After some debate as to the plain ,not very Playable Sardakk Norr, our Group has come up with the following idea's to improve them and make them more balanced as well as to stay within or improve apon the hive or swarm theme. Pleas give us your feed back on these idea's. We are sure that you have seen many suggestions to race modifications and or new race design's, but we are new to the forums and would enjoy some outside input. Thank you for your time.

1. As insects with a hive mentality, we think that would imply some sort of industrial fixation on building which their background suggest, so our first idea is this;The Sardakk Norr may always make use of the primary ability of the production card instead of the secondary ability and they do not need to spend a CC from their Stategy allocation area to do so.

2. To better represent their swarming abilities this idea for a rule modification was thought up; for each carrier or spacedock in a system upto three destroyers does not count against the fleet support limits.

3. In following the 2nd rule above this radical idea was also developed to further push the swarm theme; The Sardakk Norr player may at the start of the gound invasion phase convert each surviving destroyer to a single ground unit that will be part of the invasion. The destroyer is removed and a ground units is added to the gound unit force mix and the normal steps of combat is followed. The surviving ground force units can never be converted back to destroyer units when the battle is resolved. We will be play testing this one this weekend, to me this rules has many implications that will need to be addressed as they come up, but this rule adds some very unique abilities and gives the race a very swarm, hive theme.

4. This ability is called the 'The Swarm can't be stopped" . Once a Sardakk Norr player initiates a ground invasion it cannot be halted or stopped by any means the swarming urge is too great. This is reflected as follows; Its past time for diplomacy so the diplomats ability to stall for one round will not apply. The Domain Hostage counter does not apply and is ignored. On the Settlers Domain counter follow this step instead; roll the dice as normal on a 6+, the Sardakk player get's the world but no free Ground Force Units, on a roll of 1-5; follow the steps to see who the world belongs to, place the 2 ground force units of that player then follow the ground invasion to resolve the dispute. All othe domain counters used as written.

The following changes are made to the Sardakk Norr to balance them for gaining any of the above abilities; They keep their +1 modifier to all ground combat roll's, They lose the +1 modifier for warsuns, dreadnaughts, cruisers, and carriers, but retain the +1 modifier for fighters and destroyers in all space battles. PDS's gain no modifiers from the Sardakk Norr Ability modifiers.

Of the above rules, I feel that the 1st and 4th rules can be added without alot balnceissues but the 2nd and 3rd rule really pushes home the swarming concept but can get into balancing issues, so I submit these ideas on behalf of my group to you the forum for your honest thoughts on their over all impact to the game, balance, and over all concept.

Thank you again for you considerations on this subject.

Fleet supply is a fundamental part of the game mechanic in TI any racial ability that tinkers with this needs to be very timid in it's reach. For example: The greatest racial ability of the Barony of Letnev is that they get an extra point of fleet supply total. To give a player 3 extra destroyers in a system for a carrier is unfathomably powerful. I dare say that such a race would be more than a match for the hilariously overpowered Yssiril tribes even if given no other advantage.

Your idea that the Norr be given the ability to use production for free or to take advantage of the primary in addition to the secondary is quite novel, and could be used instead to build a very interesting race:

Suppose that a race were built with the ability that they could always use the secondary of production for free, even when using the primary, but only at a second space dock. Not paying for production+sarween tools+micro tech+potential of first turn nano tech would really give this race an industrial edge provided that their home system (4-2) and trade agreements (2,2) are decent. Their racial tech could give them an extra resource every time they produce at a space dock at an additional cost of 2.

Of course this this just a hypothetical. I'm just toying with ideas.

"After some debate as to the plain ,not very Playable Sardakk Norr"

How are they not playable? In the games that I have played, these guys have been amazing. +1 to all combat is incredible, they start with cruisers attacking as dreadnaughts, destroyers attacking as cruisers, 2 attack warsun's (practically impossible to miss). You can get to 6 attack fighters, PDS's rolling 4's, GF's at 6 (5's with a PDS), shock troops at 3 (2!!), 3 dice at 6 for AFB...

Our group infact thinks these guys need a weakness to bring them in line with the rest of the races.

On the flip side, -1 to all for the Jol-Nar we have found to be completely crippling. You need to get a bunch of techs just to make your units the BASE level that everyone else gets to start! Infact, the Jol-Nar can't even hit the Xxcha with their carriers or fighters in the first round of combat to start the game, and GF's are 10's in the first round vs Xxcha!

n3ctaris said:

Everything you say is true, but you're focusing on the combat exclusively. That's sort of what the Norr advantage is supposed to be; combat. Likewise it is the Jol Nar weakness. There are other ways to earn VP and win the game. The Norr are one of the better (if not the best) races for flat out combat, the Jol Nar excel at building tech.

Maybe your group engages in a lot of combat, which would certainly explain this attitude. Our group generally plays peacefully (sometimes a little TOO peacefully) and as a consequence these two races are seen in opposite lights: the Jol Nar are one of the favoured races, the Norr are one of the poorer. It all depends on how you go about collecting VPs.

Steve-O said:

Sounds to me like your group needs to man up a bit! haha.

If someone is playing the norr, then they should be out there effin' with everyone's sh!t... Then you'll see some domination.

How is it that your group gets VP's without combat? Are you playing the expansion, where lots of VP's come from territory control or just straight up combat. Almost all the objectives involving Rex are impossible to get without combat, unless perhaps your group takes turns taking over Rex?

"Oh Roger, it seems that I am finished with Rex, please allow me to move my forces out so that you may partake in some VP's"

"Golly good, thanks Don, please come and blockade my space dock over here, that way you may also get some VP's this round."

n3ctaris said:

I didn't say there was NO combat. We just generally don't engage unless we have to. As far as VPs, there are plenty of objective cards that require spending resources, having techs and so forth which we don't have any difficulty going after in the course of the game. There are a lot of ways to win this game, combat is not the only option.

If you want to treat this game like RISK is space, that's your business. I'm not judging you for how you play the game. All I'm saying is there are other ways to achieve victory, so just because the Jol Nar suck at combat doesn't mean they're a useless race. Unless, of course, they're being played in a group that's only interested in shooting the **** out of each other.

Steve-O said:

Do you play with the original Imperial card? Because those 2 free VP's per turn for the board sure make it easy to turtle up. Untill we got the expansion my group had issues where one guy could take a portion of the map and then just build forces and wait. Do you play with the Age of Empire variant? That we have found makes it easy to turtle. Do you play with Artifacts? 4 VP on the board inspires combat.

My group definately doesnt play like its risk, although there have been a couple of military victories on smaller maps, 3 player games, where one guy has taken out both of his opponents, actually, both times as the Norr. VP denial is something our group does in every game though, doing a hard push to someone's home world is a great way to deny them any VP's even if it's just for ONE round in the late game, that can make all the difference.

sorry i havent responded in a while, been in the hospital.

After more play testing we have left the Norr as is in the rules no changes needed, bland as +1 to all comabt roles are, its a powerful asset, that does not need added too.

thank you for the valuable input