Gentleman,

Enough already, for the love of the Emperor!

for those who played alot of conquest so far, what would you say is the playstyle of each faction?

Anyroads, welcome to the thriving community that is Conquest. I'd say come over and chat on cardgamedb instead, but actually its pretty much the same people there too. Most threads aren't this incendiary, happily, and its a strong and friendly community generally.

If I could hope to answer your question:

As Killax says, its a false premise overall to look for a playstyle of each faction, as factions don't have playstyles, Warlords do. The playstyle of a Warlord is determined primarily by his signature squad, but also by the card pool available to him or her, which always includes cards of his own faction, and non-loyal cards of an adjacent faction.

The playstyle of a deck is very much determied by these deckbuilding rules: you can't, for example, talk about the optimal playstyle of Cato without mentioning Earth Caste Technician (a Tau card), nor discuss the current top tier Zarathur deck without mentioning the importance to that deck of Ammo Depot (an Ork card).

However, as Wonderwaaagh is more or less says, there are thematic commonaliities that run through the cardpool of each faction. This is not at all the same thing as saying "these factions play this way", but you can certainly see what sorts of card effects are found within each faction.

This is an ever changing thing, what with this being a Living Card Game, but the unique commonalities I have personally noted to date include:

Dark Eldar - Resource denial and forced discard. Also known as "choke". No other faction (yet) has options of this sort on their cards. There are currently three Dark Eldar cards that discard from an opponents hand, and only one card not of that faction that carries that effect. There are two Dark Eldar cards that play a "resource choke" - Raid and Ssylth Mercenary, though the latter is more about play within a deck where you attempt to resource choke, rather than a means to do so. Finally, Archon's Palace is a key card that helps deny resources or cards.

Note that these six cards mentioned are from a broader set of 33 Dark Eldar cards, so its more something that the Dark Eldar do that others don't yet, rather than something that rules their card design.

Other comments about the current Dark Eldar card pool is that they have only one worthwhile attachment so far (Suffering), that they have the Khymera (a 2 attack 1 HP token unit), and that the upcoming Warlord Urien Rakarth is closely tied to the Torture trait, though there's no especial commonalities between Torture cards at present other than they are aggressive effects.

Broadly at present I'd say Dark Eldar cards run along a theme of disruption of your opponent's plays, whether through choke, through debuff, through routing (Archon's Terror). This is thematic with the fiction, as the Dark Eldar are masters of inflicting pain and suffering.

Eldar - High mobility. There's other mobile units in other factions, but Eldar seem to have more of them than most, at present. In Core Set, we might also have said the Eldar were typified by low combat efficiency in cheap units, but this has changed as the card pool has grown. In the Core Set, they had a strong identity as the faction of the long game. In core set they also had a strong identity of specialisation: units that are very fit for one purpose, but lacking all round cover. However, this too has been diluted with time.

Overall, I'd say the Eldar remain the faction of cards of "trying to be clever". There's a lot of satisfying plays they can create which are intricate but effective, and they require a degree of long term planning in everything they do.

Another notable thing at present is that Eldar Events are broadly better than Eldar Supports.

Space Marines - This is the faction of small numbers of units kicking ass. This has been created largely by a high concentration of quality cards in the 3-cost bracket, and with strong event cards that directly enhance combat. In the Core Set, they were also the faction that presented combat surprises, but that identity has been diluted by the fact that many other factions play frequent combat surprises as well now. Even so, with a few exceptions, Space Marines seem to go by the mantra that every Army Unit they have is a combat threat, but they can be often outnumbered.

Tau - This faction is hardest to describe in terms of faction identity, as the two warlords are so very different that they create entirely different play experiences. Shadowsun is attachment-driven, while Aun'shi is all about short snappy Armourbane combats. If there's a commonality, I'd say that this is a faction that can hit hard, but often lacks staying power in combat. Combined arms is also a common theme, and they tend to be a faction that can muster one awesome combat, but not several good ones.

Ork - Again hard to typify, but they're notably a faction that has access to a lot of efficiently costed combat units, but without as much low cost command as might be wanted. Again, the changing meta has made the faction identity a lot more blurred. Orks have a lot of units that have higher HP than expected for cost, and a lot of card effects that are broad and wacky. They also have a decent line in damage indirectly done, though less so than chaos.

Chaos - In Core Set, this was the faction of the Big Guy. High cost daemon units that say "I will win this battle", and an alternative resource mechanic (Cultists) that allows for this. This identity has been diluted as the card pool expands. I would say, however, that this faction is the faction of cards that do or place damage via means that aren't attacks.

Astra Militarum - There's a lot of cards here that run along the theme of "great support cards, and cards that love support cards". Again, this isn't a strong identity, and it is being diluted with time. Also, the two Warlords could not be more different, and this has a lot more effect on the character of the faction in play than the card pool does.

Broadly though, I'd say the theme is "telegraphed moves that you can't stop anyway". As in, the Astra Militarum literally lay their cards on the table so there's few surprises coming their opponents way, but those cards are good enough that they can succeed anyway.

To be clear though, these faction commonalities are:

A) Changing over time. Without access to the FFG design team its hard to say how consistent these mechanical themes will remain. Its already been the case that Eldar have lost the sense that they're a "long term planning" faction, as they're easily amongst the best at rush decks now, and likewise Chaos are no longer the faction that relies on big daemons.

B) Not the prime factor in determining what decks look like. That, as mentioned, is the Warlord, and the full card pool available to that warlord, including allied cards.

Edited February 25, 2015 by Prepare for War