Of course Tohaa had low sales numbers, that's what happens when a Faction gets no releases for a long time. I'm pretty sure Ninja sales suddenly got very hight just as the new JSA Sectorial was announced. No releases for a Faction -> no one buys models for that Faction -> CB discontinues the Faction because it doesn't sell. I'd like to see what would happen if CB stopped releasing models for PanO for more than one year.
Look I dont disagree that a lack of releases didn't help Tohaa. BUt I think its disingenuous to say steady releases fix all the problems. The reality of the situation is this: CB is a company they want to make money. They also seem to have a pretty good grasp on what most of their players want. So we can pretty safely say the issues with Tohaa are as follows: The tohaa rules are complex and unusual. Discouraging new players and veterans from learning the army. The tohaa general have a not stellar reputation in the community. "They're cheesy" Tohaa haven't had recent releases in a while meaning they aren't as exciting. The tohaa are probably not good sellers. The tohaa design space had a lot of its best options used up. Now lets look at what they've done. Release 'Twohaa' sectorial, French the original army Old army stays mostly the same for existing Tohaa players. New army could be simplified/streamlined to reduce new player burden/Make it more familiar for vets (Whats that Core link bonuses on my 3 man?). New army has a better rep to begin with "Well at least they aren't vanilla" New box marks a big release a fresh start. Something to be excited for. Sales obviously need to be seen yet. But I'd venture a guess that by making Spiral more like other armies which seems to be the push we'll see better sales of the army. New sectorial/New Rules opens up new design space. Seems like a reasonable fix to me. But I'm also obviously a CB Fan boy I can't deny that.
This is a good point. And I'll add this. I have played Tohaa since their release and I played Shasvastii exclusively for about a year. I love both armies and I love them for the dopey differences they have from other factions. The news we've all heard about both haven't been super exciting to me. On the contrary it's been sad. It seems like alot of what I love about both armies is going away. But that's life, and its ok. We're playing a game and maybe what I find most fun isnt most fun to everyone else. Personally I think Infinity is still a great game, the models CB produces are still amazing models. So I'll keep playing I'll keep adjusting but I don't fault anyone for stopping. The only thing I'll fault is all the doom and gloom the Tohaa forums seem to have. It sucks guys but hey we have closure now. Vanilla looks like its getting Frenched. Lets see what new adventures Spiral Corp troops bring to the table.
It's more like they're still part of the country, but nobody cares about or can remember them. Welshed? Galicia'd?
Well, it's been quite a day really. I'm kind of torn by the news of so many SKUs for vanilla Tohaa being discontinued. For a long time I had resisted collecting Tohaa, for various reasons including the unusual rules, however about a month ago I bit the bullet when I stumbled across the 300 point pack on eBay & won it for quite a bargain price. Given the hype that 2019 would be "the year of the Tohaa" for real this time it seemed a golden opportunity. Sure, there hadn't been many releases for quite some time but in general I liked the minis in the range, so why not? Rumours circulated, speculation as to what might happen to Tohaa. Would they go NA2? Discontinued? Then Spiral Corps was teased & revealed in pretty short order. Awesome! I'm a sucker for big box releases & the magic words "limited edition" (it's a character flaw). New stuff for Tohaa. Perfect time to start the faction, especially as it's pretty much fait accompli that I'll end up collecting every faction anyway eventually (at least in some fashion). Then of course today's news. Vanilla Tohaa is having a large number of its model range discontinued, including some pretty important options that feature heavily in a lot of lists. That's..........pretty big. Not entirely what I expected really. So, being me, I of course leapt on a number of online stores & proceeded to buy up what I'd need for a functional Tohaa force before they all go the way of the dodo. Thankfully I'd planned ahead & budgeted for some kind of mass discontinuation following Bostria mentioning this would happen to one or more armies this year (I cannot recall which video of course). So, at least for me it's not a major disaster as such. Still.........I do have a vague feel of unease about it all. I get that this rotating catalogue is a matter of fact now & yet it does leave me somewhat unsatisfied despite the promise of shiny new toys. I think it comes down to this for me: There are a number of profiles that do not have sculpts. There's no Sukeul HMG, no Gao Tarsos BS, no Taqeul Officers at all & so on. This may be particular to me of course & perhaps to many it's totally unimportant, but still. The faction is not "finished" not to my mind at least. Yes, I get there are alternatives, conversions & proxying are possibilities it is true, yet I do find that path rather unsatisfying. I love that CB has the stance it does on use of proxies. It's awesome. The same goes for making rules available for free online. Somehow though I can't help wishing they'd produce miniatures for all profiles, however that might be done. Perhaps it's just the completionist in me talking. For the future what will be will be. I'm looking forward to new releases for Spiral Corps (Shasvastii look pretty good too, I just hope the rules are smoother) & perhaps if Tohaa get a re-release down the line those missing sculpts will appear. For now I guess I'll clear some space for the dozen or so minis that will be arriving soon & take solace in the promise of new stuff.
It just occurred to me the kind of damage you could actually do by sticking a symbiobomb on an impersonating model. Assuming Inferior doesn't require a roll at -3 or anything (it might, inferior infiltration does) and you can actually reliably stick the impersonator on the enemy DZ line, even just a single charge bomb could make a huge impact coming out of surprise with something like Endgame or Pandemonium.
I've got an escalation tourney this weekend. First round is 150pts Decap and I'm taking double Kerail with Bomb+Mate.
A bit late to the party. Can someone help me sum up the big stuff we got? I see; - "Inferior Impersonator" with symbiont armour - The Jammer pheroware, anti-MSV2 zone and smoke on a triad model - A symbiont infiltrator with essentially a nimbus effect version of mimetism, and triad - A hafza with counterintel and nanopulsar - Some unit that gets a "tricor device", passing the 5 man link bonus onto their triad - A mandatory shit S5 HI And the disclaimer that some of this may not be available to vanilla tohaa, but that most of it is/most of vanilla is available to spiral corps. Miss anything major here?
Although, Rob, you do need to remember to give a Mate to the Impersonator would mean not using the Impersonator as a reserve... So if you're going first - you're deploying first - chances are you won't be able to get the juiciest positioning. If you're going second, they have a turn to get our of dodge.
It's a fair point. At best the most surprise you could winkle out of the situation is to reserve the Kaeltar, so suddenly the impersonator that didn't have a symbiobomb now has one. It's probably more troll-y than good. But it's pretty troll-y. And it may be worthwhile even without the ability to truly reserve them.
No doubt. That Impersonator with no easy access to the enemy Lt suddenly having a quasi-jammer is pretty terrifying.
Agreed, since the release of beasts I have a growing feeling that tohaa design reached dead end (both in visual and game sense). Hope that full rebranding will make things right. And now finally new shiny badass SAKIEL BOX will not misfit old tiny handcrafted stuff :) ps. Still a bit confused since I do not own about a half of what is stated to be discontinued...
I was under impression that rare rules isn't really a problem for Tohaa or CA players since basic rules of Infinity are way more complex than any specifics particular armies have, but apparently it's a thing. Huh. Insert clock joke here.
