You try to be funny but you are not. Where did I do a crusade? Where its "whiny"? Exaggorations again. If someone is on a then it seems to be you. Its your holy mission to N5 and the savior of this forum to fight every critic you are aware of. Sadly I have to admit that my time is to precious to "discuss" with you because you just ignore what other people write and keep on with your accusations. Yes I think it would be a good move from the CB to keep the profile from a given miniatur longer alive than 2-3 years - especialy if it is formerly announced as "exclusive". And yes you pay for the rules. It might by hard to understand for someone that do not allow any arguments but it goes like this: I sell product A for X and make some money. This money I will invest in product B and give it away with no charge at all. But you need B to use A and without selling A I can not give you B on its own because I will lack the money to pay my product B makers. So yes it appears to be free, but its not. Except when you use the rules without using Infinity models ... but then someone else is paying.
It is my belief that many people buy the miniatures for other games, specially RPG ones. Also, some of the Ariadnan units are quite usable in wargames with a military aesthetic from the late 80's to possibly even today. Also, many people who buy CB miniatures does so from different factions for whatever reason (I have models from every single faction... for example my Varangian Guards are the old Scots models from Caledonia, the Immortals homage) and/or collect more than one faction (again, for example I used to play Aleph, both vanilla and greeks, CA/Onyx, some nomads and tried O12/starmada). I think he mentions GW beacuse it's the most visible one. For good and bad, GW is the reference, and I've been saying for years that CB is following in some of their footsteps (which is a valid business strategy called "follow the leader", or at least it was 20 years ago...). The main problem is not really the production of the cards Vs miniatures, but that people devote time and effort (usually) to prepare and paint the models. This generates a bond with the physical product you don't get with cards even at the peak of the commitment effort (when you had to buy package after package, and track people who may have that card you wanted, while nowadays you can simply drop money and get all the cards you need for that deck). Secondary, but not less important problems, are that the income of a models company are the models. This means you can only grow by producing new models for your existing clients, or expand the client base (ideally both). Since you can't keep making new models infinitely (since you end up saturating the clients with multiple versions of the same troops, or sell the models to all the clients, or reach a poing in which you can't keep the range... not to mention adding new units means increasing balance complexity).
Probably because I don't try to be funny. Chill buddy, I'm not specifically speaking about you, now. And there are a thousand messages on the forum clearly showing it's not an exaggeration at all. Where am I whining? And what N5 holy mission? I'm not defending it at all cost, read me better. Timing and communication from CB are awful, even if I like a lot of the changes the powercreep and the feeling that they are not really "polishing the diamond" like they claimed pisses me off, I'm afraid that it will turn into a "first player wins" game, etc... I am not fighting every critic, I am fighting the ones that are based on thin air, in the best case. Similarly, I'm not ignoring what people are writing, just the arguments that I consider fallacious or wrong. Is it still allowed or do I have to consider and accept any whinery/fallacy just because someone wrote it, not to hurt any feeling? No, you're not buying rules, period. Repeat it again and again if you want, it doesn't change a thing. you're buying a mini in a box. Rules and profiles are provided for free. Your Raiden doesn't have a profile anymore? You can use it as a Ryuken and keep playing it. P.S: because your time is too precious to discuss with me, you won't answer this message, right? Good, it'll save my time as well from useless, sterile and endless "debates" like this one :) Strawman/overexageration. No one is saying "miniatures are irrelevant, let's play with wooden cubes and cardbord". We just say that that you shouldn't expect a company to provide rules for a mini they sold forever and that it's perfectly acceptable to proxy some stuff.
