For those of you who don't go to the X-Wing subforum, a dedicated band of players there has been petitioning for the inclusion of Assault Gunboats in the game for years (the main thread for it was started in June 2014). Plenty of nay-sayers said it would never happen. Even many of the Gunboat fans had started viewing it as more of a joke or meme than as any real movement for inclusion.

Just this past Monday, however, FFG announced that Wave XII will feature Star Wings, including their Assault Gunboat configurations! FFG gave the fans what they had wanted for so long!

For my fellow Mantis players, and for anyone else who supports a clan not currently in the game, this is fantastic news! It may take a few months or a few years, and it may not be precisely the same as we anticipated, but this gives me hope that FFG will not simply ignore or forget about sizeable portions of the player-base!

Well. Spider probably is waaaaaaaay long off, but the Goblin Sneak makes me hopeful for some kind of Shadowlands deck. Maybe not a Stronghold (yet!) but a role card that modifies an existing Stronghold.

4 minutes ago, Mon no Oni said:

Well. Spider probably is waaaaaaaay long off, but the Goblin Sneak makes me hopeful for some kind of Shadowlands deck. Maybe not a Stronghold (yet!) but a role card that modifies an existing Stronghold.

I can totally see that: A role card would be easier to implement with the existing 7 Clan Strongholds, allowing a much easier transition among all of the existing cards while opening the door wide enough to bring in as many possibilities (read = cards) of Shadowlands creatures/attachments/events and so on.

I say bring it! The player base is sophisticated enough to handle it.

2 hours ago, Mon no Oni said:

Well. Spider probably is waaaaaaaay long off, but the Goblin Sneak makes me hopeful for some kind of Shadowlands deck. Maybe not a Stronghold (yet!) but a role card that modifies an existing Stronghold.

I bet spider strongholds is in tears of amaterasu, you heard it here first

I feel that the only time that we will see a new faction added to the game is when it will be relevant to the story. Me personally, I'm hoping for MCA.

Just my two zeni

29 minutes ago, Taki said:

I bet spider strongholds is in tears of amaterasu, you heard it here first

If Spider get a stronghold before the Castle of the Wasp, I will be very mildly disappointed indeed!

The only Spider stronghold I want is Otosan Uchi, like the Greatest Clan should have!

New faction* before the first cycle ends? Inside the dynasty packs? Noooooope.

* Mantis, Wasp, Fox, Spider, Shadowlands, Centipede, Snake, Shark, Falcon, Ox,...

1 minute ago, Wintersong said:

New faction* before the first cycle ends? Inside the dynasty packs? Noooooope.

* Mantis, Wasp, Fox, Spider, Shadowlands, Centipede, Snake, Shark, Falcon, Ox,...

Well, of course they wouldn't REALLY put Castle of the Wasp into the first cycle of Dynasty Packs.

CotW needs to be in a Deluxe set so that it's evergreen!

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

8 minutes ago, Daidoji Mumei said:

Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment.

Aww, come on now. Don't be so mean to the Pinocchio Clans...

Ya, maybe we will get other factions [throwing a hand in for Naga], and maybe we won't. That is really the place it has been. Good to see that some people in another FFG game got the faction[?] they wanted in though.

Unit, not faction. Classic 90s era Star Wars EU stuff.

3 hours ago, Taki said:

I bet spider strongholds is in tears of amaterasu, you heard it here first

So, so not happening. I doubt we'll see any other clan outside of the core seven for quite a bit. Spider I don't know if we'll ever see again. Same thoughts with Shadowlands, they're just too different from how the game is played now.

9 minutes ago, Malraza said:

So, so not happening. I doubt we'll see any other clan outside of the core seven for quite a bit. Spider I don't know if we'll ever see again. Same thoughts with Shadowlands, they're just too different from how the game is played now.

Half in jest, but I don't think it's out of the question.

FFG has namedropped Yoritomo and Shahai. They've raised expectations accordingly.

I think the best way to integrate the Lesser Clans and even the shadowlands would be to sprinkle them in expansions overtime. Until their Clan actually has a large impact on the empire as part of the story then they would get a stronghold and a way of the clan card enabling them to be played as a stand-alone deck until then they would be used as Ally cards.

I hate to be that guy, but I really hope the spider clan never comes back. I was not a fan of their story and all of the massive retcon that went on to make it happen. "No the emperror totally had another son this whole time. Also there were tons of people in the shadowlands who were not really bad, but they were still tainted and following the lord of Jigoku. They've also been there the whole time, you just never noticed."

Mantis seems likely since Yoritomo has already been mentioned. It would be cool to see a way to include shadowlands, maybe as a faction that you can only purchase with influence.

Honesty I kind of wish that instead of getting whole new factions, we would get just their conflict decks. This way you can have space for "Primary" 7 Clans that are always at the core of decks, but you can include secondary choices that can be splashed to create stuff like "Phoenix with Shadowlands Splash" or "Lion with Mantis Splash".

