My thoughts on the Factions, based on previews and mechanics:

Crab - Strong Military, weak Political; designed to Defend and bring back lost Holdings (I am expecting something similar to the Martell faction for AGoT)
Crane - Weak Military, strong Political; THE go-to Offense Political faction, with the ability to push away Military attackers and Honor their high Glory personalities for the win
Dragon - Mediocre Military, mediocre Political; will be dealing with a lot of Limited Personalities, but will have cheaper people over all so you can invest Fate in them
Lion - Strong Military, weak Political; cheap Personalities with low Skill but lots of blanket buffs (see their Stronghold)
Phoenix - Mediocre Military, mediocre Political; strong Defensive abilities with a good Denial sub theme
Scorpion - Weak Military, strong Political; most effects will key off of having less Honor than your opponent, and neutralize individuals
Unicorn - Strong Military, weak Political; relies on heavy forward momentum and their Conflict deck to win on the offense, with no defensive tricks.

7 minutes ago, Gabe D1V4T0 said:

Is it confirmed that each player can only declare a mil and a pol conflict each round? Where? It doesn't make much sense to me.

Regarding the rings, my guess is that changing the ring of a conflict would change the token, which would free the original ring to be chosen on a future conflict, perhaps by the phoenix player who changed it in the first place. This is just a guess and we'll have to wait to see the rulebook or future previews to know for sure, but I think it's a very clear and simple way for that interaction to work. Much simpler than having to remember what ring the conflict was declared on or what ir it was changed to and also strategically more interesting (imo).

On the product page, if you click "Read More", it goes over a few aspects of the game. Under "Face Your Enemy", it says:

"Each player has the option to declare up to two conflicts during the conflict phase. Players alternate declaring conflicts, and each player can initiate one military conflict and one political conflict. You may even choose to pass your first conflict, waiting to see how your opponent acts, and then commit your full strength to your second conflict later."

However, I'm thinking there will likely be cards allowing a player to declare a second conflict of the same type. This would allow clans to play to their strengths a bit more, while making it card-dependent would help ensure that a Crab player, say, isn't able to make every conflict Military (unless he wanted to devote a significant portion of his deck to do so, which would cut into what else he could do).

13 minutes ago, Gabe D1V4T0 said:

Is it confirmed that each player can only declare a mil and a pol conflict each round? Where? It doesn't make much sense to me.

"Each player has the option to declare up to two conflicts during the conflict phase. Players alternate declaring conflicts, and each player can initiate one military conflict and one political conflict."

From here: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/legend-of-the-five-rings-the-card-game/

I wonder if winning a Water battle will allow you to ready one of the characters that bowed in the resolution.

7 minutes ago, shineyorkboy said:

I wonder if winning a Water battle will allow you to ready one of the characters that bowed in the resolution.

From the text on the Product page, you claim the ring and then the armies go home bowed. So apparently no, you won't be able to ready a character who's been bowed by conflict resolution.

Looks like Ide isn't going to be big at the start of this, for Unicorn.

1 hour ago, Kiseki said:

I think we can still get families that specialize in a certain sphere without making it so that they need an entire "theme" around them. I'd imagine that most decks will want to at least have enough token resistance to defend against both types of conflicts. For example one player might choose to skew their deck towards Daidoji and fighting conflicts, while another might skew towards the Doji family, political conflicts and honor gain. Each deck might contain a mix of Doji and Daidoji personalities, but different numbers of each depending on how they want their deck to play.

This

41 minutes ago, sndwurks said:

My thoughts on the Factions, based on previews and mechanics:

Crab - Strong Military, weak Political; designed to Defend and bring back lost Holdings (I am expecting something similar to the Martell faction for AGoT)
Crane - Weak Military, strong Political; THE go-to Offense Political faction, with the ability to push away Military attackers and Honor their high Glory personalities for the win
Dragon - Mediocre Military, mediocre Political; will be dealing with a lot of Limited Personalities, but will have cheaper people over all so you can invest Fate in them
Lion - Strong Military, weak Political; cheap Personalities with low Skill but lots of blanket buffs (see their Stronghold)
Phoenix - Mediocre Military, mediocre Political; strong Defensive abilities with a good Denial sub theme
Scorpion - Weak Military, strong Political; most effects will key off of having less Honor than your opponent, and neutralize individuals
Unicorn - Strong Military, weak Political; relies on heavy forward momentum and their Conflict deck to win on the offense, with no defensive tricks.

