I think that they should create a 6 pack cycle thing about lustria, that would be sweet,

Even better make lizardmen a complete stand alone army!

What do you all think?

That was already discussed in another thread. Additional factions are best left as allied neutrals so they won't throw the game out of balance. Furthermore nobody would like it if they get just 2 cards per faction in each BP ... on the other hand a lot of people won't like it (thus don't buy it) if a full cycle has only cards for a couple of factions - in both cases this would be a catastrophic business decision for FFG.

With 6 factions + neutrals and a 6 BP cycle FFG have great flexibility - they can print almost equal number of cards per faction (and still have enough to keep everybody interested in buying each BP); or they can make it more conceptual (or story driven) and have one BP devoted mainly to two factions, the the next for other two and so on, without making a player wait for more than 3 months to see his favourite faction.

It's only normal for FFG to make you want each and every BP, and it's also what most players want - to have a fresh BP with stuff they could use every month.

Iffo said:

It doesn't matter, really. The only difference between Neutral cards and Race cards is that Race cards have the additional bonus of reducing the cost of playing other cards of that race. You don't need a race match to play things, so in theory new races can be introduced instead of neutrals.

It does matter in that it would dilute the support for each of the individual races. The fact of the matter is the more factions you add the harder it is to balance them all playwise, to differentiate them from the other races theme wise and to have support for them in each and every BP. I have seen it happen with L5R when I started there was like 15 factions, they then dropped to 9 after the change over back to AEG from WotC and has remained pretty much static there.

Sometimes less really is more.

Toqtamish said:

Well, having neutrals dilutes the support of the individual races. And does all the things you mention. Mechanically it doesn't matter much. Maybe the new races don't get 'much support' but as neutrals they don't really get support at all. It's no problem, since you can play mixed races easy, it just may hurt loyalty a little.

The difference between races as neutrals and stand-alone races is, that players expect to get cards for each stand-alone race in every battle pack. That is not the case with races as neutrals, who, like the skaven, could be limited to one cycle and thus would only "dilute" BPs of that cycle. At the moment we have 6 races and 20 different cards per BP, thus each race will get 2 to 3 cards per BP, which still leaves enough place for neutrals. With 8 races you would basically be limited to 2 cards per race and 4 neutrals. Of course FFG could provide more different cards per BP, but that seems unlikely since they chose this BP-collation, because it allows a price point where spontaneous buying is likely, which is quite important if they want to reach out to the more casual players.

Marius said:

Trust me, Toqtamish has the right of this one. Look at it this way:

Having Neutral cards appeals to (potentially) every player, and in particular to players with an interest in the "Neutral Faction" cards being brought out in this cycle (Skaven in the current cycle, for example).

Extra Factions - fully supported - appeal to the players of those factions in particular. The number of cards released in each BP will determine the interest of each player. If two more fully supported Factions are released then that will decrease the number of cards available to each Faction (let's say they'll each get two cards per BP, and the neutral cards run down to four).

So if the game is supporting eight factions, each BP contains 16 Faction-aligned cards and 4 Neutral cards - 2 cards for each faction. Not much, and players with an interest in only Dwarves and Chaos may be dissuaded from picking up a BP - they've gone from having maybe half the pack being a definite interest to maybe a third.

Of course a solution is to have "rolling" factions - have some factions be supported at a lower rate than others. This is usually a sign of impending problems for a game, as the fans of the less-supported faction perceive it as "a knife in the back" or "a big Eff You to the fans" when they receive less cards in their monthly BP. Many of these fans will Geek Boycott the game (complaining loudly but continuing to buy so as to maintain a complete collection), but some of them will actually just stop playing. Their interest will not be held.

Further to this, variation of factions between cycles will make the act of balancing the game in the future nothing short of a nightmare for the designers. I have seen this happen with L5R and something much like it happen with 7th Sea.

Final point: "Mechanically it doesn't matter much. Maybe the new races don't get 'much support' but as neutrals they don't really get support at all."

This game releases twenty new cards per month, and has been in existence since October 2009. Even FFG can't produce a massive stash of cards detailing every faction of the Warhammer World in one sitting and expect people to just stump up for it. Even if it did sell well, what are they going to do next?

Still, what is the difference between 'Race: Neutral, Subtype: Skaven' and 'Race: Skaven, Subtype: Warrior oh and it gets a little more cheaper if you put more skaven in.'

Skaven have self-synergy already, with the 'all skaven' text appearing on some card: Uncorrupt all skaven, find the top 5 skaven, etc... Would a few loyalty icons hurt them?

