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These are very cleverly done in the sense that if you bough IceStorm, Red Veil and other hyped products since than (Yaun Yaun, Druze, Outrage, etc) you're likely to have enough models to make either of these armies work with just a few more purchases.

Its a smart way to keep newer players and casual players interested (and long term players too, but we probably weren't going anywhere)

 Kanluwen wrote:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:
Is it? It looks like the same design, but in a pose that makes it look marginally less stupid than the generally-available one.

Sure does look different.

Its the same TAG with new paint and different arms, and its easy to convert the older one to look like that to.

Or just take advantage of the new liberal proxy rules. (Response to Jake's comment)

Book contents will be the 4 NAAs, their background, and some current events updates, it seems. I'm still interested in getting it. I suppose pre-order becomes available soon, here in the US.

One thing's for sure and that's some lovely looking cover art on that book..

Yeah, the art is all really nice.

I'm OK with this book - of course! - and people have wanted Mercenaries 'officially' in for some time now.

But, I'm a bit lost now, so has this book:

1) pushed back "Acheron Falls"?
2) Is that book still going to be called "Acheron Falls"?
3) Is the Al-Medinat sectorial still in 'that' book
4) Are the various Svalarheima sectorials still in 'that' book?

In order: yes, maybe, unknown, unknown.

With 4 more armies coming, we may well see a book at GenCon. It might be the Paradiso N3.

Svalarheim seems way off. The suspicion is that the next four are from the following: Varuna, Invincible Army, Tunguska, Vedic, and whatever the Kazak is called. They'll probably be the next book. No word on the Al-Medinate, or Khanate.

The forthcoming battle pack is rumored to beAriadna v. CA. There is another Army Box coming, too, IIRC.

 Red Harvest wrote:
In order: yes, maybe, unknown, unknown.

With 4 more armies coming, we may well see a book at GenCon. It might be the Paradiso N3.

Svalarheim seems way off. The suspicion is that the next four are from the following: Varuna, Invincible Army, Tunguska, Vedic, and whatever the Kazak is called. They'll probably be the next book. No word on the Al-Medinate, or Khanate.

That's not "speculation". That's confirmed for the next ones. It's Al-Medinate next for Haqqislam, Khanate's a ways off.
Tartary for RussAriadna BTW.

Well, Vedic's a bit in the air but otherwise the list is accurate. Varuna for PanO, Invincible Army for Yu Jing--both of these are because they want the two Svalarheima lists at the same time--Tunguska for Nomads, and Tartary for Ariadna. Al-Medinate("the super-soldier sectorial") for Haqqislam.

The rumored battle pack is Ariadna v. CA. There is another Army Box coming, IIRC.

There's 3 more army boxes this year, from what I was given as a rumor last year. JSA first was a surprise(I expected Tunguska first to be honest) but it was one of the four I had credible rumors about.

It's worth mentioning that the "rumored battle pack" is Kazaks versus Shasvastii, specifically, with the new CA starter being a genericized version of the Shasvastii Sectorial.

If it is Ariadna Vs CA I wonder what the Combined Army portion will be? I'd assume Shas, but we've been told not to expect them this year. I guess it could be an actual Combined Army starter (and the existing one could be relabeled as a Onyx starter).

 Kanluwen wrote:

Well, Vedic's a bit in the air but otherwise the list is accurate. Varuna for PanO, Invincible Army for Yu Jing--both of these are because they want the two Svalarheima lists at the same time--Tunguska for Nomads, and Tartary for Ariadna. Al-Medinate("the super-soldier sectorial") for Haqqislam.

So that's the list for the 'next book', whatever it is titled, whenever it comes out?

If so, getting Al-Medinate is nice!

 Alpharius wrote:

 Kanluwen wrote:

Well, Vedic's a bit in the air but otherwise the list is accurate. Varuna for PanO, Invincible Army for Yu Jing--both of these are because they want the two Svalarheima lists at the same time--Tunguska for Nomads, and Tartary for Ariadna. Al-Medinate("the super-soldier sectorial") for Haqqislam.

So that's the list for the 'next book', whatever it is titled, whenever it comes out?

If so, getting Al-Medinate is nice!

That's what was slated for Acheron Falls( ), yes.

Only four more new armies this year. Carlos made a point of emphasizing that. Tartary (kazaks) stands nearly confirmed, so three more to puzzle out. Svalarheim won't be one of them. Nor will Al-Medinate. Unless CB has another surprise up its sleeve.

Al-Medinate is now called the Ramah Task Force. I keep forgetting that too.

Mayacast posted the JSA list on fb:

Not sure what I think of Starco; I'll almost certainly play it, as it just takes my CJC stuff and mixes it up a bit, but at the same time, the big problem with CJC is a lack of meaningful identity. Aquaciles without Lupe in the same faction as Jaguars sounds about as useful as Mobile Brigada competing with Riot Grrls. Hopefully whatever they do to make them interesting here will bleed a bit into CJC, because right now it needs something to stand out from Vanilla.

