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January (D)20(D)20 predictions

Discussion in 'News' started by roobot, Oct 10, 2019.

  1. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    From what CB has said on the subject the separate starters never sold well. I wouldn't be surprised if the ones contained in Icestorm and Red Veil were cut in the next round of SKU reductions.

    It's telling that we never saw separate Coldfront starters after over a year, there's been no mention of separate Wildfire or Spiral starters either.
     
  2. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    That is not a good sign in my opinion. Many people don't want to drop the cash for the two player box or just one-half of it. The price is a steep hurdle for people and will turn some off to trying out the game. I know that I wouldn't have picked up Infinity if there was just the Army or Two Player boxes. I bought into MRRF and PanO because of the cheaper price tag. Got the PanO Vanilla starter for under 30$ and the price was a major reason I picked them up. We hobbyists might spend alot of money over our lifetime but we are not made of it nor want to spend large amounts of it at once.

    At least we got @ShaeKonnit to provide us with the models or halves we want or need from these large starter sets. However I would suggest those of us who play PanO, Yu Jing, Nomads, Haqqislam to hunt down and grab any models or whole six-mini Vanilla starter sets while they can. Because it's going to get alot more expensive to buy extra Combi order troops or certain loadouts outside of splitboxing. USAridana's starter models are all useful for a second purchase for linkteams & order grunts but now they are limited to the Army Box only. Makes it more difficult for non-proxy players to fill out their list or collections.
     
  3. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    I think it would be 3 Keisotsu, 1 Kempei, Dayiokai and Oniwaban.
     
  4. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Just arm-chairing a bit here, but the starters seem intentionally designed to contain more niche models, basically there's very few models in those boxes that you'll want more than one of for gameplay reasons and the faction design has even migrated to a place where the basic line trooper isn't the unit you spam for orders. This seemingly intentional decision to put as niche models as possible into the starter boxes is probably hurting their sales.
    If CB wants to increase starter box sales they need to get a good grip on what people will spam; Gamma Feuerbach is not it, and neither is the Epsilon Sniper, really. If they'd instead had something like Omega HMG, Kappa SMG, Varangian LSG, Kappa Combi, Delta Hacker, and Lynx Sniper, I'd have had to buy two of those packs - not because I play with double Omega HMG often, but I will play with them at some point whereas Gamma Feuerbach is going to be a rarity as a solo model and two of them won't ever happen. Similar alterations could be made to the ISS box which I kind of analysed to be catering fully to one specific singular ISS build that's not even very popular (Celestial Guard + Crane Core) e.g.; Authorised Bounty Hunter, Zhanying Breaker, Crane Hacker, Celestial Guard Combi+launcher, Celestial Guard Boarding Shotgun, Dakinin HMG.
     
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  5. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    I really think this reasoning fails to consider the fact the Starter Packs are supposed to be visually attractive. The Feuerbach Gamma looks cool, that's why it's in the starter pack. New players will often choose a faction based on looks, and will pick up models based on looks.

    I am not sure if the Starter packs sell well or not, but I don't think making them to focus solely on the models that are more 'usable' is a good idea. The way I see it, doing this kind of optimized packs will just make less competitive players less interested in Infinity.
     
  6. Space Ranger

    Space Ranger Well-Known Member

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    I totally agree with this. Not everyone wants a min-max super starter.
     
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  7. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    Improving the balance between SWC weapons in N4 would also help the less "competitive" loadouts found in starters.

    It's a lot better than it was in N2 but HMGs still seem to be king on troopers like the Epsilon, Gamma, etc.
     
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  8. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    I could never bring myself to buy a second Army Pack or USARF starter despite wanting more rifles.

    It all comes down to the lack of secondary arm sets. It really does.
     
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  9. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    So you're saying the ISS starter pack isn't visually impressive? Nomads? Yu Jing? They have S2 heavy infantry as their focal model. Are you trying to say that Bakunin with its tiny female HI makes that starter a dud? Combined Army doesn't even have a heavy unit in it. Having the army's S5 isn't a mandatory feature to make a starter pack look impressive, you know?

    I wouldn't rank miniatures as being visually awesome based on their inverse in game performance, nor would I agree that what I proposed would be min-maxed any more than the current box is - I tried to go for profiles that you might, maybe, want 2 of, but not in the same list and I fail to see how this is min-maxing. A big visually impressive model like the Gamma (which has basically the same silhouette as the Az'rail) could be a model for a faction that you want two of, but for O-12 it has been designed to not be such a model. Do note that it's perfectly possible to try and min-max those packs so that you get the perfect one-off purchases as well.

