Just wondering if there is some where that I can get a quick breakdown of faction strengths and weaknesses i.e. control, rush, resource generation etc.

I am interested in this and the Game of Thrones LCG and am just trying to gather a little bit of information on faction distinctions and play styles for both games before picking one or the other.

For the most vague of outlines, read the "expert" section of the main rule book. A PDF of the main rule book is available for free on the main Warhammer: Invasion product page.

If you want competitive meta descriptions, I'd look at the decks in the deck building forum.

Yeah the expert section was really not the helpful and I was hoping for something that would give me an idea of what decks I may want to look closer at.

Conviviacr said:

Hi!

I answered with other guys to a similar question in the "deckbuilding" board...I'll try to be fast and clear just to give you a bunch of "hints".

To start: Order and Destruction. Order focuses on "building" the board, long run resistance or just some tactical approach. Destruction focuses on...destroyin' things, not only in a "direct" way. While Order builds up its troops and buildings, Destruction tries to stop it by hittin' its basic resource engines.

Just to let you understand a bit the "flavour".

Now: let's go through the races! Before I start, just remember that, as usual, this is a deep game, a lot deeper than it may seems at first glance. Remember that each faction has at least two viable playstyles and a strong weakness.

Second, remember that Warhammer: Invasion is a game with two faces that live together in any single turn: board control and...war. You need a bit of board management in any deck (maybe rush decks are a bit "brainless" from this point of view, but it's just a single archetype), but still, you need...power in your attacks! Mill decks aside, you win by "burning" sections of the oppo's capital and the more you are effective, the more you're feared.

EMPIRE - I'm the Emperor, I rule!

The Empire, pretty strong right now, it's the race of "tactical" board control. You can move units (yours and oppo's) around the capital, just to improve your resources engine, draw more cards or avoid a quick defeat. The Empire controls with units movement and "delays". It's flexible and fast: lots of cheap and useful units, different choices for the mid game and a bunch of good supports to protect your cards, boost your units or give some troubles to your oppo.

The Empire can be played both as an "aggro-control" deck, with cheap units, some movements and a bunch of boosts and a "pure control" archetype, with strong mid-late game units and lots of tactics to...tactically hit your oppo.

Empire "Quest" Deck with the infamous "Visit the Haunted City" is the strongest deck...It's a "quest" (ZONE) based deck...You can try to build a pure "Judgement of Verena" deck, which focuses on KINGDOM zone, for a "resource" boost and total board control.

I suggest you to try the "aggro" part, flooding the deck with cheap units and some movements: you've the sensation to command a big army of disciplined soldiers.

Weakness: empire units are small and usefull..but still small. Not to difficult to get rid of 'em, even with the usual "empire tricks" to protect 'em...And, I'd add, more than ever, DON'T LET EMPIRE DRAW CARDS!

DWARF - I'm tough...I'm waiting for you!

Dwarf are...big. They're strong in the mid late game, with lots of interactions based on the "die/come back" mechanic, some good "deck search" stuff and a lot of resilient units. Dwarf have a lot of good supports to "change" the flow of the game.

You can play dwarf as a "wait and see" faction, where you slowly build up your "city" and then start hittin' the oppo by both powerful attacks and strong defences. At a certain point in the game, you'll be just too"big" or...eternal.

I don't see any competitive build right now, even if I suggest you to try to build a "basic" Dwarf deck, with 12-15 quick cards to start and some "big" guys and supports to deal lot of "attack" damage.

Weakness: i think they've the "worst" loyalty distribution. It's not a mistake: it's just what they are...Strong and slow. You need lot of effort to build up your defences and a single reset or support removal can give you lots of troubles...or just the input to concede and play a new game.

HIGH ELF - Don't trust beautiful guys!

High Elves are a race with a focus on units and they're weird abilities, as well as on the indirect damages mechanics. When I say that the "core" of the race are "units" I partially lie: it's based on units MORE than you can think at first glance, but it has different mechanics that interacts with units, based on different card types: some "boosts", "healing" stuff and so on...

High Elves haven't show up a lot...They had a good combo-deck based on their cards, but an errata destroyed it (I'm pretty happy of this ).

Right now I guess they're coming back: I can see them with an "indirect damage" build where you focus on that mechanic (dealing damage witìhout a specific target...Cons? The oppo decides where to put 'em...Pros? When you start dealin' damage, you deal a frighening amount of it!). Lots of units for a massive attack power, some zone specific effects and synergies...They've a bunch of cards to control the board, that can give some nice "control" choices.

Weakness: they're a bit costy.

ORCS - Waaaagh!

Orcs are a race of massive aggression and destruction. Lots of cheap and giant units, for both "rush" and "control" sides. Yeah...They are a "double face" faction, as the empire is. They've maybe the best selection of both archetypes: if you go RUSH, you have an incredible amount of units/supports/tactics to choose from: boost, speed up, attack synergy...You can close the deal in a couple of turns, if you draw a good starting hand and you have many ways to flood the table with your angry orcs, just waiting for the final "Waaagh!".

