A little rant of confusion. I've been back in the game for over a year now. When I rejoined, Op. Kaldstrøm just released. Now, a year and one new edition, two new sectorials, and three new Ko Dalis later, none of the two Sectorials introduced in that box got anything to fill up their ranks except for two general release versions of preorder exclusives, an Infirmarer and KoJ in a box that belongs to another sectorial, and one TAG for YJ. We have an (almost) filled out Starmada now, we have a new MO, and a new Corregidor and Kosmoflot are on the horizon. Yet still there are no Tian Gou, no Karhu, no Yaofang, no additional boxes or blisters for Vargar, Jujaks, Nøkken, Shang Jis, Hundun, Ye Mao (an exclusive in a tournament box, yeih!) or anything else. The next morsel for Yu Jing are new Shaolin Monks apparently, which already have a box. Yes, it's old, but at least it's there. Can't say the same about a lot of the other profiles. But let's not stop there. Yes, CB has finally released a Montesa Knight 4 years after they introduced the new profile, and Chaksa Longarms... after 10 years? I don't think I was born then. There are also finally a few updates on old MO profiles/models. O12 however is still waiting for their Fuzzbot, Cyberghost, or, say, a second Beta Trooper, Epsilon or Gangbuster. In the meantime, Starmada got their third Crusher shortly after the box came out. In the meantime, Tunguska got a new profile no one asked for and the box supplied a month later (Haqqislam, who also got some new and shiny stuff announced at the same time, saw none of it released since then). In the meantime, two Monstruckers, two Nourkiases, three Jayth, three Ko Dalis and what feels like two dozen new characters. In the meantime, suddenly the Karakuri get first priority. It just. Makes. So. Little. Sense. Can anyone explain to me the logic behind any of this? There must be one. I refuse to believe CB just sits down every month and says "What about all the old stuff that has been waiting for their sculpts for over a year or more?", only to decide "Nah, let's bring out a second Monstrucker." I'm not even angry. I play none of the affected factions and have been happily collecting Tunguska over the last year. I just don't get it. Any insiders with special knowledge here?
I'll take a stab. See, the PanO an Yu Jing releases were focused on the Code 1 lists. Nearly all of their releases were branded for Code 1. That included the new sculpts for Remotes and rereleased models from icestorm/red veil/etc. just to get at least one model for each unit available in Code One out the door. In the upcoming year, you'll see the same things in regards to Ariadna and Nomads. The releases will focus on Code One units. Also, Yu Jing has nothing to focus on except White Banner, so we'll probably start seeing those. It's unfortunate for PanO that they just got MO released, because now their releases will end up being split between MO and SWF. With, like, four new releases per month, it'll take a while to get things out there. That's currently the price of admission.
Sometimes we call O12 F12 (as in press f to pay respects) in our community for all profiles with missing models or models gated in Defiance. Tiang Gou are in 2 armies and we havent even seen the concepts Varangians have been a staple unit for a long time but the concept was revealed just recently It is easier to draft a "Creative proxy guide" than a buying guide for White Banner etc meanwhile lololol Chaksa Longarms Thanks CB for extremely liberal proxy rules (and in the plague period when its mostly TTS games it doesnt matter much, yes) but the amount of profiles released before miniatures these days makes Infinity look almost like one of those rules-only wargame that requires third-party miniatures...
There are not much "original" releases left for both MO and SWF. SWF : Karhu and Vargar (even if the Vargar already have one release). MO: Teutonic Knights and Trinitarian Tertiaries. Teutonic Knights are coming next month, Trinitarian Tertiaries have a render, you can add one (maybe two) blisters for the Knights of Santiago. For Karhu and Vargar you can have a box of 1 Karhu and 3 Vargar and then one blister for each, add one blister of Nokk and maybe one blister of Boyg and you're done. O-12 being the lattest addition in the roster, it's not a surprise. But even in this case, it's mainly a question of weapon options, as few units are totally absent (in fact, only Cyberghosts and Fuzzbots, as Varangian are mercenaries). It's not ideal, sure, but it's already a lot of units released. As @Ceilican says, remaining White Banner units and options will be coming with the focus on Nomads and Ariadna for Code One.
Its always been the way and will probably always continue to be the way. Word on the street was that the artists just make up what they're inspired to make and then stuff gets allocated to production alongside other priorities like worn moulds etc. I don't think they've got a top-down "this is the strategy, go and make this ready for release on X date". If they did, it would make more sense than the current scattergun approach *for run rate releases, not boxes and event special packs
Their strategy is like throwing minis at a wall and seeing what sticks in. We finally got a single Shang Ji ten years after the first one came out and still have yet to see the rest even though they are one of the core fire teams in two sectorals and wildcards. White Banner is literally unplayable if you don't do proxies. They said a box is coming "soon" but their ideas of soon is questionable. Kaldstrom came out a year ago and we still have yet to see a lot of figures for the new troops but for some reason they thought it better to come out with MO who already had figures. Needed them or not, they had them.
