Most of the complaints we usually make don't take account of the fact that what we're complainin' about it's pretty normal.

We have 6 factions, not a completed cycle yet...And still we have lots of choices (I made three official league tournaments for a total of 25 different players and I saw 25 different decks).

Each faction has at least 1 option without splashin' and if we consider splashes, we have at least 12-15 different possibilities.

Now, if some factions are stronger than others, that's ok...It's a moment. Things will change pretty fast.

I was a CoC player too and before the LCG stuff, Agency was useless alone, actually, as well as Hastur...THAT was a problem, cause we got completely USELESS factions, if played alone...

Here, I saw a mono-High Elf, aggro-control, and it's not bad at all. Use a bunch of neutrals to fix the problems and it's ok. Maybe it's not as effective as Orc Rush does, but it's fine, that's the point in havin' different factions.

The problem is that we complain BEFORE any reasonable test. Once Ulthuan came out everyone said "High Elves are better than the Dark ones"..."Dark elves are weak"...

Dark Elves are pretty strong actually and if you test the deck a guy won a tournament with (I've posted it) you'll know what I mean...

There are factions that are easy to understand (Orcs are not that difficult as well as Skaven splash, 'cause the "majesty" is printed on the card, not in subtle effects) and some that need lots of testing and skill to work (High Elf, Dwarves, which seem easy, but are not).

That's the reason why some factions need a splash and some don't. Empire works well alone, but it's really competitive JUST with Verena in it. Empire/Dwarves is a good choice RIGHT NOW...It doesn't mean that Empire won't be able to be played alone, especially if we look at the new stuff and notice the aggro-ish sub-theme they got...

We just need to take some time and effort in playtesting...Just open the deckbuilder, look at the cards and find the viable options. Once the game will expand, we'll get more choices and, thus, more options.

Considering the fact (as I said above) that we have at elast 10 differnt options with a "so small" card-pool (and believe mie, it's MUCH MORE what you usually get from other games, with a LARGER pool), I guess what we have to do is just have a little patience and enjoy what the meta will offer month by month, taking into account the fact that some otpions are simplier than others.

Remember when the Core Set came out and everyone was saying this or that race sucked and was underpowered? What happened? Eventually people started realizing that every race couldn't be both underpowered and overpowered at the same time and people started to learn how to play the race in front of them as designed, not as they thought they should be played.

I'm going to respectfully suggest the same thing is going on here. You haven't quite wrapped your mind around the High Elfs (and considering the loyalty cost of their BP and CS cards there was limited splashing for most people so that isn't surprising).

I've played against HElf deck created and piloted by Nate French I can't beat. It is ridiculous. Every time I thought I had a leg up he just kicked it right out from under me. I'm pretty sure his secret is not relying on the healing so much as using it to keep his better guys in the mix. A lot of indirect damage being slung my way and not enough units were able to absorb it. Facing multiple zone attacks plus indirect damage just overwhelmed me. I'm trying to develop my own deck now, as well as a counter in anticipation of a showdown in August.

dormouse said:

It could very well be. From Core Set, I had trouble with playing Chaos for the first few games, once I got into the groove, Chaos became and remains utterly the best faction. Current order since adding AoU: Chaos > Dark Elves > Empire > Dwarves/Orcs/High Elves. Overall I'd say Chaos > Dark Elves > Orcs > Empire > Dwarves > High Elves.

Still, there is a niggling doubt in my mind because all of the 4 Core Set races came ready so to speak, they didn't need help, though first two BPs boosted each in different ways. Dark Elves, just from AoU are very strong, again, they can stand on their own very nicely. High Elves, even if I figure them out, it still doesn't change the fact that they are lacking in units with 3P and have a low number of 2P units on top of things. So far they seem to require that the many more factors go just right for them, whereas the other factions don't necessarily require as much. HElf return to hand resetter also has horrible synergy with their Quest for getting Flames back to hand. Of course, it would've been very OP if it returned opponent's units to hand for 4-HHH and left yours in play.

