Judging by the tears and comments of Tohaa players over the years, there's enough salt there already.
Genuine question: would it be that much effort to publish some kind of "legacy" armies in the Army app? Just translate the N4 rules into N5 so they are playable and mark them as "not legal for ITS". I'm not a Spiral Corps player, but when it comes to the NA2 armies many people has collected many mercenary models, and it sucks loosing the ability to use them without proxying.
I completely support this idea! If from a business point I understand that they need to cut down the amount of armies, on the other side I don't get what's the point to completely remove some NA2 army. At least give the player that collected them and like to play with them to use them! Even, as you said, unofficially!
You are depicting the causation in reverse though, which is misleading. CB wrote the lore to explain Spiral being squatted, rather than the lore just "happening" and CB shrugging and saying "well dang now we have no choice but to squat a really cool army, what a shame but there's nothing we can do!" The brute facts of the matter remain although, granted, the lore certainly signposted CB's intentions. Finally, lore is lore, and is open to interpretation. This could just as easily have been a "reason" for Spiral to become a central antagonist faction in N5, as O12 desperately try to hunt down their nemesis, with Spiral always one step ahead, twirling their green moustaches...
Final note: Spiral were only released in 2019. Less than 5 years later they're being removed from the game. That is actually worse (ie retiring new stock) than GW's recent round of culling. I hope some space remains in the game for these minis, or it makes buying new factions in infinity feel very unsafe.
Out of curiostiy, how many models are Spiral-exclusive as of today? How many of them are still in production?
Or fold them under Tohaa as their sectorial, if the faction is to stay in the game. And in general I hope that CB will be much more careful in the future about creating new armies and units. They wouldn't have to cut down on stuff if they wouldn't have overexpanded it.
From what I see, all the tohaa units in the Spiral list are already avilable to mainline Tohaa. Of course this doesn't apply to human (or the Helots) units in Spiral. Butthat's the same with other NA2 etc. Naturally, I don't play Spiral or Tohaa, so I might be failing to notice something that's absolutely spiral-exclusive. Therefore I ask.
I think it'd be prudent to wait until we see N5 Tohaa. Looks like about 20 profiles are being cut from vanilla armies, and my take on how badly CB have shafted spiral will depend a lot on which 20 they trim! Main differential right now is exclusive profiles and linkteams.
@Errhile no Spiral-exclusive units are in production right now, that was indeed a very short production run
We'll see. OTOH, Tohaa had no sectorials historically, and it remains an open question whether that's going to change in N5....
I rather liked Spiral for the option to play all sorts of different aliens in the same motley crew, Guardians of the Galaxy / Star Wars Rebels / Stargrave etc style. I hope there will be a list in N5 that captures that "fantasy", if you will. Onyx kind of does this, but in a more regimented fashion.
There is no Taagma Sniper in Generic Tohaa , only a Taagma Breaker combi with AVA 1: https://human-sphere.com/File:Taagma-schemers-viral-sniper-rifle-1.png It can proxy as a Clipsos, Nikoul or something just fine, I think. Or grunge up the jacket and make an Armand Le Muet...
There aren't any Spiral-specific units, but there are quite a few Spiral-specific profiles for those units. Namely, 6/7 Taagma Profiles, 3/5 Kriigel Profiles, and 2/3 of the Kiiutan Profiles are only availble in Spiral, not Tohaa proper. Most notably, this includes the Taagma Tri-Core, the Taagma Sniper, the Kriigel Smoke Grenade Launcher, and the SMG Kiiutans
Thank you. And how many of them have been released as actual miniatures? Based on your description, I see the beforementioned Tagmaa with a Viral Sniper Rifle. And only that one.
The Sniper is the only one with an explicit mini, but personally I'm far more invested in the profiles; the Taagma Sniper in a Chaksa Triad and the Kriigel Smoke in a Reex Triad were defining elements of Spiral lists alongside a Draal Tri-Core; I'd like to see that functionality transfer to Tohaa proper so I can still make that style of list. There was also the Kaauri Paramedic (also no model) that I forgot about in my other post. There's other Spiral-specific stuff that I'm not expecting to transfer over, like the Brawler Core (obviously), Helots, or the improved access to Impersonators (AVA 2 Kiiutan, 0.5 SWC discount on Greif). But those are not quite as important to me overall.
There are the Helots, the Brawler, the Anaconda... I know, they are not "Spiral Corps exclusive models", but there might be people who started collecting Spiral, added those models to expand the lineup, and now will be left without means to use those models (without resorting to proxying).
Or starting whatever army these land in. Sorry, but that's the same risk we all face, and those of us who play NA2 especially. I wouldn't want to be perceived as dismissive, but... every edition some profiles are removed from the game. Now, if it is a whole faction that gets proverbially squatted, i.e. you are elft with a heap of models you've paid for and you can't legally use them anymore, becuse the game manufacturer said so, I do recognize that you have a valid reason to be furious. But this is not the same if it applies to a single figurine. Even less, if the figurine can be legally applied as a different loadout from the same unit. Among others, I do own some 1gen Hassassin Ragiks, and 2gen Hellcats, inc. Ragik & Hellcat HMG - they had such loadouts available in N1 & N2 (Hellcat also in N3), but in N3 they got changed to Spitfires. No-one I played has ever complained to me fielding these two models and saying "that's Ragik / Hellcat Spitfire". I guess I could waltz into CB HQ, play a game again Bostria or Koni or Gutier, do the same, and neither of them would even bat an eye. When it comes to profiles that never actually got a sculpt, and therefore you don't own the models, well, forgive me, but what exactly have you lost?
Spiral effectively was those profiles, because otherwise you were better off just playing Tohaa; in fact, when N4 dropped nerfs to Tri-Core and the Taagma-Chaksa Triad, Spiral virtually disappeared from game tables (not that it ever had a strong presence, to be fair). And the Taagma/Kriigel/Kiiutan profiles that are already available see no play in Tohaa proper. I'm also not sure why you think I'm furious? I believe I stated, in this very thread, that I was "a bit sad". Fury would be reserved for if Tohaa as a whole was removed. As for what we lost? We lost the ability to play Spiral. Spiral wasn't just Tohaa + mercs, it had its own, unique flavor of Triads with its own unique tricks. Brawlers and Taagmas gave cheap, effective MSV2 snipers that paired with the Kriigel Smoke as a unique long-range threat that cannot be duplicated in Tohaa (no MSV2 snipers with DA ammo, Smoke only on a unit that is very rarely taken). The Taagma/Chaksa Triad provided a cheap defensive Triad, freeing up points for Spiral's plethora of solo pieces, namely Impersonators. Draal gunners with a Tri-Core boost provided a uniquely powerful, though deceptively fragile, offensive Triad that simply cannot be replicated in any other army (until Tri-Core got mega-nerfed). Imagine, if you will, that Military Orders was discontinued. All of its models are available to Vanilla, but the Hospitallers and Teutons lose all of their special profiles (retaining only their base Combi) while the Knight of Holy Sepulchre loses Holoprojector. That's effectively the difference between Tohaa and Spiral.
