My point, which really should have been quite clear, is that Shock Army was the first to get shelved and we have seen zero movement or indication of anything coming for any of the sectorials that have been shelved outside of Shasvastii. Hence, Shasvastii are a fluke.
To be fair, it’s not atypical to consider deviations from one’s narrative as flukes. Anyway, I did in fact win an escalation, tactical window, tournament that had show of force as the last mission. I won with an Anaconda against Shas. Also, I’m currently using MRRF in the Dogfinity TTS tournament. Won first round 9-0. Lost second round 0-8. So..... middling? That said, they will not be playable for one and a half ish months. Bostria has also implied that there will be a substantial Kosmoflot drop of minis around Christmas. Additionally, he strongly implied next summer’s C1 two player box would be Nomads vs Ariadna. My guess is that will be when the MRRF reboot drops in earnest.
And my point is, that Acon didn't need any movement on CB's part, until now. FRRM is in more dire need of rework, but still needs it less than Shasvastii did - and it's possible that CB simply didn't have a good idea what to do with the French. And if so, I'd prefer to see them benched until they can be done right, than get some half-assed job. Again, I'd prefer to see them reworked rather than getting Kosmofłot - I'm on a fence whether I like the new sectorial or not - but I see no reason to say that SEF was a fluke, and the other benched sectorials are doomed. edit: @McKaptain it would be nice to get FRRM as C1's Ariadna representation, but it'll likely be TAK - Coldfront and Beyond Coldfront boxes combined.
You can at least expect new sculpts for Mirage-5 and Paracommandos in Kosmoflot, so that's something.
Depends on what you consider "dead". They were playable in N3. They even got a few buff with mixte moblot / metro / alguacil FT, Knauf, 112 on bike and Anaconda HMG. They promissed they will be playable in N4 (except for a few months between septembre 2020 and january 2021). We can expect some change on the Para-Commando and Mirage 5 profils as they are in Kosmoflot (and probably a resculpt). They are not considered an easy faction as Varuna / Aleph or newer sectorials. But they still win some tournaments. These are the facts. Now you can decided if that's "dead" or not from your perspective.
No, TAK action pack is an october release. Code One 2021 will be Kosmoflot vs Corregidor, as 2020 was Svalarheima Vs White Banner
You seem like a pleasant person to interact with. The faction isn't dead. The list will come in november.
Criticism isn't exactly unhelpful by default. But what do you want to replace the current release model with? GW style crapping out a rework every 2 two years so you never know if your Faction will suck or not for extended periods of time? Regarding to Shock army, sure they're benched. But we're still talking about the best PanO Sectorial, the best and prettiest TAG, the best PanO Linetrooper and access to more fun tools via Aleph loaners that any other two PanO Sectorials combined, not to mention the only dude with Smoke in the entirety of PanO. I don't want a rework that ruins my perfectly playable and fun Sectorial. I don't want new troops for the sake of new troops shat in there either. PanO LI, MI and HI is supremely easy to proxy, so what am I losing by not getting updated? MRRF sure, those guys could use a full rework. But with CB's current design quality it's a 50/50 for botched cosmetic upgrade vs turning them into a top 5 Sectorial... eh, at least they still have character at this point. Still don't understand how the NA2 Merc Factions other than Druze are a real thing. Basically all of them are a slightly different but better take on an existing Faction Sectorial. What I really don't want is a Sectorial that will then serve as the base for Mercs using the same core troops better. At least Kosmoflot is Ariadna instead of NA2.
MRRF is the faction that got me into Infinity Mid-N3, right before it was going OOP. As Marduck said, it's not an easy faction to play with, I think mostly due to lack of tools. I was hoping for a rerelease for N4, but Kosmoflot was annonced instead. To me, it wouldn't make sense for CB to release 2 Ariadna sectorials in two years (Kosmoflot 2020-2021 and MRRF rework 2021). And getting MRRF up to speed with the november Army release would also be weird. Why would they give MRRF a dust off at the risk of unbalancing Vanilla with good profiles and OOP minis that you can't buy ? MRRF is not dead as it's still playable but Kosmoflot got it's spotlight and I'm not expecting CB to rework it for at least 4/5 years. I'm expecting it to just sit on the bench and watch all the other factions get some love and shiny new toys while stuck with an awkward N2-N3 army list. But hey, if they do rework it, I'll be the first to rejoice !
