For my home playgroup, I was hoping to have a casual session, and we'd just split the pool of cards along faction lines to people who showed up. I hadn't really thought too deeply about exactly how we would be doing this.

This was my issue as well. My group would love this except they aren't the biggest lcg fans. So I am stuck at figuring how to get this to them in a way that keeps the great game play but without forcing them to build decks. Are you going to have the decks built before hand, or have people build it before the game in some draft type system.

I believe that each faction needs to be supplemented by 2 neutrals, but is otherwise a complete deck in terms of number of cards.

(Eeep, jsut realized that my FLGS has 2 copies of the starter... so the above is incorrect)

I haven't really looked at the situation of mono decks, but the game can of course be played this way. Yet your correct, the game is designed for cross faction pairing. So I would say that playing full mono would be unpredictable balance wise as mono is not really something that the designers will push for. At least at this stage of the game, faction pairing will be greatly encouraged with effects split. So while you could make a nice deck with A, the same deck would be better with a splash of B.

I don't think this is true. The game is designed to play mono or with a dualed faction. There may be factions that are weaker mono but there are faction cards designed for mono synergy. Like some of the Core set SM events that only effect SM, these will be more useful in a mono deck.

I believe that each faction needs to be supplemented by 2 neutrals, but is otherwise a complete deck in terms of number of cards.

If only one core you need 6 neutrals, all non loyal from a neighbour to make a legal 50 card deck.

If your friends are really into the fluff of things and cannot come up with a situation where the alliances presented on the alignment wheel would not fit their perception of the fluff, perhaps they are not very imaginative?

This is exactly the type of comment I was hoping to avoid. I didn't want to get into a discussion about the pros and cons of the alignment wheel. There are plenty of other places to vent at people who don't like the alignment wheel, please don't do it here.

He's not. He was simply saying your friends could come up with a way to accept it.

My question was simply about whether mono-faction decks would be balanced. Not about whether or not my friends should accept anything, or the extent of their imaginations.

Unfortunately, that's an aspect of the discussion that isn't unreasonable to explore. Maybe find a better group to play the game that's more willing to play the game as created, rather than expecting it to change because they can't appreciate what it is. Just my opinion though, it's of course your group and I can understand the need to "play nice" even if they don't necessarily want to. Good luck either way!

If each pair of people were to buy a core set between them would that not give them enough cards of one faction and sufficient neutral cards to build reasonable decks?

That's about £15 per person which is nothing compared to certain games start up costs.

As to the alignment wheel...fluffwise I dont like the idea that Dark Eldar can ally with Chaos. For me, as a long time DE player I simply won't add any Chaos Cards into my DE deck (although I might add in CWE if I am playing against somebody playing a deck featuring Chaos.)

I know Unbound has pretty much thrown the rulebook out of the window and whatever silly excuse you can think of now goes but that isn't something I find sits comfortably.

To answer the OP I think that with a few Core Sets plus the upcoming Warlord decks it will be perfectly possible to build mono-friendly-competition level decks.

If each pair of people were to buy a core set between them would that not give them enough cards of one faction and sufficient neutral cards to build reasonable decks?

That's about £15 per person which is nothing compared to certain games start up costs.

As to the alignment wheel...fluffwise I dont like the idea that Dark Eldar can ally with Chaos. For me, as a long time DE player I simply won't add any Chaos Cards into my DE deck (although I might add in CWE if I am playing against somebody playing a deck featuring Chaos.)

I know Unbound has pretty much thrown the rulebook out of the window and whatever silly excuse you can think of now goes but that isn't something I find sits comfortably.

To answer the OP I think that with a few Core Sets plus the upcoming Warlord decks it will be perfectly possible to build mono-friendly-competition level decks.

One core will not supply enough cards of a single faction + neutral to make a legal deck, no. All core decks are Race + Allies + Neutral = 50 cards. If you're okay with that, then a single core will get two people up and running provided they don't overlap their allies.

In our casual group in thrones i would make decks for everyone. Most preferred nedly decks. I would give the over powered decks to the newer players and the obviously weaker decks to the experienced gamers. All players had a fair shot at winning.

If you go mono you might want to make some house rules and restrict certain powerful cards that would make one faction more dominant over the other. Either completely ban the card or restrict to 1 of. You'll have an even playing field and everyone can still feel nedly or fluffy with their gaming experience

Sounds like you might have to go with OCTGN until your group feels like getting their feet wet with competitive play. I've seen an entire meta fall apart over night because people just don't have the time or desire to be competitive.

if the biggest impediment to getting 40k players to play the LCG is factions / lore how about this?

The Traxis sector has for some reason (insert gothic technobabble here) created some unusual bedfellows. Have the players and you create some stories as to why these pairings exist.

maybe run the RPG in the Traxis sector or some skirmish battles there.

basically create a campaign universe based around the Traxis sector...as envisioned by the players (with 40k and conquest guiding their ideas)

the players may actually enjoy creating their own stories within the 40k universe instead of rehashing the same stuff from 20 years ago.

maybe use " http://iten-game.org/ " for the skirmish battles?

I'm pretty sure that there will be some factions that are weaker by themselves. I'm wondering if there are any factions that are completely overpowered in a mono-faction environment. I'm also wondering if tyranids (who cannot take allies) will be overpowered in a mono-faction environment because they have been built to not require allies.

I would think that it would be safe to say that Tyranids will be a very solid faction and quite able to stand up against any/all other factions with simply their own cards combined with neutrals. Tyranids and Necrons will, in my belief, blow this game wide open due to the possibilities of card combinations, with Tyranid decks comprising some of the best strategical and tactical cards in the game. All of this is supposition, needless to say.