Deva and Shukra units are literally loaned as officers and advisors to other forces. As long as serious "black" units like the Dasyu and Marut don't make a showing it's perfectly reasonable for a merc company to comission some Aspects for a fee, so long as the company isn't opposing any international ALEPH-laws.
If the Aleph assets are just the Remotes, and maybe support assets for those remotes (I.e. Rebots, Rudras, Dakini, Garuda, and an Apsara to manage them) I could definitely see them hand-waved as just White Company buying the top-shelf gear.
White Company has been hired to support the numerically inferior Aleph fighting against the combined army on Paradiso. There you go. BTW it's O-12 equipment on loan to Aleph.
I wonder how much of the historical Free Company background they'll emulate with unit choice. If there is any hat tip to history, Vargar are a shoo-in, and other gritty-feeling units like Jujak make sense. Seriously doubt they'll get any of YJ's patriotic-propaganda units like Tiger Soldiers or Daofei. Now Guilang(s), THAT would be interesting. And you know they'll have at least one of the CC-fighty WB characters.
Liang Kai's profile already said he's joined the WC for missions. https://www.infinitythegame.com/blog/item/792-liang-kai-shaolin-wandering-monk Maybe we'll get some regular shaolin too?
That was my reasoning around the Daofei not making it into White Company. Not so much on propaganda-wise but as a tool the Empire would want to share and keep for themselves & their own use.
I've seen not patriotic-propaganda involving neither but I can see how the Tiger Soldiers would be. Daofei by their fluff are considered criminals by the local population they train in actively try to kill them. "For the test, they are abandoned in the inhospitable region of Dailing without food or weapons, and expected to survive two months surrounded by poachers, highwaymen, outlaws and the police forces of the area, who consider prospective Dàofěi the worst of all criminals."
The name of the regiment "Daofei" roughly translates as "Bandits" IIRC, so yeah, not exactly poster boys. With their focus on Stealth and Infiltration they seem like the sort of trooper who's perfect to loan to a PMC as a deniable "advisor".
Daofei are also a brick shithouse of a profile and I would be very surprised if they showed up in NA2 on balance concerns alone. But it wouldn't be the first surprising inclusion in a merc sectorial.
Thinking some more, I wonder if we'll get Dart and some other characters from SAA. It's a way to keep the models active even as the sectorial is put on the backburner. With Dart specifically, she's a Aleph unit that has worked with Pano, so WC makes sense as a place she would sign on with.
I thought of her but seemed too obvious. I don't know he background much. Isn't she human in a new body?
Sort of, yes. She's a Post-Human, same as the Proxies, only she doesn't inhabit multiple bodies on the table-top.
Dart is also In MO due to fighting alongside them during the Third Offensive, OS, and Vanilla Aleph, so she's still pretty well represented outside of SAA.
She's a combat junkie aristocrat that proved to be good enough at fighting that Aleph gave her a posthuman body upgrade and sent her to fight the CA. Her joining up with John Hawkwood (named after a English aristocrat) to get more fighting makes sense to me. Didn't even realize she was in MO, I never hear her referenced with them. That might be enough to leave her available to pano and not get added to WC, but it doesn't seem to be an attraction to SAA players.
Kaplans seem to fall into the White Company's Elite Merc vibe. Whadaya think? I would certainly like them to be in more sectorials.
Maaaybe, WC have more of a legitimate/reputable/"good guy" feel like the Kaplan do, but on the other hand their membership is predominantly drawn from Svalarheima/PanO/YJ/Aleph whereas Kaplan are primarily from Bourak.
No , that's the Mobile Intervention Force, I think the White Company are the antagonists of Revenant.
John Hawkwood is a hero and possible villain for the Revenant expansion: . Other Antagonist mention include Ariana, Yujing, and Haqqislam. So is the Mobile Intervention Force going to be a Defiance Sectorial?