If you go "control", you choose to pick from the "other" selection: lots of controlish tactics (units reset, unit-targeted removal, support/developements control and so on): you have to sacrifice your own cards most of the time, but you can take enourmous advantage by doing this.

Right now, Orc Control-Reanimator deck is a strong archetype, with big units and "big" tactics. Orc "rush" is a viable deck too.

Weakness: difficult to find any serious drawback to orcs as a whole...You can find some "inner issues": some cards are playable just with a deck around 'em and some strategies just "come and go". They're weak because they're not: you can play the "evil" orcs or the "good" orcs, but you're just playin' orcs. I don't know if I explained the concept...I hope so.

CAOS - Burn under the eyes of Tzeentch!

Caos is the faction of "corruption" and direct unit-damaging. They've lots of powerful (but costy) units and some annoying effects. They've a LOTS of attachments and supports, but noone of 'em is "decisive" as some other factions' supports are. They need "their" time to build up they're strategies: similar to dwarves, from this point of view. Maybe it's the faction tha needs both quest and kingdom zones improvement more than any other.

But when they've enough resources/cards, you see your board becoming smaller and smaller...They "shoot" at every single unit: damage comes from any direction. And where damage isn't enough, you have "corruption", just to slow down a bit. In some cases (as some recent spoilers showed us) corruption is a double sided edge: you can "corrupt" your own stuff to get some funny effect.

Anyway, the best idea for a Caos deck right now is a "snipe deck", splashed with Orcs for more board control: shoot to units and pull out the "heavy artillery" to close the deal. Lots of powerful "neutral" cards interacts pretty well with Caos: it's a good thing, even if it can slow you down a bit in the early game.

Weakness: the loyalty is their worst issue. Even the "weakest" card has loyalty in some cases and this slows caos down A LOT...similar to dwarves, as I said.

DARK ELF - Evil. In all of his shapes.

Dark elves are...subtle. They've a lot of subliminal effects: hp reduction, "milling" effects (discard cards from the oppo's deck), hand control. They "live" with this effects. Even if "milling" is maybe the best viable way right now, you have to choose its "partner": I can see "hp reduction" the ideal friends, 'cause gives you some board control while you try to deck out the oppo.

Dark elves are...evil! They're not tha simple to deck-build and play: you have to make tough choices as you can see in the incredible amount of threads whit DE discussions...Some people thinks that damaging/hp reduction is the best way...Others prefer to play around "hexes" and tactics to "steal/deboost" stuff...

I suggest you to focus on milling: you have to strong milling neutral cards (Dark Abyss and Infiltrate!) and a lot of milling effects within the faction: too funny to be ignored. You've to read well every single card and understand they're basic synergies, tryin' to work on a "regular" cost curve.

Dark Elves have a lot of powerful and costy units: you can invest in the mid late game, but only if you work on a proper resource boost engine and pure hp-reduction and, maybe, hand control.

Weakness: difficult to understand and play. I'd never suggest Dark Elves to a noob.

Hope it helps.

D.B. Cooper...you rock.

Well nothing to add to that "fast and clear" post ^^

Conviviacr, you will not find a better summary of the races that even take the momentary meta game into account.

I wonder how far it goes when Signs in the Stars is out. There isn't an announcement but my local store already has it since Thursday last week but I wasn't able to pick it up. Tomorrow I'll get into my hands on it

DB.Cooper, this is a great post. Thanks for these deep insights!

Thanks everyone for reading it. I'm not a celebrity in "short-posting".

Let's see if it helps the OP too.

Thank you very much. It helps a great deal. The Lizardmen, Wood Elves, Skaven, and Vampire Counts fall into the game a little differently then the "main" factions I take it?

Conviviacr said:

Hi!

Those "neutral" factions jump in the game within cycles and add thematic strategies. They don't add "whole" factions to the game 'cause they would be too much to handle...

Those are just "neutral cards" with a specific traits and every sub-race is "destruction" or "order" only.

Let's take a look at 'em:

- Skaven: destruction first cycle. Fast and furious, deal great amounts of damage by combat and some targetted damage outside combat. They're pretty "cheap", with a frightening quality/cost ratio. They've been on the scene a lot during the first year as a "thematic" deck. Now you can see some skaven splashed into destruction decks.

- Lizardmen: order only, march of the damned. They focus on combat and the "savage" keyword, which allows you to deal a certain amount of damage to oppo's units when a "savage" unit takes damage and survives. Their effects are pretty aggressive on the damaging side and take advantage of it in many ways. You can find different playable Lizardmen cards in many different Order decks.

- Vampire Counts: destruction only, march of the damned. They've necromancy, a powerful keyword that allows you to play a card with necromancy from the discard pile. They focus on "subtle" damaging effects, destroyin' things and "weird" sinergies.

- Wood Elves: order only, third cycle. They've lots of sinergies with "developements": units that turn into developements it's a basic example. Then, you can take advantage from lots of developements in play (units boost). They're costy and totally focused in the mid-late game.

Nothing to add at DB Cooper's post.