By the end of the Cycle we will have 3 warlords for each faction, including Tyranids, but only two for the Necrons? Im somewhat surprised that they arnt doing a double warlord in the final gambit pack with the third necron

I don't think it is at all that surprising.

You have to remember the design and development cycle. You have to remember that all packs of a cycle are developed together. The Planetfall Cycle (as a whole) was probably designed, developed, play-tested and finalized (then split into the 6 packs) before the Necron box was finished going through the same process -- probably even before the process started for the Necrons. How could they have included a Necron warlord in the Planetfall Cycle without the box ready to go?

The fact that once the development cycle on the Necrons box ended, they were able to get the product into print and - with luck - on the shelves before the entire Planetfall Cycle has been released shouldn't make you assume that their development was in parallel.

The better question might be why the Necrons box only has 2 warlords instead of 3, rather than why the Planetfall Cycle doesn't include a Necrons warlord (when there were probably no other Necrons cards in the play test card pool for the Planetfall Cycle).

Hmm....

Why did Brad this last podcast break out in hysterical laughter at the mention of Backlash should be another important question when Legions of Death comes out.

And I also do not see why they would put a Warlord in a Cycle without any supporting card.

Given the access to all factions in the alignment wheel I think there will be enough possibilities/variation in the meantime

But one thing is for certain there will be change .

good points all around. i guess the reason i feel they were developed in parallel is because fantasy flight doesnt seem to be the type of company that would be sitting on either of these products if they had them finished in sequential order, and since they are both in development currently, i assume that in the companies whatever-year plan for this products releases their duration overlapped as well. i agree that planetfall was probably ahead, perhaps by months, of the necrons, and that would have made it hard to plug in a warlord at that time. my question was more along the lines of someone taking a step back prior to development and saying, "hey guys, one of these things is not gonna be like the others." And maybe they did and didnt care, or have a plan for a double release later, or whatever.

i was also going under a few precedents of action, like the tyranids only having 2, and the necrons being analogous to that in the long run.

When i think about the barriers to releasing the warlord first, meaning with this cycle, the biggest one to me seems to be the lack of the unique 'alignment/warlord movement' wheel the necrons will have for the few months prior to the expansion release. However, this cycle seems to open a lot of expanded allying options through its warlords, so having a warlord whose hale trait was something like "you may play common units from any faction", and bloodied was "You may only deploy non-necron units from a single faction per turn" or something to that effect could eliminate that.

It might look a tad awkward later, but i think we can all agree that hasnt stopped the sorting/verbage before, and it wouldnt give any rules conflicts. idk if that would have been reasonable; but i would think it would be a sweet 'spoiler' to drum up interest for the upcoming expansion, and once the expansion came out it would encourage people to purchase that booster, especially if the other warlord in the pack was subject-omega of the tyranids in the last pack released.

like i said, i dont have all the answers, but if someone thought about it with enough time to plan and incorporate it... my 1/#rd of the vote thinks it would have been cool prior to the expansions release, and given a sense of parity between the factions after the expansion's release.

Why are we bringing Privateer Press into this?

Hehe, because alliterative gaming companies short circuit my brains. O_o oops.

So, essentially, you think it would have been cool for FFG to give up 9 card slots in one of the Planetfall cycle packs to preview Necrons by printing a warlord, that couldn't have been used until the Necrons deck building rules were published?

ktom, thanks for your re-occurring interest, but you clearly are the wrong person to discuss this with.

Its not your opposition to the idea, which is fine, but a speculative question of this nature requires the discussion to wander outside of the constraints you have self-imposed.

Just for the record of restating what you reconfigured from what i said, "Yes, i think it would have been cool to remove 3 cards from the set (for a total of 9 card slots) to include a necron warlord, even if the necron expansion was released after the last pack in the planetfall set."

Planetfall finished development prior to the Necron expansion announcement, don't read too much into the product status on FFG's own website, its intentionally misleading, as are their release date timeframes in their product announcements.

Much as I am bummed that Necron's did not receive a third warlord in their own expansion to be on par with all the other factions, I imagine over time it won't be that big of a deal.

The game needs a greater card pool for creating more thematic or trait centered decks in general and could use more planets and a good multiplayer ruleset more than it needs a 3rd necron warlord really.

The answer is pretty simple: rotation

If they released a Necron warlord in Planetfall, the Necrons would always be a Warlord behind when the rotation would hit.

By releasing the 3rd warlord in the next cycle, they ensure all factions will have the same number of warlords once Cycle #1 (Warlord) and Cycle #2 (Planetfall) will rotate out.

So far, Deluxe expensions mark the start of a new cycle. The Core Set marked the start of the Warlord cycle and The Great Devourer marked the start of Planetfall cycle.

Legions of Death is marking the start of the 3rd cycle (cycle name TBD), but it wouldn't surprise me if from the 4th cycle they only make 8 warlords per cycle instead of 9 because the the 3rd Deluxe will be for 1 faction with a potential of 1 or 2 warlords that won't rotate out.