What's your opinion about CB's way of dealing with FRRM/ASA?

I understand the need to reduce SKU’s and trying to keep to 3 sectorials for each main army, of all the PanO sectorials a temporary mothball of ASA leads to the least number of SKU’s being withdrawn as many of their units are either multi sectorial (Montessa Knights, Akalis), multi faction (the Aleph Units) or come as part of a bundled set (Tik and Ulhans)

My only issue right now is with how the announcement was handled.

The info was partially leaked by distributors and retailers without any context and lacking the additional information about the updates to the unit profiles and lists. This lead to wild speculation and all sorts of negative behaviour on the forums and Facebook.

The worst thing is that it was CB’s fault for not stipulating to the retailers and distributors not to publish the information, it was a avoidable situation.

The FRMF announcement was handled far better and I though that the days of detrimental leaks like this and poor communication were behind us. That’s the source of my disappointment now.

 

I had about two seconds of indignation at the MRRF announcement before I realised they also got a profile re balance and weren't being removed from generic. I was then actually rather happy.

 

I don't really know. MRRF made total sense. SAA doesn't to me.

 

It's complicated. Cause I don't play either of them, I can't say, that's all fine. I understand, why the are removing old models from the sortiment to make room for new things.
For the most player, it will be irrelevant, if the models will be in stock any longer. Most of them will have their units they will need at home and therefore, there's no difference then to not getting new sculpts.
And that the sectorials get a slighter adjustment is a nice gesture for the player.

 

I think SAA may make sense in the future. If they did sift through the criticism of Uprising, instead of rejecting it all, this might hint that a serious event is happening to SAA and CB are preparing by eliminating potential consumer misdirection ahead of time this time around.

Whether this means SAA is directly involved in the big N next year I don't know, but I think so, or if they're just putting the sectorial on hold, justifying the recent sculpts with the sectorial being popular even if it's not going anywhere in the nearish future... we'll see?

 

I'm conflicted.

First, as an ASA player new profiles and updates are good. I'm looking forward to seeing what gets tweaked, since I feel like little has happened to them, including the transition from N2-N3.

Second, having your army be no longer produced sounds like it's a step or two away from being eliminated months or years from now. CB is always going to have to have the new thing they're releasing, and releasing an army that is still around, but isn't produced isn't as exciting as one that's completely new.

Third, I'm a bit confused because I feel like ASA just got a lot of new models, while other ranges have been relatively untouched. Why not mothball NCA? They're pretty much the least interesting PanO sectorial, mostly consisting of a Fusie link, multiples of things you would only take one of, and a couple of random Aleph models. The Auxilia are their Total, but are nolonger worth taking more than 2. The few new models they've gotten are models that are not unique to them, but shared with other sectorials, unlike the Bagh Mari or the Regulars.

 

I'm not an ASA or FRRM player per se, just have vanilla Ariadna (now TAK! WOO!) and NCA. I am considering getting into FRRM in the future though

I understand what is being done and why, and don't have a problem with it

But I do agree with some in the forums that better communication would be appreciated in the future

 

I play both MRRF (rarely) and SAA (frequently).

From a business perspective, both made sense. Resculpting the entire MRRF range would have been exhausting and, given the poor sales, likely not lucrative. ASA is in a weird position where updating the entire range would require resculpting their TAG along with releasing more of their core troopers (Regular Regulars, since the Starter is almost all SWC models) and some HI (Guarda mainly, but also Montessa).

From a gaming perspective, I can't fault them either and I'd expect QK to get the same treatment. QK has been considered a "finished" sectorial for a while. This move isn't going to hurt new players, especially since CB updated their official proxy rules to be far more permissive. If anything, QK would benefit from this treatment since it hasn't been updated in quite a while.

My summary on their logic is this - This move is simply about transparency. They could have done the same thing without telling anybody (by simply not releasing resculpts), but then everyone would be anticipating resculpted models. This way, you can grab the minis you want while they're still in production. Personally, I like this move a lot. It permits CB to introduce more new sectorials while not having to maintain SKUs for the old ones.

 

The initial numbers are very impressive actually. Talk about your vocal minority.

As an MRRF player, I was very pleased with the changes. They inspired me to get my old minis off the shelf and get them back on the table again.

As a very avid ITS Acon player, I'm excited for possible updates.

I'm a little sad because I love Acon as PanO's versatile, scrappy, blue-collar force. It's unfortunate to me that the community never embraced them as being the amazing, versatile force I believe them to be.

But I know that Acon players who love their force really love them. In some ways, it will be fun for one of Infinity's best-kept secrets to become even more inaccessible... Like an elite force.

And I'm sure glad I've owned my collection since release... The community rush to scrape together Acon's existing retail inventory has been frantic.

 

If I would own one of the sectorials, I would be happy, but from new/expanding player perspective this is bad. Finding out great miniatures and rules just to find out later that they are no longer produced. I wish they had option to special order them from the store.