Resets like that are intended to be used in a similar vein to JoV, that is to say built and played around rather than just tossed down. With FotP you would need to supports into your kingdom zone obviously while using your indirect damage to either ping their little guys into non-existence or add up on the zones. In my experience it is rare for the damage to get tossed on to your opponents bruisers for fear of losing them rather than the cannon fodder... of course I expect that to start changing. When FotP gets dropped you have enough resources to toss out your heaviest hitters and swing for an undefended zone for a round or two.

I think HE and Empire are both pretty tough to play with only one copy of everything. They are combo-based as opposed to theme-based. Empire has Judgement/Will/whatever and Shrine/Gates/Pistoliers, and HE has Dragonmage/Wake and Flames/Repeater/stuff to make lots of barrels. Flames is good by itself, but the rest of those cards are pretty bad without the other part(s) of the combo. Whereas Orcs can play a Totem, and a Waaagh!, and couple Choppas, and Ironclaw's Horde; it doesn't really matter which of them they draw, because they're all pretty much doing the same thing. I have noticed that Chaos tends to get a lot of its better cards in multiple, especially post-core (Bloodsworn, Chosen of Tzeentch, Maledictor of Tzeentch, Tzeentch's Firestorm), so it makes sense that they would do well among decks from a 1x cardpool.

Oddly, Empire has done best of the Order races since adding Assault on Ulthuan (3-3, better than the Orcs at 2-4, Dwarves and HElves at 1-5). Hell, they actually challenged still undefeated Chaos today, managing to burn a zone. Would've/Could've won if Chaos hadn't gotten 2x Tzeentch's Firestorm and zapped among other things Gold Wizard Acolyte (who has been just amazing). They have their share of cheap units that you can mass on the BZ if need be, while being annoying on defense due to CS and Demoralize.

Just realized after reading a thread over on BGG that I had interpreted For Ulthuan all wrong. The bit in the parenthesis makes the card a lot weaker, requiring you to have a buttzillion units in BZ to get any real effect out of it.

For Ulthuan! (High Elf Tactic) 1-H

Play at the beginning of your battlefield phase.

Action: Your attacking units may attack two enemy zones this turn. (Declare which units are attacking which zone when you declare attackers.)

Had originally read the card as though your attackers would all attack the two zones you attack are allowed to attack. Seems doesn't work that way, instead if you have 6 units in BZ, 3 attack zone A, 3 attack zone B. Of course, getting 6 units into play after Flames of the Phoenix (and to play For Ulthuan), you'd probably want 25+ resources (even that nets you 6P against 2 zones 3x Swordmasters, 3x Spearmen, those units coming in at 21 resources).

I would interpret the text in another way.

Action: Your attacking units may attack two enemy zones this turn.

Declare which units are attacking which zone when you declare attackers.

Core concept is the action text that says "may attack two enemy zones" and not different ones. So each unit can attack 2 zones if I want it to. The second text says you have to declare all involved units and where you want them to attack. For your example it could be 2 units attack A and all six attack B.

That was my original interpretation (as witnessed on page 1 or so), but now I'm confused. Which one is it, 6 units in BZ, all 6 can attack zones A + B or do you have to divide?

From the Card of The Week article that featured For Ulthuan:

"Before choosing which of your battlefield units will be taking part in either attack, play this card. You will want to build your battlefield units considerably beforehand, since you will have to split your attacking forces... "

Link:

www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp

Evilgm said:

Not everyone enjoy mixing races. If two players share 1 core set they can't mix races if for exeple they both want to play destruction. Furthermore your arguments are ... funny. Races should be meant to be equal with thesame chances for winning. Many people rather look at every race seperately than divide decks to order and destruction.

Aryan said:

If a player chooses to limit themselves beyond the restrictions the game imposes then they must accept the consequences. If you don't want to mix races within a deck when teh game allows it then you will be putting yourself at a disadvantage. The design team don't have an issue with players mixing races so what basis do you have for saying that "Races should be meant to be equal"?

