Since I LOVE playing groups that others feel are either weak or under the margin...Which faction in this game do you folks think is the weakest?...I have read all sorts of reviews of who people think will -dominate- the game...I'm wondering who you think is going to really SUCK .

Granted, I know that when the different additions to the game come out our critique of the factions will change.

I'm just wondering what you all think of them now...Who is the last in line?

People will immediately jump in here and probably say Dark Eldar and if you only owned one Core Set, I suppose that's not an unreasonable conclusion. I think they're probably the lowest on the totem pole of power but I'd need to play a LOT more with them before I could be certain.

Definitely Dark Elves, even Dark Eldar are more powerful than them in this game.

I'd agree that Dark Eldar tends to feel like the weakest faction, with Eldar not much stronger. But I think that for both, that's more because their strengths aren't as immediately obvious. Neither of them are "hard and fast" hitters in battle, so in the early stages of learning the game (when people naturally tend to focus on battle), they seem weaker. But I think their penchant for moving, routing and exhausting gives them a different, less obvious strength. They do a lot of things very well, but blowing stuff up is not in the top three.

Which is all just a fancy way of saying, "Depends what you mean by SUCK." Dark Eldar hits the softest, but they do a lot of other, little things well. So they have options. I think, ultimately, Orks are going to prove to be a bit of an underdog in the environment because, while they hit VERY hard, so far, that appears to be about all they do (although they do have about the only "support killer" effect in the core, so what do I know?)

By SUCK, I mean...Which group is most likely to LOSE the most in games.

I hope that clarifies my question.

dark elves

I can't tell yet, honestly. I've read the posts about Dark Eldar and there's some decent rationale behind it (thanks to Booored for sharing his thoughts and explanations why - it makes sense) but I still think that with multiple Core Sets it may proved differently.

As with any new card game (and I've been a part of many of these types of infancy LCG launches) it takes time and experience to suss it all out.

Whoever plays the the best will generally win

I think any deck can beat any deck on any given day

Whoever plays the the best will generally win

I think any deck can beat any deck on any given day

I agree....wholeheartedly. WHAT I am asking however, is IF all things being equal between players...which Faction is at a disadvantage... It's just a question for these rules folks and numbers crunchers....I totally agree that skill and luck will most likely win the day with whatever deck is designed....I am just questioning which Faction YOU all think is the one that is least able to win games. WHICH faction...So far, Dark Eldar seem to be the faction that most of the card gamers feel less confident about.

Honestly, I have had the least luck with the Orks. They are strong in atk and some have high hp but outside of that, that is really all they do. I have had no luck with them at all. So personally speaking, I think the Orks are the worst in my book.

Just to be clear, I think Darks have some very strong faction abilities. I just think the warlord is very weak, for now. There is a reason I thought (wrongly it turns out) that Dark / Elder would be a strong deck when the spoils first came down, Dark has some very strong concepts in the cards.

We have already discussed how the pool expansion will be slowed down tons by the squad inclusion in the APs. So warlords are going to be the deciding factor on how the deck comes together. Once the card pool is large enough, say 2 years or so, there might be a case for Warlords being chosen for purely support abilities. Calto is an example of this already, and we can see it is undeniably strong. Still, making a pure IG deck, and only using Calto as the warlord is not really a good idea.. yet. Just as making a Dark deck with just a Chaos leader isn't either.. but it very well could be and a new Dark warlord could greatly change how the faction is perceived.

People defiantly "want" them to be good.

Basically the warlord's ability is the key, and the 4 slot squad cards and to a lesser extent the 2 slot one. You can basically ignore the 1 clot cards. They are just stupid and with out a tutor you can not count on them in your deck design as drawing 1 / 50 is so luck dependent you can not rely on it as part of your deck design.

For now though and probably for the foreseeable future, Warlords MAKE the deck, and I think it is fair to say the "warlod" for Dark is ****.

Interesting response. I think Dark Eldar are one of the strongest factions based on my games. I've had quite a few constructed games by now - although all decks are made with only one core set because that's all each of us has.

