I love L5R, but do miss the other factions. especially Ratlings.

Also, just a note W:I was never a CCG, it's only ever existed as an LCG, and only for 3 months at that.

I like how they are adding the other factions as neutrals affiliated with either Order or Destruction, I was upset about Skaven but now that I have seen it, it works fine.

I know it was never a CCG I misspoke. I know how you feel I kinda miss the Naga myself, even thought I was a loyal Phoenix.

I`m still a loyal Spider (Shadowlands) player, but miss my Ratlings.

As for W:I, I`m apparently in the minority in not wanting to see more playable factions that aren`t neutral. Of course, that may be a) because my Warhammer armies are Dwarf and Orcs & Goblins and b) I`ve PTed L5R for years, and remember the trouble that extra factions caused.

For this game, I want to see the 6 factions developed and able to field multiple competitive decktypes if possible so there are options and you`re not locked into one style if you play only one faction. For example, Orcs & Goblins could have a blitzy deck like they have now, but also a beefy mid-game military deck with heavy hitting Black Orcs and such. Others in the thread have pointed out the options for the different aspects of Chaos. The Empire could have a heavy artillery style deck or something, while Dwarves could further explore their grudges or maybe something to do with their engineering and rune lore. The point is that all would have more than one decktype, so the game doesn`t stagnate. I remember playing Lord of the Rings early in its existence, and it ended up boring me because all the decks for a faction were the same and never changed (although I did hear that it did diversify eventually, but 5 sets in it hadn`t).

And I would love to see Order-aligned Lizardmen, although given their view of the world, they could almost go either way (with a caveat that they wouldn`t enter play if their player had a Skaven card in play).

Bronn said:

Now this is an interesting thought - neutrals that can or cannot be played based on what other units you have! I don't want to see more than the 6 initial races with own capitals as that would break the balance and/or will limit the number of new cards for each faction in the BP's (thus limiting the options).

Neutrals like the Lizardmen described by Bronn could bring some interesting deck building decisions. With a few more BP's and the Companion Set out in a few months we'll have enough options for great mono-faction decks, but a choice of neutrals with interesting conditions would really add a lot of diversity as you won't be able to just put in the best of them. And we all know a game with hundreds of cards will always have better units that see more play than others.

I really hope FFG take a similar approach to other races/armies - neutrals must be good enough to be played at all (thus not over costed) but they also need to have certain conditions to be used so we won't see the same cards in each and every deck of given alignment.

Let's hope they don't repeat MTG's mistake and have the equivalent of Black Lotus and the Moxen...

I don't think that they should make all races as a stand-alone race. But I think that 8 races would be a good number (AGOT has 8, COC has 7).

For that races my bet would be an Undead one (combining Khemri and Vampire Counts) and Lizardmen, since those two (three) races are the most different ones left. For example all human races can easily fit into empire or neutral. Ogres should be neutral since they work as mercenaries. Wood-Elves unit could also be order-only neutral (imo we don't need a third elve race) Skaven are already a neutral-Destr. only force which works well imo since they are somehow a mixture of chaos and orcs.

Edit: About Lizardman, Lizardmen would never allign with Chaos, Skaven or Dark Elves, so I can't imagine them as neutral, maybe as order-only neutral but never with any chaos force. The Lizardmen are the only warhammer race that was never corrupted by chaos. The human, the dwarves and the elves each of this race is corrupted to some part. (I'm not sure about the orcs, orcs are basicly fighting everyone)

tech7 said:

AGoT only has six factions, with numerous minor houses within each house and neutral cards.

Lizardmen are most certainly order in warhammer background. There is nothing neutral about them! They were the primary fighters of demons when the rift opened, and are decicaded to the destruction of chaos and skaven. And they are not too happy with the DE that keeping raiding to steal there artifacts.

In WI game terms I would have no problems with them as neatural/order only cards. But they would certainly never work with destruction, that would be wrong!

I lot of warhammer armies could easly fit under the umbrella of ther races. WFB has 14 races now, I agree with 8 as a good number.

I see undead being there own army, that is just too classic warhammer to avoid. Which means you need another order race to match them. I agree we do not need anyother elf race. Woodies can be order neutrals. Ogres are clearly neutral, Chaos dwarves, beastmen and demons fall under chaos umbrella, so really that leaves lizardmen as the best fit for a 8th order race.

White Phoenix said:

Okay, but the 7 for COC is correct. ( I don't have much knowledge about AGOT)

With the current format I think 8 faction are reasonable. This would divide each pack into two cards for each faction and four neutral. Sounds reasonable to me. Especiall now with the new distribution format. Of course if FFG introduces two new factions the cycle which is active at that point should favor them . but imo this would work quite well. Furthermore, it is a good excuse for FFG to make another big expansion for WH:I.

