Wild Speculation, is of course the best kind of speculation. Forgive me if this has been posted elsewhere and I missed it. I was thinking recently. (always a dangerous but sometimes unsuccessful pastime.) We know CB is wanting to streamline their production, fewer sku's, fewer products, less bloat. We have also seen them experimenting with mixed fireteams, with fireteams members being pulled from different groups. I feel fairly confident in predicting that eventually most, if not all sectorials will have access to mixed fireteams. I am wildly speculating that CB is making this adjustment to phase out unit SWC boxes. If your line troops can fireteam with HMG/Missle Launcher/Sniper Rifle troops, their need to have those options natively becomes much less. When was the last time you fielded an HMG line trooper that wasn't in a fireteam? If the necessary components to build a successful fireteam can be pulled from different troops, then not every troop type needs the full fireteam options. So what do you think? Am I on to something? Or do I have no idea what I am talking about?
I doubt they go away entirely. There are still reasons to field 5 Keisotsu in JSA even though there are Kempeitai with SWC options. There are still reasons to take 5 securitate in Tunguska even though you can have Grenzers in that link.
But I do see their point about the total number of SKUs. There's a LOT of minis in Infinity. It's not easy for a shop to keep an entire stock on the wall. Even for the shops that do keep such a big stock, you're probably going to see any given army sell once in six months or so with a thriving community. Someplace like where I am, there aren't enough people playing to make it worthwhile to keep Infinity models in stock. Japanese Secessionist Army only has 16 or so SKUs, and it's a pretty small sectorial. If you're aiming at 50 SKUs per faction, a faction with 4 sectorials can only afford 16 or 17 SKUs per sectorial.
Since it's been a while, I won't edit my previous post. If ~50 SKUs per faction means 4 sectorials each with 16 or 17 SKUs, 3 sectorials lets you have 19 SKUs each.
NA2 has the potential to bloat something fierce with a potential Triumvirate as a playable faction (the Tohaa responsible for Paradiso have been confirmed as not being Tohaa but (possible) future NA2), there is still a great risk that 50 won't cut it. Still, if this means Infinity moves away from Blisters and towards more functional boxes, that's good in my book.
Isn't Triumvirate largely supposed to be a mixing of currently existing units, much like Starco or Ikari? If so, it should be more-or-less SKU neutral. The only NA2 faction that has its own SKUs is JSA, the others are all amalgamations of other faction troops (so much so for Starco that the only thing I bought to play the faction on top of my Nomads was an Al'Hawwa blister and an Irmandinho blister). However, agreed on functional boxes: five- or six-model boxes with alternate arms for linkable options, and even three- or four-model boxes (or 2-model blisters with alt arms) for skirmishers would have me happily spending more on an individual box without an extra thought. For now, if I want to have a model for every Mobile Brigada profile (I'm a sick man, don't judge me), I have to either buy the Nomads starter again or use Shae's split service (which I've done). 50 SKUs per faction with larger boxes and alt arm options would be far, far easier to manage.
The rogue Tohaa faction that messed up humanity's first wormhole colonization mission? Maybe I've got the wrong faction name or you know more than I do.
I don't know what the source of the rumour was, but its not the first time I've heard that Triumvirate might be Tohaa+human mercs.... the Illuminati and their hired goons. Given the SKU problem, it wouldnt even be a terrible way for CB to go... take some room on the Tohaa side to add some new actual-Tohaa units that also appear in Triumvirate, human units are alreadfy in production for other armies. Plus you can lure players with those mercenary models into buying some of your artichoke aliens.
Yep, that's the one. I thought I remembered some rumor-mongering around here that they would be an NA2 faction, with some of the "bad" Tohaa units (like Sukuel, Kosuil, etc.) and a mix of human mercs they get to do dirty work. I don't know if there was ever any speciation what the mercs might be. If I remember right this was kinda old speculation - maybe a year or so ago when people were talking about it. If anyone else remembers please chime in.
Yeah, that singular event that: Stranded all the colonists on Dawn Led to the downfall of the USA and Eurozone, paving way for Pan O Led to the colonization of Bourak with the orphaned NASA personnel (hey Silk!) Probably caused the a lot of the economic turmoil that led to the Nomads to wander the void Throwing humanity in front of the Combine, ensuring hostile contact Led to a single surviving Coca Cola plant, and it's probably using high fructose corn syrup!
Yeah, the first few things we knew about the Triunvirate, a while ago, was that it would be Tohaa + Mercs. Then, months later (some Beast of War video), we were told thet the Kawaii Sentinels would be the spine of the Sectorial (some artist was working in ilustrations with the Sentinels on it). Later this year we learned that Triunvirate is now a NA2 army. So, all in all, we have no fucking idea what the hell Corvus is going to do with Tohaa.
Basically we need sectorials that share a few more common troops than just REMs, rather than the nomad "every force is a special snowflake" model. Onyx is kind of a great example of this working.
In fairness, with Nomads probably being capped at 3 sectorials, each can remain it's own specially crystallized self. It seems like other factions' sectorials are far more likely to share basic line infantry (Fusiliers, Ghulams, Zhanshi, etc.).
Zhanshi aren't shared in any YJ sectorials. The ISS line troop is a Celestial Guard and has AVA0 Zhanshi, and even when JSA was part of YJ it did not have Zhanshi. Zhanshi are the line troop in IA only, as far as we know.
I keep hearing people say "Triumvirate are going NA2" but I've never actually seen where it was actually said. Black Hand may be the Nomads mishmash/mixed bag sectorial, but due to basically being Vanilla with Sprinkles it might not ever happen. That said, other armies like that exist - but for far bigger factions (in fluff terms), EG Onyx.
They've been bandied about as possible line troops for IA (while I hope not personally, it may happen), and it wouldn't make any sense to use anything other than Zhanshi as basic light infantry for WB when it finally shows up. Even if Black Hand shows up as a sectorial, it's far more likely to be a mish-mash of existing Nomads profiles than anything new, so it'd still be SKU-neutral. That said, it seems like Starco will probably fill that void instead (IMO).
At this point, small organisations like Black Hand and the Hexahedron seem more likely to get a set of CBLs with slightly funky weapon and/or fireteam options as compared to the sectorial they're mostly drawn from.
They have been confirmed as the light troop for IA very recently. They might have a name change and no longer be called "troops of the banner" but I find it highly likely they end up in WB as well considering WB's stated high level concept of old Yu Jing units. But that's neither here nor there
I like the a la carte of single blisters. I like to buy only the troops I want, and not the ones I don't. That said boxes are more efficient, and you often get the miniatures at a lower price-per-miniature cost. I am not a huge fan, but sensible boxes of miniatures makes a lot of sense, both as a business and as a collector. However I hope they don't completely do away with blisters. Some miniatures don't make sense to be lumped into a box, mostly characters. After the Yu Jing/JSA split, I had decided to expand upon the JSA half of my defunct Yu Jing Army. I am going heavy bike theme, even if it is not the most competitive. I would have liked to have picked up the new Kuroshi Rider, but I didn't want to pick up the entire JSA box to get her. The rest of the JSA box sculpts were either redundant to what I had, or uninteresting to me ascetically. If Kuroshi was sold by herself, I would probably pick her up. As it is, I will either do without, or modify my now profile-less Asuka.
