IMHO plan A was the “pussy” tape. Plan B was Gloria Alred and her minions of women supposedly assaulted by Trump. Now we are onto plan C with the ties to Russia and the election. Actually Plan C was running all along but low key. Now it has been brought to the forefront now that Hillary has lost.
Plan D is that Trump is lying about the surveillance used as the basis for plan C
My theory is that the original plan was to wait until a few days before the election (probably the Friday before) to release the tape. This would ensure maximum media coverage with no time left for the Trump campaign to respond. When all of the Wikileaks revelations started hurting Hillary, they were forced to release the tape several weeks earlier in an attempt to counter all of the negative attention.