I dunno if we can/should expect the dragon guys to be cheaper.

3 hours ago, JJ48 said:

It depends. Maybe the Daidoji could defend with lower, but still present, political values. Perhaps there will be more cards allowing the player to switch the type of conflict to military, allowing the Daidoji to use their full potential. Maybe the Crane will have more cards to help control conflicts and send people home to cause the enemy to bounce.

Personally, I'm most interested in whether military and political conflicts will be the same thing with just different names (and different cards referencing them), or whether they will actually have a different feel to them.

I would think it would be based on the start. Mainly because, if you declare a military conflict against me, resolve it, and then declare a political conflict against me, and then I try to change it to military, what happens? Does it fail to change? Does the conflict simply end because we can't have you doing another military conflict? The easiest solution I can see is to assume that because it wasn't declared as military, the conflicts don't conflict.

so why ignore a strength of your clan?

REmember a lot of conflict cards are going to be clan specific too. Are Crane going to get a lot of Military conflict cards?

1 minute ago, Jedi samurai said:

so why ignore a strength of your clan?

REmember a lot of conflict cards are going to be clan specific too. Are Crane going to get a lot of Military conflict cards?

I imagine that if FFG does decide to expand the Daidoji, they'll include cards to support them, too.

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

I imagine that if FFG does decide to expand the Daidoji, they'll include cards to support them, too.

but thats the point - there will be SOME support for Daidoji within the Crane, but are they going to make several expansions worth of cards geared just toward them to allow an off-flavor play for that clan?

We have Clan decks, not family ones.

2 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

but thats the point - there will be SOME support for Daidoji within the Crane, but are they going to make several expansions worth of cards geared just toward them to allow an off-flavor play for that clan?

We have Clan decks, not family ones.

Assuming there's some method of splashing off clan cards they don't really need to print that much support for off-flavor play since clans can always import cards from other clans. Specifically for Crane, I'm expecting they will get a lot of high glory characters, as well as ways to honor them so a military focused Crane deck doesn't seem that far fetched.

3 minutes ago, GoblinGuide said:

Assuming there's some method of splashing off clan cards they don't really need to print that much support for off-flavor play since clans can always import cards from other clans. Specifically for Crane, I'm expecting they will get a lot of high glory characters, as well as ways to honor them so a military focused Crane deck doesn't seem that far fetched.

So there wouldn't be a crane military/Daidoji "theme".

maybe, possibly a way to build a deck with Crane and something.

8 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

but thats the point - there will be SOME support for Daidoji within the Crane, but are they going to make several expansions worth of cards geared just toward them to allow an off-flavor play for that clan?

We have Clan decks, not family ones.

Out of the core? I agree with you. After a few arcs when each clan has dozens of new cards added? I wouldn't be so confident.

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

Out of the core? I agree with you. After a few arcs when each clan has dozens of new cards added? I wouldn't be so confident.

Unless they divert from each clans focus......

The Crane, for example, stronghold will still be able political battles. Supporting their theme/focus would mean more political personalities, political based clan only cards (way of the crane, clan specific conflict cards, clan specific attachments etc....). I totally agree there will be versions that have more daidoji characters and military options, just like there will be ones wiht more Kakita and dueling options etc... The balances between military and political and dueling etc... will all be different. But this idea that we'll get Crane decks that go against the theme/flavor of the clan as a whole.......Just look at their other LCG's. In Star Wars, the Jedi are a big unit deck, and all the cards they get are in support of that focus. Same with the families in GOT etc...

1 minute ago, Jedi samurai said:

Unless they divert from each clans focus......

The Crane, for example, stronghold will still be able political battles. Supporting their theme/focus would mean more political personalities, political based clan only cards (way of the crane, clan specific conflict cards, clan specific attachments etc....). I totally agree there will be versions that have more daidoji characters and military options, just like there will be ones wiht more Kakita and dueling options etc... The balances between military and political and dueling etc... will all be different. But this idea that we'll get Crane decks that go against the theme/flavor of the clan as a whole.......Just look at their other LCG's. In Star Wars, the Jedi are a big unit deck, and all the cards they get are in support of that focus. Same with the families in GOT etc...