Taking Druze and JSA and remixing the into Ikari feels like an odd choice at this point. Not sure how interested I am in that, but I think I like Ikari better than Druze for what its worth. Weird that Saito works for the former but not the latter.

Fluff-wise, the Ikari Company sounds fun. JSA secessionists with political malcontents and mercenaries that are borderline terrorist organizations.

Interesting that the name chosen for the JSA Spec Ops is kaizoku. That means pirate. So I wonder if the JSA is taking part in piracy in Yu Jing's sphere?

Has there been any confirmation yet on what units YJ will lose access to?

 .Mikes. wrote:
Has there been any confirmation yet on what units YJ will lose access to?

Oniwaban and Keisotsu for sure, along with any of the characters listed under the JSA thing.


Slightly better photo, it doesn't blur out the link types.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Only four more new armies this year. Carlos made a point of emphasizing that. Tartary (kazaks) stands nearly confirmed, so three more to puzzle out. Svalarheim won't be one of them. Nor will Al-Medinate. Unless CB has another surprise up its sleeve.

Al-Medinate is now called the Ramah Task Force. I keep forgetting that too.

Oops - me too!

Even though it is easier to remember - sorta?

 Red Harvest wrote:
Only four more new armies this year. Carlos made a point of emphasizing that. Tartary (kazaks) stands nearly confirmed, so three more to puzzle out. Svalarheim won't be one of them. Nor will Al-Medinate. Unless CB has another surprise up its sleeve.

Al-Medinate is now called the Ramah Task Force. I keep forgetting that too.

The issue with this is what does CB view as a "new army"?

There were 4 "Ns" slated on that big infographic last year(not going to bother finding it so don't ask). JSA fits roughly with the first "N", the next one is slated for May/June-ish and the last two were in the fall/winter.

Aragoto are still AVA 4, but Asuka Kiraragi has been removed from JSA? Maybe she will join Izzat Beg in motorcycle character valhalla after being 'replaced' by the catgirl motorcyclist.

Raiden and Haramaki also seem to be missing.

 Absolutionis wrote:
Aragoto are still AVA 4, but Asuka Kiraragi has been removed from JSA? Maybe she will join Izzat Beg in motorcycle character valhalla after being 'replaced' by the catgirl motorcyclist.

Raiden and Haramaki also seem to be missing.

Bostria said something about "no spoilers" in the video today but the fluff for catgirl I've seen floating around seems to hint that Asuka Kiraragi is dead.

Do my eyes fail me, or are the Raiden and Haramaki gone?

Have they been renamed?


/Edit

OK, I got beaten to the punch on that one.

 Kanluwen wrote:

 Absolutionis wrote:
Aragoto are still AVA 4, but Asuka Kiraragi has been removed from JSA? Maybe she will join Izzat Beg in motorcycle character valhalla after being 'replaced' by the catgirl motorcyclist.

Raiden and Haramaki also seem to be missing.

Bostria said something about "no spoilers" in the video today but the fluff for catgirl I've seen floating around seems to hint that Asuka Kiraragi is dead.

"Dead" perhaps.

Considering the catgirl motorcyclist is basically a reference to an anime where the character is a headless revenant/dullahan on a motorcycle wearing a cat helmet out for revenge on people that 'killed' her, it may actually be the "dead" Asuka. She had a cube, anyways.

jake wrote:I was hoping for something besides Merc companies, but I guess we knew it was coming eventually. Its not something I find very compelling, but I know some people have been really wanting them.

The book is about non aligned armies, minor factions in the Infinity universe, these are some of the biggest mercenary companies out there in the narrative and JSA's political and military power level is at this stage at the moment, remember even Ariadna are a major power in Infinity.

I mean no major power sectorial would fit in this book.

Alpharius wrote:I'm OK with this book - of course! - and people have wanted Mercenaries 'officially' in for some time now.

But, I'm a bit lost now, so has this book:

1) pushed back "Acheron Falls"?
2) Is that book still going to be called "Acheron Falls"?
3) Is the Al-Medinat sectorial still in 'that' book
4) Are the various Svalarheima sectorials still in 'that' book?

1) no, there was never a release date attached other than it would be the next book after N2 Paradiso, but the books got rebooted to N3.
2) never was meant to be named like that
3) Unknown
4)Unknown

I really love the Company of the Stars!

 Chillreaper wrote:
Do my eyes fail me, or are the Raiden and Haramaki gone?

Have they been renamed?


/Edit

OK, I got beaten to the punch on that one.

Haramaki apparently are Ikari now. No idea on Raiden. A few things have been renamed though. Asuka at least can always just be a regular Aragoto.

