Rontules said:

I absolutely agree with your thoughts on the Shogunate. Before we knew about the end of TH, I always hoped for the release of a new Shogunate character to further develop that faction. Not only do they have nothing more than a full squad without any possible variation, but they are lacking a powerful ranged fighter to support their melee characters. Way too often, the Shogunate characters enter melee only to be gunned down by enemies from a distance, sometimes even from out-of-path.

But as much as I liked to see new Shogunate characters, I can understand FFG's decision to release a Union and a Reich character. These will be useful for more players and thus be bought by more players, simply because everyone who owns the core set can play Union or Reich and will probably buy powerful characters for these faction, where Shogunate characters will only be bought by those who have already invested in the Shogunate. Additionally, there weren't any Union or Reich releases lately, so the fans of these factions maybe are getting angry.

Last point: Whatever character or faction anyone of us would have liked to be released, FFG releases two characters that seem to be cool and that every TH player will be able to use. So if everyone actually buys these characters and thus some profit is generated, maybe FFG will reconsider their decision to end TH.

??! if that was the case why not releasing more mercs? or a dual Reich/Shogunate character as Oksana (or my home rule for Hoss)…

By the way your nik is… difficult to pronounce 

I don't know about FFG's actual reason to announce Edison and Frankenstahl instead of other characters, I just posted what I supposed to be the reason. But you are right of course, dual faction characters would be a good idea to generate more sales. Same goes for mercenary characters, which I included in my new signature although I generally rather dislike lots of mercenary characters because they take away the unique flavor and playstyle of the different factions. This could be a reason for FFG to announce two new affiliated characters instead of mercenaries, but again I don't know. That said, of course I'd buy and play any mercenary character if the alternative is getting no characters at all. A powerful new mercenary hero or even a mercenary trooper pack would be useful for every player, so it could be a way to go for FFG …

A lot of the reason for the choice of a Reich and Union character, has to do with how much of those figures was already finished.

TOY had already done some of the development work for both Edison and Frank back in 2008, so they just took less work then new Shogunate or Mercs that exsists only as art or even less.

They just took less time and money.

Miah999 said:

I didnt know that, now it mkes much more sense :-)

Neither did I! They really had these finished or half-finished characters lying on their desks for years but didn't finish and release them yet? Why? And even more important: How many great, ready-to-be-released characters will they find if they actually start looking around in their drawers?

As I understand it and of course I may have been misslead: when FFG purchased TH in 2009 literal boxes of material for TH was sent from TOY and it took over a year just to sort and translate it. After that they tried not to releasse thing so fast as to overwhelm the market.

I imagine that many of the characters seen in Field Ops are complete art wise, but if TOY did any development work it would be TH 1.0 and of not much use Mechanics wise. Who can say how much work was done on the Shogunate before TH was sold.

I sign this. Tannhauser is fantastic. A big box expansion would surely help the sales. And why does BGG don't even have a revised edtion listing of it? This game drags the bad reputation from the 1st edition. Let the world know how good it is now!

I sign this. Tannhauser is fantastic. A big box expansion would surely help the sales. And why does BGG don't even have a revised edtion listing of it? This game drags the bad reputation from the 1st edition. Let the world know how good it is now!