Davide asked a good question about the balance in the lore decks here (reply 3), suggesting Daqan's lore deck is more powerful than Uthuk's. I'm reposting here his query, to grant his question major visibility and to avoid derailing Garrett's thread about the Lore preview for the new expansions:

dear Battlelore Players,

I have played this beautiful wargame almost 20 times and, specially in the last games, I used the lore magic more and more.

In these games I noticed that the Daqan's lore cards are on average more powerful and useful than the Uthuk's lore cards.

Have you noticed the same too?

what do you think about it?

thank you

I tend to agree on this point; especially some cards in the Daqan's deck appear to be rather heavy on their opponents, if played properly. This is partially done to grant them better defenses, but still there are some combos that are... bizarre.

- First of all, Assault. Apparently, the card costs you 9 lore, and grants you an automatic 1 Pierce, 1 Strike, 1 Retreat on you attacks. The problem with this card is that it's triggered on each attack. Hence: you have three Yeoman Archer units, you don't move them during Movement to give them an additional attack, and you activate them through Darken the Skies. This means that each unit gains a +3 Pierce, and +3 Retreat. Enough to destroy at least three enemy units in one turn. If their target are adjacent to Riverwatch Riders units, the rolled dice become 27, with a total of +9 automatic Pierce, and +9 automatic Retreats. Crazy. Indeed, this won't happen that often, but really the card should have been limited to the first attack each unit does

- Runic Barrier is another crazy card. The cost is 2, and it allows you to cancel any enemy Lore card. Sure, the enemy keeps the Lore, but the card is discarded. This means that Daqan's opponent won't have a second chance at playing that specifical lore card. The cost should have been made proportional to the effect: the card should have costed X, where X is half the lore cost of your enemy's card

Just a few notes coming out of my head

I think Runic Barrier is costed fine. If it cost any more, then I think it becomes too expensive unless the other player also loses their Lore.

Any player who RELIES on a particular card to be successful is gambling too much. If you just use it to enhance an action, then having it canceled isn't nearly as painful. If you built your turn's strategy around that card, then I feel you deserve to get hosed.

While Daqans cards may be stronger (something I'm not truly convinced of, honestly), Uthuk's units are definitely stronger, and in the end, I think units tend to have more sway than the cards. Overall, I think the factions work fine together - Daqan may not hit as hard, but they typically maneuver better and can win the attrition fights a bit more, but Uthuk has more ability to hit hard and fast. It makes for an interesting pairing. The Lore cards are just supplementary to all that, and should never be used as a basis for strategy, even (and perhaps especially) the really strong cards.

I've never been fond of Runic Barrier in this game. It seems too cheap to me... what other Lore card can you play on the other players turn that could be as useful as this?

More than that I just think it takes what is otherwise a cool, fun part of the game and messes with it. I've saved enough Lore to play a card. I have the Lore card I want to use in my hand. I have the right situation where playing it would be useful. Then Runic Barrier is played. I get my Lore back, but the card and opportunity are gone and there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm not sure I can comment effectively on the balance of Uthuk cards because in many cases when I play what could have been a crucial card it gets interrupted.

The few other people I've played the game with feel the same way. We were already looking forward to swapping them out with the newer Lore cards once the expansion comes as none of us like playing with/against it.

I guess I like that it's cheap and feel it's fair because it's a card you can only use reactively - it has no active effect other than stopping the other player. And even that it only does partway.

I find the best way to counter it is to just keep hammering the Daqan player - he can't cancel them all!

I agree with Davide and Julia. We had the same impression here: in the core game the Daqan Lore deck is overall better than the Uthuk Lore deck.

I am sorry with the lot of you exept for Sigmazero13 I back him up 100%. Yes the decks are a good part of the game and are different and should be different BUT this game is about your army and how you use it not how you use your Lore cards. I'm sure I will get just tons of haters for that remark but so be it this is a war game you guys and you can not put so much of the balance of power on just one part of the game play. I really think Sig hit the nail on the head with how he already explaned it you have to focuse on all aspects of a war game to see if its balanced not just one. The balance of the game as I have seen and played has been in the use of the army and cards as a whole not just as one part you cant use just one and see the win.

It's not a question of being a hater, everyone's entitled to have his own opinion. Scott's a cool guy with a huge experience on the matter. But he's not the only one with a huge experience on the matter. I see this more like people having a different opinion on the game rather than someone beng right and the others not. It's more a talk of light details in the overall balance of the game, no one here has stated they rely upon the power of a single lore card to win any game.

I don't know. Maybe the Daqan cards are stronger, but I still love cards like Bone Spurs and Predator.

After playing the app, my biggest concern is that the Lore decks are too big; you can't rely on getting any one card. In the app, it seems the Lore decks seem shorter, so you see the same cards more frequently. I think that's why I side with Sigmazero on this one. The Lore cards are so random that they can't do more than add some flavor to the gake. Sometimes they really tip the scales, but just as often, they don't really get utilized.

Yeah, but have you considered Lore customization? In the end you can have 10 lore cards in the deck at a rate of 2 copies each.

(fun debate, tho)

That's a good point. I guess I hadn't considered that since I'm not planning on purchasing a second core. I'll never have duplicates of those 1-ofs.

And with the current lore customization model, you can only replace 5 out of your 20 cards, right?

Yep, 5 out of 20 (don't remember if Neutral are swapped in before or after that, tho). There are some tricky combo you can sparkle in this way (two copies of Plunder and two copies of Assault in the deck sound rather scary). Dunno, should try that.

For my games, while two copies of Assault sounds scary on paper, I'm not sure how scary it would be in practice, that's a LOT of lore to be spending, and while it's not impossible to get it, it may lead to not playing other valuable lore cards as you save up for it. And that's assuming you pull both of them, too (I've still never gone through my whole Lore deck in a single game).

My point of having two copies of Assault in the deck is raise the odds of pullingit once during the game, not playing it twice

Ah, ok, that makes more sense