Elephant in the room...

It's certainly feasible that they'll go away. From CB's perspective, it resolves the issue of having a Sectorial that isn't really supported by a miniature line.

That being said, we don't know how much each army will change. The redesign of N4 armies/units may not require that much time/effort, and if that's the case, it's possible that Shock could get a rules update. I actually think that creating a "beginner friendly" ruleset might help Shock stick around. We know the Beginner Rules won't include any Sectorials... It'll be Vanilla only... So it would be very easy to keep Shock as a Sectorial army in the version of the rules that intended for more advanced players.

I have mixed feelings on the issue myself. I recognize how awkward it is to have a Sectorial full of units, when you're not selling the minis. But I also think Shock is a very iconic PanO Sectorial, helps put the -Oceania in PanO, and is also great to play (they carried me to top table at one of this weekend's Satellite events.) I'd like for them to stay.

 

I'd be surprised if much of SAA makes it into Code1, but I'd be equally surprised if they canned it from N4.

 

SAA were already killed off fluff wise 15 month ago when they retired the miniature line (with a mission pack explaining how they got completely annihilated). Having the story move forward can only mean to not convert their stat to N4. When they removed SAA, players were worried they'd go away like the weird CA aliens. CB said don't worry they'll still be legal and they expanded the proxy rules (allows new SAA players to use replacement models instead of hunting for the discontinued ones). When it happened, I did say they can still be deleted by simply not recreating their stats in the next version, just like the aliens were removed from HS to N3. I still wholly believe that they'll permanently delete SAA (to prevent vanilla PanO from becoming too big). Maybe they'll perma-ban the others benched sectorials like MRRF that (like SAA) got a parting gift before being benched.

 

oops got mixed up. it is MRRF in june 2018 that a got a mission and fluff on how they got removed.
"Nevertheless, the huge Merovingian loss of lives and valuables in this battle would leave the FRRM severely weakened; it was a severe blow from which it would take a long time to recover."
Well, I guess it is not too dire. After a long time, in N4, they could have re-growned to be a sectorial force.

 

If they do this it leaves an incredibly bad taste in my mouth, even now many people I know go hunting for ASA models to play them and they remain the favorite sectorial for a number of my mate. Removing them even as a legacy army would strike a note that I thoroughly dislike.

 

@daboarder
I don't want to see it happen either. Both from a playstyle perspective and a lore perspective, Acon occupies a really important, unique niche for PanO. They form an important part of PanO's cultural identity, and they're a joy to play.

 

I fear that our Teutonic knights get overwhelmed too.

 

I wouldnt, not with them being given the role of the linkable gun in a magister link

 

If they remove acon and mrrf, they can easily remove qk, neoterra and all other armies not in production.
I hope cb will remove some profiles that are barely used or that haven't minis at all
From my point of view, removing sectorial is really an ugly move

 

I highly doubt they will completely remove the sectorials. They haven't done so yet so I don't think there is any reason to believe they will do so or panic. I wouldn't be surprised if we lose some characters like Singh and Rao like we lost Toni. I also wouldn't be surprised to see the teutons go and probably some other units from different factions that haven't gotten any love. I can't imagine a scenario where it's a net positive to completely axe sectorials from the game. They said in the videos today that the change from n3-n4 isn't going to be a huge rework. It sounds like they're just cleaning the game up. So it doesn't sound like it would be that hard to update the rules.

 

I doubt any sectorial full vanishes, but losing some unit is certainly possible. I could see some tweaks to AVA, and maybe a final sculpt or two for NCA as a parting gift (MMR Locust, please...).

 

Singh, koths, father knight, teutone, akalis, Locust, montesa knight.
All these units have old sculpt or a single Sculpt or are out of. Productions

 

FKs and Sikhs both have two current models in production.

 

Well with icestorm replaced by sval vs wb, fk and akal will have only one model producted

 

When I heard the news my first thought was that Singh is doomed :-D
Auxilia maybe, since they are removing NCA next anyway, tho I think they are kinda iconic unit for NCA. Same could be said for Guarda de Assaulto, can't have that nasty smoke in PanO.
Cube Jager is crap, I wouldn't mind seeing him disappear completely from the game.
Taquel officer, both never had a model and pretty useless anyway. Chaksa Longarms should follow, if they don't plan on fixing that unit.
Voronin because they will ( hopefully ) finally get smart and remove that stupid Guard rule from the game. Andromeda - same reason.
In general I think lots of characters will be gone, from the videos I kinda got the feeling timeline will advance double digit amount of years, so characters can both die of old age or get MIA/KIA. Except ALEPH ones, they are basically immortal and also integral in Steel Phalanx so I think they are pretty safe.
I would be royally pissed if they removed entire sectorials from the game, for whatever reason.

 

Yeah, get rid of guard... *looks at Alpha*