Right now there are 4 'primairy' races, 2 'secundairy races' and then maybe there will be a couple that don't even get their own Capitol, but at least aren't piled together with other random things, pretending not to be a race.

Mind you, I love this game. And there are some things that can be 'neutral' - But I do hope to see a few cards that are comfortable to belong to a race, not a race disguised as a subtype. If skaven where a race, I could still play an all Greenskin deck, and splash in this one amazing Skaven hero and be able to play it normally.

okay, if they are neutral, even though it may not be the most tactically sound option, but could a person have a deck consisting of all netral (say skaven for example). Sorry if this is an obvious question, i am new to the game, got it just a few days ago.

Thanks for all the responses.

facepalm said:

Yes, you can do that. You won't be building any loyalty, but you can ofcourse empower your kindom to gain more resources and play all your neutrals. Your resource management is more geared toward corruption, not loyalty (which in the case of Skaven is thematically sound, I suppose) but you're not breaking any deck construction rules.

Marius, you still haven't given a compelling reason why having separate factioned races without a capitol board is better than having a neutral aligned faction. You haven't even come close to refuting the numerous reasons why including more stand alone faction is a bad idea.

It really sounds more like your reasoning boils down to fluff, IOW you are a Warhammer fan and think this game should resemble the various TTG GW has produced over the years. If this is the case, then I understand your desire and sympathize with the fact that it will never come to pass in the current format.

My words to then are you have the TTG for that. Embrace this game and its slice of the WH IP and accept it for what it is. You'll have more fun, won't be disappointed when it continues to develop along this line, and it will give you a chance to meet a lot of new people who may be interested in picking up the TTG after they come to love the IP, and you end up with more players for the TTG.

dormouse said:

First of all, I am not a 'Warhammer fan' in the sense you are aluding at. My first experience with the WH universe has been more than a decade ago with the RPG - the first tabletop RPG I played, after which I didn't have had the opportunity to play RPGs.

Yes, there is probably a 'fluff reason' - I think that is important to the game. It has been designed with a certain amount of evocation in mind.

I am mainly a card gamer. The way the payment system is set up in this game offers a great opportunity to just add races/factions/colors without unbalancing the game. There certainly is room for neutrality as well, but it's best reserved for 'races' that are truly indifferent to the order/destruction seperation going on here.

It certainly is more elegant to have 'race' on one 'level of catagory' in the game. What I mean by this is that it doesn't make any real mechanical and flavour sense to have race in the 'race field' on one card, and on the 'subtype field' on another. It can be done, ofcourse and it has been done, but it feels clunky and a bit of a wasted opportunity.

So I am refuting:

"It does matter in that it would dilute the support for each of the individual races. The fact of the matter is the more factions you add the harder it is to balance them all playwise, to differentiate them from the other races theme wise and to have support for them in each and every BP."

That having extra races, instead of extra subtypes that work together makes the level of dilution any different. And the way the resource system works, it doesn't change any balancing issues in a meaningful way. All it does is moving one aspect of a card to a different location, while creating the opportunity to expand on the theme on the long run.

"The difference between races as neutrals and stand-alone races is, that players expect to get cards for each stand-alone race in every battle pack. That is not the case with races as neutrals, who, like the skaven, could be limited to one cycle and thus would only "dilute" BPs of that cycle."

The level of expectation of players doesn't create any mechanical difference. It just creates an opportunity to meet the expectation later on, and create extra exitement when a 'tertiary race' makes a return. It creates enhanced modularity of expansions and greater flexibility in mining design space.

Neutral cards take as much deck and pack space as raced cards. So, there is the same level of dilution.

"Having Neutral cards appeals to (potentially) every player, and in particular to players with an interest in the "Neutral Faction" cards being brought out in this cycle (Skaven in the current cycle, for example)."

Since mechanically there is very little reason not to include an off-race card, there is no compelling reason for the 'every player' to include a race card if it fits their deck, much like adding a neutral card. If 'tertiary races' are concervative on the loyalty cost the mechanical impact is minimal. It just make the card look different, with an added bonus of being more appealing to the players who happen to dig a particular race like the Skaven.

"So if the game is supporting eight factions, each BP contains 16 Faction-aligned cards and 4 Neutral cards - 2 cards for each faction. Not much, and players with an interest in only Dwarves and Chaos may be dissuaded from picking up a BP - they've gone from having maybe half the pack being a definite interest to maybe a third."

