Honestly, it has become incredibly frustrating how uncommunicative Corvus Belli has been about the cuts to factions and miniatures. How are we to know Varuna is selling so poorly that I shouldn't have bought the models because they need to be replaced by Kestrel? When the store was constantly moving items to "Last Change to Buy" did we get communication why those items were gone? No, you just kind of had to accept that it was just being repacked into a different SKU. Unless it wasn't, like Spiral Corps, or you can still buy it, like Varuna or Achilles. I understand the business needs of Corvus Belli and I definitely want them to succeed. I also well aware of the super generous proxy rules. But how many proxy does one person need? Would it make more sense to only buy factions that are clearly super popular and then just proxy the less popular ones? Would I have done better to just use my Shas as Spiral Corps? If a new player would were to ask me about the new battle box, I would feel uncomfortable if I didn't warn them about how much of a better value the JSA half will likely be. Even if they didn't have all the baggage a long time player has, I feel it would be important to let them know that the JSA half is likely to be much more popular and there for receive much more support. Pan-o players at this point have a sea of proxies and two very recent sectorials in the extremely popular MO and the seemingly popular Winter For that recently had it's last few missing units get gorgeous new sculpts and packs to buy. That is a lot of headwinds against Kestrel sales-wise and if they do not sell well enough, they might not receive a fully sculpted range, new profiles in the future, or even rules in a theoretical N6. For established players like myself this lack of communication about when the rest of a sectorial will sculpted (like say White Banner) causes two issues: 1) If I want to play this secotiral now, I need to proxy, and I will. Eventually hype will die down and when a long awaited Ye Mao box comes out, at this point I don't think I really care anymore. Whereas I would have scooped that in the first 3 months of after Operation Storm, 2) If profile or sectorial comes out that is obviously weak to the point of un-playablility, buying it in hopes CB will be able to make it playable with a future update is now more of a gamble than it seemed. If people aren't taking that profile or sectorial Corvus Belli may just write it off entirely. 2B) Just a special shout out to a really weird situation that can happen here like Achilles. He was very unpopular after the SP rework because, well, he literally doesn't do anything in SP he can't do better in Vanilla Alpeh. I think most everyone assumed that CB would read that as "We should touch up Achilles, the face of Steel Phalanx, so he makes sense in SP". Same goes for most of the Shas models with an even bigger caveat that they also appear in Onyx as well. I hope it's clear, and I will reiterate here: I want Corvus Belli and Infinity the Game to do well. I understand cuts have to be made and you can't keep selling something people don't want. But also keep in mind the trust that people put into you when they buy your models. People trust that the money, time and they pour into Infinity will be supported by the company for some time. As someone who bought heavily into Infifnity and owns so many of the miniatures that will now exist not even in rules, I feel somewhat foolish for buying anything that wasn't an auto-include. ***For anyone who replies 'it's just toy soliders' or something to that effect. You will be ignored out of hand. This is a small company selling a niche game in and already small and niche industry. They live and die by our passion and word of mouth. They want us to be care and to feel confident spending money on them. I think being more open and honest about what you are selling, when, and if it's going to be supported for long are things that can only help.
The amount of proposed Kestrel units ALREADY on the second hand market around me is insane... It looks like people will only buy the box for JSA units. I won't be surprised that Kestrel half will end up selling as low as 40$, or selling just the key pieces (like Black AIR or Griffin) if they really want to be got rid of. But while the core rules seems updated in a great way regarding N5, the choice of sectorials/minis who live or die is still open to the usual weirdness of CB choices, since it bears no logic, both lore-wise or marketing-wise (I would love to be proven wrong, but I know I won't be). For instance I'm a Pano player since 2016. I have more than full AVA SAA and more than Full AVA MO, due to the changes over N3 and N4. And by even dodging to buy in Varuna and Sval, I still have more than enough to play whatever I want in these sectorials if I wanted to with proxy. Same for NCA or Kestrel already. I just buy new Pano minis these days just because I like their sculpt, not because I'll play them anyway (mostly because outside MO, Pano is dead design-wise since O-12 released). On the marketing side of things, I still wonder which is the logic of removing complete still on shelves most played sectorial of a faction (Varuna), but keeping full/half OOP sectoirals of your roster (QK, USARF). I can get why for Tohaa, because you need at least them, if not Spiral, to let people part take in events. But same things for NA-2: why Keep Ikari or WhiteCo when you can already play those two when they're already playable without almost any proxies as White Banner, Sval, or JSA/Oban? Keeping WhiteCo for instance would have been a great time to ditch out White Banner (and introduce a Korean sectorial to make up for it) and let vanilla YJ leaning onto "lesser" White Banner as a roster. Same for vpano with ditching out Sval, keeping Varuna and making vpano a Sval equivalent (which is it already). And let's not even speak about Ariadna which is locked with 50 shades of Space TAK atm if they want to play a supported sectorial.
I'll be getting the Sandtrap box on my own, and I'm just interested in the JSA half (plus Yamabushi). The PanO half will be reselled or, must probably, just forgotten inside some drawer.