I say Orks. They are heavy-hitters but it can be very difficult for them to win command struggles - which means they have no staying power because you run out of resources and cards fast in this game without winning command.

Edit to add: Eldar are one of the stronger factions for support in my opinion right now. That Eldar Survivalist can put you back in the game or help you shore up a strong position because of his resource and card bonus.

Whoever plays the the best will generally win

I think any deck can beat any deck on any given day

I agree....wholeheartedly. WHAT I am asking however, is IF all things being equal between players...which Faction is at a disadvantage... It's just a question for these rules folks and numbers crunchers....I totally agree that skill and luck will most likely win the day with whatever deck is designed....I am just questioning which Faction YOU all think is the one that is least able to win games. WHICH faction...So far, Dark Eldar seem to be the faction that most of the card gamers feel less confident about.

Dude in this early game stage, there's no one who can give you anything but a good guess. I suppose you can look at the results of the gencon tourney, if they're posted anywhere and just play the faction which had the lowest number of wins/players.

The pool of people playing this game is still pretty small. Lots of people still waiting for the game to release. The opinion may change again in late October, early November.

Sigh...

Yeah, I understand that the game has not been formally released yet. I was asking for an informal speculation (re. SPECULATION) on which group this forum's users feel will initially do the worst at the games release.

Folks have been speculating on EVERYTHING considering this game...The reason I initially presented the question is to get a feel of which faction those on this forum think is the weakest.

My English is probably bad. That must be it.

After even more playing time, I DO think that the Dark Eldar are the wimpiest, followed by Tau (sadly - as that's my favorite faction in the tabletop game and in the setting).

In order of single-faction potency in the game (with #1 being the best and #7 being the least dangerous) I think they are:

#1 - Astra Militarium (IG)

#2 - Space Marines

#3 - Chaos

#4 - Eldar

#5 - Orks

#6 - Tau

#7 - Dark Eldar

I'm not totally sure that's exactly the right ranking but I definitely feel that the last 3 belong in the last 3 three in some order....

Interesting...Humans in the top three. Xenos in the bottom four.

Tyranids - since they are not out yet.

(Why did i write only Tyranids and not Necrons or necron/tyranids? because necrons already had people up in arms with their "we can use units from the other factions" rule...)

Interesting...Humans in the top three. Xenos in the bottom four.

The way the God Emperor intended it! Mankind is destinied to rule the galaxy! Imperator Vult!

Well I'm hardly the end-all, be-all expert, either. Those are just what I feel at this point after playing a good amount of games now - things became clearer with my 2nd set as I could see trends better but I'd still like to revise this after getting to play with 3x Core Sets.

And I think I'd maybe bump Tau up over Orks, possibly, in that list.

You really need to look at race combinations as

For example I have a tau/sm deck and a tau/eldar deck that with only 5-6 cards different but i consider my tau/eldar deck much stronger and they play differently (or im just geting better)

at the moment i think SM/tau is the strongest and dark eldar/chaos the weakest but im hardly an expert

Each faction can be mono, allied with left neighbour, or allied with right neighbour. Eventually someone will start ranking all 21 options (and aggregating and averaging people's rankings), shifting them up/down with each expansion pack!!

If I'm ranking combinations, I think Imperial Guard Astra Militarum/Orks beats SM/Tau - at least that's what's happened in nearly 90% of our matches. And win the AM/Orks win, it's over quick, usually.

The caveat, here, is obviously that this is solely my own anecdotal evidence but I've played against multiple different opponents now so that should smooth out the vagaries in playing style at least and yet the AM/Orks still seem (to me, anyway) to be the best combination.

It seems to me like there will be no point in trying to assemble any of this now, since with the new packs already down the pike it will be very hard to make any possible ranking short of redoing it every month as new stuff is released.

Dark Eldar will be tricky because like regular 40k your units will be fragile and not have overwhelming hitting power, but with the right application of your force (and probably using the right ally) it can be made to work when combined with mobility and a decent strategy