Then why give us 6 races if they aren't meant to have an equal shot of winning each? Why not just Order and Destruction cards?

Dam said:

Exactly. This game can be played both ways and none of these should be unbalanced. I don't see me doing any constarints to myself. This game is build in a rich, old fantasy world which has long tradition. Situations in this world when dwarves, elves and humans united against hordes of orcs and forces of chaos happened just a few times. more ofthen a single faction want's do dominate the world all by itself. Also i think there's a better 'feeling' to the game when you identify yourself with a currently played faction (feel the rush of the orcs, the treachery of the dark elves or the undying dwarves!) and not just with a mass of accidentical cards.

Aryan said:

If you are playing (for example) Empire and only looking at the Empire cards then you are ignoring more than 2/3 of your card pool (the Order cards plus available neutrals). That is a constraint you're placing upon yourself. Fantasy Flight hasn't stopped you using those cards, you have.

As to why there are three races in each of the two factions, there are likely many reasons. Variety and theme, card balance and focus. I'm not saying that you shouldn't play theme decks (mono-Empire, pre War of the Beard Dwarf/high Elf etc), just that you can't expect them to be as powerful as an Order deck that is built potentially using all the Order cards. Balancing a card game is very tricky and I don't expect the six races to be equally powerful. Thankfully with the monthly releases we should see the relative power levels shift back and forth so no one race is at the bottom of the pile for too long. Remember however that the game is primarily balanced as Order vs Destruction. The fact that cool card X is High Elf means that it's less likely rather than more likely to see a similar card come out for the Dwarfs (unless both cards have massive loyalty costs).

crowdedmind said:

I'm not even saying this should be the case. However, one should expect a mono-faction race A to be as powerful as mono-faction race B (regardless of whether they are both Order or Destruction or one each), and that is the point of this thread.

For me theme comes before anything else. Any ccg/lcg deck I have is built around a theme. Some games make this really easy (Middle-Earth ccg, Dwarven Rings Deck, One Ring Deck, etc.). Making an Order or Destruction deck that's purely min-maxed hodgepodge of the "best" cards, theme will be non-existant in most cases. This often applies to competitive players (esp. in tournaments) which is my key reason for not caring about them. You get the same basic cookie-cutter decks (certain cards that will absolutely be in a deck, just because it's that good even if thematically it makes no sense) and the cheezemasters come out of the woodworks.

crowdedmind said:

Is this a fact or an opinion? Based on the current balance discrepancy doesn't seem like the game is balanced on the O vs D level (like the last tourney report here, nobody even touched Order). Checking my stats, Dwarves, Empire and Orcs are pretty much all even since adding Assault on Ulthuan, Chaos and DElves still tied at the top and HElves bringing up the rear.

I'm not even saying this should be the case. However, one should expect a mono-faction race A to be as powerful as mono-faction race B (regardless of whether they are both Order or Destruction or one each), and that is the point of this thread.

I've already said that balancing six factions is tricky so whilst this is the ideal I wouldn't be surprised if one faction is better than another.

For me theme comes before anything else. Any ccg/lcg deck I have is built around a theme. Some games make this really easy (Middle-Earth ccg, Dwarven Rings Deck, One Ring Deck, etc.). Making an Order or Destruction deck that's purely min-maxed hodgepodge of the "best" cards, theme will be non-existant in most cases. This often applies to competitive players (esp. in tournaments) which is my key reason for not caring about them. You get the same basic cookie-cutter decks (certain cards that will absolutely be in a deck, just because it's that good even if thematically it makes no sense) and the cheezemasters come out of the woodworks.

