore? I don't know.
I have and play all factions but for JSA, PanO and Ariadna (and derived NA2). I'm all in for lore advance, as long as the quality is acceptable. Third offensive was... horribly written, with most paragraphs neatly cut in two (bla bla bla humans do something, stop, BUT! CA is more astute! by having superior troops and firepower, the CA marvelously counters whatever was stated in the first part. For pages and pages and pages...), Dadedalus' Fall was quite better, but all in all most of the really good lore is the old, recycled one (the best part of the Uprising book was... the reprint of the Dire Foes, but for the additions at how all of that was related to the Uprising, kinda lower level than even the Fall of Cadia and how great strategist Desto Abby was in truth no one in millennia was ever able to even get an inkling of his endgame; the presentation was quite good however; and *one* mercenary company's lore). Seeing how the "campaign system" in Daedalus' Fall was a copy-paste with a few small changes from the N2 system (still snowballing HARD after three rounds of a campaign) was kinda meh, the filler tables with the broken specops rules were so funny, a set of rules were implemented in that Interplanetario, heavily against PanO & Haqq btw, and later contradicted by official FAQs (despite being a problem known for some time, that is, Jammers -which then had no Disposable label- getting Fireteam bonuses... including being able to delay ARO against enemies in ZoC, with the extra funny thing that in N3 you could not declare Reset in your Active turn unless an ARO allowing Reset was thrown at you... fortunately Reset got changed, in short, to the same requisites as dodge in N4). I'm all in for new lore, and advancement, as long as reading it does not make me feel like I'm eigth reading in class a short story about axe soup (which was quite a good story, for that time). I would say that a lot of players lost confidence in Corvus Belli, and the more time passes, the less effort I see to regain such confidence. Of course, I may be wrong in thinking that it's harder to attract new customers than to keep the old ones (scams aside, and other funny exceptions), but it's my opinion that the ones that lost were both the company and the players.