We know that this is true, because some of the CB on conventions have shared it. More "generic" models sell better, hence why more morats have helmets and why MO, Bakunin and JSA sell well - they have very obvious and coherent, even if generic concept. This is also why I don't quite understand the cut of MRRF and Caledonia, instead of making Auld Alliance for example and selling space highlanders. Again, however, we frustratingly don't know the exact share of this type of customers. What we do know is that another slice, that of pure miniature painters is probably not that big, because there isn't too much attention paid to them. Maybe the niche is small and the competition from even smaller companies (i.e. Adam Poots with his Kingdom Death) and solo sculptors makes it unappealing. The bond with the product is an interesting thing, because it is a blade that cuts both ways. On one hand, a customer is less likely to repurpose a miniature that has its own headcannon, on the other, he is going to be more pissed if you make it obsolete. We see it even in this thread. I've thought about that a few times and really don't know which way the effect eventually swings. Even metal has limited life. Miniatures get lost, broken and so on. And some people buy miniatures because they like working on them. Or because they collect them (not speaking about those people with the unopened boxes in Alaska, but yeah, they fit here too). Theoretically, if you have enough clients, this will sustain the line. The problem is, that not much companies have this amount of clients and those that do (i.e.GW, and yeah, I give examples with GW because everyone knows GW) also have investors, who would really really enjoy higher profits. Heck everybody loves higher profits. So trying to increase the rate with which customers buy miniatures is very tempting. We can easily claim that the existence of rules increases the value of the miniature for many (but not all) players.
They certainly do. Still, they are not sold with the miniature or even in a codex-like book. They are provided for free.
While we here on the forum love to use the models for the game Infinity, we are most likely the minority. People like the look of some Sci-Fi miniatures and are probably the biggest market. I remember the days when the Daktari Catgirl was one of CB's most popular models. I also come from the view that I use some proxies because I mostly get models based on looks. I love backstories for my models, so I sometimes use different models from the stock. For instance, In Haqqislam, My Libertos Profile was a Daylami Model, my Monstrucker was a Libertos Model, my Fiday was Avicenna model, my Djanbazan HMG was a Mormaer HMG model, and my Hakim was a Bashi Bazouks model. One of my favorite models is the Govad HMG, but I am still working on what to proxy it as (Maybe a Zhayedan HMG?) So while the rules may sell some models, I usually choose if I really like the model first.
I think this is a very interesting (and slightly philosophical) conversation ... Hurdle 2 is the $64,000 question. I thought CB had struck a reasonable balance in mid-N4 by labelling some sectorials as "Out of Catalogue" but leaving them as playable. They might have been shells of their former selves, but no miniature was invalidated. CB is toeing a dangerous line for a miniature company. To placate past customers (and avoid criticism), they've instituted a very generous proxy policy. That's not an ideal policy for the long-term health of their game or sales. If they alienate enough customers and then condition them to use non-standard miniatures ... I think this is the heart of the 'debate', as I've seen it. I don't think anyone expects the rules or profiles of the game to never change. The question is how long should a model/profile pair remain stable? I don't think this is a fair argument. While CB miniatures are generally very pretty, they're purchased as game pieces as part of our esoteric miniature wargaming hobby. They're marketed and sold as game pieces. I'm sure some folks buy models with no intention of ever using them in a game, but I'd wager the majority consider the model and its rules inextricably intertwined. Again, it's a question of degree. If everyone decided to use meeples instead of buying/using CB miniatures, the rules development would stop in short order—because the CB would cease production. CB needs to sell miniatures, and part of that involves not alienating its customer base by invalidating their purchases.
Bostria mentioned that they were looking into an MtG approach, where different cards are legal in different formats. This is a good idea, since it will allow them to have an ITS format, with the best-balanced and in-production sectorials and a legacy format, which can support narrative campaigns, non-ITS tournaments and games in the living room. However, there have been no words about that for a couple of months, so my guess is that the idea got scrapped along the way. Which is kind of questionable why, as it seems like the most nuanced approach.
That is still provided for free. That situation where everyone starts playing with meeples will never occur, that's why I'm talking about an exaggeration. People like miniatures. CB is making nice miniatures. That's it. And secondly, absolutely no purchase has ever been invalidated because CB has the most permissive proxy policy you could imagine. Anyone can still play with any CB mini he purchased.
CB makes great looking miniatures. Whether every (or even a majority) of those miniatures would have been purchased purely on the merits of their sculpts (without regard for their place in the game) seems exceedingly unlikely. I believe miniatures are purchased for a variety of reasons and that rules / game function is one of the most important. I agree that CB have a very permissive proxy policy. However, if they continue down the road of disassociating miniatures from the rules for which they were purchased and thereby sowing miniature identity uncertainty, the meeples-for-minis situation is the (extreme) result if followed to its natural conclusion. Effectively, people with entirely invalidated sectorials have been advised to proxy other sectorials. In some cases, there are some fairly obvious counts-as options (PanO Acon --> Kestrel), but something like my Caledonians don't have obvious analogs for which they can stand in. It's a loss of playstyle (rules/profiles) and a loss clarity in proxying. While you're correct that anyone owning miniatures in N4 doesn't suddenly lose said miniatures, I don't think it's correct to say that nothing was invalidated.
