So I was bored and waiting for a client so I put together so rules and musing on a dwarf faction. Please indulge me by taking a look.

Dwarves (I like the name dwellers below)

tactic cards 3

influence 2

Neutral Aligned

Starting resources

2 Food

2 Wood

3 Ore

Units

initiative step 2 Gunners Triangle 1H Orb: Bombard and Volley : Deal 2 damage which your opponent must apply to units in one initiative step.

initiative step 3 Stone Masters Square 1H (tunnelers) Orb: The Secret Ways : Move up to one friendly unit to this battle from up to 3 hexes away ignoring intervening terrain and models for each orb drawn. These units may act as normal in future initiative steps.

initiative step 4 Dwarven Clanwarriors Square 2H (tunnelers) Orb: Unbreakable : Stand one routed united at this battle or ignore one rout this initiative step. Then, deal one rout.

initiative step 5 Wargolem Hexagon 3H Orb: The Mightiest : Your opponent must destroy a Hexagon Unit of his choice at this battle.

Tunnelers is a new keyword which allows units which have it to ignore Red Boarders for movement.

The Dials would look something like this

Food

1 warrior
2 warrior
3 influence
4
5 warrior
6 warrior

7

8

Wood

1 gunner
2 influence
3 gunner
4 Card
5 gunner
6 Influence
7 Wargolem
8 Card

Ore

1 Card
2 Stonemaster
3 Card
4 Wargolem
5 Influence
6 Stonemaster
7 Influence
8 Card

What do folks think?

I like it. I'm not sure about the tunnel special ability tho. Although I'm a huge fan of it. It may cause some issues. Maybe changing it to state that you could bring in a unit of the same initiative so it could attack the same round. Or, bringing in any unit and it would count towards strength at the end of the battle however could not attack. Or maybe you just did a great job and it doesn't need changing.

Oh Taki, I see You have given this some thought. Bravo.

I really like your conceptions. Especially the "neutral alignment" and the tunneling ability. I think it would even be balanced since they have

no flying (-> no crossing waters) but rather a unique advantage that other races would have to adapt to. RP-wise it rocks, of course.

The Idea of stout, probably drunk, Dwarven soldiers swarming up from some deep roads tunnel... haha Nice one !

Nice approach to the Dwarves

I may be crazy, but if they add the Orcs and Dwarves as races, I imagine they will make the Orcs start with 5 tactics and no influence and the dwarves have 5 influence and no tactics. It fits their background, kinda, and keeps them from having to rewrite what you do to break ties.

you could break ties for matching starting influence by simply taking the highest number on a fate card. This is how I plan on approaching it when I put two base sets together to play a mega game.

Acebob said:

I predict the following: In the case of a tie for starting influence (and all other tie breakers), all tied players draw a fate card. Highest numbered card (at the bottom) card goes first (or lowers if you prefer). Those numbers are useful for more than just determining the first player :+)

Very nice, I especially like your dwarven tunneling idea. A couple thoughts:

Make the tunneler ability apply to same initiative or lower so units will either attack that round or just act as end of battle strength. This prevents OP hexagon creatures from being snuck in and decimating. Also may want to note that it brings in standing units from an unactivated territory to keep things consistent with the rules (i.e. no double using the same unit).

The special for your Golem is a little much, as one shotting a player's uber unit is kind of nuts. Routing a players hex may be more acceptable, or maybe something like, rout 3 triangles/circles, 2 rectangles, or 1 hex. Then again, it is initiative 5, and most uber units will have some wounds by then, so insta-killing a wounded hex may not be to big a deal... hmm. As a complete alternative, how about:

Defensive Bastion: Block up to two damage or one rout. If either a rout or damage is blocked, deal two damage

To make this ability work, your golem would need an intitative lower than 5. Or, you could make the damage reflection be the trigger for the hex insta-kill, as any blocked damage would really have to come from a hexagonal unit at that initiative. Just some thoughts.

As for the influence/tactic card ratio, I foresee expansion factions as replacements to existing ones; keeping the same number of players in the game but allowing more diversity in faction choice. So, in this case the dwarves could replace the undead (or, may be more fitting to make them 3 inf/2 tact and replace the humans).

I was thinking more about a Dwarf race and had the following ideas

Initiative 1 Dwarf gunners/crossbowmen/something similar. Triangle units with 1 hit point. As far as a special ability goes I think forcing your opponent to assign one damage to a unit with 1 hip point if able would be a good ability. No other unit has that ability yet, its simple, and can be useful without being too strong.

Initiative 3 Dwarf Grenadiers. They would have the tunneling ability as you described. Circles with two hit points. Their special ability would be something like "Fire Bombs: Deal 1 damage or damage one of your units to deal 2 damage to enemy units." Circle bases would mean they activate their special ability more often.

Initiative 4 Dwarf Warriors. Rectangle base shape with two hit points. Note sure of a special ability for these guys.

Initiative 5 King's Bodyguard: Rectangle base with three hit points. Their special ability could be "Rally a routed friendly unit"

I think getting a dwarf unit to look like it should fit on a hexagon base may difficult unless they opt for something like a cannon or a warmachine. I like the idea of Dwarves having multiple hit points and abilities that allow their units to un-rout to be a good way of representing stubborness or heavy armor. Dwarven developments could be something that allows them to unrout units they have before calculating strength.

The Tunneling special ability could be further used in new Neutral units like Kobolds. I imagine they would be triangle units, 1 hit point, tunneling, with a special ability that read similarly to "Deal 1 damage for each other Kobold present." They would appear in groups of two or three in areas with mountains and ore

i love the "already want expansion" posts...... im sure that FFG has a whole list of expansions ready for testing and just waiting for the green light.

Kias said:

Well, in rethinking it, I would make the dwarf warriors or the stone masters from the above list into triangle units as the damage output on squares is high, so something's got to be lowered. My thoughts on the golem were that it's not so powerful a special ability as a) it only targets other big baddies b) it's very low initiative chain and c) chaos lords can already take a big baddie out of the fight with less effort. Though you bring up another valid point as they would be often already wounded.

My thinking rp wise was that the dwarves would use runic golems to kill things that would kill dwarves unfairly. I mean no dwarf wants to be burned to death from a dragon in the sky, they would make a construct to fight it. I didn't want to do siege weapons as knights already have them so I thought this was a nice alternate unit. Also, my thoughts were that dwarves would have to have high initiative scores. Crossbows and guns take longer to reload, dwarven infantry would move purposefully across a field, but cautiously not recklessly, and Golems would be large and ponderous. Thanks for the note for the underway power, it should be from unactivated territories only.

Honestly, I came up with this quickly, I'm sure FF will do a better job than this when they release the actual inevitable faction. I'm going to guess that they ll give us 3 new factions and 6 new tiles, 24 new quests, 12 new heroes and a ton of new optional rules.

Thanks for the kudos, I'm glad people don't think this sucks.