Was Shas actually really shelved? I know they did not get rules updates for a long time but i remember buying some of the old models i wanted before the rework hit. I remember them being in the store.
Yeah, claiming that Shock Army needed some kind of help is what happens when non-players try and make points towards things they're ignorant about. In particular, Shock got all the help they needed when they received access to Dart, mixed links, etc. Shock could be brought back exactly as it is, and be one of the best playable forces in the game (unlike all other retired/benched Sectorials.) CB's priority for Shock will probably be making them more appealing from a retail/consumer perspective, since they weren't generating the sale numbers required to keep them in the mix.
I'm not sure if they were actually put oop, but I don't think so. They were simply left mostly unchanged from N2 to their rework. Could be played during that time, but were definitely hard mode. Stores could have old stock of them, regardless if they were produced.
Shas and FRRM were both dropped from HSN3 and only received a cursory update electronic only update. FRRM then got most of it's SKUs discontinued in June 2018 with the De Hell Merovingia narrative pack and Fireteams update. Shasvastii didn't really have a single big wave of discontinued SKUs, though most dropped from the catalogue between their rules update in Daddy's Fall and the start of their model revamp with Operation Wildfire in 2019.
Thanks for clearing that up. I always thought Shas at least weren't oop for a long time. I miss quite some differences between book vs electronic updates because i skip quite a few books in Infinity.
The more they think Kosmoflot is a "fail", the more I like Kosmoflot and since they don't get what they want, they will continue to badmouth it. This is what I think.
List means basically nothing if people can't buy the faction outside of second hand. Proxying isn't really a solution either, not if the design aesthetic or art for the faction is what appealed to someone. For the record, the claim about Shock Army on my end has always been the same as Merovingia: that the models being unavailable for sale equates to the faction being dead. Sure, secondhand and proxy exists...but it's not a solution nor is it beneficial for the game's image. I very rarely will talk about game balance outside of my dislike of the excessively prohibitive Link Team 'caps' and the rare if nonexistent backdating of new skills. Maybe if they hadn't done such a ridiculous setup for the faction there wouldn't have been such an issue? They had a gorgeous starter set for Shock Army that was hampered by its excessive SWC and lack of logical methods to the madness there. They had a gorgeous 'alternate starter' in the form of Bagh-Mari. The Tikbalang was problematic for the same reason the Uhlan was: it bundled two entirely different Sectorials with basically nonexistent crossover into one fairly expensive box. Then there was the 'promised'(kinda/sorta, I guess?) Regular Hacker blister with Fast Panda that never materialized. Instead, the SAA starter got removed from sale. That's also not getting into the models that never saw any updates or releases. I wanted Shock Army to be a thing. But that starter immediately killed my interest. It was the Sapper(Sniper), Spitfire, and two more Regulars plus a Knight(CR+LGL if I remember right?) and a really nice Akali Hacker model. It was bloated with SWC options and few of them really amounted to much. I want Merovingia to be a thing. I want Corvus Belli to get things right. I'm well aware of being hypercritical(sometimes to the point of hypocrisy) of CB, but it's not like I don't have a good reason to be. Every time they complain about SKUs, I will come here and stir shit up about "insert extra options or models into the boxes then". Every time they say they need to 'retire' a faction for a new one, I will absolutely be right here pointing out that they already had lore in place building towards these things. Kosmoflot is a wonderful example of "why the hell did we need this?" when they made a big hooplah about Haqqislam and the Nomad Nation starting to push for O-12 to recognize Merovingia as well as Tartary. They made a big hooplah about Merovingians training Caledonians as part of the Ariadnan Expeditionary Force. Bringing the AEF in as a Sectorial? It would have been a much better concept than what Kosmoflot has been discussed as thus far. It really does just seem that Kosmoflot is an excuse to have sphess-suits on Russians.