Who said anything about going against theme/flavor? I'm not saying that a Daidoji deck will play like a Hida or Akodo deck. I thoroughly expect that Crane military will look and play very differently from other clans' military decks. But, it will also look a play a little differently from a Doji or a Kakita deck. I expect the majority of players will go for a more balanced deck design, but as soon as there are enough Crane cards to make all the characters in your deck Daidoji, I expect someone will come up with a viable (if not competitive) deck which does precisely that.

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

Who said anything about going against theme/flavor? I'm not saying that a Daidoji deck will play like a Hida or Akodo deck. I thoroughly expect that Crane military will look and play very differently from other clans' military decks. But, it will also look a play a little differently from a Doji or a Kakita deck. I expect the majority of players will go for a more balanced deck design, but as soon as there are enough Crane cards to make all the characters in your deck Daidoji, I expect someone will come up with a viable (if not competitive) deck which does precisely that.

We've been told what the CRANE deck will be like. We know how FFG supports their products. In Star Wars there aren't 3 differentw ays to make a Jedi deck. In GoT there aren't 3 different ways to build a Stark deck. They give you more and better options for their decks that are still on theme. Yes there will be wiggle room, but we have ZERO reason to expect decks based on families the way they were in the CCG. On the contrary they seem be going out of their way to give 1 theme/focus to an entire clan.

1 hour ago, sndwurks said:

Crab - Strong Military, weak Political; designed to Defend and bring back lost Holdings (I am expecting something similar to the Martell faction for AGoT)

I am curious how they will handle the Crab in regards to political strength now that political challenges can break provinces. With Crab primarily going the Military route, will they be hampered by likely having only one viable challenge a round? As far as defending the wall, I am interested in seeing what they will be able to do to defend against political challenges assuming they will be weaker politically. Then again I was surprised to see "Borderlands Defender" with 3 political

6 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

We've been told what the CRANE deck will be like. We know how FFG supports their products. In Star Wars there aren't 3 differentw ays to make a Jedi deck. In GoT there aren't 3 different ways to build a Stark deck. They give you more and better options for their decks that are still on theme. Yes there will be wiggle room, but we have ZERO reason to expect decks based on families the way they were in the CCG. On the contrary they seem be going out of their way to give 1 theme/focus to an entire clan.

That argument only makes sense if you're assuming that everyone in the clan will play the same way, or that we'll never reach enough Daidoji to make a deck of just them. Are you honestly saying that a deck where the only personalities are Daidoji won't play differently from deck of all Doji or a mixed deck? Or are you saying that there will likely just be a couple Daidoji or Kakita, and all the rest of the personalities for the remainder of the game will be Doji or neutral?

If FFG prints unique characters with different family names, the game will reach the point when we can build a deck of all on family. If there is any difference between the families whatsoever, a deck of all Daidoji will have at least a slightly different feel from a deck of all Doji. Again, the only other alternatives are that we won't have enough of a family to make an entire deck (almost inconceivable assuming the game continues long enough) or that the families will be so similar as to be interchangeable (in which case the Daidoji won't really be able to be called the military family, anyway).

22 minutes ago, hidasaurus said:

I am curious how they will handle the Crab in regards to political strength now that political challenges can break provinces. With Crab primarily going the Military route, will they be hampered by likely having only one viable challenge a round? As far as defending the wall, I am interested in seeing what they will be able to do to defend against political challenges assuming they will be weaker politically. Then again I was surprised to see "Borderlands Defender" with 3 political

I would think they'll either have ways of turning a conflict into a military conflict or else they'll have ways of giving a military flavor to political conflicts (maybe, if you defend successfully in a military conflict, you can get a bonus in a political conflict, or something). Conceptually, the Crab could be using their military victories to influence and/or bully others in court.

13 minutes ago, hidasaurus said:

I am curious how they will handle the Crab in regards to political strength now that political challenges can break provinces. With Crab primarily going the Military route, will they be hampered by likely having only one viable challenge a round? As far as defending the wall, I am interested in seeing what they will be able to do to defend against political challenges assuming they will be weaker politically. Then again I was surprised to see "Borderlands Defender" with 3 political

Borderlands Defender is a possible example: a lean towards defense but still having stats that can assist with either military or political challenges. The attachment, Jade Tetsubo, can be used in either type of conflict too. Bash that politician's brains in for some board control.

Would be nice to see more cards to make a better overall prediction of whether or not they can be "viable" in politics.