 

Speaking as an FRRM player (and a SEF player...), what they've done is a lot nicer than just letting the faction gather dust for years untouched and unmentioned.

 

The only problem is retailers leaking information before CB get a word in - something to take note of for future changes; they really need to be ahead of the curve and announce stuff themselves.

Regarding the boxing of the existing Shock Army portfolio - *shrug*. It has given me the motivation to grab the boxes I want before they're gone... But for all those arguing that "It'll suck for new players who want to try them" -

Fusiliers - Regulars
Bolts - Bagh Mari
Squalo - Dragao
Conversions - Singh and Rao

Hell, it even opens up the floor a bit more for people to make up their list as a Merc faction, because they are less tied down to an existing model line or player's expectations to conform to them.

 

I don't play Shock Army of Acontecimento (SAA), but I don't like a sectorial getting mothballed period.

 

Honestly, I think they're treading some risky ground. This approach to it, while not correcting other issues that contribute to their SKU bloat, well, I think it's got a strong risk of backfiring. Can we truly advocate entering the game to a newbie when the sectorial they pick might be next? Combined with CB honestly not having the most reassuring delivery of info this year, and holding cards a bit too close to their chests for no real gain, well, my concern is people not upset now may find those straws pile up.

That said, I'm still making jokes about it, I mean, it's not like I accidentally did a prescient one a few days before the news dropped.

Ah, bugger.

And to divert again to serious, well, the joke was Qapu was next, but now, it's causing paranoia. People also seem to bring up Corrigedor, a rather baffling one if you ask me given they're fairly popular and fairly updated (Acon's lack of apparent sales and mostly older range two of the guessed reasons as to why they and not better-selling Neoterra and MO got the axe to make room for Varuna...) but then again, everyone's scratching their heads at minis out barely a couple years being retired or hiatus'd. Two other problems with CJC though - what the hell even comes that means more room is needed in Nomad Land, and StarCo uses a number of (admittedly newer) CJC minis... so if anything happens there, it's maybe just gonna be older CJC stuff taken off production with little fanfare and no update/fluff excuse.

One other issue that may arise wider: Personally, I get the perception [tinfoilhat] that the CA are gonna be largely immune to this, Tohaa too simply through size. Some CA units may need pruned to get 50 SKUs, but I doubt they'll see whole sectorials benched any time soon, myself. Fluff writes them nigh-invincible after all. And my concern is Acon's in-universe reasons for "exploding"/having reduced numbers is gonna be yet another CA related mauling, with the aliens being foiled a little bit, but the "brave defenders of mankind" suffering an extremely Pyrrhic victory just like the FRRM did.

[/tinfoilhat]​

I mean, sure, maybe it's something else, like an asteroid hits the planet devastating some of the farming/industrial/population centres and half the Acon force is sent home to help the disaster relief effort as well as maintain the vital supplies coming from the planet, or some kind of Yu-Jing sneaky retaliation by proxy for Operation Steal Your Waifus (or whatever PanO support for JSA was called) causing a considerable Atek civil disobedience/terrorist campaign requiring troops back home to protect against it. But we can only wait and see, and honestly, I'm not holding my breath for exceptional writing. Quality of fluff in general has been a little slapdash this year, not quite that campy pulp-vibe of the older stuff but downright "feels like bad fanfic" in places... especially with deploying Gratuitous Japanese in Uprising.

Oh, drat, forgot to order cheese with my whine. Still, washed away that salty taste a bit

 

My understanding of the situation is that they gave Warcors a heads up, so they weren't blindsided when an official statement was made... And it seems to have been instantly leaked. I don't really feel that's something you can blame them for. The purpose of the Warcors is (supposed to be) assisting with promoting the game and generating community - instead it has been turned to fearmongering and spreading negative hype.

 

So you think that the WarCors should be letting their community members buy into an army that might get dropped?

Anyways, I think this was absolutely horrendously managed. This whole year seems to have been lurching from one awful idea to the next and it all seems to come back to the fact that CB wants to stay small but they still want to keep trying for a seat at the big boy table.

 

Except that it isn't "being dropped" - the models are being put out of production... 2 months from now, if the news is correct. Hardly seems like the kind of thing to justify crapping all over the trust CB has placed in them. I, for one, am going to go and purchase these models precisely because of this announcement - so totes glad those Warcors sacrificed themselves on the altar of justice for that... [/sarcasm]

 

Fair point, but IMO they didn't learn the lesson that it's not so much the leaked news that's the issue, it's having countermeasures to that fear and negativity for if there is a leak. This time retailers were given a heads up, it leaked, and, well, here we are speculating and fretting without any actual official word from CB as of yet.

 

CB needs to take a nice and deep look at their PR department after this year. JSA Uprising leaks, Uprising PR itself, and now the Acon. leak before CB gets a word in.

MRRF was the only good PR thing (convention hype doesn't count) I saw from CB up to this point in the year. That's how you handle a sectorial going OOP and explaining everything.