    Above all else they need to stop putting 3 basic infantry models with rifles in their boxes, because they are designing the factions to discourage this sort of unit spam. I don't know about you, but loading you up with models that you're not going to want to use past your first few games (that basically teaches you that you don't want to spam models*) doesn't seem like a good look for new players.

    But the main take away from my post is; of course they don't sell well. CB intentionally design them to not sell to people who bought a two-player box! CB seems to intentionally min-max the starters as being ideal one-off purchases

    * except for a rare few ones that are far too good not to min-max spam 3+ of regularly ("regularly" does not equal "always")

    I'm curious, which load-outs do you find to be less competitive in the starters? I have some personal preferences, but I think most starters are a good initial purchase with few, if any, dead models (f.ex. I highly suspect that the Epsilon sniper will be linkable in their sectorial which will drive up the subjective value of that model). Well, besides HB and the proposed Dashat, those boxes I find weird.
     
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  10. kanluwen

    kanluwen Well-Known Member

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    This is actually something that can be addressed with an 'alternate path' for someone to get into these kinds of 2P factions.

    We have ready made army packs, effectively, from the Beyond+6 model starter+Advance Packs.
    Look at the O-12 setup, for example:
    O-12
    ──────────────────────────────────────────────────

    10
    KAPPA Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    KAPPA Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    KAPPA Combi Rifle / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 12)
    SIRIUS Boarding Shotgun + 1 SiriusBot / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 23)
    SIRIUSBOT Heavy Riotstopper / Electric Pulse. (0 | 5)
    CUERVO GOLDSTEIN Boarding Shotgun, D-Charges / Pistol, Monofilament CC Weapon, Knife. (0 | 42)
    DELTA Hacker (Killer Hacking Device) Combi Rifle + Light Riotstopper, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 25)
    EPSILON MULTI Sniper, Nanopulser / Pistol, Knife. (1.5 | 30)
    BETATROOPER (Specialist Operative) MULTI Rifle, 2 Nanopulser, D-Charges / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 39)
    OMEGA Lieutenant MULTI Rifle + Heavy Riotstopper / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 45)
    GANGBUSTER Boarding Shotgun / Pistol, Knife. (0 | 21)

    1.5 SWC | 261 Points

    It's about the right model count for one of these kinds of sets.

    And hell, they could take it a step further and add the models from the Paint Sets as well for those who don't want to use Vallejo paints.
     
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  11. Pen-dragon

    Pen-dragon Deva

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    Maybe it is a cultural thing? Maybe it is immodest for a female Morat to show her face? (Abs? fine. Face? big nope.)
     
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  12. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Sounds weird to a human standpoint but that could be a possibility. Still I wouldn't want that to be the case since it would mean we get no official picture/model to understand how the Zerat's facial structure looks.
     
  13. A Mão Esquerda

    A Mão Esquerda Deputy Hexahedron Officer

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    Well, to be honest, all we have are soldiers, and only two regiments and a character to go from.
     
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  14. Mahtamori

    Mahtamori Well-Known Member

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    Isn't Morat society heavily divided into what males and females may do?
     
  15. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    And considering that the military is all that Humans have come across we can't say for sure until CB puts out a statement or releases the Combined Army RPG Faction Book to expound on Morat culture further.
     
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  16. colbrook

    colbrook Grenade Delivery Specialist

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    I think the real reason is that the artists and sculptors haven't settled in a design that is simultaneously alien, original, Morat-ish, and pinup.

    Which is another reason for the sexy Morat nurse to be male, bonus points if he borrows the Oznat's thong+chaps combo.
     
    #76 colbrook, Oct 16, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
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  17. Balewolf

    Balewolf It's all opinion

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    I'm sure that's his generic response to all reasonable profile/sculpt suggestions.

    When you're getting two starter armies, rules and cardboard terrain for the price of one or two 40k units, I haven't met anyone in person who's complained about the price of the two player boxes. The start up cost is way lower than most games, any if you wait for just a bit, you can usually get those two player boxes for as cheap as $75 with flash sales. What I usually see people being scared off of is tokens/terrain/metal/big rulebook. Lots of people will start up the game or factions and then realize there is so much going on that they don't have the time to dedicate to it.
     
    #77 Balewolf, Oct 16, 2019
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  18. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    You might have hit the nail on the head right there.
     
  19. DaRedOne

    DaRedOne Morat Warrior Philosopher
    Warcor

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    The Modiphius RPG books have some rather cool snippets. They aren't as divided as it seems, but they are very divided. And it seems there is such thing as a morat farmer, but that's basically a slave. Gotta wonder why they don't just automate everything though.
     
  20. Golem2God

    Golem2God Just a Kooky Kumotail serving others.

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    Not to mention the engineer guilds are being held back by the E.I. so the Morats will remain a military society. Perhaps that could change in the future or another timeline?
     
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