I won't lie that once I knew JSA was featured in Sandtrap I knew it will be a instant-buy for me. But then I saw the Kestrel miniatures and fell in love with them, so now I am also aboard the Kestrel company and expanding my Pano collection from just SWF into Kestrel as well. I am surprised so many people are re-selling them already. Maybe non MO Pano is not as popular?
Well, I must say I don't, currently, have an active PanO player in my local meta. There have been a couple over the years - mostly MO - but they flaked off, or - in one case - eventually switched tot other armies and got rid of the PanO. We'll see if that will change in N5. It is not a big meta, true (add to that it got badly hit by the Covid flop), but maybe - I hope - it will grow witn N5.
About Varuna, I expected it to be removed when they announced KCF. It is the oldest sectorial of the active ones and it doesn't have Action Pack. I'm also expecting the Code One Alpha/Beta packs to be removed as they contain miniatures from units that will not be playable anymore as it (Akali and Kamau). Other miniatures may be shuffled into "Essential" packs if they paid for themselves. QK was one of the surprise, as I didn't expected it to make the cut except for the reinforcement troops. But without Haqqislam in the lore book, that means the latter focus on this faction will be for QK rework. As is seems CB aim for 3 sectorials when possible, USARF was also a logical choice to keep. The sectorial is at the current level of packaging and MRRF and CAF are already out of catalogue. Question is: will it have a rework latter or is it a placeholder for a future new sectorial?. Ditching White Banner was never an option in my mind. It's the lattest Yu Jing sectorial. Now it even have new troops added. Unless the fluff evolve, there is few chances to see any "national" sectorial in Yu Jing anymore. The JSA was the exception, and the Uprising make realise the Party it was not a good idea, reason why Korean troops are integrated in bigger structures that are not pureley Korean. About the NA2, they were all dead in my mind, so seeing four of them is also a surprise. I'm waiting to see what's inside. All in all, I'm not especialy "badly" surprised by the N5 roster of sectorials as I was expecting more cuts. In a close future, Onyx will have a rework, ISS will have a rework, it seems TAK and Tunguska will have a soft rework. In a less close future, it seems QK will have a rework and ASS too (just by the removal of the A-team members). That's something CB acknoledged and Bostria said several times one of N5 job is to deliver "full" sectorial faster, taking Bakunin as example. He also said the problem of that is, once the sectorail is "done" that means no more release to be expected for it. N5 will rework profiles. Things about profiles is, it happens a weak unit for one can be an interesting unit for someone else and people feeling about profiles is strongly affected by their local meta. Carlos also told several times they are watching the competitive scene to see if units are considered strong or weak, so they can adjust it. First, I'm a customer like you, it's not just toy soldiers as it's a time and money investment. But I think that CB, like any other company, is master of their commercial decisions, and don't have to justify themselves to us (we are not stockholders). It's their business, they live from it, so I'm confident they take the decisions that are the best for them and communicate what they think is the best for them. I'm pretty sure they also have to take decisions they don't like themselves but are necessary to the company. Will some of those decisions not please me? Yes, sure. Would I like more view about what is happening? Yes, sure. But at the end of the day, it's a hobby for me so I don't have to be in the loop. What do you consider a long time for support? MRRF, CHA, NCA, SAA appeared at the release of Human Sphere N2 (when was it? 2009 or 2010?) and they were supported (with rules) until N5, so almost 15 years. MRRF lost most of their miniatures first (it was one of the first sectorial put in the fridge, if not the first) but was still supported with rules. I don't have example on top of my head, but I'm sure we can find specific troops with a shorter time of support, but this time should still be several years. Of course, when an existing sectorial is several years old and you want to advise a potential player about it, you have to make them aware of that. Maybe the sectorial will finish in the fridge, or maybe it will have a rework. At some point, if there is no more miniatures to sell, it can be better to stop the support for the seek of visibility. People entering the game, seeing SAA and wanting to play it would not understand why the miniatures are not sold by CB. This is a balance between "veterans" and new comers that as to be achieved, and one that can't please everybody. Sorry, this message is a bit long (I had to make something else in between) and I'm not sure to still be on topic regarding your concerns. All I can say is I understand your feeling, but I also understand why CB do the thing as they do (I don't say I agree with it, but I understand it). I'm in Infinity since day one (even before N1 rules book was released and you had a little booklet to play), I've owned almost all miniatures, had to sell a big bunch of them because real life sucks sometimes, so I've seen a lot of miniatures come and go, units change, rules change... So, maybe you can call me blasé xD (I don't think this is the case though, if I was blasé I wouldn't be here twenty years latter :) ) I'm taking N5 as another of those changes without overthinking about what happen "behind the scene". CB will do what is good for them as a company, and as long as it works we will continue to have rules and miniatures. If something do not please me, I just go on my way and take only what I like. I also want to stress that even if your miniatures have no more rules, they still have value. You can use them as proxy for Infinity of course, but also in several SF miniature agnostic games. They are heirlooms you can pass down to generations, or you can even melt them to do something else. And now, I'm sure I rambled about a lot of things and didn't really added to the conversation, sorry.
