So I've been going over the chronology and the fluff in the revised rule book. I've come up with a couple of theories about the next faction to be released.

I think there is a definite possibility that a Confederate army could be on the way. New Louisiana was formed by Robert E. Lee when he made a clandestine pact with some Voodoo witches. This could make for a cool team. Some old style Confederate soldiers using some semi-modern tech, as well as some Voodoo users and their Zombie minions. Could be a lot of cool options for these guys.

My other theory is based off of the teaser in the back of the revised rule book. Rosebud seems to be reporting something in Japanese, Sanctuary, I think. I have a harder time imagining what exactly this team would be comprised of. Martial arts? Maybe Samurai? Maybe even dragons of some sort. Could be some cool Eastern style sorcery and what have you. Would be cool if they used new takes on traditional Japanese weapons, like bows and arrows and katanas and spears.

I also thought that It'd be nice if they came up with some form of Axis powers, Allied powers dynamic. One that would allow some loose affiliations between the factions. We'd need a few more before this can happen of course. It sometimes feel unlikely that there would be a war that had this many opposing sides, seems nations generally manage to group together so they aren't fighting on multiple fronts.

Let me know what you think, and what your ideas are for new factions. I read some stuff on the British force, and I liked that quite a bit. The Arthurian style knights... I love these brainstorming topics.

Well the idea of introducing a jpanese-like 4th faction was discussed with previous IP-owner Take On You but their point was that they would prefer to focus on 3 factions: adding another faction needs to release a full squad and also add a new single pack in the release cycle. Plus a new squad should also propose a new variation of gameplay.

IMHO I'd prefer FFG to focus on expanding the existing factions with new "sub-squads" like the airborne destruction squad or the paranormal division so we can field heroes and troops from these faction-variants.

I was thinking if a new faction came along, it'd be Japanese. I don't know how they'd keep them fresh, though. Maybe Kamikaze characters and mutants/zombies because of the atomic bombs- seems alittle offensive, though..

Personally, I think they should NOT make a new faction. For a game where people don't go out and collect their personal army/gang, I think that 3 factions is the perfect number.

BUT, i think they really really really really really really REALLY need to release division packs. *COUGH* PARANORMAL DIVISION *COUGH* It's basically the benefit of a new faction, but more playable with existing forces. Yula and Eva can both join the paranormal division. Make 2 heroes and troops exclusive to the paranormal division, and one hero that can cross over like the blutsturm. That gives the benefit of a new faction that already has 2 hero expansions, and adds another hero expansion to the Obskura.

Union would be much easier. All Union characters are transferrable except for the commandoes and Barry who are 42nd only. SO, they should make one character who is Airborne only and make troops who are airborne only. Airborne might be alittle out of place for some of Tannhauser's locales, but they can easily justify it by taking away the smoke grenade tactics and focusing them on deployment tactics.

According to the Novgorad book I read, there are two more technologically incarnated gods for the matriarchy. So they should make diety packs as well, comes with a Zork'a-type character and either a hero or personal troops that kinda/sorta compliment them.

Also, I think they should implement alittle more mythos, matriarchy dieties are fine- but also maybe a big ol' demon for the reich. I don't know, something to make the Asteros character not seem so out of place.

There is a lot of room around the base game for expansions, really.

As the product line is made of 3 types of expansions ( Faction-Maps-Single character) a new faction should be a Novgorod-like product. And like the Novgorod release, the single miniature expansion coming after ( or before...) could be a mercenary, solving the release cycle problem. Of course Blutsturm-Paranormal, Airborne and Phantom divisions could be developed, expecially the latter ( maybe with non Voivode troops, too...)

I still think that the most obvious new faction to develop would be an esoteric Ottoman Empire, certainly closer than Japan to the real historical events...

A while back, I proposed an Ottoman faction. Miah999 contributed some ideas to it as well.

One Hero would, of course, be an Assassin / Hashashin, with skills similar to Yula and Hoax. One thought, to be true to the historical assassin, would be that at some point in the game, but before the Assassin character interacts any objects on the board, fulfills any objectives, or interacts with an opposing Player's characters, even by sight, the Assassin Player could turn over the character card and take an opponent's character in its place. This would mean that the other Player's character had been an assassin spy all along and the "Assassin" on the Ottoman Player's side had never really existed.

One Hero would be a Janissary basically a jugernaut of strength and toughness. He would have armor, a sword, and some distance weapon.

