Buying The Books/Fluff question.

3rd Offensive will have little to nothing for the Scotts. HSN3 is what you want.

 

If you want lots of fluff on Ariadna, you might want the RPG core book and the Ariadna supplement as well. They both show a lot of stuff on Ariadna in general and Caledonia too.

 

N3 has the overall fluff on the factions and setting, including Ariadna as a whole

HSN3 covers sectorials in more specifics including Caledonian Highlanders.

Uprising is the mercenary forces and Japanese Secession.

3rd Offensive will be the newer sectorials, Kazaks, Aleph Operations, Varuna, Invincible Army, nothing is really expected for the Scots.

As mentioned above, the RPG has more societal and geopolitical background compared to the military background found in the Wargame books, the RPG material is also available in PDF

 

Unfortunately training and tactics tends to be a little overlooked in ALL the Infinity background . . .

You could find MORE infos in the Herford Suburbia about people claiming "My cousin's cousin was in THE Service" and with R.W. anecdotes. . .

Usually You could think that WHATEVER stands for Actual Training Regimes and Tactics of contemporary Scottish Battalion and Regiments will be STILL useful in the Ariadnan Caledonia. . .

Many Highlanders of Planet Dawn STILL employ tactics good at the time of "Bonnie Prince Charlie" BUT with Antipodes, Wulvers and Dogwarriors AND one SINGLE powerful Combat Lhost Android (William Wallace Recreation). . .

 

The answer to why Ariadna hasn't been conquered is fairly simple; they've got more powerful... allies... making sure Pan-O doesn't try. Or that Yu Jing doesn't try. Or that Haqq doesn't try. Basically, it costs too much having O-12 and your main rival both come down hard on you if you try.

I think better off for it. It's an area which a person without expertise is nearly guaranteed to make fairly extreme mistakes, such as suggesting a training tactic that really, really, doesn't work.

 

Yea, Ariadna made strong trade allies of the Nomad Nation and Haqqislam (which is visible on a couple of units between Haqq and Ariadna, the Azra'il, and Sekban get their AP ammo directly from Ariadna, and the Loup Garous of MRRF get their Viral Ammo directly from Haqqislam in background). With the backing of Nomads and Haqqislam and a few other minor powers they were able to lobby O-12 to make themselves a proper sphere power.

 

The main reason why Ariadna manages to stay independent is because there never has been conventional warfare between them and the more technologically advanced nations, just skirmishes and conflicts with hyperpower-backed merc factions, which lend themselves well to Ariadna's specialty: Assymetrical Warfare

There is also the fact that Ariadnans have several advantages over aggressors, such as home turf, abundance of Teseum and access to repurposed Tohaa bioweapons (Antipodes)

 

Honestly the real reason why Ariadna has not been conquered is because 1) there is no political consensus between the two genuinely great powers of the setting as to how they'd carve it up between them even if they did want the turf, and 2) the thing that PanO and Yu Jing want from Ariadna is not territory or citizens (seriously who gives a shit) but rather access to the valuable resources on Dawn.

They could do this through corporate groups expanding into the Ariadnan nations, setting up Teseum mines, refineries etc and funnelling the resources of the planet off world for huge profits, and definitely don't need actual national control over the people and places there to do this. Economic imperialism is much more efficient, profitable and safe compared to actually trying to dominate a rebellious population.

Essentially the commercial conflicts happened when PanO and Yu Jing forces had to be deployed to counter attacks made by each other and Ariadnan resistance forces against corporate facilities and personnel on the planet. The Ariadnans realised (quite smartly, perhaps with Nomad and Haqq advice too) that they were basically ripe for economic exploitation and took steps accordingly rather than basically being bought off by a bunch of antiquated tech (by Sphere standards), and each power also tried to sabotage the other's efforts. This resulted in an escalating conflict where neither PanO or YJ could bring their full firepower to bear because hey, civilian populations etc, looks really bad. Ariadna also had surprisingly capable troops due to their huge Teseum resources, allowing them to punch well above their weight, and also the involved powers were busy fighting each other at the same time.

If PanO really wanted to do a WWII esque total war invasion of subjugation of Ariadna then they absolutely could do so, but they don't at all. Hence, Ariadna remaining independent for now. The Commercial Conflicts were not all out war but rather skirmishes and such over getting hold of Ariadnan economic opportunities which failed.

 

HSN3 is better written than uprising was, and we can't yet say whether Third Offensive will be more like one or the other. What I heard is a litle disturbing (a timeline in 3Off like the one in Uprising) but I can still give them the benefit of the doubt.

Still you'd like HSN3 more I think.

 

This is a good breakdown.

If I were the OP, I'd get HSN3, then the RPG books. Uprising is a very small book, fluffwise (what takes up so much space is the various timelines, there is a timeline for each location in the Uprising). We don't know what is in 3rd Offensive yet (well, some WarCors might, but they're stuck under a Non-Disclosure Agreement at the moment).

Before Uprising, I would have said, go ahead and buy all the books.

But hold off on buying Uprising until you can read a copy for yourself before buying. The Uprising fluff (as opposed to the various other NA2/Merc fluff) is not very good, IMO. I'm waiting until someone spoils more of 3rd Offensive before I buy a copy, the pre-order mini is not enough to make me want to pre-order, or even order sight-unseen.

 

There is an interview on Mas Allá de Mordor (Spanish Podcast). I just heard 1/3 of it and, frankly, it seems a must buy, but kinda full of... not so great moves.

For example, it is explicitely said by Interruptor that several cities mentioned in the RPG books no longer belong to human hands in Paradiso.

Then I had to stiffle my laugh, lest I would be expelled from the tube: Gutier did not wanted the Morat to be Klingons (great move, they seem portrayed more as Spartans), but the way it was talked about the Pneumarch and the Samaritan that killed Macayana (think Palpatine and Vader...) certainly invoked the Worff effect (the Samaritan is protrayed as feared and respected by everyone at the start of the description, then he is shown to even cower in front of the Pneumarch: pure Worff Effect, to show a stablished badass then "losing" in front of a new arrival to mark the new arrival as Serious Business).

@Section9 I think this book is a must to read, if not preorder. Just to poke the holes, if the book is at Uprising level. The declaration that "some of them should read my books, they might even learn new words, even if those are badly written" he did on the interview simply begs for an answer.

 

He actually said that? OMG, the ego...

I suppose I have to buy Gutier's books now so I can learn more words, why should I read maybe García Márquez, Cortazar or Delibes when I can learn words with Gutier.

I hope that's just some kind of hyperbole or something, because i don't think telling your customers they are dumb is good for the business

 

It works for apple, though. Their customers eat it up and come back for more.
Also, republican voters (Trump has used it to describe them - "I'll run as a republican, those idiots will vote for anyone.")

 

I'm not sure my answer will be to Gutier's liking.

 

In the first 20-30 minutes.

Well, the things Nomad players are happy with "the release of Tunguska in June". That tells you everything you need to know about how connected he is to the people.

Actually, CB strikes me a lot as living in their own Ivory Tower, heedless of it's movie prop's nature (meaning: it's cardboard pretending to be Ivory) XD