As a pre-spiral tohaa player and a pre-rebellion(whatever it was called) Yujing player with many JSA units, I've made my peace with how CB makes decisions and now I just buy whatever models Ilike regardless of faction and play whatever army I want with them. 100% invincible units as torchlight? sure. Korean reinforcements as JSA? sounds fun. Random morat and ariadna units as monks? awesome.
I once knew a guy who loved the feeling of being hyped up about new miniatures being showcased and released, planning his purchases, and getting the "hit" of receiving some new boxes in the mail. He didn't play the wargame, he didn't paint the miniatures--he didn't even open the boxes. They just piled up in his room, and he'd buy more and more boxes. The hobby was just collecting the miniatures. Not using them, just collecting them. Imagine having that kind of customer.
I think the basic problem, for me, is that CB's gone down the 'forcing' players to buy new sectorials, rather than 'encouraging' them to as they always previously used to. That's the issue. They'd already made a nice division in Army, with "out of catalogue" factions clearly marked. If they'd have ported them across with the minimum of changes, and so left them a bit behind the curve, no one would have really blinked. It's the decision not to do that, to wipe them, that is a bit "enshittified". It would have been very little work; new players would know to steer clear of them; old players could have still brough them out from time to time; their owners would still be buying the new stuff because it's awesome and new and exciting. Instead they deleted them, which is a new development; yes, JSA became their own faction, but the models , identities and paintjobs you'd already invested were still available to you as a player. This is something new, and it's on eight times the scale of uprising. (Also Uprising was narrative-driven and interesting, this is just taking your dogs out the back and shooting them in service of a business strategy.) So yes, it's an issue that CB have decided to can 8 armies, but it's just as much an issue that CB has adopted this strategy; it is a sea change in how they view their back catalogue and their players, and I don't see how any player could really see it as a good thing.
If tomorrow Starmada is “canned” but I can play every single “True Starmada” profile such as Bronzes, Nyokas, Sarkos, Crushers, Bluecoats, Lawkeeper, Psi-cops, Roadbots and Raptors in Generic O-12… I wouldn’t mind a bit. Even if there happens to be, for example, a “Crusher 2.0” with a different name but that happens to be a perfect suits-as-such-model-perfectly. As my ‘army’ in the sense of miniatures are still valid. I only need to field them as generic o-12 army chart instead of Starmada army chart. And this is what has happened to Varuna, Neoterra and Merovingia. And in a sense Acontecimiento have got a heavy re-skin and turn out as Kestrel, just look at the profiles. And the mercenary armies are either going to be re-integrated in the Hyperpower natural Sectorials, or still can be used. Honestly, only Caledonia is in a bad spot “start of N5” sense
Auld Alliance will be a great idea, but with no indication of happening. The problem in the PanO case is that in vanilla they play differently, not all of them are still valid, and for a good army, you will actually need to buy new ones too. Add to that the fact that many people enjoy the fluff of certain armies and have painted and/or played them accordingly.
Given the new FireTeam Rules no longer favoring 5 man cores and moving the power to 2 man or 3 man units I faill to see how much different a theorical "true" Varuna or Neoterra N5 list would be build in comparision with the current N5 Generic Pano chart option. If you're Varuna, your MVS2 sniper Kamau would have surely be linked along two fusiliers or duo'ed with another Kamau, and you only need to put your kamau miniature as a Nisse in the same situation to achieve that. Your Echo-bravo is now a Banshee. Apart from that you have everything else already there. If you're NeoTerra your Bolts would have been in a Duo or Haris for the same reason and you can field them directly, your Hexas have now specialized into three different profiles, your Auxilias have learn the ways of SWC weaponry for their Auxbots as Drummers. You have the rest there
Vanilla gets one haris. And your only haris in N5 vanilla team based on Varuna will be the Kamau sniper and two fusiliers?
Would you make a better Haris in 'true' Varuna? Is your objective be able to replicate a 'true' Varuna list in Generic Pano or to make the most efficient and optimal Generic Pano list?
We're still in wait-and-see for Neoterra. If Bolts keep their Marksmanship and the sniper keeps her MSV a Haris may still be one of the deadliest hard AROs in the game, but we're yet to see how Blinks or Fireflies work (largely, whether they can replace the cheap defensive/Hacking threat of a Hexa) and if Drummers are too expensive, lack Specialist options, or lack DTWs, then they can't fully replace Auxilia. And the Squalo MK2 is a short insult to the good name of Squalo. While the Cutter statline may be more fitting of the MK1's dominant potential, it violates tradition and is the only S7 available.
Absolutely agree here. The lack of available information for how the other units work makes it very difficult to see how they’d replace units that are no longer there. Guess we’ll have to wait until November… which makes for a busy month of waiting for stuff over for me. Also, whilst I like the Mk.2 it is indeed a short insult to the good name of Squalo and that’s a hill I’m prepared to die on.