What is theme? Theme is what you add to the mechanics of your deck. I willing to bet that you could post any theme deck and somebody could explain why that doesn't fit the theme it was designed around. It is better to design a game that competitive players cannot break because this will not impact on whatever theme the game carries once it exists. If you design a game with theme as the primary goal however then competitive players will be able to break the game and make it a very boring experience for everyone (and the rules will not prevent them from doing so).

Is this a fact or an opinion? Based on the current balance discrepancy doesn't seem like the game is balanced on the O vs D level (like the last tourney report here, nobody even touched Order). Checking my stats, Dwarves, Empire and Orcs are pretty much all even since adding Assault on Ulthuan, Chaos and DElves still tied at the top and HElves bringing up the rear.

It is fact. I never said that Order and Destruction are equally powerful, but that the primary point of balance is Order and Destruction, not Empire vs High Elves vs Dwarfs vs Chaos vs Dark Elves vs Orcs vs neutrals. You could print a card that is great for High Elves, but you must also be aware of how powerful it is an Empire, Dwarf and mixed deck. This is my point. You can't design cards for each race in isolation, but rather how they will affect any Order or Destrution build.

crowdedmind said:

Can you quote a source saying they (FFG) are designing from an Order vs Destruction POV, disregarding individual factions?

crowdedmind said:

My view is that a great High Elf card should work both in a mono-HE deck and in an Order deck. Maybe not as equally well, but there shouldn't be this perceived void between the two. And that having this card wouldn't make other decks OP or leave the HElves as weak as they are.

On a related note, I thought about doing some Unit-Power math once I get home, just to see how many 1P, 2P, 3P, 4P and 5P Units there are for each faction (as well as total Power count). In the Core Set, Chaos was already tops in terms of pure power (not even taking into account possible boosting abilities from units themselves, like Savage Gors). I have a feeling HElves will come very far below the rest of the factions on the totem pole. Having recently seen Greatswords attack two turns in a row with 7P and a DElf BZ with nice amount of Units when Night Raids had 3+ tokens on it assign 15+ dmg, those are the things I just can't see HElves being able to pack. Dwarves have their Grudge Thrower (which also combos with D. Ranger), Chaos doesn't really need help, they pack insane amounts of pure Power, Orcs have their Waagh, Choppas, War Paints, Units that get more Power if you have woundeds. What do the HElves have in terms of boosting? War Crown of Saphery (which goes fully against their own reset card Flames of the Phoenix, horrible synergy) and a Tactic for 1 Unit (coming in Arcane Fire)? Even their double-dibber attack card For Ulthuan forces them to split their attacking Power. HElves just lack the offensive options that the other races have. And those other races get their boosts even when using mono-faction.

Dam said:

As soon as I wrote that I knew that I should have phrased it slightly differently. When I wrote 'fact', I meant that to not design the game looking at the widest possible implications for each card is ridiculous. If cards can work together then they need to be designed and tested with that in mind. The widest possible grouping for a set of cards is it's overall facton (Order, Destruction, or both in the case of some neutral cards). The opposite stance from my suggestion is that FF don't consider how other cards can affect the design of a new card, which would be very worrylng. If it's not a fact then the game has some serious design problems.

You talk about unit power but you don't address two points:

1. The cost of those units. Chaos may have more units with three power, but they tend to cost 5 which is too expensive at the moment for a single unit.

2. The assumption that High Elves are meant to have lots of power. The design premise for High Elves may be low power but longevity or a more control-focused style of play.

You also have access to Greatswords, Grudge Thrower etc (certainly more the latter than the former) which can pump your units' power. The fact that you choose not to use them despite wanting to play a style of deck that may not suit your race is no-one's fault but your own. I realise that you want to play pure High Elves, but pure High Elves don't appear to be a race that focuses on damage pumping (whereas the Orcs most certainly are). Either pick pure High Elves or pick the style of deck you want to play, but don't assume that you can pick both and they will fit together. Just because you want both doesn't mean that it's healthly for the game for Order to have duplicate cards.

