Heres a little food for thought...

So i just received my preorder boxes in the mail (yes!) and while unpacking them my OCD kicked in... here are all of the card subtypes of the starter box...

Cross-Faction: Soldier, Vehicle, Elite, Tank, Scout, Psyker, Ally, Scholar, Transport, Drone, Warrior

Space Marines: Ultramarine (8), Blood Angel (2), Dark Angel (1), Iron Hands (1), Raven Guard (1)

Chaos: Tzeentch (6), Demon (6), Khorn (3), Cultist (3), War Engine (1), Nurgle (1), Slaanesh (1), Alpha legion (1), Black Legion (1), Death Guard (1), World Eaters (1), Priest (1)

AM: Catachan (2), Abhuman (2), Conscript (2), Cadia (1), Elysia (1), Vostroya (1), Mordian (1), Officer (1), Tech Priest (1)

Eldar: Alaitoc (3), Biel-Tan (3), Saim-Hann (2), Spirit (2), Iyanden (1), Altansar (1), Harlequin (1),

Dark Eldar: Wych (5), Kabalite (2), Succubus (1), Beastmaster (1), Haemonculus (1), Raider (1), Creature (1)

Tau: Pilot (3), Shas'la (3), Shas'o (1), Hero (1), Vespid (1), Kroot (1)

Orks: Boyz (6), Nob (4), Oddboy (2), Warboss (1), Walker (1), Runt (1)

Keeping in mind that this list is only including units and events that shared a common subtype with units, and that some cards have more than one designation... Immediately after finishing this list i wish i had done it in spreadsheet fashion so i could allocate how many of each cross-faction subtype were used in each faction... but that is what a future work day is for!

My immediate reaction is that, knowing the first 4 rounds of spoilers, all of the future commanders are adding new subtypes or building up ones that are fairly trivial in the starter (space wolves, nurgle, etherial, oddboy), and the pictured spoilers seem to by a balance between adding subtypes (white scars, Tallaran, Uthwe, Iron Guard) and bulking out the existing ones...

It makes me wonder how far down the road this has been thought out, as there are an awful lot of faction based subtypes with only one card and im not quite sure why they would be differentiated unless there was a plan to use that designation in the future. For instance the Orks have none of the traditional factions (Speed Freaks, Bad Moons, Etc) Even though Nazdreg's quote specifically mentions that hes a Bad Moon, but jsut about every major AM planet has a card...

Heres a little food for thought...

So i just received my preorder boxes in the mail (yes!) and while unpacking them my OCD kicked in... here are all of the card subtypes of the starter box...

Cross-Faction: Soldier, Vehicle, Elite, Tank, Scout, Psyker, Ally, Scholar, Transport, Drone, Warrior

Space Marines: Ultramarine (8), Blood Angel (2), Dark Angel (1), Iron Hands (1), Raven Guard (1)

Chaos: Tzeentch (6), Demon (6), Khorn (3), Cultist (3), War Engine (1), Nurgle (1), Slaanesh (1), Alpha legion (1), Black Legion (1), Death Guard (1), World Eaters (1), Priest (1)

AM: Catachan (2), Abhuman (2), Conscript (2), Cadia (1), Elysia (1), Vostroya (1), Mordian (1), Officer (1), Tech Priest (1)

Eldar: Alaitoc (3), Biel-Tan (3), Saim-Hann (2), Spirit (2), Iyanden (1), Altansar (1), Harlequin (1),

Dark Eldar: Wych (5), Kabalite (2), Succubus (1), Beastmaster (1), Haemonculus (1), Raider (1), Creature (1)

Tau: Pilot (3), Shas'la (3), Shas'o (1), Hero (1), Vespid (1), Kroot (1)

Orks: Boyz (6), Nob (4), Oddboy (2), Warboss (1), Walker (1), Runt (1)

Keeping in mind that this list is only including units and events that shared a common subtype with units, and that some cards have more than one designation... Immediately after finishing this list i wish i had done it in spreadsheet fashion so i could allocate how many of each cross-faction subtype were used in each faction... but that is what a future work day is for!

My immediate reaction is that, knowing the first 4 rounds of spoilers, all of the future commanders are adding new subtypes or building up ones that are fairly trivial in the starter (space wolves, nurgle, etherial, oddboy), and the pictured spoilers seem to by a balance between adding subtypes (white scars, Tallaran, Uthwe, Iron Guard) and bulking out the existing ones...

It makes me wonder how far down the road this has been thought out, as there are an awful lot of faction based subtypes with only one card and im not quite sure why they would be differentiated unless there was a plan to use that designation in the future. For instance the Orks have none of the traditional factions (Speed Freaks, Bad Moons, Etc) Even though Nazdreg's quote specifically mentions that hes a Bad Moon, but jsut about every major AM planet has a card...

I don't think it was a matter of how thought out it was as opposed to trying to create a game that would accommodate the diversity and depth of the Warhammer 40k universe. The fact that the designers made a fairly uncomplicated game (as opposed to Netrunner or Star Wars) just shows how much they've evolved as game designers.

Netrunner has been going for some time and still has some unused subtypes (Security as a subtype of Agenda for example). Maybe one day there'll be a card that interacts with them, maybe not.

Same goes here. Those traits don't do anything by themselves, but perhaps eventually we'll see a card which gives +1 ATK to each Cadian at a planet, or something similar.

I'm sort of expecting the next Eldar Warlord to be Illic Nightspear, with buffs for Alaitoc cards, mostly because the preview of Vectored Vyper Squad from the Zogwort's Curse article doesn't make a lot of sense without buffs to the Alaitoc Trait when we already have Wildrider Squadron in the core.

FFG said in the Howl Of Blackmane announcement that the eldar warlord on this cycle would be a Phoenix Lord. So, it will not be Nightspear.

FFG said in the Howl Of Blackmane announcement that the eldar warlord on this cycle would be a Phoenix Lord. So, it will not be Nightspear.

Point. I forgot about that at the time I posted.

Hopefully it will work out better than it did in Invasion. In Warhammer Invasion there were way too many card types and loads were basically unused. Many were on only one or two cards.

FFG said in the Howl Of Blackmane announcement that the eldar warlord on this cycle would be a Phoenix Lord. So, it will not be Nightspear.

Personally Really hoping for Karandras or the FW Shadow Spectre one but whether or not we see Forgeworld products will be a different speculation thread on a different day (probably one of those that keeps getting repeated because why use a search function)

Hopefully it will work out better than it did in Invasion. In Warhammer Invasion there were way too many card types and loads were basically unused. Many were on only one or two cards.

This is what im afraid of... id much rather have fewer subtypes that actually have relevance than a huge assortment that have no purpose...