For the Crane, we've been giving a snippet of their play style. Here's the description:

"The Crane are known throughout the Emerald Empire as a political powerhouse, with wise and honorable courtiers guiding the clan and protecting themselves from external threats. In the game, you must leverage this political might to devastate your opponents during conflicts, keeping your characters honored to increase their skill and controlling the board by pushing your opponent’s characters away."

My problem with saying this is the end all be all of the clan is that some personalities don't necessarily mess with this idea. For instance, the first revealed Crane unique (Daidoji Morisomething) is a 3/1 for 2 whose action is to flip one of your face down cards up. This is a pretty nice guy but doesn't really fall into any of those three categories.

32 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

In GoT there aren't 3 different ways to build a Stark deck.

What? I think you are wrong... In AGoT there are clearly different sub-themes within each House for sure, and i expect something similar to appear in L5R over time.

17 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

That argument only makes sense if you're assuming that everyone in the clan will play the same way, or that we'll never reach enough Daidoji to make a deck of just them. Are you honestly saying that a deck where the only personalities are Daidoji won't play differently from deck of all Doji or a mixed deck? Or are you saying that there will likely just be a couple Daidoji or Kakita, and all the rest of the personalities for the remainder of the game will be Doji or neutral?

If FFG prints unique characters with different family names, the game will reach the point when we can build a deck of all on family. If there is any difference between the families whatsoever, a deck of all Daidoji will have at least a slightly different feel from a deck of all Doji. Again, the only other alternatives are that we won't have enough of a family to make an entire deck (almost inconceivable assuming the game continues long enough) or that the families will be so similar as to be interchangeable (in which case the Daidoji won't really be able to be called the military family, anyway).

I would think they'll either have ways of turning a conflict into a military conflict or else they'll have ways of giving a military flavor to political conflicts (maybe, if you defend successfully in a military conflict, you can get a bonus in a political conflict, or something). Conceptually, the Crab could be using their military victories to influence and/or bully others in court.

No, as I said I'm sure there will be variations and wiggle room within those "themes". A crane deck with no dueling, one with a little dueling, one with a lot of dueling. However all of those decks will work within the frame work of - In the game, you must leverage this political might to devastate your opponents during conflicts, keeping your characters honored to increase their skill and controlling the board by pushing your opponent’s characters away - cause thats what the Crane are.

As for changing the type of conflict.......I think that will exist but it will be rare. That type of effect could just nurf someones deck.

3 minutes ago, Jedi samurai said:

No, as I said I'm sure there will be variations and wiggle room within those "themes". A crane deck with no dueling, one with a little dueling, one with a lot of dueling. However all of those decks will work within the frame work of - In the game, you must leverage this political might to devastate your opponents during conflicts, keeping your characters honored to increase their skill and controlling the board by pushing your opponent’s characters away - cause thats what the Crane are.

As for changing the type of conflict.......I think that will exist but it will be rare. That type of effect could just nurf someones deck.

And yet, "leverage this political might" doesn't need to mean only in political conflicts. I fully expect a Crane military deck will still have a very political feel to it compared to Crab military.

14 minutes ago, Kubernes said:

My problem with saying this is the end all be all of the clan is that some personalities don't necessarily mess with this idea. For instance, the first revealed Crane unique (Daidoji Morisomething) is a 3/1 for 2 whose action is to flip one of your face down cards up. This is a pretty nice guy but doesn't really fall into any of those three categories.

My thoughts exactly. Seems weird to give Core set unique spot to someone who does not really fit into the playstyle as presented by that article.

9 minutes ago, C3gorach said:

What? I think you are wrong... In AGoT there are clearly different sub-themes within each House for sure, and i expect something similar to appear in L5R over time.

Exactly. And deluxe expansions opened even more possibilities for each house. I can imagine the first dynasty packs focusing on the political side of the Crane clan and then Crane deluxe expansion heavily featuring Daidoji and Kakita families.

15 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

And yet, "leverage this political might" doesn't need to mean only in political conflicts. I fully expect a Crane military deck will still have a very political feel to it compared to Crab military.

You can't just two a couple words out of a sentence and say "see, it means this". The Crane use politics to devastate their opponents. Thats their main weapon. A deck who's biggest/best weapon is politics isn't goign to be a military deck. As I said, I'm usre there will be Crane decks that are better suited for military conflicts then then others, but a Crane deck that is primarily a military deck like a Lion or Crab or Unicorn deck........We have zero indication of that, the design would suggest against that.....