It would be more fluff supported than Aleph getting a third. If only because of Tohaa's numerical obsession
Tohaa has Triads, Triad means 3, 3 is the max number of sectorials a faction can have, QED Tohaa are being retired
It sure seems to be turning out like that. Makes me wonder what will happen to PanO when Salvaherima is released in the future. Will another PanO sectorial get discontinued (most likely NCA at this point)? Having the Shasvatii leave the Combined actually makes sense according to the "max 3 sectorials at once" idea. There are some other species that can replace them. Such as the Sygmaa or even a sectorial that includes the E.I. Aspects (Skavorios, Anathematics, Avatar, etc...) and the original Ur forces before they absorbed other species. No other faction has 3 sectorial as of yet except for the Nomads and I doubt they will be getting a new one any time soon. Which leaves just the Combined Army left. Whatever the case may be we're grasping at straws since CB is keep their mouths shut concerning the massive events that are about to take place next year. It's no wonder people are worried after what the Uprising event caused to transpire.
IMO: I don't see Tohaa going any where, Ok! let's say CB stop the production on Tohaa, what would they replace it with? If you notice every sectorial that was taken out of productions was replaced by a new sectorial.
Yes and with Tohaa+NA-2 coming out soon that could be a placeholder until CB gets the Tohaa where they want them to be or it could be the replacement of the main faction as well.
I still don't think CB will stop production on Tohaa, there are some troops from other factions that are part of NA2 but the factions are still in production. I think we Tohaa players should try to think positively about our faction staying in production, as a man thinks, then so should it be. At the same time CB don't make things easy buy keeping information about Tohaa to them selves.
Could you just imagine how exciting 2019 would be if we got the Triumvirate NA2 army, a Tohaa Exalted sectorial, AND a Sakiel Box? Tohaa players would explode.
That would be the best outcome and shock the base considering the current disposition is gloom & doom.
I see a couple ideas popping up in this thread that I think are inconsistent with my reading of the situation, and I’d like to address them. My proposition is that Tohaa as an independent faction will be dissolved and folded into a combination of CA and NA2 armies for a variety of story and structural reasons at or around adepticon. The two lines of complaint with this theory that I see a lot are something like 1) that’s a dismal outlook and 2) CB won’t discontinue Tohaa SKUs. I’m not sure what these arguments have to do with my proposal, which argued for new Tohaa units and lists for us to play, just not as we intended under the framework of an independent Tohaa Faction. The NA2 Uprising was very successful for CB and largely well received by the player base (by play stats and sales). It introduced a lot of ‘shared’ models across many factions. You’ll note the new mixed NA2 factions and models were ones that were less played/sold previously. That’s not an accident. We all know that Tohaa sells poorly, partly because artichokes don’t proxy well (partly lack of support, but that’s for a different post). We know that Tohaa is disliked by the player base as well (for a variety of reasons which I think aren't terribly relevant or correct, but again, different post). Tohaa players want new sculpts and profiles, CB wants to sell sculpts to more players. An obvious solution is you attach the bulk of Tohaa to an army that sells well (CA) and then mix a few key Tohaa units into multiple other armies (importantly NA2 but perhaps other human factions as well) to ensure as many people have a reason to buy the stuff as possible. This isn’t a complaint, and I’m not convinced this is bad for people that want to play Tohaa units. Think of it like the Libertos or Aida at a grand scale, which at least at my play community have been pretty popular. If I’m right, on the story end of things Tohaa loses against CA. Most players play human factions, so it refocuses the story on “will the humans beat the EI?” and you make that situation narratively more dire. The Tohaa just lost their empire, and they looked pretty tough. Doesn’t that make the human factions the scrappy band facing the evil empire against all odds, maybe with a handful of Tohaa leftovers helping in the wings? The Tohaa demise (as a major political entity in the story) makes it seem more likely the humans lose, which is _good_ for their narrative.
@Vanderbane I think your post sums it ip perfectly. This seems to be the most likely scenario in my eyes. If CB is getting rid of the Tohaa as a separate faction and political entity then I hope it is done well. I'm interested in Tohaa but I'm holding back until the dust settles. I wonder what changes and amazing units the Artichokes will have in the future? Maybe this means a Sygmaa sectorial is possible besides the aforementioned NA-2 sectorial? I just hope that if the Tohaa empire goes kaput then we will be pleasantly surprised at how the race is handled.
Don't lose hope @Abrilete. We Tohaa are a resilient bunch. I'm sure our symbiomates will take this hit for us and come back even stronger. I do think there's scope for two distinct alien factions rather than just humans vs humans vs some space empire. As for SKU's I think it is something to be concerned about as mentioned by many people before. There is no way to expand Tohaa without a human/combined faction taking a hit. Though there are Tohaa units that could be consolidated/removed (looks at Gorgos). Having Tohaa fold into CA/NA2 doesn't actually do much for the SKU though. What might happen is that they get Frenched with the hope of getting a revamp when they come back with stronger symbiomates.
Now this sounds like another good possibility. It might be what CB is going for instead of folding or splitting the faction between Humanity and the Combined. It would be better for Tohaa players if this did happen instead of the faction going belly up.
Quite apart from what will happen to Tohaa, how did the faction actually get into this situation? Why did CB more or less suddenly (from the customer's point of view) stop supporting the faction? It was definitely like that for me: I started collecting last november. Is this all because of bad sales figures? Personally I find it a terrible message to the consumer that of all factions the newest one is no longer supported. For my part, I would never again build on a new faction at CB ( assuming, of course, that there is no happy end).