If any new faction could be conceivable, I would love imperials.

One thing they could do is slowly release neutral cards in expansions like Otomo Courtier and Seppun Guardsman over a year or so. Maybe even release clan characters that have the Imperial keyword, like the Ruby Champion or a Imperial legion character or two. Then, when enough of them exist you can make a stronghold in a deluxe set or even a normal Imperial themed pack that has a stronghold like Kyuden Otomo, having the stronghold read something like Journey's End Keep in Emperor Edition did where "Imperial is a clan alignment and all Imperial characters are members of that alignment." So you can release cards that are good for other clans, but can also come together with a new stronghold. Make them Imperial Favor themed, able to gain the favor, possibly multiple times per turn, and then discard it for effects as a theme, who knows.

They could do this with a number of factions. Minor clan alliance, shadowlands, kolat, and more easily. release them as neutrals, or clan characters with the specific keyword, slowly and when they hit a certain mass and are relevant in the story, let them get their stronghold, either evergreen for some clans like Mantis, Imperial, or Shadowlands, or temporary like Kolat or MCA.

The possibilities are out there, and the design space is open.

No matter what though I want to see at least one new faction released some time in the next two years, mainly because have a 4/3 Keeper/Seeker split will drive me OCD mad.

4 minutes ago, TheItsyBitsySpider said:

If any new faction could be conceivable, I would love imperials.

One thing they could do is slowly release neutral cards in expansions like Otomo Courtier and Seppun Guardsman over a year or so. Maybe even release clan characters that have the Imperial keyword, like the Ruby Champion or a Imperial legion character or two. Then, when enough of them exist you can make a stronghold in a deluxe set or even a normal Imperial themed pack that has a stronghold like Kyuden Otomo, having the stronghold read something like Journey's End Keep in Emperor Edition did where "Imperial is a clan alignment and all Imperial characters are members of that alignment." So you can release cards that are good for other clans, but can also come together with a new stronghold. Make them Imperial Favor themed, able to gain the favor, possibly multiple times per turn, and then discard it for effects as a theme, who knows.

They could do this with a number of factions. Minor clan alliance, shadowlands, kolat, and more easily. release them as neutrals, or clan characters with the specific keyword, slowly and when they hit a certain mass and are relevant in the story, let them get their stronghold, either evergreen for some clans like Mantis, Imperial, or Shadowlands, or temporary like Kolat or MCA.

The possibilities are out there, and the design space is open.

No matter what though I want to see at least one new faction released some time in the next two years, mainly because have a 4/3 Keeper/Seeker split will drive me OCD mad.

Maybe you'll get your wish, considering this first cycle is the Imperial cycle, and is supposed to focus on Imperial cards, including some that tie into the Imperial favor mechanics.

1 hour ago, DarwinsDog said:

I hate to be that guy, but I really hope the spider clan never comes back. I was not a fan of their story and all of the massive retcon that went on to make it happen. "No the emperror totally had another son this whole time. Also there were tons of people in the shadowlands who were not really bad, but they were still tainted and following the lord of Jigoku. They've also been there the whole time, you just never noticed."

Mantis seems likely since Yoritomo has already been mentioned. It would be cool to see a way to include shadowlands, maybe as a faction that you can only purchase with influence.

I couldn't agree more with you about the Spider Clan... though I do support there being a Shadowlands faction.

Also: Where did Yoritomo's name come up? I thought I read all the fiction and don't remember seeing it.

2 minutes ago, Andrew.Taon said:

I couldn't agree more with you about the Spider Clan... though I do support there being a Shadowlands faction.

Also: Where did Yoritomo's name come up? I thought I read all the fiction and don't remember seeing it.

In the Crane fiction, there's a brief reference to a recent pirate attack led by Yoritomo. It's easy to miss though, there's a lot of distraction from it since it's right at the beginning of the Hotaru x Kachiko alone time scene.

3 hours ago, WHW said:

Honesty I kind of wish that instead of getting whole new factions, we would get just their conflict decks. This way you can have space for "Primary" 7 Clans that are always at the core of decks, but you can include secondary choices that can be splashed to create stuff like "Phoenix with Shadowlands Splash" or "Lion with Mantis Splash".

With 10 influence (maybe 13), the splash would be 2, maybe 3 different cards. IMHO, it seems too low to give a real feel of the "subfaction" splashed, so I hope that's not the way they'll go.

They could do this with a number of factions. Minor clan alliance, shadowlands, kolat, and more easily. release them as neutrals, or clan characters with the specific keyword, slowly and when they hit a certain mass and are relevant in the story, let them get their stronghold, either evergreen for some clans like Mantis, Imperial, or Shadowlands, or temporary like Kolat or MCA.

That's quite like what they did with Warhammer: Invasion for the factions after the initial 6, and I never liked that. It gave me the feeling of not playing a real faction. I can't say I would be thrilled to see it come back in L5R.