I only can second that what @burlesford wrote here. I feel the same. But I see it was like this, since I start Infinity. You can proxy all ... yes but then, I have to play always with proxies, what is the point in releasing the correct minis, when you have to play the ones you want with a proxy. And if - after month or years the specific mini comes out, the rules change somewhat it can watch your games from the shelf (or something worse). I realy wish the would bring out a new sectorial or troop only if they can support it with minis in an ongoing flow and provide the core minis. Its okay to release the hackers and snipers*), that no one wants first but please bring out the good guys soon after. I think they know the new Shang JI - especially the AP HMG - are good, but then ... nothing but a lonly hacker (that has to work as a FO;-). Take a look at Kosmoflot. I not even play Ariadna, but they not see any of the new profiles yet. Instead (a very nice and beautyful) a resculpt of Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wulf. Why not wait until Kosmoflott is ready for release? Is it just so, that they can announce somthing exciting? IA has a thight shedule, okay, we still wait for some profiles, but it goes very straight and you could play the nice things releative soon. Apart from the gender accident of Tai, that is now - in N4 - resolved very good. Her male alter ego is now on par with her. A little bitter aftertaste, because she looks a little bit boring (still okay). Reasons could be: CB is a smaller company and does not have the manpower to realease all their stuff straigt - (too straight might be not good for business) and work on their KS Babies at the same time. They are still artist and do what the like best in the moment, not caring much about the gaming aspect. They just have not a good release plan. They try to serve on a lot of frontline, but struggle to fullfill this. For me, I don´t want to see the X-version of character Y - I want to represent my troops on the battlefiled with the correct minis. For Kaldstrom I want the Karhu please and I see more use in the other Vargs than the Spitfire option. The whole beyond box is a collection of minis, that will mostly watch from the sideline. The you side is fine. But I realy do not understand, why we see no Shang Box yet or at least a little glimps of Tian Guo. I would event take the hacker. Instead we got differnt versions of Defiance-locked stuff and AD Troop No. 6 for O-12 ... remember the Fraacta? They released one version after another back in theese days ;-) Onyx has still only a single Maakrep and still no Nexus Spitfire.
This, specifically, is because they already had a 3D sculpt from the Luxumbra guys who made the huge version of it. They only had to slightly adapt the sculpt and could immediately release it. Seeing the overwhelmingly positive fan reaction to the Luxumbra sculpt, it was a guaranteed hit, so no wonder they went for that one as soon as they could.
The game has 42 armies. Each one needs releases. CB can only release so many models every month. This is the way its always been. Everyone has different opinions on which models need releases and which faction needs priority.
I'd be interested to see a spreadsheet showing the number of troopers per faction/sectorial that don't have at least one model out, indexed to the time delay between unit publication and first model release. But I love me some data viz. I would be even more interested in a release date for a Shang Ji box. HINT. HINT. Take my money, CB. It's right there waiting. I'll even buy direct from the company store and pay transatlantic shipping. Just. Give. It. Me. Plz.
I could explain it, but I can't make you understand it. I don't bother to understand it at the best of times. Some things just ARE, and it's easier to not question the whys and wheretofores. They release stuff for some factions, they skip others, then they do it again next month. Once a year, there's usually a "big" release and some baiting of the nerd herd by Bostria. That's about it. Something something Mañana something.
Back in the day, a couple of forums ago, I was maintaining a list of all the Combined Army units that didn't have models yet. As N3 wore on, all the outstanding N1 and N2 holes got plugged, and it mostly stopped being an interesting project. It was a big day when the Raicho finally got a sculpt :-) Code1 vs. general Infinity is definitely unbalancing things, but I also don't really understand their logic for what does or does not get a C1 release. Defiance has also contributed to (the appearance of) imbalance; some of the sculpts-per-unit counts look really silly if you include both the Defiance models and general release models. Similarly, there have been some other limited releases to support other projects, such as the Ko Dali that was packaged with the comic, that I wouldn't really count here. However, I really don't see why there needed to be both a resculpt of her drop form in the Betrayal box and an infiltration version in the C1 booster pack. Are there sometimes units that languish for an inexplicably long time without getting sculpts? Definitely. It can be pretty annoying if it's a unit or loadout that you wanted to play.
For sure. I've been waiting for more Zerats for... 10 years? Not even resculpts, just some of the many missing profiles.
Not always so. CB bloated the factions with more and more design iterations, thus the birth of the sectorials. Character releases are easy/lazy releases. O-12 has always been around in the background of Infinity but was it really the right time to release a whole new army when so many others feel incomplete? CB did us and themselves no favors by playing fast and loose with the releases.
Small company and "lots of factions" might have been good guesses but at the same time they release the aforementioned second Monstrucker, several Ko Dali sculpts etc. Some time ago they said that they look at usage data in saved lists to make decisions on model priority... unless there is some madman entertaining himself through covid by creating fifteen full ava chaksa longarms focused lists every day and the other madman keeps slipping while selecting red fury mukhtar and takes hacker instead I dont think thats the case I guess "whatever the artists feel like doing" is correct and its fine (miniatures are the product, game is secondary), but in that case I'd have preferred more profiles released alongside model announcements instead of profiles getting into a waiting line. N4 massive batch of new stuff would take years to fulfill especially if there is more brand-new units (or MO-like updates, or side projects like TAG deathmatch) in the pipeline.
This has never been confirmed to be the case. I merely made a post in a thread speculating exactly that and now people are assuming it’s something that actually happened.
This is only valid if you think CB sees an of this as a failure. As far as I can tell they're doing fine, with a growing base that is extremely eager for their product. While I agree with everyone here that their release schedule can be frustrating and there are also models I with they'd released a long time ag, their method is clearly working.
*Laughs in Bakunin* There was a time when I was thinking Corvus Belli finally got straight when it comes to release schedule. Imperial Service was practically full, Corregidor, NCA and more. Bakunin Got some resculpts and BAM! We're back to square one. Other stuff cut Bakunin's comeback short. Since then release schedule is an utter mess. I just gave up. Lately don't even overkill purchases as I used to (3x everything for my army). I just wait and purchase moderate quantities in larger batches once there are more boxes/blisters introduced. Easier to prep and paint in batches anyway, I have time to think about what I really need... My wallet approves this.
