Will the factions be purged of the plethora of rando Mercenaries and Aristeia actors or are we still going to be plagued by these? I would prefer they get dumped into some special module, like mercenaries already have. They are such a destruction of faction identities and actively constrain development space in each faction. Not to mention warp the list-building - there is unending supply of Libertos it seems, and Beastmasters. Will they be removed or kept in N5?
No idea. We haven't seen the Vanilla/Generic for any of the Human Factions. I would not be surprised if there are profile tweaks for Libertos or BeastHunters. EDIT: It would be interesting to see if Knauf or Armand remain in Vanillas. They can be a crutch for some lists as long range firepower.
I agree it’s hard to tell yet. I’m sure JSA will keep Mushashi. I hope YJ keeps Bixie because she’s one of the best characters they have. But she might be regulated to WB and IA only.
Looking at the N5 CA roster, they are down to maybe 11 Characters from 14 in N4. Maybe other Vanillas will get a similar cut? Current N4 Vanilla Characters: Pano 24 (!), Not including V2 of Joan Yujing 22, Not including V2 of Tze and Mehmut) Ariadna 21 Haqqislam 17 Nomads 19 Combined Army 14, Not including v2 of Sheskin Aleph 28, Not including V2 of Achilles O-12, 18 Man, there will definitely be a lot on the chopping block!
Regarding the Aristeia mercenaries, given that there was a link with V1 and that V is working on V2, I'll wait and see what happens, maybe there will be new mercenaries from Aristeia 2, maybe some of the first v1 Aristeia mercs will die or retire. What's certain is that CB will continue to release new mercs like Samsa, Triphammer, Beasthunter and the limited version mini of sandtrap, so there should be a presence. More generally, Bostria had this to say in a video: [From 38:45], 43 armies is an absurd amount of armies, we need to remove some of them. OK, the first to be left out will be the NA2 mercenary companies. Most of them, could be totally swallowed up by factions you know. For example I think starco is so nomad that from a certain point of view it could be like a flavour within one of the nomad sectorials or something like that.
Oh I'd so like to see most of these gone. Please keep the rando NPCs out of my wargame. No, seriously, they're cool as a flavour, but over time they became too much of a presence. Please prune them down to size.
I think they will stay but in a more curated manner. vCA lost Aida, Cube Jager, MBH, Oktavia, but they still have Liberto. Koni said Kyle and Quinn are not going to stay in vPanO but I think they will still be available in MO, SWF, VIRD, where their relevant home sectorial are. I assume the same for the mercenaries and characters like bounty hunters, Knauf, Wild Bill, and so on. I think and am good with them leaving vPanO, but there might be a sectorial which can play with them.
From what I usually played in StarCo, I can also do in BJC: RiotGrrl Haris including Uhahu, Bandits, Hardcases and Al'Hawwa get switched to Zeros, Brawler/CSU Haris gets a Moderator-core, laced with specialists and another RiotGrrl.
Personally I wouldn't mind some Aristeia characters getting removed but that is because I don't play that and it feels weird seeing superstars in supposedly silent black ops conflicts. Otherwise characters that are part of an army I don't mind.
For me, it's largely down to how they're implemented. ForCo makes great use of its characters, fluffed as celebrities using their fame to land bodyguard jobs. So does Steel Phalanx, being propaganda stars. It makes less sense seeing them in most Vanilla armies, or more serious Sectorials.
A lot of Tag RAID profiles have either just had (Diggers), are about to have (Triphammers), or will imminently have a release (Beasthunters), so I wouldn't be surprised if they show up in some of the factions. Libertos just had a re-release, too. I'm hoping they'll be less ubiquitous, or perhaps seasonal.
That would be great. I'm a bit tired of facing Diggers, Libertos, Beasthunters, Irmandinhos, Zellenkriegers and cie in half the lists I encounter... :( If they don't want to remove it, I hope for some rebalancing, to make them useful options rather than autoincludes.
Unfortunately some of YJ's best troops are mercs. I've been making jokes for years about how you can make a whole list, not a good one, using mercs only (almost). But they are almost dependent on Lunah, Liberto, Monstrucker, and Beasthunter.
I like rando NPCs for narrative games. But I agree that a list where half the troopers are slightly too efficient named characters can feel jarring, unless that is the theme of the army (like ForCo). A possible fix could be to have all these "rando NPCs" share AVA, so you can add them for flavor without making a meal out of them.
Technically now they are former stars but they have always been pet projects by their Backing nation as a Information thing. Shona and Max are 100% funded by PanO Hyper Corporations and are unlikely to leave their service. Mendoza is a stuntman and funded by the Neo-Vatican for Film reasons. Code: Capital is in fact a TV show broadcasted across PanOceania. Based on this reasoning Steel Phalanx should be removed entirely cause of Myrmidion Wars TV Show makes them Stars.
If we do get rid of all the Mercs and named characters that proliferate the Vanilla lists what should CB do when they release ITS prize miniatures of limited edition bundle incentive models? Will it kinda suck to win a cool prize mini that is only available in a single sectorial that you have none of? Will it you still preorder books that come with minis if you can't play them?
For the NA factions, I'll be sad I loose Dashat and Ikari but hopefully something good comes out of it. I can see them combining some of the NA2. Theses would makes some sense to me: Druze+Dashat+Ikari They have a lot of Haqq, Druze, YJ and JSA in common. Starco+Foreign Co The have PanO and Nomads in common. White Company I think they could get rid of or join with SC and FC. Spiral should be a sectoral of Tohaa. What I would actually like to see is a NA2 Vanilla, with a Druze sectoral and a Kaplan Sectoral.
You make some good points there that I didn't consider but that still makes sense on certain sectorials more than a lot of armies.
For good or bad, I have a feeling the decisions have already been made. Now we're merely waiting for them to be revealed. Personally, I have two NA2 forces (Druze & StarCo), and, well, technically a better part of a 3rd (Dahshat, though I haven't started playing them - it is a consequence of havign all falvors of Haqq and some mercs from the other two). I'll be very sad if these become unplayable, but I see it as far from being a given. Possible, yes, but not sure. The question I'll have for CB then is "ok, what use do you propose for my models then?". I mean, I've paid cold hard cash for the figures, and then invested my time and effort into painting them. The idea of named mercs sharing an AVA is an interesting one. Rewriting the NA2 armies (or at least some of them) into a mish-mash vanilla NA2 "mercenaries", well, has little charm in my eyes, but definitely could work, if done well. Ah well. We shall see...