For an extreme example take this imaginary card:

White Lions of Chrace (High Elf)

2C,1L

3P

Forced: When this unit enters play you may reveal a support card from your hand. If you do so you may put it into play reducing its cost by 1.

Let's assume that this card is balanced. It would see a lot of play in a lot of Order decks and would be a staple High Elf card. What would happen if FF then released:

Tiranoc Chariots (High Elf)

2C,1L

3P

Forced: When this unit enters play you may reveal a support card from your hand. If you do so you may put it into play reducing its cost by 1.

Most players would acknowledge that it is unbalanced to print what is essentially the same card twice. There might be some High Elf players who really like building theme decks and don't see this as a problem as it would only be boring competitive players who play both; after all the two units come from different cities and wouldn't normally fight together.

This is how your argument strikes me. You want to limit yourself beyond the game's rules and yet you don't want to suffer for it. Should be imaginary Tiranoc player be given the chariots they want because they don't want to use something that will break their theme?

crowdedmind said:

That's only too expensive in the tournament-rush format. My Chaos deck (which tops the win-loss column) has cost 5s, 3 Great Unclean Ones at cost-6, Bloodthirster. You can get a GUO out on turn 3 with a bit of luck in your initial draw (main issue is more the 4 Loyalty than 6 Resources). Cost 5? Savage Marauders and you have 5 resources turn 2. If you get Warpstone Excavation, you can have 6+ turn 2.

crowdedmind said:

It's not only the lack of Power. HElves don't have much in terms of Power, no significant boosting, no direct removal (which Empire and Dwarves have, not to mention all the D races), no support removal. What the bleep do they have??? Healing? Whoopee. That's "awesome", can we get some more. Loremasters is the only use for healing I've seen and even that's a one-off (with 3 copies on LoH in deck). You can have all the neat control stuff in the world, but unless you're putting damage on your opponent's capital, you're not going to win. This is where the HElves come so far behind all the other races it's just seems very bizarre.

crowdedmind said:

Again, all the other races work in damage-dealing mode as mono-faction. On top of that, they also have access to tools (see above) in some form or another. HElves don't have tools for any of those. Why have they been neglected in everything that the other races have?

crowdedmind said:

Then why are the HElves the only faction to suffer from this? If people mention, well, it's still early on it the game's life, true, but why did FFG get 5 of the 6 races "right"? All the races except HElves are competitive against each other, so it's not my limiting myself to mono-faction decks doesn't work for the most part. It's only the HElves that are so far behind the other races. DElves have access to great cards even from the current card pool, even though they are a "second-coming" race like HElves, so I can't find the early life argument too credible. Oddly, it's been fairly evident from even the early going of Core Set and BPs that HElves are not only getting fewer cards (they get a total of 19 cards in the first 4 BP?) and not getting cards that are on a level as the other races' cards. Seems like HElves are Cthulhu of W:I. In CoC, Cthulhu gets the fewest cards in the Asylum Packs and gets more chaff than the other factions. HElves IMO have a lot more chaff cards than the other races atm.

Two very important points -

1. Dam you are defining theme in a way that is self-serving. Theme could just as easily be minimizing damage in which case every card that cancels or heals damage regardless of race is thematic and can be placed in the deck regardless of which race it comes from. That you define theme as being mono-racial is your personal definition, but not everyone's definition. IOW a multi-race thematic deck could be created that was very tournament worthy, it just doesn't fit the way you wish to define thematic.
2. That HElfs are most certainly not about large armies of heavy cavalry or shock troops. They are small lightly armored units with powerful magics, fleet of foot and highly disciplined. That FFG decided to portray this with low power and a lot of damage canceling effects and indirect damage effects shouldn't be surprising. If you try to play them like Orcs you are going to lose. This is precisely why so many people early on had problems with other races back when the game came out for general release. They kept thinking every race was about getting out units and slagging it out in the BZ.

