...and am now looking to see what faction I want to play. Can anyone give me a rundown on how each faction plays?

Copying from a previous thread where someone asked the same question:

In brief general format;

Azur Alliance - Stealthy Plowers that can take down most characters in a hit or two, if they aren't seen coming. Masters of stealth and arbiter orders to gain additional actions.

Church - Healers and buffing support (Saints) sitting behind massive tanks.

Empire - A slow moving, heavily armored tide of iron, lives for critical hits

Samael - Ranged mystics, masters of debuffing and ranged attacks

Wissenshaft - Fast harriers, masters of charging save for two snipers and their gear units that would be at home in Empire.

Played Right WS should be able to kill basically anyone, if you had a team thats both snipers, lorenzo and rayne, XII when you get to a 250 game, you can just stomp on people. 4 of your 5 characters get advanced deployment, and you get the process.

Its riiiiiidiiiiicuulous.

Alternatively, you can go the gear route, 2 Goethia and as many snipers as you can fit, and you just do a bunch of dickish moves by abusing terrain, firing around corners. Its good times.

The only mildly annoying team to fight against is Azur, because you can have problems shooting them. Empire dies to snipers. Church and Sammy don't ever seem to do enough to me.

Wissen for da ween.