I don't agree with that. I like how it is now and as long as new stuff is being added even if its neutral races it should help keep things flowing. With 8 the amount of cards per pack are too few.

The game is still so new, they have lots of cool stuff coming down the pipeline without getting to caught up in the future, I am sure there plans are about a year ahead of what we see coming down the pipeline, even if in draft from.

I am certainly in no hurrey to see new races beyond fleshing out the DE and HE and the existing races. I do feel the game would have no problem bringing in 2 more factions in the semi-far future. Not sure how a lizzie army would play and feel right, although they have plenty of units to choose from, but undead is eay though, would take lots of play testing, but basicly you would have some mechanic for cards constantly coming back, or starting week and getting boosts from necromaic power, possibly a take over of oppenents units in a weakened state.

I would be shocked if this game system dosn't extend to include the undead.

I know some are dissappointed by skaven not being an independent faction, I have a friend how is a skaven nut who wishs it was so. However, Skaven is a complete enough army that given time, I could see enough neutrals coming alone to allow skaven to be a pure deck, using anybodies capital board to play off of. Or it would be easy enough to make a capital board for them and have it give a discount of skaven labled neutrals.

Aside from that , I am not really looking too far into the future. I spent a fortune on WFB, but now I am married with a child on the way, my wife has never interfered with my game spending, but with many new baby and home imrovement expenses coming up and wife leaving work, I am happy that this game is on a release schdueal that should fit any budget or income.

More than six main factions would be an overkill for a card game for one more reason - each of the factions must be quite distinct and to dictate a certain way of playing it. With so small number of cards printed yet we have units that are very similar or the same between the four factions. Those are all very basic units but imagine when you add HE & DE + 2 more factions and a few hundred cards more - some of the factions will either become interchangeable or gimmicky. Neither of that is good for the game.

As for the CoC example - I haven't tried it but I've heard that the 7 factions there aren't very distinct. While it's cool flavour wise to have each player's favourite faction that doesn't really improve the game.

I'll repeat myself but I'm really happy FFG is doing aligned neutrals instead of printing 14 (or 10... or 8) full fledged factions. This way the other factions are much more splashable and that tremendously improves the options for deck building... or at least it will when we get the whole first cycle and the companion pack.

Iffo said:

I'm pretty sure that the creative team of FFG would be able to make the 7th and 8th army distinct enough, especially for the undead it would be pretty easy. Reanimation effects for example don't really fit the other races. And I don't think that it would decrease the options for deckbuilding, only the card with high-loyalty cost are not splashable and sometimes even those with tricks rips ere deads heads off.

But I agree that FFG should not hurry to put those out, we have time

About COC I don't play it either, but I'm pretty certain that most COC will disagree with your statement (even if it is true)

There's another thing that claim why Orcs are a faction while Skaven aren't : army size.

In the Warhammer world, Orcs armies are gigantic, do to the WAAAGH process, Chaos are gathering crusades against the Order, the Empire says it all : it is an Empire. Dwarves, High Elves and Dark Elves are nations and thus have organized armies.

If we compare to the other Warhammer races, we have : Lizardmen that have city-level armies, same for Skaven, undead are the personnal armies of a local necroman / lich / vampire.

WH:I is about building kingdoms. It is not about local conflicts between the militia and some hundreds of skavens or undeads... That's the scale of Warhammer Fantasy Battle

Iffo said:

Another factor against distinctiveness within a faction is time - I know that with 7th Sea, the longer the game went on the stronger the desire became to put out a crew or two for a particular faction who was good at something another faction did. Even if only one or two cards are good at something another faction can do, you're looking at six cards potentially in a deck diluting the strengths of one faction by adding the strengths of another.
The advantage with W:I is that the main factions - Order and Destruction - have kind of mutually exclusive tactics (Destruction doesn't heal or conserve damage much, Order can't corrupt), though Corruption is obviously more exclusive.

With Call of Cthulhu, I would say that in the Core Set the factions are very distinct - as with your example you state above, the addition of further cards to the card pool dilutes the distinctiveness of each faction.

Martin_fr said:

That's simply wrong the skaven armies are as big as the empire armies if not even bigger and certainly bigger than the dark elv armies which are mainly used for plunder, usually they fight among themselves but if they emerge they are a big threat for the Warhammer world (much like the orcs). The lizardman also have large armies, but they usually don't go out on war. Even the undead have organized armies, at least the Tomb Kings of Khemri.