I don't think I agree about Helfs being combo-oriented so much as I think they have a distinctive brand of synergy where indirect damage and damage canceling in combat and healing unit damage allow for a very passive-aggressive build. Play conservatively trusting your cards to do their job creating barriers that become harder and harder to overcome to burn your zones while you build up resources to wreck havoc with the repeat bolt thrower. Use your return units to hand cards to keep the enemy from overwhelming you.

dormouse said:

Indirect damage effects that do any real damage: the Repeater Bolt Thrower. Loremasters, etc. adds mini-droplets at best, can't look for them for any worthwhile damage. These warmachines are supposed to be complementary minority in a HE army (I know, shouldn't view things from a WH perspective), not the sole damage-dealer in the HE army/deck, which is how many people seem to view them, it's RBT or nothing.

I would disagree on lot of damage cancelling. They have some, but even then Master Rune of Valaya for Dwarves does a better job (not to mention Dwarves pack Toughness, so indirect effects are at their worst against them) than the HElf cancellers. With 1x everything, the amount of cancellers on offer isn't all that great (and there is only 1x RBT as well). Is one supposed to buy 3x everything to get a viable HE deck, when 1x everything is sufficient for viable decks of the other 5 races???

I can't help you Dam, I've played against Nate's HElf deck in a limited format and he wiped the ground with me. Admittedly I am very far from the best player I know, but he was hitting me and hurting me. Eloooooooi's HElf deck was a closer battle but he still managed to stack up enough combat damage cancel in zones to fend off my forces while he picked me apart with a single bolt thrower.

I honestly don't know what to tell you except it looks like you aren't playing them the way they need to be played. Every complaint you have is comparing them in some fashion to the other racesrather than looking at what they do have and how it could work together.

Alright, Power-time!

Adding up the pure power on units, you get:

High Elves: 34

Orcs: 36

Empire: 37

Dark Elves: 38

Dwarves: 45

Chaos: 61

For a ballpark figure, Chaos from just Core Set has 33 Power.

Surprising numbers to be honest, especially Orcs. Of course, if we look at just a tad deeper, for example Spider Riders all count as 0P raw, so that's 6 missing from Orcs, same 6 for Dwarves from Trollslayers, Savage Gors for Chaos another +6 in terms of damage (or are there just 2x Gors?). Going further, boosting options are available to all others, except HElves.

If you add in BPs #3 and #5 (which I don't have), Chaos and Orcs get +9P, Dwarves +8, DElves and Empire +7 (not to mention Empire getting +12 Counterstrike!) and HElves +5.

Dark Elves in particular seem to have their synergy down nicely, Spearmen (and Chariots) with Lokhir all benefit from BZ developments. Dwarves and Empire get non-Relic Supports that boost damage, Chaos gets Berserk Fury (and Brutal Offering, which bypasses Swordmasters). HElves? Umm, they get to look at an opponent's hand and draw 1 card. And there was much rejoicing!

As to the division of power (1P/2P/etc. units):

HElves: 16/9

Orcs: 27/1/1/1

Empire: 26/4/1

Dark Elves: 24/4/2

Dwarves: 25/4/4

Chaos: 17/9/3/3/1

So, fewest units for HElves in total. 9 2P units looks nice on the surface, tied with Chaos, but three of those are Heroes, so can only use one of them at time to attack. Three of those pack 1HP so have minimal life-expectancy.

dormouse said:

I just can't see how you'd get picked apart with a single RBT. For one, you need it in play, which is hard with just 1x. I've gotten it out early and tried to use to the fullest, but IIRC it was against Chaos, they just kept dropping tons of units to suck damages (or just plain put it to their capital) and burned two zones. Your resources geared toward fueling RBT are away from other uses, meaning you're putting out fewer units/playing fewer cards, so even those few units that the opponent gets out will do a lot of damage.

Ironically, I think the RBT would've served them better if it had been worded "each player takes indirect damage". Then they could've comboed with Glittering Tower and their own healing abilities almost each turn, healing and hitting, healing and hitting.