In the beginning not all races where equally supported. There are the primairy races empire/dwarves/orcs/chaos, and secundairy races High Elf/Dark Elf. It wouldn't be hard to 'set expectation' that tertiary races would only appear in smaller cycles, on shorter runs than the main races of the game.

"Of course a solution is to have "rolling" factions - have some factions be supported at a lower rate than others. This is usually a sign of impending problems for a game, as the fans of the less-supported faction perceive it as "a knife in the back" or "a big Eff You to the fans" when they receive less cards in their monthly BP. Many of these fans will Geek Boycott the game (complaining loudly but continuing to buy so as to maintain a complete collection), but some of them will actually just stop playing. Their interest will not be held."

If this is true, than there shouldn't have been Skaven at all. Because Skaven are getting the shaft by just being a subtype, and Skaven fans already can see how unsupported their fave race is. However, once again, mechanically it doesn't matter how unsupported a race is, since all chaos decks can play Skaven regardless of their neutrality/raceness.

"Further to this, variation of factions between cycles will make the act of balancing the game in the future nothing short of a nightmare for the designers. I have seen this happen with L5R and something much like it happen with 7th Sea."

This may be due to the way the resource management in those games is set up, or the limitations it has on mixing and matching factions. This is not a concern in Warhammer Invasion. The Skaven are a different Race in all but a Skaven symbol on the card.

Don't worry. I'm not saying I don't enjoy the game or that it has glaring flaws. I'm saying that it has unmined potential which I would like to see fulfilled along the way.

To make it as simple as possible. If you have too many races there is no way to support them all evenly. I do not really see the game going above 6 "main" races in the near future, if ever. Yes new races are great, believe me I am a huge Skaven fan, first GW purchase ever was the 2nd edition Skaven army book, but with them being destruction neutral race only they don't need to be supported in the next cycle, next cycle could have a different neutral race, or none at all but the main 6 will always be there.

Toqtamish said:

Ok, so you think this setup is easier. Where do you think added complexity will come from, compared to neutrals? What is the differnce between 'neutral' and 'race' mechanically in your opinion?

Marius, mechanically the difference is the loyalty symbol. Neutrals are much more splashable and versatile. On another note each printed race is a commitment on the publisher side - a promise to players that they will see cards for that faction in every BP. With players only playing a couple of races adding more would mean less value in each BP and less initiative to buy it - a pack with 2 'usable' cards out of the 20 new ones is far from a compelling product. On the other hand, both Orc and Chaos player may easily splash a few Skaven in their deck, and that's much easier than splashing Dark Elf cards. This way even though the cycle features Skaven cards it doesn't take away from other factions - it actually helps them! And that's the genius of the neutral factions!

The problem Marius is that very nearly each statement you make in refutation is also a statement in support. There is a mechanical difference between an unsupported race with an neutral card with destruction or order alignment, simply look at the costing of the Skaven versus that of the High Elves (and all the complaints in the "kind of sucks" thread about how unsplashable they are because of the cost of the loyalty. There is also the difference that comes from player expectation. If Skaven had a race symbol I would expect there to be a capital card forthcoming. I would be wrong about it and that expectation would color how I view the game and FFG. Absolutely nothing mechanical is gained, the only thing that is added is fluff, which is called fluff for a reason.

Skaven are a destruction race, we all agree with that. Their being a neutral card is intended to show they are not aligned with the Hordes of Chaos, the Dark Elves, or the Orcs and Goblins, but often work towards the same purposes. They are not truly neutral working both sides, but they are also not specifically loyal to one group of the Destruction side represented in this game. If you came at this from the RPG think of the Skaven and all the other aligned neutrals to come as NPC's which may be player companions or allies, but are not included as playable races. There is absolutely no difference. As a matter of fact, in the first two additions, you didn't have the option of playing any destruction (Chaos) aligned forces. I don't know if that changed at some later point, but you had a limited access to order aligned races.

An aligned neutral does not require it's own unique race mechanics but could be a minor variation of existing mechanics attributed to the established six races, with little to no complaint about how race X is just a cheap knock off established race X. This allows the Design and Development teams all the design space they wish to mine without having to deal with unmet expectations form the majority of their player base.

Not having them as set races allows the flexibility of future BP's containing a wider variety of support for aligned neutrals hinged around a story/theme rather than a racial theme. We have the Assult set coming up with will feature the elves, but it isn't hard to imagine a battle pack cycle in the future that involved a clash over some item of pwoer or other city which may see a couple of Skaven and Lizardmen and Wood Elves and Undead all making appearances, and no specific player being upset that their Dogs of War were totally left out.