One Hero would be a Sorcerer, with powers based on summoning Djinn. I've given the most thought to the Sorcerer. He would use an Action to invoke a Djinni. I imagine the Djinni would be like the Matriarch's voivodes, but would be invoked during the game as needed, would have 1 or 2 individual powers unique to each Djinni, and would vanish at the end of the turn in which they first used those powers. This would make the sorcerer versatile, but each "power" would have a limited, one-use application - with a task and a target. So, for example, I could give a Djinni with the Mental Duel skill the command "Find and attack O'Neill!" and it would do so, but vanish after one attack.

To be "realistic", the Djinni would be like the goetic spirits in the Key of Solomon. There would be a specific list of available Djinni/spirits that could be summoned during the game. Summoning a spirit would require an Action. Each summoned spirit would have a specific power, could be called once, would performing a specific task during that same turn, and then would leave and couldn't be called again in the same game. (It would be like being able to add up new equipment tokens DURING the game, but only being able to use them once.)

I could imagine two objects that the Sorcerer would have on his card: 1) <Solomon's ring> would allow the summoning of the Djinni/spirits. It could be lost, and could even be used by another character that can use Hermetica. 2) a <Djinn bottle> would protect the bearer from the Djinni, including the summoner. Possibly, summoning a Djinni without the second item would cause the loss of one health level in the summoner.

The existing Hermetica(s) <Atra> and/or <Occulta> might also serve as protection from the Djinni.

You know, one of the spirits might foul up electrical fields and be effective at temporarily neutralizing the special tech of the Union and Matriarchy. Another might cause fear and force a character to retreat. Another might make a physical attack at a distance. Another might make a mental attack. Another might steal a piece of equipment. Another might move a character beyond their usual movement allowance. Another might blow smoke away. Etc., etc.

So, with <Solomon's Ring> as the character's Special Item, what other additional pack items might he/she have besides the <Djinn Bottle>?

The character could also have a magic, <ritual dagger> that would count as a hand-to-hand weapon and be specially effective against "occult" characters / attacks.

Any other ideas for the Ottoman Sorcerer?

How about Ottoman troopers?

Don

I like the "occult" theme in tannhauser but I'd really like to see more "weird tech" characters.

A fourth faction, whomever they are will be good for a reason not yet mentioned.

Two games running at the same time. Whenever I host a Tannhauser night its either just 2 people or someone ends up waiting.

Everyone knows team games where you assign off characters dont work well. And single hero or duo deathmatch games can only be run so many times.

With 4 factions total you could run 2 games at the same time, and then work on a tournament or story arc setup.

IMHO I belive there are several thing that point to the fact that japan might be a new faction. In the revised rulebook at page 55 their is a picture of a flamethrower and the americans used the flamethrowers on a much larger scale in the pacific theatre then they did in europe. On page 59 they explicity name Russia, Germany and Japan. page 88 talks about a japanese translation of the word Sanctuary which they stumbeld upon during theire tungunska investigation.

In the Reich trooper pack descprition of Shocktruppen they say "...keeping the forces of the Union, Matriarchy, and others at bay..." though that one is very vague it could be a hint to the introduction of more factions. But on the back of Union trooper pack rulebook they mention something about being in a jungle and in the pacific theatre there were much fighting in jungles.

Also in the real WW2 the japanese played an important role, both as an ally to the germans, an enemy to America and they've been a threat to Russia a few times in history and also participated in WW1.

Tunguska info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event

Quite so, Meister H, but which WW is Opration Tannhäuser located in? Originally, it´s WW I, I think, accordingly the Japanese would fight side by side with the English (Union?) against the Germans. Maybe the storyline changed, though...

well... you are right. but we can always hope! And we all know that the russians and japanese hasn't always been the best of friends historicaly

Tannhauser does take place during the Great War, World War One, but changes to the makeup of the combating nations has already occured in the first version of Tannhauser.

For instance in Tann 1.0 Turkey was neutral and invaded by the Reich, who were later repeled by the Union. In the real WW1 Turkey was allied with the Central Powers (the Reich).

Also, TOY seemed to be of the opinion that outside of the Union, there are no "Allies" meaning if Japan does come into the War they will not be allied with any of the current factions, continuing the every country for itself motif.

This is of course all conjecture, and we'll all have to wait and see.

May they come as a reinforcement for another faction, or as a mercenariy-like semi-faction, or as a seperate faction. In every case I would love to see the Japanese fighting in Tannhäuser.