I can understand your point of view but we'll have to agree to disagree. To me, you cannot expect CB to maintain for ever thousands of profiles for every single miniature they ever produced. That's impossible. And by having a 100% tolerant policy on proxying, they make sure you can still use any miniature you bought. Sure, some things are easier to proxy than others but it's always possible. And again, what is CB supposed to do about that? If (let's say) Caledonians aren't selling anymore, why on Earth would CB keep spending money and ressources giving them updated rules, etc...? It's a company, they have a business to run, and they can't afford wasting too much ressources on such things.
"More nuanced" also means "more resource-intensive". Also, there's the reception to consider - change like that will generate some noticeable backlash, GW's Kill Team rotation can attest to that. GW decided they could live with that, CB migh've come to a different conclusion.
People buy miniatures because of the rules, it's absurd to argue all these loophole-technicality points against that. CB obviously knows as much, it's why they add really strong profiles for models from their kickstarter board games when they're trying to get backers, and generally why they go for power creep on rules for new models. It's a complete non-argument that rules aren't integral to model purchases.
The N5 launch today must be complemented with an Studio Update with ALL the comunication CB lacked since August. What is happening with the retired Sectorials? Will be the 3 Sectorials rule now immovable? Will new merc forces appear? (If you create a French/scot merc company (Varangian Company in the lore), Ariadna players will be less angry, could do the same with PanO) What can we expect in the future? Will CB keep online N4 resources? (Rules, army, troops...)
Of course players buy gaming miniatures in part for the rules. The point is that the age were you can expect to ”own” the rules indefinitely is gone. Nothing stops anyone from playing Caledonia or Varuna with N4 rules. There’s great community works surrounding ”dead” games like Confrontation, Netrunner or at one time Blood Bowl. Corvus Belli has one of the greatest track record in the business for keeping miniatures in play and relevant (on top of generous proxy rules). Just expect things to change and you’ll be alright.
Proxy rules are like the Declaration of 1789 before 1971, they're guidelines, and personally I've never seen anyone who gave a damn, if you want to proxy the Torchlight Brigade with ultramarines it's not CB who's going to come and break your knees with siocast ovens. Whether or not CB says in its rules that you can proxy, it only applies if someone wants to apply the rule.
Agree to disagree? Agreed. : ) Also agree that it's not an easy situation to untangle. It's the blessing/curse of success. A large SKU catalog of legacy miniatures is a testament to the longevity and success of CB. It also presents a conundrum of what to do with the older SKUs bloating the range. When CB refreshes a miniature with a new sculpt, (essentially) no one complains because it's a net wash/gain. When CB removes rules support for miniatures that's a different matter. It feels bad. There's not a clearly articulated 'official' policy on model/profile longevity. It gets back to a lack of communication to help temper expectations.
I don't see what are the significant resources involved. Even with the core N5 armies we see that many of them have been pretty much phoned-in, like Corregidor. Surely you can't physically spend much less resources on Varuna or StarCo than they have spent on CJC, especially given that an outside-of-ITS ruleset needs to be less balanced. And yeah the reception of this two-tier support would have surely been better than discontinuing. For the obvious reason, that everybody looses less.
My USARF are now on out-of-catalogue unannounced. How fun. Turning to Tohaa, I see they ignored my pleas to update vanilla to absorb the Spiral Corps units and i will be punished for supporting them. Kiutaan missing from Tohaa was not a typo, it's gone. Tagmaa AVA 1, Draal AVA 1, Kiel-saan AVA 2, Reex AVA 2, Kirrgel AVA 1. Oh and to show that they really thought hard about it and this isn't just a bunch of army errors, the Tagmaa and Draal are specifically excluded from having the (triad) keyword. The rich get richer as they say.