EDIT: NVM, confused Haramaki with Karakiri.

EDIT: EDIT: Haramaki are apparently Tanko now given their second name is Zensenbutai

Guess I'm glad I hadn't bought any Raiden or Haramaki yet?

Shame though, as I rather liked the Raiden...

Curious if Raiden are just the Ryuken Unit-9. I assume Batou and the Major are the Ryuken models, so there's no obvious consistency to be enforced. They look like they could be Med Infantry that the Raiden could fit in easy enough.

Alright, so it sounds like we're keeping Ninja, so ISS is happy. Raiden and Haramaki don't show up in the new JSA list, but that doesn't mean they stay in vanilla either. I'll be honest, if we get a non-JSA reworking of the Raiden profile then I'll be happy with that at least. But we'll need to see if those profiles remain or if CB are just quietly squatting them with the changeover.

There is also a possibility the Shikami may stick around since it got a YJ specific scheme, but again, nothing confirmed.

So of the 16 JSA profiles in the list (including named characters) we are confirmed to be keeping one with a potential three others (but very, very much unconfirmed). Of those 16, 7 of them saw heavy use in vanilla (Keisotsu, Aragoto, Ninja, Raiden, Oniwaban, Kitsune, Tokusetsu). We are keeping one of those profiles for sure (Ninja), and maybe keeping a second (depending on the fate of the Raiden profile).

A pretty harsh hit either way. Keisotsu were some of the best line troops in the list (with the best low-cost FO), Zhanshi are terrible in comparison and either need to reworking or we need a new LI that is as efficiently costed as the Keisotsu. Losing the Tokusetsu is basically the same, it cost less than the Mech-Engineer and Yisheng and was better in every way. A 2 point deficit per line trooper may not seem like much, but with Zhanshi offering no additional utility for the extra cost and with Yu Jing having some great options for a 5-6 point price tag, losing the extra points will certainly force a lot of list reworking for no gain in power or utility. At this point, a Zhanshi rework is kind of a must (or increase CG and Kuang Shi AVA in vanilla to allow us to continue to ignore them until they fix them in White Banner or something).

Aragoto is basically impossible to proxy as anything remaining in vanilla, so RIP unless you decide to play JSA. But worse than that is it was a fairly unique role filled in vanilla (fast-attack and specialist) that nothing else currently fills (maybe they can give us a KHD Su-Jian or something to fill the void).

While good enough for proxies, losing the role filled by the Oniwaban and Kitsune is another big blow to our selection in terms of aggressive unit assassins. It is a trick we shared with Haqq that we've now lost out on completely. Sadly, I don't expect any new skirmisher/infiltrator units with the Invincible Army (but we may be surprised), so this role may end up being something we never see again.

As for the Raiden, it was well-loved in vanilla for its ability to mess up links while providing excellent defensive cover on the back line (Yu Jing loves it some defensive deployed weapons). It not being in the new JSA list gives some hope for it being in vanilla still, but at the same time, with so few JSA units left to field it now seems kind of incongruous as well. Might be best to rename it, give it new fluff and carry on. That said, it may also be getting renamed/reworked for JSA and might leave us completely. So jury is still out either way.

As for the Haramaki, if we keep it... meh? They were mostly great for linking, in vanilla they lack a clear role and lack the tools to be a proper heavy warband (no smoke or defensive abilities). So either this one is staying and vanilla will continue to ignore it, or it is leaving and getting reworked in JSA.

All in all, it doesn't appear to be a worst case scenario for the faction, but it has certainly put them behind the curve compared to the vanilla unit selections of every other major faction in the game. Losing that many profiles (especially useful ones) from a list is going to hurt, and certainly makes me less likely to field vanilla Yu Jing going forward. If we still had a full compliment of sectorials going for us, then this might not be so bad, but we only have one now which makes us feel even more limited (especially since so few ISS profiles are useful in vanilla compared to what we got from JSA, ISS is basically self-contained outside of things like the CG, Kuang Shi, Hsien, and Su-Jian which see actual vanilla usage).

One way or another, I really hope the next army release is the Invicible Army otherwise it looks like I'm taking another Infinity hiatus until CB decided to patch my faction back up.

As for the book? With no real interest in JSA and everything besides the Druze looking like a grab bag, I guess I'll probably be holding off on this release. Might grab it later if I can find it at a discount and the fluff is worthwhile, but not worth pre-ordering at this juncture.

Is Moon Knight an existing character or is he new for StarCo?

Zensenbutai just means "Front Line Unit", while I don't doubt that the Haramaki have been replaced by the Tanko, the unit descriptor is pretty generic. (I'm thinking that Tanko means "single shot", but I'm really looking at some obscure kanji that I'm quite unfamiliar with).